Chapter 104 – Labyrinth

A woman stood at the center of a massive cavern within the labyrinth. She wore a stark white faceless mask and a black uniform so dark it seemed to absorb even midday light.

The Captain of the Nameless, Shadowless, paused to catch her breath.

How long had she been trapped here?
Approximately 40 hours.

Monster corpses littered the entire cavern floor. Counting them all would require staying awake through the night.

And yet, just as many monsters remained alive. How had someone managed to gather so many creatures beneath the capital?

That didn’t matter. What had already happened was beyond her concern, and investigating such matters wasn’t her responsibility.
Besides, whether they numbered one thousand or ten thousand made little difference to Shadowless.

The monsters weren’t what kept her trapped here. Something else was binding her in place.

The humans.
People who had lost their minds, their reasoning stripped away, mixed among the monsters.

Where had they all been gathered from?
They weren’t of a single ethnicity.
East, North, South, West.
Various races intermingled.
And their numbers were staggering.

If there had been only monsters, breaking through would have taken less than a minute. But humans were caught among them.
Humans whose lives could easily be lost with a single misplaced strike.

This had delayed her progress through the labyrinth.

No—to call it a delay would be an understatement.
She had completely halted.

If she killed all the humans, she could escape. She had already located the labyrinth’s center and could sense, through her heightened perception, what ritual was taking place there.

But she couldn’t bring herself to kill them all.
If they had been dying in agony, poisoned by magi, she would have ended their suffering with her own hands.

But there were no signs of that.
Had whoever set this trap anticipated her decision? The humans appeared perfectly fine.

How was that possible?
There was no magi in this space. And the humans remained confined within it.

Which meant that if she dismantled the labyrinth, all these people could return alive.

That thought had kept her firmly in place.
Of course, she hadn’t been completely inactive. The thousands of corpses scattered across the cavern floor were evidence of that.

She had killed the monsters that charged alongside the humans without harming a single person.
She had even saved those who stumbled and would have been trampled to death.

As a result, not a single human corpse—not even a drop of human blood—stained the cavern floor.

She had considered knocking the humans unconscious and gathering them in one place.

But that proved impossible.
The moment a human lost consciousness, the monsters would attack to kill them.

So she had no choice but to maintain the humans’ awareness while fighting through the seemingly endless hordes of monsters.

Some monsters bled acidic blood, while others exploded upon death.

Fighting amidst such creatures while protecting the humans—that had been her battle for 40 hours.

What could possibly lie at the end of this labyrinth that was worth such elaborate measures?

She had received some intelligence:
A cavern within the underground waterways.
A massive door blocking the path.

She didn’t know what lay beyond that door, only that the servants of Labyrinth sought to open it.
And to do so, they needed a key.

She had entered the labyrinth without knowing what that key was.

But it hadn’t taken long to discover its nature.
Her sharpened senses had revealed the truth.

A Spirit.

A spirit that had vanished 400 years ago was inside this labyrinth.

That realization had filled Shadowless with urgency.

Who had created this place, and what was hidden here that required a spirit’s power?
And how had the demons discovered it first?

Crunch—a harsh sound came from beneath her faceless mask.

Thinking and feeling anger would change nothing.
First, she needed to escape this place and stop the ritual continuing even now.

Pushing aside her thoughts, Shadowless donned a fresh pair of gloves and prepared for battle.

At that moment—

“…This is…”

A massive surge of magi coursed through the entire labyrinth.
It lasted only an instant, but its presence was powerful enough to make Shadowless speak aloud.

Cold sweat trickled down her spine.
Goosebumps covered her entire body, and her instincts sounded an alarm.

This wasn’t magi that a mere Black Magician could control. A demon? At the very least, a high-ranking demon?

No, this was Legion Commander-level magi.

Viscous, vile, and sickening in sensation.

Luxurina of Lust.

And within that flow of magi…
She sensed a familiar presence.

Eliarnes Eustetia.

She had been swallowed by the magi.

The moment Shadowless realized this—

An insane wave of murderous intent erupted from her entire being.

Crack—The ground beneath her feet disintegrated. The very foundation of the labyrinth twisted. The force of her fury caused humans to cough up blood while even the mindless monsters began to feel fear.

Rumble—A crimson world began to unfold with Shadowless at its center.

What had been a labyrinth was no longer a labyrinth. A river of blood flowed upward toward the sky.

This river that reached the heavens then rained back down upon the earth, flowing toward its rightful master.

A world manifested through Intent.

Just as Shadowless’s Intent Projection was about to be completed—

“…Oh my?”

Shadowless’s fury subsided.

***

“Krk… ugh…”

With a dull thud, Pied fell to his knees, vomiting the substance that had been boiling inside him.

Splat—Black matter hit the floor.
Undigested magi, mixed with the decaying remains of his internal organs that had rotted from its effects.

Looking down at the mess with a bitter smile, Pied leaned against the wall, his body seemingly on the verge of shattering.

The familiars he had summoned through consecration had already vanished.
That domain just now… No, it couldn’t even be called a domain anymore.

It had already been consumed by the Intent of a vaster being, becoming something that could no longer be called a domain.

The tidal wave of that Intent had swept away everything in this narrow passage.

Ego Annihilation Illusion.

A domain magic imbued with Pied’s Intent, designed to erase the self-identity of those trapped within its illusion.

But when a greater being’s Intent was added to it…
The result was beyond Pied’s comprehension.

He only knew it was high-level magic he could never use, no matter how many years he trained or devoted himself to the arcane arts.

He had no way of knowing when those sucked into the illusion would be expelled again, but it was over now.

Whatever emerged from the Ego Annihilation Illusion would no longer qualify as living.

Samaela had ordered him to bring back an intact corpse, but now he could bring her a quality body—one that had lost its self but remained technically alive.

Though this success had cost him dearly…
He had lost several organs and sacrificed more than half his life force.

But that was acceptable.
Soon he would cross to Gevihenum, regenerate his organs, and replenish his depleted life force by taking a new body.
Though Pied couldn’t accomplish such feats himself, his master Samaela could.

“Grk… ptoo. How vile…”

Whether he could hold out until then, though… that remained uncertain.
The tiny amount of magi remaining in his body was rampaging, attempting to consume him from within. It simply wouldn’t settle.

Whose could it be?
Pied had consumed concentrated magi from high-ranking demons many times before.
Yet the magi that had entered his body this time was fundamentally different.

Mere magi shouldn’t possess a will, yet this seemed to have its own consciousness.

And that wasn’t all…
When he activated Ego Annihilation Illusion, expelling all the magi from his body—
What was merely energy seemed to smile at him.

As if it had recognized its target.

And who was that target?

Eliarnes Eustetia.

And when she saw that magi, Eliarnes immediately identified it with a face of recognition.

Luxurina.

Of course, Pied had denied it.
He had never seen Luxurina’s magi or Authority, and he refused to believe it.

Even in Gevihenum, no price was sufficient to obtain a Legion Commander’s magi.
Why would such power ever be granted to servants of Labyrinth?

Above all, how could Eliarnes possibly recognize her power?

“Perhaps I’m having strange thoughts because I’m dying… kh…”

All he needed to do was conserve his strength until everything concluded.
Once the Ego Annihilation Illusion ended, he would carry Eliarnes—who would be nothing more than a corpse by then—back with him.

With this thought, Pied spat out another clump of organ fragments and allowed himself to relax.

At that very moment—

RIP—

Space itself was torn apart.

Then—

“Hey, you son of a bitch.”

A sharp voice pierced Pied’s consciousness.

He turned his head toward the source of the voice.

There, cherry blossoms bloomed.
Cherry blossoms in full bloom within the cold, dark labyrinth.

Eliarnes Eustetia.

“…What on earth…”

Though her neatly tied twin-tails had come undone, her once-unblemished body was now covered in wounds, and her clothes were tattered in various places.

“What the hell did you just drink?”

But her eyes and expression were sharper than ever before.

“This… this is impossible…”

Pied had consumed a potion so dangerous he had resigned himself to death.
He had used every ounce of magi in his body and, when that wasn’t enough, sacrificed his own life force.

With all that, he had created a perfect illusion.
And for what? Now he was dying.

Yet this seventeen-year-old girl—

“What exactly are you?!”

How could she possibly be so intact?

“Are you… are you the reincarnation of the Hero, Arisa Eustetia? Is that why she left behind a descendant, even though you share no blood?!”

“Tch. Nonsense.”

Approaching the cornered Pied, Eliarnes spat out a mouthful of blood.

“I am Ronan, you bastard.”

BOOM!

Her tiny fist slammed directly into Pied’s wide-eyed face.