The dust settled in the shadowed crevice, thick and choking with the pulverized limestone of the collapsed cavern roof. Aristha’s body suffered a sudden, violent secondary backlash from using his "System" ability to push Gayatri out of the crush zone. A wet, tearing sound echoed from deep within his chest, followed immediately by a sharp spasm that wrenched his head backward against the cold stone wall. Bright crimson spilled from the corners of his mouth, staining his cracked lips as severe internal hemorrhaging took hold of his collapsing frame. His eyelids fluttered, turning pale as the edges of his vision darkened into an absolute, suffocating void."Aristha?" Gayatri whispered, her hands frantically reaching out to grab his shoulders. She shook him once, her aristocratic composure completely shattering as she felt the unnatural limpness of his frame. "Aristha, stop playing dead. This isn't funny. Open your eyes!"[System: Fatal error. Host cardiovascular system failure. Administe

"He's right above us," Gayatri whispered, her voice trembling as she pressed her back against the slimy limestone wall of the narrow ledge.Above their heads, a jagged rock chimney cut vertically into the ceiling, letting down a faint, sickly gray shaft of filtered light and the unmistakable sound of heavy breathing. A loose pebble bounced off the ledge, clattering down into the roaring white water of the underground waterfall just a few feet away."Stay flat," Aristha breathed, his face drained of color as he leaned heavily against the damp rock. His hands were shaking, the internal hemorrhaging from his previous System backlash threatening to tear his chest apart with every shallow breath. "If he drops down here before I can draw steel—""You won't draw anything," Gayatri hissed, her eyes wide, fierce, and entirely devoid of courtly panic. "You're bleeding through your tunic again, Aristha. Let me handle this."Before Aristha could lift a hand to stop her, a pair of heavy iron-shod

"If you stop moving on this vertical slab of misery, Aristha, I am personally going to throw you back down into the waterfall," Gayatri snapped, her voice tight with strain as her fingers clawed frantically into a crevice of wet limestone.The mist-shrouded cliffs leading out of the sinkhole territory offered no mercy, rising like jagged teeth toward the gray, forbidding sky of the borderlands. Every vertical foot was a battle against gravity, slick mud, and loose shale that gave way with terrifying regularity.Aristha let out a harsh, rattling breath that tasted faintly of copper and old iron. His injured meridians flared with a blinding, white-hot agony every time he lifted his boot, turning the grueling ascent into an absolute nightmare of sheer willpower. "Consider... consider it a mercy," he wheezed, his knuckles whitening as he gripped a protruding root. "My ribs feel like they're being rearranged by a blacksmith with a grudge.""Then stop talking and use your legs instead of yo

"We have to go down there," Gayatri whispered, her voice trembling as she stared at the rising black plumes suffocating the valley below. "They’re burning the entire settlement. Innocent people are running for the trees, and those armored bastards are cutting them down in cold blood.""And what do you propose we do with our two blunted swords, a waterskin, and my cracked ribs?" Aristha shot back, his tone sharp, devoid of any warmth as he leaned heavily against the cold, jagged face of the overhanging boulder. "Run down the mountain and shout very loudly at the Kalinga vanguard? I am certain they will burst into tears of remorse and hand over their horses.""We can’t just stand here and watch!" Gayatri whipped around, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, righteous fury that cut through the freezing mountain air. "You used to serve the crown, Aristha. Is this how your precious empire operates? Slaughtering peasants to flush out ghosts?""My precious empire tried to execute me for mispla

"If you drop me into the dirt one more time, Gayatri, I am leaving you behind to negotiate with the next patrol of bounty hunters using your royal etiquette," Aristha wheezed, his knuckles gripping the coarse, greasy hair of the mountain pony’s mane as the beast stumbled heavily over another exposed root.Gayatri didn't even turn her head as her own mount picked its way through the dense, creeping shadows of the twilight forest. "Please, do try to leave me behind, Aristha. I would finally enjoy the sweet, uninterrupted silence of the northern woods instead of listening to your continuous, pathetic moaning about your bruised ribs.""They aren't bruised, they are actively plotting a mutiny against my lungs," he shot back, his voice tight with pain as he lurched awkwardly in the ill-fitting saddle they had scavenged from the old mill. Every stride the tired pony took sent a fresh jolt of agony straight up his spine, making his vision blur at the edges. "And for the record, this saddle wa