The finale of their battle was approaching. The female elite guard squad commander had fully entered her berserk mode, and the transformation was horrifying to witness.
Her body changed, becoming more rat than humanoid. Bones cracked and reformed. Muscles swelled grotesquely. Her monstrous features emerged fully, her eyes glowing red and bloodshot with feral rage. This was a forbidden skill, one that only the most advanced warriors could tap into. And for good reason.
They could feel it creeping across their skin. The thick aura of death. The plague and rot that made these creatures so feared. Benny could feel it seeping into his pores, and so could Nida. It sent shivers down their spines, a primal warning that they were facing something beyond their ability to fight.
"Benny!" Nida screamed. "This is dangerous! We should finish this now! Before she fully transforms!"
Benny agreed without hesitation. He gripped the halberd in both hands, using it like a javelin. He threw it with every ounce of strength he had left, launching it toward the berserking enemy.
There were two other halberds on the ground nearby, taken from the dead guards. He would use those too if needed. Whatever it took to kill this bitch.
The halberd flew through the air and struck the transformed rat woman center mass. But instead of piercing through, the blade scraped across her skin as if it were made of stone. The weapon clattered to the ground, barely leaving a scratch.
"Fuck," Benny breathed. This was bad. Really bad.
He quickly grabbed another halberd from the ground and shouted to Nida. "The skin's too tough! We target the eyes! Pierce the brain directly!"
"Got it!" Nida grabbed the remaining halberd as well.
They charged at full speed, weapons aimed at the only vulnerable part left: the eyes. Soft tissue that couldn't transform into armor.
Both halberds struck true. The blades punched through the eye sockets and into the brain cavity. Blood sprayed from the wounds in thick spurts.
But it wasn't enough to kill her.
The rat woman moved despite the massive trauma, her body operating on pure instinct and rage. Her tail whipped around with devastating force. She dropped to all fours, shedding the last pieces of her armor. The plates clattered to the stone floor, no longer needed.
Now she was fully mobile. And she'd regained some measure of conscious decision-making through the haze of berserk fury. She sought her enemies, the ones who had wounded her, who had killed her companion.
At full transformation, she stood seven feet tall on all fours. Much taller when she reared up on her hind legs. She was bigger than she'd been as a rat man. She was something else entirely now. Another creature. An upgrade or a downgrade depending on your perspective, but either way, she was far more dangerous.
Her power had multiplied at least threefold. But the transformation came with costs. Those who touched the berserk state had their lifespans reduced. This skill would last only a few minutes at most, but it would give her absolute strength during that time. It would also reduce her intelligence to that of their previous selves as primitive rats. No longer technical, no longer tactical. Just monstrous. Brutal. Pure aggression and killing instinct.
She was blinded by the halberds embedded in her eye sockets. But then, horrifyingly, another pair of eyes grew from her skull. Smaller, more primitive, but functional.
She could see again. And she was hunting.
They no longer had the option to take this calmly. Their lives were on the line in the most literal sense.
---
Meanwhile, Captain Vrek had returned to the royal chambers. He'd arrived expecting chaos, an assassination attempt in progress, the Queen under attack.
But there was nothing. The chambers were secure. The guards reported no incidents. No sign of the escaped human prisoner anywhere in the royal wing.
It left him wondering. Where the fuck had those humans gone? What was their actual goal if not regicide?
He didn't like questions without answers. Questions without answers got people killed.
---
Back at their hiding spot near the labyrinth entrance, Gustav felt a churning in his stomach. He couldn't identify what it was, but whenever this feeling appeared, it always ended badly.
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones.
"Stay alert," he told the others quietly. "Something's happening."
They gripped their weapons tighter and scanned the darkness, waiting for whatever was coming.
---
Back in the castle corridor, Nida and Benny were in pure survival mode. They tried desperately to evade the monster's attacks, which were no longer precise or accurate but compensated with overwhelming speed and impact.
Each strike sent rubble flying. The stone cracked. Pillars crumbled. The corridor was being destroyed around them.
Nida acknowledged the danger of their situation and made a decision she'd been avoiding. She didn't want to use her ultimate skill here. She'd been saving it for the rat kingdom's leader, for the final kill that would accomplish their mission.
But it seemed they'd need it now just to survive.
"Benny!" she shouted over the sounds of destruction. "Buy me thirty seconds! I'm using my strongest skill!"
"Okay, but hurry!" Benny yelled back. "I can't hold out much longer!"
They'd been able to endure this long only by taking turns. One would lure the monster in one direction while the other attacked from behind or the side. Their strikes did minimal damage, barely altering the creature's course, but it was enough to keep them alive.
Barely.
Nida found a defensible position and began the activation sequence for her ultimate skill. It required a longer preparation period than any of her other techniques, but it was worth it. This was a one-hit-kill ability. No matter how strong the enemy, if it landed, they were dead.
It was perfect for an assassin. That's why she only used it on exceptionally powerful enemies who were unaware of her presence. She'd never activated it in active combat before. It had always been used with distractions, or when the target was at their most vulnerable.
But necessity called for it now.
Benny ran for his life. He evaded, rolled, jumped, even blocked with the halberd when necessary. But the weapon was reaching its limits. The shaft was cracking. The blade was chipping.
"Is it ready yet?" he screamed at Nida. "We could really fucking use it right now!"
Then something changed. The monster slowed down and let out a piercing shriek. Blood poured from its eyes and every orifice. The blood vessels that had been forcibly expanded were reaching their limits. The muscles that had been fed by the berserk transformation were beginning to fail.
"Nida!" Benny shouted, seeing the opening. "Now! Whatever you're trying to do, do it now!"
"Ready!" Nida called back. Her eyes glowed with concentrated energy. Her blade hummed with power.
"Got it! Let's finish this!"
They rushed toward the bleeding, shrieking monster. But as if catching a second wind, the rat woman used the last of her training and strength to launch one final assault.
Benny and Nida had also reached their limits. Exhaustion made them slower, less responsive.
Nida managed to roll under the attack, her assassin training carrying her through. But Benny was a fraction of a second too slow.
The monster's tail caught him full force across the torso. The impact was like being hit by a battering ram. He flew backward through the air, his entire ribcage shattering on impact. He slammed into the stone wall with bone-crushing force.
Blood pooled inside him immediately. Broken ribs pierced his lungs and other organs. He couldn't breathe properly, he could only forcibly cough blood from his mouth to clear his airway enough to get shallow gasps of air.
He slid down the wall and sat there, unable to move. Pain radiated through his entire body, but the adrenaline kept him conscious. Barely.
Now only Nida remained standing. It was her task alone to finish this.
She gripped her blade with both hands. Her form shifted into the final stance of her ultimate technique. The aura around her weapon intensified until the air itself seemed to shimmer with cutting force. It was so sharp it could slice through the thickest material like butter.
She jumped high, using the momentum to position herself above the monster's exposed nape. Then she fell, with the aid of gravity and her own speed combining into a single devastating strike.
The blade descended.
It felt like cutting through nothing. No resistance. Just a smooth, perfect separation.
There was a certain grace to it. A beauty in efficiency.
The effect was delayed. The monster's head didn't realize it had been separated from its body. The brain was still active, still sending signals. But the connection was severed. The information sent through the nerve tunnels was lost, reaching nothing.
What did the transformed rat woman feel in those final moments? What thoughts crossed her mind as awareness faded? Only she would ever know.
The massive body collapsed. The head rolled across the floor, eyes still blinking once, twice, then going still.
Nida landed in a crouch, her blade dripping with blood. Then she immediately ran toward Benny.
He was worse than she'd thought. Much worse. This was a mortal wound. No doubt about it.
She knelt beside him where he sat against the wall. He couldn't form words. His airway was being blocked by blood from his punctured lungs. He could only look at her with erratic, shallow breaths. The pain was being numbed by adrenaline, which was the only reason he was still conscious.
Their intrusion had been victorious in combat but a complete failure in mission. They hadn't achieved anything. None of their actual goals. And Benny could feel his life ebbing away.
With the last of his strength, he tried to speak. "Ni... da... go."
Nida couldn't understand clearly, but she heard her name and the command. Go. Leave.
She was exhausted. She couldn't carry him. She knew logically that he was a liability now, that if she wanted to survive she'd have to leave him here.
She was an assassin. Supposedly emotionless. Trained to make cold calculations.
But even her heart felt pain right now. It felt wrong. Wrong to leave someone you'd fought beside, someone who'd saved your life and whose life you'd saved. It was wrong to abandon them in a place like this.
Benny had already accepted his fate. He was going to die here. Alone. Without achieving anything in the end. Only regrets clung to him now. His vision was blurring. His breathing came in rare, desperate gasps.
Nida hesitated. Every instinct screamed at her to stay, to find another way.
But there was no other way.
They could hear voices now. Rat men converging on this location, drawn by the sounds of battle. They had minutes at most before being overwhelmed.
At least one of them should survive. Someone had to tell the others what happened.
Benny used the last of his strength to urge her again. "G... ooo..." His hand fell limp. There was no more strength behind it.
A single tear ran down Nida's face. But her survival instincts overrode everything else. Move now or die here with him.
So she moved. Even though she didn't want to. Even though it felt like betrayal.
She ran, leaving Benny behind to die alone.
As she disappeared into the shadows, her eyes pooled with emotions she thought she'd buried years ago. Grief. Guilt. Loss.
Benny could only watch her go. Then his eyes darkened. No more light. Just the sound of rat men approaching, their voices getting louder, closer.
Then there was nothing.
Just silence and the darkness that had always been waiting for him in the labyrinth.
The coward who became brave died alone in enemy territory, having sacrificed himself so another could live.
In the end, maybe that was enough.