An arc of pure kinetic force blasted out from my eye almost faster than I could track. Truthfully, the only reason I could see it at all was [All-Seeing Eye]. Without the ability to see the mana imbued in the spell, I wasn't sure I'd be able to see the wickedly sharp crescent at all. It was colourless and nearly contourless. Only the slightest shimmer of lensing was visible as it passed.

  The spell scythed a meter-wide arc across the chamber and took the boss's tail clean off at the midpoint. The slice was so precise it looked like the snake had been rendered in a 3D modelling program and someone had deleted a segment; blue ichor sprayed the air, so fine it almost atomized, and the remainder of the tail slammed to the floor with a wet, rubbery splat. The snake convulsed, half rearing up, then toppled sideways, momentum dragging its ruined body in a spasm across the melting stone.

  Not the head. I'd aimed for just below the brain stem, but the shot had gone wide. Whether that was because the Skill was so new or the thing had jerked the moment before, or because I'd moved my focus just before or after casting, I didn't know. I filed it away for later attempts. The cost of the Spell was insane—my mana pool was hollowed out, a third gone in one blast—but the effect was undeniable. Raw, uncompressed violence with a razor's edge.

  [Edge Glare]. Yeah, it was going to need some work. I could see a thousand tweaks and iterations—the shape of the arc, its speed, even the wavelength of the cut. With refinement, I could probably halve the cost and double the penetrating power, and might even be able to get it to the point where I didn't need to say the name to help me focus on it.

  But there wasn't time to experiment now.

  The boss screeched, the sound a literal shockwave. For a moment, the entire room trembled, stone vibrating in sympathy. It tried to coil and lunge, but it was ruined—the lower half of its body flopped uselessly, its balance destroyed. Everyone in the chamber stopped to stare at the flailing beast and the damage that had been wreaked on it.

  It took a full two seconds for the world to catch up to what had just happened. Then the background noise of the battle crashed back in full force.

  "Aiden!" That was Victor, his voice cracking in disbelief. He looked half a second away from sinking to his knees, or maybe he would have if adrenaline weren't the only thing holding him up. Alex said nothing, but the look he gave me was pure animal relief, edged with a clean, fanatical terror. I recognized it: the look of someone who'd just seen something impossible. Not awe—awe was for gods and rock stars. This was the heady mix of fear and anxiety that came from realizing you were in the same room as the bomb.

  My own hands were trembling, but the rest of me felt eerily calm. The snake was already trying to right itself, mouth stretching wide as it gathered for another ranged attack. I didn't give it the chance. I dialled down the mana expenditure, visualized the arc thinner, tighter, then squeezed my right eyelid, squinting to narrow my visual focus.

  "[Edge Glare]."

  The second shot was a whisper compared to the shout of the first. This time, I tracked the path with perfect clarity: a thread of flat edge, thinner than a scalpel, slicing the air between me and the monster. The snake's head separated so cleanly from its neck that for a moment it hovered in the air, the body still believing it was attached. Then the head thudded to the floor, rolled twice, and came to a halt at Victor’s feet, tongue lolling in a lazy spiral.

  The rest of the snake performed a kind of posthumous dance before tumbling to the ground with an earthshaking series of thuds.

  It was dead. There was no question. Even the residual mana that had clung to its corpse as a posthumous insult was evaporating, chewed away by the ambient energy in the room.

  For the first time since entering the chamber, the only sound was ragged breathing and the faint, wet popping of the dungeon floor as it melted away the remains.

  Alex stared at me—at my eye, maybe, which I realized was still glowing. "You're a fucking lunatic, you know," he said, but there wasn't any anger in it. Just a numb sort of relief.

  I exhaled hard, as the haze of combat left my limbs. I felt the strain in my mana channels, the edge of overuse, but the [Pain Mitigation] processed it into a dull hum at the base of my neck instead of a splitting headache.

  “Maybe, but you love me.” I grinned at the man.

  "You've gotta go after Matt, something took him." All traces of humour evaporated from Victor and Alex. Victor and Alex looked nearly frantic.

  " Take care of Soph, while I see if I can fish out our missing friend." Faking a confidence I didn't quite feel. I didn't wait for a response; I turned and ran back through the veil and out into the dungeon proper. As flippant as I was being, I was still worried about Matt, very worried. The corruption I'd seen in the mana and then in the boss monster was a serious concern. One that led me to the thought that dead might not be the worst thing Matt could end up. I flared [Aura Manipulation] and [All-Seeing Eye], looking for any trace of Matt or the aberration that had taken him.

  It was like looking for a slightly darker shadow in a room full of flickering shadows. I could catch traces of it, something darker, something wrong. Something that had an intrinsic aversion to normal reality. Or maybe it was reality that had an aversion to it? I couldn't tell. Whatever it was, it was smothering any sign of Matt's aura; I couldn't even detect traces of his mana. I rushed from chamber to chamber, bolting down every side passage that presented itself, flaring my Skills and stats as much as I could, looking for any trace I could find. I encountered monsters frequently in those branching paths. Clearly, they were places Victor and his team hadn't cleared.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  That wasn’t surprising. Banner protocol was to hit the boss first by taking the shortest path to it, and prevent a breach scenario. Mop up could happen afterwards when the worst outcome was off the table. I set Vipera loose on them, her serpentine form darting ahead and tearing into the monsters, while I continued searching for any trace of Matt or his abductor.

  Just as I was about to lose all hope, I caught, just a whiff, a faint thread of Matt's aura. It was like a guttering candle in the dark. I snatched up Vipera, drawing her back inside of me, much to her disgruntlement at the suddenness of it. The moment she felt my focus on the matter at hand, though, she quieted. I tore off like a rocket back up the branching path I had gone down, looking for traces, following the fading thread like it was a lifeline.

  I followed the race back up the way I had come, into a chamber that split off in four different directions. I immediately selected the tunnel that gave off the worst feeling, which was where the trace was coming from. It also looked the worst. The other three looked like normal dungeon stone, if a little more, melty, than the rest of the dungeon. This tunnel looked almost like the stone was melting and rotting at the same time, as if whatever was happening to it had progressed further in this direction. I chose to take that as a good sign that I was on the right path. I clambered into the tunnel, rushing down, senses flaring in every direction as the tunnel curved into a downward spiral.

  The tunnel opened into another chamber, and I cursed.

  It was empty. There was no visible way out.

  Matt was gone.

  I flared every sense I had, leaning on my Skills and my stats for all they were worth, even pushing my aura sense out beyond the confines of the dungeon despite my mind screaming at me to retreat. There was nothing. No trace of Matt or his abductor was left. No clue as to where they had gone, despite the pervading sense of wrongness presumably left behind by this abductor.

  The trail was cold.

  Except for one thing.

  I slowly approached the far wall of the chamber. Cautious. This chamber was worse than any other; rivulets of liquid dungeon stone ran down the walls as if they were melting. Rotting. Black veins scattered across every surface, as if they were crawling outward. All from one single place. I probed the far wall. There was one place where all of the black veins met, an oval shaped place where the dungeon stone seemed to be melting even faster. When I probed the spot with my aura senses, I recoiled in horror. The dungeon stone was little more than paper thin. The barrier that held back whatever was on the outside of the dungeon was failing.

  No. Not failing, but thinned. Intentionally, as far as I could tell. Was this where the monster went? Had it somehow dragged Matt out of the dungeon? I had far too many questions and not a single damn answer. I cursed again. "Whatever, this one isn't my mental gymnastic exercise to figure out…" I trailed off, muttering to myself. While this wasn't my mystery to solve. It was my responsibility to tell Victor that I couldn't find Matt. My fists clenched at my sides as I glared at the chamber wall.

  “Aiden.” The earpiece in my ear crackled to life, a familiar voice on the other end.

  "Uncle Wolf," I grunted back.

  "I need a report, lad, what's going on in there?"

  I heaved a heavy sigh. "Dungeon's mostly cleaned out. Made it in time to save most of the team. Vic and the others are in rough shape, but they'll live. I left them holed up in the boss chamber."

  “That’s good news at least.” I could hear the sigh in his voice from the other end of the line.

  “Matt’s missing, I can’t find him or whatever took him.”

  “That’s less good.”

  “Yeah, it gets worse.”

  "Fuck, just say it straight, kid." I could practically picture Uncle Wolf shaking his head.

  "Gonna need a team of analysts and every piece of tech the Banner's got in here. There was something wrong with the boss, some kind of corruption, not sure." I let out an explosive sigh, looking around the chamber I was in. "The damn walls are melting in here, uncle, worse, there are parts that look like they're rotting. I don't know what's going on here, but something is wrong, very wrong, like the mana itself is being corrupted."

  "Alright, Kid." Came the response over the earpiece. " I'll get David on the horn; he'll have a team out there to crawl over every damn inch of the place. In the meantime, can you go wait with Victor's crew til relief gets there?"

  "Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but yeah, they're friends. More or less. I'll look after 'em. Probably pull 'em out before clean up gets here. I don't want them sitting in here longer than they have to."

  "Thanks, kid, you shouldn't have to wait long, clean up should be there in 20 or less."

  I pulled the earpiece out and stuffed it in my pocket. All that was left was to tell Victor that one of our friends was missing. I sighed again, glaring at the wall before turning to head back up to the boss chamber.

  —-

  Half a dozen blacked out SUVs pulled up, tires skidding in the dirt. I glanced over at Victor and the rest. None of them looked ready to move; they looked exhausted and wrung out. I couldn't blame them after what they'd been through. The fight alone was bad enough, losing Matt, though? That was far, far worse for them.

  Uncle Wolf climbed out of the lead SUV, as more than a dozen people piled out of the rest of the motorcade and began unloading equipment. I shrugged away from the tree I'd been leaning against and headed in Uncle Wolf's direction.

  "Good job, kid." The man clapped a large hand onto my shoulder as I approached.

  "Doesn't feel like a good job, Uncle."

  "Never does when you lose someone." I couldn't refute the point; instead, I just let out another sigh. It felt like I was doing that a lot today.

  "Do me a favour for my peace of mind, though. Get another team to stay in there with the analysts and the scavenging team? There's something not right in there, and I don't trust it." I had no way of knowing what was going on in that dungeon, but I didn't want a bunch of analysts and scavengers in there undefended. It didn't feel like there was an overt risk to them, and maybe I was just keyed up over Matt being taken. I wasn't about to risk someone else getting snatched, though. For all I knew, whatever that aberration was could come and go through that patch of dungeon wall as it pleased.

  "I can do that. We've had another team on call since you answered the call for reinforcements. I'll just bring them in; they can spend the day babysitting."

  “Good.”

  "You okay, kid?"

  "Who knows?" I shrugged. "Starting to think I know why I always caught you and dad drinking at the end of the week though."

  "Hah, you just might." Uncle Wolf clapped me on the back, before wrapping his arm around my neck and pulling me into a one armed hug. "Just one rule, yeah? Don't drink alone. That's how you get in trouble," Uncle Wolf released me, pulling back to look me in the eyes. "Your dad and I have been each other's therapist more times than I can count over the years."

  “Kinda figured. Think I need some therapy.”

  “Go home, talk to your old man, he’s wiser than he looks. I promise.” Uncle Wolf grinned like his namesake.

  “Jackass.” I snorted, “I’ll be sure to tell him you said he looks wise.”

  “Hey now, I never went that far.”