Twenty-six hours later, Rejt spat out a heavy mouthful of blood and heaved himself out of the broken stone wall. “So… this is why no scouts returned from beyond the 30th floor.”

Lazareth Armgrast grimaced and pulled a thick obsidian spike out of his side. Then he did his best to use his wide hand to stem the gush of blood out of the wound. “Well, we survived the first strike of this fucker. The rest is downhill from here, right?”

“You fool,” Wendy hissed. Although she had stayed toward the back as they encountered the sinister monster in the long tunnel of the 31st floor, she now hurried forward and pressed her hands to Lazareth’s wound. After a few seconds, a warm light from her fingers began to knit together his corroded flesh. “Don’t just rip it out!”

“I don’t think we have the time for me to leave it in,” Lazareth grunted as he turned to face the towering specter that barred their path.

It was almost four meters tall, its head brushing against the roof of the spacious stone tunnel. Its body seemed to be made of an interlocking series of dark grey pieces of metal, a strange shifting motion of body parts that looked less like the clockwork of machinery and more like a surreal approximation of that ordered machinery. It was shaped like a humanoid, with extremely thin arms and legs and heavy armor around its torso.

And at the thing's core was a dense ball of black energy that seemed to be the solidified version of miasma. As the three figures watched, thin tendrils of blue stretched out from that core and manipulated the piecemeal body to pull another one of its obsidian spikes from its heavy shoulder pauldrons.

“And also…” Rejt grimaced and glanced upward. Although it was faint, he could already feel a steady stirring amongst the miasma in this place. Even as they struggled against this foe here, something terrible was coming. There had been a change in the Hell Labyrinth. Miasma was beginning to sluggishly roll outward.

Such a change would not bode well for the forces trying to explore this place.

And of course, emphasizing their need to proceed, the crimson footsteps left by Azriel led straight forward through this monster, as though she hadn’t even needed to alter her gait in order to bypass it.

The lines around Rejt’s eyes tightened. Which seems impossible, considering its strength. Which makes me wonder… was this guardian here when Azriel went forward? Based on the timeline, she likely came while the Hell Labyrinth was still inert. And if she is the one that reached the core and activated it…

“Get back, it’s coming,” Lazareth growled as he used his long and muscular limb to physically shove Wendy backward. Although the woman hissed in ire, no sooner had she be forced back than the guardian surged forward with an obsidian spike in each of its hands.

It didn’t appear to use any Skills, but that just meant that it was so impossibly fast that it made their Skills inadequate. Even with his Level 112 Elusive Crimson Steps, Rejt barely had time to roll to the side as a hand holding an obsidian spike cut downward toward his skull like a woodsman’s ax.

As he twisted away, he raised his arm and smashed his palm forward toward the guardian’s waist. Wind quickly gathered around his hand and empowered the blow. But the guardian shifted its stance slightly at the last moment so the blow that should have smashed against its thin limbed legs hit against the heavy armor of its torso. Just as it had during their prior exchange, the guardian’s leg flitted outward to strike Rejt in retaliation.

Unlike the previous time where Rejt had assumed that the leg would be relatively weak, Rejt forced his body into one more roll to the side to avoid it. Losing a chunk of Health due to his foolish assumption was a mistake that he only planned on making once.

Grimacing, Rejt recovered his footing and gathered the sharp-edged wind that existed even here tunnel. His will sharpened and steadied the air currents around him to strike.

But Lazareth was slightly faster than he was, taking advantage of the opening that Rejt had created.

“Primal Smash!” Lazareth roared, not even aiming for the guardian’s thin limbs and instead just aiming to impact that vulnerable seeming core that it held in its chest. Then the guardian’s hands blurred into motion and brought all of their plans to nothing.

It was only due to his Blessing of the Vast Wind that Rejt was able to track the movements as the guardian used only the strength and elasticity of its hands in order to shoot the two obsidian spikes toward them. And even with that warning, the obsidian spike cut a half circle out of the edge of Rejt’s stony thigh.

Lazareth Armgrast took his spike through the left side of his chest. It exited out of his back with a clean spray of blood.

Still, those two strikes from the guardian gave Rejt the time he needed to gather the wind he needed to himself. And with that wind, he cut.

The metallic guardian released a jarring chime as it staggered backward with a huge gash cut out of its inky black core. The metal pieces around it spun listlessly. Yet Rejt gritted his teeth when it was able to steady its stance and the other parts of the core began to flow around it and heal the wound he had cut into the heart of the bastard.

But it wasn’t just the guardian that was uncommonly hardy. After releasing a horrible sounding, wet death rattle due to his collapsed left lung, Lazareth Armgrast forced himself back to his feet.

“You fool!” Wendy shouted. Her hands began to glow again while she hurried forward. “You need-”

“Stay back!” Lazareth barked. The guardian casually reached up and took two more obsidian spikes from its shoulder pauldrons. Although only one currently remained, those three spikes still weighed heavily on all of their minds.

“You’d rather die than let me heal you? What the hell is with your pride?” Wendy asked, some of her frustration overwhelming her concern for Lazareth.

“I’d rather you not die,” Lazareth replied stiffly. Then he spat out some blood to the side. “But at least it is down to three spike attacks. If we manage to dodge at least one of those-”

Lazareth’s voice fell away to nothing as the pauldrons of the guardian shivered and then all five of the missing spikes in them grew quickly back. Sighing, Rejt glanced upward at the increasingly disturbed miasma above them. “In addition… it looks like we do not have much time until whatever is changing up in this place… reaches us. We must hurry-”

A tremor ran through the miasma. Then it seemed to be blasted away, shooting out above them into the higher floors above them. And beyond that, it would enter into the atmosphere of the world. Rejt’s expression darkened.

Whatever monster was beginning to breathe in the depths of the Hell Labyrinth, if it was allowed to escape-

Ringing ominously, the guardian stepped forward. But before either Lazareth or Rejt could react, there was a soft whisper of wind and the sound of bare-skin rasping against stone. Suddenly there was another individual who stepped forward to face the guardian of the Hell Labyrinth.

The figure spoke and the air seemed to burn with the weight of his words. “Absolute Gasp of Yggdrasil.”

Huge vines as thick as pythons and lined with thorns that looked like golden daggers shot out of the ground and surged to constrict the guardian. The guardian sensed the attack and shifted out of the way, but the roots moved faster than it could match. In a split second, it was completely suppressed.

Then the vines began to squeeze, radiating an ominous golden light. At a volume incomparable to the small blow that Rejt had struck against it, the guardian began to release its jarring chime that sounded quite a lot like cries.

With a sigh, Randidly Ghosthound turned slowly around to face Rejt, Lazareth, and Wendy. His black hair was slightly longer, but he had the same twist at the corner of his mouth, the same sharp nose, the same emerald eyes. Yet when that gaze settled on the three of them… Rejt could feel prickles on the back of his neck.

He had made such a big deal of emphasizing that Randidly Ghosthound was just a man to Wendy earlier, yet now… the air around this man felt so incredibly heavy that Rejt couldn’t even speak for several seconds. It seemed that the shadow of a vast tree hung above Randidly. It was an image, but it wasn’t like any image that Rejt had ever seen before.

It shook the air by being there. It left the guardian that had slowly been bleeding them dry completely suppressed.

It was admittedly the strength of a god.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with this,” Randidly Ghosthound said. His expression grew heavy. “...if you give me some time, believe me, that this will be completely resolved.”

“If you knew this was coming, why didn’t you give me more warning?” Wendy asked in an accusatory tone. At first, Rejt was impressed that she had been able to gather up the courage to step forward under the sway of that shadow, but Rejt quickly realized she must not have enough mastery of images to sense that terrible darkness that hung over them and pressed the guardian into the ground. “Why not tell me-”

“I didn’t know this would happen.” Randidly gritted his teeth. “This… is my fault for not paying more attention. An old mistake of mine… and apparently one I hadn’t learned from…”

“What is this?” Rejt finally found enough strength to ask. He gestured easily, as though all of this was beneath him. “This… place.”

“A training ground,” Randidly replied. “One that I am beginning to suspect was meant for me, to introduce me to Nether. But… it appears that even old monsters don’t know everything. So I think it’s time I skip to the end of this farce. ”