Tamir didn't know what to feel as he looked at the encroaching hordes of monsters. At first, he felt fear, which grew into terror, but for some reason, the longer he looked at them, the stranger it felt. He could feel some sort of dissonance when looking at them. It made him feel like he was both looking at something and not, like they were really there and not supposed to be there; it filled him with all types of wrong feelings.

  He was so absorbed that he was unprepared for the sudden shuffling from behind him. He turned along with Zayne to stare back as they saw some of the prisoners madly clawing at the massive wall behind them, attempting to either dig through or climb over.

  Zayne snorted. "Do they think they're rats? That wall's not going anywhere."

  Tamir barely registered the comment, his focus still locked on the grotesque figures forming from the lava.

  Now that the Conflicts had appeared, Zayne wondered what the lead guard would do, and he was not disappointed as she quickly shouted orders at her fellow guards.

  "Arm yourselves! Prepare for engagement!" her voice rang out, sharp and commanding. "We fight these abominations head-on!"

  Tamir stared at her in disbelief. "Is she insane?!" he muttered, the words slipping from his lips before he even realized it.

  If the lead guard heard him, she showed no sign of it. Zayne, however, smirked. "It's the only course of action. That's what Loreforged do—face, challenge, and defeat Conflicts. If you thought we'd run, which we can't, you're an idiot."

  Tamir turned to him, still bewildered. "But... fighting those things? They're made of lava! Will burn alive! How are we supposed to win?!"

  Zayne shrugged. "I'd start by worrying about yourself before thinking about winning. You do plan on fighting, don't you?"

  Tamir took a step back. "What? No! I—"

  "Then who's going to protect your 'young master'?" Zayne's smirk deepened. "Definitely not me. I've got my own shit to worry about, like what death pose should I strike..."

  Tamir's mouth opened, then closed. He turned to glance at the noble boy, who was still curled up against the wall, trembling. His teeth clenched.

  Meanwhile, the guards, snapping out of their own daze, scrambled for their weapons. Some who had abandoned their blades due to the heat shouted orders. "Mount up! Keep yourself study on the beasts! We push them back! Use what is left of your armor if you have no other option."

  The five beasts belonging to the lead guard stood in front of the group, their muscles tensed, nostrils flaring at the searing heat ahead. Zayne observed how the guards with longer weapons were positioned closer to the head of the beasts, ready to assist. The lead guard, alone on her mount, stretched out her hand. Magical blue letters formed in the air, converging into a beautiful halberd of pale steel.

  For a moment, there was silence. No one dared to breathe. Even Zayne found himself momentarily absorbed, idly wondering just how long it would take for his chains to melt through him.

  Then, the lead guard's voice cut through the tension.

  "Charge!"

  And they did.

  The battlefield erupted into chaos the moment the lead guard gave the command. A guttural cry from her throat sent the four massive beasts surging forward, their hooves and claws pounding against the stone ground with enough force to send cracks racing outward.

  The moment they met the horde of Conflicts, the blue aura enshrouding their bodies flared violently, forming a protective veil that repelled the worst of the lava’s heat. Still, the moment of impact was a sight to behold—a monstrous, raw collision of flesh, steel, and molten fury.

  One of the beasts, a towering creature with plated armor along its flanks, reared back and brought its front legs crashing down onto a hulking lava construct that resembled some grotesque centaur. The monster screeched, its semi-solid form buckling under the force before it exploded into splatters of searing magma.

  The rider atop the beast didn’t waste a second. With a spear imbued with the same eerie blue light as the aura surrounding his mount, he drove the weapon deep into another approaching creature, skewering what could have been its head. The thing convulsed before it collapsed, only for its rapidly liquefying remains to bubble and reform into yet another horror.

  “Damn it! They’re still coming back!” one of the guards yelled as he swung his curved blade at a quadrupedal monstrosity with a jagged mouth spanning its entire torso. The sword carved through its molten flesh, sending fiery chunks flying, but it wasn’t enough.

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  The beast lunged, catching the man’s leg in its blistering maw. His scream was bloodcurdling. The air was thick with the acrid scent of burning flesh as the soldier was yanked from his mount and dragged into the writhing lava below. He barely had time to cry out again before his body was swallowed whole, his armor melting away like wax, his bones disintegrating as though they had never existed.

  Zayne watched as the man’s face, contorted in agony, surfaced within the rippling molten tide. The screaming visages of the lost souls merged together, swirling and sinking back into the ever-growing horde of Conflicts. He exhaled sharply and shook his head. “Poor bastard. Wonder if it’s quick or if they feel every second of it?”

  Tamir, meanwhile, had his eyes locked on the guards who remained fighting. He had never seen combat like this. The guards weren’t just skilled—they moved with precision, with practiced discipline that spoke of years of training. They dodged, they struck, they worked in tandem, using the creatures’ predictable, lumbering movements against them. Yet for every Conflict that fell, another took its place. It was relentless.

  The lead guard herself was a force to be reckoned with. From her position at the rear with her beast, they moved with deliberate efficiency, cutting down anything that broke past the line. Her halberd gleamed with its otherworldly light as she swung it in broad arcs, cleaving a winged lava beast clean in two as it tried to descend upon them from above.

  Another lunged at her side, but she twisted, letting it crash into the ground before driving the butt of her weapon straight into its molten skull. It howled, writhing violently before disintegrating. Yet even as she held the line, her eyes flickered up, scanning the growing clusters of rainbow runes above.

  Tamir swallowed thickly. “They’re actually pushing them back…” he muttered, though his voice carried a tremor of uncertainty.

  Zayne chuckled darkly. “For now.”

  Tamir turned to him, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  Zayne lifted a single gloved hand and pointed upwards. Tamir followed his gaze, and his stomach twisted into knots. The rainbow letters in the sky had not only remained—they were multiplying, spreading like veins through the heavens, warping reality further with each passing second.

  “The fact that those are still up there and growing in number,” Zayne said lazily, “means this Unraveling isn’t even close to stopping.” He let out a slow sigh, stretching his shoulders before smirking at the chaos. “All that effort, all that blood spilled… and it doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

  Tamir felt whatever hope he’d started to gain shrivel inside him. The battle wasn’t one to be won—it was a delay. A mere struggle against the inevitable.

  And from the way the Conflicts continued to rise from the lava, screaming in pain and rage, it was clear that inevitability was drawing ever closer.

  Suddenly, Zayne felt an eerie tingle run up his spine. His instincts flared, and without hesitation, he turned his attention toward the massive stone wall behind them. For a moment, nothing seemed out of place—just the slow, menacing descent of lava from the top. But then, he saw it: a thin, jagged crack forming just above the head of one of the still-scratching prisoners.

  "Shit," Zayne muttered under his breath.

  The moment he recognized the danger, a molten hand burst forth from the rock, sending a shockwave of heat and debris into the air. The prisoner, a smallish old man standing directly beneath it had no time to react. A stream of searing lava splashed onto his face, and his agonized scream was cut short as the fiery appendage gripped his skull with an iron-like grip. With one brutal motion, the hand smashed the prisoner’s head against the stone wall, sending cracks rippling through the rock and painting it with sizzling blood and molten flesh.

  Zayne moved before the corpse even hit the ground.

  Despite the chains still clamping onto his body, melting into his arms, legs, stomach, and neck, he propelled himself forward with a savage burst of speed. The heat was excruciating, his flesh blistering beneath the iron’s burning embrace, but pain was an old friend, and he had no time to acknowledge it.

  As more of the Conflict’s form attempted to pull itself from the wall, Zayne swiftly brought his shackled wrists together, forcing the molten hand to melt the links between them. The moment the chains snapped apart, he allowed himself a brief smirk of triumph.

  Mad innovative I am.

  Then he grabbed the still-burning skull of the dead prisoner and slammed it against the emerging creature’s head with bone-shattering force. The impact did little to destroy it, but Zayne wasn’t aiming for a killing blow—only a moment’s hesitation.

  That moment was all he needed.

  He yanked the charred corpse from the ground and, without an ounce of hesitation, ripped through the cauterized flesh at its neck, reopening the wound with sheer brute force. Blood, hot but still liquid enough to serve his purpose, sprayed forth. Zayne turned the corpse, angling the torrent toward the Conflict’s lava-covered form, drenching it in crimson.

  The reaction was instant. Steam erupted as the sudden temperature change cooled and solidified portions of the creature’s body, briefly immobilizing it.

  Not wasting another second, Zayne took hold of the corpse with both hands and swung it like a club as he thanked his luck that it was such a small old guy who had died. The hardened head of the monster could not even react before the makeshift weapon crushed into it with enough force to shatter its now-brittle skull.

  Lava spewed from the fissures like a dying volcano, and within seconds, the Conflict crumbled into cooling, lifeless stone.

  Silence.

  The prisoners, who had stumbled backward in terror, stared in absolute shock. Even Tamir, who had witnessed every moment of the carnage, stood frozen in disbelief. What had just happened had taken less than a minute, yet it had felt like an eternity.

  Zayne, chest heaving with rapid breaths, examined his handiwork and let a slow, dark smile spread across his face. He turned his blood-drenched gaze toward Tamir.

  "So," he said, voice laced with amusement, "think you can do something similar?"

  Tamir blinked, his brain struggling to process the question. "W-what?"

  Zayne pointed a blood-stained finger toward the wall. Tamir followed the direction of his gesture and felt every inch of his body go numb.

  The crack above them was expanding.

  More hands—dozens of them—began clawing their way out of the rock, their molten fingers reaching hungrily for the prisoners below.

  "Because," Zayne continued, eyes glinting with exhilaration, "you’re gonna need to do that right now."