Hearing that his senses weren't wrong, and that Arachne was just behind this illusion, Adam finally had hope again. He quickly stood up and charged forward, his body quickly disappearing as the wall made of fog shimmered and distorted to envelop him.

Leo and Luna exchanged a brief glance before stepping forward, their figures swallowed by the misty wall one after the other. The chamber fell quiet once more, the fog shifting faintly as though mocking the silence.

Lily lingered at the edge, her brows furrowing. Something about the way the mist moved unsettled her. Her instincts whispered that staying behind would be safer, that someone needed to watch their backs. She opened her mouth to speak, but Aria was already moving.

Without a word, Aria seized Lily's wrist. The bard's grip was firm, her eyes leaving no room for argument. Lily tried to pull back, her protest caught in her throat, but Aria only shook her head and tugged her forward.

The fog rippled like water disturbed by a stone. Together they stepped through, the world behind them vanishing in an instant.

The air on the other side of the illusion was thick, heavy with the copper tang of blood and something fouler that clung to the back of their throats. Their feet dragged across uneven stone slick with ichor, forcing them to slow almost immediately. The fog behind them sealed shut like a door, cutting off their escape and leaving only the silence of the chamber to welcome them.

Then the silence cracked.

A groan of metal against bone echoed through the vast space, so low and drawn out it sounded more like the dungeon itself was grinding its teeth. As their eyes adjusted, the group saw why the sound rang through the air. The walls, once just stone, had been reshaped into cages. Each was a masterpiece of cruelty, forged from blackened iron twisted into grotesque shapes, some carved to resemble spider legs, others like jagged jaws clamping down on the flesh of those imprisoned inside.

The occupants were no longer the silent, half-asleep figures they had passed before. Here, every cage contained bodies in constant torment. One godlike being had its arms stretched so far apart the tendons had snapped, its body left dangling by raw sinew and chain. Another hung upside down, the skin of its face peeled back until its jaw was split in two, each half forced open with iron hooks. Golden ichor leaked in steady rivulets from their wounds, pooling beneath them in shimmering puddles that pulsed faintly as if alive.

Aria's hand flew to her mouth, her voice strangled in her throat. Lily, whose life-sense usually guided her through horrors, clenched her eyes shut against the barrage of suffering that pressed against her from every corner. She could feel it in waves, an ocean of agony that made her skin crawl and her lungs burn as though she were drowning.

Leo stepped forward, though his jaw was tight and his knuckles whitened around the hilt of his weapon. Luna followed close behind, her eyes darting from cage to cage, as if she expected each mutilated figure to suddenly leap forward despite their broken forms. Adam, however, could not look away. His gaze swept the chamber, his expression carved from stone as he forced himself to take in every detail.

The room stretched endlessly in both directions, filled with cage after cage, each depicting a new atrocity. Some captives had been nailed to wheels that rotated slowly, their bodies tearing further with each turn. Others were pierced through with black spears that vibrated faintly, resonating with their agonized cries. A few had been stripped of skin entirely, their golden ichor painting the iron bars around them in crude sigils that pulsed with faint light. The dungeon was not simply killing them. It was savoring every moment, feeding upon their suffering, etching pain into the very stone.

A low sound reached them, something between a sob and a hiss. It came from a figure pinned inside a cage shaped like a ribcage, the iron bars curved inward so tightly they had pierced through flesh and bone. Its mouth opened, but instead of words only a wet gurgle spilled out, golden ichor bubbling past shattered teeth. The sound alone made Luna stumble back, her hand gripping Leo's arm for steadiness.

Everywhere they looked, the gods who had once seemed untouchable now lay broken, their divinity reduced to fuel for torture. The sight was enough to hollow out even the strongest resolve.

But then the chamber changed.

The cages ended, the walls opening into a circular platform at the far end of the hall. A faint glow hung in the air, not from torches or runes, but from the blood-soaked nails that jutted outward in a halo. The closer they drew, the clearer it became that this place was meant for something greater, something beyond the endless torment of the others.

At the center of the platform was a single figure.

Eight limbs spread wide, each one pinned in place by dozens of pitch-black nails driven through flesh and bone. They were not haphazardly placed. The nails had been hammered in with surgical precision, ensuring that every joint, every tendon, every muscle was locked in a state of perpetual agony. The figure's body hung suspended, crucified in the most grotesque display of domination the dungeon could devise.

Her skin, once pale and flawless, was now

Adam's steps faltered. His eyes widened, and for the first time since stepping through the illusion, his composure shattered. His lips parted, his breath caught as horror sank in.

Aria felt her grip on Lily's wrist loosen, her hand falling away as she struggled to reconcile the sight. Lily's chest constricted, the life she sensed from the crucified figure flickering so faintly it barely registered, yet it persisted, stubborn against all odds.

The black nails pulsed with power, each one a prison in its own right. Their surfaces absorbed the golden ichor that dripped steadily from her wounds, drinking it in and radiating a darkness that seemed to thrum in time with the dungeon itself. The platform beneath her was stained in layers of blood and ichor, so thick it had hardened into a crust that cracked beneath the weight of their footsteps.

No words could capture the enormity of what they were witnessing. For all the torture that lined the chamber, this was its heart. Every cage, every broken god, every pool of ichor had been but a prelude to this single display.

The chamber was silent, save for the faint drip of ichor striking stone. Every drop echoed like a tolling bell, marking the depth of their descent into horror.

And at its center, crucified in a cage of nails and pain, was Arachne.