The tension on the balcony of the Black Spire was so thick that even the whistling of the wind seemed to have fallen silent. The four of them stared at each other, their chests rising and falling rhythmically under the weight of immense exhaustion, yet their weapons remained drawn.
"You'd better take a step back," Atlas growled, his deep voice betraying a tremor he desperately tried to hide. The memory of the hallucination still burned beneath his eyelids, and staring at Hayjin provoked a subtle nausea within him. "We spit blood in that red palace. That fire-breather up there is ours, and so is the grimoire."
Zhilian took a step forward, partially placing herself in front of Hayjin, her scepter emitting weak golden sparks despite her nearly exhausted mana. "You are nothing but a pathetic, arrogant fool, Altavilla. The trial isn't over until the item is carried out of the dungeon. And if you think I'll just step aside because you believe you're stronger, you understand absolutely nothing about what it means to be a royal of Opes."
"Oh, please, are we really going to stand here and argue right now?" Hayjin intervened, massaging his temples. His head throbbed from his previous analytical exertion, and the residual adrenaline made him shake. "We are reduced to four wet rags standing in front of a fire-breathing lizard. Evelyn, say something to your knight before he wakes up..."
"Silence," Evelyn interrupted him. The girl from Doeken hadn't looked at either Hayjin or Zhilian. Her cold blue eyes were fixed on the summit of the spire. "Everyone stop. Do not move."
"What's the matter, Evelyn? Afraid I'll steal your spotlight, haha?" Atlas retorted, spinning his greatsword with a theatrical gesture.
But there was no time for another joke.
A deep sound a ultra-low-frequency vibration that did not travel through the air but directly from the stones of the tower into the bones of their feet shook the entire structure.
Vroooam.
The translucent, nictitating eyelids of the Wyvern of the Two Lights contracted. Then, with the terrifying slowness of a curtain rising on an execution, they opened completely.
The creature's eyes were no longer dull. They had become two headlights of a bright, almost electric purple, at the center of which stood vertical crimson red pupils glowing with an ancient ferocity. The creature raised its massive head. As it did so, the red and blue crystal scales along its neck and back began to vibrate, expanding and lifting like the feathers of a predatory bird. This geometric movement instantly made it appear far larger, more imposing, and monstrously aggressive.
The dungeon seemed to answer it: the air around the spire overheated in an instant, saturating with a suffocating smell of ozone and sulfur. The wyvern unhinged its jaws, revealing rows of teeth made of razor sharp quartz, and unleashed a crystalline roar that wasn't just a sound, but a literal kinetic shockwave.
SCREEEEEECH!
The acoustic impact was so violent that the four of them had to cover their ears as the cracks on the stone floors widened instantly. The wyvern wasted no time on territorial rituals. It locked its gaze onto the four small ants on its balcony and dived, its mouth wide open, ready to crush everything.
"MOVE!" Zhilian screamed.
With a lightning reflex dictated by pure survival, Evelyn grabbed Atlas by the hand, using a residual burst of her green magic to bolt toward the left side of the terrace, vanishing beneath the collapsing loggia a millisecond before the wyvern's teeth slammed into the spot where they had been standing.
On the other side, Zhilian was just as fast. She snatched Hayjin's wrist with surprising strength for her petite fingers. "Come on!" she shrieked, yanking him violently to the right as the two lunged behind an obsidian pillar.
The two teams split in diametrically opposite directions, fragmenting their defense.
The wyvern missed its first bite, its snout crashing against the stone floor and kicking up a rain of shards. Furious at the failure, the creature whipped its head around, searching for immediate prey. Its purple gaze crossed the figure of Hayjin, who was still trying to find his balance after Zhilian's tug.
The boy's total lack of mana, rather than camouflaging him, made him a glaring anomaly in the dungeon's energy flow. A black spot in a world of light. The wyvern targeted him.
With a speed inconceivable for its bulk, the monster raised its massive crystal tail ending in a spiked mace-like tip made of sharp blue and red prisms and lashed it like a lethal whip directly at Hayjin's back.
"Hayjin, watch out!"
Hayjin felt the icy draft of displaced air before he even saw the blow. He tried to turn, but his human legs could not compete with the physics of the dungeon. He would never make it in time.
But Zhilian could.
The princess of Opes didn't think twice. She didn't calculate the risk, she didn't think about the exam, the throne, or her own survival. She made a desperate leap, interposing her own body between the monster's tail and the boy. She gathered the absolute last shred of golden mana left in her body, creating a thin, almost transparent barrier around herself.
CRASH.
The impact was devastating. The wyvern's crystal tail slammed into Zhilian's flank with the force of a siege ram. The barrier of light shattered instantly with a sound like a stepped-on glass. The blow absorbed a large portion of the kinetic energy, but the residual force broke the girl's resistance, and she let out a muffled scream of pure agony.
Zhilian's body, propelled by the shockwave, crashed violently into Hayjin.
The effect was that of a billiard ball. Both were literally launched away from the main tower, projected into the twilight void like projectiles. They flew for dozens of meters through open space, instinctively clinging to one another, while the earth and the towers below spun dizzyingly in their eyes.
"ZHILIAN!" Hayjin screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to shield her with his arms as they plummeted toward the adjacent tower.
The impact with the neighboring structure a minor spire made of fragile blue crystal was catastrophic. The two bodies tore through the outer wall of the palace, penetrating the interior amidst an explosion of glass, collapsing pillars, and rubble. The entire minor tower, already unstable from previous clashes, could not withstand the energy hit: its foundations gave way and the structure began to implode on itself, burying Hayjin and Zhilian under a mountain of glowing debris and throwing up an impenetrable smoke screen.
On the main balcony of the Black Spire, Evelyn and Atlas were left alone with the monster.
The wyvern, having eliminated the first two intruders, turned slowly toward the loggia where the Doeken representatives had taken refuge. Its purple eyes gleamed with a malicious, hungry intelligence.
"It... it wiped them out," Atlas murmured, visibly shaken, as he held tight to his shield. His knuckles trembled inside his steel gauntlet. "Zhilian and that boy... they're dead."
"There's no time for them, Atlas! Focus on us!" Evelyn shouted, her usual coldness giving way to pure tactical desperation. Her hand gripped Atlas's, not out of affection, but to maintain cohesion. "It's charging another attack! If we stay here, this place will become our tomb!"
The wyvern opened its mouth wide again, but this time an unstable glow a mixture of red flames and blue lightning began to accumulate deep within its throat.
"Evade! To the right, now!" Atlas yelled, pushing Evelyn behind him and planting his shield into the ground, activating the total defense of his sacred armor.
A stream of pure elemental energy poured over the loggia, melting the black crystal as if it were wax and forcing the two Doeken warriors into a desperate flight through the flames and electrical discharges a deadly dance for survival where a single misstep could be their last.
The thick, bluish smoke rising from the collapsed minor tower completely blocked the view to the right, but Evelyn and Atlas did not have the luxury of turning to see if Hayjin and Zhilian had survived the impact. Above them, the shadow of the Wyvern of the Two Lights lengthened across the balcony like a death sentence.
The monster emitted a second roar, lower and more vibrating than the first, making the crystal fragments scattered on the floor rattle. Its enormous wings of red and blue silica unfolded completely, scraping against the walls of the main spire and causing a rain of sharp sparks. Its purple eyes, burning with a primordial fury, locked onto the two Doeken survivors.
"Atlas, move! Don't just stand there like a target!" Evelyn screamed, her voice losing its cold, aristocratic composure for the first time.
With a feline reflex, the girl thrust her hands forward. Three large spheres of emerald green energy manifested instantly before her, arranging themselves in a triangle to form a geometric barrier. A millisecond later, the wyvern brought its front left talon down right where they stood.
BOOM.
The pure crystal claw, as large as a horse, collided with the emerald shield created by Evelyn. The shockwave lifted the edges of her tunic and carved deep cracks into the obsidian floor beneath her boots.
Evelyn gritted her teeth, her knees trembling slightly under the immense pressure. She had managed to deflect the trajectory of the blow, but the impact had stripped her of any chance to counterattack. The creature's brute force was simply too concentrated.
"Damn... what power!" Atlas growled.
The knight had managed to roll aside, but his white tunic, already damaged by the clashes in the red palace, made him clumsy on that terrain littered with slippery debris. He stood up with difficulty, wielding his sacred greatsword, which glowed with an intermittent white light. His heart was still pounding wildly, not just from exhaustion, but from the residual terror that the previous hallucination had branded into his soul. Seeing Evelyn fight for her life reactivated his worst panic impulses.
"Don't look it in the eyes, Atlas! Focus on cutting its legs!" Evelyn yelled again, as she slid her green spheres to intercept a volley of crystal spikes the wyvern had shaken from its wings. The spikes exploded against her protective magic, reducing to luminescing dust, but they forced her to constantly retreat. "I can't open a breach! It's too aggressive, it won't give me time to channel offensive mana!"
"I've got this! Move!"
Atlas charged forward, roaring to give himself courage. He channeled his shadow-type mana into his legs to weigh down his center of gravity and unleashed a vertical slash aimed at the joint of the wyvern's right wing. The sacred sword traced an arc of purest light in the twilight.
CLANG!
The metallic ring was deafening. The blade struck the blue crystal scales, but instead of penetrating, it bounced off, leaving only a superficial scratch and transmitting a painful vibration up the knight's arms. Atlas's hands went numb instantly, and his grip on the greatsword wavered.
The wyvern, sensing the annoyance, snapped its massive head toward him. Its jaws unhinged, revealing a throat glowing with a combined heat of flames and lightning.
"Oh, no..." Atlas muttered, his eyes wide behind the visor of his helm.
"Atlas, look out!" Evelyn's voice rang out like a whip.
The knight raised his sacred steel sword just in time. A point blank blast of magical fire and blue electrical discharges engulfed him entirely. The force of the breath pushed him backward several meters; Atlas's boots carved two deep furrows into the stone as he desperately tried not to fall over the edge of the balcony. The metal of the sword began to overheat, turning incandescent and burning his hands through his protective gauntlets.
"Burn... you accursed lizard, burn!" Atlas screamed, resisting with his last remaining strength, while the acrid smoke from his overheating armor filled his lungs.
Evelyn, taking advantage of the fact that the wyvern was focused on Atlas, risked everything. She converged all her remaining green spheres into a single point above her head, shaping them into a thin, sharp lance. "Veritas, pierce!" She hurled the spell toward the monster's left eye.
The wyvern, endowed with supernatural reflexes, sensed the danger. Without interrupting its breath weapon against Atlas, it whipped its massive crystal tail. The tip of the tail intercepted the lance of green energy mid-air, causing it to explode in a flash of emerald light that temporarily blinded both combatants.
The explosion cut off the energy breath. Atlas fell to his knees, panting heavily, his shield smoking and nearly useless. The wyvern, shaken by the blinding flash, began to flap its wings frantically, creating a vortex of wind and jagged shards that swept across the entire balcony.
"Evelyn... we can't do this alone," Atlas said, spitting a thread of blood that had trickled from his lips due to internal pressure. He stood up, leaning on his greatsword as if it were a cane. "This thing isn't a normal monster. If Zhilian and the brat are dead, we're next."
Evelyn positioned herself beside him, her hands still extended, but her palms showed signs of trembling. Her mana reservoir was draining at an alarming rate.
"They aren't dead, Atlas. Zhilian is too proud to let herself be killed by a tail. But you're right about one thing: if we don't find a weak point in this creature, Doeken will lose its best warriors before the day is out."
The wyvern flapped its wings powerfully, lifting a few meters off the ground. Its massive body, illuminated by the red and blue lights of its own crystals, seemed to hover like a god of destruction. It fixed its red pupils on the two of them, ready to deliver the death blow.
"Listen," Atlas said, tightening his grip on the sword with his burned fingers. A forced, desperate smile painted itself on his face beneath his helm. "If we're going to be defeated anyway, let's at least take this creature down. Create a barrier as best as you can. I'll try to draw its next bite and lock its mouth open with my greatsword. When it's pinned... you strike the core on its chest. Clear?"
Evelyn looked at him sideways, her face rigid but her eyes carrying an unspoken respect. "It's a stupid plan, Atlas. Typical of an Altavilla."
"I know," he replied, taking a step forward. "But I can't think of anything else."
The collapse had been a symphony of terror. Layers of blue crystal, load-bearing pillars molded over centuries by the dungeon's flow, and entire sections of semi-transparent walls had crashed down upon them with a roar that seemed as though it would never end. Then, suddenly, silence took over a suffocating, dense silence, interrupted only by the steady ticking of tiny shards continuing to slide down the mounds of rubble.
Beneath a thick shroud of bluish dust, a block of mineral shifted.
Hayjin emerged slowly, coughing violently and spitting out dust that tasted of ozone and metal. Every single inch of his body protested; he felt his jacket torn in multiple places and a series of superficial cuts on his arms that burned like fire. He ran a trembling hand over his face, trying to clear his eyes to restore his vision.
"Zhilian..." he croaked, his voice reduced to a raspy whisper. "Zhilian, where are you? Answer me, please."
He dug frantically through the light debris, moving broken quartz plates with his bare hands, careless of the shards cutting his fingertips. A few centimeters away, he saw a faint golden reflection. It was the hem of Zhilian's tunic, partially covered by a piece of the collapsed ceiling.
"Zhilian!"
Hayjin lunged forward, lifting the crystal block with all the strength left in his strained muscles. Beneath the stone, the princess lay on her side, motionless. Her royal dress was tattered, covered in dust, and stained with blood at the height of her left flank, where the impact of the wyvern's tail had struck her dead on.
With his heart in his throat, Hayjin gently lifted her head, pulling her close. "Hey, look at me. Don't play games. Wake up."
Zhilian let out a weak groan, her long eyelashes fluttering before her blue eyes opened slowly, struggling to focus on the boy's face. She coughed a couple of times, bringing a hand to her ribs with a grimace of pure agony.
"Hay... Hayjin..." she murmured, her usually proud voice now reduced to a thread. "Are you... are you whole? Did that thing... get you?"
"No, it didn't get me at all. You threw yourself in the way, you absolute idiot," he replied, letting out a sigh of relief that turned into a nervous laugh. He wiped a streak of blood from the corner of her mouth with his jacket sleeve. "You definitely don't have the build to act as a human shield. How do you feel? Can you move?"
Zhilian propped herself up on her right arm, gritting her teeth as she tried to sit up. Every movement seemed to cost her a superhuman effort. "My ribs... I think a few are cracked. But my mana flow... that's the real problem. I'm completely tapped out, Hayjin. I can't even evoke a spark to light up the room."
"Well, comfort yourself, we're equals now. Welcome to the common mortals club," he joked to ease the tension, helping her stand.
From the monumental opening of the collapsed tower, the echoes of the clash on the main balcony reached them. The ground vibrated at regular intervals, followed by the roars of Evelyn's green magic explosions and the sinister metallic sounds of Atlas's parries. The battle was still in the full swing of its destructive fury.
Zhilian tensed, trying to look past the rubble. "We have to go, Hayjin. Evelyn and Atlas... they won't last long alone against that thing. If the wyvern eliminates them, we're next. We have to join forces and help them defeat it."
Hayjin grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. His gaze was serious, stripped of any trace of irony. "Are you insane? Help them? Zhilian, look at us. You can barely stand and I have a sword that only vibrates if I'm shaking. If we go back up there, we'll do nothing but give the wyvern two extra snacks."
"I can't let them die there, Hayjin! It's a matter of honor! We are all exam candidates, we can't act like cowards!" she retorted, trying to break free from his grip, but her physical weakness forced her to desist.
"Honor won't save your life when that monster spits flames in your face!" Hayjin yelled, trying to make her see reason with pure logic. "Listen to me. Atlas and Evelyn wanted this competition, right? They wanted to prove they're the best. Fine, let them prove it now. We need to take advantage of the fact that the wyvern is completely distracted by them. We bypass the balcony from the lower level, climb the main tower while they fight, and take that damn grimoire. Once we have the book, the dungeon will be cleared and we can get out of this hell."
Zhilian stared at him, her eyes wide with incredulity. "You want to use them as cannon fodder? You want them to risk their lives just to serve as our human shield?"
"I want us to survive, Zhilian!" he answered, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "It's pragmatism. If we go help them, all four of us die. If we take the book, we stop the trial and save everyone. Which of the two options seems more logical to you?"
Zhilian opened her mouth to reply, to tell him that his logic was unacceptable for a princess of Opes, but the words died in her throat.
Suddenly, Zhilian's expression mutated. Her pupils dilated to an extreme, becoming two black slits surrounded by an aura of pure terror. She brought both hands to her head, digging her fingers into her blue hair with such violence that she tore out a few strands.
"Ah... AHHG!"
A piercing, inhuman scream rent the air of the ruined tower. Zhilian collapsed to her knees, then fell onto her side, beginning to convulse violently on the stone floor covered in shards. Her body was wracked by violent tremors, her legs kicking into empty space and her back arching unnaturally.
"Zhilian! Zhilian, what's happening to you?!" Hayjin threw himself to the ground beside her, trying to pin her arms to keep her from injuring herself against the sharp debris. Her skin had suddenly become scorching hot, almost feverish, and beads of cold sweat pearled her forehead.
"My head... it's exploding! There's... there's something inside!" she shrieked, her wide-open eyes staring into the void, no longer seeing Hayjin.
In the girl's mind, reality had shattered. Brief, violent flashes of hallucinations were bombarding her synapses at a catastrophic speed.
[LUMINOUS VISION - FRAGMENT 01]
A sky of molten gold above a mirror city that was not in ruins, but floated above the clouds. Winged creatures made of pure light walked among men.
[DARK VISION - FRAGMENT 02]
An imposing figure, wrapped in a black cloak that seemed composed of dying stars, raised a hand toward the sky. Beneath him, the crystal cities shattered, liquefying into rivers of dark blood.
[BLOOD VISION - FRAGMENT 03]
The face of Hayjin. But it wasn't him. His eyes were completely black, devoid of sclera, and from his open lips dripped a dark molasses that whispered words in an ancient, forgotten tongue that made the ears bleed.
"Stop... PLEASE, STOP!" Zhilian screamed, clawing at her cheeks until blood flowed. Her voice was distorted, as if multiple people were speaking simultaneously through her.
Hayjin was in a state of total panic. He had never seen anything like this. It wasn't a physical wound, it wasn't a visible magical curse; it was a direct attack on her mind, similar to what Atlas had described earlier in the corridor, but infinitely more violent and destructive.
"Zhilian, listen to me! Look at me! I'm Hayjin! Try to resist, whatever you're seeing, it isn't real!" he yelled at her, cupping her dust stained face in his hands, desperately trying to lock eyes with her frantic gaze. "Stay with me, please! Don't let go!"
Zhilian's convulsions slowly began to diminish, giving way to a constant tremor and a weak breath interrupted by muffled sobs. The girl remained lying on the floor, exhausted, her half closed eyes staring into nothingness, completely devoid of strength and awareness of the surrounding reality.
Hayjin remained motionless, kneeling beside her, panting heavily. His heart beat so hard it pained his chest. He looked around, suddenly feeling vulnerable, alone, and trapped in a game whose rules kept changing without warning.
It was in that precise moment of absolute desperation that the silence of the minor tower was violated by an alien sound.
Clack.
The sharp noise of a boot stepping on a piece of crystal echoed behind Hayjin, coming from the darkness of the shadows cast by the collapsed ceiling at the back of the room.
Hayjin stiffened instantly. The shiver that ran down his spine was colder than any wind in the dungeon. Slowly, without letting go of Zhilian's trembling body, he turned his head toward the source of the noise.
From the darkness of the tower, numerous figures began to advance with slow, calculated steps. They did not wear normal clothes; they were individuals completely enveloped in long coats of dark leather, the edges of which were worn by time and travel. Deep hoods entirely concealed their faces, offering only a glimpse of unsettling and ominous profiles.
The most terrifying aspect of their presence was not their clothing, but the absolute absence of mana they emanated. Just like Hayjin, these men were total voids in the magical fabric of the dungeon. But unlike Hayjin, who appeared weak, these figures emanated a psychological pressure so dense it made the air almost unbreathable.
"It's fascinating, isn't it?" one of them began. His voice was deep, calm, veined with a hint of amusement that contrasted brutally with the surrounding tragedy. "To see how the minds of the so-called 'prodigies' of this world collapse so easily when confronted with the historical truth of the dungeon. A small whisper of the correct frequency is all it takes, and all their arrogance turns to froth and terror."
Hayjin rose slowly to his feet, tightening his grip on the hilt of his resonance sword with fingers that had lost all sensation. He placed himself between the mysterious figures and Zhilian's inert body, his eyes fixed on the intruder's hood.
"I don't believe it... don't tell me that..." Hayjin hissed, trying to hide the tremor in his voice behind a mask of anger. "You... you shouldn't be here..."
The man took another step forward, revealing two black-gloved hands holding a small metallic device a brass cylinder covered in silver runes that glowed with a faint purple light. The exact same color as the wyvern's eyes.
"The kingdoms... always so convinced they possess control over every secret of this world," the stranger replied, tilting his head slightly. Beneath the hood, two eyes as gray and cold as steel locked onto Hayjin, not with hatred, but with a scientific curiosity that made the boy's skin crawl. "I am merely an observer, Hayjin. An analyst, just like you. And I am here to ensure that the final piece of this mosaic returns to its rightful place. Even if it means having to clear the board of a few excess pawns."