The tunnels blurred around him—sharp turns, low ceilings, jagged walls flashing past in a breathless rush. Thane moved like a missile barely steering through a collapsing mine shaft. Every footfall slammed stone, amplified by his unnatural speed. Every breath the exhale of an enraged bull.
The monster was faster.
It didn't scream in rage. It didn't roar a challenge. It just laughed.
A wet, bubbling chuckle echoed from the tunnel behind him—steady, delighted, and getting closer. No pauses. No fatigue. Just the rhythmic, ground-shaking crash of something massive tearing through the dungeon like a bulldozer through a sand castle.
The tunnel ahead pinched into a brutal curve—tight, smooth, no room to corner.
Thane didn't slow.
Blood roared in his ears.
Ten feet from the bend, Thane didn't hesitate. He didn't calculate. He moved.
His body launched sideways into a tight aerial twist, rage and momentum fusing into one fluid motion. The air rippled around him from the speed. As he rotated, his mind barely registered a need—and his suit obeyed. Traction bled from his soles, rendering them slick as glass. He hit the wall in a crouch, feet slamming sideways just before the stone curved away.
Knees bent. Arms out. Posture low and coiled, like a skater riding a bowl.
He stabilized.
The moss sheared away beneath him, kicked up in glowing blue spirals. His body hugged the curve with uncanny precision, every shift in mass and velocity complemented by his suit's silent compliance. He adjusted his center of gravity without thinking—leaning harder into the bend, carving a tighter arc with each breathless second.
There was no hesitation. No thought. Just raw kinetic awareness.
At the curve's end, he kicked off the wall in a sharp rebound, twisting again mid-air. As his body rushed back toward solid ground, his feet found traction—just in time—and he landed running, velocity unbroken.
Then the curve behind him exploded.
Stone shrieked as the monster careened into the curve like a runaway freight train of flesh and carapace. The tunnel convulsed, a violent tremor rippling through the ground like a living thing. Shattered rock and glowing moss detonated outward, flaring in a bioluminescent geyser. A spiderweb of cracks burst down the tunnel, racing past Thane—splitting the ground open ahead of him.
Thane didn't slow.
He launched—arms swinging, body folding at the waist in a brutal jackknife. Legs and hands shot forward in unison, his frame compressed like a grip trainer forced shut, waiting to spring wide.
Then he snapped open.
His legs swung down beneath him, knees bending as his torso curled forward. By the time the ground rushed up to meet him, he was already in position—like a swimmer poised on the block, every muscle primed to launch.
His feet struck stone.
The impact detonated the floor behind him in a burst of shattering rock and glowing debris. He lunged forward in the same instant, arms pumping like a sprinter exploding off the line—driven by rage, velocity, and the singular need to keep moving.
Behind him, the monster tore through the corridor, smashing stone and dragging mucus and ruin in its wake. Thane didn't look back—he didn't need to. The sounds told him everything: the wet slap of limbs too large for the space, the sickening crack of ancient stone collapsing under the beast's bulk.
Up ahead—the spiral staircase.
It loomed like a bottleneck carved from black stone, a narrow doorway barely seven feet high and half as wide.
Thane didn't take the stairs.
He assaulted them.
He veered hard into the spiral, lowering his center of gravity and flaring momentum with a thought. Friction vanished, and he banked into the curve like a missile locking onto a target. His foot barely kissed the first step before he bounced—floor to wall, wall to ceiling—threading through the helix like thread pulled clean through the eye of a needle.
His instincts sharpened with every step, awareness narrowing to pure motion. He wasn't issuing commands anymore—there wasn't time. His magic and the suit moved with him, responding in perfect tandem. Friction shed and returned at the exact moment it was needed, drag released only to snap back the instant his foot met stone.
Even over the roar of air and pounding feet, he could hear the stairwell groaning beneath him—stone trembling under pressure that hadn't yet arrived. Like the dungeon itself was holding its breath.
Then it exhaled.
A soundless moment—then a detonation.
The monster slammed into the base of the spiral with the force of a catapult. The entire stairwell bucked. Stone howled. Dust geysered up through the shaft in a spiraling plume, lit faintly by bioluminescence and something darker—sickly purple and wrong.
Cracks raced upward like lightning forks through the spine of the staircase.
But it didn't climb. It began tunneling.
The spiral's inner column convulsed again—this time from inside the stairwell. Shattered steps peeled away as something massive dug through the stone core, chewing upward in a blind, murderous ascent. Each level ruptured like paper around a spear.
Purple light flickered up through the ruined shaft below, and a bellow of pure fury erupted from the darkness below, wet and thunderous, shaking dust loose from the ceiling as it echoed up the spiral.
Then—
The floor ahead of Thane exploded.
A claw—wet, jagged, furious—burst through the stone steps ahead, raking blindly for his legs. Thane twisted mid-stride and launched into the air, clearing the swipe by inches.
The monster lunged through the breach—too hard. Too fast. Its momentum betrayed it.
The fractured floor gave way beneath its bulk. Its claw raked for purchase, but the stone peeled away like flesh—useless, soft, nothing to hold but failure.
It fell.
A thunderous crash echoed down the spiral as the monster tumbled back into the lower levels it had destroyed, widening its own tunnel in the process. The entire structure groaned, a fresh rain of dust and shards pelting Thane's shoulders as he hit the top step.
Thane stumbled, but didn't look back.
Mourning's scream—ever-present and agonizing in the back of his mind—had fallen silent.
Not broken. Not lost. Released.
He sprinted forward, cannoning out of the stairwell like a warhead, feet slamming onto flat stone. The corridor ahead was broader—less claustrophobic—sloped upward in a lazy, winding rise. No more tight turns. No more natural chokepoints.
Even as he ran, he knew the truth: he'd bought seconds—not safety.
Stone walls blurred past. His lungs burned. Vision narrowed to a tunnel. Momentum surged, stretching seconds into minutes. Every pulse of magic wrung more from his body—but it wouldn't be enough for long.
Behind him, the tunnel roared. Not with collapsing stone—but with frustration.
A thunderous, guttural bellow tore down the corridor—pure, directionless fury, a beast denied its kill. It rattled through the walls, ricocheted up the tunnel, and chased him like a curse.
The monster had fallen, but it wasn't done.
Thane flew into the boss's antechamber. The torches were nearly dead, their light barely holding back the dark. Beyond the locked door, the goblin boss waited—his chosen outlet for the rage boiling inside him.
He charged the far wall, key held like a spear. His aim was perfect. It stabbed home.
With a sharp twist, the mechanism responded—deep, grinding clicks echoing like ancient bones shifting. Stone vibrated. The door began to move, scraping open with the slow, groaning stubbornness of age.
Thane backed up a step, practically vibrating with rage. "Come on, come on, come on—System curse you!"
Then—a sound.
Not from the tunnel, but below.
Faint at first—like drums in the deep. A distant, pounding rhythm echoing up from the depths of the dungeon.
It grew louder. Heavier. Closer.
The floor cracked.
Stone bulged upward, pressure building beneath like magma under a fault line. Then—eruption.
The floor burst open near the chamber's far edge—stone shattering as the monster surged upward and bellowed.
It didn't pause.
The instant it hit open air, it moved—charging—a blur of rage and carapace, clawing straight for Thane's face.
Thane dove left as a blur of debris and claws filled his vision.
The creature slammed into the boss door like a freight train into a cathedral. The entire room convulsed. A wave of concussive force blasted outward, throwing Thane into a tumble.
But the door held. It kept crawling open—slow, steady, stubborn. Magical runes ignited along the edge, flawless and unyielding. The impact stunned the monster—just for a heartbeat.
Thane's hand slapped the floor. He twisted the fall into a spinning flip and landed on his feet. His suit released traction again, letting him glide backwards like a figure skater on ice.
For the first time, he saw it—really saw it.
The monster had fully emerged: towering, glistening, plated in warped carapace and dripping viscous acid. Its limbs were far too long—cords of muscle shifting beneath pale, maggot-colored skin. Its back hunched beneath rows of venomous protrusions, a sickening fusion of petrified pufferfish barbs and lionfish spines that bristled like a living weapon.
And all of it—every inch—was outlined in a translucent glow.
Purple.
He hadn't seen it before—too much movement, too much chaos, too much blue light from the moss. But here, in the dying torchlight, it stood out like a bruise on the world.
The System didn't give it a number. It didn't have to.
That color said it all.
Instant regret.
The door was too slow. A dead end. He'd be torn apart before he made it through.
But—
There. the stairwell up, just barely caught in his peripheral vision.
Grip returned. Thane launched toward the stairwell, body tilted at a sharp angle. Mid-flight, he twisted—half-spin to horizontal backflip—and slammed feet-first into the right-hand wall just inside the opening.
He catapulted upward—
—and a massive claw missed taking off half his foot by a hair. It grazed him, leaving a thin red line and a wake of stinging fire.
Pain crept in—slow and sour—spreading from the wound like ink in water.
His rage fractured. Clarity broke through.
If he could bait the monster away—just far enough—he might have a chance to circle back. Wait it out. Finish the boss. Maybe even find a way to reach Mourning.
The gamble was already in motion as he crested the stairs and bolted left.
The tunnel was narrow—thankfully. Sloped just enough to slow the monster behind him. Thane poured momentum into every stride, letting his magic do the work—legs churning, body skimming so fast he left streaks of friction-burned moss on the walls.
The monster had recovered. He could hear it—feel it—barreling up the stairwell like an avalanche. The stone groaned and caved under its monstrous bulk.
Thane didn't look back. He couldn't afford it.
Up ahead—just barely—he caught it: a faint, flickering glow bleeding through a narrow crack in the left-hand wall. The portal.
He pivoted mid-gamble—risk trading places with desperation.
He'd planned to lose the monster and circle back—finish the boss, reclaim Mourning. But he'd been bluffing the whole time, even to himself. That plan was unraveling by the second. This one was still a gamble—but finally, one with odds better than zero.
A juke, not a death wish.
He'd step to the side—wait for it to charge past—then double back. Get a lead. Buy seconds. Maybe enough to complete the dungeon.
Behind him, the monster erupted out of the stairwell with a roar that cracked stone. It slammed into the far wall, hard enough to fracture stalactites overhead—a rain of spears crashed to the floor around Thane, one nearly impaling his foot mid-stride. Another directly in his path towards the tunnel.
Momentum surged. He launched at the right-hand wall, feet striking like a thunderclap, and rebounded—angling left toward the narrow crack that led to the portal.
The monster didn't roar this time. It just moved.
A claw swept past—missing him by a whisper.
He slipped through the opening, shoulder clipping the jagged edge with a jolt of white-hot pain.
A small chamber flashed past—
—then he vanished.
The portal swallowed him whole.