The dome's interior hit them like a physical blow.
Crystalline walls stretched into darkness above. The air was thick, pressing against their lungs like invisible hands. Everything pulsed with a rhythm that matched their hearts—but slightly faster, forcing their bodies to adapt.
A menu made of luminous strands appeared before them.
**[DIFFICULTY SELECTION]**
**Initiate: Available**
**Advanced: LOCKED**
**Expert: LOCKED**
*"Recent Awakening detected. Higher difficulties restricted until Echo stabilization complete."*
The words burned in the air for three seconds, then faded.
"Of course," Kimara muttered. Even here, they were caged.
The portal sealed behind them with a sound like breaking bells. No way out but forward.
Nex's breathing turned ragged. "We're trapped."
"We're hunting," Kimara corrected.
The corridors ahead branched in three directions. Crystal veins pulsed through translucent walls, carrying light deeper into the maze. Somewhere in the distance, something howled.
Not human. Not entirely animal either.
"Stay together," Kimara said. She hefted her damaged dagger. The weight felt wrong in her untrained grip, but metal sang faintly against her Echo. "Vess, shield up. Nex, watch our backs."
They chose the left path.
The first kobold found them within minutes.
It came around a corner at full sprint—bipedal wolf-thing with yellowed fangs and claws like rusted knives. Once human, maybe. Now just hunger and violence wrapped in matted fur.
No intelligence in its red eyes. Only need.
It leaped at Vess.
Kimara moved without thinking. Her dagger caught the creature in mid-air, the chipped blade finding the soft spot under its jaw. Hot blood sprayed across her face.
The kobold thrashed, claws raking her arm to the bone.
Pain exploded through her nerves. Real pain. Life-or-death pain.
She'd never felt anything like it.
*Focus.*
Her Echo pulsed weakly. She felt metal—the creature's tooth-caps, fragments of old armor embedded in its hide. Her power reached out, pulled, twisted.
The kobold's movements became jerky, uncontrolled. Its own metal betrayed it.
Kimara drove her dagger deeper. The creature shuddered and went still.
A crystal formed at the center of its skull as it died—small, dim, barely worth the energy she'd spent claiming it.
"First kill," she whispered. Blood ran down her arm in steady streams.
Vess stared at the corpse. "You... you actually did it."
"We did it." Kimara looked at the girl's shield. Scratches marked its surface—Vess had tried to block, even though she was terrified. "You protected me."
Something passed between them. Understanding. Trust.
Partnership.
Nex just stood there, sword shaking in his grip.
They moved deeper.
The second encounter was two kobolds.
These moved together, circling like pack hunters. Starved. Desperate. Twice as dangerous.
The first one went for Kimara's throat. She rolled left, felt claws whistle past her ear. Her Echo reached for the iron studs in its collar—pulled hard.
The creature's head snapped sideways with a wet crack.
The second kobold tackled Vess. She screamed but held her shield steady. The wood cracked under impact, but held.
Kimara's dagger found the creature's spine. More blood. More pain shooting through her exhausted body.
Two more crystals. But claiming them meant work.
Kimara knelt beside the first corpse. Drew her dagger across the creature's forehead. Blood and brain matter spilled as she cracked the skull open. The crystal sat embedded in gray tissue, pulsing with captured light.
She dug it out with her fingers. Warm. Slippery. Worth staying alive.
Vess vomited at the sight. But she helped extract the second crystal anyway.
Blood painted them both to the elbows.
"Getting stronger," she noted. Her arm throbbed where the first kobold had marked her. Every movement sent fresh waves of agony through her system.
But she was learning.
Metal responded to will. Pain could be ignored. Fear was a luxury she couldn't afford.
Vess lowered her cracked shield. Blood ran from her shoulder wound, but her eyes had changed. Harder now. Focused.
"I'm not as weak as they think," she whispered.
Her wind Echo pulsed brighter. A gust of air swept through the corridor—not random, but directed. It carried the scent of blood away from them, masking their trail from anything else that might be hunting.
"Smart," Kimara noted. Wind wasn't just about attack. It was about survival.
"My grandmother was a Windweaver," Vess said quietly. "Before the collars. She taught me... things. How air moves. How it listens."
Another useful secret. Kimara filed it away.
Nex said nothing. But his grip on his sword grew tighter.
They pushed forward.
Nex cowered against the far wall, sword forgotten on the bloody floor.
"I can't," he whispered. "I can't do this."
Kimara stood over the corpse, breathing hard. Blood covered her from head to foot—most of it not her own. Her Echo pulsed stronger now, fed by violence and necessity.
She was learning to fight.
Learning to kill.
Learning to survive.
"Then you'll die," she told Nex.
It wasn't a threat.
It was prophecy.