The point of light in Valerica's palm was not a flame. It was a wound in the sensory fabric of the Star-Forge core. It hummed with a frequency that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly into the marrow of Vane's bones. Around the tiny sphere of incandescent gold, the air warped and folded. The mercury vapor in the room was pulled into the singularity in spiraling, elegant trails, forming a miniature accretion disk of silver and fire. This was Stellar Collapse, a Grade S skill that did not simply burn the world but sought to condense it into a single, impossible point.

Valerica stood at the center of the melting obsidian mirrors. Her skin was the color of forged gold, her eyes twin voids of solar light. She no longer resembled the girl who had been afraid of her own heat. She looked like a celestial event given human form. The pressure in the room had shifted from the heavy, suffocating weight of the grave to an active, predatory gravity that made the floorplates groan and buckle toward her.

Vane watched from the floor, his vision swimming in a haze of gold and grey. He saw the necrotic frost on the walls begin to peel away. It did not melt into water but vaporized into nothingness as the Stellar Collapse asserted its dominance over the local space. The black frostbite on his arm hissed, the grey skin turning red as the solar radiation forced the necrotic energy out of his pores. It was agonizing, yet it was the pain of life returning to a frozen limb.

He forced his eyes toward the hatch. Malphas remained at the threshold. The construct did not flinch as the heat climbed toward levels that would have liquidated a standard knight. Its obsidian armor absorbed the light, turning a deep, bruised violet as it fought to maintain its presence. The two laws, the star and the grave, collided in the narrow corridor. The result was a screeching, conceptual friction that sounded like a thousand sheets of glass being shattered at once.

"The grave... does not... yield," Malphas rumbled. The grinding voice was slower now, as if the local gravity were making it difficult to speak.

The construct raised its jagged greatsword. It did not use a complex combat art. It simply channeled the absolute density of its High Justiciar rank into a vertical strike. The blade did not move through the air so much as it erased the air in its path.

Valerica thrust her hand forward, releasing the Stellar Collapse.

The sphere of light traveled across the chamber with a slow, agonizing grace. It was a bubble of reality that refused to obey the laws of the dungeon. When it met the edge of the Knight's presence, the explosion was silent. A flash of white blinded Vane, followed by a pressure wave that flattened every loose object in the core. The obsidian mirrors shattered into a million fragments, and for a heartbeat, the Star-Forge was a vacuum.

Vane forced his mind to trigger one last scan.

[Target Analysis]

Name: Malphas (Construct)

Rank: High Justiciar

Danger: Absolute

Status: Active (Armor Integrity: 87% Scorched)

Malphas was still standing. The obsidian armor was scorched, and the greatsword had been notched by the gravity well, but the construct remained an insurmountable wall. The Stellar Collapse had not erased the Knight. It had merely pushed the void back, hollowing out a temporary sphere of heat in the center of the necrotic storm.

Valerica gasped. Her golden eyes flickered as the cost of the Grade S skill hit her. A Rank 4 breakthrough provided a massive surge in output, but a Sentinel could not sustain a star's heart for more than a few seconds. Blood began to trickle from her nose and the corners of her eyes. Her channels felt like they had been scoured with molten glass.

"Vane," she rasped. Her voice sounded like it had been scraped through a forge. "I can't... I can't hold him. He's too dense. It's like trying to burn a hole in a planet."

"I know," Vane replied, coughing a spray of blood. Several of his ribs were shattered, making every breath a jagged torture. He used his good arm to drag himself toward Mara, who was huddled near the primary pressure valve. "We weren't supposed to kill him. We just needed to clear the air."

Vane looked at the primary conduit. Because of the Stellar Collapse, the thermal levels in the core had reached critical mass. The Star-Forge was no longer refining mana; it was preparing to detonate. The safety valves were glowing a dangerous, cherry red, and the floor beneath them was vibrating with the rhythm of a ticking bomb.

"Mara, the valve!" Vane shouted over the roar of the venting steam.

Mara reached out, her hands raw and bleeding from the mana strain, and touched the crystalline lattice she had built earlier. She shattered the structure with a final, desperate pulse of her will. The pressure valve, no longer held in place by the amber crystals, sheared off its bolts. A jet of superheated mercury steam erupted from the pipe, hitting the ceiling with the force of a battering ram. The entire stratum shook as the primary cooling line failed, triggering a chain reaction of explosions that rippled through the lower depths of the refinery.

"Valerica! The exhaust vent!" Vane pointed to a massive circular grate near the ceiling.

Valerica moved with the clumsy, desperate speed of someone fighting through a concussion. She grabbed Vane by the belt and scooped up Mara, her golden aura flaring in a final burst of propulsion.

Malphas moved. The construct took a single, heavy step into the chamber, ignoring the geysers of steam and melting metal. It raised its hand toward the escaping trio. The gravity around Vane intensified, threatening to pull him back into the mud.

Valerica did not try to out-calculate the Knight. She activated the reverse of her gravity well, pushing against the floor with a localized burst of solar pressure. This acted like a pneumatic piston, firing them upward through the exhaust grate just as the Knight's grasp closed on the empty air.

They tumbled into the narrow exhaust pipe. The vertical pressure from the core failure propelled them like a projectile through the arterial vents of the mountain. They were sliding upward, guided by the massive pressure of the core's thermal failure, until they were spat out of a concealed mountain vent miles away from the primary entrance.

They hit the snow-covered slopes of the upper groves. The cold night air was a welcome mercy after the heat of the forge. Vane rolled into the snow, his heart counting slow heartbeats to ensure they kept coming. Everything hurt in a way that made individual injuries irrelevant.

For a long time, none of them moved.

In the distance, a deep, muffled rumble echoed through the mountains. The Star-Forge was collapsing, burying Malphas and the evidence under tons of molten iron and stone. They had survived—not gloriously, and certainly not cleanly, but they were still breathing.

Valerica collapsed a few feet away. Her body convulsed as the backlash of her breakthrough finally took hold. Forcing a Rank 4 core to output Rank 5 power had left her physically ravaged. Blood continued to seep from her nose and ears, staining the white snow a dark, metallic crimson.

"Vane," she whispered, her fingers clawing at the frozen earth.

"I'm here," Vane replied. He looked at the sky. The stars were indifferent, cold and distant, just as they had always been.

"The Sol retrieval team," Vane said, his voice fading. "Tell them the Third died heroes. Tell them the dungeon broke. Keep the lie... or the Empire will never let us leave the groves."

Valerica looked at him, then at the first light of dawn breaking through the mercury clouds. She knew the truth was a luxury they could no longer afford.

"I'll tell them, Vane," she whispered.

She reached out and took his hand, her fingers still warm from the breakthrough. Mara crawled over and curled up between them, her amber eyes fixed on the horizon. The Iron-Groves arc was over. The Ledger was balanced.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.