As they stepped forward, their eyes widened.
Floating rocks stretched ahead of them, and beneath those rocks was nothing but darkness. A black abyss swallowed the light. No bottom. No echo.
All three swallowed at the sa ti.
They understood without anyone saying it.
If you fall... you don’t co back.
Ezra stepped closer to the edge. He crouched and flicked a small clump of sand into the void.
They waited.
No sound returned.
The space was no longer a narrow tunnel. It opened wide like the inside of a hollow mountain. Dozens of rocks floated slowly, drifting left and right in no clear pattern. Wind moved through the chamber unevenly. It wasn’t steady. It shifted; left, right, and upward.
The walls were filled with holes.
Ezra could feel the breeze brushing past his face, sotis soft, sotis sharp.
Aliya crossed her arms unconsciously.
"This place..." she muttered.
Li rubbed the back of his neck.
"This is worse than the lava."
Ezra looked down once more, then lifted his gaze.
"What’s there to worry about?" he said with a small smile. "Haven’t we already faced difficult stages like this?"
He looked at them one by one.
"Don’t get intimidated by the pit."
His eyes sharpened.
"Just look up and move with one goal in mind."
A rock drifted close to their starting edge.
Ezra bent his knees and jumped onto it cleanly. The rock dipped slightly under his weight, then stabilized as it began drifting left.
"To get to the exit!" he shouted.
Aliya slapped both cheeks hard.
"Ahhhh! Let’s do this!"
She jumped onto the next floating rock that ca close. It wobbled badly beneath her boots.
"Hey...hey...steady!"
She dropped low and hugged the rock like it was a baby.
"I can do this!!"
After a few seconds, the rock steadied and drifted left.
Bobby and Li looked at each other.
They nodded.
"Let’s do this too!"
Both ran and jumped onto rocks drifting toward the right.
Ezra moved again. He leapt to a rock ahead of him, landed, then imdiately pushed off to the next one in front. His movents were sharp and careful. He didn’t waste ti standing still.
Behind him, the others followed, jumping from one floating rock to another. Each landing made the stone dip slightly before it rose back up.
They were making progress.
Then...
The wind changed.
It grew stronger.
Aliya leapt toward a rock to her left. Just as her boots touched it, a violent gust slamd into her side.
Her foot slipped.
For one second her body tilted toward the abyss.
Her stomach dropped.
She grabbed the surface of the rock with both hands, fingers digging into its rough edge.
"Guys! The wind is blowing stronger!" she shouted.
The air roared around them now. Their clothes snapped violently. Hair whipped across their faces.
Boom!
An arrow struck the rock in front of Aliya’s head.
She froze.
Another arrow embedded itself inches away.
She slowly raised her eyes.
From the holes in the walls, arrows began shooting out in waves.
Not one. Not two.
A barrage.
The wind howled louder, pushing the floating rocks in uneven directions.
Arrows tore through the air from both sides.
Bobby’s face went pale.
"What...?!"
Li ducked instinctively as an arrow sliced past his shoulder.
Another arrow struck near Aliya’s boot.
She forced herself upright, the wind blowing her clothes violently as more arrows rained from the walls.
The floating rocks drifted.
The abyss waited below.
And the storm of arrows had just begun.
"Arrows!" Ezra shouted.
An arrow shot past his ear the mont he spoke.
He bent his knees and jumped. The wind slamd into his side midair, trying to throw him off balance, but he twisted his body with it instead of against it. The gust carried him slightly, and he adjusted his landing just enough to touch the next floating rock with the edge of his boot.
The stone wobbled violently.
Before it could tilt too far, he pushed off again.
"Everyone!" he called out. "Protect yourselves!"
He pulled his coat forward, flipping the cape over his arm. Cognis flowed into the fabric. The material stiffened instantly, turning as hard as layered steel.
Arrows struck it one after another.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
He rolled across the floating rock just as a cluster of arrows pierced the space where he had been standing seconds ago. Without stopping, he surged Cognis into his legs and leapt high into the air.
From above, he could see everything.
Bobby and Li had grouped together. They were jumping from rock to rock in sync, breathing hard. Li pulled out a rope and tied one end around his waist, Bobby tying the other around his own.
"If one falls, the other pulls!" Li shouted over the wind.
They moved carefully, back-to-back at tis, using shields to deflect arrows that ca too close.
Aliya...
She moved differently.
She pulled two short rods from her space bag and snapped them together mid-motion, forming a long staff. An arrow flew toward her face.
She spun.
The staff struck the arrow aside.
Another ca low. She stepped over it and swept the staff down. Not perfect. Not elegant. But familiar.
As if she had trained before.
She planted the staff on a rock and used it to vault herself to a farther one. The wind tried to tear her sideways, but she twisted in the air and landed in a low crouch. Without looking, she rolled the staff behind her back, blocking two arrows that would have pierced her shoulder.
So arrows tore through her sleeves and skirt.
She didn’t react.
No ti.
Ezra’s lips curved slightly.
They’re holding their own.
He twisted in the air again, evading a wave of arrows that sliced small pieces from his clothes.
"Good," he muttered. "Now I can focus on myself."
He landed hard on a floating rock.
Crack.
The surface fractured under his weight.
His pupils narrowed.
Cognis flowed into his eyes.
He observed everything.
The pattern of the moving rocks.
The rhythm of the arrows from the wall holes.
The direction shifts of the wind.
Aliya’s positioning.
Bobby and Li’s rope angle.
He jumped again, glancing briefly at the rock he had just left behind.
The gravity function of these floating rocks, it compresses down when force is applied on it like a spring.
He landed on another rock with more force this ti.
The stone dipped sharply—then rebounded upward like a spring.
Ezra’s eyes lit.
If I increase the force...
He poured Cognis into his legs and stomped down on the next rock with deliberate power before leaping again.
The rock plunged downward and then snapped upward violently.
Ezra shot higher than before.
From that height, he could see across multiple floating paths.
He landed on another rock. It dropped under him and then launched him forward with stored force.
He flew past several stones in one motion.
But the maze responded.
More arrows.
Not a few.
A storm.
So many that even his sharp eyes couldn’t count them.
He didn’t hesitate.
He pulled his dagger with one hand and ripped his coat free, wrapping the hardened cape around his arm like a shield. He curled midair, rotating like a spinning wheel.
Arrows clanged against the cape.
So slipped past.
He sliced those aside with sharp, precise movents.
One arrow grazed his cheek.
Another cut across his sleeve.
He landed heavily on a rock. The wind slamd from the right this ti. His boots scraped, nearly sliding off, but he gripped hard and steadied himself.
Without pausing, he caught four arrows mid-flight.
Two between his fingers.
One trapped under his forearm.
One pressed between the dagger and his palm.
In the sa breath, he turned and hurled one toward Aliya.
The arrow collided with another that had nearly slipped past her spinning staff.
The impact knocked both away.
Aliya froze for a split second when she heard the sharp clash of arrows colliding midair.
She turned her head.
Ezra was already far ahead.
"How did you get all the way there?!" she shouted; her voice carried by the raging wind.
Three arrows shot toward her chest.
She spun the staff in a tight circle. Two were deflected. The third scraped past her shoulder. She gritted her teeth and jumped to the next floating rock.
"I can see the exit!" Ezra’s voice echoed from above. "You guys should hurry up!"
He waved at her casually, then flicked the remaining arrows in his hand. They cut through the air at strange angles, colliding with incoming arrows and forcing them off course.
He was smiling.
Like this was fun.
"This is getting dangerous!" Bobby shouted. He slamd his shield up just as a cluster of arrows struck from the left.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
"I know!" Li yelled, back pressed against Bobby’s. He raised his own shield to block arrows from the right. "The wind isn’t letting us move properly!"
A gust struck them sideways. Both nearly lost their footing.
"How did Ezra even get up there so fast?!" Li shouted. "We’re so far behind!"
"Jump!" Bobby cried.
A floating rock drifted past. They leapt together.
The rock they had just left was instantly swallowed by arrows, turning into a porcupine of wooden spikes.
"Yee...!" Bobby’s voice shook. "That would’ve been bad!"
"We keep going like this!" Li said, gripping his shield tighter as more arrows hamred against it. "Hopefully these shields hold on!"
They jumped again.
Slow.
Too slow.
Ahead of them, Aliya was still pushing forward. She blocked, spun, vaulted, moving rock to rock.
Then the wind changed.
Violently.
A powerful gust shot upward from below her.
Her skirt snapped upward, the wind twisting her body midair.
For one terrifying second, she lost balance.
Arrows ca from both sides.
She forced herself to move.
She planted the staff horizontally across two closely spaced rocks just as she began to fall.
The staff caught it.
Her body dropped, but didn’t.
She hung over the abyss.
Her mind emptied.
Then she moved.
Using the staff as a bar, she rolled her body upward in one fluid motion and landed on the next rock, breath ragged.
"I’m not dying here!" she growled, pushing forward again.
Up above, Ezra sat at the edge of the stone platform that held the exit door. His legs dangled over the abyss.
He watched.
Aliya’s recovery.
Bobby and Li’s coordination.
Their weaknesses.
Their strengths.
"Aliya should be here soon," he muttered.
The exit was now in her sight.
"Ezra! I’m coming!" she yelled, teeth clenched as she blocked another volley of arrows.
She jumped...
Landed...
Spun...
Advanced.
Behind her, Bobby and Li’s luck finally ran out.
The longer they waited for safe rocks to drift by, the more their shields took damage.
tal dents deepened.
The surface cracked.
Another jump, a violent gust slamd from the left making Li to slip, his foot slid dangerously off the rock. He raised his shield in panic.
An arrow slipped past.
It pierced Bobby’s left leg.
"AHHHHHHH!!" Bobby scread.
The sound tore through the chamber.
Ezra’s smile vanished instantly. He stood up.
Bobby staggered but didn’t fall. He gritted his teeth, lifting the shield with shaking arms as blood began to spill down his leg.
"Argh...!"
The pain almost forced him to drop it.
"Hold on!" Li shouted, grabbing Bobby’s shoulder with one hand while still trying to raise his own shield.
More arrows struck.
This ti, the tal began to give way.
Crack.
One arrow pierced through.
Another.
The shields were failing.
Arrows started slipping through the broken gaps.
"Damn it... we’re so dead," Li muttered, his eyes losing light for a second.
Ezra exhaled through his nose.
When I thought they could finally do it themselves.
He turned and began running backward along the floating rocks, gathering speed instead of retreating.
For so reason... I feel in form, in this stage.
The wind howled around him. Arrows sliced past his ears.
He pushed harder and jumped.
High.
"Aliya!" he shouted.
"Eh?!" She glanced up just in ti to see him descending from above, cutting through the barrage like a shadow. "What are you..."
She didn’t hear Bobby’s scream behind her. The wind swallowed it.
"Stretch out your staff!" Ezra ordered, twisting midair to avoid two arrows aid for his chest.
"O...Okay!" She extended the staff toward him, confused but trusting.
Ezra landed heavily on a rock just ahead of her. The rock dipped under his weight.
With my calculation... The wind should rise now.
The upward current struck exactly as he predicted.
He grabbed the staff firmly.
The rock beneath him sank under the force of his enhanced legs... and he used the rebound.
"AHHH!" Aliya scread as she was launched forward.
She shot through the storm of arrows, barely missing three mid-flight. Floating rocks blurred beneath her.
In the next instant...
She slamd onto the exit platform, rolled hard, and crashed into the door.
"Argh...!" she coughed. "F*cking hell...!"
She lay flat for a second, holding her back.
Ezra had already moved.
He kicked backward off the rock and flipped through the air, landing on another stone behind him. The impact forced it downward like a compressed spring.
He didn’t wait.
He launched forward again—this ti straight toward Bobby and Li.
Arrows poured toward him.
He twisted his coat off his shoulders and swung it wide. Cognis flowed into the fabric. The cape hardened, snapping arrows away with sharp tallic sounds.
Clang. Crack. Rip.
When he reached the boys, Bobby was on one knee, face pale. Li stood over him, shield almost useless now.
Ezra didn’t speak.
He threw the hardened cape over both of them.
"Pass your Cognis into it. Now."
They obeyed without thinking.
In one smooth motion, Ezra looped a rope through the collar of the cape, wrapped it around them tightly, and secured the knot as he landed on the unstable rock.
The rock sank.
He used the rebound.
He spun...
Dragging the bundled boys with him...
Arrows hamred the cape but failed to pierce.
With one final rotation, he hurled them forward.
They flew.
The wind carried them.
They crashed onto the exit platform beside Aliya, rolling hard.
The cape loosened and fell away.
Ezra didn’t stop.
The next rock propelled him higher than before. So high his feet almost brushed the ceiling of the chamber.
For a brief second...
He saw the entire battlefield.
The arrow holes.
The wind currents.
The rhythm.
Sothing inside him was shifting.
The flow of Cognis felt smoother. Fuller. Stronger.
His percentage had grown.
He was almost there, just one step away from forming the second star.
He fell.
Spinning through the air, weaving between arrows like threads in a loom. He landed, forced another rock downward with enhanced legs, and sprang forward again.
One rock.
Two.
Three.
Precise.
Clean.
No wasted movent.
He landed at the exit beside the others.
The barrage behind him continued, but the mont he stepped fully onto the platform...
It stopped.
Silence fell like a curtain.
Ezra exhaled slowly.
Aliya stared at him, stunned.
From beginning to end, she had watched everything.
Her lips parted slightly.
Wow.
The more I look at him... the more I realize how amazing he is.
Her cheeks ward, but she said nothing.
Beside her, Li was helping Bobby sit upright. The arrow was still stuck in Bobby’s leg, blood soaking through the torn fabric.
"Stay with ," Li muttered, pressing around the wound carefully.
Bobby’s teeth chattered, tears falling from the pain.
Ezra walked over without comnt and lifted Bobby onto his back.
"We should leave first."
His voice was steady again, like nothing had happened.
They stepped through the exit door together.
The chamber behind them dimd.
A calm, chanical voice echoed through the space:
** Third Stage Complete **.
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