Scorio rolled over the rubble, ignoring the pain, and grabbed the knife. Came up in a crouch and hurled it at her face as she dove at him, blade raised high for a killing blow.
The knife hilt cracked right between her eyes with enough force to throw off her attack; Scorio dodged aside, her blade sweeping past his face as he wrapped an arm around her neck. He rode her down to the ground, slipping around behind her and immediately locking his ankles about her waist.
They rolled upon the rubble. She tried to hack over her shoulder at him with her stabbing blade, but couldn’t find the right angle.
Clenching his jaw, Scorio locked his hands and arched his back, hauling on her neck, bringing her jaw up.
She was a force of nature, writhing and bucking, hacking at the ground above and beside his head.
Scorio ignored it, focused on his Igneous Heart. Inhaling deeply, he pulled, drawing on the Coal mana, sucking more and more of it into his Heart.
Feeding more strength into his body.
Feeling his muscles swell with power.
She was slamming her elbow into one of his thighs, had dropped her blade to scrabble at his hands.
Scorio felt the ocean roaring in his ears, felt his whole body aflame with effort, and then the air was rent by a sharp crack, and her head snapped right off.
He fell away with a gasp, her head rolling free, her body going rigid, locked into its final contortion as if carved that way.
Gasping, Scorio sat up, his forearm raw, his chest working like a bellows. Stared at the statue as it shattered into fragments, wide-eyed, then over to where the Nightmare Lady hung suspended, her sulfurous green eyes blazing.
“Well done,” she said. “And without suffering a single cut.”
Scorio could only grin as he wrestled his way to his feet, his Heart extinguishing, his body suddenly weak after the excess of effort. He reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow and stared down at the wreckage of the statue he’d feared the most.
“I did it,” he said, testing the words even as he said them. “I defeated her.”
“And now you’re ready for the next chamber,” said the Nightmare Lady, extending her tail to lower herself slowly to the floor. “Recapture that focus. You’ll need it.”
Scorio scrubbed at his face. “Right. Focus. How do you want to do this?”
“Go through alone,” she said. “That way it shouldn’t trigger the room’s higher level of lethality.”
“All right. Wish me luck.”
“No,” said the Nightmare Lady. “Not luck. Skill.”
He paused, looking back at her, and then nodded. “Skill, then.”
Controlling his breath, he stepped up to the black door and took hold of the handle. Closed his eyes, centered himself, and then pulled it open and stepped through.
The same chamber as before confronted him. Black latticework of shadows along the walls, with the white cubes glowing softly by their hundreds. He had to cross some twenty yards.
Simple. At a sprint, he could reach the other side in seconds.
But a full-out sprint meant no control. No ability to react. He’d be pummeled to paste before he could reach the far wall.
Scorio shook out his arms, rolled his head about on his neck so that a few sharp pops sounded, and then closed his eyes.
Just waited for a few moments, and then summoned his Heart. The Coal was heavy in the room, and it took little effort to sweep it into his Heart and there ignite it.
The strength, the sense of power, was immediate, and with it came a burst of confidence.
Focus.
Scorio stepped forward. Restrained the urge to dart glances at the walls, to try and spot the cube before it came flying at him.
Stared straight ahead, through the far wall, allowing his senses to spread out about him as they’d done in the previous chamber.
Movement to his left.
A cube came flying fast and low, and without thinking, Scorio lifted his leg so that it flew under it and was gone.
A flare of victory. But he didn’t have time to relish it—another flash from his left, shoulder height, and he twisted about violently so that the cube sped past his chest.
He didn’t sense the third one, however, and it impacted his right hip with punishing force, sending him staggering.
Hissing in pain, Scorio lurched forward, his calm fracturing, his focus slipping.
More cubes came flying at him. He ducked under one, jerked forward to avoid another, but then was hit three times in succession, pain exploding from his elbow, his upper thigh, and a long trail of fire across his back as one raked past him.
Gasping, feeling as if he were choking, Scorio broke into a run, arms up to protect his head.
The rate of fire increased, cubes smashing into him from all sides, and he only made it halfway across the room before he collapsed to the floor, body broken.
But there was no zone of relief. Cubes continued to shoot out, skimming just above the ground to smash against him with terrible force.
It couldn’t have taken longer than ten seconds to die, but it felt like it took forever. Scorio was pulped and crushed, battered and broken by the endless impacts. When darkness finally claimed him, Scorio dove into it with relief.
“Gah,” he gasped as he opened his eyes upon his bier, his whole body convulsing, the pain pulsing through every part of him. He turned one way, found no relief, turned back. His spine felt crushed, his hips askew, his skull collapsed. Sharp pain stabbed at the back of his eyeballs, and he shoved his head over the side of the bier as a spasm wracked him and he vomited violently upon the floor.
He could dimly make out Naomi hissing in pain as she, too, awoke; but was lost in his own wretchedness to focus.
So this is what an anvil feels like, he thought and tried to reach for his Heart.
Movement. Vision bleary, he saw a massive insect rising beside his bier. Large and hulking like a beetle, it lifted its forelegs, their black, shining length covered in errant bristles and ending in two wicked hooks.
Scorio gave out a cry of alarm and shoved back, falling off the far edge of his bier to crash to the ground.
A scuttling sound from his left, and the beetle came swarming around the side of the bier, hook-arms ready.
Scorio was still pulsing with pain, unable to think, unable to do more than shove away again, heels skidding across the ground as he cried out in alarm.
The beetle tensed, about to leap, when a great blade chokked down through its head and into the side of the bier, pinning it neatly.
Yellow ichor gouted out and the insect vibrated in place, its legs shaking and contracting, and then it went still.
Scorio stared, wide-eyed, as the Nightmare Lady retracted her tail, then fell back to clutch at the closest bier, the strength fleeing her emaciated body.
With a retch, Scorio turned over to vomit again.
By slow degrees, they recovered, and finally, Scorio was able to stand, his head pounding, his body weak. With a deep breath, he ignited his Heart, and the strength washed over him like a healing balm, smoothing the last of the phantom pain away.
“Thanks,” he managed at last, wiping his wrist across his mouth. “That was… close.”
“Urgh.” Naomi had reverted to her human form, and her face looked bone pale. “My warnings aren’t for my own amusement, you know. Perhaps even I should start listening to them.”
Scorio took up his waterskin and swished warm water about his mouth before spitting it out. “How far did you get?”
“No further.” The bitterness in her voice was plain. “The damn beast won’t die. I cut off its leg, blinded it, and still, it could somehow sense me. All it takes is one lucky grab and then it pulls me in and crushes my head.”
Scorio took a few sips, knowing better than to flood his stomach with gulps. “Maybe it’s meant to be tackled by more than one Emberling.”
She frowned. “I know I can beat it. I just need to figure out its weakness. It’s clearly not blood loss.”