The group did not have time to react before the hole that Helie had dug in the rubble was obliterated. The tail of the Remnant smashed through the company of Awakened, pushing them in various directions and burying them in debris.
Noble screamed. The pain was agonizing.
She swam against the tide of stone, fighting both the rocks and the damage that was shredding her soul. Breaking the surface, Noble tried to get her bearings.
She gazed at Remnant with wide eyes.
Having woken from his slumber by either the bright light or the boom of the door, the Prince was not in a hospitable mood. The group had crept into his lair when he was sleeping, and he would punish them, his weak and pitiful enemy, with all his strength.
'Watch out!' Flint's voice screamed at her as he also escaped the wreckage.
The tail's backswing whipped through the air like a wrecking ball, missing Noble by less than a meter. The wind pushed her backward, moving her further from the mirror door.
'Where is everyone?!'
Noble felt for the others. Flint was sailing toward her through the air, using her aspect with all his being.
The other four were below, each of them battered but alive.
"Let's get out of here!" Flint collided with Noble, pushing her away from the Prince and his destructive malice.
"The door! It will close when the sun rises!" Syrce screamed above the noise.
Noble wondered where the urgent information had come from. Was she so desperate to enter that she had made it up?
No, Noble could feel that the Saint believed it was true. They would lose all their progress if they left now.
Worse, the chances of the Prince discovering what they had found were very high. Unlike Nightmare Creatures, the dragon was intelligent. If he were too big to enter himself, he would guard it so the humans couldn't enter either.
'So much for having three nights,' Noble lamented. She pulled herself from Flint's grasp and aimed for the ground.
The Prince's blind eye glimmered in the moonlight. He didn't need to see the humans to know they were close, and so his claw dug in the earth to trample them under his feet.
Helie struggled to remove a large boulder from her leg. She was frightened, causing her Flaw to activate and prevent her use of her Aspect. The Dragon's front claw stamped, causing the ground around her to tremble. His next step would crush her in an instant.
Noble caught Helie's hand and used her levitation to lift the large rock from the injured leg.
"I've got you," Child of Promise whispered.
The dragon's claw came crashing down in slow motion. Noble shut her eyes, trying to fly them both faster than she ever had before. Aether leapt onto the dragon's leg, digging his blade deep into an old wound of the Remnant.
The Prince reared back in reaction to the jab, flinging Aether away and allowing the women to flee to safety.
Lightning came down from the clear sky to strike the dragon's nose, searing the air and scorching one of the creature's nostrils. Roan had bought them a couple of precious moments, but they would not last long.
"Helie!" The cohort leader yelled as his griffin manifested. "Clear the path. I'll buy you time!"
"We will buy you time," Syrce corrected him. She did not wait for an argument, turning into balls of energy and taking to the sky.
"I can't!" Helie cried, but her voice was lost in the wind.
"You can and you will. I am here." Noble sent her calm in place of the fear.
It took an extra push, but the brunette Master accepted the emotion as her own. Her flaw lifted, and she began the dig for the hidden passageway. They landed on the ground above where the mirror door should be.
Aether joined them, a small stream of blood trickling from his forehead. "What can I do?"
"Step back and warn me if he is coming," Helie steadied herself.
Much of her essence had been drained from the first hole, and now she was expected to make a second one much quicker. At least she didn't have to be quiet this time.
So instead of making sand, Helie lumped the debris into clumps for Noble to lift from the hole. Unable to use his temperature control to help, Flint dove into the hole and began using brute strength to clear the objects not made of earth or stone.
Aether's eyes went wide. "Watch out!"
He dove into the indent that the group had made, covering his head with his hands.
Syrce flew past them, two of her balls missing from being crushed in the Remnant's massive jaws. Behind her, the Prince flew overhead, tracking the Saint with his good eye.
Noble lifted Mirage's cape to shield Helie from sight, but the cape billowed out beyond her reach. It covered the four Masters, filling the hole and conforming to the pattern of the debris.
The dragon continued on its path toward Syrce, not pausing to see the others in their frantic plight.
'That's... convenient...' Noble watched the Prince pass by with her second sight.
They resumed their excavation as the battle continued overhead. Noble felt her Kingdom Keeper attribute being pulled this way and that. The battle was raging all over the hillside.
Helie pushed through to the stairway, nearly falling onto the first step and rolling her already injured ankle. She pushed her hands against the walls, shoring up the integrity of their vertical shaft.
"We made it!"
"You two invalids get inside. We'll get the others." Flint ushered Helie and Aether down the steps.
The tether pulled taut as Noble and her connected companion took to the air. Roan was dodging the Dragon's mouth with his griffin while Syrce was narrowly avoiding the razor-sharp claws.
Leaving his sword sheathed, Flint removed the lump of coal from inside his armor. As they drew close, he held out the rock.
"Over here, you lousy excuse for a reptile!"
A plume of fire lit up the night sky as the rock helped to ignite the air.
Under the cover of the brightness, Noble jumped on the back of Roan's Griffin and flicked her cape as she had done before. The cloth expanded around them, making the echo and its riders almost invisible against the starry firmament.
"Go!" Noble told him. "The passage is open!"
The griffin dove, disappearing a moment before reaching the hole.
Behind her, Flint was struggling to disentangle himself and Syrce from the Prince's murderous advances.
'Lightning. I need lightning!'
"Roan, lightning, please!" Noble relayed the message.
The man in the blue scarf looked up at the sky and raised his hand. A bolt crackled and formed before racing toward the Remnant.
From Flint's hand, fire joined the streaking bolt, lighting it up with an inferno. The firestorm struck the dragon between the eyes, almost exactly where it had before. The Prince roared and reared back as the smell of burned flesh filled the air.
But the humans had no time to celebrate the small victory.
They had hurt the dragon, but they had angered him more.
Flint and Syrce sped to the hole, the Saint returning to her human form as she dropped into the crevice. Together, the four hurried down the stairs, running until they reached the bottom of the landing.
But the surly Master would not let them stop. "Go!" he screamed, pushing them roughly and even helping Helie back to her feet when she fell.
The heat in the chamber rose just as they rounded the first corner. Smoke and fire filled the passage as the glass staircase melted and shut entirely. Unable to reach them, the dragon had sealed them in instead.
The people held their breath, waiting for the smoke to disperse around them. When it cleared, they looked around, stunned at what they were seeing.
It was a maze.
A maze of mirrors.