CHAPTER 192: TENSE MOMENTS!

The skeletal Thunder Lion charged again, lightning bursting from its maw in a jagged arc that scorched the chamber floor.

Elara threw up a twisting vortex of wind and vines, deflecting most of the blast, but the impact still knocked her back a step, boots dragging across the anchored platform she’d created.

She braced herself against the recoil, panting as more vines surged from her circle, slowing the tide of lesser undead closing in around them.

"Albedo, we’re going to get overwhelmed!" she cried out as she poured more mana into the defenses she created, making sure they hold as strong as possible,"

"I know," he answered, firing a pair of crimson blasts that vaporized three skeletons lunging from the right side. His eyes flickered purple as the Source Code in his pupils pulsed with rapid calculations,"Elara, reinforce the perimeter! Lilian, clear the back!"

"What are you doing?!" Lilian shouted as she twisted her body in a tight spin, severing the legs of a skeletal knight before plunging her dagger upward into its skull, "Don’t tell me you have another stupid idea today!"

"When have my ideas ever been stupid," He said, holstering one pistol for half a second as he planted his palm against the stone.

The runes flared in response, mana shifting, the necromantic field recognizing another energy signature building beneath Albedo’s feet. He channeled mana through his arm, through his bloodstream, through the lingering embers of the Solaris bond that thrummed deep inside his soul.

"Ember."

The chamber shuddered.

A thunderous crack split the air, followed by a violent burst of white-blue fire erupting in a spiraling torrent from the ground behind them.

The temperature spiked instantly, forcing the nearest skeletons to recoil as the flames twisted upward in a vortex, warping space, distorting heat.

A shape emerged through the inferno.

Hooves like molten celestial steel slammed into the stone, shattering tiles and blowing bone fragments outward in a shockwave. Ember burst from the firestorm in full battle form, massive, radiant, and furious.

Her mane roared like liquified lightning, white-blue flames cascading off her frame, each ember dripping corrosive heat that left molten streaks across the floor. The skeletal army froze for only half a second as they saw an extremely high level Beast appear before them.

Then Ember moved.

She bolted forward in a streak of light, her hooves tearing through the first row of skeletons, turning them to ash before they could even raise their weapons.

A second swipe of her tail sent a wave of corrosive flames sweeping toward a cluster of undead archers, melting them into warped puddles of bone.

Lilian blinked, stunned, before speaking, "I forgot about her, she’s stronger than before too,"

"Ember!" Albedo commanded, raising Ruin, "Circle the perimeter, Greater Ring of Fire!"

The Solaris Equine reared back with a shriek that reverberated through the dome. Then she slammed both hooves down. White-blue fire burst outward in a massive ring, expanding rapidly until it formed a swirling boundary around the trio and the anchor point.

Skeletons that crossed it disintegrated into drifting ash, their necromantic energy hissing as it evaporated in the flames.

Elara sagged with relief, but only for a moment. "It’s... holding them back," she breathed. "Albedo, that buys us so much time,"

"Don’t get comfortable," he warned. "The field will adapt most likely, there’s definitely a higher power controlling everything,"

And like he said, the field did adapt. The Thunder Lion roared, its necrotic lightning surging into its limbs as it leapt toward the fire.

For a moment, Ember’s flames clashed with the creature’s electrified bones in a violent explosion of light. The lion shrieked, but forced one paw through the barrier, its skeletal frame crackling with power.

Ember charged, the chamber shaking as the two beasts collided in a storm of lightning and corrosive fire.

Lilian darted in on the wake of the shockwave, slicing across the lion’s flank with both daggers. Sparks flew as her blades scraped bone, but she managed to sever one of its legs, sending the monster crashing down. Ember finished the strike, stomping the skull apart in a blast of superheated flame.

But the moment the creature fell, the necromantic runes pulsed again, ribs beginning to knit, its skull already pulling itself back together.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Lilian shouted. "Can everything in this damn place resurrect?!"

"Until the field expires, yes!" Elara answered, her voice nearly cracking as she reinforced her anchor, "Just destroy them faster!"

The wyvern swooped overhead again, bone fragments swirling around it as its reconstructed wing snapped open with a thunderous clatter.

Ember spun, firing a volley of white-hot flame, clipping part of its ribs. Albedo leapt upward with a blast of graviton recoil, meeting the wyvern mid-air.

Havoc ignited in his left hand, Infernal Mode roaring to life. He pressed the barrel against the wyvern’s skull and fired point-blank.

The explosion turned its head into a burst of blazing powder, sending the beast spiraling down. It crashed into the ground with a shattering boom. But already, the runes below were pulsing again, attempting to pull the scattered bones back together.

Elara slammed both hands down again, vines erupting around the disassembled corpse, locking the pieces down like shackles. "Not this time," she hissed, "Stay down!"

More skeletal beasts lunged from every direction, a massive stag with twisted antlers, a giant serpent of interlocked vertebrae, a bear-like monstrosity with six arms. All of them glowing with necromantic light, all surging toward the trio’s shrinking area of safety.

Lilian grew more feral, her movements sharper, more desperate, cutting down enemy after enemy with vicious precision. Ember circled the perimeter, her flames burning trenches into the ground, each ring forcing the undead to push through layers of corrosive fire.

Albedo’s arms vibrated with recoil as he fired nonstop, both pistols switching modes fluidly—Infernal blasts vaporizing anything too close, Graviton slugs crushing larger beasts in explosive implosions.

Still, the undead kept rising and still, the runes kept glowing. Still, the necromantic field pulsed like a beating heart, sustaining the endless waves.

Elara’s anchor circle trembled as she poured more mana into it, vines cracking, her breath growing weak. "I can’t... I can’t hold this forever!"

"You don’t need forever," Albedo said, even as he fired another round into a charging skeletal centaur. "Just long enough."

"Long enough for what?!" Lilian demanded, slashing through three skeletons at once before ducking under Ember’s flame sweep.

"For us to survive," he replied, eyes glowing fiercely. "Because that field is going to break soon, I can sense it,"

The chamber shook again as another wave of skeletal beasts hurled themselves through Ember’s burning perimeter. The ring of white-blue fire buckled, the flames flickering under the relentless press of necromantic energy.

Albedo saw it, the moment everything would collapse. The necromantic field pulsed faster, like a heart racing toward a climax. The runes were flaring too brightly, cracks of mana sparking across the bones of the reanimated monsters.

"It’s building to something!" he shouted, ducking under a lunging serpent-spine beast before firing a graviton slug straight upward. The shot detonated the creature’s elongated skull, shattering half its body before the implosion dragged its remnants inward.

"Then let’s finish this before it does whatever that ’something’ is!" Lilian yelled back, vaulting over Ember’s sweeping tail. She dove straight at the six-armed skeletal bear, carving twin arcs of crimson light across its spine. The beast roared silently as it split clean in half, Ember’s next blast incinerating the pieces before they could re-form.

Elara gritted her teeth and thrust both hands forward. "Albedo, give me a path!"

He didn’t hesitate. He pivoted with Ruin raised, firing a sequence of precisely spaced graviton rounds. Each one detonated the skeletons packed ahead of her, opening a narrow corridor through the chaos.

Elara seized the opening, ripping her anchor circle wide. Vines thicker than tree trunks erupted outward, spiraling into the path and ensnaring every monster within reach.

The vines tightened, crushing bones into splinters. More vines shot up to bind the wyvern’s half-reformed ribs, slamming the pieces into the floor.

"I’m locking down everything I can!" she shouted, "Lilian, now!"

Lilian’s eyes flashed crimson. She darted forward in a blur, her daggers glowing as she slashed in rapid, dizzying patterns. Every strike severed runes carved into bone, the animating glyphs that tethered each undead beast to the field.

Ember shrieked in agreement, slamming her hooves down to unleash another shockwave of corrosive flame. The blast rolled outward, burning the shattered bones, melting lingering necrotic sigils into useless slag.

Finally, as they did that, the runes beneath the floor spasmed, flickered, and then shattered like glass.

A sound like a deep exhale rolled through the dome. Every moving bone instantly froze.

The wyvern’s ribs went slack. The Thunder Lion’s reconstructed torso collapsed mid-reform. The serpent-spine beast curled limply into a pile.

One by one, every undead creature dropped lifelessly to the floor.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Elara finally let out a shaking breath and released the anchor circle, the vines crumbling into harmless mana dust. Lilian bent over with her hands on her knees, panting, sweat mingling with bone dust across her cheeks.

Ember flicked her mane, the white-blue flames dimming into a calmer, controlled glow before she returned to Albedo’s side.

Albedo lowered his arms, holstering Havoc and Ruin, "That... was brutal."

"Brutal but doable," Lilian wheezed, straightening. "If everything in this palace fights like that, we’re going to die."

Elara shook her head, "No. That felt... evaluative. Like it wasn’t trying to kill us. Just measure us."

A pulse of ancient resonance filled the chamber.

The same voice as before, clear and calm:

"PROVEN. YOU MAY ADVANCE FURTHER AND SEEK THE PALACE HALL, INHERITORS."

A large portion of the far wall began to shift, stone sliding apart in perfectly aligned geometric patterns to reveal a long, spiraling corridor of soft blue light.

Albedo exhaled slowly, "This trial’s done."

"Then let’s see where this secret passage leads us," Lilian said, and the trio moved into the corridor.