Boiling magma hissed against the ceiling of the collapsed cavern.
Liquid fire dripped through cracks in the shattered granite like blazing crimson rain.
Three hundred feet of solid bedrock rested above the cavern, crushing the exit tunnels beneath thousands of tons of stone. Red-hot molten rock poured in from subterranean lava channels, turning the chamber into a sealed furnace.
In the center of the rising lava lake, a pale blue sphere of glacial frost glowed like a frozen star.
Mina Vance knelt on the steaming flagstones.
Her small hands were pressed flat against the floor. Her black hair whipped in a freezing vortex of frost, her Absolute Zero Yin-Vein burning at full capacity.
A dome of solid, thirty-yard blue ice shielded the survivors from the surrounding sea of fire.
Around them, sixty elite Vance spear-guards formed a tight circular perimeter. Their leather shields were locked together, catching the burning droplets that hissed through the ice seams.
