When Leo opened the door, he found himself staring into a vast corridor, far larger than what his blood phantom and vision spells had shown him. The scale itself was wrong, stretching farther than the building could contain.
Stepping out cautiously, he arranged his blood phantoms, one in front, two behind. The nearer one shadowed him like a guard, while the farther hovered several meters back, casting a net of blood-fog around him. Through it, he would feel the ripple of any movement, however slight. At least, that was the hope.
He had barely taken two steps when the sound came, laughter, high and childish, echoing with footsteps. A small figure darted from a door just ahead, sprinted across the hall, and slipped into another. The door slammed shut with a clap that rattled the corridor. From inside, the laughter swelled again, shrill and distorted, before cutting off mid-note.
Leo pressed on, lips tightening. 'Mad God. Yes… that name fits.'
The corridor stretched on endlessly, every step failing to bring the end any closer. Then came footsteps, this time behind him. Steady. Nearing.
He didn't panic. He had prepared illusions already; he knew the games of this place. Yet as the sound drew closer, his blood-sense felt nothing. Just air. Empty. The steps grew louder, right at his back, but there was no body, no presence, only sound.
Then—
"Help me!"
The scream tore through the air, raw with fear. Briva's voice.
Leo spun, his eyes flashing with twin visions. Down a flight of stairs that hadn't existed a moment ago, behind the wall of another room, he saw her. Three thin children, stood before her, each gripping a dagger too large for their hands.
"Someone, help!" Briva's voice cracked, trembling.
Leo's heart lurched. He ran, feet slamming the stairs, doors swinging open and shut as he tore through hallway after hallway. But no matter how many steps he took, he never reached her. She was always just ahead, close enough to see, never close enough to touch.
The children advanced, daggers raised.
Leo froze, breath ragged. This was no ordinary illusion, he couldn't tell if what he saw was real. But he had one way to be sure.
He shoved Thorn into the ground. His voice was low, steady. "Blood Explosion." This spell only targets the enemy.
The corridor shuddered. A wave of blood roared out, ripping through the wood, splintering walls, vaporizing everything it touched.
The children screamed. Briva screamed. And then, nothing. The hallway fell silent, her figure and theirs dissolving into the void like smoke.
'An illusion,' Leo thought, forcing his breath steady.
When he looked back, the endless hallways had vanished. In their place stretched only a single corridor, long and narrow, ending at a lone door. Nothing else. No escape.
His three blood phantoms floated close, their formless bodies writhing like smoke. Leo advanced, sending one clone ahead. It slipped through the cracks first, bleeding into the room beyond.
A presence stirred. Not illusion this time, but alive. Still. Waiting.
Leo pushed the door open and stepped inside. The chamber was wider, its air thick. At its far end stood a robed figure, unmoving as a statue. Before him hung a page, suspended midair, its surface alive with shifting marks and symbols that crawled like worms.
Leo edged two steps to the side, eyes narrowing. Then he caught the figure's face beneath the hood.
A skull. Empty sockets. The shape was unmistakable.
"…Mr. Immortal," he whispered.
At the sound, the figure twitched, and then Aran turned. His scream tore through the chamber, wild and broken, the cry of a mind long shattered. From beneath his robe, a staff snapped into his hands, and in the same motion he lashed out.
Leo's blade rose instinctively. Steel rang against bone-carved staff, sparks spitting between them.
Even through the hollow sockets of the necromancer's skull, Leo saw it clearly.
Fear.
Aran pressed his staff hard against Leo's blade, his hollow sockets burning with fury.
"Get out of my head!" he screamed, the words cracking like splintered bone.
"What…?"
Before Leo could react, green mana spiraled violently around the staff's head. It gathered into a searing beam and fired.
The Leo standing before him shattered into mist and blood, splattering the wooden floor. A phantom. A clone.
The real Leo crouched low in the shadows of the room, his pulse hammering.
Aran's skeletal jaw clenched. His voice was raw, unhinged. "If you want to play… then I'll play."
With sudden violence, he shoved the swirling page into his mouth. His jaw snapped, crunching parchment and sigils as if they were flesh.
The chamber shook.
A bellow tore from him, thick with madness, as dark-green mana erupted from his body in waves. It surged far beyond what any A2-ranked mage should wield, warping the very air, swelling his form like a vessel stretched too thin. The smell of rot filled the room.
Leo's eyes darted. The door behind him had vanished, swallowed by the illusion, but the windows, they flickered, no longer cloaked, showing the street outside. Aran's unholy power was tearing the maze apart.
No hesitation. Leo sprinted forward. The floor splintered under his feet as he hurled himself at the glass. His body crashed through with explosive force, shards spinning in his wake. He landed on the stone street, rolled, and whipped around.
When he looked back, the house had changed. No broken windows. No Aran. No trace of the necromancer's madness. Just silence.
Leo staggered upright, scanning the street. Arthur, Edgarth, and Luciana stood further down the road, their eyes locked on him. He bolted toward them, voice raw.
"We need to move, now!"
Luciana tilted her head, unfazed. "But the others aren't here. Not that I care."
Leo's mind raced. He glanced at Edgarth, then at Arthur, and an idea snapped into place.
"Arthur, use Light of Revelation. Divination if you must. Pass what you find to Edgarth."
Arthur's brow furrowed, but he nodded.
Leo turned sharply to the older mage. "Mr. Edgarth, use your doors. Bring them here."
Edgarth scoffed. "My spell barely worked for me."
"It will work," Leo said, his voice firm, as he clamped a hand on both their shoulders.
His domain surged outward, wrapping them in power.
Arthur put his hands on the ground. A radiant circle of light unfolded beneath him, expanding outward like a disk of sun, searching. Then he layered another spell atop it, a Divining Beacon. The resonance thrummed through the air.
"I found one," Arthur said after a tense moment, pressing two fingers to his temple. The information spilled from him into Edgarth's mind through Telepathy.
Edgarth whispered an incantation. A jagged doorway split the air, opening like a wound in space.
Briva stumbled through, her eyes wide, her face pale as ash. She shook as though she'd just clawed her way out of a nightmare.
Leo stepped forward and pulled her into his arms, steadying her trembling shoulders.
"You're safe now," he murmured, though the tremor in his own chest betrayed his doubt.
She was panting, her chest heaving. Her wild eyes darted from him to the street, tremors still coursing through her body until, slowly, they began to fade.
"Leo…" she managed between ragged breaths. "There was… there was a—"
"It was a mind game," he cut in, his tone firm, almost harsh. "It's over." He glanced at the empty, mist-laden street. "For now."
The air shivered, and more doors tore open in front of them. From the first, Arlasan and Ryan emerged. Arlasan strode out steady, his face grim but composed, tempered by years in these cursed lands. Ryan, in contrast, staggered forward with a nervous grin, flashing Edgarth a look.
"Thanks, you saved my ass," Ryan said, forcing a laugh that died in the heavy silence.
The next two doors opened. Varic, the other elven soldier stumbled through, his body carved with fresh scars, blood still wet on his skin. Arlasan rushed forward and caught him before he collapsed.
The last door creaked wide, and Elna stepped out. Her legs buckled almost at once, her face drained of all color.
Leo released Briva, now calmer, and hurried to Elna. Just as she swayed, he caught her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"Are you alright?" he asked, voice low.
Elna tilted her head up to him and forced a faint smile. "I'm fine."
Leo didn't believe it, but there was no time. He looked back to the others. Arthur and Edgarth were both pale, their foreheads beaded with sweat, mana visibly drained from their spells. There would be no rest here.
"We need to leave," Leo said.
Then his body froze. The hair on his neck rose.
He turned to the houses.
Silhouettes filled every windowpane.
A figure stood in each one, a child here, a man there, a woman, a hunched elder. Dozens of them, wrapped in black, their features lost to shadow. Their eyes, or what should have been eyes, burned out from the dark, all fixed on the them.
Ryan's voice cracked. "What the hell is going on?"
"Run."
Leo's voice was little more than a whisper. Then it rose into a command.
"Run!"
The group broke into a sprint at once. Arlasan hefted Varic onto his shoulder, matching the others' desperate pace.
'You need to go to that building,' Ilandra's voice cut through Leo's mind like a bell.
"That's what we're trying to do," Leo muttered through clenched teeth, forcing his legs faster as the shadows watched.
Suddenly, the sharp crack of glass shattering echoed through the streets. Every heart in the group lurched, they all knew what it meant. Whatever lingered in those houses was no longer watching. It was hunting.
The sound came next: hundreds of footsteps spilling into the streets behind them, a chaotic stampede of claws and limbs scraping against the stone.
Leo risked a glance to the side. A shadow crawled out of a shattered window, dragging itself into the open. It moved on all fours like a beast, but its frame was unmistakably human. The thing's head snapped toward him, its neck bending too far, too fast.
"Don't look back," Leo hissed. His voice was almost swallowed by the growing thunder behind them.
They pushed forward, feet hammering the uneven street.
Then the entire city shook. A shriek tore through the air, so sharp it pierced bone, so vast it felt like the sky itself was screaming. The sound carried with it a tidal wave of mana, crashing against their bodies like an invisible storm.
No one spoke. No one asked. There was no time.
They ran.
Through the fog and twisted streets, the looming building finally rose before them. The one that had eluded them, retreating with every step before. Now, suddenly, it was there.
Arthur didn't slow. His golden blade flared and he slammed his shoulder into the massive double doors. They burst open with a deafening groan, just wide enough for the group to throw themselves inside.
The doors slammed shut behind them with a will of their own.
Silence.
Every sound of pursuit, shattering glass, pounding feet, the city's tortured wail, vanished, cut off as though they had stepped into another world entirely.
Arlasan's breath came heavy as he looked back at the sealed doors. His voice was low, grim. "What in the abyss was that?"
Leo's expression hardened. "That… should have been Archmage Aran. He ate a page from the Book of the Dead."
Arthur turned sharply. "He ate it?" The disbelief in his voice bordered on horror.
No one answered. Their eyes turned upward.
The inside of the building stretched into eternity, a cathedral of black stone. Towering pillars climbed endlessly into a void that had no ceiling, no end. Their footsteps echoed, swallowed, and echoed again.
Luciana's voice was hushed, but edged. "Now what?"
Leo drew a slow breath. "The orb should be somewhere in here."
They walked for what felt like hours, their footsteps swallowed by the endless void. No matter how far they went, the path stretched on without direction. Leo reached inward, calling for Ilandra, but her voice wavered. Even she couldn't find the orb. Its energy was scattered, distorted, like broken glass spread across a black ocean.
At last, something broke the monotony of pillars and shadow. Rising ahead of them was a massive chair, carved as though for a giant. Upon it sat a figure, motionless, her form buried beneath a thick crust of gray dust.
As they drew nearer, the faint gleam of light pulsed in her chest, the unmistakable glow of the orb.
"Is that it?" Edgarth asked.
Leo's gaze didn't waver. "Yes. We need to reach it."
But before they could move, the woman's eyes snapped open.
Cold, silver light seared through the dust.
Her mouth parted, and the scream that followed wasn't sound, it was calamity. A concussive wave ripped through the hall, throwing them like ragdolls. They tumbled back dozens of meters, crashing to the ground. Some managed to land on their feet; others hit hard, breath torn from their lungs.
The figure began to move.
Every motion groaned like stone splitting apart, the weight of centuries breaking free. Dust cascaded from her as she rose, revealing what lay beneath.
Leo's eyes widened.
Long silver hair spilled across her shoulders. Her features were delicate, ethereal, framed by slender, elven ears. Her silver eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
But her sclera burned black, and her expression was twisted with malice.
Ilandra.
Or what was left of her. A shadow of divinity, warped and defiled.
There was no way out. No door, no retreat, no mercy.
Only one path remained, strike down a goddess… or be consumed by her.