Night That Bled Fire

Chapter 18: Night That Bled Fire

The tunnel narrowed further ahead.

The floor tilted down, then evened out. Old warning stripes showed under the frost, half‑hidden under dungeon growth. The crystals in the walls were bigger here, their light a steady, unnatural.

We were too close to something important.

Whether that was the gate core or just a massive nest didn’t matter. Either way, it was more attention than I wanted.

“Here,” I said quietly. “This is the last good choke before that bend.”

Yeonhwa stopped a pace short of it, eyes lifting to the ceiling. Her shadows tasted the edge where the roof dipped.

“There’s a ledge on the left,” she said. “Remnant of a platform.”

“I see it,” I said. “Use it.”

She climbed up without another word. Shadow steps. Barely a sound.

On the opposite side, the wall bowed outward a little where the crystals clustered more thickly, their glow beating in uneven throbs.

I pointed.

“Eun‑ha, there,” I said. “Not under the cluster, but close. That curve gives you space to swing.”

Her eyes flicked from my hand to the spot.

“It’s exposed,” she said.

“That’s the point,” I replied. “You don’t want anything right on top of you in a place like this. If they dogpile, we’re done. Take the distance. I’ll stay in the middle.”

She moved.

To anyone watching from above, it would have looked like clean adjustment.

Front high. Rear angled. Centre holding.

Perfect little diagram.

Even now, my brain catalogued the details.

The way Yeonhwa’s shadow on the ledge pressed harder against the pillar’s base as she settled. How the fine dust at its foot started to sift.

The way the crystals near Eun‑ha’s shoulder flared and dimmed again when she rolled her mana through her fingers.

Two people setting their teeth into the dungeon and remaking it in quiet, private ways.

A tremor shivered up through my boots.

Louder than before.

They are definitely up to something else.

“That’s not just a turn,” I said. “Something big is moving.”

“Good,” Yeonha said. “We won’t have to look for it.”

We.

Like we had planned this?

The air ahead grew darker, the pulse of mana thick enough now that it felt like pushing through oil.

Then the wall at the end of the choke swelled.

Concrete cracked along an old seam. Frost sprayed outward. A blunt, bone‑armoured head punched through, teeth scraping sparks along the floor as it forced its bulk in.

It wasn’t supposed to be able to fit.

The mutated worm didn’t care.

It screamed.

The sound took the air and ripped it. Raw pressure slapped into us. The crystals all along the walls flared in answer.

For one raw moment, everything in front of us was noise and white.

Through the glare, I saw two things clearly.

On the left, Yeonhwa’s shadow didn’t drive for the worm’s eyes.

It slid down. Fast. Sharp. Straight into the already‑weakened feet of the pillar holding her ledge.

On the right, Eun‑ha’s fire didn’t go for the worm’s open mouth.

She flung it past the beast, directly into the thickest knot of mana‑light crystals, overcharging them in a single, ugly pulse.

“Wait, what are you—” tore out of me.

Too late.

The floor moved.

The crystals detonated first.

They tore a chunk out of the right wall, ripping through concrete softened by too much mana. Shockwaves ran along the structure.

At the same time, the pillar on the left lost what was left of its integrity. The base shattered. The top split. The ledge under Yeonhwa’s feet bucked, then dropped.

The ceiling between them sagged.

The worm’s own bulk shoved against it from below.

Everything gave.

There was no time to pick a direction.

No clear path out.

The floor dropped out from under us in one brutal pull.

For a second, my stomach lurched up into my throat, my hand grabbing at empty air.

Then we fell.

***

The impact broke the light and the sound at the same time.

New ground rose to meet us, hard and bitterly cold. I hit on my already‑bad side; pain streaked white behind my eyes and stole the first breath I tried to drag in.

When I forced my vision to focus again, the world had changed.

We weren’t in the tunnel.

We lay strewn across a wide chamber, the ceiling far above us like the inside of a frozen throat. Thick ribs of ice arched from wall to wall. Old platforms hung askew on the sides, half consumed by dungeon flesh.

Above, the hole we’d torn through gaped like a broken mouth, chunks of shattered tunnel still dropping in slow, dangerous pieces.

The worm’s segmented body tumbled through the breach after us, screeching in confusion as it crashed onto the new floor. Fragments of rock and ice bounced off its armour and skidded across the chamber.

Directly ahead, coiled around what had once been a central support pillar, something else moved.

The core guardian had been sleeping.

Not anymore.

Layered frost scales shifted as it unwound. A serpent, larger than the worm, its body wrapped twice around the broken column. When its head lifted, ice creaked along its neck. Two pale eyes opened, unfocused for a heartbeat, then fixed on us.

Too close.

We were much too close.

My lungs finally managed a shallow inhale. It burned.

“Get up,” I forced out. It came out rough. “Move.”

Yeonhwa pushed herself up on one arm, shadows twitching around her like they’d taken a hit too. Her hair stuck damply to her forehead. Blood traced a line past one eye.

On the other side, Eun‑ha rolled to her knees, coughed once, and pulled herself upright. She shook her head like she could clear the impact that way. Her flame reformed in her hand, smaller than usual.

They both followed my gaze.

Their bodies went stiff.

“This depth already…” Eun‑ha muttered under her breath. “It wasn’t supposed to—”

She cut herself off.

Not supposed to.

They hadn’t come here for this room.

They’d dropped us into it anyway.

The guardian tasted the air.

Then it moved.

Not the worm. That thing was still flailing on the other side of the chamber.

The serpent.

It lunged with a speed that didn’t suit its size, jaws opening to snap up the nearest moving thing.

That nearest thing was me.

It came from an angle that made everything blur.

Left to right. Low enough that dropping flat would put me under its head, not clear of it.

Behind me there was nothing but ice‑slick floor.

Beside me, two bodies that would not get there in time even if they threw every skill they had.

For them, watching from that distance, it would look like the guardian’s first strike arced straight toward where they stood scrambling up.

For me, it was simply a wall of teeth on a line that intersected my chest.

My body didn’t have the luxury of metaphor.

I sucked in as much air as my ribs would allow, tucked my head, and shifted my weight forward, not back.

Just the only direction that shortened the time I spent in the path.

If I stayed loose, it would take everything.

If I tightened, it might break less.

The serpent’s head crashed into me before I finished the thought.

Teeth didn’t close fully; it was still half‑recovering from sleep. Instead, its snout caught my shoulder and side, a blunt, unstoppable blow that picked me up like a toy and flung me into the nearest wall.

Stone and ice met my ribs with a crack that lit up every nerve.

The sound that tore out of me wasn’t anything articulate.

My back slid down the curved surface, leaving a smear of red.

For a breath, everything narrowed to the ringing in my ears and the effort it took to drag air past the pain.

“Si‑wooo!”

Again, two voices at once.

Hands grabbed at me an instant later. Too hot on one side, too cold on the other.

“Don’t move,” Eun‑ha said. Her palm pressed against my uninjured shoulder, trying to pin me gently.

Her other hand hovered uselessly over the bruised mess of my ribs, flame guttering.

“You stepped—” Yeonhwa’s voice shook. “You… why did you stand there? Are you—”

Their eyes were wide.

Shocked.

Ah.

From where they were standing, all they would have seen was me taking the line of the strike with my body, not turning away. A human shield moving into the path between the beast and whatever lay behind.

To them, it would write itself.

He moved to protect us.

He took that hit so we wouldn’t.

I dragged a rough breath in, the edge of it sharp enough to make my vision blur.

If I opened my mouth now and said, It was aimed at me, not you, I just didn’t want to die, it wouldn’t matter.

They wouldn’t hear it.

The guardian pulled back, icy breath spilling from between its teeth. The worm thrashed further along the floor, half tangled in fallen stone, shrieking.

The chamber thrummed with overlapping mana.

The dungeon didn’t care about intention.

Only about foods.

Right now, I could barely get my legs under me.

“Stay down,” Eun‑ha said without looking back at me. Her voice was tight, hoarse.

“Don’t move.”

“Don’t talk,” Yeonhwa added. “You’re bleeding too much.”

They were both watching the monster now.

For the first time since we entered, their attention matched.

It would have been almost comforting, if breathing didn’t feel like a task I might fail mid‑way.

The serpent’s mouth opened.

The next strike would decide whether any of us walked out of here.