The Behemorph's eyes found them. It did not posture neither did it hesitate, it's eyes flashed with malice and then it advanced.

"We can't go around!" Soren snarled.

"No," Clayton said, gritting his teeth. "We go through."

BZZZ!

He planted his foot and roots climbed his calves and locked him to the stair.

His Heartseed beat hard and bright as he felt Torren's fire through the Sporelink. He felt Veyra's breath, the tight, clean lines of her draw. He felt Mira's steady pressure, Soren's burn, Kaelin's absence, and Harrick's grit on the wind.

"Hold the rhythm," he growled. "We do this as one".

The Hybrid Behemorph opened its crown as thorns flared, and from it spores vented in a mist. The mist drifted toward them, soft, lazy, and harmless-looking.

"Don't breathe it," Mira snapped. "Masks!"

They pulled masks up that were created from Lorn's weave.

"Torren," Clayton called. "Crack it."

Torren charged with a thunder step and swung the Pyreaxe in a low circle. The blade bit the Hybrid's shin, cutting through it as sap hissed and black spores flurried. Torren slid back before they could cling.

WHOOSH!

Veyra's arrow hit the joint. The head punched through bark and popped under the plate, lifting the plate entirely.

Before the Behemorph could react, Soren rushed in and drove his Emberblade through the gap as steam screamed.

The Hybrid kicked, sending Soren backward into a stair as he grunted before rolling up again.

The Hybrid slammed both forelimbs down and a spike field erupted as thorn lances burst from stone in a fan.

In response, Clayton slapped his palm to the tread.

Roots surged up and tangled the spikes as they grew, grabbing and bending them aside. Several still punched through and one tore Veyra's sleeve, another nicking Torren's thigh but he ignored it and moved.

The Hybrid inhaled, and the spore vents widened.

"Left!" Clayton barked.

They veered, just in time as a wall of white spores blasted the steps and stuck to stone. Vines under the dust blackened and crisped, the air hissing like acid.

"Don't give it space," Clayton said. "Stay on it".

They went ugly and close as Torren hacked, sending sparks and sap flying.

Soren hammered, while Veyra sidestepped and peppered its joints. Mira braced Torren's leg with a touch that felt like cool bark and held pressure with her knee as she ducked an elbow the size of a door.

As for Clayton, he locked the Hybrid's right side in a cage of roots, then whipped a thorn lash across its vents to slow the flow.

As the battle progressed though, the Hybrid learned.

It pivoted smooth and sudden, slamming an elbow into Torren's ribs and pushing him against stone. A thorn burst through his side plate and came out the back with a wet sound as he groaned in pain.

Veyra's eyes flared as she shot the thorn base and snapped it, but Torren was already injured as he coughed blood but stood.

"I'm alive," he rasped.

The others couldn't stop and show concern for him though, they were still knee-deep in a life and death battle.

The Hybrid swept a limb and Soren took the blow on his blade. He slid three treads down and caught himself on a crack. The limb came again to crush him, but Soren wasn't there… Clayton was.

BAM!

He drove Regalia's spearpoint into the limb's underside and jerked as roots exploded, halting the limb. Soren rolled and cut up through tendons as the limb sagged, then hung uselessly at the side.

Gritting his teeth through the pain of his injuries, Torren took it at the joint with a roar and cleaved it free.

The limb fell, thrashed, then lay still.

But the Hybrid didn't panic. It vented again, and the white wall rolled.

Veyra shot through it and coughed. Even with the mask, the edge bit as she fell back a step. Mira dragged her clear and pressed a leaf to her neck, healing her enough to see.

At that moment, Clayton felt their rhythm start to fray.

He forced his roots deeper into the stair and bound their pulses with his as the Sporelink hummed like a low drum within him.

Their timings snapped tight again, then…

"Drive it left," he said. "The drop is there."

They shifted.

Torren took low, Soren took high, Veyra pinned the hip, Mira stole breath from pain, healing them while Clayton wove a net.

The Hybrid resisted; it was stubborn and smart as its crown flared.

Thorn lances shot out and one punched Clayton's shoulder, igniting heat within him as he grunted and held.

"Again," he called.

They moved again.

Soren burned a line across its chest, Torren cracked its knee, while Veyra's arrow bit the tendon behind the heel. The Hybrid finally stumbled, and Clayton yanked with everything in his core.

It buckled, then it fell.

Not off the steps, but onto a lower tread as it rolled. It caught the edge with its good limb and hauled; it was too strong to drop with one mistake.

"Kaelin!" Veyra called.

Enough time already left for them to be back, and he was right.

Kaelin appeared behind the Hybrid like a ghost.

His knife flashed as he cut the mycelium sheath under the plate at the neck. The Spore network there fluttered and died, and the Hybrid's left eye dimmed.

"Fancy collar," Kaelin said, and vanished again as the limb swung back.

The Hybrid jerked, enraged.

It reared and blew a last, heavy blast of spores, but Clayton braced for it, and then Harrick's hook throw snapped over a ridge and wrenched the muzzle aside.

BAM!

The white wall blasted into empty air.

"Anchor!" Harrick barked, bracing with both feet.

Clayton felt the window and without hesitation, he took it.

"Now," he said, and reached.

Roots lunged from Regalia and wrapped the Hybrid's chest and throat.

Torren cut the ropes of plate, Soren drove up and in, while Veyra stepped into the pocket and took her shot under the jaw.

It punched through soft.

Mira pressed both palms to the stone as light ran under their feet, empowering them. The net hardened, held, and pulled.

Then, the Hybrid went over.

It clawed and it tore stone, but it fell anyway.

It hit lower treads and slid. It caught once, then twice, but Kaelin knocked its grip free with a kick to a tendon.

It bellowed in rage and desperation as it slid again and vanished into the dark below with a long harsh scrape and a final crack.

Then… silence.

All that was left was heavy breathing, rapid heartbeats, the sting of spores, and the ache of ribs and cuts.

"Report," Clayton said.

"We're still here". Everyone answered to his relief.

Harrick's shoulders fell. "My left arm's numb, but it will pass."

Mira moved in a circle like a small storm. "You all owe me sleep," she said in a pout, her voice flat and soft. "Later."

Clayton smiled once, brief, then he looked up.

Above them, the arch shone brighter.

The ring's shimmer wasn't a trick, it was a door. The light inside moved like slow river water with a current that pulled at the eyes.

"Move," he said.

They limped past the last treads.

Each step they took felt earned. And at the top, they stepped under the cracked circle and into the hall of the God of Memories.

It was empty.

Maybe there was a cult once, but no more. There were no guards, no ghosts. The floor was mosaics of leaves and cogs, broken and scuffed by ages of boots, claws, and roots.

Broken altars leaned against pillars, and smashed helms lay in a careful pile like someone had stacked lies to keep the floor clean.

At the center stood the portal.

It was a perfect ring of stone held up by nothing. The surface inside it was not glass, neither was it water. It was a thin skin of moving light, as if dawn had been caught and stretched tight over a frame.

They stared, and no one spoke.

Then the system's voice fell like a final note.

DING!

~----~

[You have reached the temple of Echoes.]

[Portal detected.]

[One step remains.]

~----~

Torren laughed once, short and bitter. "Of course it does."

"What else?" Kaelin said. "Sing? Cry? Or maybe trade a finger?"

Mira looked at Clayton.

He looked at the ring and felt the pull, the promise, and the price. The Protocols did not hand gifts; they judged and they forged. They cut and pressed until you fit the mold or broke trying.

"Whatever it is," Clayton said, calm again, "we do it together."

He stepped toward the ring and Regalia hummed in his hand. The light on the portal's skin rippled as if it sensed him, as if it wanted a taste.

Veyra touched his elbow. "We're ready."

Soren rolled his shoulders and nodded.

Harrick flexed his numb hand and set his jaw, while Kaelin flicked blood off a knife and smiled like a dare.

Torren lifted his axe and leaned, more to keep standing than to pose. "Say when, boss."

Clayton took a breath. The air in the temple was cooler than the field, it smelled like old stone and the last pages of a book.

"Then we finish," he said.

The ring brightened, and the skin of light thinned. The pull grew gentle and warm, like a tide coming in.

They stepped closer, close enough to see faint reflections. Not faces, not bodies, but aspects… fire, vines, shadow, blade, spear, light, and root.

Clayton raised his hand.

The system's glow slid over their skin.

The portal hummed, soft and low, like a memory breathing, then they reached for the light.

~----~

[One step remains.]

~----~

The system whispered again, in their bones this time.

Clayton did not look back. He stepped forward with his people at his side and let the light take him.

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