Chapter 103 - Dungeon - XI
** Sixty-two hours earlier
My heart hammered against my ribs like a caged animal, each beat sending waves of throbbing pain through my battered body. The taste of iron flooded my mouth—my blood, their blood, all mixed into a disgusting cocktail that reminded me just how close to the edge I was.
I was finished.
Wounds crisscrossed my body like maps of a lost battle. Deep gashes on my arms where the grasshopper's blades had nearly scraped bone. Jagged cuts on my legs from rolling between the centipede's attacks. And my abdomen... Well, better not think about how that last strike had almost split me in half.
Even my face—my damn, dazzling face—was marked. A diagonal gash from temple to chin, dried blood gluing my eyelashes together.
Half my clothes were reduced to tatters, the fabric soaked in sweat, blood, and fluids I'd rather not identify.
And that pissed me off.
How many times had I trained with Lesley in full armor? How many nights had I spent perfecting movements in full gear? All for nothing—because when it mattered most, I was dressed like some random mage, unprotected, exposed.
"Phew..." I sighed, pushing the thought aside.
I dragged them. Every inch, every step, every breath that burned like fire in my lungs. Dorian, nearly torn apart. Seraphine, pale as death. Aeloria and Dália, so light and yet so heavy at the same time. I dragged them because there was no other choice.
I placed the entire group beneath the exit hole of the dome, but before actually leaving that macabre place, I took one last look around.