Leonard’s breath remained steady, but his muscles coiled, ready. He had spent his life gambling with death, but never had he felt like the odds were stacked so deliberately against him.

The woman before him—no, the entity—smiled wider, as if reading his every thought. She enjoyed this.

“You’re quite the stubborn one,” she mused, stepping closer. Her form flickered, dissolving into tendrils of shadow before solidifying again. Unreal. Inescapable.

Leonard said nothing.

She tilted her head, watching him like a cat studying an injured mouse. “Shall we make things more… interesting?”

The air tightened, the space between them warping. Something ancient and binding took form in the abyss.

Leonard narrowed his eyes. “I don’t make wagers with things I don’t trust.”

The entity laughed, a rich, haunting sound that coiled around his spine. “Oh, but that’s the best kind of wager, isn’t it?”

She raised a hand, and the shadows swirled, forming something in midair. A mark, glowing faintly—its mere presence pressing down on reality itself.

A contract.

Leonard’s jaw tightened. “What’s the bet?”

Her ember-like eyes gleamed with something sinister. Anticipation.

“You must escape.”

The words slithered through the air like a whispered curse.

Leonard frowned. “Escape what?”

She grinned, snapping her fingers. The throne room vanished.

The world shifted, the very concept of space unraveling.

Leonard staggered, but only for a moment. His instincts screamed at him—move, react, survive.

Then he saw it.

A labyrinth.

Not one made of stone and walls, but something far worse. A maze of shifting horrors, looping corridors of madness, spaces that bled into themselves.

The entity’s voice echoed from everywhere at once. “No rules. No time limit. Just get out.”

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Leonard’s eyes darted across the expanse. The walls breathed, pulsed. Grotesque figures flickered in and out of existence—some watching, some waiting. Nothing stood still.

He took a slow breath. This wasn’t a challenge. This was a death sentence.

She had made a wager he could not beat.

Or at least, one she thought he couldn’t.

Leonard’s lips curled into something resembling a smirk. Fine.

He adjusted his grip on his blade and took the first step forward.

The labyrinth reacted.

The path twisted before his eyes, walls shifting, growing, devouring themselves into endless black voids. The very ground beneath him shuddered, as if uncertain whether it wished to remain solid or drop him into oblivion.

A whisper trailed along his ears, one that did not belong to the entity.

“Turn back.”

Leonard ignored it, pressing forward. The moment he did, the walls began to bleed. Thick, oozing rivulets of black ichor seeped from the cracks, the scent of burning metal and decay filling his lungs. He exhaled sharply, forcing himself to remain focused.

The first creature appeared.

It was not something that walked or crawled, nor something he could name. A mass of eyes and limbs twisted together, jittering in and out of focus, as if existence itself could not decide on its form.

It did not move toward him. Instead, it smiled.

A low, guttural laugh reverberated from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Leonard took a step back, blade steady. The entity’s voice hummed in amusement. “Oh? Already doubting?”

He gritted his teeth. “Not in the slightest.”

He lunged.

His blade struck true, or so he thought.

The creature fractured. Not into flesh or bone, but into mirrored copies of itself, warping, twisting, multiplying like a nightmare given form.

Leonard barely had time to react before they surged toward him.

The walls shrieked. The ground convulsed. His own breath felt heavy, laced with something foreign. The labyrinth was fighting him, and it was winning.

Still, he fought. Because that was the only thing he had ever known how to do.

One fell, then another, his blade carving through their shifting bodies with brutal precision. But each time he struck, the laughter grew louder.

“Run,” something whispered beside his ear.

Leonard spun—there was nothing there.

A trick. A lie. He would not run.

The entity’s voice returned, dripping with something akin to delight. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

The labyrinth twisted again, devouring his path forward.

And for the first time in years, Leonard wondered if he had truly stepped into a game he could not win.