"Left here!" Gorm bellowed.
Six didn't question it. She veered left, splashing through knee-deep water, her lungs burning. Behind them, the massive red glow continued to close the distance.
Sixty feet. Fifty-five. Fifty.
"Gorm, we need to slow it down!"
"How?!"
Six's mind raced as she scanned the fog around them. Red signatures everywhere—huge ones, dangerous ones, the apex predators of the swamp going about their violent business.
An idea formed.
A terrible, reckless, brilliant idea.
"Change of plan!" Six grabbed Gorm's arm and yanked him to the right. "We're going through the dangerous part!"
"My Queen, that is—"
"Trust me!"
Gorm hesitated for only a moment before nodding. "This way. Gorm knows path. Is faster but..." He swallowed. "Many big things."
"That's what I'm counting on."
They plunged deeper into the swamp's heart.
The fog grew thicker here. The water grew deeper—up to Six's thighs now, cold and murky, filled with things that brushed against her legs as she waded. The trees were older, more gnarled, their roots forming twisted archways that Six and Gorm had to duck beneath.
And the red signatures...
Gods.
They were everywhere.
Six counted at least a dozen massive glows within her two-hundred-foot radius—creatures that dwarfed the alpha crawdad, the tentacle ball queen, even the mega-crawdad they'd barely survived. These were the true monsters of the swamp. The things that even other apex predators avoided.
"Stay close," Six whispered. "Don't make eye contact. Don't make noise."
"Gorm understands."
They crept forward.
To their left, something massive shifted in the water—a shape like a small island rising from the muck before settling again. Six caught a glimpse of ancient, moss-covered shell and quickly looked away.
Don't see me. Don't see me. Don't see me.
To their right, a pair of eyes watched them from the hollow of a dead tree. Not compound eyes like the crawdads. These were mammalian. Intelligent. Hungry.
Six kept walking.
Behind them, the pursuing glow entered the danger zone.
"Come on. Notice him. Notice the big bloody wolf thing."
They pushed through for what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes.
The red signatures around them shifted, agitated by the new presence in their territory. Six heard distant splashing, distant roars, the sounds of massive creatures becoming aware that something was moving through their domain.
And then—
CRASH!
Behind them, far behind them now, something big collided with something bigger.
Six grinned savagely. "That's right. Fight each other. Give us time."
"My Queen is clever," Gorm rumbled approvingly.
"Your Queen is desperate. There's a difference."
They kept moving.
The ruins appeared without warning.
One moment they were wading through endless swamp. The next, Gorm pushed aside a curtain of moss and Six found herself staring at crumbling stone walls rising from the water.
"What is this place?"
Gorm shook his head. "Gorm does not know. Has seen it before, never entered. Bad feeling."
Six scanned the structure with Blood Scent. No red signatures inside—nothing living, nothing bleeding. Just old stone and older shadows.
"We need to rest. Just for a minute."
They climbed up onto a collapsed section of wall that formed a relatively dry platform. Six's legs were shaking, her lungs raw, her everything aching. Even with the vitality she'd siphoned, the pace had been brutal.
Gorm settled beside her, his massive chest heaving.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant calls of swamp creatures.
Six studied the ruins around them. The architecture was strange—curved walls, doorways too narrow for Gorm but too wide for a normal human, symbols carved into the stone that she didn't recognize. Whoever had built this place, they weren't around anymore.
"Gorm, do you know anything about—"
AWOOOOOOOOOO!
The howl split the night.
Six's blood froze.
It wasn't a normal howl. It was wrong—layered, harmonic, like multiple voices screaming in unison. It echoed across the swamp, bouncing off the fog, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
And then the temperature dropped.
Six watched her breath mist in front of her face. Frost began to form on the stone beneath her fingers. The water around the ruins grew still, a thin layer of ice crackling across its surface.
"He's here," she whispered. "He's here."
Six fumbled in her pack, fingers numb with cold and terror. She found the Crow's Eye Marble—a small, dark sphere that seemed to contain a tiny storm.
She crushed it.
[ CROW'S EYE ACTIVATED ]
Enhanced vision for 10 minutes.
See clearly through fog, darkness, and light obscurement.
The effect was instantaneous.
The fog vanished.
Not literally—it was still there, Six could feel the moisture on her skin—but she could see through it now, as clearly as if she were standing under a noon sun. The swamp stretched out before her in perfect clarity, every tree, every pool, every creature suddenly visible.
And there, perhaps three hundred feet away—
Six's heart stopped.
Fenric Bloodmaw.
The Wolf King stood atop a small rise, his massive form silhouetted against the grey sky. He was even more terrifying than she remembered—that enormous dark wolf body, four legs planted in the muck, and erupting from his chest... the torso of a man. Muscular arms. A face that might have been handsome once, before madness and hunger had twisted it into something feral.
His fur was coated in fresh blood. Gore dripped from his jaws. Around him, the corpses of swamp creatures littered the water—mega-crabs torn in half, swamp crows ripped to shreds, things Six couldn't even identify reduced to meat.
The monsters she'd led him through hadn't slowed him down.
They'd just made him angry.
As Six watched, Fenric raised something in one of his human hands—a massive blade, curved like a crescent moon, its edge jagged and cruel. The metal was dark, almost black, but it pulsed with crimson light. Veins of red ran through the steel like blood through a living thing.
The Bloodmoon Blade.
Fenric threw back his head and howled again.
[ BATTLE HOWL ]
Fenric's combat power increased.
Six could see the power building around him—a crimson aura that clung to his form like fire. His muscles bulged. His eyes blazed red. The ice spreading from his body grew thicker, faster.
Then he swung the blade.
A wave of crimson energy erupted from the edge—a crescent arc of pure destruction that screamed across the swamp. It struck a cluster of mega-crabs that had been approaching him from the left.
They exploded.
Shells shattered. Limbs flew. Blood sprayed in arterial arcs. What had been four massive creatures was suddenly just... chunks. Scattered across the water. Steaming in the cold.
Fenric didn't even pause. He swung again—another crescent wave, another cluster of monsters erased. A swamp crow the size of a horse tried to take flight. The crimson arc cut it in half at the waist.
He was carving through the swamp's most dangerous creatures like they were nothing.
And he was heading straight for the ruins.
Six's brilliant plan had failed.
"We gotta move!" Six yelped, grabbing Gorm's arm. "NOW! NOW!"
The ogre didn't need to be told twice.
Six's eyes darted frantically around the ruins.
Can't go back out there. Can't. He'll cut us down before we make it fifty feet.
The enhanced vision from the Crow's Eye Marble showed her everything in perfect clarity—every crumbling wall, every collapsed archway, every shadow-filled corner of the ancient structure.
There.
A crack in the far wall. Narrow. Maybe two feet wide at most, cutting diagonally through the stone like something massive had struck the ruins long ago. Beyond it, darkness—but darkness meant depth. Meant somewhere to go.
Somewhere Fenric couldn't follow.
"Gorm! Through here!"
The ogre's eyes went wide. "Gorm is... Gorm is very big, my Queen."
"Then squeeze!"
Another howl split the air. Closer. So much closer.
Six didn't wait. She turned sideways and slipped through the crack, the rough stone scraping against her shoulders, her chest, her hips. The Crow's Eye effect let her see perfectly even as the darkness swallowed her—a narrow passage that widened slightly after the first few feet.
"Come ON, Gorm!"
The ogre groaned but dropped to his hands and knees. He was massive—twelve feet of muscle and fat and grey-green skin—but ogres were surprisingly flexible when motivated. And nothing motivated quite like the sound of a god-beast carving through monsters behind you.
Gorm wedged himself into the crack.
Stone groaned. Dust rained down. For one horrible moment, Six thought he was stuck—thought she'd have to leave him, thought she'd have to listen to Fenric tear him apart while she cowered in the darkness—
SCRAPE.
Gorm popped through like a cork from a bottle, tumbling into the passage beyond. His Beaked Helm clattered against the stone floor.
"Gorm... does not like tight spaces."
"You'll like being eaten less. Move!"
They traveled deeper.
The passage opened into a proper corridor—still narrow by Gorm's standards, but wide enough that he could walk upright if he hunched. The walls were covered in those same strange symbols Six had noticed outside, carved deep into the stone, worn smooth by age.
The air grew colder as they descended. Not Fenric's supernatural cold—this was different. The cold of deep places. Of earth and stone and old things.
Six kept her hand on Inky's handle, her eyes scanning every shadow. The Crow's Eye Marble still had a few minutes left, and she used every second of enhanced vision to check corners, ceilings, the darkness ahead.
Nothing living. Nothing bleeding.
Just ruins.
"What is this place?" she whispered.
"Gorm does not know." The ogre's voice was hushed, reverent almost. "Old. Very old. From before."
"Before what?"
"Before... everything."
Helpful.
They passed through a series of chambers—empty rooms with collapsed ceilings, corridors choked with rubble, archways that led to nothing but darkness. The labyrinth seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning, leading them deeper into the earth.
Finally, Six called a halt.
"Here. We rest here."
They'd found a small chamber with only one entrance—defensible, hidden, far from the crack they'd entered through. Six slumped against the wall, her legs giving out, her whole body trembling with exhaustion and fading adrenaline.
Gorm settled beside her, his breathing heavy.
For a long moment, there was only silence.
Maybe he didn't follow. Maybe he went around. Maybe—
A sound echoed through the labyrinth.
Footsteps. Heavy. Slow. Patient.
Then—nothing.
Six held her breath.
FWOOOOSH.
A jet of steaming breath shot through the distant crevice, visible even from here—a plume of hot air meeting cold stone, condensing into mist. The temperature in the labyrinth dropped another ten degrees.
Then a shape blocked the crack.
Six's enhanced vision showed her everything.
A snout.
Massive. Dark-furred. Wet with blood. It pushed into the crevice, nostrils flaring, sniffing. The crack was too small—far too small for the Wolf King's enormous form—but that snout kept pushing, kept trying, stone groaning against the pressure.
Then it stopped.
The snout withdrew slightly.
And a voice echoed through the labyrinth—deep, resonant, carrying that same layered quality as the howl. Not quite human. Not quite wolf. Something worse.
"Little Witch."
Six's blood turned to ice.
"I can smell you."
The snout pressed against the crack again, inhaling deeply.
"Sweat. Fear. Blood—yours and others. And something else..." A low, rumbling chuckle. "Lust. You've been busy, haven't you?"
Gorm shifted beside her, his hand tightening on his club. Six grabbed his arm, shaking her head frantically.
"Don't. Don't make a sound." She whispered under her breath.
"I know you're in there, little witch. Hiding in the dark like a rat." Another long, slow inhale. "You think these walls will protect you? You think distance will save you?"
The snout withdrew.
For a moment, Six dared to hope—
CRACK.
Stone exploded inward as something struck the wall around the crevice. Dust and debris rained down. The crack widened by an inch. Two inches.
"I am patient, little witch. I have been hunting for a very, very long time."
Another impact. More stone crumbling.
"These ruins run deep. But they do not run forever." The voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried perfectly through the labyrinth. "And neither will you."
Silence.
Then—footsteps. Moving away. Circling the ruins.
Looking for another way in.
Six sat in the darkness, Gorm trembling beside her, and realized with dawning horror that they hadn't escaped.
They'd just trapped themselves.