Beaumont dashed forward through the collapsing corridor, his powerful legs pumping with relentless drive. The twin hovering light orbs trailed just behind his broad shoulders, bobbing and weaving on currents of his mana like loyal sentinels. Their warm golden-white radiance, now tinged with the fierce amber of his active spells, cut through the thickening clouds of dust and pulverized stone. His arms were spread wide to either side, palms open, as concentric circles of glowing amber sigils spun lazily around his wrists and forearms. The runes pulsed in sync with his heartbeat, feeding a constant trickle of earth-affinity mana into the environment around him, stabilizing his footing where he could, sensing every fracture and shift in the dungeon's tortured structure.
Behind him, the floor continued to demolish itself in a roaring cascade. The shockwaves from his earlier cataclysmic spell had awakened something primal in the Black Cathedral's foundations. Flagstones buckled and vanished into yawning abysses, the layered brickwork groaning like a dying giant as entire sections plunged into unseen depths. The thunderous collapse chased him like a living predator, snapping at his heels with sprays of debris and bone-rattling vibrations that his Tremorsense translated into vivid, almost overwhelming data.
His hazel eyes narrowed with predatory focus. Through the soles of his knee boots, the earth spoke to him in a chaotic symphony: grinding stone, snapping mechanisms, and the telltale micro-tremors of hidden traps resetting or activating ahead. His Magnetite Pathfinder layered atop it all, painting the corridor's iron-rich veins in his mind with unerring precision. Something new was coming hostile projectiles slicing through the air from the darkness ahead.
Beaumont's lips curled into a fierce, exhilarated grin. He anticipated the assault before the projectiles even fully materialized. With fluid confidence, he thrust both arms forward, the amber sigils flaring brighter as he left the crumbling chaos behind to minimize its immediate threat. The first of the incoming threats burst into view: five spiral blades, each one a vicious corkscrew of iron spinning at lethal velocity. They whistled through the air like enraged hornets, carving tight helical paths that would shred anything in their trajectory.
"Not today," he muttered, voice low and charged with excitement.
Without hesitation, before the spiral blades could breach his personal perimeter, Beaumont channeled a surge of mana. A brilliant warm amber bloom erupted from his core, radiating outward. Seven feet ahead, the dungeon floor answered instantly. The ancient flagstones heaved and cracked as continuous huge jagged boulders, each one taller than his imposing 6'7" frame, ripped upward from the earth in a wide, sweeping arc. They rose with tremendous speed and force, jagged edges gleaming darkly in the light of his orbs, forming an improvised barricade of living stone that spread forward like the teeth of some primordial beast.
The spiral blades slammed into the boulders with ear-splitting screeches of metal on rock. Sparks flew in brilliant cascades as the spinning edges bit deep, only to be swallowed whole or deflected violently. One blade lodged itself halfway into a boulder before the sheer mass and momentum of the rising stone shattered it into fragments. Others ricocheted off the jagged surfaces, carving gouges into the corridor walls before clattering harmlessly to the fracturing floor. The boulders continued their advance for a moment longer, damaging the mechanisms hidden in the walls with crushing finality, before Beaumont cut off the spell with a sharp gesture. The massive stones halted, trembling slightly as they settled into their new positions.
He didn't waste a second. Sprinting the short distance to the starting point of the boulder line, he invoked a quick boost rock spell beneath his boots, small pillars of compressed earth launching him upward. With athletic grace honed through countless life-or-death battles, Beaumont began leaping from tip to jagged tip of the newly formed boulders. Each landing sent controlled vibrations through his Tremorsense, confirming the stability of his makeshift path. The height gave him a momentary vantage, the light orbs rising with him to illuminate the swirling dust and the ongoing devastation behind.
Suddenly, a sharp vibration pinged through his senses from above. His head snapped upward just as the ceiling released its payload. A torrential rain of arrows poured down from hidden slits high overhead, hundreds of iron-tipped shafts slicing through the gloom in deadly sheets.
Beaumont took a quick side glance, his chestnut hair whipping across his fair skin from the rush of air. A wild, cocky laugh escaped him. "Wow! I'm not certain if you're persistent or just plain awesome. But keep 'em coming, I'll take you on!"
Even as he shouted the challenge, the crumbling and cracks from his earlier spell continued propagating forward. The destruction behind him reached the section of ceiling where the arrow traps were concealed. There was a sudden violent burst, a wide arc of catastrophic failure. Dust and debris exploded outward like a rushing stream as an entire swath of the ceiling gave way, plummeting downward with crushing speed. The collapsing mass caught up with the falling arrows mid-flight, smashing them into oblivion and turning the deadly rain into nothing more than scattered iron confetti mixed with pulverized stone.
Beaumont was still dashing across the boulder tips, now directly under the drop zone of the collapsing ceiling. Massive chunks of masonry hurtled past him, some missing by mere feet. His heart hammered with exhilaration and a healthy spike of adrenaline. "You cannot be serious right now," he growled, tearing his gaze from the deadly cascade above back to the path ahead. "I really did put myself in this mess."
He poured on more speed, muscles burning as he navigated the precarious stone path. Ten heart-pounding seconds later, he finally cleared the worst of the drop zone. Spotting the last uprooted boulder ahead, he leaped powerfully onto its peak. With a focused pulse of magic, he shattered the boulder's earthen roots at its base. The massive stone tipped and fell horizontally with a grinding thud, now lying flat enough for him to use.
Beaumont slid gracefully to its center, dropping into a low crouch. He planted his right hand firmly on the boulder's rough surface. Warm amber sigil circles bloomed around his wrist and spread across the stone, infusing it with controlled mana. Using the boulder as an improvised sled, he began sliding across the fractured stone floor with surprising mobility and speed, the heavy platform grinding forward under his guidance.
Behind him, the humongous section of ceiling finally slammed into the stone floor with apocalyptic force. A thunderous explosion of sound and energy erupted from the impact. The shockwave blasted forward like a tangible wall of compressed air and debris, catching Beaumont from behind and accelerating his slide. His clothing whipped violently in the gust. "Man, that was a close call," he breathed, a exhilarated grin splitting his face despite the danger.
But the dungeon wasn't finished. Fresh spiral blades began firing from concealed mechanisms in the dark path ahead, screaming toward him at lethal speed. Beaumont's senses honed and amplified by Tremorsense and Magnetite Pathfinder, he detected them long before they arrived. He swung the sliding boulder from left to right with powerful shifts of his body and mana, using its bulk like a shield to deflect the incoming barrage. The blades sparked and screeched off the stone, some embedding deeply before dropping.
One spiral blade, however, took a different trajectory. It wasn't aimed directly at him. Instead, it spun with ferocious velocity straight into the front tip of the boulder he rode. The impact was devastating, the blade drilled deep into the stone with a horrific grinding screech, then exploded outward as its body scattered into shrapnel. The sudden jolt threw Beaumont off balance. He skipped across the boulder's surface, arms waving wildly for stability. His foot betrayed him on the shifting debris, and he tumbled off entirely, rolling across the rough ground in a trail of dust and sparks.
As the momentum finally bled away, he skidded to a stop in a kneeling crouch, one hand braced against the floor. Dust settled around him in lazy particles. He let out a breathless chuckle. "Wasn't that cool or what? If that wasn't cool, I don't know what is then…"
The smile began to wither as silence pressed in for a heartbeat. Who am I talking to? Man, I'm a creep who's going to be lonely forever.
"I need to make some friends after this," he muttered quietly to himself, the admission carrying a rare flicker of vulnerability beneath the bravado.
The moment of introspection shattered as the environment shifted again. Dust fell in fine particles through the beams of his light orbs. Then the sound deepened a low, ominous grinding of stone shifting against stone. Weight redistributed somewhere high above, then a release.
A massive section of the ceiling tore free. Nine feet wide and equally thick, dense beyond reckoning. It dropped slowly at first, but gravity was inevitable. The slab gained terrifying speed as it descended directly toward him.
Beaumont reacted with lightning reflexes. He looked up, hazel eyes gleaming with fierce determination. "Hello there."
He thrust both arms upward. Warm amber sigil circles exploded into existence across his palms, expanding rapidly into wide, intricate mandalas of power. The runes flared with brilliant intensity as he poured mana into the effort to seize control of the falling giant. The weight was immense crushing, as if the entire history of his family pressed down on him. Beaumont gritted his teeth, veins standing out along his corded arms and neck. He pushed more mana into the spell, amber light surging brighter. The slab's descent slowed dramatically, groaning in protest, until it finally halted just three feet above his head.
He gasped, sweat beading on his brow. "Woow! You almost had me."
In that split second of distraction, with his hands fully committed to holding the slab aloft, a spiral blade slashed out from the front darkness. It caught him across the left ribcage, a shallow but stinging cut that burned hot against his skin. "Damn it!" Blood welled immediately. "I forgot to apply defense spells."
He sensed more blades approaching, a fresh volley closing in fast. "You got more coming? I got something for you."
With masterful control, Beaumont angled the suspended giant slab, bringing it down and forward to serve as a shield. Its massive edges scraped harshly against the corridor walls, sending sparks and stone fragments flying as it settled into position. The incoming spiral blades slammed into it one after another with resounding metallic clangs, their lethal spins thwarted by the unyielding bulk.
"Here's from me to you!"
The warm amber sigil circles around his palms slowly contracted toward the center, as if an invisible force was compressing them, then flared back to full size in a powerful pulse. A warm amber light gleamed through the entire slab, tracing intricate dice-like patterns across its surface. With a final commanding shout, Beaumont activated the technique.
"I call it, Dice and Push!"
The giant slab shattered cleanly into dozens of perfectly cubed sections, each roughly 30 inches on every side. The cubes hung suspended for a heartbeat in a glowing amber matrix before exploding outward in all directions with devastating force. They dispersed like cannon shot, slamming into walls, floor, and remaining traps with heavy, thunderous impacts. Shockwaves rippled through the corridor, erupting in overlapping waves of sound and kinetic energy that disrupted every mechanism in range. Dust and debris filled the air in a choking cloud, the environment left in total disarray.
"How do you like that?" Beaumont called out into the chaos, a satisfied smirk on his lips.
Without another word, he dashed onward, leaping and running through the shattered pathway with renewed vigor. His light orbs raced to keep pace, cutting golden-amber trails through the swirling gray.
Several minutes passed in this grueling rhythm. Within that time, three more pairs of spiral blades fired at lethal speed from the darkness ahead. Beaumont dodged each volley with preternatural precision, guided by his enhanced senses. His body moved like a force of nature, ducking, weaving, occasionally deflecting with quick pulses of earth mana.
Then he sensed a sudden, alarming shift in the ground beneath him. A glance backward revealed the nightmare: the stone floor had begun collapsing into an endless darkness below, the destruction from earlier spells finally catching up in a rolling wave of annihilation. "That's something new," he noted grimly, refocusing ahead as the crumbling edge advanced rapidly.
"Not so fast!"
Warm amber sigil circles formed on his palms once more. A fresh boulder erupted from the fracturing ground just ahead, providing a solid foothold as he leaped powerfully into the air. He landed atop it cleanly and immediately channeled mana to slide the boulder forward like a surfboard across the disintegrating path. The platform carried him swiftly ahead, escaping the advancing collapse by a narrowing margin. "Better luck next time," he taunted the dungeon itself.
But the Black Cathedral had no intention of yielding. As if in direct response, series of elongated spikes erupted from both walls simultaneously in perfect synchronization. They shot outward as long, sharpened lances of reinforced stone and iron, crossing vast portions of the corridor space before retracting just as quickly only to fire again in a rapid, accelerating sequence. Their pace increased mercilessly, beginning to catch up with his sliding boulder.
"You're relentless, I'll give you that," Beaumont said in a stoic tone, his voice carrying over the chaos. "Since you never know when to give up. I'll make you stop."
He thrust his arms out to the sides, palms facing the walls in a silent command. Glowing amber circles materialized, spinning faster and faster until he slammed his fists shut. The sigils exploded into a wave of high-tier earth magic, shattering the walls and fracturing the very foundation of the dungeon floor.
The walls groaned and shattered under tectonic force. With masterful control, he directed the residual kinetic energy forward in a sweeping motion of his powerful arms. The explosive shockwave rolled ahead like a visible tsunami of amber light and compressed earth energy, bringing down sections of floor, ground, and ceiling in a quaking cataclysm. Walls crumbled into rubble, mechanisms were pulverized, and the entire corridor ahead quaked violently.
Beaumont sensed the end of the floor approaching through the maelstrom. He slid through the final stretch with everything he had, then launched himself into a double flip, landing with theatrical flair at the threshold, the entrance to the second floor. Dust settled around his imposing frame as he struck a confident pose, light orbs circling him dramatically.
"Am I cool or what?"