'Boom!'
Before anyone could react, a silver Cross Sword was hurled forward, tearing through the air like a supersonic projectile straight toward the masked man at the far end of the darkness.
"Guh!"
The masked man groaned as his figure flashed, vanishing from everyone's sight.
"Did it hit?" Finn snapped back to his senses and looked at Ryoji inquisitively.
"It should have." Ryoji nodded. He knew the man wasn't dead, but the blade had definitely struck its mark.
"Alright then, I'll leave the rest to you guys!" Loki clapped her hands together and flashed Finn a bright smile. "Make sure you come back alive." Beneath that smile was a quiet, earnest hope.
"I have no intention of letting our Familia be destroyed here," Finn answered with a smile of his own, using it to drive away the lingering trace of anxiety in his heart. "Raul, bring the white corundum!"
"Yes, sir!" Among the crowd, the honest young adventurer who served as a core member of the Second Army struggled over while pushing a pillar-shaped block of white stone. Following Finn's instructions, Raul shoved it directly beneath the open Orichalcum gate.
"Huff... huff... It's so heavy!" Raul wiped the sweat from his brow.
"That's exactly why it's good. It'll be more than enough to support the gate," Finn laughed cheerfully before raising his gold and silver spears. "Charge in!"
"Ooooh!"
The response was immediate. Dozens of figures followed behind the executives at the front, forming a mighty human torrent as they resolutely rushed into the darkness.
Loki remained outside the gate, watching the children of her Familia disappear into the gloom. "This is bad... Why do I have such a terrible feeling about this?"
---
At the end of the passage, the path split into three branches. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all covered with stone slabs. It wasn't just called an artificial labyrinth, it truly was one, with signs of construction obvious everywhere.
'Bang!'
Gareth slammed a fist into the wall. The stone slabs instantly shattered, revealing a thick layer of metal underneath.
"No mistake. This is Ultra-Hard Metal!" Gareth stared at the metal wall, where his punch had left only a faint white mark. His expression turned extremely serious.
"The gate is made of Orichalcum, and the walls are made of Ultra-Hard Metal..." Finn frowned deeply. Ultra-Hard Metal wasn't as durable as Orichalcum, but it was still incredibly tough. Gareth's punch proved it; even without using his full strength, leaving nothing but a scratch on the wall was absurd.
Meanwhile, Ryoji picked up his Cross Sword from the ground. Blood still stained its tip.
"So he escaped down this path?" Ais walked over, her golden hair swaying as she tilted her head.
"At first glance, it looks that way." Ryoji calmly scanned the floor. "But why isn't there a single drop of blood on the ground?"
Ais immediately realized the problem, surprise coloring her eyes. Indeed, with the power behind that strike, even if the masked man survived, he should have bled heavily. If he had fled down this passage, there was no way the floor would be completely clean.
"Bete, come check the scent."
"Stop ordering me around!" Bete shot him an irritated glare, but he walked over anyway and twitched his nose. Then his eyes widened in disbelief. "The scent... vanished?"
"Just disappeared into thin air?"
"What's going on?"
Could the masked man actually teleport? Everyone found it hard to believe, and even Ryoji frowned in confusion.
"Let's keep moving deeper. I'm sure the answer will reveal itself eventually," Finn decided after reviewing everything they knew so far. No one objected, and the expedition resumed.
This time, more than thirty people had entered the artificial labyrinth. The scale was no different from a full-scale expedition. Along with the executives, there was a large number of Level 3 and Level 4 adventurers, plus a few Level 2s from Line's squad. Since the passage was only about five meters wide, they had no choice but to advance in a long, single-file formation.
"Are these stairs?" They quickly finished exploring the nearby corridors and eventually found a staircase leading downward.
"This feels a lot like the Dungeon."
"Yeah, like we're exploring an unmapped floor!"
The group couldn't help but comment, and for a short while, many of them actually found themselves growing interested in the labyrinth.
"What a weird statue," Tiona muttered, spotting a pair of strange statues near the landing. Their entire bodies were pitch black and carved into the likeness of monsters. They looked incredibly lifelike, but also carried an intense sense of malice. No sane person would ever use something like this for decoration.
'Swish!'
Ryoji suddenly frowned and hurled a sword.
'Crash!'
The statue's head exploded instantly.
"Whoa! What happened? Why'd you suddenly smash it?" Tiona cried out in surprise.
"I felt like we were being watched," Ryoji said, narrowing his eyes with an unusually serious expression.
Nobody thought he was overreacting. Everyone trusted his instincts completely by now, and they all cast wary looks at the remaining monster statue.
Riveria stepped forward and examined the remains, finding a pair of flower-shaped crystals inside the shattered head. "Crystal Flowers. They seem to have been specially modified. Could the enemy be using them to monitor distant areas?"
"Did you feel it too?" Finn smashed the other statue with a swift blow, then looked over at Ryoji.
"The feeling's gone."
"Then it looks like these monster statues are being used to keep tabs on the labyrinth's interior. Hiding the devices inside them is a clever trick." Finn immediately issued a series of orders. "Everyone stay alert! Destroy any suspicious statues on sight!"
Then he raised his voice to address the rest of the group. "Rakta, keep updating the map! Rearguard, make sure the spider silk remains connected all the way back to the entrance. Don't let it break!"
"Yes, sir!"
Led by the executives, the assault team descended the staircase and entered the labyrinth's second level. But just like the first floor, this level was completely empty. There were no people, no monsters, nothing except cold corridors and branching paths. The only difference was that its scale was more than twice as large as the floor above.
Then came the third floor. Then the fourth.
Three hours later, after continuing deeper and deeper into endless corridors and intersections, everyone's initial enthusiasm for exploring the unknown had vanished. Three full hours had passed. No one even knew how many floors they had descended, yet they still hadn't encountered a single living soul. The only evidence that anyone had ever walked these halls was the trail of shattered monster statues they left behind.
The lower-ranking members were already growing bored, and even the executives were starting to lose their edge.
Only Finn was different. His expression grew darker by the minute. "Riveria, how many floors have we descended?"
"I don't know," Riveria replied, closing one eye with an equally grim look. "But if we compare it to the Dungeon... I'd say we've probably reached the equivalent of the Middle Floors by now." It was the sharp intuition of an adventurer who had spent years charting the abyss.
"At least ten floors down...?" Finn took a deep breath and bit down hard on his thumbnail. "Starting from the first floor, every level has been larger than the last. I did some rough calculations, by this floor, just the areas we've passed through already cover a width comparable to an entire district of Orario."
"Finn, I smell people!"
At that moment, Bete suddenly spoke.
(End of Chapter)
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