Cyrus POV

With the door closed on the right-hand side and my wounds relatively healed, it was time for me to make a choice. I heard the noise of something shifting again behind the passages, making me question my next decision once more. My gut was telling me to just go ahead and pick the middle rune. In times like this, I had nothing else to trust, so I placed my hand on it and expelled cosmic energy into it.

The door slid open like every other time. This time, something felt off. I could sense a bloodthirsty intent coming from the depths of this passage. There was no hiding it. “I must’ve pissed those shadow hounds off,” I thought to myself. Before stepping into the pitch-black pathway, I enveloped my body with cosmic energy. Even though they were weak individually, they were dangerous in a group. I couldn’t afford to get caught off guard again.

My pace was slow as I walked down the pathway. I had to take this approach—I wasn’t skilled enough in cosmic energy control to maintain a protective layer while also boosting my speed. With every step, the growls became deeper, making my body tense up. It was only a matter of time before they finally lashed out.

I tried to read the cosmic energy fluctuations as I continued my descent, but like before, everything felt erratic, bombarding my senses with too much information. “Why are they just stalking me?” I thought as I heard the increased noise of the pack. I started replaying past events in my head and noticed a pattern. The hounds only attacked once I realized I had made the wrong choice and started to backtrack. “So does this labyrinth have a set condition for them?” I murmured to myself.

It wasn’t long before I reached the end of the path, and just like last time, there was no rune. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I sighed in disappointment. “Let’s hurry up and get this over with.”

I turned back toward the entrance. I could feel the bloodlust of the hounds intensifying with every step. It was clear—they wanted me dead. I had escaped them one too many times, and now, they were pissed. But this time, I wasn’t going to be caught off guard. I understood their game, and I knew their weakness. When the hounds jumped from the walls, I didn’t falter. I stood my ground and let them attack.

Two of the hounds bit at my ankles, trying to immobilize me like before. Their bite wasn’t strong enough to pierce my layer of cosmic energy. “Just like I thought—you guys are nothing,” I said to the shadow behemoths. “It only took a little trial and error. Now get the hell off me!” I yelled, releasing a pulse of cosmic energy. The impulse sent the hounds flying, crashing into a few others lurking nearby.

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I let out a chuckle because all I could hear in my head was my dad’s voice telling me, I told you so. I was always known to be a little too impatient and reckless—often getting in my own way because I wanted things quickly and without delay. My father, on the other hand, was always the slow and methodical one. “Look at me… I guess it took getting trapped in a shadow labyrinth to finally understand his reasoning.”

Walking slowly down the path, I periodically released small impulses to ensure I wouldn’t be attacked. Each time I repelled them, their pursuit became increasingly frantic. I felt like I was playing keep-away with a toddler. Now that I had a full grasp of the situation, my attention shifted to more pressing matters.

One glaring thought kept reappearing in my mind: why weren’t there any shadow hounds in the pathways that had runes at the end of them? If the hounds were meant to be some type of guardians or protectors of the next exit, shouldn’t they be in the pathways that actually led somewhere other than the entrance?

This really bothered me. It made me question the real purpose of this labyrinth. “Is there something I’m missing in these dead ends? No… there couldn’t be. I just picked the wrong path, that’s all,” I told myself as I finally reached the entrance. But then I remembered something—this rift was based on my own thoughts, emotions, and preconceived notions.

“So does that mean I might have misread the situation? Are the hounds a warning of some sort?” I pondered.

With this new epiphany, I didn’t close the door when I made it out of the pathway. I had a hunch, and I needed to test my theory. I walked right back down the pitch-black path. Like every other time, the hounds just watched me, almost begging me to retreat. Pushing forward, I increased my speed, forgoing my barrier. It wasn’t long before I reached the dead end of the passage once more.

I expanded my senses along the shadowy wall of the dead end, hoping to notice something I had missed before. Nothing felt different—I still sensed the overwhelming, erratic flow of the numerous shadow hounds. “Is this the real test?” I wondered. With all my previous ideas falling short, I decided to release cosmic energy into the dead-end wall.

At first, I thought my attempt had failed. But then, just like the other paths, the wall lit up, and a rune appeared, faintly glowing with the same light-blue hue.

“What is it with this rift and mind games? Honestly, things would be a heck of a lot easier if this were just a gauntlet of astral behemoths instead,” I muttered.

I pushed more cosmic energy into the rune, and before the door opened, my surroundings suddenly changed. The shadows that had enveloped the passageway began to disperse, forcing my eyes to adjust to the newfound light. I heard the whimpers and wails of the shadow hounds as their existence was erased along with the source of their element.

The walls, which had been their dwelling place, were now revealed to be large slabs of what appeared to be chunks of asteroids. “Nothing in this rift makes sense, but it seems I passed the test. Looks like I really needed to just trust myself—not hesitate or backtrack. Leave it to a spacetime phenomenon to teach me life lessons,” I said as the door finally opened, revealing my next destination.