Round 120

The final rune blazed into existence with a sharp crack of displaced air, bathing the room in harsh blue light that flickered across sweat-slick skin and strained faces. Zha'thik's enraged bellows shook the very stones below, his fists hammering against the barrier with enough force to make the ancient metal groan in its frame. The binding between them screamed—a living thing torn apart from within—threads snapping one by one in a discordant symphony of magical agony. Jeane's wings snapped wide instinctively, crimson feathers ruffling as she fought to maintain the containment field around Silra's thrashing form. "Five minutes," she ground out through clenched teeth, eyes fixed on the corridor ahead where multiple doors yawned like dark mouths waiting to swallow them whole. "We have five minutes to decide which way we're running." The binding's frequency had climbed into a range that made her entire body ache, every nerve ending screaming in protest as it tore at the fabric of reality itself. Halie stumbled against the wall, pale and shaking as she poured divine energy into reinforcing the ward—not enough, never enough—and Hera crept forward down the corridor, her silhouette barely visible in the flickering torchlight that cast everything in dancing shadows. "Options," Jeane demanded, voice sharp enough to cut. "Tell me what's behind those doors before we have to make a blind choice."