The transition was violent and painful. It was like a physical compression, as if the universe had grabbed Elias by the guts and squeezed hard.

  As he entered the latest realm, his boots sank deeply into a layer of warm, viscous muck that coated the chamber floor. He waited for the fetid air to hit his lungs, but instead it clung to him, heavy and wet, instantly coating his armour in a dirty film of condensation. He slammed his visor shut; the metal clanged dully against his gorget, but even that did little to stop the reek. It was a concentrated, soup-like atmosphere composed of sulphur, methane, and the sickly-sweet, cloying scent of holy incense, losing the battle against the stench of raw sewage.

  [ZONE: PYRELIGHT WARRENS] [HAZARD: TOXIC FUMES / VOLATILE GAS]

  "Clear the gate!" Elias barked, his voice distorted by the helm’s faceplate.

  He waded forward, the sludge sucking at his greaves. Thorne emerged behind him, gagging audibly as she nearly slipped on the slick masonry. She grabbed a rusted pipe for support; her hand came away coated in black grease.

  "Oh, that is foul," she choked out, pulling her cowl up over her nose and mouth. "It tastes like a perfumed corpse." Elias's side eye gave her pause, and she stuck out her tongue.

  Veyra stepped through; her bark armour reacted instantly to the damp, swelling slightly. The scouts followed close behind—Oaken first, his heavy stone-arm splashing deep into the murk, looking solid and stoic. Briar came last, light on her feet, immediately pulling her moss-mask tight against her face to filter the air.

  Cindersnarl slunk out, shaking his massive head. The water hissed against his ember-wreathed fur, creating a low, constant halo of steam around him. Solari drifted down from the low, arched ceiling, her light retracting into a tight, protective sphere.

  "This is not a holy place," Solari whispered. "It is a bowel."

  Elias scanned the perimeter. They were in a circular junction where steam hissed aggressively from battered flanges. Immediately, a wave of blistering heat rolled down the tunnel, but the Bastion-Breaker Plate reacted. As the temperature spiked, Elias felt a cool, tingling sensation ripple across the metal. The Aether-Balm infusion inside the steel woke up, the living spores expanding to drink the thermal energy.

  "Don't breathe deeply," Elias warned. "The Order burns 'Divine Incense' to purify the waste, but it's hallucinogenic. Oaken, Briar—watch the rear. Don't let the fumes get to you."

  "The stone here is dead," Oaken rumbled, his voice grinding like gravel. "It does not remember the mountain; it remembers only waste."

  "Then we move fast," Elias said. "Veyra, check the water."

  Veyra touched the iridescent film floating on the surface. "Oil. And accelerant. The water is flammable."

  "The Order have weaponised the plumbing," Elias noted. "Watch your sparks. We don't want to blow the floor out before we even start."

  They moved deeper. The tunnel narrowed, forcing them into a staggered file.

  Click.

  Veyra stopped and held up a fist. Elias froze. The heavy Star-Steel plate weighed him down, holding him perfectly still in the dark. He listened.

  Shuffle. Drag. Gurgle.

  Footsteps: heavy, wet, and uncoordinated. And beneath that, a sound like a kettle boiling.

  "To the front," Veyra whispered. "Three targets, around the bend."

  Elias moved up and peered around the corner. Three figures were shambling through the knee-deep sludge. They wore tattered crimson robes, stained black with mould. Their skin was pale and distended, tight as a drum. But the worst part was the light. Inside their chests, glowing through the stretched skin, was a pulsing orange core.

  [ENEMY: PURGEBEARER] [TYPE: VOLATILE UNDEAD] [THREAT: EXPLOSIVE DECOMPOSITION]

  "Walking bombs," Elias realised. "Gas buildup. If we puncture them, the pressure release triggers a thermal event."

  "So don't stab them," Thorne whispered. "Great."

  "Briar, hold your fire," Elias ordered softly. "No arrows. If you pierce the casing, they blow. We need to disable the core without breaching."

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "I can hold them," Veyra said. "Roots."

  "Do it. Thorne, hit the lead one with a Kinetic Pulse. Bowl them over. Oaken, shield the team if one goes off."

  The lead Purgebearer saw them. Its jaw unhinged, revealing a mouth dripping with black sludge. It began to glow brighter. It was priming.

  "Now!"

  Veyra slammed her staff into the muck. Roots erupted from the sewer water, wrapping around the legs of the two Purgebearers at the rear.

  "Thorne! Hit it!"

  Thorne thrust her palm forward.

  THOOM.

  The pulse hit the lead monk in the chest. It flew backwards, airborne, and slammed into the two trapped behind it. They went down in a tangle of limbs.

  "Solari! Flash-Blind!"

  Solari flared. A burst of pure, hard light filled the tunnel. The Purgebearers shrieked. The light overloaded their senses, interrupting the detonation sequence. The glow in their chests dimmed.

  Elias charged. He moved with the momentum of a freight train. He thumbed the switch on Dawnfall.

  Click. [STANCE: MERCY]

  The blade turned a calm, verdant green. He slammed the flat of the Mercy Edge into the neck of the pile-up.

  [SAPROOT CLEANSING: TRIGGERED]

  Green light washed over the volatile undead. It didn't ignite the gas; it neutralised the magic animating it. The Purgebearers went limp, deflating like punctured lungs.

  "Clear," Elias breathed.

  "Efficient," Oaken grunted, stepping over the corpses with his massive stony legs. "Messy, but efficient."

  They reached a junction where the sewer widened into a maintenance gallery. A heavy iron grate blocked the path forward. Beyond it lay the Cistern. But the lever to open the grate was missing, and the floor between them and the gate looked… wrong.

  "Hold," Veyra said.

  The flagstones in front of the grate were slightly depressed. Faint scorch marks lined the cracks.

  [TRAP DETECTED: DIVINE FLAME VENT]

  "Pressure plates," Elias said. "Step on the wrong stone, get cooked."

  Elias looked at the walls. He saw a series of small, rune-etched valves running along the pipework near the ceiling.

  "Hydraulic regulator," he said. "If we freeze that valve, the pressure should drop. The trap deactivates."

  He tapped his helmet, activating [Luminant Bloom] vision. The valve glowed an angry red high up the wall.

  "I can't reach it," Thorne said.

  "Oaken," Elias said, turning to the massive scout. "I need a lift."

  Oaken nodded. He interlaced his fingers—one flesh, one living stone. He braced his legs in the sewage. Elias stepped into the handhold. Oaken heaved. He launched Elias upwards with the force of a catapult. Elias grabbed the pipe, swinging his legs up. He pulled a flask of [Frost Vial] from his belt.

  "Cooling down."

  He smashed the vial against the valve.

  CRACK-HISS.

  Ice bloomed instantly. The red lines in his vision turned blue. The hissing of the steam pipes stopped. The floor plates settled with a metallic clunk.

  [TRAP DISABLED]

  Elias dropped to the floor. "Door's open."

  He pushed the grate. It swung outwards, and they stepped inside the Cistern.

  The Cistern was a vast, circular chamber with dark, oily water reaching up to their knees. A narrow stone walkway ringed the edge. In the centre, on a raised dais, stood a figure in crimson robes wearing a golden mask shaped like a weeping sun.

  [MINI-BOSS ENCOUNTER: BONEWARD PRIEST]

  The Priest saw them and slammed his staff onto the platform, causing the water to boil.

  "Movement!" Briar shouted, nocking an arrow. "In the water!"

  Shapes rose from the muck—skeletons coated in Divine Gold, metal fused to bone.

  [ENEMY: GILDED REVENANT]

  "They plated the skeletons," Thorne groaned.

  "Oaken, Briar, hold the walkway!" Elias ordered. "Don't let them flank us! Thorne, suppress the Priest! Veyra, Cindersnarl, with me!"

  Elias thumbed the switch.

  Click. [STANCE: JUSTICE]

  The blade flared red. The Revenants clambered onto the walkway. Oaken met the first, smashing it with his stone arm. The gold plating crunched. Briar fired rapid shots into the joints of the second, slowing it down.

  Elias charged the dais. Two Revenants blocked his path. Cindersnarl hit the left one, knocking it into the water. Elias took on the right, thrusting Dawnfall through its gilded ribcage.

  CRUNCH.

  The fire enchantment detonated inside the skeleton, blowing it apart. Elias leaped onto the dais. The Priest turned, raising his staff. Elias triggered [Luminant Bloom] from his chest piece.

  FLASH.

  A blinding burst of white light exploded from his armour. The Priest staggered. Elias didn't hesitate, switching stances mid-swing.

  Click. [STANCE: MERCY]

  He reversed the stroke, driving the pommel into the Priest’s mask.

  CRACK.

  The mask broke instantly, felling the priest. The summoning circle faded. The remaining Revenants in the water, cut off from their power source, collapsed into piles of scrap metal and wet bone.

  [TARGET NEUTRALISED] [LOOT: RITUAL GLYPH FRAGMENT (1/5)]

  Elias stood over the fallen Priest. He wasn't panting. He wasn't bleeding. He barely felt winded.

  "Zone clear," Elias said, his voice calm.

  He waited for the team to move up, but there was only silence. He turned. They were staring at him.

  Thorne had lowered her staff. She looked from the shattered lantern to the dead Priest, and then at Elias. Her expression wasn't just relief; it was disbelief bordering on alarm.

  "That was a Boneward Priest," Thorne said slowly. "A High Summoner. Initiate squads usually take twenty minutes to burn through their shields." She pointed at the corpse. "You took him apart in six seconds."

  "He had a vulnerability," Elias said, wiping slime from his pauldron. "I exploited it."

  "You didn't exploit it," Oaken rumbled, his stone face unreadable but his voice heavy with awe. "You erased him. I have seen landslides with less momentum."

  Veyra stepped onto the platform, her eyes scanning Elias as if looking for a stranger inside the armour. "The blade... the light... you have grown past the roots, Blade-bearer. You are becoming a storm."

  Thorne walked up to him, peering into his visor. "Seriously, Medic, are we even necessary? Or are you just bringing us along to carry the loot?"

  Elias sheathed his sword. The weight of it felt good—balanced, lethal. He knew he wasn't invincible; he knew what waited for them at the top of the mountain. But right now, in this sewer, he was the apex predator.

  "I need you to watch my back," Elias said, though a small, grim smile touched his lips inside the helm. "And someone has to complain about the smell."

  Thorne snorted, the tension breaking. "Fine. But next time, leave some for the rest of us. It’s bad for morale if the healer gets all the kills."

  Veyra pointed to a heavy chain lift at the back of the chamber. "That leads up to the Cloister," she said.

  "Then we go up," Elias said. "Out of the shit and into the fire."

  He stepped onto the lift. The air above smelled of smoke and bells.