The street cracked under their feet like it had opinions. Somewhere behind them, a city block peeled off into the sky and vanished screaming into the horizon. It didn’t even collapse. It lifted, buildings and all, then snapped like someone yanking the world’s rug out from under them.

  Alistair ducked as a stone balcony whirled overhead like a discus.

  “Remind me,” he shouted over the roar, “which god thought gravity was optional today?”

  Buddy snarled beside him, tail flaming, paws skidding on shattered cobblestone as the beast fought to stay ahead of the collapse. Thess and Kael sprinted just ahead, Brimma bouncing awkwardly in badger form between them.

  Then, of course, something hissed.

  From the alley to their right, a creature leapt. Humanoid only in technicality, it had the same extinct features as the other minibosses, wide shoulders, jaw like a slab of granite, but this one was slick. Its skin glistened with something dark, and bone-white blades extended from its wrists like praying mantis scythes.

  [Miniboss Identified: Severed Hunter of Tauth]

  Race: Caelari Extinct Variant – Writ-Touched

  Level: 31

  Traits: Ambush Predator, Phase Cut, Territorial Madness

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Alistair muttered. “Right now?”

  The miniboss struck first, slashing toward Brimma with inhuman speed.

  “Kael!” Alistair snapped.

  “On it!”

  Kael vaulted onto a low wall and fired, arrows whistling, green rot already pulsing along the shaft. Brimma twisted mid-lunge and transformed midair, landing in gnome form and rolling aside.

  Alistair pointed and cast:

  [Noble Edict – Kneel]

  The miniboss hesitated, knees buckling as the magic hit, but it fought through, slashing blindly.

  [Tactical Flow – Kaelren]

  Kael’s next arrow sang as it loosed, trailing a pulse of compressed wind. It slammed into the miniboss’s neck, knocking it sideways.

  “Your turn,” Kael called.

  “Don’t need the pressure,” Alistair muttered. He activated:

  [Bloodcall] A spectral tether latched to the enemy’s side, draining blood and refilling Alistair’s health in pulses. [Firebite] flared next through his blade as he slashed, the redcrystal sword glowing brighter with each strike.

  Then came the bing.

  Alistair blinked. “Oh, now you chime in?”

  [Treasure Seeker] Activated – Proximity Alert: High-Value Target Nearby]

  “Where?” he hissed, spinning. The city was still collapsing behind them, and now his loot radar wanted attention?

  He activated another spell:

  [Whispers on the Wind]

  The magic carried his voice straight into Kael’s ear.

  “There’s treasure near you. Smile pretty.”

  Kael jolted and almost fell off his perch. “Alistair! Stop whispering into my skull!”

  “Why?” Alistair grinned, dodging a slash. “It’s intimate.”

  The miniboss roared.

  [Light Breath]

  Alistair unleashed a cone of radiant mist straight into the monster’s face. It shrieked, reeling. Shadows peeled from its skin as it clawed at its own head.

  Thess barreled in, her bark-skinned fists slamming into the miniboss’s chest.

  “Thornspike Shell, bitches!” she yelled as blood exploded from the contact.

  “Didn’t realize we were flexing catchphrases now,” Alistair muttered.

  Brimma raised her staff and shouted something in a language only pissed-off druids used. Thornbloom totem erupted behind the miniboss, launching barbed spikes in a pulsing arc.

  Alistair blinked behind it with [Blink Cut], slashed its spine, and reappeared on the other side.

  The miniboss collapsed, body still twitching.

  A second later, the ground beneath them lurched. Not shook. Lurched.

  The whole city groaned as another street disappeared into the dragging nothing.

  [Miniboss Defeated: Severed Hunter of Tauth]

  EXP Gained: 7,800

  Alistair’s head snapped up as the chime echoed inside his skull.

  “There,” he said, eyes narrowing as his [Treasure Seeker] trait pulled him northeast, toward a partially buried building.

  Kael was already shaking his head. “No. No way. We don’t have time.”

  Alistair opened his mouth...

  “... I said no,” Kael cut in again, pointing behind them. “Have you seen the sky? The city is folding in on itself. We need to find the damn portal before this place eats us!”

  Thess was still catching her breath, hands on her knees. “We’ve killed dozens of minibosses and not a single one dropped a portal. If we don’t find an exit soon...”

  Alistair raised his hands, grinning. “It’ll take one minute. Two, max. The loot is that way and it’s screaming at me. Literally. My brain’s ringing like a church bell.”

  Brimma snarled. “Your greed gland is screaming. Your brain is tragically silent.”

  Kael jabbed a finger toward the sinking skyline. “We don’t even know if a portal’s still open! We waste time and we’re done, Alistair.”

  Buddy, who had been quietly looming like a soot-stained warhorse, padded up beside Kael and nudged him firmly with his massive snout.

  The elf screamed, jumped two feet into the air, and tumbled backward over a loose brick.

  Alistair smirked. “See? Even Buddy thinks I’m right. He’s the smartest one here.”

  Kael lay on his back, groaning. “Your dog is possessed.”

  “Only by ambition,” Alistair quipped then paused, a triumphant smile slowly creeping up. “What do you say, I take my adorable puppy and search for loot while you three go search for the portal? See easy! Problem solved!”

  Thess stepped between them, frowning. “Splitting up is stupid. If something happens, we won’t be there to help you.”

  Alistair shrugged. “Which is why you three will go find the portal. Buddy and I will check out the treasure. Then I’ll track you down using the soulbond. We’ll be back together before anyone misses my charming commentary.”

  Brimma snapped her head toward him. “That is the worst idea I’ve heard all day, and I was next to Thess when she broke through a wall.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I’m just saying,” Alistair continued, gesturing toward the street, “there’s a stash screaming my name, and if we leave it behind, we’ll all regret it when we’re poor and portal-less.”

  “You are portal-less!” Brimma barked. “And now you want to be brainless too?”

  Kael sat up, brushing ash from his armor. “You think it’s smart to wander off with hellhound monstrosity over here while everything collapses?”

  Buddy chose that exact moment to growl softly and loom beside Kael again. The elf flinched and scrambled backward like the dog was made of lava, which admittedly, it kind of was.

  Alistair smirked. “Take it up with the beast. He’s got a nose for loot and impeccable taste in companions.”

  Brimma looked to Thess, exasperated. “Tell him he’s being suicidal.”

  Thess hesitated, biting her lip. “I don’t love it… but if anyone can vanish and reappear when needed, it’s him.”

  Alistair grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

  Brimma threw up her hands. “Fine! Go with your mongrel and sniff after your shiny garbage. If we find the portal first, we are not waiting.”

  Alistair offered a mock bow. “Then I’d better be quick.”

  Buddy gave a low huff, his molten eyes locked forward.

  Together, they turned and darted into the ruins, leaving the others behind in the shifting wreckage of the city.

  The city was dying around them.

  Alistair sprinted through collapsing streets, rubble crumbling underfoot and ancient stone shattering from the strain. Beside him, Buddy ran with unnerving ease, fire licking between his teeth like anticipation. Alistair’s [Treasure Seeker] trait pulsed like a heartbeat, louder and sharper than ever.

  Bing.

  Then another. Fainter this time, almost like echoes.

  Bing… bing…

  “Not good enough,” Alistair muttered, dodging a falling beam as they cut through a ruined courtyard. “You’re not the treasure.”

  The bings faded as quickly as they came, like half-forgotten promises. Alistair’s instincts screamed to ignore them. Whatever was calling him ahead? That was the one.

  The true bell.

  The one that tolled.

  They turned another corner, and something flickered at the edge of his vision. A shadow. Fast. Too fast.

  He skidded to a halt, lips curling into a hiss. Fangs dropped. Buddy growled low beside him, hackles raised.

  But the shape was gone. As if it had never been there.

  “Not the time,” Alistair whispered. “Not now.”

  Then it hit him.

  A clang in his mind. A sound not like the others, this was heavier, deeper, final.

  [Treasure Seeker] – Primary Target Detected.

  It was like being yanked forward by a leash of fate.

  Alistair stumbled the last few steps, slack-jawed as he looked up. The structure before him was massive. Shattered pillars. Elegant arches. Decay devouring grandeur. But even broken, it had presence. This wasn’t just any ruin.

  It had been… important.

  He stepped forward, boots crunching gravel and glass, eyes rising to its half-intact roofline. Then he stopped cold.

  From this slight rise in the landscape, he could see.

  His breath froze.

  There it was.

  The Maw.

  It consumed the skyline.

  Not just a pit. Not just an anomaly.

  A mouth.

  Vast and alive and wrong, like some cosmic worm had burrowed through reality and decided to feed.

  Black stone and molten ash framed its circumference, jagged and spiraled like teeth, grinding. Turning. Drawing everything in. Flames licked the edges where magic broke down into raw chaos. Chunks of buildings, whole towers, even glowing barriers were being pulled loose from the arena’s crust and dragged screaming into its throat.

  It didn’t roar.

  It hummed. A deep, endless rumble, like a world’s final breath.

  A dozen streets were already gone.

  A district caved inward before his eyes, vanishing into the whirling center like a dry leaf in a storm.

  It was death given gravity.

  A godless centrifuge.

  An end.

  The end.

  Alistair couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.

  It wasn’t a pit.

  It was an apocalypse.

  A monstrous, impossible, moving thing. Closer now. Hungrier.

  “Gods,” he whispered, sweat beading cold along his brow, trailing down the side of his neck like the touch of something vast, and watching.

  No time to waste.

  He pressed a hand to the scorched frame of the doorway and stepped inside, the ruin groaning beneath the tremor of distant collapse.

  Behind him… the shadow followed.

  The palace, if that’s what it once was, yawned open before him.

  Massive courtyards stretched in all directions, laid out in elegant symmetry, their old domes now shattered to the wind. Jagged ribs of metal arced toward the sky, the bones of what was once glass and pride. The air reeked of dust and history.

  Buddy’s ears were flat, his growl low and constant.

  “I know, I know,” Alistair murmured, giving his side a pat. “Just play it cool Buddy, like we haven’t noticed...”

  They kept going.

  Everything around them whispered of forgotten splendor. High archways. Stone gardens. Crumbling towers veined with roots. Marble cracked and blackened by time. A mural that might’ve once told a story now peeled like dead skin from the walls.

  And underneath it all, the steady, relentless tug.

  The entire building groaned. A deep vibration underfoot. The kind you felt in your teeth.

  The Maw was pulling.

  He climbed a broken staircase, every step a gamble. One tile gave way entirely, disintegrating into mist and ash as his foot left it. Buddy leapt the gap like it was nothing. Alistair swore under his breath and kept moving.

  The Treasure Seeker trait kept binging.

  Buddy kept growling.

  Every room he checked was empty. Lootless. Lifeless. Dust and decay.

  Then...

  He passed a broken archway and paused. His breath caught.

  The Maw was closer. Much closer.

  It loomed through the open ruin like a punishment waiting to happen. It churned behind the palace, devouring everything without hurry. The skyline was almost gone.

  Alistair looked away fast. Too fast. His vision swam.

  That’s when he saw it.

  A door.

  The only intact door in the entire place.

  It sat at the end of a shadowed hallway, flush against smooth stone. Not twisted. Not cracked. Not even dusty.

  As if time had skipped it.

  Alistair moved toward it, slow and wary. When he reached out, his hand met resistance, a gentle push of magic, warm and humming. A barrier.

  So that’s how you’ve stayed whole.

  He pressed forward. The magic parted around him without pain, without flash. Just… acknowledgement.

  The door handle was cold.

  He turned it.

  It opened without a sound.

  It was a bedroom.

  But not like the others, ruined, collapsed, chewed through by time.

  This one was… whole.

  Unreal in its preservation.

  The moment Alistair stepped in, the world shifted. Silence deepened. Dust hung motionless in the air, caught in invisible stasis. The groan of the Maw vanished like someone had closed a window.

  It felt like stepping into memory.

  The bed was half-made. Not military-tidy, not abandoned mid-sleep. Just… casual. Like someone had risen late, yawned, and gone to wash their face.

  Clothes hung over the back of an elegant armchair. A thin robe, silver thread glinting in the folds. One boot lay toppled beside it, its twin still upright.

  The wardrobe stood open. Garments and armor in strange cuts and colors lined the interior. Some shimmered faintly with dormant enchantment.

  Across from it sat a desk, cluttered with parchment and leather-bound books. A quill still rested in an inkwell, dry now, but upright. Not discarded.

  Not abandoned.

  Alistair didn’t move. Even Buddy had stopped growling.

  Something was wrong with the room.

  Not in a hostile way. Just… wrong. Like the air was holding its breath. Like time had forgotten to keep marching in here.

  Then he saw it.

  On the nightstand.

  Just sitting there.

  Not displayed. Not enshrined. Just dropped, like it didn’t matter.

  A crown.

  Silver.

  Not bright or gleaming, but ancient. Slightly tarnished, dulled with age, as if it had already survived a hundred generations before its last wearer ever touched it. The metal curved into slender, elegant arches, spiked just enough to imply danger, but still regal in shape.

  From the tips of those spikes, ash curled into existence… then vanished. Like smoke exhaled by a dream.

  Alistair’s eyes narrowed.

  The thing pulsed with enchantment, subtle, refined. Not screaming with power, but layered. Complex. Alive in a way that made his fangs itch.

  He didn’t reach for it.

  Not yet.

  The [Treasure Seeker] trait dinged softly in his mind, but even it sounded unsure.

  [Loot Detected – Crown of the Last Regent]

  Slot: Headgear – Epic

  +3 Willpower, +3 Charisma

  Effect: All nearby enemies take 20 damage per second for 6 seconds

  Effect: Projectiles are deflected within a 1-meter radius

  Effect: If cast while affected by [Burn], you become immune to fire for 10 seconds

  Visual: Floating ember symbols orbit your head like a cracked divine crown

  Lore: This silver crown once adorned the head of the Crowned Prince of the Ashen Spires, an heir praised for brilliance and cursed for obsession.

  A master tinkerer, researcher, and relentless seeker of improvement, he personally reforged the artifact dozens of times, each alteration layered with desperate ambition.

  What began as a simple coronet of silver was shaped into a relic of eerie potency.

  His final enchantment, cast moments before his death, remains unsolved.

  The kingdom he sought to perfect no longer exists.

  Alistair stared at the crown. The silver arcs. The lazy swirl of ash.

  He knew that kind of ambition. That hunger.

  “Great,” he muttered. “A crown made by a perfectionist with a god complex. What could possibly go wrong?”

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