POV — Kai / Level 2 / Minute 44

Kai was still on the floor.

He had tried counting the fragments of black material on the ceiling — not exactly squares, the material had no visible division lines, but there were very subtle variations in the shade that, if you looked at them from a certain angle, formed a pattern.

He had made it to seventeen before losing count.

"Ahhh, why am I doing this while they’re over there having fun?!!"

The screen showed Serah being moved a meter and a half by the creature’s arm and immediately returning to the attack.

Kai propped himself up on his elbow.

Looked at the screen.

Looked at the ceiling.

Lay back down.

"She’s doing well," he said, to the ceiling.

Pause.

"She doesn’t need help."

Another pause.

"I know."

The ceiling remained black and smooth and completely uninteresting.

---

[DraconicLegacy: KAI TALKING TO THE CEILING]

[Wolf1179: Kai convincing himself]

[RagingMutant: the ceiling got more conversation from Kai in this level than any person in the previous levels]

[Drakeking12: what minute will he finally get to level 3]

[Mana_of_Void: Whenever the corridor decides to let him through. Something it hasn’t done yet.]

---

POV — Lira / Level 4

The figure moved closer.

It didn’t run — it walked.

Lira dodged the first strike — the figure’s arm had come out horizontally, at her neck, the same kind of sweep someone with basic combat training would use.

’It has human combat patterns.’

’A_D_M modeled this based on human movements.’

’Why?’ 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

The figure launched the second strike — vertical descending, the full arm from above.

Lira moved inward instead of away — the same principle Kai had used against her in the guild.

The figure had no articulated elbow.

The arm passed by her side without bending.

’Human movements but without human anatomical limitations.’

’No joints. The arm can extend in any direction.’

Lira reassessed.

’The patterns are human. The mechanics are not.’

’This is harder than it seemed.’

She activated the only thing she had left with thirty-two percent available — blood magic in direct pressure mode, concentrated on a single point, the kind that doesn’t seek to wrap or penetrate but to impact with all available energy in the smallest possible area.

The vampiric equivalent of Kai’s Penetrating Strike.

She applied it to the smooth surface where the face should have been.

The surface fractured.

The figure stepped back one pace.

’Concentrated physical damage works.’

’Same as with Serah.’

’Thirty-two percent.’

’Enough if every strike counts.’

---

POV — Kai / Level 2 / Minute 48

Kai had sat down again.

He had tried meditating — breathing from the diaphragm, Qi active but still, the kind of concentration Lira had taught him that morning.

He had lasted four minutes.

Then the screen had shown Lira fracturing the figure’s face with a strike and he had lost concentration completely.

Now he was sitting with his elbows on his knees, staring at the screen.

Serah fracturing her creature’s torso with her claws.

Lira applying pressure strikes to the face of hers.

Both fighting.

Him sitting.

Kai looked at his own hands.

Then the screen.

Then his hands.

"I can’t do anything."

His hands didn’t respond.

"I know."

Serah took a hit from the flat arm and absorbed it by moving with it.

Kai jumped to his feet.

Looked at the empty corridor.

Sat back down.

---

[DraconicLegacy: HE JUMPED TO HIS FEET AND SAT BACK DOWN HAHAHAHA]

[Wolf1179: 48 minutes. get up. sit down. get up. sit down.]

[Mist_Of_Death: the instinct to help Serah makes him stand. the empty corridor makes him sit. on loop.]

[Mana_of_Void: A_D_M designed it like this. knows exactly how to torture Kai.]

---

POV — Serah / Level 4

Fifteen minutes of exchanges.

The creature had two arms and four legs and the blue point of light that pulsed faster when it took damage — Serah had learned to read it as an indicator of how much accumulated damage it had received.

It was pulsing fast.

The surface of the torso had fractures in four points.

The right arm was functioning with less range of motion than at the start — Serah had concentrated her strikes on the upper joint until the material gave way enough to limit extension.

The silver markings were at thirty-five percent.

No structural ice. No primordial aura. Just physical strength and claws.

The creature raised both arms simultaneously.

’Combined strike.’

’No lateral space enough to dodge both.’

Serah didn’t dodge.

She absorbed the blow with both forearms crossed — the impact of both flat arms simultaneously, the combined force of the fortress material with all the creature’s mass behind it.

It sent her two meters back.

She got up before landing completely.

And went for the creature before both arms finished raising for the next strike.

Claws to the blue point of light.

Direct. No aura. No ice. Just the claws of an SSS primordial wolf concentrated on the smallest and most active point of the creature.

The blue point of light went out.

The creature stopped.

Arms in the air.

Legs planted.

And then, slowly, like something losing the tension that held it in position, the creature began to decompose — not to fall, to come undone, the black material turning to dust of the same color that fell to the floor without making noise.

Thirty seconds.

Only the black dust on the floor where it had been.

Serah lowered her claws.

’The point of light was the core.’

’If I’d known that from the start, I would have finished sooner.’

The silver markings pulsed at thirty-five percent.

The opening to the next level was at the end.

Serah looked at it.

’Kai will be somewhere in this labyrinth.’

’Fighting.’

’Same as me.’

’Same as Lira.’

She walked toward the opening.

---

POV — Lira / Level 4

Twenty minutes.

The figure had its face fractured in three points, its torso with two marks of direct impact, and its left arm that no longer extended fully because something inside the material had given way enough to limit the range.

Blood magic available: sixteen percent.

Lira calculated.

’Sixteen percent.’

’Sixteen.’

’I’ll be honest: this doesn’t end well with sixteen percent.’

The figure raised its right arm — the only one still with full range — and launched it horizontally at Lira’s neck with a speed that had increased progressively during the combat, as if the figure was also learning.

Lira dodged it by five centimeters.

’It’s learning my dodges.’

’At some point I won’t be able to dodge.’

’I need to finish this before that point.’

Sixteen percent.

A single strike that concentrated everything.

Lira assessed it.

’A_D_M built this from fortress material.’

’The fortress material responds to Qi — Kai had said it that morning when he touched the walls.’

’Blood magic is energy.’

’If I concentrate all available blood magic into a single point and direct it through the material instead of against it...’

’It won’t absorb it because it won’t be external energy.’

’It will be energy using the same principle as the material.’

’Or it won’t work and I’ll be left with nothing.’

Lira looked at her hands.

Sixteen percent.

’The alternative is losing anyway.’

She concentrated.

Everything left in both hands, at the minimum possible contact point, resonating with the frequency she had detected in the fortress material the whole time they’d been inside.

And applied it to the smooth surface where the figure’s face should have been, not as impact but as transmission.

The figure stopped.

The existing cracks expanded from the inside out.

And it came undone — the same process Serah had seen in her level 4, the black material falling in silent dust to the corridor floor.

Lira lowered her hands.

Zero percent blood magic available.

’Good.’

’That was all of it.’

’I hope whatever comes next doesn’t require magic.’

The opening to the next level was at the end.

Lira looked at it with the expression of someone who fully intends to complain about this later.

---

POV — Kai / Level 2 / Minute 52

The opening to level 3 appeared.

All at once, as if the wall had decided that was enough and the empty corridor had served its purpose.

Kai looked at it.

Looked at it a second longer.

"Now we’re talking."

He crossed the opening before it could close.

---

[DraconicLegacy: THE OPENING FINALLY APPEARED]

[Wolf1179: 52 MINUTES IN THE EMPTY CORRIDOR. 52.]

[RagingMutant: Serah finished her level 4. Lira finished her level 4. Kai just entered level 3.]

[Drakeking12: @RagingMutant the labyrinth has them further ahead than him. that was also part of the plan.]

[System — notification]

[Serah: level 5 — markings at 35%]

[Lira: level 5 — magic at 0%]

[Kai: level 3 — Qi active — 52 minutes of empty corridor]

[Current viewers: 19,100,000]