Something about the space ahead felt… occupied.
The corridor opened once again, this time into a wide, shallow expanse. The floor dipped gradually, stone disappearing beneath clear water that deepened in careful increments rather than sudden drops. The glow overhead sharpened, shifting from soft indigo to a colder, glassier blue that made every ripple feel deliberate.
Kelsey stepped to the side, setting her pack down on a dry patch of stone near the edge of the water.
“You stopping here?” Nick asked.
“For a moment,” she said. “This is a little outside expectations. I’m not especially worried, but that’s no reason to be sloppy.”
He felt targeted.
She noticed and smiled. “You should try it sometime.”
She knelt and opened her pack.
Nick glanced past her, eyes drawn back to the water. The surface was calm, but not empty. Subtle currents slid beneath it, crossing and uncrossing like threads being tested for strength. The deeper sections darkened and lightened in slow pulses, as though something below was breathing.
Whatever was out there…
It didn’t feel hostile.
Which made him feel extremely uncomfortable.
Behind him, fabric rustled.
He looked back just in time to see Kelsey pull her shirt over her head. There was no ceremony to it. No nervous glance or pause for effect. She moved like someone changing clothes before a run, focused on comfort and function rather than presentation.
“Before you say anything,” she said mildly, already reaching into the pack again, “yes, this is still consistent.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
He stopped.
“…But I was going to think it,” he admitted.
She snorted softly.
“This isn’t the beach,” she continued, tugging on a light, close-fitting jacket that left her arms free and didn’t cling to her skin. “And it’s not a lesson chamber either.”
She tied the bandana next, folding it once, twice, then knotting it at the back of her head to keep her hair out of her face. The motion was practiced and familiar, as if she’d done it a thousand times.
Nick watched the way she moved.
Purposeful.
Unrushed.
Alert without being tense.
“So what is it?” he asked.
She straightened, rolling her shoulders once as if checking her range of motion. “A conversation.”
“With what? Water?”
She glanced toward it. “Possibly.”
“Possibly? You mean you’ve cleared this place and you don’t know what it is?”
“I do know what it is,” she said easily. “Sort of. An undine is not something that can be fought. Not in the traditional sense.”
‘An undine? Like a water spirit?’
Nick’s brow furrowed. “Everything can be fought.”
“That’s true,” she said. “If you learn how to do it.”
She reached into the pack one last time.
A rapier came out smoothly, its length somehow at odds with the bag it had been stored in. The blade caught the dungeon’s light and scattered it in thin, liquid reflections across the stone. She tested the balance with a small wrist motion, then rested the tip lightly against the floor.
The water shifted.
“…You weren’t kidding,” Nick said quietly. “If you’re escalating, then I suppose this situation calls for it?”
Kelsey shrugged.
“I suppose we’ll see. Like I said, I’d prefer not to be sloppy.”
The water ahead darkened.
Something moved beneath the surface—slow, broad, and graceful in a way that made Nick acutely aware of how clumsy he was in the water.
Kelsey took a single step back, placing herself just behind Nick’s shoulder rather than beside him.
It was a subtle shift, but intentional.
“This is where I stop guiding,” she said. “You should know enough to handle it.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Anytime. Try not to brute force it too much.”
“Any actually helpful advice?”
She considered for a moment.
“Fix your personality?”
“Very funny.”
She giggled. “I know I am. Good luck.”
The water rose.
It wasn’t just a wave.
It was a presence.
The surface lifted as if the chamber were quietly filling its lungs. Ripples spread outward in perfect rings, intersecting and vanishing without sound. The glow beneath the surface sharpened, pale blue light refracting into long, wavering lines that bent wrong against the stone.
Nick felt it before it touched him.
The cold.
Not the sharp, biting chill of winter water, but something heavier. It pressed into his skin and kept going, slipping past flesh and bone until it settled somewhere deep in his chest. His breath caught, fogging faintly in front of his mouth despite the lack of wind.
The water reached his ankles.
Then his calves.
It didn’t push. It didn’t pull.
The water continued to rise, creeping past his knees, the surface perfectly smooth even as it climbed. Where it touched his skin, sensation dulled—not numb, but muted, like staring at an empty canvas. He could feel pressure and resistance, but none of it felt threatening.
Nick shifted his weight.
The water responded immediately.
The surface tilted slightly, redistributing itself around his legs as though correcting an imbalance. Not a single ripple emanated from his location. The sensation was subtle, but unmistakable.
He sighed. “It’s right in front of me, isn’t it?”
The shape beneath the water rose.
A silhouette resolved beneath the surface, long and flowing, its edges soft and indistinct, like a figure seen through rippling glass. Light bent around it, refracting into layered halos that slid across the chamber walls. The water around it felt heavier somehow, even though the level hadn’t changed.
Nick’s heart thudded once, hard.
He reached inward, noting the familiar heat that he’d begun to feel recently. It was still there, coiled and waiting where it always was.
It answered faintly, like embers buried under ash.
The sensation twisted.
The heat didn’t vanish, nor was it smothered.
It… stalled.
Nick frowned, focusing harder.
He was the Keeper of the First Flame. His fire couldn’t be put out. That was the rule established by his mythical-rank trait. Ever since he obtained that trait, there was a sense of readiness, a connection, a feeling that fire was something he could reach for if he needed to.
Without using his Multi-Fireball spell as a medium, the fire never answered, but the sensation was there.
Now, it felt like reaching into still water and closing his hand around nothing.
The presence rose higher.
The water around Nick’s thighs cooled further, leeching warmth impossibly fast. His breath fogged more visibly now, each exhale slow and careful. He felt heavy, like his limbs were wrapped in wet cloth.
“Kelsey,” he said under his breath. “Is this all within your expectations?”
“It is,” she replied calmly. “You’ve got this.”
“I’m not sure what I’ve got, but sure.”
“Good luck.”
Nick huffed despite himself. Then his attention snapped back to the water as it climbed past his waist. The pressure increased. It still wasn’t crushing, but instead felt… insistent, like a hand resting against his chest, waiting for something.
He made a decision.
Of course, he wasn’t going to attack it.
But he couldn’t remain completely idle, either.
If he stayed still, he had a vague sense that the undine would completely dominate him.
That was unacceptable.
He drew mana and shaped it out of habit, activating Multi-Fireball. Instead of allowing the spell to form, he paused when the framework was almost assembled.
Then…
Nothing.
The spell refused to activate.
It was like trying to strike a match in a vacuum.
Nick’s eyes widened slightly.
“Something is really suppressing me?” he murmured.
The water reacted.
The temperature dropped another degree, the chill biting deeper now. The pressure against his chest increased further, feeling as if someone was leaning against him now.
The presence surfaced.
It didn’t fully emerge, but it rose enough for its form to be identified—a humanoid silhouette composed entirely of flowing water, its features suggested rather than defined.
It regarded him.
Nick held its gaze and felt something press back.
Authority.
He wasn’t sure how he understood it, but there was an intuitive sense of what the undine had done:
Fire does not exist here.
His teeth clenched as the cold deepened further, creeping into his core. His fingers tingled, numbness threatening to spread. He felt small in a way he hadn’t in a long time.
He was forced to acknowledge it:
He was out of place here.
‘It isn’t trying to kill me.’
The realization landed hard.
‘It’s correcting me.’
Something inside him rebelled against that.
His breath shuddered out of him, slow and controlled. He didn’t try to summon fire again. He didn’t force mana to move when it was no longer willing to cooperate.
Instead, he focused inward.
On the warmth that was still there, trapped but unextinguished. On the simple, undeniable truth that he was alive, that his heart was beating, that heat existed because he did.
The cold pressed in.
And stopped.
It didn’t retreat.
It didn’t yield.
It halted.
The water touching his skin steamed.
A thin, ghostly veil rose where liquid met flesh, vanishing almost as soon as it appeared. The external temperature didn’t rise… but it stabilized. The draining chill eased, settling into something bearable.
The undine recoiled.
Ripples passed through its shape as though something had disrupted a carefully maintained equilibrium. The pressure in the chamber shifted, currents swirling in new, uncertain patterns.
Behind him, Kelsey sucked in a sharp breath.
“Nick,” she said quietly. “What did you do?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied, voice tight. “I haven’t done anything yet. I’m still searching for the answer…”
“Well, you found one.”
The undine’s attention sharpened.
The water surged around him, currents spiraling as if searching for the source of the contradiction. The chamber hummed, low and resonant, the sound vibrating enough to echo in their bones.
Kelsey moved.
She stepped forward, her boots splashing softly as she walked atop the water, placing herself beside Nick. She held her blade in a ready position. The rapier caught the blue light, scattering it in all directions.
“Alright,” she said lightly, though her eyes were razor-focused. “Let’s ease off on the existential discourse and simplify things a little bit.”
The undine turned toward her.
The water continued to rise.
Nick felt the heat in his chest stir again, answering the pressure with stubborn persistence.
Whatever this was—
Whatever he’d just done—
The undine did not approve.
It moved.
The water rearranged itself, the surface beneath Nick’s feet collapsing inward, spiraling down into a tightening current that yanked at his legs with crushing insistence. The pressure spiked instantly, like gravity itself had shifted direction.
Nick cursed and struggled against the current, desperately trying to keep himself above water.
Kelsey was already moving.
She cut across the current.
Her rapier flicked outward in a precise, snapping arc, the blade skimming the surface of the water just ahead of Nick. There was no flesh to pierce, but the water recoiled, the spiraling current stuttering as if something had disrupted its rhythm.
A wall of water surged up between them, rising in a smooth, vertical plane.
Kelsey vaulted it.
She didn’t jump so much as step, her boots barely touching the surface before she was airbourne again, spinning gracefully over the crest of the wave. Her bandana fluttered as she twisted midair, her blade flashing in a tight, controlled flourish.
“Alright,” she called lightly, landing in a low crouch on the far side. “If that’s how it’s going to be, I’ll dance with you for a bit.”
The water beneath her feet surged upward, forming a sweeping arm that slammed toward her with the force of a collapsing wave.
But she was already gone.
Kelsey flowed around the strike before it was fully formed. She pivoted on one foot, letting the water crash past where she’d been a heartbeat ago, then darted forward along the undine’s flank.
Her rapier stuck again,
This time, the blade punched deep into the undine’s form.
The water screamed.
There was no audible sound, but Nick felt it—a sudden pressure spike that rattled his bones and made his vision blur. The undine’s shape distorted violently, its humanoid silhouette unraveling into chaotic currents before snapping back together.
Kelsey landed lightly and skidded backward across the surface, her boots kicking up sprays of water as she put distance between them.
Nick barely had time to process everything that he witnessed before the undine turned its fully attention back to him.
A spear of condensed water formed instantly, hardening as it launched forward with terrifying speed.
He reacted on instinct.
Multi-Fireball!
The framework of the spell snapped into place—and failed.
The spell collapsed before it could form, the heat inside him smothered again by the undine’s overwhelming presence.
“Shit—!”
He threw himself sideways as the spear tore past where his chest had been, slamming into the stone wall behind him with a thunderous crack. The impact sent shockwaves through the chamber, water exploding outward in a violent spray.
Nick went underwater.
Cold flooded his limbs.
He floundered, his fingers grasping for something to hold onto, his teeth clenched as water surged again, wrapping around his legs like iron bands.
The undine advanced.
Its form stretched taller now, the humanoid silhouette sharpening as it closed the distance. The pressure increased with every step it took toward him.
Nick felt small.
He was outmatched.
He reached inward again, searching for that stubborn warmth.
It answered.
It was faint and infuriatingly insufficient.
He forced his mana out anyway.
If he couldn’t burn the water…
Then he’d burn himself.
Heat flared inside his chest, raw and uncontrolled. His skin prickled as the warmth surged outward. It wasn’t a spell or flame. It was a desperate assertion of existence.
The water around him hissed.
Steam rose again, thicker this time, curling around his arms and shoulders in ghostly tendrils.
The undine halted.
Then the pressure doubled.
Nick screamed, water filling his lungs as the cold slammed back in, harder than before. He hunched forward as his vision darkened.
If at first this was just a correction…
Then now it was enforcement.
Something latched onto his hoodie and yanked him out of the water.
Nick started vomiting water, desperately blinking to clear his vision.
Kelsey intercepted the undine mid-stride, her rapier carving a sharp, decisive line through its torso. The blade disrupted, the water around the strike exploding outward.
She twisted, spun, and struck again.
And again.
Her movements were fluid, elegant, joyful in a way that bordered on infuriating. She danced across the surface, her blade snapping out in rapid, precise thrusts that forced the undine to constantly reassemble itself.
Each strike bought seconds.
And every second mattered.
“Nick!” she shouted, breathless but grinning. “This is the part where you stop trying to win!”
He coughed up more water from his lungs while dragging himself upright.
“I… don’t… know… how…!”
She narrowly ducked a crushing wave that passed through where her head had been. “You’re treating it like a wall. It’s not a wall—it’s a rule.”
The undine shuddered, causing the chamber to shake.
Water shot out violently, slamming into Kelsey from three directions at once.
She didn’t block.
She yielded.
Her body flowed with the impact, rolling across the surface and popping back to her feet in a smooth motion. She skidded backward, boots carving shallow arcs in the water as she laughed under her breath.
“Rude…!”
Nick stared at the scene through blurred vision.
At the undine’s overwhelming dominance.
At Kelsey’s effortless defiance.
The fire inside him was still burning. It was still alive.
But it wasn’t enough.
Someday, perhaps, it would be.
Someday, he would burn hot enough to challenge something like this.
But not today.
The undine surged again, gathering itself for a decisive strike.
Nick was forced to understand.
This fight wasn’t about winning.
It was about understanding why he couldn’t win.
Every reflex screamed at him to push harder, to force fire into existence through sheer will.
And every time he tried—
Nothing.
Fire did not exist here.
It was a new law.
The undine raised an arm.
The water obeyed.
A crushing column formed above Nick, compacting downward with horrifying inevitability.
Kelsey moved instantly.
She crossed the distance in three fluid steps, her blade flashing as she cut across the column rather than into it. The rapier struck the water at an oblique angle, disrupting the pressure just enough to divert the flow.
The column collapsed sideways instead, detonating against the chamber wall in a thunderous clash.
She landed hard, one knee touching the water’s surface as she caught herself on her blade.
The water erupted upward from where she landed and latched onto her, attempting to pull her down into its domain.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Now that just hurts my pride.”
More water erupted around Nick and compacted further, the pressure condensing until the air itself seemed to bow.
Nick could barely breathe.
Every instinct screamed at him to do something.
Even though he knew it wouldn’t work.
Deus ex machina.
If he were a storybook hero, this would be a great moment of awakening.
He would suddenly gain understanding or comprehension. His powers would unlock. A mysterious and powerful undine would bestow power on him.
In the context of his current powers, the most likely outcome was that he would somehow tear fire into existence by sheer refusal to accept this outcome.
But he wasn’t a hero.
Not anymore.
And perhaps he never was.
The memory of failure echoed louder than any instinct.
Fire did not exist here.
Not as a weapon.
Not as a concept.
Not as a will imposed on the world.
His chest burned. His heart beat stubbornly. Each pulse carried warmth through him despite the water, despite the pressure, despite the water’s firm decree.
Because he lived.
Nick stopped pushing.
He didn’t suppress the warmth inside him, but he didn’t force it outward either. He tried to steady his struggling breath.
The crushing water stalled.
It shuddered, ripples skittering across the chamber as the pressure wavered. The undine—clearly a form of water deity—froze mid-motion, its form distorting slightly, currents breaking and reforming as if it were recalculating something.
Kelsey felt the change.
“There it is,” she murmured.
Nick sagged forward, gasping as the weight eased just enough for him to breathe easily. The water around him still pressed close, but it no longer crushed. It held him the way deep water holds a swimmer who has stopped thrashing.
The water deity slowly lowered its arm.
The pressure didn’t vanish. It receded, like a tide withdrawing from shore. The water covering them dispersed into harmless sheets that slid away along the walls. The water level dropped by inches, then feet, settling back into its shallow basin.
The undine regarded Nick one last time.
There was no anger in it.
Nor was there any clear sign of approval.
Nick met its gaze, exhausted and shaking.
“You weren’t trying to erase me,” he said. “With the power you have, you could have ended me right at the start.”
The undine’s form softened.
The currents around it unwound, the humanoid silhouette dissolving back into flowing water. Light dimmed, then stabilized, returning to the dungeon’s calmer indigo glow.
The chamber shuddered.
The water deity was gone.
Nick collapsed backward onto the stone, staring up at the ceiling as water drained quietly away around him.
Kelsey stood there for a long moment, a goofy grin spreading across her face.
Then she laughed.
“Well,” she said, sliding the rapier back into her pack. “That could have gone worse.”
Nick coughed out a weak laugh. “I guess it could have.”
She crouched beside him, resting her forearms on her knees. “You didn’t try to win.”
“I did,” he muttered. “At first.”
“And then you stopped.” Her smile was sharp and proud, entirely unhidden. “That’s the hard part for people like you.”
He turned his head to look at her. “I still lost.”
“Yes,” she said easily. “And you learned something anyway.”
The water in the chamber stirred one last time.
It flowed inward, spiraling toward the center of the basin where a faint glow began to coalesce. The light condensed, refracted, and then snapped into clarity—a small, crystalline droplet suspended in the air, humming softly with restrained power.
The droplet drifted toward him and dissolved against his sternum in a whisper of cool sensation.
He felt something click inside.
=Error=
=Processing…=
=Warning=
-Referenced object: Elemental_Fire not found.-
=Warning=
-Referenced object: Elemental_Water not found.-
=You have gained initial comprehension of [NULL.REF(Elemental_Fire)]=
=You have gained initial comprehension of [NULL.REF(Elemental_Water)]=
=You have gained initial comprehension of [NULL.REF(Elemental_Fire).Contextualized_By(Elemental_Water)]=
=Notice=
-Effect cannot be processed due to insufficient information. It is recommended that the user update to the latest revision or download the correct libraries.-
Nick lay there, breathing slowly, feeling the unfamiliar sensation settle beneath the warmth in his core.
Kelsey stood and offered him a hand.
“Come on,” she said. “You passed.
He blinked up at her. “It’s not over yet?”
She stared at him like he had lost his mind. “We haven’t made it to the beach yet. The day is just getting started!”
‘Holy hell…’
She was insane.
A grin slowly spread across his face.
He accepted her hand and let her pull him to his feet.
“Lead the way.”
Project Knightfall 