The boss chamber still hummed with residual energy, faint motes of mana drifting in the air like dying embers after a wildfire. Reynar's chest heaved as he knelt beside the Chimera's fading corpse, blade still in hand, slick with otherworldly ichor.
Liora paced the edge of the battlefield, scanning the scorched floor, the twisted pillars, the cracked obsidian walls that loomed around them. Her brows were furrowed. Not with the relief of victory, but with suspicion.
"…That last blow," she murmured. "It didn't come from us."
Reynar stiffened. "You felt it too?"
"I saw it." She pointed to the Chimera's flank—where a deep puncture wound, blackened and cauterized, still steamed. "That wasn't made by your sword or my magic. It came from above. Clean. Precise."
Reynar's eyes narrowed. "So someone else was in here."
Liora nodded, slowly turning in a circle, hand still near her blade. "And they helped us. But why hide afterward?"
Reynar stood, wiping his blade and sliding it into its sheath. "Whoever it was… they didn't want to be seen. But they saved us."
"Or saved themselves," Liora countered. "Maybe they didn't want us dying before we weakened the boss."
The thought chilled Reynar more than he admitted. He glanced toward the jagged crevice behind the boss platform—an unnatural fissure large enough for someone to slip through unnoticed during the chaos.
"Should we chase them?" he asked, already stepping forward.
"No." Liora stopped him. "We're exhausted. Half-dead. If they wanted us dead, they'd have struck when we were vulnerable. But this—"
She looked around once more, eyes narrowing.
"This was someone careful. Experienced. And strong."
Reynar swallowed. "Then who the hell are they?"
Silence answered them.
But far beyond that silence, past the fissure and through winding corridors swallowed in darkness—someone was already retreating.
Sylvie's breath came sharp and thin, her side aching from a cracked rib she refused to acknowledge. Her feet barely made a sound as she darted through the tunnels, hand gripping a curved blade still warm with the Chimera's blood.
She should have kept moving. Should have been heading toward the sanctum to gather the core and finish her quota.
But she paused in the darkness of a narrow crevice, ears pricked back as she listened to the sounds of the humans in the boss chamber behind her.
That boy. The one with the storm-like energy. He had grown. Since the forest.
And the girl… Liora. Her strikes were cleaner now. Her reaction time faster.
They're improving, Sylvie thought, almost begrudgingly. Too fast.
She pressed her back to the cold stone, heart thudding—not with fear, but pressure.
"If they reach the sanctum and claim the core first… if I return empty-handed…"
Her master's voice echoed in her skull. Cruel. Cold. "Useless little mutt. You're lucky I feed you."
Sylvie gritted her teeth. No. She couldn't afford failure. Not again.
Every day was calculated. Every dungeon timed. Every core logged and accounted for.
Her quota was everything.
She had come here alone—on her own route, avoiding the major guild patrols, using her own maps—and now these two had barged into her path.
Their presence wasn't coincidence. They had to be after the core too.
Sylvie's golden eyes flickered with unease. Could they really reach it before me?
She shook the thought away. No. No more delays. I'll move ahead. Double pace. I can still make it first.
But as she moved to leave, she caught herself.
There'd been something… strange. When the boy saved the girl from the Chimera's lunge.
The way he moved. The way he shouted her name like it meant everything.
Sylvie clenched her jaw. That… was unfamiliar.
There was no one to call her name like that. No one to even remember it when her chains dragged across stone floors years ago.
She didn't linger on the thought.
With a shake of her head and a flick of her blade to rid it of clinging blood, Sylvie vanished once more into the black. Her steps urgent. Controlled.
Behind her, a pair of humans stood over the corpse of a nightmare.
Ahead of her, freedom still glimmered like a flame she was terrified might be snuffed out.
System Notification:
[You have completed a High-Difficulty Boss Encounter][Affinity between Companion: Liora has increased to 87%][Warning: Unknown presence detected within dungeon pathways. Proceed with caution.]