Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like to be inside an oven? Yeah, me neither. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure that was exactly what the mountain cave had turned into. The air was hazy from the heat emanating from the rocks around us, and it was difficult to resist the urge to down our entire water supply in one gulp.

The cave entrance led us down a narrow tunnel without any branches or offshoots. Even in my heat-resistant suit, I was sweating bullets. Suddenly, a blast of hot air rushed past all of us, almost like the mountain itself had burped. I was grateful that the thin layer of mana I’d put over my face seemed to be absorbing my sweat because everyone else in the clearing team was constantly wiping their foreheads, faces, and necks to try to keep sweat out of their eyes.

The narrow tunnel gradually began to widen enough for four people to walk side by side. As the tunnel expanded, an unsettling growling sound began to make its way through the air. My throat tightened at the sound, and I fumbled for my water bottle. As more growls sounded, my fingers began to shake so much that I barely managed a sip of water before stowing it again, worried that I was going to drop it.

Relax, Teagen, I scolded myself internally. Lots of monsters growl. Don’t freak yourself out.

I forcefully pushed the memories away that threatened to paralyze me and followed the clearing team. Helen swept her hand to the side, and immediately everyone got as close to the scorchingly hot rock walls as they could stand. Up ahead, the tunnel came to an end.

Helen approached the opening cautiously. The growls we'd been hearing for a while were now being punctuated with yips and barks. I had to bite my lip hard to keep my teeth from chattering as I desperately tried to keep a lid on the trauma I'd thought I buried many lifetimes ago.

It’s okay. Just because they sound like dogs doesn’t mean they’re hellhounds. Breathe, Teagen. Calm down! My inner pep talk had nearly worked by the time Helen crawled back to us.

“There are several dozen dogs down there. I’d like to stay hidden and pick some off with my gun, but they’re in a large cavern, so my shots are going to cause an echo. It might be better to go in guns blazing,” Helen suggested before looking around the group.

“If they haven’t already smelled us approaching, then I think a surprise attack is our best bet, too,” the second-in-command agreed, and soon everyone was nodding their heads in turn.

“Alright then. Teagen, you stay back and create a shield," Helen instructed before turning to her teammates, "If anyone gets injured, fall back immediately and fix yourself up behind Teagen’s shield,” she ordered gruffly.

Everyone nodded their understanding. The youngest man on the team, who earlier had been warned against being heroic, turned to flash me a quick smile.

“It’s nice to know that we’ve got a safe zone with you here,” he remarked with a tight chuckle. I gave him a brief smile and a thumbs-up.

“I’ve got you,” I responded shortly, still trying to convince myself that I wasn’t two seconds away from a panic attack.

It’s okay. She called them dogs. Cute little dogs that can survive inside an active volcano… A shudder went through me before I mercilessly pinched my thigh, which didn’t seem to want to move from my crouched position on the floor.

Holding her hand up, Helen slowly lowered her fingers to count us down and then leaped into action. Cacophonous bangs of mana bullets being fired rang throughout the cavern, followed by yelps of surprise and pain.

Taking a deep breath, I followed after the clearing team and got my first look at the monsters inhabiting the cave. As bullets, arrows, and bursts of magic collided with the pack of monsters, I felt one of the dogs turn and stare directly at me. Its eyes glowed red against black sclera. Its snout was blunted like a rottweiler’s, but its ears stood tall like a wolf's. Its short, black fur looked like it was made of millions of cactus needles, and red veins of glowing power pulsed up and down its body, making it look like a walking lava lamp.

The monster peeled back its black lips to reveal its yellowed teeth, and the tenuous control I had on my third life's memories slipped away from my grasp. Hellhound, I moaned inwardly as I got sucked into the depths of my worst memory in all ten of my lifetimes.

We’d finally done it. We reached the 98th floor of this infernal tower ruled by demons and gods who had nothing better to do than to pit us pathetic mortals against each other and watch the show. Kim A-joon, the hero of this action fantasy story and my best friend, had led our team through blizzards, deserts, and even oceans as we climbed through floors that tested our mental and physical strength.

And now, we had been brought quite literally to hell. The ground was a mixture of blackened earth and ash; any trees visible were slightly smoldering, and the acrid smoke in the air made breathing nearly impossible. A-joon directed us as we battled against a horde of red-skinned demons and their packs of hellhounds.

Using my uchigatana (more commonly known as a katana), I sliced through my enemies while keeping A-joon in my sight. This was the floor when he would suffer a near-death experience, but even though I’d racked my brain, I couldn’t remember the exact sequence of events that led to his brush with death. But I did know that no matter what, I wasn’t going to let him die.

A-joon saved my life dozens of times as I struggled to learn swordmanship and unlock the power of aura. Even though he could’ve left me behind many times, he stuck by me and helped me adjust to this crazy world. A-joon dreamed of defeating the corrupt rulers of the tower and creating a place where people could live in harmony and peace. Unrealistic or not, I was determined to help him in any way that I could.

A scream of pain pierced the chaos, and both A-joon and I whipped our heads around to see Stephanie (our team’s archer) with what looked like a massive barbed fishhook stabbed through her leg. A-joon swiftly cut down his current opponent and sprinted across the battlefield toward Stephanie.

I was only a step behind him, but my heart dropped to my stomach when something on the other end of the barb yanked on it, causing Stephanie to fall onto her back. She shrieked in pain as she was dragged across the sooty ground by an unseen foe. A-joon used his aura to create a pair of black smoke-like wings that launched him up above the clash of demons, humans, and hellhounds. He brought his broadsword, which was encased in the same black smoke, down in a sweeping motion, severing the thick chain attached to the barb that had speared through Stephanie’s leg.

A-joon swiftly gathered Stephanie into his arms and leaped through the air to a calm area of the battlefield. I envied his ability to use his aura to make impossible long jumps, and I growled with frustration as I cut my way through the demons that separated us. Like the slightly arrogant idiot that he was, A-joon had turned his back on the battle to give emergency first aid to Stephanie. With his level of skill and reaction time, he could usually get away with being a little reckless, but I had a bad feeling about this.

Spotting a demon that had bent over slightly in order to taunt its prey, I sheathed my longsword and sprinted directly for it. Propelling myself up, I landed squarely on the 6 ½ foot tall demon and used his back as a springboard. Using the maxed-out agility stat I had trained so hard for, I kept my balance and speed as I leaped from one demon to another, landing for only a moment on their shoulder or back before bounding to the next one.

Just as I was about to reach A-joon, I saw the wicked face of the High Demon that ruled over this floor smiling maliciously towards my friend. Letting out a battle cry, I flipped through the air while drawing my uchigatana, managing to just barely block three of the deadly barbed spearheads the High Demon had sent toward my friend’s unsuspecting back.

A desperate battle ensued as I tried to keep track of the magical spearheads that flew through the air toward me endlessly. Even with the speed and dexterity I had honed to perfection, I could feel my concentration slipping under the onslaught of attacks from multiple directions.

Suddenly, pain erupted from my back, right below my ribcage. In that split second of hesitation when I looked down at the source of the excruciating pain, two spearheads wrapped around my aura-encased sword, and it was yanked out of my hands.

“Miyuki!” A-joon’s desperate voice called my name.

I glanced over my shoulder as blood began to dribble from the corner of my mouth. My friend’s eyes were wide, and his aura wings were in place. I knew that he was on his way to save me. But I also knew he was too late. Flashing him a smile that I hoped wasn’t too grotesque, I felt the spearhead buried in my torso yank, and I was soon helplessly flung into the air. I let out a screech of pain as the barbed spearhead ripped from my flesh, and I was soon tumbling across the ground.

Before I had even stopped rolling, I heard the growls and yips coming from around me. I tried to move. To flee. But before I could even get my feet under me, sharp teeth clamped around my right leg. I couldn’t stop the scream as I felt the flesh of my leg first rip, then tear off in the mouth of the red-eyed hellhound. Before my tear-filled eyes, three more dogs appeared. I could do nothing but scream and cry as half a dozen dogs descended upon me, tearing into my flesh, gnawing on my limbs, and biting everywhere but my throat, as if they were purposefully wanting me to live for as long as possible as they feasted on me.

“Teagen! Teagen, we need your shield!”

My entire body was shaking as my name from this life pushed through the memories of being mauled to death, which clung onto me and refused to let go. The blood-red, glowing eyes that had been etched into the very fibers of my soul sent waves of fear and terror unlike any I could adequately describe. I was unable to wrench my gaze away from the awful creature as it bared its sharp canine teeth at me in a diabolical grin.

“No…” I whispered past teeth that were chattering as loudly as if I were in the middle of a blizzard on the top of a mountain.

“Teagen!”

I had no idea who was calling my name, but I couldn’t spare them any attention. All that I could see were several hellhounds stalking closer on an unimpeded path directly for me.

“Not again,” I whimpered, mentally begging my body to move and stop being a useless lump of shivering jelly.

A feral snarl from the lead hellhound sent a jolt through my body. Memories of the awful pain of having my muscles torn from my bones caused bile to roll up my throat. When the hellhound in the lead leaped forward, I couldn’t even make out a coherent thought in the jumble of panic my brain had dissolved into.

Instinct is a scary thing, though. Without even understanding what I was doing, I reached for my mana. ALL of my mana. With nothing but the wish to eradicate the object of my fear, lances of golden mana appeared above me and shot with deadly accuracy toward the hellhounds.

Caught in my blind panic, I didn’t stop shooting my mana lances until every black and red dog had stopped moving. Whether they were still because they were dead or because I had pinned them to the cave floor with my mana spears, I couldn’t say. However, when I could no longer see any glowing red eyes trained on me, my hyper-tense body slumped to the ground.

Propping myself up on my shaking knees and elbows, I retched pitifully, trying to convince myself that I was Teagen now. That Miyuki was already dead, and these hellhounds hadn’t gotten to me. When my stomach had been emptied so thoroughly that I was gagging on stomach acid, I stumbled away from the mess I’d made and curled up on the ground.

“I’m Teagen, not Miyuki. I’m Teagen, not Miyuki,” I mumbled to myself over and over again as I tried to shove away the awful memories that haunted me in my dreams, no matter how many lifetimes passed.