The world reformed.

  John took a slow breath, letting his eyes adjust. The violet sky was layered with tumbling clouds that moved at unnatural speed.

  Stone buildings loomed over them, ancient and warped, with spires that pierced the churning sky. Connected by giant arches that defied gravity, they bent at angles that hurt the eye.

  Zara pivoted in a slow circle, her gaze sweeping across the impossible landscape. The mask she wore gave her the look of a statue come to life.

  “It didn’t look like this before,” she said. Her voice was calm, but John noticed her shifting closer. “There was a ceiling. Walls. This…” She swallowed. “Is new."

  John started walking, unease settling in his chest.

  He watched Zara from the corner of his eye as they moved together. She was scanning the twisted architecture constantly, alert yet completely unaware of how badly outmatched they might be.

  They'd have to make it work.

  "How did you get out before?" he asked.

  She flexed her fingers, cracking her knuckles. "Sprinted until my lungs burned. Everything was twisting around me. Then I fell into nothing. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor of the entrance, gasping for air."

  As they walked, the street curved beneath them with a subtle bend that made John's balance falter. A doorway opened in one of the buildings as they passed. John peered inside warily, seeing an empty staircase descend into shadow. He blinked, and it climbed upward instead. Another blink, and the stairs both rose and fell simultaneously, two realities occupying a single space.

  He kept walking.

  Ahead of them, the street ceased to exist.

  Zara sucked in a breath. "What was that?"

  John got closer, staring at the void between buildings. "This place is still being built. From the memory of minds that are fighting over the truth."

  A sound came from above. When he looked up, a stone gargoyle lurched into view atop a nearby roof. The creature's head snapped from side to side, yet its empty eyes remained fixed on them.

  The void ahead of them became a wall.

  At first glance it looked like weathered stone with decorative carvings. But up close, John could see what the patterns actually were. Small faces contorted in silent agony.

  They shivered. One heartbeat they were carved decorations, the next they were alive, and every hollow gaze found John and fixed on him with terrible hunger.

  They began to sing.

  Zara stumbled backward, both hands pressed against her ears.

  John didn't think. His sword was out and slashing. It cut deep, sparks flying as it passed through stone.

  And the singing got louder.

  Loud enough to hurt. The mouths he'd cut were screaming the song now, furious. John gritted his teeth and kept slashing.

  He felt warmth trickle from his ears.

  John swung again, harder, and stone split under the blow.

  The faces contorted in rage, then melted back into the wall with one last piercing wail before vanishing completely, leaving only smooth wall behind.

  The street fell quiet. John wiped at the warm trickle from his ear, examining the blood on his fingertips.

  "You holding up?" he asked Zara.

  Zara didn't answer immediately. She lowered her hands, her fingers trembling slightly. When she finally looked at John, her eyes were wide behind the stone mask.

  "The song," she whispered. "It felt like home. Like I belonged."

  John nodded.

  "Does the mask—"

  A sound cut her off. Scraping. Stone on stone. Getting faster.

  John spun, sword already rising.

  The thing came around the corner at a run—if running was the right word. A torso without head or legs, propelling itself on six arms that bent backward at the elbows. The trunk was smooth. Featureless. Like someone had carved a person and forgotten to finish.

  Zara's hands came up, and darkness bled from her fingertips. The shadow coalesced, flowing like liquid smoke into twin whips that writhed in the air. Each one ten feet long, moving with serpentine grace.

  The creature ignored her completely. It vaulted over a pile of rubble, arms moving in perfect coordination, and came straight for John.

  The first arm came in high and the second swept low. He jumped, twisting in mid-air. Two more arms thrust forward where his torso had been a heartbeat before.

  He sidestepped the next lunge like he'd known it was coming. Because he had. The creature's attack pattern was burned into his memory. High-low-thrust.

  His sword flicked out, the impact jarring his arm as the blade struck true. One arm fell, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

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  The creature adjusted, five arms now working in a different rhythm. John adjusted too, staying just outside its reach, blade moving in precise cuts that severed limbs one by one.

  Zara watched from behind the mask, eyes wide.

  John moved with mechanical precision. No wasted movement. No hesitation. Every attack predicted. Every counter perfectly timed. He moved like he could see the future.

  Four arms. Three. Two.

  The creature lunged with its last two limbs. John waited until they were inches from his face, then stepped inside the attack and drove his sword up through the center of the torso.

  The creature froze. Shuddered, and crumbled into dust.

  [Level Up]

  John straightened, breathing only slightly harder than before. He sheathed his sword, then glanced around for more threats.

  Zara stood exactly where she'd been when the fight started. She hadn't moved. The shadow-whips were still formed around her hands.

  "What?" John asked.

  "You dodged left before it attacked left," she said. "Ducked before the high strike started." She let the whips dissipate. "You knew what it would do."

  John shrugged. "I'm just fast. For my Rank."

  Zara stared at him for a long moment, then touched the mask, fingers tracing the stone edge.

  "It really works," she said. "The creature didn't see me at all."

  John started walking again. "They think you're one of them."

  Zara caught up to him, boots silent on the ground. "So I could walk right through this place? Past all of them?"

  "As long as you don't attack them first," John said. "Or refuse to sing. They don’t like that."

  "I’ve never been much of a singer."

  The cramped street abruptly gave way to an open plaza. Massive structures encircled them, their top floors leaning inward like worshipers bowing toward some unseen altar. The ground was cracked and broken, with heat shimmering from the fissures, distorting the air.

  In the middle stood a figure.

  A giant made of dark rock polished to a smooth sheen. It looked like a knight in armor, every joint and seam flowing together in one continuous piece with gauntlets that ended in clawed fingers.

  The helmet was the worst part.

  A massive cube with a face carved into each side. Two horns curved up from the top like a crown. It held a sword that dripped molten rock that hissed when it hit the ground, leaving glowing trails on the stone.

  John took a step forward into the plaza.

  The knight's helmet rotated. One face disappeared, another came into view. This one had its eyes open.

  It looked at John.

  Then it moved.

  No warning. No stance. Just instant motion. The knight crossed thirty feet in two strides, sword already coming down.

  John barely rolled clear. The sword crashed into the ground where John had stood a heartbeat before, splitting the ground and unleashing a fountain of molten rock. It spread outward in a perfect arc, following the sword's path, burning everything it touched.

  The knight wrenched its sword from the molten stone and swung again in a vicious sideways arc.

  John ducked. The blade passed over his head, and a wave of lava followed it. Where droplets struck, they sizzled and burned, marking the plaza with glowing scars.

  The knight advanced. Methodical. Relentless.

  John blocked the next strike, and the impact drove him back, boots scraping across the plaza. The knight pressed forward—

  Zara's whips wrapped around its knees. She pulled, throwing her whole body into it.

  The knight's legs buckled. It stumbled forward, trying to catch itself with its free hand—

  The helmet rotated again, faster this time. The face that came into view had its mouth open in shock, maybe, or something like it. The knight had registered Zara's presence. Seen past the mask.

  John was already there. His sword cut upward, catching the knight under the chin. The helmet snapped back. Stone cracked with a sound like breaking ice.

  The knight swung blind, sword whistling through empty air. Lava sprayed in every direction, forcing both John and Zara to retreat.

  Zara's whips slithered back to her as she stepped wide to the right. John flanked left. Without a word between them, they circled to opposite sides of the knight, their movements perfectly mirrored.

  The knight's helmet rotated faster now. One face watching Zara. Another watching John. Like it couldn't decide which threat was greater, which one to eliminate first.

  John attacked. His blade found the shoulder joint where armor plates met. It shattered. The arm holding the sword came loose, hanging by threads of rock.

  The knight turned on him, damaged arm still trying to swing, lava still dripping from the blade.

  Zara struck from behind. Both whips wrapped around its other arm, binding it to its side. The shadow coiled tight, holding firm.

  John charged. The knight tried to turn, but Zara's whips held it in place. His sword drove into the center of the breastplate. Deep.

  The knight should have stopped. Should have died.

  It didn't.

  The helmet rotated one final time, mouths opening in unison.

  Then it exploded.

  Lava sprayed in every direction. John threw himself backward, hit the ground rolling. Heat washed over him and he heard Zara cry out.

  When he looked up, the knight was just a spreading pool of molten rock, and Zara was stumbling back, shaking her hand where lava had caught her glove.

  The lava cooled fast, hardening into black glass that reflected the sky above.

  They stood there, breathing hard, staring at the glass.

  [Level Up] X2

  Zara pulled off a glove slowly. Her hand was red, badly blistered. She stared at it for a moment, expression unreadable behind the mask, then pulled the glove back on without a word.

  "Last time I was here, nothing fought like that." Her voice was flat. "They were dangerous, but..." She looked at the black glass. "They didn't do that."

  "It's stronger now, more real."

  "That was just one knight." Zara looked at him. The mask made her face flat, expressionless, its carved features catching the violet light in ways that made her look less human. Only her eyes showed through the hollow sockets, watching him with an intensity the mask couldn't hide.

  "Yeah."

  "And this is just the start."

  "Yeah."

  Zara was quiet for a moment. Then she looked at the buildings around them, the streets vanishing into shadow. "How big is this place now?"

  "We're still at the edge," John said. "It's a long way to the center."

  She was quiet for a long moment, flexing her fingers slowly. New whips formed from shadow, coiling around her hands like living things.

  "I’m glad you’re here."

  John almost smiled. "There’s nowhere I’d rather be."

  Her head tilted—that wrong angle again. Then she nodded, once. She believed him. John wasn't sure why that mattered, but it did.

  They started walking toward the far side of the plaza, deeper into the city where the buildings grew taller and the shadows grew longer.