Within minutes, the chamber erupted into violence.
Quinn charged first.
He exploded forward like a human battering ram, each thunderous stomp shaking the ancient stone beneath him. Seventy-five meters of cursed ground separated him from his group,, but distance meant nothing to the raw power surging through his veins. Golden aura blazed around his colossal frame, turning him into a living comet. The grotesque pillars trembled. Dust cascaded from the high ceiling. Every footfall left deep, spider-webbed craters in the floor.
Rate's warning still rang in his ears, but Quinn shoved doubt aside. They had no choice.
Twenty meters in, the first trap triggered.
A ring of glowing runes flared beneath his boot. With a deafening whump, a column of searing flame erupted skyward, engulfing Quinn's lower body. The explosion rippled the air like molten glass, slamming into his torso with enough force to stagger a war elephant. Heat clawed at his skin even through the reinforced aura. For a fraction of a second, his forward momentum stalled mid-stride, one massive leg hovering.
Quinn snarled, teeth bared. He slammed his raised foot down with brutal finality. Stone shattered. The flames parted around him like water as his golden aura flared brighter, devouring the fire's fury.
He didn't stop.
Ten meters later, the second trap sprang.
A jagged chain of violet lightning erupted from the floor, lashing around his limbs and torso. White-hot electricity surged through every nerve. His muscles locked violently. For five agonizing seconds, Quinn stood frozen — a titan caught in a web of pure destructive energy. Smoke poured off his shoulders. The smell of ozone and scorched metal filled the air.
Then the lightning died.
Quinn's aura detonated outward in a violent golden shockwave. The smoke exploded away from him as he roared, veins bulging across his neck. With a single, savage push, he launched himself skyward. The ground where he'd stood detonated behind him, sending a geyser of broken stone into the air. He flew in a high, powerful arc, body coiled like a siege engine mid-flight.
Agatha remained exactly where she stood, smiling that same elegant, predatory smile, violet dress fluttering gently as if she were merely enjoying a breeze.
Quinn descended like a falling star.
His right fist, encased in a shimmering empowered gauntlet that pulsed with concentrated destructive force, cocked back. He aimed for her beautiful, infuriating face.
The punch never landed.
The moment his gauntlet crossed the invisible threshold, a translucent barrier shimmered into existence. Deep indigo runes raced across its surface. The impact was cataclysmic.
BOOOOM!
A shockwave tore outward in all directions. The ground directly beneath the point of contact liquefied instantly, then disintegrated into fine powder. A crater erupted outward, fifteen meters, twenty, thirty, swallowing stone, traps, and ancient carvings alike. Chain explosions ripped across the floor as secondary magic traps detonated in rapid succession. Walls of high-pressure air blasted outward, slamming into the reinforced chamber walls with enough force to make the entire pavilion groan.
The displacement of air was so violent it generated a genuine sonic boom that rolled across the chamber like thunder. The low-frequency rumble vibrated deep in their bones. At the center of the explosion, a temporary vacuum formed. For one heartbeat, everything went eerily silent.
Then air rushed back in with a howling roar, creating a violent debris vortex, a miniature tornado of dust, stone shards, and shattered magic that spiraled wildly.
Two long, jagged cracks now glowed on Agatha's barrier.
Quinn's body jerked backward from the rebound, boots skidding across the ruined floor. Before he could reset, Agatha's hands moved with graceful precision. Glowing sigils bloomed around her wrists as she began conjuring spells outside her protective shell.
She never even flinched.
Suddenly, a streak of molten red tore through the swirling dust.
Camilla.
She launched herself in a perfect backflip, molten greaves blazing at over three thousand degrees Celsius. The kick connected with the barrier like a meteor strike.
The heat was apocalyptic.
Immediate thermal expansion ripped across the magical surface. Spider-web fissures exploded outward from the point of impact, glowing white-hot. The edges of the barrier crackled and hissed, bleeding droplets of white-hot plasma that sizzled as they fell. Oxygen in a ten-meter radius ignited in a blinding thermal flash. The air itself burned.
A brief vacuum formed once again, only to be followed by a violent roaring backdraft that sucked debris inward with terrifying force. Because the barrier held, all that pent-up kinetic and thermal energy was violently deflected outward.
The result was devastating.
A supersonic concussive wave of superheated air flattened everything within thirty meters. Stone benches exploded into gravel. Ancient gargoyles shattered. The deafening sonic boom was so powerful it would have shattered glass up to five hundred meters away had there been any. Waves of heat distorted the air into shimmering mirages.
Camilla, protected by her specialized heat-resistant armor, laughed wildly even as the massive kinetic rebound tried to drive her into the ground. She absorbed the worst of it, spinning once in mid-air before landing in a crouch.
From above the chaos, a dark humongous vertical slash of pure energy pierced through the flames and smoke.
Rate.
He appeared like a specter of death. Dark energy coated his entire body except for his head, making him look like a void given humanoid shape. His saber, wreathed in writhing shadows, came down with impossible speed. The slash carved a long, straight crack across the already damaged barrier. The sound wave arrived three full seconds later, followed by a crushing pressure wave that shoved the air aside.
Rate didn't stop.
He flowed into an upper slash with lethal elegance, the dark sword singing. Fifteen ominous tentacles of condensed shadow erupted from his body, striking the widened cracks in rapid succession. Each impact landed like a siege hammer, driving the fractures deeper.
For the first time, Agatha moved.
She raised both hands, positioning them with theatrical grace, fingertips and thumbs touching to form a perfect triangle in front of her chest. Her eyes gleamed with dark amusement.
"Graf-pur!"
The word left her lips like a judge's final sentence.
A crushing wave of invisible force exploded outward. It slammed into Rate, Quinn, and Camilla with the weight of a mountain. The three powerhouses were hurled backward violently.
None of them fell.
Rate dragged his boots across the ruined floor, carving deep grooves as he fought for control. Camilla twisted mid-air, planting both molten greaves against a thick pillar behind her. The stone melted on contact, but she used the purchase to kill her momentum and dropped down lightly. Quinn struck the ground feet-first, shattering through the already weakened stone and sinking nearly to his knees before ripping himself free.
Dust settled. Smoke curled. The chamber looked like a warzone.
Yet the three Eclipse-Walkers walked forward again, unbroken, auras still surging violently. Their blood boiled with battle lust and adrenaline.
"Another try won't hurt," Quinn growled, rolling his massive shoulders. Cracks and pops echoed from his joints as he reset his stance. Golden energy flared brighter around his gauntlets.
"This just keeps getting better!" Camilla shouted, pure ecstatic joy in her voice. Her molten greaves sank into the self-made magma pool at her feet, sending fresh waves of heat rolling outward. She looked like a demon who had finally found heaven.
Rate said nothing. His dark eyes remained locked on Agatha, expression grim.
We can't give her the edge, he thought, mind racing. More stalling only gives her greater advantage. This entire floor is already layered in her magic. We have to finish this… or we die unexpectedly.
"Use whatever you can to break through!" Rate commanded, voice sharp and cold as forged steel. "Do not hesitate!"
Agatha's knowing smile widened from behind her cracked but still-standing barrier. She tilted her head slightly, violet hair catching the shifting candlelight like liquid night.
"Already done?" she called out, her voice carrying effortlessly across the devastation, laced with mocking sweetness. "You're yet to touch me."
The words hung in the air. For a few precious seconds, everything stilled.
Quinn stood with his chest heaving, golden aura flickering unsteadily around his gauntlets. His right arm throbbed from the backlash of that first devastating punch. Camilla's wild grin remained, but her breathing had grown sharper, more ragged. Rate's dark energy tentacles coiled restlessly around him like living smoke, yet his grip on the saber had tightened until his knuckles threatened to split.
In the distance, near the chamber's broken entrance, Bulk finally pushed himself up from one knee. His prosthetic leg sparked and groaned under his massive frame. Sweat poured down his face in rivers. He was terrified, every instinct screamed at him to run, but he refused to be dead weight. With a grunt, he took hold of his launcher projectile from his right shoulder. The weapon hummed to life, runes glowing along its barrel. He locked his stance, eye peering through the sight as he tried to steady his trembling hands.
Just one good shot, Bulk thought. Buy them time. Don't let them die because I'm too scared to move.
Rate's mind raced behind his cold mask.
She's playing with us. That casual tone… she hasn't even taken a proper step. The entire floor is hers. Every breath we take might be feeding her spellwork.
He glanced sideways at his team. Quinn looked angry but shaken. Camilla still burned with manic joy, but her molten greaves had cooled slightly at the edges. They were burning power at an unsustainable rate.
"We can't scatter," Rate said quietly, voice low enough for only them to hear. "Stay in formation. Hit her together or we die separately."
Agatha laughed, soft and utterly chilling. She finally moved.
With a graceful twirl of her bell sleeves, she raised one hand. A dozen violet magic circles bloomed in the air around her like predatory flowers. Each circle spun lazily at first, then accelerated, crackling with elemental fury.
"Shall we begin the real dance?" she purred.
The first circle flared crimson. A roaring torrent of flame shaped like screaming skulls surged forward. Quinn met it head-on, roaring as he drove both empowered fists into the inferno. The collision exploded in a blinding flash. Superheated air blasted him backward several steps, searing his forearms even through his aura. The pain was immediate and vicious, like molten needles burrowing into muscle.
Camilla didn't wait. She launched herself sideways in a blazing arc, greaves leaving trails of liquid stone. A second magic circle, this one icy blue, unleashed a barrage of razor-sharp ice spears. She smashed through half of them with a spinning kick, but two grazed her side. The cold burned worse than fire, flash-freezing patches of her armor and drawing a hiss of pain from her lips.
"Cold bitch!" she snarled, exhilaration mixing with genuine anger.
Rate surged forward in a blur of darkness. His saber traced lethal arcs, severing two smaller lightning circles before they could discharge. Bolts still clipped him, white-hot electricity arcing across his shadowy armor. He grunted as pain lanced through his shoulder, but he never slowed.
Bulk saw his window.
"Incoming fire!" he bellowed, voice hoarse.
The launcher on his shoulder thumped heavily. A fist-sized projectile screamed across the chamber, trailing energy bolt. It slammed into one of Agatha's active circles just as it prepared a follow-up spell. The explosion disrupted the formation, causing two circles to collapse in sparks. Agatha's eyebrow twitched, the first crack in her perfect composure.
"Not bad for the trembling one," she murmured, almost impressed.
The witch retaliated instantly.
More circles manifested, faster this time. A swirling vortex of wind and shadow erupted beneath the team's feet. Quinn was lifted off the ground, slammed sideways into a pillar hard enough to crack it. Camilla flipped wildly, using her greaves to burn through the vortex and land shakily. Rate anchored himself with his tentacles, stabbing them into the stone like claws.
Inside Rate's chest, cold dread coiled tighter.
She's not even using her full strength. These are probes. Testing how we move, how we think. If we don't break that barrier soon, she'll dismantle us piece by piece.
"Quinn! Camilla! With me!" Rate commanded.
They synchronized.
Quinn charged again, bellowing, every step shaking the ruined floor. Camilla flanked from the left in a molten streak. Rate came from above, leaping high, dark energy condensing around his saber into a massive, roiling sphere of pure destruction.
Agatha's eyes gleamed. She brought both hands together, feeding more power into her primary barrier while new circles spun defensively around it.
The team struck as one.
Quinn's empowered gauntlet hammered the barrier with everything he had left. Camilla's superheated kick landed a heartbeat later, melting and cracking the surface. Rate descended like judgment itself, all fifteen tentacles lashing forward while he poured every ounce of his dark power into a single overhead strike.
"Eclipse Requiem!"
The dark skill erupted.
A column of writhing, starless void energy slammed down. The sound was not a boom but a horrible, soul-rending tear, as if reality itself was being ripped apart. The first barrier, already weakened, finally shattered in a spectacular cascade of violet shards that dissolved into harmless sparks.
For one triumphant second, they saw Agatha's face clearly, surprised, but not afraid.
Then reality reasserted itself.
A second barrier snapped into existence instantly, tighter and brighter than the first. This one pulsed with deeper, more complex runes. The team's momentum carried them straight into it. The rebound was brutal.
Quinn was thrown back like a ragdoll, skidding across the floor and carving a trench with his body. Camilla spun uncontrollably, smashing into a gargoyle that exploded on impact. Rate managed to twist mid-air, but not fast enough.
Agatha raised one delicate hand.
A violet magic lance materialized above her, long, elegant, and humming with terrifying density. It spun once, gathering power, then streaked forward like a bolt of concentrated calamity.
It struck Rate dead-center.
The impact was clean and devastating. The lance punched through his dark aura, slamming into his chest with the force of a ballista. Rate was hurled backward thirty meters, boots leaving deep grooves in the stone before he crashed hard onto his back. Pain exploded through his ribs. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The dark energy around him flickered dangerously.
He forced himself up on one elbow, saber still gripped tightly, eyes burning with fury and disbelief.
A second barrier.
Quinn staggered to his feet, staring. "What the...? Another one?!"
Camilla pushed debris off herself, molten greaves hissing. Her wild grin faltered for the first time. "That's cheating…right?"
Bulk, still at the entrance, lowered his launcher slightly, mouth agape. His mind reeled.
How many layers does this monster have?
Rate slowly rose, wiping blood from his lips. The group stood together once more, breathing hard, auras dimmer than before. The reality of the situation settled over them like a burial shroud. They had finally shattered one defense, only for another to appear instantly and Agatha hadn't even stepped out from behind it.
The Calamity Witch brushed a strand of dark hair from her face and smiled again, sweeter and deadlier than ever.
The fight was far from over.