Thana had withdrawn to a corner of the room.Her pale halo barely trembled, reduced to a wavering glimmer.
She had buried her face between her knees.Her tiny arms wrapped around herself, rigid, as if she wanted to disappear inside her own shadow.
No sound.No words.Only that heavy silence, broken now and then by a shudder she couldn't hold back.
Kael's words still rang.Implacable.You are not my mother.
She squeezed her eyelids tighter, but it wasn't enough.Tears slid hot and uncontrollable.
And yet, through the pain… she felt it.His Magia drawing near.A calm breath.Too calm.
She slowly lifted her head, eyes still shining with water.Kael was there.Standing straight, almost serene.
Silence fell.Thana's halo flickered.Something… was wrong.
— "I've been looking everywhere for you, Thana."His voice was calm.— "We should go. Floor Five won't clear itself…"He paused, golden eyes giving off a faint glow.— "Unless you'd rather I go alone?"
Thana raised her head, her features still marked by tears.— "No… I'm coming. Give me a minute."
— "Understood, Thana."The tone stayed smooth, without the slightest burr.— "I'll wait by the exit. Don't be long."
He turned on his heel.His steps rang out—regular, perfectly measured.
Thana's halo quivered faintly.A diffuse doubt was already seeping in.
She swiped her cheeks in a rough motion and joined Kael.He waited before the exit. Straight. Motionless.His golden eyes gleamed without fever.Too smooth.
— "Ready?"
She nodded.They crossed the threshold.
The heat hit them like a hand of live coals.A heavy breath, saturated with ash.The ground throbbed, red, split by veins of magma flowing like living metal.In the distance, pillars of fire burst upward, then fell back in rainstorms of sparks.Every step Kael took tore a brief, muffled crack from the flagstones, as though the stone itself refused this new weight.
The System window slit the air with a dry snap.
⟡ Interface — Floor 5: Wrath / The Furnace of Instinct ⟡• Primary Objective: Defeat the Emissary of ???• Secondary Objective: Defeat the Emissary in under 5 minutes• Hidden Objective: ???
Kael raised his hand. A simple gesture, smooth—almost too measured.
— "Whispered Truth, open."
The text vibrated, blurred, then the masked line came clear, crisp as ice:
• Hidden Objective: Discover which "Archdemon" the boss serves as Emissary
A very slight smile tugged at his lips.Brief. Cold.As if the revelation stirred nothing in him at all.
Beside him, Thana's halo wavered.She wanted to be glad to see him so sure, so clear.But something in that tranquility rang hollow.She couldn't name it.Not yet.
The Furnace growled, closer now.Something woke in the rock-fissures—hoarse calling from an incandescent heart.And before them, the brazen arena opened its jaws.
A raw, blazing roar erupted.The entire Furnace answered.Columns of fire sprang up in furious spirals, licking basalt walls.The floor shook, split, spat jets of living lava.
Mimas rose.His bulk filled the arena.Each swing of his massive arms shed a rain of sparks; each step rang like an anvil plunged into a forge.Magma-eyes lit, fixed on the intruder.
Kael did not step back.Not a blink.He watched with a thin, almost lazy smile.A smile with none of his usual bite: cold, sleek, polished by an inner void.
— "At last, you bark," he murmured.
Mimas's fist fell.A mass of rock and fire—enormous, inexorable.The air burned under the impact.
But Kael had already slipped aside.One step.Simple.Unhurried.The colossus's arm scythed through empty space, pulverizing the floor into a spray of magma.
Kael's lip curled with disdain.— "Too slow."
Mimas roared louder, incandescent chest rearing like a volcano mid-eruption.His other arm rose, carving a flaming arc wide enough to sweep the whole arena.
The hot blast rocked Thana into a flinch.She felt the heat brush her—scalding, suffocating.But Kael?Kael merely dipped.The wave sailed overhead, harmless.
He lifted his eyes.His smile widened.Jeering.Provocative.
— "Is that all you've got?"
Mimas struck again.And again.Each blow made the arena tremble, each strike loosed an incandescent torrent, each bellow drowned the thunder of flames.
And Kael… dodged.Always with that same glacial ease.His steps skimmed the reddened stone; his shoulders tilted barely; his body moved as if the world around him were slowed.At every evade, a taunt slipped from his lips.
— "Too predictable."— "Pathetic."— "Missed again."
His eyes shone with a fixed golden gleam, but without his usual fury.It was something else.A perfect mask.Too perfect.
And Thana, tucked into a recess of the arena, felt it.Every smile.Every motion.Every silence.All rang false.This wasn't Kael.
Mimas hammered on.His fists beat the Furnace like meteors.Each hit threw off heat-waves, geysers of fire, shards of incandescent basalt.The air thrummed with rage, saturated with burning ash.
Kael kept sliding out of reach.His footwork fluid, his breathing steady.Nothing shook him.Not a bead of sweat.Not a tremor.
With every new strike, he let fall a phrase.Short.Flat.
— "Still too slow."— "You're tiring."— "Your rage is hollow."
The smile never left his mouth.Ice in the middle of hell.
Curled against the wall, Thana felt a shiver run her spine.Heat scorched her skin; her halo vibrated with pain… but Mimas wasn't what worried her.He did.Kael.Or rather… what she saw wearing him.
A colossus of molten basalt howled, struck, raged.And Kael… merely played.Mocked.Despised.
— "You're nothing but a screaming rock," he threw, slipping a straight punch.
The mass slammed the floor.A crater yawned.Torrents of magma burst in cascades.
Kael strolled forward, unhurried, lava splashing around him.His shadow stretched across the flames like a sovereign silhouette.
— "Look at you.A warden reduced to swinging at air.Pathetic."
Mimas roared, lava geysering from his throat.Both arms rose at once.The fire-veins webbing his frame flared to a blinding glare.
Thana felt the ground split beneath her.The whole Furnace vibrated.The warden was gathering himself for a total, devastating strike.
A breath of death and flame swelled in the air.The arena trembled; the red rock walls glowed, ready to fail.
And in the heart of that chaos, Kael… still smiled.Eyes locked on Mimas, body perfectly loose.He lifted a hand, slowly, as if to beckon him nearer.
— "Show me something worthy at last."
Mimas brought both arms down with a bellow that shook the Furnace entire.The sky of fire split.Lava exploded in furious geysers, crashing down in an incandescent rain.Each impact blew the floor into burning craters, hurling out waves of flame that spread in devouring rings.
Pinned to the wall, Thana felt her halo scream under the pressure.Her breath snapped short, smothered by the blistering heat.
And Kael?He still smiled.Calm.Mocking.
He slipped between the interstices of the flames with near-unreal ease.His steps skimmed the fissures without ever blistering.His body tipped a hair's breadth, eluding torrents that would have reduced anyone else to cinders.
A golden spark in his eyes.A scornful curl on his lips.As if he were dancing through an inferno that didn't concern him.
Mimas roared again, striking harder, but every blow met only emptiness.And every time, the false Kael let a cold barb fall.
— "Too slow."— "Too heavy."— "Too pointless."
Until at last the warden stilled.His incandescent chest rose; his lava eyes narrowed, burning with a dark lucidity.His voice rumbled—deep—resounding like a quake through molten stone.
— "I see you, intruder."
Silence dropped, smothering even the roar of flame.Mimas raised a blazing fist, but his words fell before the strike:
— "You are not him.You are a parasite.An Echo from another time, clinging to a body that isn't yours."