Chapter 42: Heat Check

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Heat Check

The stairs were narrow, steep, and carved straight into the wall of the crater. There was no railing. There was barely room for two people to walk side by side. On the left, a cliff of jagged rock. On the right, a drop into nothing, with the lava lake churning far below, throwing sparks into the smoke.

Jared took the steps two at a time.

The gorilla suit hummed around him, thick and cool, a wall of damp bark and root against the roaring heat. Sweat didn’t touch him thanks to the suit.

He reached the first landing, stopped, and glanced back.

The others weren’t there.

He squinted up the staircase. A long way above him, small and slow, a line of rookies was picking its way down the steps. Their faces were red. Their clothes were soaked. One girl had pulled her jacket over her head like a tent.

"What’s keeping you so long?" Jared called.

His voice echoed off the crater walls.

A boy at the front looked up.

"Excuse us," he shouted back, "but we aren’t all in a suit that protects us from the heat!"

A few of the others groaned in agreement.

Jared opened his mouth.

He had nothing to say.

It was a fair point. He hadn’t thought of it. He’d been so wrapped up in the mission, in the stairs, in the sheer irritation of the day, that he’d forgotten the obvious. They weren’t wearing swamp.

’I should wait up.’

That was the first thought. It was the decent thing to do. It was what a leader would do.

Then his eyes slid across the line and landed on Zoey.

She was near the back.She wasn’t complaining. She was just walking, step by step, staring at her boots, refusing to look at him.

His stomach tightened.

"That’s no excuse," he said.

’She chose him. She chose Julius.’

He sped up.

He took the next flight of steps in four long strides, and the next in three. The suit thundered with every footfall. Dust sifted from the walls. Behind him, the voices of the others faded to a murmur, then to silence.

[You’re running away.]

’I’m moving ahead.’

[You’re sulking.]

’I’m leading.’

[Well you’re leading and you’re sulking at 30 miles an hour.]

He ignored it.

Because he was faster, because he’d left them behind, Jared was the first to reach the lesser beasts.

He heard them before he saw them, a dry, rattling scrape of stone against stone. Then the stairs ahead of him began to move. Shapes rose from the cracks in the rock, lumbering up out of the cliff itself, as if the volcano were giving birth.

They were rock.

Not covered in rock. Not wearing it. They were made of stone, from head to toe. Cracks of fire ran across their chests like veins. Each one was roughly the size of a man. Each one moved with a heavy, grinding tread.

[Cinder Golems,]

[D rank. Hard as rock. Literally.]

’Good.’

He didn’t slow down.

The first golem swung a thick, boulder shaped fist at his head. Jared ducked, stepped inside its reach, and drove his own fist into its chest.

CRACK.

The golem flew backward, slammed against the cliff, and slid down in a shower of gravel. A long, jagged crack split its torso from shoulder to hip.

It tried to rise.

Jared stepped forward and hit it a second time.

The golem exploded.

It burst into a hundred pieces, a spray of black fragments clattering down the stairs. The glow in its chest winked out.

[Cinder Golem (lv6)] defeated!

’That was easy.’

A second golem lumbered around the bend. Then a third. They came at him one after the other, slow, heavy, relentless.

He met them in the narrow space of the staircase and drove his gorilla fists into each of them, again and again. Every punch landed with a crack like a falling tree. Cracks spread across their bodies like spiderwebs.

[Cinder Golem (lv5)] defeated!

[Cinder Golem (lv7)] defeated!

[Cinder Golem (lv6)] defeated!

He didn’t stop. He didn’t tire. His fists rose and fell, rose and fell, and with every strike something loosened in his chest, something tight and angry that he’d been carrying for hours.

’This is kind of fun.’

He hadn’t expected that. It was a dangerous thought, but he couldn’t help it. It was good to hit something. It was good to hit something weak. They were easy. They were simple. They couldn’t fight back, not really. Despite the fact he wasn’t outputting SSS ranked level strength these foes still couldn’t match up to the swampGorilla’s strength. They were just rocks that happened to walk.

[Rex.]

’Hm?’

[You’re grinning.]

’I’m not.’

’It’s just effort, you’re mistaking effort for pleasure. .’

[It’s enjoyment. It seems you’re enjoying this a bit too much.]

’There’s no truth in that.’

[I’m sure.]

He kicked a golem off the edge of the stairs. It fell for a long time, tumbling, and disappeared into the lava with a faint, distant hiss.

He took the next flight of steps at a jog.

Then the stairs shook.

Jared stopped and looked around.

Something large was coming.

It rounded the next corner, scraping the wall on both sides. It was a golem, but not like the others. This one was a head taller than he was, twice as wide, its body a heap of massive black boulders held together by bands of glowing magma. Its fists were the size of barrels. Its eyes burned like twin furnaces. It let out a deep, grinding roar that shook dust from the ceiling.

[Basalt Brute,]

[C rank. Bigger. Meaner.]

’I can see that.’

He had expected it to be fiercer. He braced his legs, raised his fists, and prepared himself.

There was very little wiggle room. That was the problem. The stairs were barely wider than the brute’s shoulders. There was nowhere to dodge, nowhere to circle, nowhere to run. The only way was forward, and the monster was in the way.

It swung.

A fist like a wrecking ball slammed into his chest.

Jared flew backward. He hit the stairs hard, skidded, and nearly went over the edge. His boots scraped against nothing. He clawed at the rock, caught a ledge, and hauled himself back up, gasping.

The brute stepped forward.

It was above him now. It had pushed him back down the steps, and now it loomed over him, a mountain of fire and stone, blotting out the light.

’That’s not good.’

It raised both fists over its head.

Something whistled through the air.

A blast of white light streaked past Jared’s shoulder, crackled, and struck the brute square in the chest.

It teetered.

Jared didn’t hesitate.

He surged to his feet, planted his boots, and threw a single punch.

It landed with a sound like a mountain splitting.

The Basalt Brute shattered. It fell apart in a roaring avalanche of boulders, rolling and bouncing down the stairs, vanishing into the pit below. A pillar of dust rose, then thinned.

[Basalt Brute (lv12)] defeated!

Jared stood still, breathing hard.

’I got it.’

He smiled, a quick, satisfied flash behind the mask. He turned, ready to nod at the captain who had saved him, ready to give Karl a wry, grudging salute.

It wasn’t Karl.

’It wasn’t Karl.’

He got saved by a random team member.

A flicker of irritation shot through him, quick and sharp. It surprised him. He didn’t know where it had come from. He had been saved. He should have been grateful. But instead he felt a small, ugly twist in his gut, as though someone had taken a victory out of his hands.

’I could have handled it.’

Outwardly, his face didn’t change. He smiled. He lifted a hand in a friendly wave.

"Thanks," he said. "That was a good shot."

The boy lit up. "Really?"

"Really."

"I didn’t think I could hit it from that far!"

"You did great."

’I hate this.’

[You’re a very convincing liar.]

’I’m being polite.’

[You’re being a saint. I’m moved.]

Footsteps pounded behind them.

The rest of the team had finally caught up. They came streaming down the stairs, gasping, drenched, wild eyed. They tumbled onto the landing in a heap, wheezing, leaning on each other. Jared let them rest for a moment. Then he turned and looked out across the crater.

His breath caught.

The staircase widened at the bottom, spilling onto a broad shelf of black rock that jutted over the lava lake.

Rock beasts.

Hundreds of them. Cinder Golems, by the dozen. Basalt Brutes, standing head and shoulders above the rest. Smaller shapes, scuttling, crawling, hopping across the stone. They filled the shelf from edge to edge, a seething, grinding carpet of black and orange, their glowing eyes like a field of embers.

More than a hundred of them.

"We have to handle all that," someone whispered.

"There’s no way."

"Look at them all."

Jared’s eyes swept the crowd of his teammates. He counted heads.

Two were missing.

’Where’s the crab boy?’

He glanced up the staircase. A figure was standing far above, a small, dejected shape at the edge of the ledge. The boy who’d lost his gem. He hadn’t come down. He’d stayed by the gate, hugging his knees, staring into the pit.

And beside him, slouched against the wall with his hands in his pockets, stood Karl.

He wasn’t coming either.

Jared’s jaw clenched. ’Of course not.’

"So the rest of us," he said, turning back to the group. His voice was steady. "Let’s do this."

A ragged cheer went up. The rookies tightened their grips, pulled out gems, and bellowed war cries.

The air filled with light as beasts spilled onto the stairs, snarling, howling, bristling with fangs and claws. Then, together, with a roar, they charged.

They poured down the steps in a wave.

Jared didn’t follow.

He stood on the landing, perfectly still, watching them go.

He had noticed something.

It was a small thing, easy to miss. It was the shape of the stone. He looked at the wall, then at the shelf, then at the lava below, and the pieces fell into place. Markings.They pulsed, slowly, rhythmically, as if breathing.

’It’s the topography.’

He tracked the pattern. Wherever the grooves met, a bulge of stone swelled. A crack opened. A shape rose out of the rock. A new golem, fresh and glowing, climbing out of the earth.

’The volcano is making them.’

It wasn’t a nest or a horde like other dungeons. It was a factory. Every time the rookies broke a golem, the volcano made another. They could fight all day. All night. They could kill a thousand of them, and there would be a thousand more.

’There’s going to be too much for us to handle.’

He turned the thought over, slowly.

’But it’s a gate.’

That was the thing. That was the whole point. It was a gate, and gates worked a particular way. There was no need to handle all these low tiers. There was no need to wipe out the swarm. All they had to do was find the core, break it, and walk away.

’We just need to get to the core, and we’re done here.’

Destroying the core would destabilize everything else and destroy the dungeon, closing the gate.

It was obvious. It was so obvious that he almost laughed.

He glanced at the others. They were fighting like demons, shouting, laughing, hurling attacks.They were brave. They were committed. And not one of them had realized.

None of them had thought of it.

’Of course not.’

He sighed.

"I’ll do it myself," he said.

He turned his back on the battle. He looked up, at the winding stairs, at the dark mouth of the volcano above. Then he bent his knees, gritted his teeth, and started to run.

He ran upward.

He was going to sweep the entire crater, every ledge and cave and crack, until he found the glowing heart of the gate.

Far below, Zoey ducked a flying chunk of rock, wiped sweat from her eyes, and glanced up.

She froze.

A small, green armored figure was racing up the stairs, away from the fight, growing smaller by the second.

"Is he running?" she thought.