We press deeper into the corridor.

  The walls constrict around us, subtly at first, the stone narrowing and sloping into an unnatural incline. The color fades from dark granite to a chalky, corpse-like white, as though bleached by the sea. A mounting anxiety twists in my gut with each step, the air pulsing with dark mana, not as violently as before, but persistent and unnerving.

  Eventually, we come upon it, the same barrier that turned me back last time. A wall of web, thick and veined, stretched taut across the passage like a gate. It pulses faintly, a living thing barring the way forward.

  I place my hand on the web and shudder. The silk clings to my fingers, unnaturally sticky, and I feel something behind it, the source of my disquite, itt sends a chill racing down my spine. Luna’s voice comes quietly behind me. "Can you cut through?"

  I draw my sword and press the tip into the web. It sinks in partway with resistance, like stabbing into dense, damp rope. So I push harder, but the strands stretch and pull back with strong elasticity. With a grunt, I try to drag the blade downwards, but it won’t budge. The silk holds it fast, refusing to tear.

  My arm tenses, yanking the weapon free, strands clinging to the edge. I shake it clean with a grimace.

  "Too strong. It won't cut." I mutter. But then hold up my glowing palm. "Maybe if I burned it..."

  Luna steps forward. "Let me try." She unsheathes the blade she took from Maldor’s room.

  Her fingers glide over the etched runes along the flat of the sword, and a green fire pulses down the length of the metal, thin, vaporous flames trailing like gas. I recoil instinctively. Whatever that energy is, I don’t want it touching me.

  Luna brings the blade to the web. The moment the metal makes contact, the strands hiss and recoil, blackening instantly. The silk parts without resistance, curling away from the vapor like scorched parchment. She slices downward, and the web sloughs off in clumps, rotting and smoking, dissolving from the mere touch of the blade. Within seconds, the path is clear.

  She smiles faintly at the weapon, pleased, and sheathes it again. "Let’s continue."

  She steps through the barrier. I follow, but the moment I cross, I freeze.

  Before us lies a vast, open chamber, at its center resting a giant pit, sinking low into the earth, a chasm that stretches far across the area. A web spans gap, thick and white, strung across the void like a bridge. It bows slightly under its own weight, threads crisscrossing in elaborate layers, forming a treacherous path across the crater.

  Above us, the ceiling soars high, a massive cavern dome veined with silk. Stalactites dangle, and from each hangs a cocooned human. Dozens. Maybe more. Their forms wrapped in tight webbing, suspended like caught insects. Most hang limp, no doubt dead. But a few twitch, faint and weak, still clinging to life.

  Yet none of them compares to what hangs at the center.

  A cocoon unlike the others—colossal, grotesque, easily the size of a small cottage—sways gently above the heart of the pit, held aloft by a complex network of webbing that stretches from every surface of the cavern. Thick cords branch from its body, anchoring it like veins feeding into a heart.

  And around it, visible even to the naked eye, dark mana churns like a storm. A swirling mass of miasma, deep purple and oily black, coiling around the cocoon like smoke. It pulses in rhythm with some internal force, as if something inside is breathing.

  The sensation in my gut explodes at the sight. Not just dread, but horror, horror I've not experience since I stood face to face with Vael. The air here is thick with power, ancient and unnatural. And that thing—the cocoon—is its source.

  Luna’s mouth falls open, a breathless whisper escaping her lips. “By the goddess…”

  A voice echoes through the vast chamber, hollow and cold.

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  "Welcome, apprentice. You've returned."

  I look up.

  There he stands: Maldor. Atop the massive cocoon, his silhouette framed against the tangled webbing and the soft, pulsing glow of dark mana. Next to him lies and altar, unnaturally shaped, as if fused to the web of the cocoon itself. A body is sprawled across it, motionless. Blood spills from the dead man’s throat in slow, rhythmic pulses, trickling across the stone and sinking into the cocoon’s surface. It drinks the offering in silence.

  Maldor steps forward and lets himself fall from the cocoon.

  Not jump. He simply drops, his body drifting downward unnaturally slow, limbs motionless, cloak billowing around him slowly as though he were suspended underwater. An eerie silence stretches between us, as we wait for his descent, the air thrumming with tension.

  He lands in front of the pit without a sound. Not even a stir of dust.

  "So," he says, voice calm and low, echoing with a resonance that feels uncomfortable in my ears. "You’ve returned. Have you come to join my work at last? It is not too late. I am in dire need of strong mana."

  Even as he speaks, movement catches my eye above. A spider crawls from the roof, thick-limbed and silent, descending on silken threads. It drags with it a limp body, human, barely conscious.

  My stomach turns as I recognize him.

  He was one of Edwin’s militia.

  The spiders are dragging the dead and incapacitated men from the battle above, this cavern must connect to the courtyard.

  I narrow my eyes at Maldor. “You were waiting for this,” I say. “The battle... You’re using their bodies for your spell.”

  The hooded man slowly shakes his head. "No," he murmurs with faint amusement. "I was content to wait. Edric was delivering what I needed. But with so many now offered freely... it would be foolish to waste them."

  My eyes flick to the grotesque cocoon, hanging above the pit. "What are you doing? What is that thing?"

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks directly at me. "Are you here to join me?"

  I step forward, hand resting on the hilt of my sword. "No. I'm here to kill you."

  "That is unfortunate." He shakes his head, as though disappointed. Then asks. "Why? I did not take you for a bleeding heart."

  "That’s my own business."

  He looks at me for a moment. I can’t see his expression beneath the shadows of his hood. Then, slowly, he turns to Luna.

  "And you?" he asks, his voice rough, but unbothered. "I find myself in need of a new apprentice. My offer still stands."

  Luna steps forward, lips curled in contempt. "I would rather drag my cunt through a mile of shattered glass and fuck the shards in after than ever partake in your foul sorcery, you pox-riddled worm."

  Maldor makes no response to her foul-mouthed taunt, watching us both with a critical eye.

  "Are you both certain?"

  Luna draws her blade, leveling it at Maldor with deliberate defiance. I unsheathe mine in turn, stepping to her side. But Maldor’s attention is fixed solely on her weapon.

  "Ah," he murmurs, voice low and appreciative. "You’ve brought me my Nsam Nkrante. How considerate."

  He slips off his gloves with calm precision, revealing hands like gnarled bone, fingers long and skeletal, every inch of them inked in dark, curling tattoos that shift faintly in the torchlight.

  With a casual flick of his skeletal fingers, Maldor gestures toward the weapon in Luna’s grasp—and it tears free from her hand in a blink, faster than she can react. It sails through the air and lands effortlessly in his outstretched palm. The runes etched along its surface pulse briefly with a green glow, at his touch.

  “Fuck,” Luna snarls, immediately drawing her steel shortsword, eyes narrowed with fury.

  Maldor regards us both, voice low and even. “One final time: will you not join me?”

  We say nothing, only inch closer, blades ready.

  “So be it,” he sighs. “Then you shall serve like all the others.”

  He raises Nsam Nkrante and points it directly at us. A sharp hiss, then an arrow of green liquid explodes from the blade’s tip.

  We dive in opposite directions as the bolt crashes into the stone, sizzling on impact. The acid eats through the floor in seconds, bubbling and spitting as fumes rise in thick, noxious curls.

  Luna rolls to her feet, expression hard, wand already raised. “Līgetstr?l!” she cries, voice cracking like a whip.

  Lightning erupts in a blinding flash, but in front of Maldor, a pool of black ichor is already hovering, viscous and shimmering like a suspended mud. A spider creeps through the floating mass—then the bolt hits. The creature convulses violently, its legs curling inward as it disintergrates in an instant. But Maldor stands untouched, his silhouette framed by the dying sparks.

  "Fuck," Luna snarls, lowering her wand.

  Maldor remains calm, almost amused. "Careful. A spell of that magnitude is best reserved for the sure kill. You wouldn't want to exhaust yourself."

  I glance at Luna. She’s breathing harder now, drained, as he said.

  But not enough to stop her.

  She whispers under her breath, “Anima Pulse: Swiftstride.”

  A cerulean glow pulses from her chest, enveloping her limbs in ethereal light. Her eyes sharpen to a predator’s focus, and her feet blur with sudden motion, bouncing lightly in place, her movements near impossible to follow.

  I reach for the vial tucked into the pouch of my belt and pull free an orange potion. The glass is warm. I down it in a single swallow.

  It burns like fire, searing my throat, burning my veins.

  A surge of violent energy floods my body—my muscles swell, bones groaning as they thicken, flesh stretching to accommodate the unnatural strength. My grip tightens around my sword; it feels weightless, like swinging a feather.

  I glance to Luna. She meets my gaze.

  We nod once.

  Then together, we charge.