"What do you mean not safe?" Fabrisse asked.

"You saw the eyes," Tommaso said, pointing with a scorched fingertip. "That thing is impossible to get close to."

"Impossible?" Severa now asked.

"Impossible as in: I have thrown"—he held up three fingers—"three of my best fire spells at it."

"Tier 3?"

"And Tier 4. I even used a Pyroking's Matrix on it. Didn't work." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at a blackened crater still steaming. "Point is, every time I nuke it, it opens its mouth and spits out so many bugs I start questioning whether the ecosystem is procedurally generated."

A deep chitter crawled out from the seam in the stone. The eyes looking straight at Fabrisse twitched, framed by numerous tiny bristles like the hairs on spider legs. The effect was so grotesquely delicate it made the eyes seem almost sensitive, aware, watching him with pinpoint hunger.

Tommaso swore under his breath, "Here comes another swarm."

It didn't come as a single wave this time.

It erupted from three different directions at once: the bright-eyed seam in the wall, a crack blooming open near the ceiling, and a widening gap behind a fallen pillar. The chamber filled with the rapid skitter-skitter-skitter of dozens—no, hundreds—of tiny claws.

Severa reacted instantly. "Combustion Burst!"

A sun-bright gout of fire spiraled from her palms. Half the swarm dissolved into ash, but one of the larger Nymphs slipped through the burn radius and shot toward her face.

"Get away!" Severa shrieked. Her follow-up spell was pure instinct, a sharp explosive bolt that vaporized the creature so thoroughly it ceased to exist on every philosophical scale.

Fabrisse stared at the faint curl of smoke where it had been.

She killed it so easily. Why did she scream like that?

He thought about her shudder earlier, and the thought pushed itself out of his mouth before he could stop it. "Are you scared of insects?"

Severa spun on him so fast her hair whipped. "I'm not scared of anything!" The swarm regenerated itself, and she jabbed a finger. "Now do kindly assist or just stay quiet!"

Fabrisse stayed quiet.

Tommaso, meanwhile, was handling the right and central swarms in a way Fabrisse could only describe as illegal under most campus safety guidelines.

He weaved a ring of fire with almost no effort, then folded it back in on itself like a blooming flower made entirely of heat. The entire right flank of Nymphs exploded into cinders before they even hit the chamber floor. Without missing a beat, Tom snapped his fingers, and a second wave of flame slammed at the central swarm from below, incinerating them.

The resulting detonation rattled the air.

He really looked like the poster art for 'Unsupervised Fire Major.'

"Don't worry!" Tom shouted over the sound of his own explosion. "These are just wide-range blasts! Super efficient!"

Severa shot out another tightly-controlled fireball. "Ardefiamme, what are you doing? You'll exhaust your aether reserves!"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"I won't!" Tom yelled. "I have excellent mana discipline!" A bead of sweat immediately rolled down his temple.

A fresh chitter rippled from the wall, and Tom raised his hands again, clearly preparing for another catastrophic fire blossom.

He never got the chance.

"Astrein Grasp: Bind," Severa commanded.

A crystalline shackle manifested around Tommaso's upper arm. Before he could react, the shackle pulled, dragging him back across the stone like a misbehaving puppy being reeled in by invisible authority.

"HEY!" Tom yelped as he skidded to her side. "What was that for?"

"Ardefiamme. This is precisely why you could not touch that creature." She indicated the bright-eyed seam. "That is a Chasm Broodmother, subtype Euphratic Cyst-Caller. Direct fire spells only stimulate its spawning glands. Unlike most other insects, it absorbs heat, metabolizes it, and produces more insects. Which is why we must approach it with attrition." She actually sounded rather calm, at least for her standards.

The shackle pulled tighter. Tom lifted both hands. "Well, I was about to stimulate it a bit more, but apparently, I'm already 'ceased.' Charming. But just so you know, you can cease me, but you can't seize me. I'm a taken man."

Fabrisse braced himself for the eruption. Severa had to lose it now, right? He'd fully expected her to unleash some lecture so sharp it could cut stone. But she didn't. She merely adjusted her stance, fireballed some more insects, and said, "You have impressive fire control. But is that the only element you can wield?"

Tommaso laughed. "Why, yes!" He blasted away another cluster of insects. "Do you wish me to demonstrate the full spectrum of my—"

"Then you shall handle the remaining swarms." Her voice returned to that crisp, commanding edge. "I will make the approach to the Broodmother. Ardefiamme, listen carefully. You shall position yourself ten paces to my right, at the edge of that fallen pillar. Keep the central corridor clear with continuous, sweeping fire bursts, but do not extend beyond the chamber's midpoint. If you drift too far forward," she paused, emphasizing the danger with a tilt of her head, "you will obscure my line of approach, and that will be fatal."

Tommaso raised an eyebrow. "So essentially, I'm the broomstick to sweep the floor while the queen passes?"

"Precisely," Severa replied. "Maintain a flat arc; do not curve your flames toward me. Your bursts are to contain, not annihilate indiscriminately."

Fabrisse could see it clearly: Tom's fire would sweep the right flank and the center, leaving a tidy corridor for Severa to walk like threading a needle.

"Kestovar," Severa said, turning her piercing gaze on him. "You will remain at the rear of the corridor, just behind the midpoint. Keep watch on any threats that attempt to bypass Tommaso's fire. Should any Nymph or ambush slip through, you will intercept or signal immediately. Otherwise, remain stationary. Understood?" she asked.

He nodded.

Tommaso flared another sweeping burst along the right flank, then another through the center, sending dozens of Nymphs evaporating into cinders before they even hit the floor. He arced a final column along the far edge of the chamber, carefully trimming the swarm back.

Severa nodded once at Tommaso's work, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then advanced. Threads of wind twisted around her, and she surged forward through the corridor Tommaso had carved as nymphs scattered to either side under Tom's sweeping fire.

"You said she's sixteen?" Tommaso asked Fabrisse.

"Yes."

"I was going to laugh at you for letting a sixteen-year-old bully you, but damn, she's intense. Unless you have a humiliation kink or in a life-and-death situation on a daily basis—" Tommaso shook his head. "Not great to be around. Do you have a humiliation kink, dude?"

"No."

As she neared the Broodmother, Severa gradually slowed, letting the wind dissipate until she came to a deliberate halt. The bristled eyes at the seam twitched, following her with minute jerks.

She held her stance there.

"What's she doing?" Fabrisse whispered.

"Probably testing how the thing reacts. I don't know," Tommaso shrugged.

Severa extended her hands, and twelve floating bloodied . . . eyes materialized behind her.

Eyes? Why eyes?

They suspended midair like droplets of bleeding garnet, connected by threads of blood that spread in a fractal pattern.

[Spell Detected: Oculis Sanguinis—Blood Thaumaturgy Tier III]

What's that spell? What do those eyes do?

Soon, he found out.

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