Guan Ah Dan had always learned a lot from sleep.

When he was young, Dan hadn’t understood what he was seeing and the first thing he learned was fear. Sleep was a place of confusing images and hurtling inertia. As he grew, Dan avoided his dreams as much as he could. This, too, was a learning experience. In forcing himself to stay awake from a tragically young age, he had forced upon himself a fierce discipline. After he met Guan Shi Ai and her husband, the elders Baba and Yaya, Dan had learned that his dreams could change.

Not just the dreams that haunted him in the night, but the hopes he would carry for himself. Dan hadn’t known it at the time, but that meeting was the start of it all for him. The elders had moved him towards Park Man-Shik, the curious and quiet man who had been exactly what Dan needed. Between the elders and Park Man-Shik, Dan had been forged into a perfect vessel.

Not for the soul stone. If Dan understood correctly, he could have received the soul stone the first time he met elder Yaya. Nothing more had needed to be done after the ancient man and woman unlocked Dan’s core for him. Dan’s status as a soul stone vessel had been a birthright. However, they couldn’t have hoped for a better slate for their lessons to land upon.

Happily, Dan had become their ideal student. Park Man-Shik’s training had been hellish, but Dan would not change a moment of it. The results were too obvious. Content to watch and see if he survived, Dan had been thrown to the fires of the Guan family without warning. Another layer of pressure through which he would either pierce or be crushed, another challenge Dan rose to without question.

All because he had been allowed to dream.

From the very first moment Dan controlled his mana, he was enraptured by it. Controlling the flow had become all Dan wanted to do, and he had mastered it well. Dan felt as though he were watching himself from above. In a way he was. Dan was barely holding onto consciousness. There was just no strength left in Dan’s muscles, and every movement was entirely fueled by his mana. He was burning it at a prodigious rate, but it was necessary, Dan knew.

Take as much as you like, Dan thought petulantly. Dan would not last another five minutes at the rate the voracious armour was eating his mana. Dan was keeping it at bay for now, but that couldn’t last. He did however get a chance to look at the description of the item currently enveloping Po Shang.

[Steel Fever]

[Once a normal, if ornate, suit of armour. The heroes Guan Shi Ai and Guan Po Bul subjugated its most recent wielder before sealing the armour away. It waits in hunger to take revenge against the Guan family. It is said the armour contains an ancient beast, older than Jaia itself.]

“Why aren’t we dead?” Hyun Soon asked, the door to the labyrinth nearly open now. He was clearly expecting Po Shang, or Steel Fever, to appear at any moment. Dan would have smirked, but he didn’t have the energy to spare towards the motion. Most of Dan’s concentration was not on his friends, but on the monster he was keeping at bay.

“Over here!” “Right!” “Left!” “I’m behind you, Po Shang.”

He was unleashing a cacophony of distraction upon the murderous suit of armour. It was reacting with malice and killing intent to every noise. This particular technique was not borrowed from someone else, but instead all Dan’s own. Simple, yet effective. Force was definitely out of the question, Dan was certain that he had more broken ribs than not at this point, so trickery was the answer. The ventriloquism wouldn’t work for long, but they didn’t need long. The door would be open soon, and Dan himself had nearly finished assimilating the mana he had just taken from his friends.

“Hey!” This time, Dan used his own position. It was actually easier to produce his voice through his mana, body as broken as it felt. Pain was distant, but present, and whatever portion of his mind that had been protecting Dan from the sting of his broken bones was weakening. He just needed to last another minute or so, a heavy stench was beginning to seep from the labyrinth. Not stale air, but vicious and ancient mana. That was their safety? A worry for later, Steel Fever had caught sight of Dan now.

“You!” There was nothing of Po Shang left in the voice, just whatever sentience the horrific armour held within. “Taste of the goddess, but not one of her’s, no.” It was difficult to understand, the ruined remains of Po Shang doing a poor job of forming actual lips. Dan did understand, though, as much as the words themselves confused him.

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“My mana? You like the taste of my mana?” Talking was safer than fighting this being. Dan knew it was wishful thinking, but even so, he did not expect the reaction from Steel Fever.

“HATE.” The armour bellowed. No longer content to square off at distance from Dan, the horror lumbered forward with heavy steps. Good, Dan had expected that from the start.

Earlier Dan had given his allies mana that he had to spare to shore up their own, which was being used more effectively at the time. Dan had, this time, taken a small amount from Xiaomei, Hyun Soon and Fa Lian in preparation. The misshapen left foot caught Dan’s mana ribbon first.

It didn’t work quite like Xiaomei’s own use of mana, but it was using her technique and the feel of her mana helped. In Dan’s case the ribbon was invisible and offered no resistance, instead of Xiaomei’s colourful and nearly unbreakable threads. Until now, he had been using this combination of his own and Xiaomei’s technique simply to maintain contact with his allies. It worked a little differently when you added Fa Lian’s lethal mana to the mix.

Dan’s mana snapped away as the hunk of metallic carnage crashed through the space Dan had set it up. Once again, Dan was struck by how much worse off they would have been in Po Shang had simply come as he was. Dan realised there was a surprising amount of pity for the man welling up in his chest. Not enough for him to not continue his manoeuvre.

Dan planted his feet. He lowered his centre of gravity. Using the very final vestiges of his strength, he tensed his back. Thanking whatever fate existed that he had met Hyun Soon that day on the field in front of Sasin Forest, Dan pulsed the last piece of mana he held. The gauntlets which formed seemed a combination of all the magic currently swirling inside Dan. With a greyish outline, the dark purple of Dan’s gauntlets were striking in sight.

Though he only had enough mana to form gloves, and not the full armguard, the effect was enough. Dan’s strength was magnified by Hyun Soon’s mana, and the damage was multiplied hugely by the coating of Fa Lian’s magic which had formed around the glove. Adding the momentum of the falling suit of armour, the result was dramatic.

As though Dan had punched a pool of water, his fist met resistance for only a moment before punching right through. All semblance of human form disappeared, and like an eel the metal monstrosity tried to dart away from Dan. He had stunned it, but he had no idea how long that would be for. The suit of metal had exploded away from himself, forming a spider web of sinister steel and gruesome distended limbs as far from Dan as it could..

“Foul, evil magic.” Steel Fever spat. Its head, which had once been Po Shang’s, was many feet in the air. Metal danced over and under the skin, but it seemed that Steel Fever was making an actual effort to be understood this time. “You with goddess magic, something else. Taste of the usurper. Dragon stink. You walk to destruction.”

Dan was fairly certain that any prophecy spouted by a murderous suit of armour locked away for generations was likely to be false. At the same time, he had certainly never mentioned the goddess from his dreams to anyone. “What could you possibly know?” Dan asked.

“So much.” The creature’s main face was slithering around the shrinking space, pushing Dan back bit by bit. Each step towards the labyrinth was one step closer to disaster as far as Dan was concerned. It’s voice was becoming clearer, but still awful on the ears. “Here before it started, I was. Saw them tear the sky apart. Tear themselves apart.”

“Saw who?” It may well be gibberish, but Dan needed to know. Why would this random monster invoke a goddess that Dan met in his dreams? It didn’t make sense.

“Them.”

Conversation was over. It was not an answer, just a taunt Dan had given Steel Fever too much time to regain composure and form. Realistically, he didn’t think he would have had the strength to escape either way. As the sharp spike plunged towards Dan from above, he tried to move but slipped completely. Time seemed to slow as Dan’s mortality came hurtling towards him.

Just then, a mass of rock leapt from the ground, defending Dan from the attack. “Get him!” Dan heard a voice cry, but he was too tired to figure out who it was. Relief swept over him and the final reserves that had been keeping Dan standing washed away along with his feet. He fell into the arms of Hyun Soon who was panting heavily himself.

“Got to move,” Dan mumbled, “vault is finished.”

“Don’t worry Dan,” Hyun said, catching his breath, “they’ll take it from here.” Hyun’s confidence was not easy to trust, but Dan did. There was nothing left he could do but watch anyway. After walking away slightly, Hyun turned Dan so that he could watch.

Guan Fa Lian was like a ball of red and purple. The staff in her hands was spinning wildly, deflecting the incoming blades of steel from the scattered metal monster that once was Po Shang. Xiaomei was spinning the rope she had taken earlier, and with each spin it seemed to get heavier and heavier. The light in the yellow crystal grew and grew. Soon, Xiaomei was being moved by the weight at the end of the rope, dancing with it and continuing to build momentum.

When Dan was sure that she was no longer in control, that it was the tiny waif of a girl who was being thrown and not the crystal, that Fa Lian acted. Executing their plan to perfection, both girls met in their acrobatic movements. The immensely heavy crystal was ready. Steel Fever either recognised that or mistook their coordination for clumsiness. Pressing forward, it screamed an awful “No!”

Right as Fa Lian and Xiaomei threw the crystal at it. Fa Lian had blocked the final assault with her hands, letting go of the staff for the first time since Dan saw her use it. She slammed it hard into the vault floor, burying it solidly. Using the dragon bo for leverage, spinning around it, Xiaomei’s face was bright red with exertion.

“Now!” Fa Lian shouted, perfectly timed for Xiaomei to release the rope and let the crystal fly. It caught Steel Fever mid-attack, the weight of the crystal turning to attack into a bludgeon. The main mass of metal was pushed backwards, a wailing howl ripping through the air as it went. When it soared over the growing void of nothingness that had taken most of the vault and its treasure, Xiaomei whipped the rope.

The whip crack was immense, but nothing compared to the thunder which followed. As though she had contained a whole hurricane in her movement, Xiaomei’s rope crackled with power from her hand to the crystal. Blue arcs of energy leapt forward in an instant. Like a million electric blue snakes, the bolts of electricity ripped through the metal foe and scattered it.

Dan would get no more answers from Steel Fever, and there was no sign of Guan Po Shang, but they needed to leave.

It was time to enter the labyrinth.