The entrance loomed like a relic from a forgotten age, its towering doors heavy and rusted, flanked by crumbling stone columns overtaken by ivy. Yet as the trio approached, the door creaked open slowly of its own accord, moaning on ancient hinges as if awakening from slumber.
"Well, it sure knows how to welcome guests," Seth muttered with a half-smile, brushing a strand of purple-highlighted hair behind her ear.
With hesitant steps, they passed through the threshold and were met with nothing but darkness. The air was cool and still, and their vision was swallowed by shadow. But then, with one more step, the void dissolved into breathtaking spectacle.
The interior defied logic.
The trio now stood in a vast palace not ruined, not decrepit, but glorious in a haunting, impossible way. Vaulted ceilings soared into darkness, hung with chandeliers made of crystalized roots that shimmered in shifting hues. Marble floors stretched endlessly, etched with runes older than memory. Silver pillars held the weight of the heavens, and frescoes danced on the ceiling like mirages. The air buzzed with latent power.
"This... is bigger on the inside," Rael said under his breath.
Outside, the house was a corpse. Inside, it was a cathedral of ancient power.
Rael glanced back, hoping to confirm the path they'd entered from but the door was gone. Only a seamless stretch of wall stood behind them.
Seth spun around. "Hey... we entered from here, right?"
"So this is what a Black-level field looks like..." Ethan murmured, eyes gleaming with wonder. Then he grinned, wide and childish. "Yeeeyyy! Let's explore the palace!"
"Let's goooo!" Seth echoed, already jogging ahead.
Rael blinked, confused by their sudden enthusiasm. Moments ago, they'd been cautious. Now they were racing down hallways and skipping through vast chambers like kids in an abandoned amusement park.
He followed, unsure.
For nearly twenty minutes, the three roamed the palace. They wandered through a room of mirrored reflections that stretched into infinity, another with floating staircases that went nowhere, and one chamber eerily pristine where a single candle burned without end.
In a room built like a chessboard, with black-and-white tiles and floating pieces suspended in mid-air, Ethan finally snapped.
He punched a stone table with enough force to shatter it. "BORINNNGG!"
Seth flopped back onto a hovering rook. "Only old people enjoy places like this. Hey, Black-level you suck!"
Rael frowned, his sense of unease growing. Their personalities had shifted. It wasn't just excitement. It was intoxication.
Then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
The palace groaned.
Its brilliant light faded into a suffocating gloom. The once-pristine walls began to decay before their eyes stone crumbling, tapestries rotting. The gleaming chandeliers shattered and fell like dead stars.
The ground trembled.
Ethan's expression sobered instantly. "Ready your Myre it's mad now."
Rael didn't hesitate. He summoned the Myre into his entire body, letting it fill every sinew like molten iron flooding his veins. His skin shimmered faintly with that otherworldly sheen.
Suddenly, the floor erupted. Thorned roots burst forth, twisted and black, snapping toward them with predatory instinct.
"Jump!" Seth yelled, springing upward in an elegant arc.
Rael vanished from sight and reappeared above, blinking through space.
Ethan whispered, "Vyr."
From the stone behind him, a creature emerged a ten-foot remnant in the shape of a humanoid tree, featureless save for a hollow where a face might've been. It reached for Ethan and hoisted him high.
He's a Bounder, Rael thought. That thing... it's his link.
The walls buckled and twisted into thorned limbs. One shot toward Rael, who instinctively hardened his skin with Myre and took the hit, sliding backward but holding.
Seth conjured her weapon a massive war hammer forged of obsidian and ancient metal, its haft glowing with crimson veins. She spun it with ease and smashed a wall of thorns to dust. The hammer extended at her will, transforming into a towering shield as a second volley came from above.
Then, the palace groaned once more this time rising.
Stone and wood twisted into form. A remnant emerged, shaped from the palace itself a gargantuan entity, towering like a titan, at least thirty floors high. Its limbs were an amalgam of broken halls, its eyes glowing vaults, and its breath an echoing wind.
Ethan shouted, "Vyr!"
A tree as vast as the monster itself surged from the ground, its roots entwining the walls. All three climbed the great tree, now facing the creature from its upper branches.
Rael stared at Ethan. And he's only Red-level? Then what lies above him...
"It's not fully Black yet," Ethan said, as if reading his thoughts. "It just became one."
"So what's the plan?" Seth asked, flexing her hammer.
Ethan grinned. "Same plan as always. Hit it 'til it's dead. Vyr."
The tree-bound remnant behind him produced a massive spear of glinting metal. Ethan grabbed it and hurled himself down.
Seth followed, leaping with a war cry, her hammer expanding mid-air.
Rael blinked behind them.
The spear flew sharp and devastating but the monster's hide repaired instantly.
"It's regenerating," Rael muttered.
The spear boomeranged back into Ethan's grasp. He spun it, slicing through thorned arms with brutal efficiency. His strikes were precise like a martial artist blending taekwondo with savage momentum.
A colossal hand smashed down toward him.
"Shield form!" Seth shouted, and her hammer folded inwards, becoming a towering wall of shimmering metal. She blocked the blow, then rolled sideways and converted the shield back to a hammer in a fluid movement.
The creature grew eight more arms.
They lashed outward crushing, clawing, slashing.
Rael dodged through teleportation, warping inches from death again and again.
Ethan weaved between them, spear spinning like a cyclone, piercing joints and slicing roots. He kicked off a tendril, flipped mid-air, and drove the spear into a shoulder. It healed instantly.
"This thing's cheating!" Seth grunted.
"I see the core!" Ethan yelled suddenly. "Below the head! It's vulnerable!"
"We can't reach it! These damn arms won't let us through!" Seth shouted.
"I can't throw my spear clean either," Ethan added.
Rael's eyes narrowed. He focused.
"I can see it," he said. "That means... I can teleport to it."
Ethan looked down. "Then get in there and destroy it! We're counting on you."
Rael smiled. "No... I don't need to go there."
He turned to Ethan. "Just throw your spear. Anywhere. Doesn't matter where."
Ethan's eyes lit up. "Ohhh... you clever bastard."
With a roar, he hurled the spear skyward.
Rael reached out, focused on the path of the weapon and blinked.
The spear vanished mid-air.
It reappeared at the monster's neck.
Bullseye.
The spear pierced the core. The light inside dimmed. The regeneration stopped.
"YES!" Ethan and Rael shouted in unison.
"My turn!" Seth yelled.
She launched skyward. Her hammer grew, expanding mid-air until it was as large as a tank.
She swung it downward. "YAAAAAAH!"
The impact shattered the remnant's skull. The behemoth collapsed, disintegrating into ash and dust.
Ethan and Seth landed side by side. Rael blinked to the ground behind them.
"Vyr," Ethan whispered, and both his spear and remnant vanished.
Seth's hammer shrunk and dissolved.
"My kill!" Seth declared proudly.
"No way," Ethan countered. "If not for my perfect throw and Rael's teleport, it'd still be breathing."
"But I finished it!" she shouted.
They argued, voice by voice, louder and more absurd.
Rael just watched them, heart still racing, a quiet smile spreading across his face.
He enjoyed the fight.
Not just the thrill, but the rhythm
the purpose. Something was awakening within him. And whatever it was...
It was hungry.