The masquerade didn't just crack; it shattered under the weight of a two-ton skeletal fist.

The Siegebreaker—a towering atrocity of fused ribcages and rusted iron—squeezed its massive frame through the broken archway of the dungeon entrance. It roared, a sound like grinding tectonic plates, and the necrotic green light from its chest cavity washed over the entrance hall, killing the shadows and illuminating the terrified "feral" monsters.

Reed didn't have to give an order. Instinct took over.

High Inquisitor Kaelen didn't look at Reed. She didn't look at the "feral" Lamia or the "scavenger" Harpy. Her entire world narrowed down to the abomination standing in the doorway.

"HERESY!"

The word left her mouth like a cannon shot.

Kaelen moved with a speed that defied the weight of her full plate armor. She didn't run; she blurred. The white cloak snapped behind her as she closed the distance in two strides.

Her sword, the Blade of the Silver Flame, ignited. It wasn't the flickering yellow light of Reed's mana lamps. It was a blinding, pure white magnesium flare that hissed as it burned the air.

The Siegebreaker swung a massive arm down, intending to crush the small silver knight into paste.

Kaelen didn't dodge. She slid.

Dropping to her knees, momentum carrying her forward across the slick, debris-covered floor, she brought her sword up in a vicious, rising arc.

SHHH-CRACK.

The blade sheared through the Siegebreaker's forearm. Law Magic met necrotic bone. The collision sounded like a lightning strike.

The monster's arm, severed at the elbow, flew across the room and smashed into a wall.

The Siegebreaker shrieked—a high, psychic wail of confusion and pain.

Kaelen rose from her slide, spinning on her heel to deliver a horizontal slash across the creature's knee joints.

"PURGE THE UNLIVING!" she screamed, her voice vibrating with mana.

The massive construct buckled, crashing to the stone floor with an earth-shaking thud.

But as it fell, the hallway behind it filled with movement.

Dozens of ghouls—fast, rotting shock troops—scrambled over the fallen giant, their claws clicking on the stone. Behind them, Reed saw the glint of black iron armor. Death Knights.

"She can't hold them all!" Reed shouted, abandoning the "weak dungeon core" act entirely. "Seraphine! Drop the disguise! Front line, now!"

Seraphine roared.

She grabbed the rusted chainmail poncho Reed had forced her to wear and ripped it in half. Underneath, her Magma Dreadnought armor gleamed with dark menace.

"FINALLY!" Seraphine hissed.

She kicked the rusty pike away and summoned her Magma Lance from her inventory. The weapon materialized in her hand, glowing red-hot.

She slithered forward, placing herself between the ghouls and the Inquisitor.

"Get back, Paladin!" Seraphine shouted, thrusting her lance into the chest of a leaping ghoul. "You are in my line of fire!"

Kaelen paused for a microsecond, looking at the "feral" snake who was now wielding a high-tier magical weapon and giving tactical orders. Confusion warred with zealotry in her eyes, but the zealotry won.

"Hold the flank, Beast!" Kaelen ordered back, accepting the reinforcement. "Do not let them encircle us!"

"Grika!" Reed barked. "Suppressing fire! We need to buy time!"

Grika kicked over her beggar's cup. She grabbed a hidden lever behind a pile of rocks and yanked it hard.

CLANK-WHIRRR.

A hidden panel in the ceiling dropped open. A twin-barreled automated crossbow turret descended.

[TRAP ACTIVATED: THE SAPPER'S HAILSTORM]

THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP.

Iron bolts rained down into the tunnel entrance, pinning the ghouls against the rubble.

Reed checked his interface. The threat level was spiking red.

[INVASION DETECTED]

Enemy Force: 400+ Units.

Siegebreakers: 3 Remaining (Approaching). Breach Status: Critical.

They were fighting a losing battle. The entrance hall was too wide, the defenses too compromised from the earlier fighting. If the other three Siegebreakers reached the door, they would overrun the floor in minutes.

Reed looked up. Riva was still clinging to the ceiling, clutching her bag of bombs.

"Riva!" Reed yelled over the din of battle. "Chimney! Go! Hit the bridge!"

Riva saluted. "Bird goes boom!"

She launched herself from the stalactite, catching an updraft. She didn't fly toward the door; she flew straight up, disappearing into the dark ventilation shaft that led to the surface.

Reed turned back to the chaos.

Kaelen was a whirlwind of silver death, decapitating ghouls with precise, efficient strokes. Seraphine was a wall of magma and steel. But for every zombie they killed, two more crawled over the wreckage.

A massive black iron shield slammed into the doorway. A Death Knight stepped through the ruin of the first Siegebreaker, his sword wreathed in purple fire.

He pointed his blade at Kaelen.

"The Light… will die… here."

"Not today," Reed muttered.

He looked at Grika. The goblin was frantically reloading the turret.

"Grika!" Reed shouted. "Plan B!"

Grika froze. She looked at the beautiful entrance hall. She looked at the expensive marble floor.

"The whole thing?" Grika asked.

"Do it!"

Grika grinned—a maniacal, terrifying expression. She pulled a remote detonator from her overalls. It was a big red button with a skull painted on it.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

She slammed the button.

[TRAP ACTIVATED: STRUCTURAL COMPROMISE]

Deep inside the tunnel walls, a series of mining charges Grika had planted weeks ago detonated simultaneously.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

The sound was apocalyptic. The ceiling of the entrance tunnel—tons of solid granite and earth—lost its battle with gravity.

The Death Knight looked up just as the mountain came down on top of him.

CRASH.

A massive cloud of dust and debris exploded into the entrance hall, knocking everyone off their feet. The roar of collapsing stone drowned out the shrieks of the undead.

Then… silence.

The dust hung thick in the air, choking and heavy.

Reed coughed, waving his hand to clear the smoke.

The entrance archway was gone. In its place was a solid, impenetrable wall of rubble. The sunlight was gone. The screaming ghouls were gone.

They were sealed in.

"Status?" Reed wheezed.

"Structure… holding," Maira's voice came from the darkness. "Floor 1 is sealed. Ventilation is switching to internal scrubbers."

A light flared. Reed flinched.

High Inquisitor Kaelen stood in the center of the room.

Her armor was covered in grey dust, but her sword was still glowing with that terrifying white fire. She wasn't looking at the rubble. She was looking at Reed.

And she looked murderous.

She marched toward him, the sound of her boots heavy and deliberate. She raised the sword, pointing the tip directly at Reed's throat. The heat from the blade singed his eyebrows.

"You," Kaelen whispered, her voice trembling with rage. "You collapsed the exit."

"I sealed the breach," Reed corrected, holding his hands up slowly.

"You trapped a High Inquisitor of the Authority inside a dungeon!" Kaelen shouted. "This is treason! This is kidnapping! This is—"

"This is survival!" Reed shouted back, stepping into the blade rather than away from it.

He pointed at the wall of rubble.

"That wasn't a raiding party, Kaelen! That was an army! There are three more Siegebreakers out there! There are a thousand skeletons! If I hadn't dropped the tunnel, they would be swarming this room right now!"

Kaelen's eyes were wide, the pupils dilated. "I could have fought them."

"No, you couldn't," Reed said bluntly. "You're Level 40? Maybe 45? Those were Level 20 elites, backed by a Necromancer. You would have killed fifty, maybe a hundred. And then they would have dragged you down and turned you into a Wight."

Kaelen flinched at the word Wight.

"We are safe for now," Reed pressed. "Malakor—the Necromancer—he timed this. He wanted to kill us before you arrived. He wanted to crush us between the hammer and the anvil. By sealing the door, we took away his hammer."

Kaelen lowered her sword slightly, the logic piercing through her anger.

She looked at Seraphine, who was wiping ghoul blood off her magma armor. She looked at Grika, who was checking her turret.

"You lied to me," Kaelen said, her voice icy. "The ferocity. The poverty. The broken door. It was all a performance."

"We had to make you underestimate us," Reed admitted. "So you wouldn't burn us on sight. And so Malakor would overcommit."

Kaelen sheathed her sword. The sound was sharp, like a judge's gavel.

She walked past Reed, toward the large iron blast doors at the back of the hall—the freight elevator.

"I do not ally with liars," Kaelen announced, her back to him. "And I do not forgive Heresy. However…"

She stopped at the elevator controls.

"I am currently cut off from my support network. I am behind enemy lines. And I am facing a Necrotic threat of significant magnitude."

She turned to face him. Her expression was no longer furious; it was cold, calculating, and utterly military.

"I am activating Protocol 77: Crisis Commandeering."

Reed blinked. "Protocol what?"

"I am seizing control of this facility," Kaelen stated. "I am commandeering your resources, your personnel, and your tactical position to repel the undead threat. You are no longer a Dungeon Avatar. You are a conscripted asset of the Dungeon Authority."

She hit the call button for the elevator.

"Take me to your command center, Asset Reed. We have a war to fight."

Reed looked at Maira. Maira shrugged.

"It beats being executed," the demon maid whispered.

"Fine," Reed said, walking to the elevator. "Welcome to the team, Commander. Just… don't mind the smell on Floor 3."

"Why?" Kaelen asked, stepping into the lift. "What is on Floor 3?"

"Industry," Reed said as the doors slid shut. "And a whole lot of heat."

As the elevator rattled downward, Reed glanced at his interface map one last time. The red dot marking Riva was gone. She was outside. Alone.

Good luck, Spy Bird, he thought. Don't get eaten.

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