The cavern convulsed.
The Mimic Gate shed its disguise, revealing the nightmare underneath. The "floor" of gold coins roiled, rising into thick, ropy muscles. The walls pulsed with wet, pink flesh.
"Defensive Circle!" Kael roared, blood dripping from his lip. "Squires, shield wall! Rangers, suppress the tendrils!"
Behind the three leaders, the six remaining members of the raid party scrambled. Three heavy-armored squires under Kael's command locked their shields together. Three rangers under Cresty's command drew their bows, hands trembling as the ground beneath them tried to grab their ankles.
"It's too big!" one of the squires yelled, deflecting a gold-plated tentacle. "Where do we hit it?!"
"The hinges!" Journ bellowed. "Cut the tendons!"
The giant warrior charged. Ignoring the floor tentacles whipping at his legs, he aimed for the massive biological hinges connecting the Gate to the stone wall.
"[Heavy Impact]!"
BOOM.
His axe buried itself into the wet, fleshy joint of the door. Black ichor sprayed out, sizzling like acid. The Gate shrieked—a grinding metal sound that tilted the entire room.
"Look out!" Cresty screamed.
The Gate vomited.
The massive doors swung open, unleashing a torrent of molten gold and digestive fluids.
"[Phalanx Barrier]!"
Kael stepped in front of the squires. His tower shield glowed with a holy white light, expanding to form a translucent wall.
HISSSSSS.
The acid-gold splashed against the barrier, boiling the air instantly. Kael gritted his teeth, his boots sliding backward through the bone-littered floor. The heat seared his face through the visor.
"Hold..." Kael groaned, veins bulging in his neck. "I can... hold it!"
The attack served as a distraction.
While Kael held the front, the floor attacked the backline.
"Ren! Move!" Cresty shouted.
Too late.
A mound of gold coins beneath one of the rangers exploded upward. A secondary tongue, hidden in the hoard, wrapped around the ranger's waist.
"Commander!" Ren screamed, dropping his bow. "Help m—"
SNAP.
The tongue retracted with blinding speed, dragging him into the main maw of the Gate. The massive golden teeth slammed shut.
CRUNCH.
The sound was wet and final.
[Party Member Deceased: Ren]
"No!" Cresty's eyes widened. She suppressed the grief instantly, replacing it with cold rage. "Target the mouth! Fill it with arrows!"
She drew three explosive arrows.
Thwip-Thwip-Thwip.
The arrows sailed into the slight gap in the Gate's teeth.
BOOM!
Explosions rocked the inside of the monster's mouth. Smoke poured out of the cracks. The Gate roared in pain, its massive eye rolling wildly.
"It's blinded!" Journ shouted, seeing the pupil dilate from the shock. "Now! The Eye!"
"We need a path!" Kael dropped his barrier as the acid stream stopped. "Squires! Push!"
The two remaining squires charged forward, flanked by Kael. The Mimic Gate escalated the fight.
The piles of gold coins levitated.
Thousands of coins floated in the air, controlled by the monster's magnetic Aether. They turned sideways, becoming razor-sharp discs.
"Oh, gods," a squire whispered.
SWISH-SWISH-SWISH.
A hurricane of gold shredded the air. The coins fired like shrapnel.
"Cover!" Kael raised his shield.
He failed to cover everyone.
One squire moved too slowly. The golden storm shredded his wooden shield, then his armor, then him. He fell, turning the pile of gold beneath him red.
[Party Member Deceased: Squire Elric]
"Keep moving!" Kael roared, stepping over the body of his subordinate. "If we stop, we all die!"
He plowed through the coin storm, his armor chiming like a bell as hundreds of coins deflected off his plate. He reached the base of the Gate.
"Journ! Throw me!" Kael commanded.
"With pleasure!"
Journ grabbed Kael by the belt and the back of his breastplate. With a roar matching the monster's, the giant hurled the tank into the air.
Kael soared upward, aiming for the giant vertical eye on the door.
The eye focused on him. The pupil narrowed. A beam of purple Aether charged in the iris.
"Not today!" Cresty yelled from the back.
She activated her trump card.
"[Sniper's Gamble: Heartseeker]!"
She fired a single arrow. It struck the muscle controlling the massive eyelid, severing the nerve. The eyelid spasmed and drooped, half-closing the eye and disrupting the beam's charge.
The beam misfired, blasting the ceiling instead of Kael.
"Haaaaa!"
Kael reached the apex of his flight. Ignoring his sword, he drove the spiked bottom of his tower shield into the center of the giant eye.
"[Meteor Bash]!"
SPLAT.
The lens burst. Jelly and vitreous fluid the size of a pond splashed over Kael, coating him in slime.
The Mimic Gate shrieked—a sound so high-pitched it shattered the remaining glass vials in their belts.
The massive doors crumbled. The magical integrity holding the construct together failed. The gold plating sloughed off like dead skin, revealing the rotting flesh beneath.
"Journ! Finish it!" Kael shouted, riding the falling eyelid down.
Journ stood before the main opening. The mouth hung open, paralyzed by the destruction of its brain.
The giant gripped his axe with both hands. His muscles swelled, tearing the sleeves of his tunic. A red aura enveloped the blade.
"[Guillotine]."
He swung.
The axe cleaved through the bottom lip, through the jawbone, and buried itself deep into the monster's core located in the throat.
CRACK.
The light in the remaining runes died. The churning floor stopped moving. The gold coins fell lifelessly to the stone.
The Mimic Gate slumped against the wall, dead.
Silence returned to the cavern, heavy and suffocating.
Kael slid off the corpse, landing in a puddle of slime and blood. He wiped his visor, breathing heavily.
"Clear," he wheezed.
Journ wrenched his axe free with a wet sucking sound. He looked around the room.
Two bodies lay broken on the floor. Ren, the ranger. Elric, the squire.
Cresty walked over to where Ren's bow lay. She picked it up, her face unreadable.
"We won," Cresty said, her voice hollow.
"We survived," Journ corrected, spitting on the floor.
Kael looked at the dead squire. He closed his eyes for a second, a flicker of genuine pain crossing his face, before masking it with professional indifference.
"They knew the risks," Kael said, standing up straight. "Check the loot. The Gate itself should have dropped a Core."
Journ kicked the shattered remains of the door's jaw. Amidst the gore and broken teeth, a massive, pulsating object lay there.
It was a Green Core. Tier I.
"One traits," Journ grunted, picking it up. "Heavy."
"And the treasury?" Cresty asked, scanning the piles of gold. "Was it real? Or just part of the monster?"
Kael picked up a coin. He bit it.
It was soft. Real gold.
"It's real," Kael said. "We're rich."
He looked at the two corpses.
"Rich enough to pay for their funerals," he added softly.
"If we can carry them out," Journ muttered.
"We move," Kael ordered, pocketing the coin. "We heal up, we loot what we can carry, and we find the exit. The mission isn't over."
Cresty looked at the Green Core in Journ's hand, then back at the dark tunnel they had come from.
"That brute," she whispered, thinking of Lexel. "He went the other way."
"He's dead," Kael stated flatly. "If we barely survived this with a full party... he and that blacksmith didn't stand a chance in the dark."
Journ nodded in agreement.
"Let's go," Kael said. "We have a raid to finish."