Chapter 289

The blinded giant, chained by his neck to the very bottom of this accursed labyrinth, was half submerged in his magma pit. Yet even despite this the creature was so large that he could reach all but the highest of levels on the labyrinth, and his charred, gnarled fingers eternally groped blindly for prey to feed on while his large nostrils flared. Sharp intakes of breath through his nose were interrupted only by his crazed roars of pleasure and pain. After having lost knowledge of who or what he’d been in his past life - all he had left was the hunt. His vacant eye sockets dripped blood that sizzled down his blackened skin, leaving him in perpetual darkness even as the glowing lava below gave off a soft orange glow to the inner layers of the cylindrical labyrinth. Yet, despite his blindness and his lack of sanity, he remained acutely aware of his surroundings through touch and sound.

And an uncontrolled rage continued to spur him on towards greater violence.

The air was thick with the stench of death and decay as abyssal creatures slithered or clawed through the shadows. Their whispers and hisses filled the giant's ears, taunting him with their presence. His only solace lay in hunting them down, feeding on their flesh to sate his endless hunger. He crushed, gnawed, gored and punched - occasionally breaking fingers that quickly snapped back into place in his attempts to get at the vile snacks that tried to evade his reach in the deeper recesses of the walls and inner corridors he could not fit into.

But for the first time in a very long time, he sensed something change. A familiar aura, born of darkness, it called to him… And the familiar hunger within his belly grew to new heights as a wicked grin crept across his face in an unusual display of glee.

Though he could not remember why this presence made him feel in such a way.

He shifted his massive body, feeling the chains around his neck creak under the strain. He extended his arms upwards towards where he felt the presence if only momentarily, groping blindly through the darkness for any sign of prey. His fingers brushed against stone walls and twisted obsidian tunnels, but the sensation of that ancient, familiar presence soon disappeared - leaving the giant in a fit of rage while splashing around the lava pits below to cause tidal waves.

The cylindrical labyrinth shook with his efforts.

Suddenly, he heard movement ahead. A creature’s scent caught his attention. Its efforts to evade taunted him, thinking itself safe from his grasp while his hands were up above. But the giant was the master of this labyrinth, and his hunger knew no bounds.

With a thunderous roar, he lunged forward, trying to capture the fleeing creature as it tried taking a shortcut on the inner cylindrical path before it escaped into a deeper recess. His fingers closed around empty air as it dodged and weaved through the shadows. Frustrated, he swung his arms wildly, hoping to catch it off-guard.

He heard a scream of terror before fist connected with something soft and squishy, crushing the life from its body. The creature's writhing limbs went limp as he crushed it beneath his grip. With a triumphant bellow, he lifted the corpse to his mouth - letting the blood leak into his parched throat - and then he devoured the demon whole.

***

Narg’s many eyes widened after watching another participant get crushed and eaten right in front of them. The beholder demon and Nora had likely scared the already injured minotaur into rushing headlong in a fear that they’d attack it - only for the scared and unbound demon to become giant food in its final act.

There was no coming back from death for that one.

“Poor bastard.” Narg muttered, shaking his head in dismay. “We weren’t going to kill that stupid cow, I don’t know why it just didn’t wait. Unfortunately, minotaurs aren’t the brightest bunch.”

Nora came up behind the floating beholder, panting and wiping sweat off her brow with a forearm while holding two bloodied bone-crafted blades in either hand. She glanced at the splattered gut remnants on the wall ahead of them on the inner path that exposed their flight through the maze to the giant’s reach, and then looked behind them where the snarling howls of abyssal hounds were growing louder. When one of the huge beasts poked its head out from around a corner, acid dripping from exposed canines - she reacted instantly. Her arms twisted and she braced herself in the necessary stance for one of her tier 2 martial art, speaking the words aloud before striking forward with her blades:

“Haunted mirror!”

The air down the hall let off a whisper of deathly energy as a small circular mirror snapped into being just over the hound’s head. The abyssal hound then unleashed a fire-hydrant of acid directly at Nora, and the attack was blocked with a barrier of shadows and fire as Narg protected Nora from the attack. At the same time the hound lunged forward, only for Nora’s blades to reach through the summoned mirror with projected ghostly hands. The bone blades crashed into the monster’s back with a backstab being triggered, ripping with critical energies that caused the monster to yelp in surprise.

[You have landed a critical hit. Max Damage x6.]

The spine ripped and the monster fell to the ground with a snarling yelp, only to be blasted with an unholy globspitter that whizzed by Nora’s face by an inch. The green light of the projectile was on par with Riven’s own sniping blood lance in terms of speed and blew through the hound with ease, tearing its body apart in a splattering of gore that coated the hallway.

More howls and the clawed scramble of canine footsteps became more apparent even with the trembling of the labyrinth through the giant’s attempts at finding prey.

Nora winced as a familiar, ancient presence clawed at the back of her mind. A flashing image of multiple dark, smiling entities that she’d known since she was a child lit up her insides - and the cold, clawed fingers of her childhood tormentors embraced her soul. They pleaded with her to be let out, begged her even, and their malicious giggles had to be shut out by pure force of will to regain a sense of who and what she was.

‘Come on Nora… Let us out! We promise we’ll keep you safe… We promise we’ll give your body back this time!’ The voices echoed in her head, laughing and mocking her while trying to pull at her subconscious barriers. ‘You need us! Let us out, little sister! We only want to play!’

“Is your bloodline acting up again?” Narg said, concerned as Nora hit the ground on both knees. His numerous eyes flicked upwards again and a few more layers of nightmare barriers blocked the hallway from three more incoming abyssal hounds level 190-200 each. His green skin began to simmer with heat as his vessels lit up orange, and one by one his eyeballs began to glow at the ends of their stalks.

Hellspitters, similar to his unholy Globspitters in nature but with more explosive power and less piercing - were set off one after another when the hallway began to fill with bodies. Screams of the enemy hounds that clawed, bit, and unleashed their own abilities at the barriers were heard over the violent light show of inferno being discharged from the beholder at will.

“I’m sorry!” Nora gasped between heaves and deep breaths. She looked down, horrified to see dark lines etching themselves onto her skin, and her eyes beginning to flash white like the laughing monsters of her nightmares. “I don’t think I can hold them in for much longer!”

“WELL WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU CAN’T!?” Narg said, not managing to take his eyes off of the incoming swarm of hounds while blasting away like a madman through his one-way nightmare barriers.

His first shield cracked and shattered, and then the next did as well - but the pileup of bodies began to block the way while tearing jaws bigger than they were tried to rip through their dead companions to get at them.

The lines along Nora’s fingers abruptly receded, and she let out a relieved sigh while picking up her bone blades again. Tugging at one of Narg’s tentacles and wincing when the giant’s hand smashed into an inner wall-less section of the labyrinth only one level above them in a thundering boom, she gestured for them to go.

“Oh my god, they're gone! Let’s keep going! I was able to suppress them after all!”

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“YOU DIDN’T ANSWER MY QUESTION, NORA!” Narg yelled over the snarls and firepower of his attacks before he dashed in a floating manner across the passage outcropping. He followed Nora as fast as he could while his barriers continued to block the hounds, very much considering just flying down to search the lower levels. Even at the cost of abandoning Nora as she’d just be sent back to Chalgathi’s trials, but he thought better of it when he was reminded for the seventh time since being here as to why that wasn’t a great idea after a gargoyle attempted such a maneuver; and was abruptly snatched out of the air with uncanny accuracy by the giant. “NORA! WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU CAN’T SUPPRESS YOUR BLOODLINE!? WHAT DOES IT EVEN DO!?”

The thundering roar of triumph came once again with another splashing tidal wave of magma when the giant chomped down onto the squealing gargoyle’s upper body with a crunch and splatter of gore. The crunching of bones was audible even from here, but Nora didn’t reply as the two of them dashed into the inner tunnels of the labyrinth and got away from the exposed interior where the giant was able to reach them.

“NORA!”

She whirled on him with fear in her eyes, hands held out to either side. “I HAVE NO IDEA! OK NARG!? I JUST BLACK OUT AND BAD THINGS HAPPEN, SO I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA! Now PLEASE, just drop it! All I know is that it’ll be bad, and that it scares the living shit out of me. OK!? I’M SORRY, BUT LET’S JUST SHUT UP, USE YOUR SEEKING ABILITIES TO TELL US WHERE TO GO, AND LETS FUCKING RUN!”

Grimacing at her, and then floating past her at high speed - the beholder demon once again let out a pulse of ‘Seek Danger’, ‘Seek Safety’, and ‘Seek Object’ one after the other to try and triangulate the exit of this damned hellish labyrinth they now found themselves in.

Lights lit up one of their branching paths, and into the tunnels they went.

***

Allie briefly shifted her inner sight from the two in the labyrinth to where Riven was now battling a ceaseless tide of abyssal monsters. They came in all shapes and sizes, of all variations of nightmares, with tentacles, jaws, claws, and sizes ranging from a mouse to a house. The champions of each group were wary of each other too, with three of them having already turned on the others to steal opportunities from different groups. This was probably at the time each of those three groups was at the end of their own labyrinth, and was probably done in a desperate rush to get a key or insights to leave the 20th floor - as the two of three champions who succeeded in their act of treachery vanished soon thereafter in flashes of light from Riven’s fleshy enclosure.

The angel of death turned her gaze back to the immediate surroundings she found herself in after that, and she was getting gradually more angry as time passed.

[The remaining three will make the keys, with any others obliged to be: The rest of the party, including all minions not already selected for other roles, will all be set to the task of creating a number of keys that unlock the doors at the end of the labyrinth with crafting materials provided by Elysium. The Seekers, your two weakest, will be unable to traverse through the last part of the maze without these keys.]

She was not alone in her growing irritation. Azmoth, Retesh, Fay, Athela and Fimrindle were all equally as stumped as she was. The room they found themselves in was some kind of puzzle room, and one that none of them had even an inkling of figuring out so far. The screaming woman shackled at the altar seemed to be in a perpetual state of agony with the shackles burning not only her skin - but her soul as well. Allie could literally see and feel the woman’s soul writhe in agony with her adjunct deathly vision, and she’d done little else but scream despite an attempt to interrogate her. Upon further inspection, Allie had actually deduced her to be an angel of some kind - but the wings along the woman’s back had been cut off to bleeding stumps, and the shackles around her wrists and ankles keeping her chained to the bloodstained altar were unbreakable by any means Allie or the others possessed.

The huddled, sobbing mess of once-beautiful prisoners in the cages were in similar states, and of similar species for the most part. The majority of them were also imprisoned angels stripped naked, men and women, their wings cut off to expose bloody stumps in the same way - but despite them not writhing in agony they all looked upon Allie’s group with fear, disgust, and abject horror. Other creatures she did not recognize were also there in lesser numbers, those the system identified as ‘Pheonix Kin’ - which were people with glowing gold-orange feathers sprouting from their heads, arms and legs like hair; and ‘Holy Spirits’ - which Allie found incredibly interesting as they were some kind of holy-based undead. How that worked outside the realm of the Death Subpillar - she had no idea. They were almost like wraiths even, but were golden in color and seemed unable to pass through the bars of their cells just like the others despite repeated attempts. All three races had unnaturally high charisma without a doubt, with Allie’s gut-instinct to puke or skewers them just upon seeing them being enough proof for her - and she had no doubt the opposite effect was likely why none of them wanted to communicate with her either. In fact she had over negative 20,000 charisma points as an Angel of Death; and was what many considered the antithesis of these holy-based angels.

It was a stark reminder that the system thrived on conflict, and she doubted she’d get any help understanding what was going on from those caged here. In some ways, she didn’t even want it. And what was worse, was that even though she’d never even met these people before - she had a distinct hatred towards them without good reason for it. She WANTED to see them die… and to make sure that it was painful.

That in itself and the implications of what it meant… fascinated her. Even if she’d logically known about it before, it was something else seeing it up close with such a drastic opposing charisma for beings of the opposite path.

One of the angels snarled and spit at her while she inspected the bars, but she didn’t even bother wiping it off - passing by the sobbing captives before sighing and turning to look at the rest of the room. The pools of black water along the edges of the room had mostly been explored, and Fimrindle had found nothing inside of them but a seemingly bottomless pit that he suggested they all avoid after nearly having been lost to their depths once.

The hill-sized pile of bones had been dug through by Retesh, who’d said they each contained odd inscriptions that resonated with his cultivation paths - but in ways he could not distinguish. This had been confirmed by Allie herself, but even she could not put a finger on just what the inscriptions meant or did - and the lich was currently undergoing experiments on them as they spoke.

Azmoth was repeatedly diving into the lava pit, which had contained numerous blocks of red-hot spheres at the bottom after a deep dive - but they seemed inert when infused with any type of mana to date.

While the butchers tools on the rack next to the sacrificial altar were… simply put, infused with such vast amounts of sin that holding even one of them drove the person mad. Fay had literally gone crazy and started swinging a cleaver around while screaming about ‘infinite darkness’, beginning to bleed from her eyes before Athela had knocked the cleaver out of her hand and coddled the sobbing succubus up until even now. Whatever visions Fay had seen while holding the weapons were very off putting to the point that none of them had attempted to pick another one up after that, but it may come down to not having a choice.

Finally, in the epicenter of their strange room and floating above the screaming chained angel on the bloodied sacrificial altar - was the abnormally large humanoid wraith. It continued to smile, and smiled without fail - the malice in its grin an ever-present staple on its otherwise gray ethereal face. Its clawed fingers drifted along with the wisps of its similarly ethereal robe in a wind that wasn’t there, and it seemed to turn most of its attention to either Retesh, Allie, or Fimrindle - rather than the three demons that’d come there with them.

Allie’s suspicion was that this wraith was doing so due to how she, Retesh, and Fimrindle were all death-oriented beings while the demons were not. But any attempt at speaking to the wraith only resulted in one thing, and one thing alone - regardless of who spoke to it or what they said.

And yet, she tried again in her frustration - whirling around and marching over to the floating being while ignoring the screams of the angel strapped to the altar. Allie’s wings flared out to either side in growing rage, and she pointed a bone-covered finger in the wraith’s direction. “Tell me what we need to do here, phantom. I am growing tired of wasting time, and if you do not… I will burn that pathetic, sickly smile write off your fucking face after I turn your fucking soul to dust. I bet you wouldn’t be too happy-go-lucky then, now would you?”

Despite her threat, the wraith just continued to smile - and uttered the same exact phrase it’d repeated nearly thirty times over since their arrival to this odd pocket of reality. It opened up its clawed fingers, and spoke: “A smile to carve, a smile to keep. Golden nectar flows, a drink from the enemy, and I shall speak.”

“JUST WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN!” Allie screeched, priming one hand with energy from the pillar of true death as she seriously got ready to strangle the damn wraith’s throat - which was something she could literally do as an angel of death - before a curse from Fimrindle brought her attention to the right.

“Wait! I know that verse!” The reaper exclaimed, a sudden look of realization overcoming his usually inexpressive metal face. His X’s for eyes grew in size, and his rigid iron jaw twisted into a silent smile. Between her blinks, he was standing next to Allie with a scroll in his hand.

Confused, and withdrawing her accusatory finger-pointing - she considered the parchment in her minion’s outstretched palm and took it. She blinked again and he was kneeling submissively.

“I apologize…” He rasped like wind through a pipe. “I have not heard the verse for so long that I’d nearly forgotten it, but I believe it to be a scripture from the Book of the Scythe. It may be a clue… Please, examine the page I have produced from my own holy texts. It may explain just what the wraith wants, and why we haven’t seen any progression in our attempts thus far.”

“Book of the scythe!?!” Athela exclaimed in courage, still holding Fay’s head to her chest to console the other woman. “How the bloody F-ing fudgerockets are WE supposed to know that babbling bullshit!? That’s so unfair! How is ANY demon supposed to know that kind of crap!?”

Despite Athela’s angry muttering, Retesh the lich was quick on the scene and looked over Allie’s shoulder while she unfolded the parchment.

“I’ve heard of this book in legends from my home world, but I haven’t ever seen a piece of scripture myself.” The lich rasped from underneath his hood, while planting his bone staff into the stone floor. “May you read it out loud so that I can hear too?”

“Sure…” Quelling her own irritation with Fimrindle for not realizing this sooner by realizing that without Firmindle’s help, they may have never found this clue - Allie took in a deep breath and began to read aloud.

But as the words came, and as she read the entirety of the scripture that the wraith’s verse was plucked from, a vision from the past illuminated the room - and the path forward was laid bare as the answer for what they had to do became clear.

This was no puzzle room.

Oh no. This was a ritualistic reenactment, and one that had to be followed to the T.