Outside the core chamber, deep within the shifting hellscape of the dungeon's final zone, chaos reigned.
The heat was blistering.
The air vibrated with pulses of ambient mana so thick it felt like swimming through syrup.
Smoke wafted in curling sheets along shattered stone corridors, and above them, the sky—a simulated projection of some otherworldly sun—bled red as if mirroring the fate of the dungeon.
Four silhouettes stood surrounded by debris and glowing cracks in the earth: Zhark the Thunder, Fraven the Telekinetic, Keith the Strategist, and Shania the Phantom Blade.
And they were struggling.
In front of them floated a figure both familiar and uncanny—the clone of Elius, manifested again. It was silent. Faceless. And yet, it radiated the same aura as before: detached cruelty, endless precision, and maddening pressure.
It floated two feet off the ground, utterly still.
