Life is full of surprises. Just when you think you've found a solution, just when you believe you've earned a fleeting moment of relief—the universe erects even more monstrous barriers to steal what little peace you've scraped together.
And so it was, suspended between the abyss and salvation, that the darkness above us came alive.
Time seemed to thicken, each second oozing like heavy molasses. I could see the residual ice flakes drifting lazily in the air, illuminated by the dying glow of my electric orbs. I saw the sweat trickling down Aeloria's temple in droplets that took an eternity to fall. I saw Dorian's fingers tightening around his sword hilt in slow motion.
Then, the darkness split.
First came the eyes—two blood-red rubies igniting in the blackness, vertical pupils dilating like a cat's before helpless prey. Then, the rest of the horror revealed itself in fragments of nightmare:
The jaw unhinged not like a beast's, but like a portal to another hell. Jagged teeth—some twisted like rotten roots, others needle-sharp like ice—aligned in rows that defied anatomical logic. Between them, a thick, greenish sludge dripped, viscous as tar, each drop seeming to scream as it fell into the void.
And at the center, where a tongue should have been, hissed the serpent.
Black as the void of a dead star, its scales drank the surrounding light, creating an emptiness within emptiness. Its forked tongue danced in the air, tasting our fear, our adrenaline, our exhaustion.
Its eyes—because yes, it had its own eyes—small and yellow like dried pus, stared at us not with hunger, but with perverse curiosity. Like a malevolent child about to dissect an insect.
Its movement was so deliberately slow it hurt.
Every muscle of the serpent contracted with the elegance of an underwater tentacle, while the main body of the centipede—because we now saw it for what it was, a monstrous segment of something far larger—curved to envelop us.
The air grew thick with the stench of rotting flesh and rusted metal.
The maw opened wider, wider, until the sky above us was no longer the dome, nor the hole—only that infinite throat, lined with thorns that pulsed like inverted hearts.
Dália screamed something, but the sound reached us distorted, as if we'd been plunged underwater.
Seraphine tried to raise an arm, but her muscles betrayed her, trembling like leaves in the wind.
Aeloria clenched his fists, ice sprouting from his hands—but so slowly... so weakly...
And then, just as the first row of teeth nearly grazed us, when we could already feel the creature's hot, acidic breath—
Time slammed back into motion with the force of a hammer.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
The explosion came from above, accompanied by the sound of stone being shredded by something impossibly sharp. A new hole tore open in the ceiling, right beside the centipede, which was shoved a single meter to the side.
That one meter was all that saved us from being swallowed and chewed by the grotesque creature in the last millisecond.
"THUUUUUUUUUMP!"
We crashed into the centipede's chitinous body at full speed.
The impact was brutal. Blood gushed from Aeloria and Dália's heads—the two physically weakest mages in the group. Seraphine, who had only just regained consciousness, blacked out again from the shock.
Dorian and I were dazed for a few seconds as we plummeted like a falling star back toward the center of the dome, where several clones still waited.
With my vision doubled, I managed to discern what had happened.
A black carapace, tinged with deep green reflecting a sinister gleam, had struck the centipede's torso with colossal force. The shockwave had accelerated our descent, saving us from that hellish maw.
Before the group could splatter against the ground, I acted on instinct. I tore open the largest spatial rift I could manage—at my current level, it was only big enough for two—and hurled Seraphine and Dália through it.
Dorian, reacting just as fast, scooped up Aeloria like a damsel, shielding him in the fall. Dália and Seraphine were transported to the far end of the dome, their vertical fall exchanged for a rough slide across the polished floor.
The three of us weren't so lucky.
"CRUNCH!"
We hit the ground with enough force to create a spiderweb crater. Dorian, still shielding Aeloria, spat blood, while the ice mage was knocked unconscious by the impact.
I felt every bone in my body rattle, every organ jolt violently. The metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth—but at the last second, I'd wrapped myself in prana, like a warrior would. Luckily, no one noticed.
Quickly, I tried to recover, dodging a barrage of ice spears hurled by one of the remaining Aeloria-clones.
But before I could worry about the clones, a colossal monster crashed down from above, crushing most of the remaining copies into puddles of mercury.
The centipede had collapsed onto its own duplicates. Most impressive, however, was the massive wound in its carapace—that absurdly durable chitin had been cut by something, now oozing putrid green blood.
No time to think.
I grabbed Dorian by his armor and Aeloria by the waist, sprinting as fast as I could away from the centipede and the second creature that had appeared. Lightning crackled around my legs, and I crossed the chamber in a blink, reaching Dália and Seraphine.
"Fuck!"
Both were bleeding profusely from head wounds, Dália far worse than Seraphine. But there was no time to tend to them.
My senses screamed in alarm.
My heart pounded. My teeth clenched.
I whirled toward the chamber and, on reflex, activated the second pre-prepared spell in my nexus. My gravity shield flared just as a green blade—as long as I was tall—sliced through the air toward me.
The strike missed my head by millimeters. The residual force sent a blade of wind crashing into the dome wall, carving a deep fissure.
Fear gripped my chest as I finally saw the second creature.
It was a humanoid grasshopper.
Six arms sprouted from its torso like living blades, sharp enough to shear steel. Its compound eyes gleamed with a spectral green, capturing every tremor in the environment, every frantic heartbeat that betrayed its prey.
Its serrated mandibles clicked threateningly, exhaling a metallic, rotting stench—the smell of shredded centipede flesh.
The creature moved at hallucinatory speed, attacking again.
My lightning roared beyond its limits.
My veins bulged in my neck.
My blood boiled like an erupting volcano.
I dodged by a hair's breadth, feeling the cutting air of the second strike tear through the space where I'd stood an instant before.
'FUCK!'
I did the only thing my adrenaline-addled judgment allowed.
I ran toward the centipede.
**
Dorian finally regained his senses, realizing Glenn had dragged him to the edge of the dome. His double vision barely registered two yellow streaks of lightning zigzagging across the chamber, pursued by a green blur. Ahead, two centipedes thrashed wildly toward the chaos.
When his sight stabilized, he noticed a deep fissure in the stone mere inches from the group.
The mark of a strike that could have bisected them.
Lifting his head, he saw the mercury walls shimmering faintly, illuminated by Glenn's lightning.
Then, he noticed something strange.
The clones were gone.
No more copies of anyone—not him, not Dália, Seraphine, Aeloria, or Glenn. In their place, a large, shapeless black cloud was trying to take form.
"Damn it, don't tell me it's trying to mimic that fucking centipede now!"
Focusing on the center of the dome, he saw Glenn dodging amidst the battle between the two creatures.
The centipede was attacking what looked like a mutated grasshopper with six bladed arms. The humanoid creature, nearly four meters tall, moved with terrifying agility—but seemed far more interested in chasing Glenn than fighting the centipede.
And Glenn, in the middle of that chaos, fought like a true demon of war.
Lightning radiated from his eyes, arms, and legs. He was a hurricane wrapped in an electric storm—dodging, countering, using the centipede's attacks to retaliate against the grasshopper.
It was a symphony of battle that would make any warrior's blood boil.
"I can't just sit here!"
Red prana bathed Dorian's body like never before. His face reddened, his muscles swelled, his legs pulsed with power. He gritted his teeth, channeling every ounce of strength he had.
His aura exploded.
And then—he charged.
Straight into the heart of hell.