The chamber pulsed like the inside of a heart.
Walls of meat and bone flexed with each breath the creature took. The team of Den Hunters stood still, instincts tight, eyes locked on the abomination slowly stepping out of the brood-heart. The creature's robe clung to it like living skin, stitched together with veins. It had no face—just a jaw made entirely of **human hands**, twitching and muttering in broken voices.
"...Burnedead... your fire is a curse..." it said.
Shakes didn't answer. He stepped forward, blade in hand. **Severflame** (name of his sword) shimmered, and the air bent from its heat. This was personal. His grip was firm, his stance rooted.
Zera's hand twitched toward a glyph scroll.
"Wait," Shakes said quietly.
Everyone paused.
"I'll handle it."
The creature's claws scraped the fleshy floor, and with a single heave, it launched itself at Shakes.
**Clang.**
Steel met corrupted bone. Sparks flew. Shakes shifted his foot and struck again, Severflame carving a glowing arc that scorched the air.
The Crowned screamed—a sound like hundreds of children crying inside a bottle—and lashed out with a wave of shadow limbs. Shakes ducked low, dragging his blade through the ground. Flames erupted in a crescent, forcing the limbs back.
Lucen cursed. "You sure he doesn't want help?"
Zera narrowed her eyes. "Not unless he says so."
Shakes moved like fire made flesh. His sword danced with the full force of his arms and precision of years forged in grief.
He ducked a swipe, rolled beneath a tongue-like whip, and slammed Severflame into the Crowned's leg. The creature stumbled.
"Gavren's son... his rage lingers in you..." the Crowned Voice hissed.
Flames raced up Severflame's edge.
"Good," Shakes muttered. "Let it burn."
He gripped the hilt with both hands, twisted, and let out a sharp exhale. The sword flared with a fire shaped like a serpent, biting into the Crowned's side.
The others shielded their faces from the heat.
The Crowned shrieked and slammed a tendril into the ground. The entire chamber shook. Flesh walls retracted, revealing two Marrow-class Dwellers—hulking beasts made of fused bodies.
Oric clicked his tongue. "We're up."
His hounds leapt forward. Lucen charged with a roar, his gauntlets glowing. Kell and Zera followed.
The team split.
But Shakes didn't look away.
The Crowned stared at him, tilting its stitched head. "You cannot kill what you refuse to become."
Shakes' brows knit. He stepped forward, his flame dimming.
"You think I fight to become like you?" he said.
The creature lunged.
Shakes met it head-on. With raw, furious swordsmanship. Severflame burned like a star now, cleaving through shadow-flesh.
Each movement was precise.
A high arc.
A side slash.
A shoulder feint into a spin-kick.
Then, the creature knocked the blade from his hand.
Severflame clanged against the wall.
The Crowned raised all its limbs.
"**NOW!**"
Shakes raised his hand using his telekinesis power.
Severflame trembled.
Then flew to his grip, fire trailing behind like a comet.
He caught it mid-flip and drove it through the creature's chest.
**FWOOM.**
An eruption of fire exploded outward. The walls screamed. The brood-heart cracked.
Smoke filled the den.
The Crowned Voice lay in ruin, its last breath a whisper: "The deeper ones... wait for you..."
The den collapsed slowly. The team regrouped, covered in blood and soot.
Lucen patted Shakes' shoulder. "You keep doing that, and they'll name you after your sword."
Shakes said nothing.
Kell raised a brow. "What was it talking about?"
"Nothing," Shakes replied, but he glanced at the ash where the Crowned died. A small envelope was there. He picked it up and dipped it in his robe. He'd heard something in its voice.
Something only he could feel.
Back at Emberwatch Fortress, the team gave their report. The Order's scribes recorded the existence of the Crowned—an anomaly given the den's original classification. Red flags were raised, but higher-ups dismissed it as an evolution fluke.
Shakes didn't argue. He returned to his chamber in silence.
He lit a single flame on the hilt of Severflame, placed it on a rack, and sat.
His hand trembled.
Something was changing. The Crowned had known his father's name, his past, his *pain*. And worst of all, it knew something else.
He closed his eyes. The fire within him burned quietly, waiting for the next den, the next horror, the next clue.
He wouldn't stop.
Not until every last one of them burned.