The air here was thicker. Not just with the sharp tang of turpentine and dust, but with something else, like sound that had forgotten to echo.

They had been walking in silence since the ink swallowed Kaiser. Each of them had seen his expression at the last moment, one that was of shock, and not fear. That was somehow worse. Celestine had kept her eyes forward, forcing her mind away from the image, but it lived just behind her sight.

Aria hadn't spoken at all. She'd simply kept her bow in hand, knuckles white, as if the tension alone could keep her from thinking about him.

Even Ivan, who could usually find a joke anywhere, had lost his smirk.

It was Aria who broke the silence first, her voice low but tight. "If he killed it… would that be enough to—?" She cut herself short, but the question still hung in the air.

Celestine didn't answer immediately. Her steps slowed, boots whispering against the stone. "If the Unborn dies by your hand, it tries to take you with it. That's their nature." She glanced back at Aria, her tone softening. "But corruption isn't instant. The stronger the Liberator, the more they can resist. Kaiser is… stubborn enough to hold it off for longer than most."

Aria's brow creased, not entirely reassured. "Long enough for us to reach him?"

Celestine's gaze lingered on her for a beat before turning forward again. "If anyone can make it that long, it's him." The words were steady, but she didn't let herself think about how close 'long enough' might be to 'too late.'

Celestine slowed her steps, one hand tracing the wall beside her as the corridor opened into a long chamber. Unknown to them, this one felt different from the one Kaiser had been sent to. The walls were narrower, the ceiling lower, and the light came not from grand gilded frames but from slits in the stone, faint beams that spilled across a scatter of artworks.

Aria's eyes darted from side to side. The paintings here were stranger—half-finished sunsets, their colors bleeding away into raw canvas, landscapes whose rivers ran backward when she blinked. Between them stood doors, each an unbroken slab of wood or stone, marked with symbols she didn't recognize. She stepped to one and tried the handle. It didn't move.

Another door locked. And another.

Her brow furrowed. "They're all sealed," she murmured, more to herself than to the others.

Celestine tested one as well, bracing her palm against the carved surface. Even with Sol coiling faintly in her arm, the lock didn't budge. She stepped back, jaw tightening. "Not for us, apparently."

From behind, Ivan let out a low whistle, looking around like he was casing the place. "Fancy little prison for paintings. I bet if we kicked one in—"

Celestine shot him a look. "We're not breaking anything unless we have to."

Ivan smirked, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Just saying. Some of these doors are begging to be kicked in."

Aria lingered at a narrow frame showing a city square, painted in such fine strokes she could almost hear the crowd in it. The windows of the buildings were dark. She didn't like it. Not the way the shadows clung. Not the way it felt like something in the painting might move if she looked too long.

The air shifted.

It was subtle at first, a tremor underfoot like a slow, heavy breath. Then it came again. A single footstep, but so massive it seemed to drag the air with it.

Aria's instincts snapped tight. She swung her bow from her shoulder in one motion, string pulled to her cheek, arrow aimed toward the far end of the hall. "We've got company."

Celestine didn't hesitate. She moved in front of Aria, golden eyes narrowing toward the shadows, her hand brushing the hilt at her hip. Her stance settled, ready to strike at whatever was coming for them.

Ivan, on the other hand, grinned like someone had just called his number at the gambling table. Without a word, he stepped forward and—pop—another Ivan appeared beside him. Then another. And another. In the span of a few seconds, a dozen Ivans stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a loose wall between Celestine and whatever was coming.

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He glanced back over his shoulder at her, that infuriatingly confident grin widening. "I'm tired of Kaiser getting all the action. Let's show the Liberatoriums what we're made of."

Celestine opened her mouth to tell him to stay back, but something else hit her first. A flash, bright and sharp as lightning, of Elsie's face. Not smiling. Not making some absurd declaration about money or heroics. Just… still. Trapped forever in a painting.

Her voice tore out before she could stop it. "No!"

It hit Ivan mid-stride. For just a second, he faltered, his doubles shifting uncertainly, glancing between her and the dark ahead.

That was when it came into view.

At first, it was only shape. A smear of black and red spilling into the light, hunched, its spine arched high like a cresting wave. Then it stepped fully into sight and the hall seemed to shrink around it.

It was taller than any of the ink-born they'd fought before, towering on long legs, each clawed foot leaving sizzling drops of black where it touched the marble. Its body was a chaos of muscle and shadow, draped in a skin of roiling ink streaked through with searing, blood-red patterns that curled and swirled like they'd been burned into it. The marks pulsed faintly, each throb matching the sound of that colossal heartbeat they could all feel in their bones.

Its head was lupine in silhouette but wrong—jaws too long, teeth too thin and too many, glowing a venomous green that made the surrounding shadows recoil. Strips of dripping black hung from its elbows and tail, hitting the floor with wet slaps.

And its eye, if they were eyes, were nothing but slits of boiling red, locked on them.

Ivan's grin faltered just a fraction. "Well… that's new."

Celestine moved another step forward, her hand tightening on her hilt, Sol already sparking faintly along her arm. She didn't take her eyes off the thing. "Fall back behind me, Ivan."

"Not happening," he shot back, even as his clones shifted uneasily, weapons tightening in their grip.

The air grew hotter. Aria could feel her arrow trembling against the string from the vibration of its steps. She adjusted her aim, forcing her breathing into rhythm, waiting for the moment its chest would open.

Celestine's pulse was steady, but her mind wasn't on herself. It was on Elsie's laugh, on Aria's stubbornness, on Ivan's pride. And she knew, with the sharp, certain clarity of instinct, that whatever this was… it wasn't just another monster to cut down.

The creature lowered itself, red swirls flaring like coals in a forge. Its claws scraped against the marble, leaving deep, burning grooves. Then it charged, and the world was all heat, shadow, and the pounding of a giant's heart.

Ivan's front line of clones met it head-on, diving in an attempt to hook its legs. The collision was like a wall of water hitting stone—three were flung into the air, vanishing mid-flight, their deaths sending sharp flashes of feedback through the original.

Celestine was already moving, Sol burning brighter until she was a streak of molten gold. She slid in under one massive claw, her blade biting deep into its arm. Blackened ink hissed out in a spray, spattering the marble in sizzling patches. The monster roared and swung its other arm in a brutal backhand.

She caught it on the flat of her sword, the impact sending a jolt up her arms, boots sliding back across the stone.

Aria released her shot. The arrow cut clean through the heat, glowing faintly blue as it buried itself in the monster's shoulder. Steam erupted from the wound, the head of the arrow burning in deep.

Ivan gritted his teeth, reforming more clones mid-stride. "Get its other arm!" he yelled, half to Celestine, half to himself. His copies swarmed up the creature's back, stabbing into any point they could reach.

The monster twisted violently, crushing three of them against the wall. One of its claws came down in a hammering strike toward Celestine, but she sidestepped and slashed, severing two fingers in a burst of molten black.

Its form rippled in anger, the red swirls in its body flaring brighter. It ducked low, then lunged for Aria.

She didn't flinch—another arrow was already drawn. "Not a chance," she muttered, loosing at near point-blank range. The shot struck it in the jaw, snapping its head to the side.

Celestine darted in, capitalizing on the stagger, and drove her sword into its ribcage. The blade caught for half a second, then she wrenched it free, ripping through with a spray of ink and heat.

Ivan's clones leapt from its back, seizing its head and dragging it down toward the floor. "Now, Princess!" he barked.

She didn't hesitate. One step, a coil of Sol up her spine, and she brought her sword down in a perfect diagonal arc. The cut split deep from collar to hip, the force of the strike carrying through until the tip scored the marble.

The monster froze mid-movement. The red swirls dimmed. Then it began to collapse, melting into a tide of ink that hissed as it spread across the chamber floor. Within seconds, nothing was left but the scorched grooves and the smell of something burned too long.

Celestine straightened, her breathing steady despite the adrenaline still burning in her limbs. "Everyone intact?"

"Define 'intact,'" Ivan muttered, brushing ink from his shoulder.

Aria lowered her bow at last, though her eyes stayed on the spot where the monster had fallen. "That one wasn't like the others."

Celestine didn't answer. She was staring at the fading ink, feeling the silence that followed. Whatever that thing had been, she knew it wasn't the last.

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