Blood dripped from Veynessa’s blade, seeping into the cracked ground of the Labyrinth. Her breathing was steady, though her muscles pulsed from the strain of battle. Beside her, Calista wiped her sword against the arm of a fallen beast, giving it a light kick with the tip of her boot.
"If this was their entire elite, I’m starting to get bored," she muttered, stretching. "What’s left... twenty? Maybe less?"
Veynessa surveyed the battlefield. Three massive beasts lay dead, their mangled bodies bearing not just the marks of their battle with them, but also the wounds of fighting among themselves. Their clashes had been brutal, instinctive, driven by fury. Without Qi, the battle had been challenging, but far from impossible. They only needed to act swiftly, exploiting every opening in their enemy’s defenses. The beasts were powerful, but blind to true strategy.
"Less," Veynessa confird, sliding her sword back into its sheath. "After what we’ve seen here, most of them have already taken each other out."
She studied the aftermath, assessing the situation. From the scouts’ reports, the Labyrinth had never been a peaceful place, but now? It was a battlefield of slaughter. The creatures had turned on each other, their remnants of hierarchy completely shattered. The strong eliminated the weak, but in doing so, they weakened themselves as well.
"If we assu their numbers have already been drastically reduced by their own battles and our intervention..." Veynessa frowned, calculating. "At most, fifteen left."
"That ans we’re closer to finishing than I thought," Calista muttered, adjusting her grip on her weapon. "But that doesn’t an it’s going to get easier. Even if we take out the strongest ones, there are still thousands of weaker ones we have to wipe out completely. This is going to be an endurance test."
Veynessa t her gaze with unwavering seriousness.
"We’re not leaving until we’ve killed them all. That’s our mission."
Calista rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, balance of the world and all that. At least give a mont before you dive into another massacre."
Suddenly, the mist around them swirled, as if it had a will of its own, thickening into an unseen do that enclosed them in a trap. The air grew dense, almost suffocating. The barrier fell like an icy torrent of water, descending from above in a rippling, liquid-like motion.
The space around them beca isolated, as if they had been cut off from the world. The barrier extended across several hundred ters, sealing them within a vast cage.
The walls of the barrier weren’t entirely invisible. As they neared its edges, they saw a flickering distortion—dark tendrils of energy rippling through the mist, condensing into an unbreakable blockade. Every movent against it sent waves through the air, subtly altering its structure.
Then Veynessa felt it.
Her Qi... was gone. As if soone had severed her connection to it, stripping her of all energy. For a brief mont, her mind refused to accept it. She couldn’t draw on Qi. She couldn’t even sense it.
"Calista!" Her voice was razor-sharp.
"I know," Calista tried to summon her Qi, but her hand didn’t even glow. "What the hell...?"
They were trapped.
The mist around them trembled, as if disturbed by an unseen force. Sothing within it moved—a dark shadow slowly taking shape. The air thickened, heavy and oppressive, as if they had stepped into another world. Every instinct scread of danger, yet this was no re beast. The movents were too fluid, too deliberate. The shadow took form—broad shoulders, a lean fra, and steps that were slow yet certain, carrying the kind of unwavering confidence that belonged to soone who saw no need to hurry, knowing they had complete control.
Veynessa’s heart pounded.
A human.
***
Pharos stepped over another dead beast without even glancing down. Their slaughter was monotonous, dull. He didn’t need to exert himself. They weren’t a challenge. Every strike was chanical, precise, executed with absolute efficiency.
A body fell. Next motion. Another death.
Then sothing stopped him.
The connection.
It was gone.
He blinked. For a fraction of a second, he felt a chill, a brief, unpleasant prickling beneath his skin. Then he lifted his gaze in the direction where he had last sensed Veynessa’s presence.
"At last... they made their move."
His words were slow, almost laced with satisfaction, but his stance shifted. The air around him trembled.
In the next second, he moved.
The space around him detonated as his Qi surged toward a single, absolute goal: reaching them. The force that had been calm only monts ago was now unleashed in its rawest form. The air shook, stones on the ground lifted as if repelled by an invisible force. He vanished from his spot, leaving only cracks in the earth behind him.
And then, the world around him erupted in light.
Pharos noticed it at the last mont—the massive circle forming beneath his feet.
"What the hell...?" he hissed through clenched teeth as realization struck.
A magical formation.
He had a fraction of a second to react.
Too late.
The space around him shattered, as if reality itself had fractured. Colors blurred together, the weight of his body vanished, as though he had been ripped from existence and thrown into a void without direction. Sound exploded in his ears, only to vanish the next mont, leaving behind an all-consuming silence. He felt his body spin, yet at the sa ti, he couldn’t tell if he was truly moving. Strands of energy whipped around him like ribbons caught in a storm until, suddenly—
Stillness.
A fall.
Sand shifted beneath his feet as warm air filled his lungs. In an instant, everything beca too real—the salt in the air, the humid scent of the sea, the gentle crash of waves against the shore.
And his presence here was completely out of place.
Silence.
Pharos stood on a beach. Soft sand pressed beneath his boots. A salty breeze brushed against his face, and before him stretched an endless sea.
His body remained tense, ready to react at a mont’s notice. His eyes scanned the surroundings, every muscle prid for evasion or counterattack. He waited. The air was still—too still. No enemies. No imdiate threat. Just the rhythmic lull of waves and the grains of sand shifting underfoot.
Nothing happened.
For several seconds, he simply stood there, processing. His ever-rational mind cycled through every possible scenario.
This wasn’t an assassination attempt.
It was sothing far worse.
"Hah..." He let out a quiet, humorless laugh, more out of irritation than amusent. Running a hand down his face, he clenched his fingers into a fist. "Guess I really have gotten old. I let my guard down."
He reached for his dallion.
Nothing. No connection.
He tried reaching the Royal Castle.
Silence.
His jaw tightened.
Pharos turned his gaze toward the horizon, pieces falling into place. The teleportation formation had been near-instantaneous, and the complete severance of his connection to both the girls and the Royal Castle ant only one thing—he had been moved an incredible distance. This wasn’t a simple communication block. He was far beyond reach.
If soone had the ability to prepare such an advanced and instantaneous technique, it ant only one thing:
This was no accident.
This was a ticulously planned operation, designed for one purpose—to remove him from the Labyrinth before he could intervene.
"Whoever did this..." he muttered, eyes narrowing as he stared toward the horizon. "Is insanely talented."
Which ant only one thing.
This did not bode well for the girls.
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