Splash.
Splash.
Splash.
---
Shallow water on the floor.
Each boot finding it.
Breaking the surface.
Sending it outward in small rings that found the walls and came back.
---
The walls here were different.
Giant blue crystals growing from the stone.
Floor to ceiling.
Some larger than the soldiers beside them.
Dark blue.
Deep.
Throwing light that moved like water moves.
Slow.
Alive.
Giving life back to a place that had been dark since before any of them were born.
---
The military black armor caught it.
The blue trim responding.
Glowing back at the crystals like recognition.
---
They moved through it.
In formation.
The water around their boots.
The light moving across their visors.
The drones above sweeping forward.
---
Then the door.
---
Stone.
Black.
Massive.
Built for something that didn't measure itself in human scale.
Old markings covering its surface.
The kind of old that stopped meaning anything specific and just meant time.
A lot of it.
---
They stopped in front of it.
---
The drones hovered above.
Cameras fixed on it.
---
A sound.
Stone against stone.
The door opening on its own.
Slowly.
The air behind it compressed and old rushing outward.
A powerful exhale.
It hit them full in the chest.
Pushed them back a step.
---
The system spoke.
*You have reached the centre of the labyrinth.*
*Labyrinth boss is within.*
*Level 20.*
---
Nobody moved for a moment.
---
Then they breathed in.
Held it.
Hands found weapons.
Shields came up.
---
They walked forward.
---
The room beyond the door was enormous.
The crystals here larger than anything in the corridors.
Black and silver metal ran through the walls like veins.
Blue in color.
Pulsing.
Quietly.
A heartbeat the room was keeping to itself.
Slow.
Steady.
Like something sleeping.
Like something that knew it didn't need to rush.
---
At the center of the room—
---
A snake below.
A woman above.
Where one ended and the other began wasn't clear.
Gray scales all around.
Green eyes glowing in the crystal light.
Black hair like wire.
Sharp.
Each strand moving slightly on its own.
Venomous looking even in stillness.
---
It turned those eyes on them.
---
The gold green of them catching the light.
Holding it.
Changing it into something else entirely.
---
Everything stopped.
---
The soldiers.
Their bodies standing still.
Eyes open.
Lungs not moving.
Like something had reached inside each of them and found the switch.
Like stone that had been people a moment before.
---
The drones dropped.
One by one.
Falling straight down.
Hitting the wet floor.
Sending water outward.
---
In the dark room far away the men at the screens fell sideways from their chairs.
Silently.
Like the same thing had reached that far.
---
One man didn't fall.
He caught himself on the edge of the desk.
His hand finding the surface.
His eyes still open.
Still working.
He looked at the screen.
At what the last functioning camera still showed.
---
He reached forward.
Found the button.
Pressed it.
---
One drone on the ground activated.
A flash.
Brilliant white.
Consuming the room entirely.
Walls.
Crystals.
Water.
All of it gone for a single moment inside the white.
---
The soldiers gasped.
All at once.
Lungs remembering.
Eyes blinking.
The stone leaving their bodies.
---
And in that moment—
Every gun in the room opened up.
The sound of it enormous.
The sound of it all at once.
Consuming everything the white light had just released.