Tendrils of flesh snaked across the entrance to block off her retreat, but Yerin wasn’t about to let it get its way.
This thing might have been a highly advanced dreadbeast, but it was full of blood.
The Final Sword was difficult to use in the labyrinth normally, because it required aura, and the aura here was all being consumed by hunger. But there was enough blood aura inside this massive body that she wove it together quickly.
She couldn’t launch the technique down, or she’d risk killing her friends. So she held on to her shining sword as she fell toward the tendrils of dead, animated flesh.
Then she twisted sideways, unleashing the beam of concentrated silver-red energy horizontally. It scraped the monster away from the entrance and sliced through its huge body, releasing a huge roar that shook her bones as much as her ears.
She continued falling down as the air filled with death madra.
Yerin forced out madra and soulfire, but the hostile will was as strong as her own. It eroded everything she did, and she realized the wave of green madra was going to overtake the others.
She launched a Rippling Sword at the green-and-black barrier Ziel and Mercy had made below her.
It cracked on contact, which was enough for her. She landed sword-first, piercing her way through.
In the instant she crashed into their platform, Yerin saw Orthos, Ziel, and Mercy all staring at her in astonishment. If they hadn’t sensed her coming, they would have met her with a barrage of techniques.
But none of them could move as fast as she did. With all the strength she could muster, she slammed a foot down on the Forged madra below.
The explosion of death above her was still coming, and gravity was too slow.
She seized Mercy and Ziel by the front of their robes, scooped Orthos up with her Goldsign, and pulled them down. Yerin twisted in the air, kicking off against the wall and shooting down.
She was sure she was going to make it. The malicious presence of the roomful of flesh was weaker now, and clearly it couldn’t follow her. Once they endured this technique, they would be safe.
Then she felt another will barge in. The intelligence that ran all throughout the walls.
A ravenous, desperate will.
Below her, the entrance blurred as the labyrinth shifted again.
Lindon and Eithan passed through the trap-filled chamber after the constructs had exhausted themselves. The air was still blistering with the aftermath of all the madra, but it was simple to protect themselves from that.
Little Blue gave a long, whining note of complaint, but she wasn’t in any danger.
“They’re still ahead?” Lindon asked. It had taken quite a while for the constructs to exhaust themselves, after all.
“The labyrinth still hasn’t shifted yet, which suggests it should very soon.” Eithan frowned, running his fingers along the wall as he ran. “I will admit, it is strange,” he allowed. “The labyrinth doesn’t seem to be working against us. I would have expected—”
They were in the hallway as the labyrinth shifted.
Far ahead of them, the doorway that led onto a chamber filled with flashing machines closed. Lindon felt the overwhelming sensation of space being twisted, though the hallway didn’t change.
He suddenly realized why void keys were so difficult to use here. Whatever had authority over the labyrinth was using spatial transmission to move all the chambers around. The usual relationship to space had shifted.
The entrance reappeared in a moment, and while they were still running down the hall, Lindon realized they were about to head upwards.
Someone was falling toward them.
It was Yerin…and she was dragging Ziel and Mercy along with her. Lindon felt Orthos’ presence, and the turtle was terrified.
Behind them, a massive wave of death madra followed.
Lindon and Eithan dashed into the next room, and his brain twisted as he ran horizontally up, and what had a moment before been a vertical wall shifted to become the floor.
Yerin shot toward the ground—toward Lindon and Eithan—and in the split second it took her to reach the floor, the death madra following her would billow out and begin to fill the room.
Lindon thought Eithan would act before him, but to his surprise, Eithan had frozen up the moment they entered the room. He must have seen something through his bloodline power.
So Lindon was the first to act. His eyes cooled as they turned crystal blue, a reflection of Little Blue’s, and he projected pure, cleansing madra in all directions.
The death madra poured into his Hollow Domain and wasn’t wiped out immediately. It faded as it poured in, like salt poured into a bucket of water.
Yerin landed easily next to Lindon, the durability of a Herald meaning she had no need of a full-body Enforcer technique. He would be far more worried about Mercy and Ziel, who hadn’t had an easy trip.
Then again, Ziel had his body thrice-forged in soulfire. He bounced on Yerin’s shoulder and then slid off, unfazed by the trip. Mercy staggered as she moved to her feet, grabbing Lindon for support.
Orthos had stiffened up, and Lindon was certain that if his black, pebbly skin could go pale, it would have. The sensation he radiated through their bond was pure shocked terror.
“So much worse,” he mumbled. “So much worse to be small.”
Little Blue gave a sympathetic chime.
Yerin blew the lock of red hair out of her face and looked up. “Sliced that one a little thin, didn’t we?”
“Now that I think of it, staying in the hallway so we didn’t get separated was stupid,” Ziel commented. “We should have just gotten lost.”
“No telling what else we could have run into,” Mercy said.
Lindon let his Hollow Domain drop. In fact, the entrance into the ceiling had closed almost immediately after the wave of death madra had reached them. He called his void key open, once again forcing it open with his will.
He had to push more focus and more madra into it this time. Whether it was the hunger aura or the authority of the labyrinth’s owner suppressing spatial artifacts, it was getting worse.
He stepped inside, rummaged around for a moment, and pulled out a pill and a sealed case of scales. He handed the pill to Yerin. “You used up a lot of madra there. Are you okay?”
She nudged him with her shoulder before popping the pill in her mouth. “Bright and shiny. Just need to fill my glass back up.”
Lindon did not fail to notice that two of her party were covered in fresh bloodstains. He looked to Mercy for confirmation.
“No no, we’re fine. We almost had to deal with a Herald-level Striker technique, but Yerin got us out of there.” She released him and shifted from one foot to the other to check her balance.
“Herald?” Lindon thought immediately about the possibility of Reigan Shen being in the labyrinth, and he looked up at the ceiling despite himself, though the door had already been blocked.
Yerin waved off his concern. “Bigger version of the dead snakes. Just a pile of meat, so not like it’s going to chase us. And we’d feel it coming from a mile off, it’s—”
With a blur, the stone wall on the far end of the chamber fuzzed out of existence. It left a hole into a dark tunnel, which sloped downwards. Lindon’s spirit rang an alarm at the feeling of ancient, overwhelming death that radiated from the tunnel.
Yerin looked and sounded like she’d just bitten into a rotten fruit. “It’s like that. There it is.”