The ninth floor faded behind them, the red moss giving way to a darker, murkier world. The stone grew jagged, slick with black water that dripped endlessly from the ceiling like slow-bleeding wounds. Their footsteps echoed, swallowed quickly by the silence, as if the dungeon itself were holding its breath.

  “This place stinks,” Artemis muttered, swatting away a cloud of glowing insects that left faint acidic burns on his skin. “Like rotten eggs and wet socks.”

  “Better than burning alive from your fireballs,” Lokey said dryly.

  “Ha. Funny.”

  Hela smiled faintly but didn’t speak. Her eyes roamed the shadows, wary. Something about this floor felt different—heavier, like the air itself pressed malice against their lungs.

  They didn’t wait long for the dungeon to bare its fangs. The ground quaked as hulking armored ogres rose from the shadows, their rusted plate fused into gray flesh as if the metal had grown from bone. Yellow eyes burned hollow and hungry; one roared, exposing jagged teeth crusted with old gore.

  “Finally, something worth hitting,” Lokey growled.

  The first ogre swung a massive cleaver, the blade whistling through damp air. Lokey caught the blow with his hammer, runes flaring across the weapon as mana surged hot through his veins. The impact jarred his shoulders, but he twisted, redirected the force, then drove upward in a thunderous arc. The hammer punched through rusted armor like tin, caving the ogre’s chest inward with a wet crunch of ribs splintering. Blood—thick and black—sprayed in an arc, splattering Lokey’s face as the beast staggered back, gurgling, lungs punctured and collapsing.

  Another charged at Artemis. He leapt back, blades drawn, fire swirling around him. Instead of throwing it wildly, he let it dance along his swords, twin blades igniting in searing blue flame. He darted low, slashing deep across the ogre’s thigh—the cut peeled flesh back in ragged strips, exposing white bone and pulsing muscle. The ogre bellowed, leg buckling; Artemis rolled under its falling bulk, came up behind, and rammed both swords upward through the soft underside of its jaw. Steel punched through tongue and palate, bursting out the top of its skull in a fountain of brain matter and blood. The ogre twitched once, then dropped like a felled tree, swords still lodged in its ruined head.

  Hela whispered, raising her hands. From the shadows crawled skeletal mages—five this time—tattered robes hanging from yellowed bone, hands crackling with green necrotic flame. They unleashed a volley; emerald fire lanced into the remaining ogres, searing flesh from bone in bubbling sheets. One ogre howled as its arm melted to blackened stump, another’s face sloughed off in steaming clumps before the fire consumed its screaming throat. When the last one fell—charred ribcage exposed and smoking—Artemis leaned against a wall, grinning through spatters of gore.

  “Alright. I’ll admit it. We’re starting to look scary.”

  Hela only smirked, but her eyes gleamed with pride.

  The walls here pulsed faintly, like veins in living stone. Pools of stagnant water lined the path, and from them rose serpents with scales like blackened iron, fangs dripping venom that hissed on contact with rock.

  One lashed at Lokey, sinking teeth deep into his forearm. Razor fangs tore through muscle, venom flooding in like liquid fire—burning nerves, swelling veins black. He snarled, swinging his hammer one-handed; the blow crushed the serpent’s skull in a spray of bone shards and brain pulp, but the pain radiated up his arm like molten iron poured into the wound.

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  Hela was at his side in an instant, hand glowing white fire. She pressed palm to torn flesh; the venom boiled out in foul green smoke, hissing as it met her magic. Muscle knit with wet snaps, skin sealing over the ragged bite marks in seconds.

  “Since when did you get good at that?” Lokey asked, flexing his arm, the lingering burn fading to a dull throb.

  “Since you two can’t seem to avoid being stabbed or bitten,” Hela said simply.

  Behind them, Artemis clashed with three serpents at once. His magic was sharper now—fire and lightning dancing together in controlled fury. A bolt fried one mid-leap, scales cracking and flesh bursting open in charred rents. His flaming blade sliced through the second, parting armored hide in a long gash that spilled steaming entrails onto the stone. The third hissed and lunged—only to be impaled by one of Hela’s skeletal knights, the bone spear punching through its eye socket and out the back of its skull in a wet pop of brain matter.

  “Show-off,” Lokey muttered.

  Artemis only grinned, wiping sweat and serpent blood from his brow.

  A cavern opened before them, vast and black. In the center stood a creature unlike any they’d seen: a winged chimera, three heads snarling—lion, goat, dragon. Its wings beat gusts that rattled glowing moss from the walls; the lion’s mane dripped with old blood, the goat’s horns curved wickedly, the dragon’s scales smoked with inner heat.

  The beast roared, flame spilling from its dragon maw in a roaring torrent.

  “Alright,” Lokey said, gripping his hammer tighter, runes blazing brighter than ever. “No holding back.”

  The fight was pure chaos. The lion head snapped at Hela’s skeletons, jaws clamping around one and tearing it in half—spine splintering, ribs cracking like dry twigs, bone shards flying. The goat head spewed acid; it splashed across Artemis’s path, sizzling through his boot and eating into flesh—he hissed in pain but countered with a roaring flame wave that forced the head back, scales blistering and peeling.

  The dragon’s breath seared across the cavern, heat boiling stagnant pools into steam that scalded exposed skin. Lokey charged, mana sense guiding him—he felt the beast’s weak points like throbbing wounds before he saw them. He carved runes into the ground with pounding steps; when his hammer struck the final rune-line, the cavern shook as chains of glowing energy erupted, wrapping the chimera’s legs in searing bands that burned flesh to bone, muscle charring and splitting.

  “Now!” he roared.

  Artemis sprinted forward, blades igniting. His fire flowed like liquid now, pure and controlled. He leapt high, spinning mid-air—swords tore into the dragon’s neck in a deep, ripping arc. Scales parted, arteries burst in hot sprays; fire surged through the wound, cooking flesh from the inside. The dragon head thrashed, blood gushing in thick ropes, then fell limp, neck stump smoking and cauterized.

  Hela raised her arms, aura shifting—shadow and light cloaking her like a shroud. For a moment she seemed taller, more than mortal. Her voice rang with divine resonance:

  “By death and mercy both—fall.”

  Her skeletal mages obeyed, unleashing a storm of necrotic fire. Green-black flames engulfed the chimera, eating through hide and muscle in ravenous waves. The lion head roared once before its mane ignited, flesh sloughing off in blackened sheets; the goat head choked on its own melting tongue. The creature shrieked, body convulsing as bones cracked under the assault, then finally collapsed—dissolving into swirling black mist that reeked of charred meat and sulfur.

  The silence after was deafening. The three siblings stood together, bloodied, exhausted, but alive—gore streaking armor, breaths ragged in the steaming air.

  A faint chime echoed in their minds.

  [Level Up]

  Lokey: Level 150 reached.

  —New Skills: Master Runesmithing, Mana Sense.

  Artemis: Level 200 reached.

  —New Skill: Master Mage, Bard's Touch

  Hela: Level 140 reached.

  New title: Goddess of Death

  —New Skills: Mastery of Necromancy, Touch of the Divine.

  They looked at one another, breathing hard.

  Artemis broke the silence first, laughing breathlessly. “We actually did it. We made it three levels deeper than anyone else. And lived.”

  Lokey smiled, the glow of his runes fading. “We didn’t just live. We thrived.”

  Hela brushed soot and blood from her cloak, her expression calm but her eyes shining. “And we’re not finished yet. Not until Haven is safe.”

  The three of them stood in the center of the cavern, the air thick with fading magic. Stronger than ever, bonded tighter than blood.

  And already, the dungeon seemed to whisper of trials yet to come.