Caelan reacted on instinct, faster than thought. The moment he felt that familiar, rising pressure of searing mana beneath his feet,the unmistakable warning that a circle was about to erupt,he launched himself sideways in a nearly uncontrolled leap. He lost his balance for a heartbeat and landed hard on one leg just as fire blasted upward where he'd been standing a fraction of a second earlier. The wave of heat brushed his face and shoulder so closely that, for an instant, all he saw were blurred outlines and white spots dancing across his vision.
He jumped again, more reflex than intent, skin burning and the stench of scorched fabric filling his nose. But he was alive. And when it finally hit him that he'd avoided death by the width of a single step, his teeth ground together so hard his jaw ached. A cold, quiet promise formed in his mind: he would kill this disgusting beast, no matter what it cost him,far more than he'd planned.
Rethan caught the dodge out of the corner of his eye and only then allowed himself a short, broken breath of relief. It wasn't rest,far from it. At the same time, he kept throwing knives, changing rhythm and angles to prevent the boss from locking onto a single pattern. In his head, he counted automatically, without emotion, because he knew that a mistake here meant empty hands at the worst possible moment.
Fifty.
That was how many he'd brought. Any more and the ring's configuration would have risked overload. Now, after a long chain of throws and forced detonations, he had maybe ten left. Eleven, if one of the earlier charges hadn't gone off properly. Which meant that from this point on, every throw had to matter,even if it didn't deal real damage. His job was to hold attention, force reactions, and buy time.
So he slowed his throws, no longer aiming at the torso, but at points that forced the boss to adjust,around the hips, the cracks near the knees, the lower sections of the body. Even shallow explosions were enough to make the creature shift its weight, and every shift cost it a fraction of a second of stability.
Caelan stood still for a moment, breathing hard, fists clenched. Anger churned inside him, tangled with something worse: the realization that even he wasn't untouchable here. The temptation to burn everything he had in one crushing attack,to end it in a single, overwhelming blow,was strong, almost instinctive. But one glance at Dorian and Lysand, pale and barely standing off to the side, was enough to remind him that it would be the same mistake all over again.
Instead, he retreated several steps and slipped behind a massive pillar of fused stone, pressing his back against it. Sweat ran down his neck and temples. And then, unwanted but clear, his father's words surfaced in his mind,words he'd heard long before he was old enough to truly understand them: that the most dangerous magic wasn't the kind everyone could see, but the kind no one could feel until it was already too late.
He closed his eyes briefly and forced himself to slow down.
He didn't yank mana violently or let it surge and resonate. Instead, he spread it out in thin layers, suppressing its flow, dampening natural feedback. It was exhausting,mentally brutal,because it demanded constant control, constant pressure on the mind. Sweat poured off him as he held the spell together, refusing to let it "ring" in the space around him.
The spell resembled his earlier attack, but it was smaller, tighter, stripped of excess energy. Most importantly, it generated no detectable mana flow. Even the boss,adapting faster and faster,didn't react as it formed.
Caelan slowly leaned out from behind the pillar and surveyed the arena.
He saw Rethan still moving in a wide arc, dodging successive circles with growing difficulty, burns clearly visible, breathing uneven,but still successfully holding the beast's attention. Caelan nodded, a wide, almost feral grin spreading across his face.
He waited.
He counted the boss's steps, watched how its weight shifted from one leg to the other. Then he saw it,a brief, imperfect moment, when the right leg bent slightly after one of Rethan's detonations, exposing a section where the exoskeleton didn't fully cover the tendons.
He stepped out and released the spell.
Aimed straight at the right knee.
There was no flash. No pressure wave. None of the familiar signs that usually announced Caelan's attacks. The spell left his hands almost silently, like a dense fragment of reality that simply appeared where it didn't belong. The boss didn't even flinch at first, still focused entirely on Rethan and his evasive movements.
Then it hit.
At first, it wasn't spectacular,no room-filling explosion. Just a violent, localized collapse of structure, as if a piece of the leg had been cut cleanly out of existence. A split second later came the secondary rupture, when the load-bearing part of the exoskeleton failed.
Stone cracked deep. Lava veins flared, then went dark. The leg folded at an impossible angle, unable to bear weight, and the massive body lost balance and crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact that shook the chamber and hurled dust, fragments, and glowing debris into the air.
The roar that followed was chaotic and uneven,no longer the controlled voice of strength, but raw pain and fury. The monster tried to rise, bracing itself on its remaining leg and the stumps of its arms, but every attempt ended in another collapse, the floor trembling beneath it.
Rethan saw it from the side and was already pulling back as the impact happened. Success was often the most dangerous moment. After a few steps, he came up beside Caelan and gave a short nod,more acknowledgment than relief.
"Good shot," he said simply, catching his breath without taking his eyes off the beast.
They stood side by side for a heartbeat, watching the boss thrash helplessly, one eye blazing with pure hatred, its body,missing arms and one leg,unable to regain stability. It was clear: the advantage had finally broken.
Caelan lifted his chin, that familiar arrogance creeping back now that he could see the result of his magic.
"You really think I care what a regular human like you thinks?" he sneered. "Who do you think you,"
He never finished.
Rethan felt the sudden, familiar prickle beneath his feet and looked down at the exact moment a fiery ring began to close around them, cracks in the floor lighting up faster than before. Even crippled, the boss could still use that ability without its limbs.
"Move!" Rethan snarled.
Without waiting, he slammed his shoulder into Caelan and shoved him clear of the circle, leaping in the opposite direction himself. He wasn't fast enough to escape completely,the wave of heat washed over his forearm, leaving a burning, throbbing welt,but he didn't stop.
"Now!" he shouted as he ran, veering wide. "Finish it! But pull back,get some distance so you're outside the circles' range! Even like this, it can still use them!"
He kept moving, changing direction every few steps as the boss began to trigger circles almost spasmodically, flooding the area around itself in a tightening radius,like a wounded animal lashing out at anything that came too close. Rethan knew those last convulsions were often the deadliest.
"Use everything you've got!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Now or never!"
He retreated to a safer distance, legs starting to fail, lungs burning with every breath. Caelan stopped farther back, in a more secure position, and closed his eyes briefly, gathering what remained.
It wasn't much.
Maybe thirty percent of his reserves. Maybe less. Earlier spells had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. But it would be enough,if he compressed it properly and didn't try to make a spectacle of it.
His aura began to condense again, slowly this time, heavy and deliberate. This was the final attack. In the chamber, amid dust, roars, and the pulsing dungeon core, a brief, taut silence settled in,one of those moments when everyone knows that in a few seconds, everything will end one way or another.
Caelan stood still longer than Rethan liked. In a chamber like this, even a dozen seconds was enough for the situation to flip. But nothing happened. The mage simply breathed hard, shoulders locked, sweat streaking down his face and neck as he focused on something that looked almost absurdly modest.
Between his hands, a small sphere of fire formed,no bigger than a fist. No flaring heat, no dramatic effects. This time, Caelan wasn't trying to dominate the space or overwhelm it with power. He was compressing it, tighter and tighter, suppressing fire's natural urge to spread. It was visibly exhausting. His arms trembled, jaw clenched so hard his knuckles went white.
Rethan watched from a distance, standing still despite the pain in his leg and the burn on his arm. He knew that any movement now could break the mage's concentration. The boss, mangled but not dead, still tried to rise, thrashing and roaring, slamming its ruined body into the floor and triggering erratic, fading circles that lacked their former precision.
When Caelan finally opened his eyes, his face told the truth of the cost. His skin was unnaturally pale, breath ragged, focus absolute.
He said nothing and threw the sphere.
At first, it was almost disappointing. The small, condensed projectile flew toward the boss without sound or flash, moving steadily, unaffected by the distorted heat in the air. For a split second, it seemed like it couldn't possibly be enough.
Then it made contact.
The fire didn't explode outward. It collapsed inward, as if sucked into the structure of the armor. And then,everything released at once.
Compressed energy tore through the remaining exoskeleton from the inside, and a rapidly expanding sphere of flame engulfed the boss. The fire wasn't bright or showy. It was heavy and dense, shifting from white to deep crimson. The heat slammed into the chamber walls with such force that Rethan had to shield his face, the air itself ripping the breath from his lungs.
For several seconds, there was nothing but fire.
The beast's roar drowned out everything,then cut off abruptly, like something severed mid-note. As the flames collapsed and died away, the chamber was left with only the sound of cracking, cooling stone… and the harsh, uneven breathing of the people still standing.