Ignarok’s chamber had never been quiet. Not truly.

  The endless roar of the magmafall echoed like a distant war drum, ever-present, ever-patient. Rivers of molten stone coiled through trenches beside the obsidian racing track, glowing brighter than they ever had before. Now, the heat wasn’t just for show.

  Now, it was the last refuge of Golem’s Gambit.

  The retreat had been costly, but they’d made it.

  Barely.

  The doors behind them slammed shut one by one as the last defenses fell. The once-sprawling raceway was gone now, sectioned off by collapses, flooding, and fire. What remained—this room—was not a stage for victory. It was a battleground of desperation.

  But the minions were alive.

  Somehow, against every horrifying odd, they were still standing.

  Caldron had arrived first, carried between two damaged constructs. Sparks danced along his armor. His staff—once a refined tool of precision disruption—was cracked and flickering. He muttered about magnetic fields and how the “Thundertickler” needed more spite runes before slumping against a barricade.

  Kagejin came next, hobbling out of the shadows. His armor was burned, a blade missing, blood trailing behind him—but his remaining weapon was sharp, and his eyes sharper. He nodded once and vanished into a high perch near the room’s edge, already preparing another ambush.

  Zyrris arrived in eerie silence, drifting into the room like a falling star. His robes were tattered, and his glow dim, but his presence steadied the room. Without a word, he moved to the center platform and began carving slow, complex runes into the air.

  Then the footsteps. Heavy. Dragging.

  Ferron emerged, coated in ichor and soot. His axe was chipped, his shoulder trailing fluid, but he was upright. He trudged into the room, dropped the shattered head of a spore-creature at his feet, and growled, “Took a bite outta my leg. I returned the favor.”

  Brent’s glow hovered high above, dimmer than before—drawn, frayed from overextension, but unbroken.

  “Everyone accounted for,” Emil reported, voice strained. “Constructs positioned. Barrier wards at maximum threshold. We’re out of reinforcements. This is it.”

  Brent said nothing for a long moment. His vision swept over the wounded minions, the salvaged defenses, the glowing magma river.

  He hated this. Not the fight—but what it had cost them to get here.

  Then, the chamber rumbled.

  A deep vibration, low and ancient, pulsed through the obsidian floor. One by one, the minions turned to the far end of the chamber, where the magmafall poured like a curtain of fire.

  From behind it, he stirred.

  Ignarok.

  The boss of the first floor. The ancient guardian of the chamber. A mountain in motion.

  He rose to full height, molten steam venting from the plates that lined his chest and shoulders. His form was a fortress of magma-veined obsidian, every movement accompanied by the groaning protest of ancient stone. His eyes—twin crucibles—burned brighter now than they ever had. He had heard the battle. Felt the dungeon’s pain.

  And now… he was ready.

  Brent pulsed a signal toward the far wall.

  From the corridor beyond came the sound of war: screeching stalkers, thunderous steps, the slither and skitter of creatures too unnatural to name.

  The Verdant Depths had arrived.

  Ferron stepped forward beside the magma river, his stance ragged but ready. “Been waitin’ for ‘em.”

  “Constructs,” Emil called, “brace and lock shields. Form behind the magma channel. Let them come to us.”

  Brent dimmed. Then brightened. A whisper through the dungeon’s voice. “They wanted a war… let’s give them one.”

  The doors blew open.

  The first wave poured through—vine-stalkers, fungal chargers, and twisted dryads. Behind them, lumbering shapes pushed forward, hunched fungal beasts trailing black smoke and spores. They expected a slaughter. They expected a weakened force.

  They did not expect Ignarok.

  The great golem stepped forward, each motion a tectonic event. One massive foot crushed the obsidian track beneath it. The molten seams along his arms glowed brighter, flaring with inner pressure. He let out a bellowing, furnace-deep roar.

  And then he charged.

  No ceremony. No delay. Just raw, volcanic fury.

  The first creature didn’t even make it through the doorway. Ignarok tore it in half with his bare hands and hurled the pieces into the magma. Another tried to leap—he caught it midair and crushed it with a single clap of his hands, leaving nothing but pulp and ash.

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  A brute charged him, larger than the others. Ignarok reached down, ripped molten rock from the floor, and hurled it into the beast’s chest. It exploded in a blossom of fire and splinters.

  The entire room shook with each of his strikes.

  Every time his fist came down, something died.

  This was why the enemy had avoided him.

  This was the fire they feared.

  Behind him, the other minions roared and surged forward. Constructs locked shields. Caldron reactivated what little power he had, sending jolt after jolt of electrical pulse into the tide. Zyrris raised one hand, and a blast of arcane energy carved through a pack of stalkers like a scythe through weeds. Kagejin descended in a whirl of steel, cutting tendons and vanishing before they could counter.

  Even now, wounded and exhausted—they fought.

  Because behind them was the heart of their home.

  And Ignarok had just reminded the Verdant Depths—You don’t enter this dungeon without consequences.

  For a time, it looked like they might actually win. That they could hold them back.

  The chamber was a furnace of violence, a crucible where metal met root, fire met fungus, and the will of Golem’s Gambit burned brighter than ever.

  Ignarok fought like a force of nature, his molten fists pounding through walls of enemy flesh. The stone beneath his feet cracked and buckled, but still he stood—unshakable, each movement churning with fury.

  Around him, the minions rallied.

  Ferron fought at the front, his axe cleaving low and wide, carving stalkers like wheat beneath a scythe. Every swing left another enemy ruined. Every breath was a growl through clenched metal teeth.

  Zyrris rained arcane ruin from above, his magic forming concentric ripples of starlight that collapsed fungal beasts into flickering ash.

  Caldron, still barely functioning, had rerouted half of his systems into a resonance node. He jolted clusters of invaders with wild arcs of electric chaos, laughing hoarsely every time he fried something twice his size.

  Even the constructs, battered and broken, held the lines with unthinking loyalty.

  The Verdant Depths had expected to steamroll a broken dungeon. What they’d found was a wall of heat and pain.

  But they’d also come prepared.

  It began as a shift in the air.

  Zyrris was the first to sense it—a quiet draining, a subtle wrongness that pulsed beneath the stone.

  Then it hit.

  The temperature dropped—not abruptly, but steadily. The radiant heat that had poured from the magma channels began to dull, like someone had turned down the core of the forge. Steam thinned. Magma lost its luster.

  “Ignarok,” Brent pulsed, sharp and urgent. “I’m losing power flow to your room. Something’s interfering with the geothermal channels.”

  The giant golem paused mid-swing, then staggered slightly as one of his fists dimmed—cooling.

  From the shattered doorway, a new wave approached. These weren’t like the others.

  They moved slow, deliberate. Their forms were wrapped in moss-covered bark and draped in woven vines, but embedded within their chests were pulsing green crystal cores—each one emitting a constant, dull hum.

  “They’re… siphoning the heat,” Emil said, stunned. “They’re feeding off the magma.”

  The creatures stopped at the edge of the magma river. Their cores pulsed. And then—they drank.

  Vines extended into the molten flow and glowed brightly, leeching the heat, solidifying channels of once-molten stone into hardened crust.

  Ignarok roared and slammed his fist into the floor—but it landed with a dull thud. No fire burst up. No crack of volcanic energy. Just cold stone.

  His power was being choked.

  “No—no, no, no,” Brent said, furiously pulsing through the system. “They’re grounding the elemental flow. It’s not just geothermal—they’re severing him from his elemental matrix!”

  Ignarok tried to charge, but the vines tangled around his legs. He tore through them, slower now, but the damage was done. Each movement cost more. Each strike was weaker. He burned… but only dimly.

  And with him—the tide began to shift.

  More enemies poured in.

  Zyrris staggered mid-flight, overwhelmed by sheer numbers. His focus cracked for a split second, and a fungal stalker leapt toward him. Only Kagejin’s blade stopped it, flashing from the shadows in a crimson arc.

  Ferron was forced to back up, his arms slowing from fatigue. The constructs at his side had dwindled to half a dozen, and each one was sparking violently. His axe dragged with every swing.

  Caldron collapsed to one knee, his energy flickering in and out. “My polarity’s… done. Systems failing. Still got a few zaps left, though…”

  The barricades began to crumble.

  The lines began to bend.

  And then—it returned.

  A deep, unnatural hum resonated through the chamber as a familiar green light gathered at the edge of the battlefield, forming in the air like mist coalescing into form.

  Brent dimmed, his core light flickering. “No…”

  Emil took a step closer to the platform’s edge, his jaw clenched tight.

  The light curled and twisted until the symbol of the Verdant Depths appeared again—a vine around a bleached skull, blooming midair like a herald of ruin.

  The magic pulsed once. And then again. And then—it spoke.

  “We warned you.”