The symbol of the Verdant Depths hovered in the air like a wound.

  Twisting vines. A bleached skull. A pulsing, unnatural green light that flickered like a heartbeat no longer tethered to life.

  The battle had slowed—just for a moment. As if even the invaders knew what was coming.

  From the heart of the sigil, a voice spoke. Deep. Slow. Reverberating through the stone like roots crawling into marrow.

  “Do you know what the world used to be, little spark?”

  Brent said nothing. His glow dimmed slightly in the Core Room, but it flickered—like someone preparing a punchline.

  The Verdant Depths continued.“It was quiet. Raw. Unrefined. Dungeons were holy in their hunger. They did not play. They did not entertain. They tested. They punished. And they were revered because of it.”

  “Then came... you.”

  “You, with your tracks and your races. With your spinning blades and your scoreboards. You turned legacy into laughter. The sacred made into spectacle. A mockery in marble and mana.”

  Brent finally spoke. “Aw, come on. I worked really hard on that scoreboard. You have any idea how long it takes to carve high scores into crystal with automatic runic tracking? It’s a solid week of tedium. And it even sparkles when you beat the record—did you see that part?”

  The voice pulsed louder. “You turned the purpose of a dungeon into a circus act.”

  “Circus? Nah. If this was a circus, Ferron would have a big red nose and a unicycle. And Emil would be selling popcorn. Actually, I might make that a room. Write that down, Emil.”

  The Warden gave him a flat look, but said nothing. Brent’s glow pulsed faintly with mischief.

  The Verdant Depths didn’t laugh.

  “You mock what you should fear. You mistake movement for strength. Flash for substance. You are not a dungeon—you are a jester in stone .”

  Brent’s glow shifted darker, but his voice didn’t waver. “If that’s your grand speech, I give it a six out of ten. Points for dramatic pacing. You kinda lost me after the second ‘sacred hunger’ bit. A little too much vine and not enough punch.”

  The sigil pulsed, hard. “You stand in defiance with your minions broken, your Core weakened, your traps spent. You call this victory? No… no, this is vanity. But it was never going to end any other way. Not after he came to me.”

  The Core Room went still.

  Even Emil turned slightly, as if something had cracked in the silence between pulses.

  Brent’s light dimmed.

  The Verdant Depths leaned in—figuratively, the magic curling like a whisper at the edge of rot.

  “Yes. He came. Shadow. He told me everything I needed to know. Every trap. Every turn. Every weakness in your arrogant little game. He told me how you would react. How you would hide behind your humor. How you would build illusions of loyalty and family instead of control. He told me how easy it would be to break you. ”

  Brent didn’t reply.

  Not immediately.

  The pain flickered for just a moment—barely a tremor—but it was there. A cold echo in his otherwise defiant glow.

  The voice pressed on, cruel and slow. “You built your dungeon on trust. On freedom. On hope. But he saw through it. And when he came to me, he asked only one thing. He asked to watch it all burn. ”

  The green light pulsed once more—brighter than before. The chamber trembled.

  Brent didn’t move. But his voice—when it came—was softer. Steadier.

  “…You know what? I’ve had worse breakups.”

  There was a beat of stunned silence.

  Emil glanced at him, a mix of confusion and awe.

  Brent continued. “I mean, sure, usually they don’t involve ancient god-plants trying to cave in my dungeon, but hey—Shadow always was a little dramatic.”

  The Verdant Depths pulsed sharply—angry now. “You mock even as you are undone. What do you have left but words?”

  Brent’s glow flickered again—tired, yes, but defiant.

  “Sometimes? Words are enough to get someone to swing just a little too wide.”

  “You will fall,” the voice growled.

  “Yeah, yeah. Heard that one before.”

  “And when your core shatters, I will make a garden of your ruins.”

  Brent dimmed. But not from fear.

  “…Then I hope you choke on the first root.”

  From beyond the barricades, the enemy surged again—renewed, enraged.

  The betrayal still echoed in the Core Room. Emil said nothing. Neither did Brent. But the silence said everything.

  He’d come to them. Shadow had come to them.

  And now… the last line was about to break.

  The walls were cracking. Not the stone—the people.

  Zyrris floated lower with every spell, his arcane weave unraveling at the edges. Caldron had collapsed completely, his field-core flickering as two constructs dragged him out of harm’s way, their limbs twitching from damage. Ferron’s armor was rent across one shoulder, ichor dripping in rhythmic taps onto the floor as he held his axe more like a crutch than a weapon.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Kagejin was nowhere to be seen.

  And Ignarok, the last great juggernaut of Golem’s Gambit, stood locked in combat against a tide that simply wouldn’t stop. The heat around him had all but faded, the magma in his arms dim and sluggish. His fists still swung, but there was no eruption—only the dull thud of metal hitting flesh.

  Even the magmafall had begun to slow, its roar reduced to a faint hiss as the enemy’s siphoning creatures drew power from the heart of the room.

  And above it all, the voice remained.

  Watching. Whispering. Gloating. “You gave them hope,” the Verdant Depths murmured, its magic curling through the air like rot. “You fed them dreams of freedom. And now, you will watch them die knowing you chose to be weak.”

  Brent hovered in silence. His glow was faint now, his energy nearly spent, but his vision remained locked on every screen.

  “This is the truth, little spark. You were never one of us. You never understood the role of power. And now, you will be—”

  A pulse.

  A flicker.

  A disturbance.

  The Verdant Depths hesitated. “…What is that?”

  Brent blinked. “Wait.”

  A shape moved through the upper reaches of the chamber—a flicker of shadow, a ripple of distortion across the air like a mirage peeling itself free from reality.

  A figure landed in silence on the stone outcropping overlooking the battle. Cloak rippling, twin blades at his back, eyes glowing faintly beneath his hood.

  Shadow.

  The minions saw him and froze.

  Even Ferron paused mid-swing, bloodied and stunned.

  “Is that—” Zyrris began.

  But before anyone could speak, Shadow moved.

  He stepped forward with a smooth, impossible grace, his body fading briefly into smoke as he passed through the fractured defensive line and landed—lightly, effortlessly—at the edge of the magmafall.

  His hand lifted, fingers splaying wide.

  A single crystal flared in his palm—dark, violet-black with veins of red pulsing deep inside. Old magic. Forbidden magic. Dungeonborn.

  He slammed it into the stone.

  The effect was immediate.

  A shockwave of burning red erupted through the veins in the floor. The magma hissed once—then roared. The siphoning roots burned away, screaming as they recoiled from the reawakened heat.

  And Ignarok—Ignarok woke up.

  His entire frame lit like a forge stoked to life. Magma flooded through his arms and legs. His eyes flared to life like twin furnaces.

  He roared.

  And then he charged.

  The ground shattered beneath his feet. Every step was an earthquake. The first wave of fungal soldiers were incinerated by the heat alone—vaporized before they could react. A warded brute stepped forward to block him.

  And Ignarok ripped it in half with his bare hands, then hurled the pieces into the enemy’s second line with such force that two more were crushed beneath the debris.

  The battlefield erupted into chaos.

  The Verdant Depths flared, its green magic rippling with sudden instability. “…No.”

  Brent’s glow flared again, brighter than it had been in hours.

  For a moment, the chamber was fire and fury—Ignarok reborn in flame, tearing through the frontlines like a wrathful god of stone and magma.

  But above it all, the symbol of the Verdant Depths shuddered.

  And then it screamed. “YOU!”

  The green light pulsed with such force that the walls cracked. The rot in the stone twisted and buckled, as if recoiling from its master’s fury. “You dare—you dare betray ME?!”

  Shadow stood at the edge of the magmafall, casually brushing a fleck of ash from his shoulder. “You sound surprised. That’s disappointing. I really thought you’d seen through my whole ‘shifty assassin’ vibe.”

  “I GAVE YOU PURPOSE!” the Verdant Depths roared. “You CAME to me! You knelt before ME!”

  Shadow rolled his neck lazily. “Yeah. I also made a dramatic speech about ‘chains of order’ and ‘finding true darkness.’ Did you actually buy all that? I almost cracked myself up.”

  “You played me for a FOOL!”

  “I mean,” Shadow said, tapping his temple with one clawed finger, “you’re not wrong. But to be fair, you made it really easy. All I had to do was tell you what you wanted to hear. Which, by the way, was basically just ‘Brent’s a big softie with no killer instinct.’” He paused, then grinned. “Which, again, fair. But also… he’s got better friends.”

  The Verdant Depths' magic surged in wild spirals, veins of green lashing at the air like whips of hatred and pain.

  “I will END YOU!”

  Shadow’s grin widened. “Yeah, yeah. In line behind a lot of other angry voices. But before you do...”

  He reached into his pack and pulled out a second crystal. This one pulsed blue-white, brighter than anything in the room—raw energy distilled and coiled tight. The instant it appeared, Brent’s glow flared in response, the mana within him rising like a flood.

  Emil gasped. “That’s—Core Condensate. That’s dungeon-tier compressed mana. Where in the Void did he—”

  Brent didn’t ask. He just took it. The magic surged into the dungeon's veins, flooding through every sigil, every glyph, every dying light.

  He didn’t try to restore every trap. Didn’t pour it into constructs or infrastructure.

  He poured it into Zyrris.

  Above the battlefield, the Starbound Arcanist arched his back as the flood of energy hit him. The runes orbiting his body snapped out in wide spirals, each one bursting with stellar heat. His eyes went white. The constellations burned across his robes like living galaxies.

  He rose—high, above even the smoke and ruin—arms outstretched.

  And then, he unleashed.

  A pillar of starlight descended from the chamber ceiling, a roaring beam of white fire that carved through the enemy ranks like a divine judgment. Wherever it struck, the rot burned—not in flame, but in raw, cleansing brilliance.

  Zyrris moved like a comet. He flickered across the battlefield, warping space in his wake. Every gesture tore rifts in reality, collapsing fungal beasts into pockets of nothingness.

  Ignarok met him stride for stride, now fully recharged, his body a blazing engine of molten vengeance. Together, they cut through the invaders—fire and star, rage and order.

  The Verdant Depths screamed again, but the sound was desperate now.

  “You cannot stop me! I am eternal! I AM THE ROOT OF THE WORLD!”

  Shadow shrugged from his perch. “And I’m the knife in your back. Funny how that works.”

  With renewed energy pouring through the dungeon, the defenders surged.

  Ferron, invigorated by Zyrris’ magic, raised his axe and charged into the frontlines, cleaving through stalkers with surgical brutality.

  Caldron sputtered to life, laughing like a maniac as his polarity circuits reignited, turning the stone floor into a electric storm.

  Kagejin reappeared mid-dash, sliding beneath a brute’s legs and gutting it in one smooth motion before vanishing in a cloud of smoke and cinders.

  Even the remaining constructs rallied, reactivated by the returning power. They crashed into the enemy like clockwork titans, locking shields and spears, pushing back against the tide.

  Golem’s Gambit—broken, bloodied, and nearly lost—began to rise again.

  And the enemy… began to fall.