Faraun stood at the edge of the ruined battlefield, his cold eyes sweeping over the figures gathering before him. The Scraeling, the wolves, and the others—bruised, bloodied, yet still standing. Their expressions were hardened with resolve, their weapons gleaming even in the dim light filtering through the dungeon’s broken ceiling. They thought they had him cornered, that their numbers and defiance would be enough to stop him.

  He almost smiled.

  Everything had unfolded so perfectly, as if fate itself had guided events in his favor. His companions—no, his burdens—were all dead. Mauvim had fallen to the goblin’s dagger, the Scraeling had ended Celia’s incessant arrogance, and Irivan... well, it hardly mattered how he had died. What mattered was that none of them had perished by any action of his own. He had not stained his hands with their blood, nor had he uttered the words that led them to their doom.

  And that meant, should anyone later demand an account of what had transpired here, should any prying diviner attempt to unravel the truth with magic, he could answer them with perfect honesty. He had not betrayed them. He had not turned against them. He had not raised a hand to harm them.

  But he was still the last one standing.

  That was the only outcome that mattered.

  House Aguilar would claim the dungeon. House Aguilar would claim the wealth buried in its depths. And most importantly, House Aguilar would claim all the power hidden within these ancient ruins. The dungeon had taken much to reach, and even more to navigate, but in the end, it would be his alone. No allies to share in the spoils, no rivals to divide the rewards, no one to challenge his authority. He alone would return to House Aguilar, victorious, the dungeon’s might clasped within his hands.

  But first, there remained one last inconvenience to deal with.

  His enemies had formed a loose semicircle around him, clearly waiting for him to make the first move. He could see it in their eyes—that mixture of exhaustion and determination, the belief that they could finish this if they just pushed a little harder. Fools. Did they truly think they had brought him to bay? That because his so-called allies had fallen, he was somehow weakened?

  If anything, he was freer than he had ever been.

  He took in their positioning, cataloging their weaknesses. The Scraeling, standing slightly ahead of the others, that primitive defiance burning in her eyes. The wolves, poised to strike, their breath misting in the cold air. The others, watching, waiting, their weapons ready. It would take too much time to cut through them all by hand. Fortunately, he had prepared for this.

  Faraun raised his hand, turning the ornate ring on his finger, feeling the cool metal press against his skin. The action was small, almost imperceptible, and none of them reacted immediately. But then the air shifted.

  A pulse of unnatural energy rippled outward, distorting the space around him. It was subtle at first, a barely perceptible tremor in the air, like the distant rumble of thunder before a storm. But then the power within the ring unraveled completely, and the containment spell shattered.

  The reaction was immediate.

  The air pulsed with a deep, unnatural resonance as the magic within Faraun's ring unraveled, releasing its long-held cargo into the world. A sickly, greenish-black miasma poured forth, curling outward like the grasping fingers of the dead. The battlefield quaked as something immense began to take shape, the very air growing heavy with the weight of unfathomable malice.

  The creature emerged.

  It did not step forth so much as it congealed into existence, as if reality itself strained under its presence. A grotesque mass of rotting flesh, bone, and ancient sinew loomed over the battlefield, its form a nightmarish amalgamation of countless cadavers fused together in an obscene mockery of life. The Charnel Colossus had been unleashed.

  It towered above them all, a monument to death and decay. Limbs jutted out at unnatural angles, a forest of half-formed hands, fingers twitching in a grotesque pantomime of life. Hollowed-out eye sockets from a hundred different skulls burned with an eerie green light, staring in every direction at once. A noxious stench rolled off its undulating form, the reek of a thousand corpses interwoven into one abomination.

  A ripple passed through the colossus, like a great beast stirring from slumber. Then it moved.

  With terrifying speed, the monster lashed out. Dozens of decayed arms shot forward, each ending in jagged claws the size of swords. The air itself howled with the force of its attack. The ground splintered beneath its bulk, corpses and debris scattering like dry leaves in a storm. The battlefield erupted into chaos.

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  Jack barely managed to shoot off an Identify before barely dodging the forest of jagged bones that served as weapons for the monstrous creature.

  [Name: Charnel Colossus]

  [Race: Undead Amalgamation]

  [Level: 30]

  [Health Pool: 6,450/6,450]

  [Mana Pool: 11,000/11,000]

  [Stamina: N/A]

  [Skills: Mind Feed, Voice of the Ancients, Unholy Absorption, Graveborn Tendrils, Soul Assimilation, Necrotic Pulse, Arcane Whisper]

  [Abilities: Corporate Will, Undead Resilience, Amorphous Form, Arcane Resistance, Eldritch Awareness, Hive Consciousness]

  [Description: The Charnel Colossus is a living tomb of countless restless dead, their minds and bodies fused into a single, undying horror. Towering above the battlefield, its massive form is a shifting mass of decomposing corpses. The whispers of thousands of lost souls echo from within, seeding madness into the minds of those who dare to listen. With immense strength, it crushes foes under its colossal weight, while its tendrils drag victims into its rotting embrace, absorbing their very essence. It is not merely undead—it is the grave itself, marching forward to consume all who stand in its way.]

  Jack and his allies barely had a moment to react before the next attack struck home. A massive limb made of decomposing bodies crashed into the earth where they had stood, sending dirt and shattered stone flying in all directions. The impact alone would have reduced them to a pulp. Only their quick reflexes saved them from instant annihilation.

  But the Colossus was not finished. It reared back, its hollow mouths gaping open, releasing a terrible, discordant chorus—a sound of agony and torment, of a thousand voices crying out in unison.

  The moment the sound touched their ears, it did more than deafen—it seeped into their minds like a living thing. It was not just noise; it was knowledge, whispered in the tongues of the long-dead, in languages lost to time. It clawed at their thoughts, filled their heads with ancient memories, fragmented and maddening.

  One by one, they faltered.

  Lyla staggered, her staff wavering in her grip. Monsoonlet out a strangled whimper and collapsed, his body shuddering as if held in unseen chains. The others gritted their teeth, their eyes glazing over as the spectral voices burrowed into their consciousness, threatening to root them in place.

  Only Cael seemed unaffected by the attack.

  The goblin moved like a shadow through the storm of decay. While the others reeled beneath the psychic weight of the Charnel Colossus’s dreadful chorus, he alone remained unshaken. His mind resisted the seething tide of ancient voices clawing at his thoughts. He had no use for the suffering of the long dead.

  His grip tightened around the hilt of his dagger, its slender form gleaming with a venomous sheen. A lesser blade would have been useless against such an abomination. The Charnel Colossus was no singular creature—it was a conjoined nightmare, an amalgam of rotting flesh and restless souls bound into a singular will. Blades and arrows might cut through its limbs, but what was one severed corpse to a being made of hundreds?

  Cael did not hesitate. He launched himself forward, his body a blur as he darted through the shifting mass of clawing hands and writhing bodies. A massive limb of tangled corpses swung toward him, but he twisted beneath it, barely avoiding the grasp of skeletal fingers that reached for him like the desperate hands of drowning men. The stench of decay was suffocating, the air thick with the unnatural weight of death magic.

  Then he struck.

  His dagger flashed once, twice, a blur of precise movements as he slashed through the nearest body that made up the creature’s bulk. The blade bit deep, and where it met undead flesh, something unnatural happened. The venomous magic woven into the weapon flared to life, spreading like wildfire. The corpse he had struck withered in an instant, blackening, crumbling into dust, as though centuries of decay had consumed it in mere moments. It was as though the remnant of the Heralds power that had been sealed into the dagger remembered that undead had opposed its entry into this world and held a nasty grudge about it.

  A portion of the Colossus’s mass sloughed away, the body that had been a part of its greater whole now nothing more than an empty husk collapsing into the dirt. But the monstrosity did not falter.

  Cael moved again, another strike carving through a twisted ribcage, another body withering into oblivion. Each stab of his dagger erased another fragment of the creature’s existence—but that was all it was. A fragment.

  For every corpse destroyed, a hundred more remained.

  The Charnel Colossus did not bleed. It did not flinch. It did not recoil from pain. It simply adapted, shifting its mass, filling the gaps where Cael had struck with fresh bodies from within its writhing form. The poison was absolute—it destroyed whatever it touched—but the Colossus was not one creature. It was many. And for all of Cael’s skill, he could not kill it fast enough.

  A grotesque hand, twisted and gnarled with bone protrusions, lashed out toward him. He leapt back, but a second limb followed—a thick tendril of fused torsos that lashed at him like a whip. He was forced to his bracelet to blink out of existence for a moment as the ground where he had stood cracked beneath the impact.

  He reappeared where the tendril had been a second before, breathing heavily. It was pointless. This was not an enemy he could fell with a single strike. Even if he kept cutting, it would only buy them moments.

  He turned his gaze toward the battlefield. Jack was on his knees, clutching his head as though to block out the whispered voices that echoed in his mind. Lyla had collapsed, her fingers slack around her staff. Monsoon and Goldeyes both lay motionless, their breath ragged. His companions were succumbing, their wills breaking beneath the weight of the Charnel Colossus’s unholy presence.

  They would all die if they did not move.