The last smear of dusk sank with their footfalls, like embers smothered by ash; in a wordless hush, the squad reached the mouth of the Magma Forge.

Just climbing the thousands of steps to the gate made Adelaide’s unboosted thighs throb, like iron bars under strain; yet that wasn’t their hardest knot to untie.

“So how are you planning to open chains bigger than me?” Her voice flicked like a pebble on still water.

On any other day, Varie would’ve rolled her eyes like a tossed coin and called her clueless; now she only lifted her face toward the symbols of the Nacha Tribe’s shame, and her voice rasped like wind through reeds. “We don’t.”

Her fingers brushed the golden reliefs on the gate, like a moth’s wing on a bell; above, the fire-red clouds bled, and a clean blade of moonlight broke through.

Then the miracle returned like spring after frost.

The sun-bright carvings began to burn with moonshine, like frost catching fire; from the top down, every inch the moon touched shifted from blinding gold to immaculate silver.

Gems set in the wall were the trick’s hidden gears, like eyes that change with the sky; at dawn they cast blood-red, at night they plated the gate in white.

Even seeing the method felt like watching a mountain breathe; the engineering’s grace stunned them wide-eyed, like children before a waterfall.

Varie’s face barely moved, like ice over a deep spring; the first sight had frozen her, but standing close stirred a buried warmth, as if she’d watched this sky a thousand times.

Of course—who last sealed this place but the Lionheart Hero, like a blade laid across a door? He would’ve been the last to see it shine.

Memory failed, yet instinct lifted her gaze like a tide; broken moonlight pooled above her, gems refracting it into slow silver streams that slid down to the goddess.

The statue of Isylia was carved with breathless care, like prayer made stone; countless Nacha believers knelt at her hem, while she knelt too, hands cupped to her chest.

From those still hands seemed to spill a murmur of prayer, like water in a cave; the beam in her palms glowed with a soft, holy warmth.

At the glow’s heart lay a shallow recess, like a chipped petal; a deliberate flaw, waiting for something to make it whole.

Varie glanced at the badge in her palm, like a moon token; fit it there, and the gate would open, the Magma Forge’s strength would snap the chains, and the world would see within again.

Meanwhile, the moonbeam split from Isylia’s fingertips, like milk through splayed reeds; the light refracted, scattered, then gathered on the tears along her cheeks.

There, too, lay matching recesses, like lockets for sorrow; that lock would open only a side door, a slit of passage for a handful of souls.

Varie gave Isylia’s cupped hands one last look, like farewell to a safer road, and closed her eyes.

Yes—she mustn’t, and she couldn’t; the feeling surged like a flood, and she cast it aside like a stone. She pressed the badge into the teardrop slot.

Click. The statue seemed to wake like a sleeper drawing breath; Kabos and the others flinched as the stone hand lifted and pointed, and the moonbeam swung like a compass needle.

There, a handle hid in plain sight, like a fish under ripples; bare eyes could barely catch it.

Varie stepped up, gripped the handle like a cold branch, and turned; the side door unsealed with a whisper, like silk parting.

This close to the Soul Devourer Sormaidon, even the Nacha Tribe’s god-honed senses dulled, like steel wrapped in cloth; a powder-dry, clinging breath washed over them.

It smelled like fungus feeding on rot, like fields after blight; spent corruption squeezed dry, leaving the ghost of desiccated spores.

Thus the infiltration began, like a lamp carried into a cavern.

Varie gave Adelaide and the others one last look, like a captain before a reef; they swallowed hard, gripped their torches, and followed her into the dark.

Midline in the group, Adelaide shadowed Tela, toes high over the threshold like a cat over a stream; her hand slid to the door for balance without thinking.

To her surprise, the ancient hinge yielded to her touch like oiled silk; no dry metal scream, no grit, only smooth, steady motion.

She staggered, a leaf in a draft, and Mira caught her; steadied, she lifted a brow like drawing a bowstring.

Varie hadn’t struggled either; Adelaide had chalked it up to god-given strength, but if her own skinny arm could nudge a door untouched for millennia, the truth was different.

Mira asked with a glance, like a knock; Adelaide narrowed her eyes, thought like a coil tightening, then shook her head.

They’d crossed the threshold; silence mattered here like air underwater. The chains on the main gate were intact; no dragon could squeeze through this slit.

So this was another Nacha marvel, a bead on a long string; marvel at each, and she’d never sleep for months. Adelaide buried the thought like a seed and kept pace.

She didn’t expect the next bead to come a full day later, like the moon after a long rain.

The Magma Forge was vast beyond reason, like a city hollowed into a mountain; the first glimpse had warned her, and the warning proved wise.

They walked on their toes for a whole day, like thieves in a temple, and never once saw a mark they’d left; they hadn’t looped back.

The dark corridors stretched without end, like tunnels of a black ant nest; time felt stalled, but her pocket watch didn’t lie.

Tick by tick, like a heartbeat in a sleeve, the hands told it straight: they’d been inside over twenty-four hours since the door.

The long strain frayed them thin, like rope over rock; the scale pressed on them, and so did the bones.

Skulls and ribs lay everywhere along their path, like driftwood after a storm; the victims were Nacha, but different from the outpost dead.

Their armor bore scorch marks, like leaves kissed by lightning; the joints had melted into lumps, uglier by far than what they’d seen before.

“This is dragonfire,” Varie murmured, like frost on glass; they’d seen such burning more than once.

So the remnant that walked with them had died here, like a candle flicked by wind?

The thought weighed their chests, like wet cloth; anger rose, then tired fear folded it flat.

Another wrongness pulled at them, like a snag on cloth: they hadn’t found a single intact Nacha device on the way.

They’d passed private quarters, workshops, even a few storerooms, like chambers in a hive; every one stood empty.

It wasn’t simple war-ruin; if battle had melted everything, they’d see warped metal, like slag after a pour. Instead, it felt like hands had cleared a table.

As if something had walked after the fight and moved every treasure, like ants dragging sugar; nothing precious had been left.

Where had it all gone? The question flashed in Adelaide’s mind like a fish; unexpectedly, the answer surfaced quick.

After more than a day, they found their first true landmark, like a cairn in fog: a huge room, and in its center, a massive square block of stone.

From the look, the many-man-high block was too cleanly cut, like bread sliced with a razor; deep cracks ran inward, but it lay still as a boulder.

Why a big dumb rock here? Adelaide glanced the question, like a thrown thread; the exhausted inventor Tela lit up at the sight like a firefly.

“This is a Firestone!” Her voice burst out, like cork from a bottle.

“The legendary Firestone—oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, seeing it with my own eyes, I could die here and not care!” She hugged it, an ant to a melon.

“This is the heart of the Magma Forge, a super capacitor that can hold juice to boil a whole lake; if we want to light the Forging Hammer, this is the key!”

Words poured from Tela like floodwater through a broken gate; she rattled off name, function, everything, then grabbed Mira from Adelaide’s side like a child snatching a toy.

“Try feeding it some lightning, just a little—let me show you how it wakes—”

“Idiot, you trying to die?!” Hos cut her off, his whisper a hiss like steam.

“You’ll draw magic next to that dead lizard, huh? Guess you’re tired of breathing.” He jabbed her forehead with a finger, like a hawk’s beak. “And the volcano’s dead, genius.”

“Maybe not! Maybe it wakes in two days, and the forge breathes again!” Her hope sparked like dry straw.

“Yeah, sure, as if we’ll live to check.” His snort was a pebble in a pond.

They bickered, their voices two flints striking; the others only watched, like travelers warming hands at an old fire.

Then Varie hissed for silence, a blade across a throat, and mimed a zipper along her lips.

Air went still, like snow before dawn; mouths shut, and feet feathered forward to where Varie stood.

Through the window before her, they saw where the Magma Forge’s wealth had gone, like a river into a lake.

A vast hall opened, too broad to read at a glance, like night without stars; inside, gold and silver crowded the floor.

Coins, statues, chalices, all cast from pure metals, lay stacked like harvest sheaves; stranger things—unreleased machines, weapon prototypes—glimmered duller, yet richer.

The heap swelled until it filled the hall’s middle, a mountain of riches that lit the dark like dawn on snow.

No one cheered; joy shrank like a flame in wind.

Because atop that shining mountain lay a gray-white dragon, like winter settled to sleep.