For the next week, Leo continued venturing through the maze, its endless, twisting passages becoming his training ground, his battlefield, and his prison all at once. During that time, most of the monsters he encountered remained familiar in form, though each carried small variations. The four-armed humanoid beasts he had fought earlier reappeared, but now some were larger, their bodies bulkier, and instead of four arms, a few possessed six, thick, muscled limbs ending in brutal fists. They moved with heavier steps and swung harder, but none of them managed to slow him down.
He also came across creatures shaped like a T-Rex, massive, bipedal beasts with jaws strong enough to crush stone, but even they failed to pose any real threat. Their movements were predictable, their instincts simple, their power impressive but not enough to match his.
During this week of constant battle, Leo adjusted his equipment as well. His Weight Enchantment bracelets, originally set at two hundred and fifty pounds each, were reforged to carry three hundred pounds per bracelet. The moment he activated them, the difference was immediate, every step sank deeper, every motion strained his muscles. Walking became work, and fighting became training. The added weight pressed down on his body with unrelenting force, sharpening his resilience, forcing his strength upward inch by inch.
He also learned something crucial about the maze's ecosystem. Whenever he defeated a large monster, especially ones like the fire-forged lizard, the maze's lesser creatures refused to come near him for a while. It was as if the death of something powerful created a temporary territory around him, a momentary clearing of danger. He used those rare intervals to rest, to breathe, to recover even a fragment of lost stamina.
It was just like clearing a dungeon boss, earning a brief pocket of safety before the next threat appeared. But the worst part of all was that he had to feed on the monsters he killed. They were in a word, disgusting.
As he continued walking through the maze's dark corridors, he suddenly felt a shift, a ripple of presence unlike any he had sensed so far. Something new. Something heavier.
From the darkness, a figure emerged, carved from nightmares and walking with the slow confidence of a predator that feared nothing. It stepped into the faint illumination as though it had always existed inside the shadows, simply waiting for the moment it chose to be seen.
Its body was tall and sinewy, wrapped in plates of rough, organic armor that hugged its frame like the exoskeleton of a creature born in the deepest abyss. The plates overlapped in ridges and hooked spines that caught the dim light, forming a silhouette of jagged edges and shifting angles. When the creature breathed, those plates flexed, scraping against one another with a sound like bone grinding bone.
A crown of massive, curling horns rose from its skull. They twisted outward in wicked arcs that gave the monster a warped, regal bearing, like a king of nightmares. Between those horns, its face was a void of darkness, a mask of shadow stretched over malice. From within that blackness, two narrow slits of blue fire glowed, cold and sharp, staring without blinking.
Its arms were long and predatory, ending in talons shaped like hooked daggers. Each fingertip emitted a faint, eerie glow, as though something alive was trapped beneath its hardened shell, pulsing against the surface. From its lower back extended a thick, sinuous tail that swayed slowly.
Leo concealed his real body behind layers of illusion, steady and silent. His phantom surged forward in his place, charging straight at the monster while his true form remained hidden.
The instant the phantom moved, the creature mirrored it, matching speed for speed, aggression for aggression.
The phantom's blood sword clashed with a shadowy blade that materialized in the monster's hand at the exact moment of impact. The collision rang out sharply, steel echoing through the place. For a heartbeat they held each other, neither giving an inch. Then, in perfect synchronization, both the phantom and the creature leapt back, retreating several steps at the same time.
Both of their hands rose. Both of them created an Explosion Trap in the space between them.
Two circles of spellwork flared to life, one shaped from Leo's phantom, the other formed by the monster. The traps detonated simultaneously, bursts of force slamming together in the middle.
The two explosions canceled each other out in a violent flash, equal strength meeting equal strength, the forces neutralizing each other in midair.
The monster let out a sound, something disturbingly close to a laugh. Its movements continued to echo Leo's perfectly, every gesture copied with unnerving precision, as though the creature were nothing more than a distorted reflection of him carved from darkness.
But then its mirroring broke. A blade punched cleanly through its chest from behind, the point jutting out just beneath its sternum. Its body jolted, the mimicry collapsing instantly.
The real Leo stood behind it, his expression calm, almost bored.
"You have an interesting ability," he said, voice low as he pulled the blade free. "But it looks like you can't copy what you can't see. I'm your worst opponent."
The creature toppled forward, hitting the ground with a dull, final thud. It didn't move again.
Leo exhaled slowly, letting the tension flow out of his shoulders. Moments like this reminded him how fortunate he was to be an illusionist. Had he been a straightforward warrior, locked into a head-on confrontation with something that mirrored every step and swing, this battle could have dragged on far too long.
He was just about to pull out his small notebook, when a ripple of pressure brushed against his senses.
Another presence… and this one was different. His eyes lifted toward the source of the oppressive aura. At the edge of the darkness, something stood watching him.
The figure's silhouette alone was enough to freeze the breath in his throat. It was shaped loosely like a person, but only in the way a nightmare resembles something once human. Its body was tall and unnervingly thin, wrapped in layers of dark, chitinous armor that clung to it as though grown from its bones rather than worn. The plates curved and overlapped in sharp, organic patterns, giving its entire form a look that was equal parts creature and construct.
Pale tendrils drifted from its back and shoulders, long, weightless strands that floated like smoke underwater. They swayed with a slow, ghostly elegance, never touching the ground, each movement so soft and deliberate it felt as though the creature were breathing through them. The air around those tendrils shimmered faintly, like the presence of silent, restless spirits trapped inside its frame.
Its head was encased in a helm shaped like a twisted crown of black metal. The front was carved into intricate, jagged patterns, each line sharp as if etched by claws. Those patterns hid any face it might have possessed, concealing all features behind a lattice of shadow. From deep within the slits of the helm, faint lights shifted, glimmers of something watching him from farther back than any physical head should have allowed, like eyes set in the depths of a long tunnel.
Its torso was the most disturbing part of all.
The creature's ribs curved outward in broken, jagged arcs, forming a cage that didn't protect but exposed. At the center of that hollow space, far inside the cavity, pulsed a dim red glow, faint and unsteady, like the embers of a dying heart struggling to stay alive. Thin streams of shadow seeped through the gaps between the ribs, drifting down its torso and arms before evaporating into nothing.
One of its arms ended in a hand engulfed in pale, ghostlike flames. The fire didn't flicker or dance like normal fire; instead it drifted slowly, swirling in slow spirals, responding almost as if it were alive and curious. The flames produced no heat, no sound, only a cold luminescence that made Leo's skin prickle.
In its other hand, the creature held a long sword. The blade was a muted, dusty silver, nothing ornate, nothing exaggerated, but its simplicity made it all the more threatening. It had the quiet, effortless presence of a weapon that killed without resistance or hesitation.
Its legs were narrow and long, jointed in subtle but unnatural angles. Despite that, it stood with immaculate, regal posture, each shift of its weight slow and controlled, like a queen returning to a throne that had been stolen from her centuries ago.
This wasn't just another monster. It wasn't merely strong, or ancient. It felt like something crafted, deliberately shaped to embody fear itself.
And now it was staring directly at Leo.
Looking at it, only one word came to Leo's mind, "Run."
Two phantoms burst into existence at his sides, their forms sharpening from misty silhouettes into clear, humanoid figures that mirrored his stance and intent. They launched forward instantly, sprinting toward the creature with perfect synchronization. They weren't meant to win. They weren't even meant to slow it for long. They were there because if Leo was going to escape, he needed one opening, even the smallest fraction of a second.
The creature reacted the moment they moved.
It dropped into a low, predatory charging stance, its elongated legs folding beneath it like drawn bows. The pale flames on its right hand curled inward as if inhaling, and then—
—it moved.
The monster shot forward so fast the phantoms looked frozen in comparison, their full-speed charge reduced to still shapes against its blur. Its sword swept to the side, trailing a muted silver arc.
But the phantoms weren't empty-handed.
As they rushed forward, they had silently, invisibly peppered the way with Mana Surge Snares, planting them in every step they took. The traps detonated all at once, sharp bursts of compressed mana erupting like invisible mines.
The monster slammed into the chain of explosions.
The blasts didn't damage it, not truly. But they forced its momentum to stutter, its limbs to hitch for a fraction of a heartbeat. And for Leo, that was enough.
He used its slowed advance like a gift from fate.
He threw his arm upward and poured everything he had into his creation spell. A shimmering sphere erupted from his palm, expanding rapidly with rings of faint light spiraling outward. His vision blurred immediately, his mana was draining fast, but he kept pushing.
He had studied the maze for a full week. He knew the walls were roughly three meters thick, and he was close to the right-hand side. The creature's blade was already descending toward him, promising to cut him in half, but Leo's spellwork was faster.
The sphere widened with one final pulse, brushing the opposite wall and Leo vanished.
In his place, only the descending sword remained, and the maze wall behind him.
The second half of the plan triggered instantly.
Because the monster's attack did not stop after Leo disappeared. The blade continued its downward arc, and instead of cutting Leo, it struck the wall of the maze. Leo had learned early that the maze did not tolerate being struck. It retaliated. Violently.
And he hoped, no, he counted on, that retaliation being strong enough to at least wound, or preferably destroy, the monster.
Leo reappeared on the other side of the wall, emerging from a teleportation enchantment circle his creation spell had forced into existence. His knees buckled the second his feet hit solid ground. His body felt hollow, mana drained to nearly nothing.
But he didn't hesitate.
He forced himself to run, immediately pushing his exhausted legs into motion. His breathing was ragged, but his instincts kept him going. While sprinting, he yanked a small mana potion from his bag and downed it in one long swallow. The potion burned faintly in his throat, releasing only a modest surge of mana, Edgarth's concoctions were good, but against Leo's current level, their effect was limited.
Still, limited was better than nothing.
He kept running. Minutes stretched into long, gasping moments, and he didn't slow until nearly half an hour had passed. Only then did the crushing pressure, the monstrous presence, fade far enough behind him that he dared to stop.
His pulse eased slowly.
That presence… that creature… only a few times in his life had he felt something like it. One of them had been when the Kraken rose from the sea. The memory alone made his skin crawl.
It was still far, far too soon for him to challenge a monster of that level. Not alone. And especially not here, inside a maze where he couldn't rely on his domain at all.
He steadied his breath.
He had survived, but only barely.