The truck hit the stone, and the stone didn't break. For about half a second, that counted as good news.
Then the heat arrived, and Nyx changed her mind.
The path was dark volcanic rock running in a narrow channel between lava flows on both sides, and the lava was not sitting still the way it should have been.
It moved in slow currents, orange and bright, while smoke rose off its surface in thick rolling sheets that cut visibility down to roughly thirty meters and made everything beyond that orange-grey and hard to read.
The cab temperature went from the nothing-temperature of the water zone to genuinely hot in about four seconds. The crack in the right panel from the kraken mess noticed this immediately.
"Right," she said, gripping the wheel. "Earth, water, fire."
She pushed the accelerator because the stone behind the truck had already started sinking. Not fast, but in the kind of slow way that still manages to be rude.
