Ronan and Kael heaved the doors apart.

  Stone groaned. Dust spilled from the seams.

  Beyond them, the chamber opened at once.

  A massive red mana crystal dominated the space, suspended and pulsing with violent intensity. Its light throbbed through the chamber like a living heart. Vauren stood before it, hands pressed to its surface, shoulders rigid as power coursed through him.

  Ronan’s breath caught.

  “We stop him. Now—”

  The instant the Vault doors finish grinding open, Eis doesn’t hesitate.

  She raises her crossbow, sights along the vibrating line of the ley-illuminated chamber—

  —and fires.

  The bolt cuts through the roaring light like a streak of silver, spinning past the storm of fractured mana and slamming straight into Vauren’s temple.

  His head snaps sideways, blood and sparks spraying into the column of radiance behind him.

  The ley channel stutters.

  The Vault’s pulse hiccups.

  For one perfect heartbeat, Vauren falters.

  He turns to where the bolt came from. His eyes landed on the adventurers but one person caught his attention— Eis.

  “You,” Vauren stared. “What are you? That perfect mana flow, you can’t be human.”

  Red crossed his vision. Blood from where the bolt struck him. And Vauren’s eyes finally left Eis.

  Then the Vault answers his pain.

  Six distorted figures drop from the upper platforms—

  —warped silhouettes shuddering as ley-light leaks through their skin.

  Their eyes burn with the same unnatural glow as the relic fused to Vauren’s hand.

  Mutated humans.

  His new guard.

  Vauren does not look at them.

  He simply murmurs:

  “Protect your master.”

  They charge.

  Ronan moves first—

  charging straight to intercept the nearest mutant before it reaches Eis.

  His shield smashes into its chest with brutal force, sending the creature sliding across the glowing floor.

  Before it regains footing, Ronan’s blade comes down in a sharp diagonal cut—clean, efficient, practiced.

  One down.

  Two others lunge for Ronan’s flank—

  —but Kael’s arrows whistle through the Vault’s haze before they can close.

  Thwick.

  The first takes an arrow through the throat.

  Thwick.

  The second through the eye.

  They crumple in jerking spasms, mana leaking like blue smoke from the wounds.

  Kael reloads instantly.

  “Three left!”

  Those remaining rush as a group—feral, fast, coordinated in a horrifying parody of tactics.

  Lira slams her staff into the floor.

  “Ward Pulse!”

  A shockwave of golden energy bursts outward, staggering all three mutants and peeling a layer of mana off their corrupted bodies.

  Their movements falter—just enough.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Now!” she calls.

  Eis drops her crossbow.

  Twin blades flash into her hands with a vicious whisper of steel.

  She meets the fourth mutant head-on.

  A descending slash takes its forearm.

  A rising arc removes its jaw.

  The final stab—straight through the sternum—ends it.

  She pivots immediately as another lunges.

  Both blades sweep outward in a mirrored sweep—

  severing both its hamstrings in one precise motion.

  It collapses, shrieking through a broken throat.

  Eis’s follow-through silences it cleanly.

  The sixth creature, larger than the rest, charges straight toward Lira—

  —but Ronan body-checks it again, knocking it sideways.

  Kael’s arrow pins its foot to the ground.

  Lira throws a concentrated bolt of radiant force into its chest.

  It topples—

  —straight into Eis’s waiting blades.

  One clean cross-slash.

  Head and shoulders separate.

  Silence falls for half a second.

  Team Argent regroups around her, breathing hard, eyes flicking toward Vauren.

  Ronan wipes blood from his cheek.

  “That’s the last of them. Go.”

  Kael nods sharply.

  “We’ve got your flank.”

  Lira’s hands glow, ready to shield or strike.

  The path to Vauren is clear.

  Eis and Ronan rush him together—

  Eis from the side, Ronan from the front, blades low and ready.

  Vauren snarls, raising one trembling hand.

  “You don’t belong here, construct!”

  Eis slides under the searing arc of his spell.

  “Neither do you.”

  Her right blade opens his ribs.

  Ronan’s sword crosses with hers from the opposite angle—two perfect, practiced motions.

  Vauren’s warding barrier cracks like thin glass under their combined assault.

  He staggers, blood glowing blue.

  “You think steel can sever a conduit of the ley?” he spits.

  Eis steps in closer, crossing her blades in a scissor-lock beneath his guard.

  “I don’t need to kill you. I only need to break your link.”

  His eyes flare with manic light.

  “Then let the ley judge you—”

  The Vault convulses.

  Three massive spectral arms burst from the crystal behind him, smashing down in wild arcs. Mana pulsing out with each swing.

  Ronan is hurled backward, shield barely absorbing the brunt.

  Kael’s next volley vaporizes midair from raw mana heat.

  Lira’s barrier flares brilliantly, sheltering them from the shockwave.

  Eis alone cuts through the chaos, the mana flowing around her just like when she first reached the vault.

  Spectral arms whip around her, walls of energy explode by her sides—

  —but she moves through the storm like a shadow with its own gravity.

  Her blades ring as she deflects a burst. Mana continuing to flow around her instead of pushing her back.

  She advances on Vauren step by step.

  The spectral arms lash outward—

  She dives under one, rolls across fractured stone, and slashes upward—

  Both blades carve deep into the spell-thread anchoring his left side.

  The spectral limb shatters in a cascade of collapsing runes.

  Vauren falls to one knee, clutching his shoulder.

  “You… can’t… win—”

  He reaches for the pillar—

  for the conduit crystal fused to the Vault’s heart.

  Eis is already moving.

  Kael fires, arrows ripping apart a pair of auxiliary pylons.

  Lira throws healing light into Ronan’s body, pulling him upright.

  Ronan charges, staggered but unstoppable.

  Eis leaps.

  Both blades rise above her—

  —and she drives them straight through the conduit crystal embedded in Vauren’s chest.

  The crystal screams.

  The pillar explodes in a burst of white-gold fire.

  Everyone is blown back by the explosion.

  Vauren is thrown backward and collides with the wall, lifeless before he hits the ground.

  Ronan stumbles over, chest heaving.

  “Eis… you still standing?”

  She retrieves both blades, sliding them back into their sheaths.

  “Yes.”

  Lira kneels near the dais, inspecting the sigils as they dim and stabilize.

  “We stopped whatever he was doing. The ley line is settling.”

  Kael lowers his bow.

  “No more mutated thralls.”

  Eis surveys the chamber.

  Quiet now.

  Calm.

  Alive in a different way.

  “No more surprises, hopefully.” she says.