The Eternal Grave World was wrong.

  The ground beneath my feet wasn’t earth or stone, but something compacted and brittle, like ash pressed into the shape of a battlefield. Each step left a faint impression that slowly filled itself back in, erasing proof I had ever been there.

  The sky hung low and colorless, stretched like a burial shroud. No sun. No stars. Just a dim, oppressive glow that offered no warmth.

  And standing across from me…

  A dark, familiar shape.

  Its small frame, the tiny antlers just beginning to sprout. The way it tilted its head, studying me with my own eyes.

  It was me.

  A shadowed reflection, edges blurred and form incomplete, yet heavier than anything else in this place.

  One danger had passed. Another waited directly in front of me.

  Worse still, time pressed in on me. An hour, at most.

  My consciousness was dragged into the Eternal Grave World, leaving my body behind. Vulnerable.

  If this happened before the Gravelurker entered hibernation, there would be no coming back from it.

  There were no weapons here. No spells. Only fists.

  And fear.

  The shadow sensed it immediately. It leaned into it, drank it in, its form growing heavier, more solid. The ash beneath its feet darkened, compacting further, while the ground beneath mine softened, threatening to give way.

  “Still running,” it said.

  My voice.

  Thin. Flat.

  The sky seemed to sink lower, the distance between us tightening without either of us moving.

  Thud.

  Crack.

  Our blows collided again and again, each impact echoing too loudly in the hollow world. Every strike I landed was returned harder, as if the Grave itself favored the other me.

  My arms burned. My breath tore from my chest.

  The shadow leaned close.

  “You always hit first,” it murmured. “Because you’re afraid of what happens if you stop.”

  The ground rippled.

  Behind it, the ash rose and reshaped itself, forming figures half-buried and unfinished.

  Alwen.

  The Ironwood team.

  Vallen Raenhir. Elder Val’darion. Others I had trained beside.

  Even Sam.

  They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Their faces twisted, not in anger, but in quiet disgust. One by one, they turned away and sank back into the ash, leaving only empty impressions behind.

  Pain clenched around my chest. My breath hitched, shallow and sharp. Something cold coiled through my veins, draining strength from my limbs.

  The shadow struck.

  Its fist slammed into my temple, snapping my vision sideways. I stumbled, catching myself just before the world swallowed me.

  But as the cold ash reached my waist, I felt a spark of heat. Not from Mana, but from a raw, stubborn refusal to end here. I didn't need to be "right" to keep fighting. I just needed to be louder than the silence. I planted my palms against the shifting earth and forced my weight upward, my teeth baring in a snarl that belonged to no one but me.

  [Willpower exceeds 100. Eternal Grave World effects reduced]

  The ground beneath my hands hardened.

  “No,” I said hoarsely.

  The shadow tilted its head again, faint amusement flickering across its indistinct face.

  “Liar.”

  I lunged forward and drove my fist into its chest. My arm plunged into dense shadow, resistance fighting me every inch of the way. A distorted scream tore through the air, and the sky above fractured with jagged cracks of pale light.

  The world broke.

  The road stretched ahead of me. A car drifted across the lane.

  The shadow’s voice followed me into the memory.

  “You saw it coming.”

  Glass exploded. Metal folded inward. The impact crushed the air from my lungs.

  My father lay twisted in the wreckage, blood spreading beneath him in slow, creeping lines. His eyes were open. Still aware.

  My mother screamed.

  The memory trembled.

  “You didn’t save him.”

  Tears blurred my vision. My hands shook violently as I wrapped my arms around myself, nails digging in, grounding myself in the now.

  “I can do this,” I whispered.

  The shadow stood at the edge of the scene, half-formed.

  “You said that before.”

  The memory collapsed.

  I surged forward as the Grave World reassembled around us. The sky cracked further, fragments of it falling away into endless black. The shadow’s movements slowed, its form fraying at the edges.

  I pressed the attack. Fists, elbows, knees. Whatever I could use.

  I bit down hard.

  My teeth sank into its shoulder. No taste. No warmth. Just resistance.

  The shadow mirrored me instantly.

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  Pain exploded along my arm as its teeth clamped into my flesh. I snarled but refused to let go.

  “See?” it whispered against my ear. “You only survive by hurting yourself.”

  Ash exploded outward as I tore free.

  Memories tried to follow.

  White hospital walls. Endless nights.

  A door opening to silence, and my mother hanging, eyes empty.

  Voices of relatives, cold and distant, deciding my future without me.

  A cramped room. Bare walls. The last place that was mine.

  “No,” I growled.

  I attacked with everything I had left. My fists split skin. My knuckles burned. Pain screamed up my arms.

  This time, the shadow staggered.

  “You can’t erase me,” it said, voice breaking apart.

  “I don’t need to,” I replied.

  I drove my fist through its chest.

  The world went still.

  The sky sealed itself. The ground hardened completely.

  [Exited Eternal Grave World]

  A violent jolt ripped through me as my consciousness slammed back into my body.

  Pain followed instantly.

  Sticky strands wrapped around my limbs and torso, digging into my skin like a second layer of flesh. I tried to inhale. Barely managed it. The web tightened with every movement, unyielding, suffocating.

  I clawed at it with trembling hands, muscles screaming as I forced myself to move.

  [Warning: Mana depleted. HP will gradually decrease]

  Drainweaver Web.

  The Gravelurker’s final trap.

  The moment a target was bound, its Mana was drained empty. After that, the web began feeding directly on life itself. No external help. No shortcuts. If you couldn’t break free on your own, you died.

  My health had barely dropped. I’d exited the Eternal Grave early.

  I turned my head, forcing my vision to focus. Muradin. Darwyn. Orin. Elena. All of them lay bound in identical webs, unmoving.

  My fingers closed around Muradin’s fallen axe, wrenching it free as I dragged myself upright, the web tearing loose strand by strand.

  No time to think.

  Druid Warrior Mode.

  I seized a second axe and hurled myself forward.

  Steel crashed into chitin as I unleashed a relentless storm of blows, a wordless roar tearing free from my throat.

  The Gravelurker didn’t even stir.

  Worse, it healed.

  Flesh knit itself back together faster than I could tear it apart.

  “Eryndor…?” a voice rasped.

  Orin.

  I didn’t slow. “Use it. Now!”

  She didn’t ask questions, already reaching for what she’d just made.

  [Blightroot Draught used]

  A sickly pulse rippled through the Gravelurker’s massive body. Its regeneration stuttered and slowed, just enough to matter.

  If it recovered even half its health, phase two would reset.

  And we wouldn’t survive that.

  This was it.

  I tightened my grip on the axes and drove forward again.

  ***

  Minutes blurred into a haze of rhythmic, agonizing violence.

  Every swing of the axes felt like pulling my arms through setting concrete. The cavern smelled of ozone and the sour, rotting stench of the Blightroot Draught as it ate away at the Gravelurker's armor. I wasn't fighting like a warrior anymore. I was a machine, fueled by the terrifying silence of the bodies behind me.

  A gasp broke through the sound of steel on chitin.

  Darwyn. He surged out of the web, clawing at his throat and coughing up grey mist. He fumbled for his bow with fingers that shook so violently he dropped his first arrow.

  "Keep... hitting it," he croaked, his voice a ghost of itself.

  Then came Muradin, a low, guttural groan echoing off the walls ten minutes later. He dragged his heavy frame across the stone by his elbows.

  But the air remained heavy. Every time I glanced back, Elena’s form was still, the white silk of the web glowing like a funeral shroud.

  Twenty-five minutes. That was all she had.

  We pushed ourselves past exhaustion. Darwyn loosed arrow after arrow despite the tremor in his arms, fighting on through sheer will. Muradin staggered as he stood, breath ragged and blood matting his beard, yet he swung the Storm Breaker with defiance. Orin drove her staff into the creature’s shell again and again, her expression set in fierce, shaking resolve.

  And still, the thought gnawed at all of us.

  Elena.

  Ten minutes left. Her body remained limp.

  Seven.

  Five.

  With only two minutes remaining, a movement.

  Darwyn’s breath hitched. He choked on the words. “Elena? Elena, look at me!”

  Muradin let out a weak, breathless laugh. “Next time… try not to scare us half to death.”

  Orin let out a ragged sob of relief, and I could only manage a strained smile as the tension finally cracked.

  “I-I’m sorry,” Elena stammered. She was pale, her eyes haunted by whatever she had seen in the Grave, but she didn’t hesitate. She forced herself upright and stepped back into the fray.

  With our final member rejoining the fight, the balance shifted. The Gravelurker’s regeneration faltered under our combined assault.

  But it wasn’t finished.

  With a deafening shriek, the monster surged upright, massive claws crackling with Mana once more as it prepared to strike.

  ***

  We endured several more agonizing minutes under the Gravelurker’s relentless fury.

  One by one, we fell.

  Darwyn collapsed first. His body lay twisted on the stone, arms bent at wrong angles, both broken beyond doubt. His head lolled to the side, eyes half-lidded, jaw clenched so tightly I could hear his teeth grinding through the noise of battle.

  Muradin followed soon after. He staggered, then dropped to one knee, coughing hard. Fresh blood sprayed across the floor with each rasping breath. The wounds he’d brushed off earlier were finally taking their due.

  Orin didn’t fall so much as fold. She slumped against a jagged outcrop, staff slipping from her fingers as her eyes fluttered shut.

  And me.

  I stayed upright through stubbornness alone. My vision swam, the world narrowing at the edges. Every breath felt like hauling air through waterlogged lungs.

  Only Elena remained standing.

  Her slender frame shook with exhaustion. Blood ran freely down her arms from cuts she clearly hadn’t felt yet. But her eyes never left the Gravelurker. They burned with determination.

  “You’re not taking them,” she whispered, voice tight. “Not while I’m still breathing.”

  She loosed another arrow.

  Then another.

  Every shot struck the same place, the Gravelurker’s last functioning eye.

  The beast shrieked, thrashing wildly, its grotesque limbs tearing gouges through stone as it tried to shield itself.

  “Elena!” My warning came out as little more than air.

  She didn’t need it.

  She twisted aside, dropped low, rolled beneath a sweeping limb. Her movements were raw instinct. No finesse left, only survival.

  Another arrow snapped into place.

  “Fall,” she said under her breath.

  She released.

  The arrow drove straight into the eye.

  The Gravelurker unleashed a roar that shook the cavern to its foundations. Its legs buckled. The glow in its final eye dimmed, flickered once… then went out.

  The massive body crashed down, stone cracking beneath its weight.

  A blinding surge of light erupted from its core.

  Final.

  For a long moment, none of us moved.

  “Is it…” Muradin wheezed through bloodied teeth. “Is it dead?”

  Elena didn’t answer.

  She dropped her bow and rushed to Darwyn’s side. Her hands trembled as she gently repositioned his shattered arms, jaw clenched tight.

  “Don’t scream,” she said softly.

  Darwyn did anyway. A strangled, raw sound that echoed painfully off the cavern walls.

  “Love you too, brother.”

  I forced my head up despite the agony flaring through my spine. “We… we did it,” I murmured. “But… did it drop anything?”

  Dust still drifted through the air as Elena approached the vanished corpse. Her steps were slow, cautious, like she didn’t trust the stillness.

  Then she stopped.

  “Guys,” she said quietly. “You should see this.”

  She knelt and lifted two items from the ground, their glow reflecting in her wide eyes.

  “A Soul Fragment,” she breathed. “And the Webweaver Longbow.”

  For a second, none of us spoke.

  Muradin coughed weakly. “Two drops?” He shook his head. “That’s… that’s not right.”

  Darwyn let out a broken laugh. “Did… Orin’s luck… still work?”

  I glanced at Orin’s unconscious form and let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Of course it did.”

  Even now.

  Unbelievable.