I hit stone hard. The impact cracked through my back and slammed the air from my lungs. I rolled once, maybe twice, ribs aching, palms scraping against damp rock as I tried to breathe through the shock. The ground here was slick with moisture, cold enough to bite through my boots, and it smelled wrong—rot, wet stone, and that sharp copper edge of blood.

  Thumbs landed beside me with a sick thud, limbs flailing. He wheezed, grabbed my arm, and tried to curl into the space behind my shoulder like he could disappear there. “Rod fall! Rod hit! Hit hard! Rod broken?”

  I didn’t answer. Just coughed, pushed to my feet, and kept my bow in hand. The space down here was wide, low-ceilinged, and old. Real old. Crumbling brick arches framed the walls, half-covered in moss and grime, sewer grates lining the edges where rusted catwalks hung half-detached from the walls. Water dripped steadily from above, and each drop landed with a slow echo that felt too sharp, too clean.

  Then the sound came—a wet, gurgling noise, too low to be natural. It crawled out of the dark ahead, followed by a hiss, then a pop, like bone dislocating the wrong way.

  Thumbs clutched tighter, his nails biting through my gear. “No no no—bad sound! Bad sound! Breaky sound! Run sound!”

  He rose from the rubble slow and twisted, one arm dragging for a moment before snapping into place. His body twitched with every breath, muscles pulsing under his skin like something inside him was still shifting. It was Kingsley, but not the one I’d fought above—this version was warped, swollen with cursed magic, heat rolling off him in waves.

  He didn’t speak. Just breathed loud and fast, like he was choking on his own rage. Then he roared. No gloating this time, no swagger—just raw, scraping fury that echoed against the stone until it rattled in my ribs.

  Red-black light surged off his skin in pulses, burning through the dark and curling against the chamber walls. The air bent around him like it was afraid to touch.

  His body snapped upright faster than it should’ve. The weight was still there, but the way he shifted—it wasn’t slow anymore.

  I dove aside just as a slab of stone launched past my head, smashing through a brick arch and showering me with dust and broken mortar. He’d torn it straight from the floor.

  “ROD RUN! BIG MAD! HE THROW FLOOR! THROW FLOOR!” Thumbs screeched behind me, his legs kicking in the wrong direction as he scrambled.

  Kingsley stomped, and the chamber buckled with it. The Shockwave wasn’t like the last—it hit harder, deeper, bursting pipes from the walls and sending sewer water hissing in arcs.

  I hit the ground hard, face first into sludge, hands slipping as I rolled behind a half-shattered pipe. My chest heaved with the weight of the air, thick and filthy.

  Thumbs landed next to me with a wet slap, half-covered in grime. “Rod down! Down down down! Water stink! Legs bad! Legs no go!”

  I didn’t respond. My eyes were locked on Kingsley. The axe was gone, and whatever armor he’d had was shredded across the stones, but he didn’t need them now. His speed alone made that clear—and the way he moved, the way the air warped around him—he was worse like this.

  He wasn’t backing off, just building momentum, like he was waiting for the next opening to tear me in half.

  I couldn’t keep dodging. Kingsley was too fast now, too strong, and every time I moved, the room gave up more of itself. Rubble shifted under my boots, the ceiling groaned with every impact, and my stamina was running low. I needed to end this before the whole chamber caved in on top of us.

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  My eyes swept the space. The only light left came from a flickering yellow lamp, dangling from a corroded support beam bolted high above the center of the room. I followed it upward, spotting the rusted crossbeam it hung from—old metal, flaked with age, stretching over Kingsley’s head. Bolted into warped wood, barely holding together. And resting above all of it was a maintenance cage, thick with rust and reinforced iron—forgotten infrastructure, heavy enough to kill if it came down at the right moment.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. The whole ceiling was held together by rust and prayer, and if I could hit the right bolt, the rest would come down with it. Heavy enough to crush something as slow as him.

  I shifted behind a mound of cracked tile, nocked a decoy arrow, and loosed it toward the far tunnel. It snapped off the stone with a loud clang, echoing through the chamber like footsteps vanishing into distance. Kingsley turned immediately, stomping in that direction, his weight cracking the floor tile with every step.

  I reached for another arrow and pulled back until the string hummed. My eyes tracked the beam across the ceiling, followed it to where the rust had started eating through the bolts. They looked loose—like they’d snap if I breathed on them wrong.

  My fingers tightened on the bowstring. I didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. Just lined up the shot, felt the tension settle into my arms, and waited for the exact second the beam shifted with his weight.

  I let the arrow fly. It hit just left of center, but still caught the bolt where the rust had hollowed it out. There was a slow creak, then a deep, wet crack as the beam gave way.

  The cage dropped fast. It slammed into Kingsley’s back before he could move, smashing him to the floor in a storm of metal and splinters. The lamp exploded on impact, glass scattering across the brick, and everything went black.

  Thumbs shrieked behind me, voice high and rattling in the dark. “Rod got him! Cage fall! Big metal fall! BOOM!” He flailed in place, clinging to a broken pipe like it could save him from the ceiling too.

  The silence that followed stretched long and sharp. Kingsley was still breathing, but ragged now—like every inhale came with splinters. I moved slow, careful, following the faint glow from my mana amulet and the charged bowstring thrumming in my grip. The darkness didn’t just hide me now. It bled into everything, curling around Kingsley like it belonged to him—and then turned on him.

  He twitched beneath the wreckage, arms shifting, legs spasming as the shadows wrapped tighter around his body. His skin had gone pale, his shape blurred by the dark, and every time he moved, the shadows clung harder. I didn’t know what the cursed magic was doing to him, but it wasn’t helping anymore. It was feeding the dark instead.

  I stepped closer, pulled another arrow, and let it go. The shaft pulsed faintly as it flew, touched by whatever ambient mana lived down here now. It buried deep into his shoulder with a heavy crunch that sent a shudder through the rest of his body.

  I moved fast, circling around the edge of the wreckage. The second arrow came up smooth and low, angled for the soft muscle above his knee. It hit with a crunch, buried deep enough to twist his leg out from under him for half a step.

  Then I fired again—deeper into the gut, where the robe was already torn and soaked through. I didn’t wait to see how far it went. Just watched his body jolt and shake as the impact hit him from the inside out.

  {You have dealt 70 damage.}

  {You have dealt 64 damage.}

  {You have dealt 82 damage.}

  He was swinging wide now, eyes searching shadows that didn’t answer. His head turned the wrong way every time I moved, and his roars came too late, chasing sounds I wasn’t making anymore. I stayed quiet, stayed low, letting the dark pull me out of reach.

  Thumbs clutched the pipe tighter, shivering hard enough to rattle the metal. “Rod ghost now. Rod vanish. Rod win?” His voice shook with every word, but he didn’t move from his spot.

  Rubble shifted again. Water rushed past Kingsley’s legs, pulling shattered metal and stone with it. One of the pipes had burst at the wall, sending steady floodwater swirling beneath the wreckage. Beneath him, the floor groaned again—and part of it gave.

  The trap had cracked more than the cage beam. It had split open a tunnel below, wider and deeper than the sewer above. I could barely see the edge of it now, but the smell rising from it hit first—something thick and buried, like old death and stagnant power.

  He was still fighting, but the movements were breaking down—less focus, more panic. The weight, the dark, the hits—they were stacking. If I moved fast, hit the right spot, I could put him down before he found another trick.