“That is not normal,” I said.

  What stood before us barely qualified as a dungeon. If it even was one.

  Dungeons formed when aether concentrated in a fixed location, most often where ley lines rose close to the surface. Over time, that concentration grew dense enough to fracture reality and create a pocket dimension. Once that happened, the space began pulling living creatures or entities into it.

  The first creature taken became the core.

  It was reshaped, bound to the pocket, and transformed into the final chamber boss. Whatever it had been before determined what kind of dungeon formed around it.

  Rifts formed in a similar manner, though differently.

  They appeared when dense aether in our world linked with a matching concentration in another. The result was a portal, a direct connection between worlds. Most of the time those would stabilize, but if that didn’t happen, it would result in a rift tear.

  What lay before us followed neither of those patterns.

  A rift portal sat at the center of a hive-like structure that matched the general layout of a dungeon entrance. None of us had ever seen a dungeon form around a rift. And none of us had seen a rift used as an entry gate.

  Dungeon entrances usually looked like liquid glass. Smooth. Shimmering. Aether rippling across the surface in colors tied to the dungeon’s affinities. You could often see a blurred version of the entrance chamber beyond it, fogged and indistinct until the dungeon instanced itself for whoever stepped through.

  This entrance wasn’t glass.

  It was a rift.

  A raw opening to another world, surrounded by grown structures that pulsed and breathed like living flesh. The dungeon hadn’t replaced the rift. It had built itself around it.

  Creatures moved constantly around the portal.

  More of the same type we had fought earlier. On my map, every one of them glowed hostile red. So did the structure they were swarming over.

  The map identified the hive as a living organism.

  That alone made my stomach tighten.

  It wasn’t stone or constructed material. It followed the patterns of a nest or swarm structure, layered and organic. The entire mass pulsed rhythmically, covered in growths of varying sizes. Larger nodules clung to the main body while smaller maggot-like creatures crawled in and out of vents and folds in the surface.

  The land around it was already changing.

  Fungal growth crept outward from the base of the structure, spreading through soil and roots alike. The same sickly presence pressed against my senses, stronger here than it had been in the forest. It stretched farther every minute, draining life as it went.

  This wasn’t just a dungeon.

  And it wasn’t just a rift.

  It was something that had merged the two into some kind of controlled structure.

  “We may need to report this before we go any further,” Sirius said after several minutes of watching the growth continue to advance.

  “I agree,” Malorn replied, eyes still fixed on the hive. “But I don’t like the idea of leaving this area unguarded and allowing whatever this is to advance unhindered.”

  “As much as I’d love to put distance between myself and that thing,” Milo said, “it would probably be best if I stay and trap the surrounding area. If we’re lucky, I can slow the spread or at least contain it.”

  I nodded. “It may be safest for me to stay as well. My regeneration should keep me resistant to whatever this fungal growth is doing. Sirius, you have regeneration too, but yours is bound to nature. That could make it a good counter, or it could make things worse. We don’t know yet.”

  I looked to Malorn. “With Milo setting traps and working alchemy, Sirius and I both having healing related abilities it makes the most sense for you to go.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Outside of you and Dusk, I can cover the most ground safely with Fern. Given the situation, I agree.”

  “Then that’s our course,” Sirius said. “Malorn, head back to the Bastion. Report everything preferably directly to Captain Rhael. He will take this seriously knowing I sent you back. Request multiple squads, a building team, and an alchemist unit. We’ll need tests run on this growth and whatever countermeasures they can develop. And we’ll need fortifications built to keep it contained.”

  Malorn nodded once. Then he turned and launched into a sprint, Fern flashing after him and vanishing into invisibility almost immediately.

  I watched as the forest swallowed them.

  To Malorn’s retreating back, Sirius said, “I have a bad feeling this isn’t a one-off encounter. It feels like a lot of dots are connecting to things that have been happening over the last few years. I hope I’m wrong.”

  My thoughts jumped back to the Academy.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  To the first dungeon I had ever entered. To the moment Luceran had thrown something into the entrance just before we crossed the threshold. I remembered the sickly presence flaring, then twisting, and the way the instanced chamber had changed afterward.

  No one at the Academy had known of any way to affect or alter a dungeon entrance.

  And now, standing here, I was looking at an amalgamation of a rift and a dungeon. A structure that pulsed with the most potent version of that same nauseating presence.

  That did not feel like a coincidence.

  If Sirius was right, then whatever Luceran had been involved with hadn’t ended at the Academy. It seemed to be solidifying and spreading.

  But this might be our first real chance to get some answers.

  I turned back toward the hive and tightened my grip on my knives.

  We just had to hold the line until backup arrived.

  —

  Exhaustion was closing in.

  Our sleep came in fragments. Food was rationed. Water tasted faintly wrong no matter how much Milo filtered it. The fungal growth never stopped pressing outward. We burned it back, froze it, crushed it, poisoned it. It always returned slower, but never gone.

  I felt it in my bones now. A constant hum through the world around us. The hive adapting to our presence the same way we adapted to it.

  My map flared again.

  Four more and moving fast.

  “Company,” I said, as I stepping forward.

  Sirius exhaled slowly beside me. His shoulders sagged for a moment before he straightened and planted his spear. Milo was already moving, hands shaking slightly as he armed devices from muscle memory rather than focus.

  The first nidus — that’s what Milo called them, something he remembered from one of his textbooks — broke from the treeline in a rush of distorted motion. Plates slid across its body as it charged, mass shifting forward to absorb impact.

  I met it head-on.

  I slipped inside a sweeping strike and drove a knife into a seam beneath its arm. The flesh resisted, thickened, then split under sustained pressure. I tore the blade free and rolled as the creature collapsed into the space I had occupied.

  Sirius took the second.

  Stone erupted around its legs, pinning it mid-stride. Vines followed, wrapping tight and constricting hard. The creature fought back immediately, tissue hardening, corruption creeping into the bindings. Sirius grunted and forced more aether into the hold, veins standing out in his neck.

  “Now,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Milo fired a bolt from one of his hand crossbows. It struck true and detonated a moment later, the alchemical charge eating through corrupted tissue and destabilizing the core beneath. The creature convulsed and went still.

  The third came rushing and stomped the ground.

  A row of fungal spears burst from the ground beneath me, fungal matter spraying outward as it emerged. I felt the impact a heartbeat before it happened and threw myself aside. Pain flared across my ribs as something clipped me, sharp and heavy.

  I hit the ground hard, rolled, and came up on one knee.

  The wound was already knitting as I added another scar to the canvas.

  I threw both knives. One missed. The other buried itself deep into the creature’s torso. It didn’t even slow the creature.

  Milo’s trap did, though.

  The ground beneath it collapsed inward as a shaped charge detonated. The creature dropped into the pit and Sirius sealed it instantly, stone closing like a fist. The muffled impact beneath the surface ended a second later.

  The fourth hesitated.

  It stood back, plates shifting, tendrils tasting the air like it was learning from its brothers’ deaths.

  I didn’t give it the chance to continue.

  I sprinted, ignoring the ache in my legs and the hollow burn in my stomach. I felt Sirius moving with me, matching pace. As we moved, I watched Dawn take out a fifth one that had appeared on my map.

  The creature in front of us lashed out, but the timing was off. Too many adaptations fighting for control.

  I slid under the strike and drove a blade upward into the core. Sirius followed through, spear punching straight down and pinning the creature in place. Milo’s final device struck an instant later.

  The glow beneath its skin flickered.

  Then went dark.

  Silence settled over the clearing again.

  I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, waiting for my hands to stop shaking. Sirius leaned on his spear, eyes closed. Milo dropped to one knee and stayed there.

  The fungal growth receded slightly where the creatures had fallen. Just enough to notice. Just enough to tease us with the idea that this mattered.

  But it didn’t disappear.

  Not even close.

  “They’re escalating,” Milo said quietly. “Sending bigger ones. Smarter ones.”

  Sirius nodded. “It’s like their learning with each successive death and absorbing the memories then modifying themselves accordingly.”

  I looked toward the hive. Toward the pulsing structure wrapped around the rift that had grown even more.

  “I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up. It’s been five days and since Malorn left. He should be back by now.” I said.

  We were still holding the line, but we were losing ground.

  —

  “Run!” I shouted at Sirius.

  I hauled Milo over my shoulder and broke into a sprint, boots tearing at the forest floor as we fled the hive. He was bleeding badly. Dark streaks soaked through his clothes, and beneath them fungal growth was already spreading across his skin. It pulsed with every step I took.

  It hadn’t won, but it was winning.

  Dawn erupted from the ground to my left and slammed down on another nidus, crushing it under her weight. The creature clawed at her scales in panic, ripping into her hide. Magma leaked from the wounds, spilling across its body and melting flesh and plate alike.

  She didn’t slow down at all.

  Dawn tore open its chest, sank her teeth into the exposed cavity, and ripped the core free. She crushed it between her jaws and vanished back into the earth, circling beneath me as I ran, waiting for the next strike.

  Sirius caught up a moment later.

  He was limping hard, blood running freely from a deep wound in his left thigh. Fungal growth clung to the edges of it, crawling inward. We had learned over the past week that his nature-bound regeneration could hold it back, as long as he wasn’t overwhelmed.

  That was a big ask at this point.

  Behind us, the rift screamed.

  The ground shook violently as the hive convulsed. The rift portal warped, space folding in on itself as pressure built past anything I had felt before. This wasn’t more fungal creatures emerging. This was a rupture or a dungeon break. Maybe both. A tear so dense with aether it felt like the world itself was bracing for impact.

  I looked ahead and nearly stumbled.

  A single green dot appeared on my map.

  Then another.

  Then hundreds.

  Emerilia crossed into range at full speed, her silhouette framed by sunlight as she surged forward. Behind her came a murder of oreowls, wings flashing as they dove low. Their feathers gleamed in every reflective metal imaginable, gold, silver, bronze, colors shifting as they banked and accelerated straight toward us.

  Relief hit me so hard my legs almost gave out.

  I didn’t slow. I couldn’t.

  We ran as the sky filled with wings, the oreowls screaming overhead and surging past us toward the hive. The air vibrated with the force of their charge.

  We didn’t look back.

  Not until the break pulled the world inward.

  The forest warped, trees bending toward a single point as space collapsed in on itself. Then it burst outward in a wave of raw aetheric force. The blast caught us mid-stride and hurled us through the air.

  I hit the ground hard.

  The world spun. Stone and roots tore at me as I tumbled across the forest floor. The sky above was painted in a choking, miasmic haze as color drained from everything around us.

  Sound began to fade.

  The last thing I saw was Asher forcing something between Milo’s lips, tilting his head back as liquid spilled into his mouth.

  Then the world went dark.