The forest held its breath, a suffocating silence that pressed in on all sides. Seven doors of living shadow yawned open, each a swirling vortex of deep black, tuned to a soul in the clearing. The crystal pulsed slowly, like a heart savoring a moment of perfect cruelty.Victor’s flame sputtered, a fragile defiance against the creeping darkness. “Don’t step through!” he shouted, his voice raw with urgency. “Stay anchored—hold to each other!”But the whispers from the doors grew louder, each voice a poisoned honey. And one by one, the heroes began to falter.The door nearest Sarah shimmered, and in its depths, a figure coalesced—her brother, whole, his smile warm, his eyes unclouded by the violence of their past. “Sarah,” he whispered, his voice as familiar as a forgotten song. “You don’t have to fight anymore. Come home. I’m waiting.” The hardened predator in her, the quick-witted killer, vanished. Her dagger slipped from her numb fingers, clattering against the ground. For a heartbeat

The forest lay in ruins, a testament to the brutal, chaotic dance of power that had just ended. Where the hive-born colossus had fallen, the ground was rent and scarred, littered with blackened, smoking shards of what was once a crystal. The victory felt thin, hollow, a reprieve rather than a true conclusion. The air was thick with the foul, coppery tang of burnt magic, a smell that clung to their skin and lungs like an ill omen.Sarah retrieved her dagger from where it had been knocked loose, its silver blade catching the weak light. She scanned the treeline, her shoulders tense. “It’s too quiet,” she said, her voice a low, rough murmur. “That thing died too easy.”Elroy coughed, a wet, rattling sound, and wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth. The bruise on his jaw was already purpling, but his grin, though strained, remained. “Easy? If that was easy, I’d hate to see hard.” Yet even he cast wary glances at the black shard fragments that pulsed with a faint, unsettling

The fire burned low, embers glowing like the eyes of hidden beasts. One by one, the heroes drifted into a restless slumber, their bodies exhausted, their minds left unguarded. Only Victor remained awake, his white flame glimmering faintly, fighting to keep a watch that the hive did not need.The shadows slipped into their dreams like smoke under a locked door.In Shanny’s mind, the meadow of green light bloomed again, a sky clear and endless, every wound she had ever healed gone. A silk-soft whisper coiled around her ears. “You could heal the world, little flame. Just open the door. Let me flow through you, and nothing will ever suffer again.” As the words took hold, the veins on her wrist pulsed black, and the flowers at her feet wilted, their petals turning to ash.Sarah’s dream. Her brother walked beside her, alive and whole, laughing as they had as children. “You can stop fighting, Sarah,” he said, his voice a forgotten melody. “Come home.” The hive’s whisper followed, a poisonous

The silence wasn't a peace, but a brittle, stretched-taut thing, ready to shatter. The chasm, once a maw for the grotesque Mirror Army, now pulsed with a new, terrifying rhythm. A low, subterranean groan shuddered up through the heroes' bones, the sound of a god's rage or a world in torment. The ground wasn't just broken anymore. It throbbed with black, frantic veins that pulsed like a failing heart. From these fissures, jagged crystals of solidified shadow clawed their way to the surface, hissing as they bled the light from the air. Some twisted into skeletal fingers. Others formed gaping, silent jaws. And some, the most chilling of all, looked like screaming faces frozen mid-cry, as though the land itself was forced to remember its own agony. Elroy's manic energy was eclipsed by a cold dread. He ran a hand over his face, leaving a streak of black dust across his cheek. “Right,” he muttered, his voice a low rasp that failed to hide the tremor. “If that was the front door, I’d hate t

The air grew thin as they ascended the jagged slope, each step feeling like climbing the ribcage of some colossal, long-dead god. Black veins snaked across the walls, twisting into knots of shadow and crystal, each one pulsing faintly, as if aware of their presence. The whispers had returned, no longer just voices but a weight pressing against their bones. "Step lightly... one misstep, and you unbind what should remain chained..." Shanny's staff burned with a faint, flickering light. She leaned on it, her breath ragged, eyes scanning the chains above that rattled in anticipation. “Every step feels… alive,” she murmured. Victor’s flame burned steadily, a white-hot beacon against the oppressive darkness. He looked up, his eyes narrowing. “Those chains aren’t just guarding the spire. They are the spire. Every pulse, every vibration… it’s testing us, watching us.” Lena’s runes glowed faintly, weaving defensive patterns into the air. “Then we move together. One misstep, one falter… the