CHAPTER 246: OUT OF THE STONE’S JAWS

Elisa slid across the rubble, her boots barely finding purchase on the unstable ground. The smoking chasm now split the battlefield in two, and on the far side, Zirel and the colossus carried on their deadly dance with the horned beast, containing its fury.

"Zirel! Take the anima gems from the beast!" she shouted, pointing toward the creature still sprawled on the ground.

Without waiting for an answer, she rushed to Maggie.

Her companion lay in the dust, amid the acrid stench of burned flesh and stone. She no longer moved. The superhuman fury that had consumed her to the marrow was gone, leaving behind only a broken body, an envelope of ash and pain. Maggie looked like a rag doll tossed aside, her arms and legs bent at impossible angles, her skin—where it was not charred—showing the terrible crimson of third-degree burns.

The air around her still vibrated with residual heat, warping the light. She looked as if she could burst into flames at any moment.

Elisa’s stomach clenched. She knelt beside her, but her hands hesitated. To touch her would be torture. She could feel the pain, the data of every fracture, every burn, every torn muscle rushing to her mind like a silent, deafening scream. It was worse than hearing it.

"Dylan..." The name slipped out, reflexive, a secret prayer.

If Dylan had been there, he would have thrown himself onto her without hesitation. He would have taken it all upon himself, absorbing the horror into his own flesh, becoming the vessel of her agony. His teeth would have clenched, his face twisted by unimaginable pain, but he would have held on until Maggie was clean, until her body was whole again, leaving only the memory of suffering carved into his own bones.

But Dylan was not there.

And even if he were, Elisa swallowed the thought with a taste of ash. To watch someone else endure that—especially him—no. The idea was intolerable.

"I miss that bastard," she thought, her heart heavy not with reproach but with the ache of absence. "He’d know what to do. He’d find a way, a mad idea, some way out."

But he wasn’t there. There was only her. And her science.

Clenching her jaw, Elisa raised her hands over Maggie’s scorched body. Her palms began to glow with a silver light, cold and precise, so different from the wild heat radiating from the warrior. She wasn’t using raw healing magic—that wasn’t her gift. Her power was to move things with her mind, to raise electromagnetic fields, other tricks that couldn’t help here.

A low hum rose in her throat, a chant drawn from deep within. Threads of silver light, like geometric spiderwebs, coiled around Maggie without touching her. They thickened, forming a sterile, intangible cage that isolated Maggie from the outside environment, blocked infection, contained the loss of vital heat, and most importantly, immobilized every centimeter of her body with surgical precision. No rib would shift. No torn muscle would spasm. It was a total arrest, a forced biological pause.

It was not healing. It was stasis. A way to buy time.

Once the stabilizing field held, Elisa finally let her fingers brush Maggie’s less-burned forehead—not to heal, but to feel. And the information struck her, brutal and clear: life low, but stubborn. Maggie was hanging on, trapped in a dungeon of pain her mind could no longer reach through the shock.

"Hold on, Maggie," Elisa murmured, her voice strangely calm despite the chaos raging behind her. "I’m putting you in sleep mode. We’ll get you out. We’ll bring you back."

Heavy footsteps echoed behind her, and Zirel finally appeared, his coat covered in dust, his hands clutching two translucent gems still faintly pulsing with light. They throbbed like torn-out hearts.

He placed the gems before Elisa with military sobriety.

"We faced two third-rank awakened beasts," he said, his voice deep, laced with respect and fatigue. "But they were far too powerful for that rank... I’d say they were on the verge of evolving."

Elisa lifted her gaze, sweat beading her brow under the strain of maintaining the silver field around Maggie. She nodded slowly, pensive.

"They hunted in pairs... covering each other’s weaknesses. They must have fought other creatures in these depths. They did what we did. Adapted to survive."

Her eyes drifted into the tunnel’s shadows, as though she still saw the beasts’ many silhouettes.

"It wasn’t a chance encounter. It was a pack."

Silence hung heavy for a moment, broken only by Maggie’s trembling breath within stasis. Then Elisa drew a sharp breath, brushing the speculation aside with a curt gesture.

"Either way... let’s get the hell out of this tunnel. Only then can we rest."

She spread her hands, reinforcing the silver filaments. Maggie rose again, floating in the telekinetic cage, fragile as a crystal carried in an invisible shrine. Elisa straightened, her legs heavy, but her resolve unshaken.

Zirel clenched the gems in his palm, casting one last look at the beasts’ corpses before turning to her.

"Then let’s walk. Before the stone decides to bury its secrets with us."

They pressed on into the collapsed corridor, torches flickering, Maggie drifting between them like a sacred relic.

The passage stretched before them, a long gash ripped open by the explosion. The walls still sweated heat, and clouds of dust clung to the torchlight like wandering souls. Every step on the rubble set off muffled echoes that reminded them all too cruelly of the silence left by the colossus.

Of him, nothing remained but a trail of lifeless blocks, shards of granite still etched with cracked runes. Elisa cast one last glance back. She thought she saw a ghostly glimmer in a broken stone, but it was only a reflection. Their stone companion was gone—consumed in the blast, sacrificed to open their path.

Now they were five: Elisa, Zirel, Inès, Armin, and the soldiers who had somehow endured. Faces blackened with soot, eyes raw with irritation—but alive. That alone was a miracle.

No one spoke. Only the rustle of armor and the group’s steady pace filled the air, joined by the faint creak of Elisa’s telekinetic cage. Maggie’s suspended body hung like a silent offering. Everyone looked away, as though staring too long would mean admitting how fragile their victory truly was.

Elisa led, her trembling hands holding the silver threads taut. She couldn’t afford to falter. Her thoughts battered the tunnel walls like trapped birds. Dylan, Maggie, the colossus. Each loss weighed on her, each absence carved a void she filled only with raw will.

Zirel walked firmly behind, the gems clenched tight. His face was expressionless, but his eyes never stopped scanning the darkness ahead. He knew too well a tunnel was never empty.

Inès and Armin held the rear, making sure no one lagged, no soldier lost their breath. Their low voices broke the silence now and then—a simple order, a quiet encouragement.

Gradually, the air changed. The oppressive heaviness of stone gave way to a colder draft. The underground damp sharpened, carrying the smell of crushed vegetation and moss. Their torches no longer fought total blackness but flickered in a softened half-light.

"We’re close," Zirel murmured, his tone firm, as if to break the spell of silence.

Suddenly, the air shifted again. The stench of mold and death gave way to a damp, crisp scent. A faint breeze brushed their faces, unimaginably fresh after the tunnels’ oppressive heat.

"I can smell open air!" Inès exclaimed, her voice breaking with hope.

The tunnel ahead widened, its jagged walls giving way to older, steadier stone. And at the end... a glow. Not the orange flicker of their torches, nor the sinister shine of gems, but a pale, natural light.

At last, they emerged from the stone’s jaws, blinded for a heartbeat. The tunnel opened into a vast cavern whose ceiling had collapsed in ages past, creating a natural chimney open to the sky. A gray light—twilight, or perhaps a clouded day—poured in, illuminating stalagmites and a small rain-fed lake at the center.

The silence that greeted them was as deep as it was soothing. Only the sound of their ragged breathing and the faint hum of Elisa’s force field disturbed the calm.

Elisa halted, her arms trembling. With slow, precise care, she lowered Maggie onto a bed of moss and ferns sheltered by the rocks. Only then did she release her power. The silver threads dissolved in a final spark, and she swayed, spent.

Zirel was at her side in an instant, offering his arm to steady her.

"We made it," he said simply, his voice finally shedding its edge of battle.

He cast one last glance at the gems in his hand. Their glow seemed calmer now, subdued by open air, before he tucked them into his coat.

Around them, the soldiers collapsed one by one, not from wounds, but from relief. Inès and Armin mechanically checked the perimeter, though their vigilance had lost its mortal urgency. The immediate danger had passed.

They were out.