The barrier dissolved with a whisper, leaving an eerie quiet in its wake. Stone fragments shifted silently, pulling themselves back into seamless order, hiding all trace of the earlier chaos. Within the gloom of its shattered throne, the Zolinka slowly lifted its head. Crimson eyes drifted lazily upward, fixing on the waiting team with the bored contempt of something ancient and utterly confident. A single claw curled, beckoning them forward.
Zehrina stepped deliberately over the threshold, the edges of her robe unraveling into whispering trails of black dust. It rose obediently, pooling around her fingers in restless coils.
Jefferson's foot slid forward. "I will assist—" he started, eagerness sharpening his voice.
"Don't," Lutrian hissed immediately, hefting Warrex's limp weight higher onto his shoulder. "Stepping in now is certain death."
A ripple passed through the Presidroids, Grant's jaw plates clicking together sharply, Eisenhower's expression settling into tense readiness. Jefferson leaned forward another fraction, but froze instantly as Zehrina turned to glare over one shoulder. Her gaze was a blade, cold and honed, a silent warning slicing across the space between them.
Jefferson went rigid, mouth snapping shut mid-response. After a long, awkward pause, he managed a stiff correction, voice carefully flat. "Reassessing. I will remain with the weak and helpless."
Adams chuckled quietly, never looking away from Zehrina's back. "Compose yourself, brother. No nation ever fell to a single glare."
Grant angled his head toward Lutrian, speaking quietly. "Your burden grows heavier, prince. Say the word."
"I will carry him," Lutrian replied firmly, locking his stance. "Being useful begins with refusing help that comes easy."
The floor trembled as small meteors rained down, each stone carving lines of fire and smoke through the darkened air before exploding harmlessly against the flagstone.
Dust rolled from Zehrina's sleeves and made a wide pane at shoulder height. The stones met a field of edges; each hit ended as powder on the air. She rode forward a single pace on a thin disk and sent a ribbon of dust back over her shoulder. It arched, thinned, and settled as a clear shell around the Presidroids, Lutrian, and Warrex.
The demon smiled wider. Heat climbed in its throat. A beam leapt from its mouth and wrote a white path through the smoke.
Zehrina closed her hands and the swarm sealed around her. The shell drank the light and spread it across a perfect black curve. Walls roared; the shell held. Inside, she floated with her arms crossed and counted heartbeats that belonged to someone else.
Light cut away. Wings beat. The Zolinka climbed, embers spiraling from its back.
"Finally," she whispered, and let the shell fall.
The dust carried her up on a slanted river and cut as it rose. Knuckles planted in the next swipe came away with thin red seams. A second pass traced a line along tendon. A third split the soft part of the wrist. The answering claw arrived late and found only spinning knives.
Fire washed forward in low waves pushed by wing beats. She waded through it as if it were warm rain. Char streaked past her hips; the robe shortened to a cropped mantle as more of the swarm joined the fight. She rose above the waves and skimmed along the rafters on a narrow crescent, the curve pitching and sliding like a fast sled.
Larger stones formed, each the height of a man. Her blades met them and turned them to shards that whirled away like glass rain. The Zolinka switched tactics. Meteors began to burst in the air before reach, each new cloud meant to blind the dust and blind the eyes behind the dust.
Riding the crescent low, Zehrina angled sharply upward into the storm. From all sides, shards of half-formed stone ripped through the air, converging toward her. Ahead, the Navi'N thickened into tight coils, spiraling densely into spindles whenever the fragments threatened impact. Each knot sliced incoming rock to dust; as the air cleared, those spindles unspooled elegantly, fanning into broad, razor-edged veils that stripped the next volley down to glowing grit. Bit by bit, her path toward the demon sharpened into a straight, inevitable line.
Under the Presidroids' shielded formation, Lutrian studied the chaos in rapt silence, memorizing each nuance as though committing scripture to memory. When he finally spoke, he kept his voice soft, measured to stay beneath the battle's thunder. "There is nothing like watching her work."
Grant tilted his chin slightly downward, acknowledging with a deep hum. "Agreement."
Beside him, Eisenhower echoed the gesture, matching Grant's low resonance. "Agreement."
Jefferson crossed his arms tightly, gaze fixed on Zehrina's twisting storm, unable to mask the hint of bitterness in his voice. "Share the wealth. Surely she can spare a sliver of this battle with us."
Almost in response, the Zolinka's assault surged, as masses of stone larger than wagons drew together above its shoulders. Massive boulders plunged toward the floor, hitting hard enough to rattle teeth. Several punched straight through tile, shattering downward into unseen levels below. The dungeon itself seemed to recoil, suddenly manifesting a pale, shimmering barrier beneath the punctured holes. Another rock collided against that invisible field, instantly breaking apart and scattering stone fragments across the chamber like a deadly spray. Pillars cracked and dented; shards of the meteors pieced the dust barrier and rang sharply against Presidroid armor.
With barely a backward glance, Zehrina diverted a ribbon of Navi'N dust from her swirling halo. Swift as breath, it shot back across the chamber, weaving itself into a second dome around her allies. Incoming meteor debris crashed harmlessly against the fine mesh, sparks of molten rock sliding down the smooth, dark curve and dripping onto the floor below.
Lutrian watched the protective dome absorb another volley and shook his head, voice barely audible. "If this floor holds a demon like that, what hell waits beneath it? Descending floors only grow sharper, and none but Zehrina stands more than a heartbeat against this boss."
Something akin to amusement ghosted across Grant's features. His deep voice rumbled low, edges softened slightly. "I am uglier than you, prince, and built far heavier. I hold out longer than a heartbeat."
Lutrian laughed lightly despite the destruction raining around them, a quick sound edged with genuine warmth. "If you insist."
"Interesting, though, is it not?" Jefferson commented. "This 'Zolinka' is significantly stronger than it was against the Bouyes. It clearly wasn't exerting itself then. Why..."
"Indeed," Monroe conceded. "But what's worse is the disparity. Previous floor bosses were only marginally, perhaps a mere one or two percent, stronger than their immediate predecessors. The Zolinka, however... this monster is at least twice as powerful as the Bouyes. Let's pray that this is not the trend going forward."
Ahead, Zehrina took three decisive strides forward along the spinning crescent. The Navi'N swarm around her limbs condensed, tightening visibly. Instead of reaching outward, she reached inward along the invisible line that bound her power to Roy Gunn, feeling the tug of his mana respond readily, a rush strong enough to sharpen her senses and make the air taste like steel.
Tranquility's voice crackled in Zehrina's ear, threaded with annoyance. "Hey, easy. Eryndra already pulled a chunk of Roy's mana today."
Without breaking her gaze from the demon, Zehrina whispered into the storm, "Relax. He can spare it. This beast needs a reminder of its place."
Tranquility scoffed audibly through the static. "Like a monster cares about lessons. Dummy."
The comm cut abruptly, leaving only the hiss of Navi'N dust spinning fiercely, violet sparks leaping between each grain as Zehrina's power surged to a sharper edge.
Purple began to run through the black as the dust thickened. Arcs licked across the edges of spinning blades and climbed the curve under Zehrina's boots. She drove the crescent straight into the heart of the next swarm of huge meteors and came out thirty strides from the Zolinka with a wake of crumbs behind her.
"You like it hot," she said, voice flat. "Let's share that."
The demon's grin climbed toward delight.
Rings of dust leapt from her hands and hung in the air around the Zolinka at shoulder, waist, and knee. The circles spun faster. Heat shimmered along their edges, then brightened until color overwhelmed shape. Air took on a kiln's ache. The column that rose from the rings made its own daylight and swallowed the demon's face.
When the column faded the Zolinka stood raw. Top flesh cooked away in sheets. Teeth gritted over a new sound that belonged to pain alone.
"Better," Zehrina said. "Hold that look."
The Zolinka's scorched flesh rippled as charred edges slowly knitted back together, regeneration creeping painfully across ruined muscle. With something close to horror, it stumbled back, instincts driving it toward escape. But Zehrina's dust surged after it, a relentless black tide that carved through smoke and shadow, cutting off every retreat.
Blades lashed in from behind, severing tendons behind its ankles and dropping the monster hard onto one knee. When the creature flung an arm down for balance, razors whipped across its wrist, peeling skin and muscle clean down to bone. Its jaws snapped open in desperation, only to shatter teeth against a solid barrier that appeared to meet them. Fragments scattered like sharp rain onto the stone. When the Zolinka raised a forearm for defense, ribbons of dust sliced it apart in mid-air, leaving it raw, exposed, and trembling.
A guttural roar cracked halfway out of its throat, breaking into wet, ragged gasps. Each attempt at defense only drew punishment: blades bit mercilessly into its thighs, shins, and clawed fingers, methodically dismantling every limb. Before long, each flinch sent new ripples of agony through its battered frame.
Zehrina's palms filled with streaks of violet-white lightning, a tight cluster of vicious, cold brilliance. She drew it tighter still, air crystallizing into frost around her knuckles. The spell hummed in her grasp, hungry and eager, until she finally let it tear free.
"Frosted Lightning."
The bolt slammed squarely into the creature's chest, locking it rigid in a surge of convulsions. Sheets of frost exploded outward, spiderwebbing over its shredded torso, sealing open wounds in layers of clear, bitter ice. Ragged breath pulsed between twitching jaws. Crimson eyes widened, rolling upward in raw panic as Zehrina approached through drifting curtains of ash.
Stepping deliberately through the haze, Zehrina emerged fully into view, her robe shredded to mere remnants clinging at her shoulders. Above, a silent storm of perfectly poised black blades hovered, patient and waiting. Trembling claws scraped feebly against stone, unable even to lift themselves in defiance or plea. Panic glazed the Zolinka's stare, fear dripping unchecked down its battered face in a single thick tear, cutting a glistening trail through the grime.
Zehrina placed her heel between the creature's terrified eyes and pressed down slowly, almost gently, forcing the monster to recognize its helplessness.
Then the blades descended in a silent rush, and the Zolinka ceased to exist.
The room's sound changed, and the intense heat faded. A ring of ash spun out from the empty space where the creature had been. As the ash scattered, one object remained. A longsword, perfectly mirrored, with a thin line of red running through it. Zehrina picked it up and tossed it backward over her shoulder. Metal rang against Lutrian's stuffed loot bag and slid into the sack.
Purple arcs of energy still leaped faintly through the dust as it reformed into smooth fabric, rebuilding the sleeves and hem of Zehrina's robe. Embers curled from shattered stone, smoke trailing lazily into the chamber's void. Through the lingering flames, she caught Lutrian staring at her, wide-eyed, like someone struggling to believe the violent storm they'd witnessed had somehow passed them over, sparing them from harm.
She ignored the look, moving without pause toward the waiting stairs. "Next."