[ACTIVE VOTE — VIEWERS FROM OTHER STREAMS]

[Modification: Level 3]

[Option A: Creatures with increased speed — 44%]

[Option B: Partial magic suppression — 38%]

[Option C: Creatures with regeneration — 18%]

[Result: Option A]

---

[DraconicLegacy: increased speed for a vampire who uses ranged magic. reasonable.]

[Wolf1179: Lira already calculated that the labyrinth is wearing her down. she said it out loud.]

[Mist_Of_Death: at 55% magic available. level 3 with faster creatures. the timing is terrible.]

[CTU1024: how many levels does the labyrinth have]

[Mana_of_Void: @CTU1024 nobody knows. that’s part of the problem.]

---

Level 3

The creatures of level 3 had no plates or armor.

They were thin — almost skeletal, with bones visible beneath translucent skin. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Four long legs jointed backward, like a dog’s hind legs but on all four limbs, giving them the strange movement for moving in a straight line.

On the upper part of the body, two short arms ended in three fingers each, more for balance than for attacking. The head was small, without recognizable features except a mouth that opened horizontally across the entire width of the face.

Lira saw them.

Then she saw them move.

The first covered the twenty meters between the mouth of the corridor and Lira’s position in under a second.

Not in a straight line — in zigzags, with the specific erratic movement of something that has evolved to be difficult to track with the eye.

Lira launched a current.

The creature was no longer there.

Lira launched another — anticipating, not tracking.

The creature changed direction before reaching the anticipated point.

’It doesn’t follow a predictable pattern.’

’Completely random movement at a speed that makes visual tracking useless.’

The other seven arrived while she was processing the first.

Lira activated the blood mist — not at specific points like in level 2. In the entire corridor.

A layer of mist two centimeters thick at ground level covering the entire available area.

The creatures stepped on the mist with every step.

The mist registered the position.

Lira closed her eyes.

And fired currents at the positions the mist indicated to her.

Probability, not tracking.

Four of eight in the first cycle.

---

[DraconicLegacy: SHE USED THE MIST AS A SENSOR. FIRED AT PROBABILITIES NOT POSITIONS.]

[Wolf1179: random movement makes visual tracking useless. Lira switched to tactile tracking with the mist.]

[Mist_Of_Death: that’s the kind of adaptation that requires not panicking. Lira never panics.]

[CTU1024: four of eight in the first cycle with completely random movement. WHAT.]

[Mana_of_Void: @CTU1024 eight hundred years.]

[DraconicLegacy: the cost is that mist in full area consumes more magic than at specific points. how much does she have left.]

---

Level 3 took nine minutes.

The longest so far — the random movement meant each successful current required more probability cycles than the previous one, and each failed cycle was blood magic spent with no result.

Blood magic available: thirty-two percent.

Lira calculated it without expression.

’Thirty-two.’

’Level 4 unknown.’

’Probably worse than 3.’

She took off her sunglasses — the corridor had no sunlight, the glasses were unnecessary here, and the frame rim had started to bother her when concentration increased.

She folded them and put them away in the inner pocket of the leather jacket with care, even if she didn’t show it, not wanting to damage something that was a gift.

She paused for a moment.

’They were a gift.’

’From Kai’s chat.’

’His viewers.’

’The people who follow him from the other world who think everything is a game and who send him things because they care about what happens to him.’

Lira looked at the opening to level 4.

’Here no one sends anything.’

’Here I’m alone with thirty-two percent magic available and a labyrinth designed to wear me down.’

The rank markings on the back of her hands pulsed.

Thirty-two percent.

’Enough.’

’It has to be enough.’

---

[ACTIVE VOTE — VIEWERS FROM OTHER STREAMS]

[Modification: Level 4]

[Option A: Level boss — unclassified entity — 71%]

[Option B: Total magic suppression — 20%]

[Option C: No modification — 9%]

[Result: Option A]

---

[DraconicLegacy: unclassified boss. just like in Serah’s sector.]

[Wolf1179: 71% chose the same for Lira as for Serah. A_D_M designed the same boss for both sectors.]

[Mist_Of_Death: or a different boss calibrated specifically for each one. that would be worse.]

[CTU1024: Lira at 32% magic against an unclassified boss. that’s a problem.]

[Mana_of_Void: @CTU1024 yeah. and she knows it.]

---

Lira crossed the opening.

Level 4 was empty.

Not in the way the corridors between groups of creatures were empty — completely empty. No visible creatures. No sound produced by creatures moving through the space. No smell of anything living.

Just the corridor. And at the end, a figure.

Not a creature.

A human figure.

Tall, still, standing in the center of the corridor with arms at its sides and the posture of something that waits rather than prepares to attack.

Lira stopped.

The figure didn’t move.

Lira activated the blood magic tracking threads — the thin ones, the ones that searched for life energy signatures.

The threads reached the figure and returned without information.

No vital signature.

No magical signature.

No classification in any parameter blood magic could read.

’It’s not a living being.’

’It’s not Aethon magic.’

’It’s from A_D_M.’

The figure lifted its head.

And although Lira couldn’t see its eyes from that distance, she had the specific certainty that the figure had seen her from the moment she entered level 4.

That it had been waiting.

That it knew exactly how much blood magic she had left.

---

[DraconicLegacy: (ಠ_ಠ) A HUMAN FIGURE. NOT A CREATURE.]

[Wolf1179: no vital signature. no magical signature. no classification. what is it.]

[Mist_Of_Death: "it knew exactly how much blood magic she had left" — A_D_M has access to participant parameters in real time.]

[CTU1024: that’s the most terrifying thing that’s happened in this Chapter.]

[Mana_of_Void: @CTU1024 and Lira knows it. she read it in how the figure was waiting.]

[System — notification]

[Current viewers: 18,200,000]

[The system notes that Lira is at 32% magic available]

[The system notes that the figure in level 4 has no classification in any known parameter]