Apparently, all his wounds had regenerated.

Miles realized it the moment he returned to reality, reading the latest notifications and feeling a distinct lack of pain.

[Conditional Undeath Activated. All wounds healed. ~2 Blood Points lost.]

[Remaining Blood Points: 10/10 (+ Blood Bank: 15/100)]

He had lost a fifth of his body's blood, but thanks to the blood bank it had recovered fairly quickly. Still Miles allowed himself a few seconds of rest.

The adrenaline was fading now, and the single-minded focus that had kept him alive was dissipating.

Moving his head revealed an uncomfortable rigidity around it, as if a cast of some sort surrounded his neck. He reached for it and pulled back immediately as something sharp pierced into his skin.

It felt like a neck guard covered in miniature blades, protruding out in a defensive mechanism protruded to stab those that dared reach it.

That was also when he finally noticed the feel of the familiar dagger in his hand.

Miles slowly lifted the blade to eye level, unsure how exactly he had managed to form it, the very same way the Beast had done before.

The scent of that living blood hit his nostrils, dripping down from the dagger, but the blade itself... smelled as it was his own blood.

Reeling in his desire to lick the blade, Miles began to examine the weapon with care, considering the immaculate craftsmanship and turning the sides of the blade.

Barring the fact that it was formed of his own crystallized blood, it felt like an actual metallic weapon. The hilt felt like leather covered steel, the blade was some sharpened metallic alloy, visibly blood crystal, but practically not…

His sharp eyes noted something, a series of barely distinct engravings upon the blade…

Dilecto Meo.

Again, more of that same language he happened to be familiar with. Latin.

To my beloved.

Miles had no idea what it was supposed to mean, but something within him, something, did.

As if responding to the realization that this was not his blade, the connection or level of focus he had managed to subconsciously maintain so far just… snapped.

After that, the dominos simply followed. Like shattering glass, the blade cracked and splintered, disintegrating into a cloud of red dust. The same happened to the crystal pins over his neck, dissipating as if it had not existed in the first place.

Miles stared blankly at his empty hand, where he had held a weapon just a second ago.

Unsure of what to make of all that, he was confused, at least until his nostrils noticed the familiar scent of the living blood, splattered on the floor, and the walls.

Huh. For the blood of dead creatures there was a distinct lack of death in its smell.

Miles was instantly on guard.

All of that blood still felt very much alive.

Rippling, pulsing...

Feeling his mouth water at the scent, Miles shifted his eyes towards the floor and the wall where he had smashed the rats into. His eyes widened as he spotted the blood, what little flesh and organs remained intact, all wriggling with unnatural life.

Instantly, solid root-like tendrils stretched out from each splatter of blood and gore, meeting at a common point and wrapping around each other, forming a grotesque ball of flesh thread.

Miles had failed to notice it, his thoughts clouded, but he was of good enough mind to realize this was no longer the time to hold back.

BOOM!

The ball of barely formed flesh yarn exploded splattering all over the floor, sizzling with the heat of a Caucon round, but those portions that remained, came to life again, wriggling and reforming…

BOOM! BOOM!

More flesh exploded and blood splattered, but the little flesh that remained was somehow still very much alive, and quickly coming back to life…

'What in the holy hells.'

Whatever this thing was, it was as resilient as a Vampire, if not more.

Miles exhaled a heavy breath and focused, allowing his riled-up thoughts to settle for a moment.

This creature was wholly different from the rest of the Hordred rats.

Miles grimaced in realization.

Now that he thought about it, he had not received a single experience notification for killing any of these smaller rats.

Perhaps he had never managed to kill any, perhaps they were still alive and meant to regenerate in a short moment. He may have wasted these Caucon bullets on nothing.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Realizing how little he knew of this manner of creature Miles blazed his eyes with the light of Detect. It was the skill that finally shed light upon the true nature of this strange creature, through a manifestation of floating text.

[Flesh of the Hordred King - Riesen Ratte - Lvl. 65]

Miles gawked for a second, cursed, and proceeded to do the only thing he could.

He booked it.

It was not due to the ominous notice from the identification skill and the level over six times his own. Well, it was not entirely just that.

Miles could not afford to stay here for much longer. The flesh of the whatever king may not have sounded an alarm, but the Caucon was loud and the Hordred rats were somehow rushing towards him again.

The wind exploded past him, and Miles rushed out at full speed.

It seemed he would once again be playing the endless game of cat and mouse, where the cats were rats, and he, the unfortunate mouse. This time though, Miles would remember to be wary of suspicious splatters of living blood.

***

The maze had become significantly harder to navigate.

His survival even after his encounter with the Flesh of the Hordred King had thrown the rest of the rats into the craziest of frenzies yet.

Miles was not feeling great either.

He could still feel the phantom pain, of having his neck ripped apart by a blood-formed rodent, of bathing in his own blood… which still remained stuck to his clothes, his shirt uncomfortably dried and crusted.

Had he been any less familiar with blood and death, he would have been puking in disgust, but thankfully he was used to it.

At least the more recent experience with Haemomancy had been enlightening, but Miles felt he could not replicate it, not willfully, at least for now. There was definitely some potential there, but none that could change the fact that he was exhausted beyond belief.

The endless running, the close calls, the fatigue, all of it was beginning to pile up.

His will remained strong, but he knew his body was reaching its limit. Being undead did not seem to translate to infinite stamina. Pity, that.

Thankfully that was when for a second time, the Lykaon ring blinked to life.

“SYBAHWARE CORP. EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT: LABYRINTH OF HAMELIN, HAS SHOWN A NEAR IDENTICAL ARRANGEMENT TO THE CURRENT MAZE. APPROXIMATELY 71% CHANCE OF ITS PATH SOLUTION BEING APPLICABLE. A SOLUTION TO THE MAZE MAY BE PLOTTED BASED ON AN AGGREGATE MAZE FORMED OF THOSE LABYRINTHS.”

Though Miles was curious about this project named after the outer city district, he fell into thought. At this point, it was obvious that the chances of him surviving unscathed, long enough for the maze to be properly mapped was nearly abysmal. Actually, the chances of that were dropping rapidly the more time passed.

He was teetering on the verge of exhaustion, running on little more than fumes and willpower.

“I suppose those are decent enough odds. Cadmus, plot the course.”

***

A holographic representation of the maze map floated over the Lykaon ring, blinking and updating his position as he moved. According to it, this maze was perfectly circular, and Miles was currently where he had decided to call the middle ring.

The center, or the innermost ring was a wide-open space, empty and devoid of hallways. The middle ring was traditionally maze-like and filled with hundreds of potential paths and dead ends, some of which he had experienced first-hand. The outer ring was the smallest in area and simple in paths, but most importantly and to Miles’ considerable relief, had several exits.

The true maze was this middle ring, with its conflicting twists and turns. In other words, if he could leave it and enter the outer ring, the maze would more or less be solved.

Miles had faithfully followed this map in the last few hours, and so far, it had nearly perfectly predicted every crossroad and junction he had encountered.

The tentative assumption that the project Hamelin labyrinth and this Hordred rat maze being similar was quickly becoming true. While he was pleased, it did leave a question unanswered.

'Why in the Sidhe is a Corpo map represented as a maze in a Doorway’?

His probing inquiries to Cadmus on the matter had revealed an experimental project, titled Hamelin, one that was carried out in the early years of the second fae-human war. The primary objective had been artificial Fae human creation and experimentation with certain unique species of Fae. Beyond that, unfortunately, specific data was unavailable.

Though he was curious, Miles shook his head clear of what was effectively random thoughts and focused. He had bigger problems to worry about. Even with a possibly accurate and complete map, escaping this maze was no easy task.

There was only one specific path that allowed leaving the middle ring and following it was far, far more difficult than randomly moving through the maze.

More often than not, the requisite path would have several patrols of rat creatures, Brutes, smaller rodents that could be alarmers or Sonokinetics, and many other variants he could not clearly make out (and hoped he would never have to).

Although Miles did not notice any other hallways with ‘living blood’, he was still forced to retreat into wrong paths and wrong directions just to avoid the many patrolling rats, only to backtrack when or if it became clear.

Seriously, the only reason Miles had not been swamped by the Hordred rats several times over now was that these creatures had no idea where he was exactly, owing to the fact that he had prioritized avoiding the rats above all else.

Well, at least this slower pace had allowed him time to rest and recover.

That was more or less how he spent another few hours, and despite the delay, Miles managed to make it through a significant portion of the middle ring.

This was because avoiding the rats had become easier the farther he got away from the inner ring. And that was how he eventually managed to reach where he was.

The singular path from the middle ring to the outer ring.

Exactly as promised in the map, it was right there, just a few hallways ahead.

Miles couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. The maze was solved, just like that, all from the unlikely coincidence of some Corpo project's labyrinth plan.

However, this exit happened to be considerably different from the rest of the paths and hallways. From the map, Miles could see the area up ahead would expand, forming an ovular area with much more room and space.

That was fine, the real problem was what he could see with Blood Vision.

Straddled around this space, standing over varying structures at random heights and random levels, were hundreds of blooded figures. Small rats he presumed, but ominously, their heart crystals were frozen still.

Miles may have thought them dead were it not for the fact that their hearts still carried a persistent yet faded, dull light.

None of them made a move though. They were simply lying in wait, bidding for something or someone to arrive.

Miles pursed his lips at the discovery.

The silver lining was that only the hallway was infested with them. Quite a bit of the maze beyond it was still within the range of Blood Vision, but it was completely empty.

There wasn't a single blooded figure, not a drop of blood to be seen, as if the rats were limited to the middle ring of the maze. A pure, unmarred sight, one he had feared would not be possible.

Freedom was in sight, though reaching it would be no easy task.

If Miles tried to rush through this hallway, he would be swamped over by the horde of rats in a matter of minutes. He may have survived a dozen, but there was no way he could do the same with these numbers.

'I'll have to prepare in advance.'

Yes, if he had any intention of surviving this, he would need some serious firepower. But considering his limited resources at the moment, he only had one choice... To craft it himself.

It had been years since Miles gave up forging. He had not had the slightest intention of taking it up again, but… he had little choice.

With a heavy sigh, Miles turned around and prepared to get to work.