The heat was a living predator at our backs, roaring through the subterranean tunnels like an unleashed furnace.
Gideon and I sprinted up the collapsing passageway, our boots pounding against the cracking basalt floor as the wave of boiling magma surged closer behind us. Toxic sulfur fumes filled the narrow shaft, blinding and suffocating, but the golden-shadow aura wrapping around our bodies formed an elemental atmospheric bubble, pushing the deadly gas away from our lungs.
"Up ahead" Gideon shouted over the deafening rumble of crumbling stone, pointing toward the heavy iron archway marking the boundary of the Blood Vault. "The main seal"
I pushed my legs faster, holding the delicate, starlit petals of the Luminous Lotus close against my collarbone. The silver bloom pulsed against my s
