They were truly trapped.
It wasn't a dramatic exaggeration; it was the cold, suffocating reality of their situation.
The spatial jump had violently rejected them, slamming them back into the exact same dead-end cavern. At the top of the stairs, the monstrous artifact continued its relentless, grinding descent, absorbing every frantic attack they threw at it.
Worse still was Sirius. Stripped of a good portion of his mana he had burned to assist with the failed jump, his internal defenses had shattered. Without that stability threshold to push back the invasion, the purple rot was visibly accelerating, crawling up his neck and sinking deeper into his reconstructed flesh with every passing second.
And echoing through the pulsing, corrupted meat slathered across the walls, Selthia's laughter continued to ring out, sharp, triumphant, and maddening.
Ren slowly pushed himself off the stone floor.
