The blacksmith golem's hammer hit the cobblestones with a sound that felt like a mountain cracking in half. The impact didn't just vibrate the ground; it sent a shockwave of metallic energy through the air that made Midarion's teeth ache.
"Move! Now!" Midarion's voice roared through the comms.
He didn't wait for the recruits to recover. His silver threads exploded from the soles of his boots, anchoring into the golden crust of the street. With a violent tug, he propelled himself upward, narrowly avoiding a second horizontal swing of the blacksmith's hammer.
In mid-air, Midarion's senses mapped the village in a heartbeat. The main road was a kill-zone, filled with the grinding gears of the rising infected. But to the left, a narrow alleyway led toward the weaver's district. It was cramped, the buildings leaning so close together they nearly touched.
"Into the alley! Reikika, freeze the entrance behind us!"
He landed and grabbed the back of Kaelen's heavy suit, literally throwing the terrified boy into the mouth of the alleyway. Lior followed, shoving Senior Scholar Rondo ahead of him. Reikika was the last. She spun on her heel, her violet eyes flashing with a cold, desperate light.
She didn't use a blade. She slammed her palms into the golden mud at the alley's mouth. A wall of jagged, crystalline ice surged upward, sealing the gap. Through the translucent frost, they could see the golden blacksmith slamming his hammer against the barrier, the ice spider-webbing under the force.
"It won't hold," Reikika panted, her voice trembling. "The gold... it's eating the cold. I can feel it."
"Keep moving," Midarion commanded.
The alley was a claustrophobic nightmare. The walls were lined with golden vines that had once been simple ivy. Now, they were jagged barbs of metal that snagged on their suits. Every step was a gamble. A single tear in the lead-lined hide would let the "Gilded Rasp" in.
Midarion led the way, his head tilted. He was "listening" to the walls.
"Stop," he whispered.
The team froze. From the house to their right, he heard it. Not a scream, but a rhythmic tapping. Ting. Ting. Ting. It sounded like a jeweler at work.
"There's someone inside," Lior whispered, his spear trembling.
"No," Midarion replied, his voice grim. "There's something becoming."
He kicked the door open. The interior of the house was a frozen masterpiece of domestic tragedy. A family sat at the dinner table. The father was already solid gold, his hand still holding a spoon that had fused to his lips. But the mother was still turning.
She was slumped over the table, her skin a mottled, bruised yellow. The tapping sound was coming from her fingers. As the gold took over her nervous system, her hand was involuntarily drumming against the wooden table—which was also turning to metal. Each tap sounded like a hammer on an anvil.
"The concentration is higher in here," Rondo said, his voice reaching a fever pitch of scientific interest despite the danger. He held up a small device that began to hum a low, warning note. "The air is almost fifty percent particulate. We shouldn't be here."
"We're only here because the road is blocked, Scholar," Midarion snapped. "Is there a cellar?"
"The weaver's tunnels," Rondo said, consulting a mental map. "They run beneath the village to keep the silk cool. They should lead us to the riverbank."
"Then we go down," Midarion decided.
They found the trapdoor behind a golden loom. The silk threads on the machine had turned into fine, golden wires, sharper than any razor. Midarion used his own threads to snap the lock, and one by one, they descended into the dark.
The tunnels were narrow and smelled of damp earth and copper. Here, the gold hadn't fully taken over yet, but the "Gilded Rasp" was present in the moisture dripping from the ceiling.
"Midarion," Reikika whispered, catching his sleeve as they walked in the back of the line. "Aelyss was right. Look at us. We're supposed to be sentinels, but we're just... rats."
Midarion looked at her. Through the glass of his mask, he saw the fracture in her resolve. Reikika had always been the pillar, the one who relied on logic and frost. But this horror was illogical. It was a beauty that killed.
"We aren't rats," Midarion said, his voice vibrating with a frequency that only she could hear—a calming, steady note. "We're the ones who carry the light back. If we die here, Oakhaven stays a tomb. If we live, it becomes a lesson."
A sudden, sharp scream echoed from the front of the line.
Midarion was moving before the sound had even died away. He blurred past Lior and Rondo, reaching the front where the recruit, Tilda, was clutching her leg.
A golden hand had reached out from the dirt wall of the tunnel. It wasn't a statue; it was a "Burier"—an infected who had been caught underground during the transition. Its arm was a jagged spike of bronze, and it had pierced through Tilda's lead-lined boot.
"No," Lior whispered. "The seal... it's broken."
Tilda looked up at Midarion, her eyes wide with a realization that transcended fear. "I can taste it," she whispered through the comms. "It tastes like... like sunshine."
"Don't breathe!" Rondo shouted, stepping back. "The internal pressure of the suit is gone! She's breathing the tunnel air!"
Midarion didn't hesitate. He knelt, his silver threads weaving a tight, airtight seal around Tilda's wounded leg, trying to patch the suit by force. But his ears told him the truth. He could hear her blood.
It was thickening.
The fluid, rhythmic sound of a human heart was being replaced by a heavy, sludge-like dragging. The "Gilded Rasp" was already in her veins.
"Midarion, leave her," Rondo said, his voice dropping into that cold, clinical register. "In ten minutes, she will be a weight we cannot carry. In twenty, she will be a Frenzy."
"I don't leave people," Midarion growled, his threads tightening.
"You will if you want the rest of us to live," Rondo replied. He pointed toward the end of the tunnel.
The sound of grinding metal was growing louder. The blacksmith and the others had found the weaver's entrance. The tunnel began to vibrate. The golden "Buriers" were waking up in the walls all around them.
Midarion looked at Tilda, then at Reikika. The choice was a jagged blade in his gut. This was the loss Aelyss spoke of. It wasn't a heroic death in battle; it was a cold, quiet abandonment in the dark.
"Tilda," Midarion said, his voice cracking.
"Go," she whispered. She reached for her belt and pulled out a small incendiary crystal used for signaling. "I'll make sure they don't follow you through the crawlspace."
Midarion felt Reikika's hand on his shoulder. It was cold—deathly cold.
"We have to go, Mida," she said.
He stood up, his heart feeling like it was being encased in lead. He didn't look back as they ran. Behind them, the tunnel was filled with a sudden, blinding light and the sound of earth collapsing.
They emerged onto the riverbank, gasping for air that was still filtered, still dry, still fake. The river Hydros flowed before them, but even the water was wrong. It moved slowly, carrying golden silt that sparkled in the dying light of the sun.
"The carriage is three miles North," Rondo said, checking his case. "We have the samples. We have the data."
Midarion looked back at the village of Oakhaven. It shimmered in the twilight, a city of gold and ghosts. He could still hear Tilda's heart in his mind—the moment it finally turned to a solid, silent stone.
"Let's go," Midarion said, his voice sounding older, harder. "Before the sun sets."
As they began the trek, the shadows of the trees stretched out toward them like golden fingers, and for the first time, Midarion realized the Scourge wasn't just a village problem.
The wind was picking up. And it was blowing south.