Keynes went through the two attackers in a blink of an eye, barely paying any attention to them. His emotions were aflame. Keynes was pissed. Since his meeting with Vivena, others had constantly tried to exploit him. This time, it was Bonolo and Hawthorne.

His mind was locked in the survival mode, it knew no mercy. But there was also a lot of anger and resentment, which was a shame because the labyrinth was a masterpiece. In other circumstances, Keynes would have been all over the place, trying to learn all the runes and understand the true purpose of this place.

Sadly, it wasn’t the case.

The next room was a dark oval chamber, its walls were tiled. In the middle was a large hole and spiral stairs leading down. Keynes approached the stairs with care, some of his anger dissipated.

I don’t like these stairs, he said to Alice.

Your skills are no longer disabled, master.

That was true. So, if something went wrong, he had [Flight].

The stairs led into the darkness below. The walls like the above oval chamber were black shiny tiles. It seemed to be one of the rooms without traps.

After ten minutes of walking and the contender count dropping to 30, Keynes started to question the room. How deep could it be?

He increased pace but to no avail. The stairs seemed to have no end.

Something doesn’t add up here, he said. It feels like I’m not moving forward.

He glanced to the side at the hole in the middle, then looked down. Only the darkness was there.

What is it? Alice asked.

I think jumping is the right way.

He rose in the air and moved into the middle. He began to drop slowly, carried by [Flight]. But to Keynes’s dismay, it didn’t change anything.

It doesn’t work!

Maybe … Master, maybe, you must fall to trigger the exit, Alice replied after a moment.

Keynes looked down, doubtful. He didn’t like it but she might be right about this room. He sighed and turned off [Flight].

Immediately, the stairs rushed around him, and the darkness changed into light. Keynes’s drop was slowed down to a stop a metre from the sandy ground. He was in a massive cavern, similar to the one he’d found himself when he’d entered the race. Runes glowed in circles on several levels on the walls.

The cavern must have at least two hundred metres in radius. Keynes looked around and found a group of tribesmen staring at an iron door.

They were arguing. Neither noticed Keynes’s arrival though and so he donned the hood and hid in a shadow, trying to learn what this was about.

“The Capital’s playing dirty. They bribed half the tribes to make sure their candidate would win the Covenant.”

The large man in the armour of bones and wood shrugged. He barred the door for others. The two people who flanked him seemed to be on his side. Four tribesmen faced them. So that made seven. With—

Only 20 contenders remain.

You are in the bottom 10. Hurry up or die.

“Not long now,” one of them said. “In less than twenty minutes it will be over.”

“Are you being serious? This isn’t how the Covenant of Tribes should end. The whole idea of the race is to compete individually.”

“Not this time.”

They barred their teeth at each other, and judging by their body language they were about to start a fight. But it was taking too much time for Keynes’s liking. He needed to get through the door…

He noticed a person land in the middle of the cavern only to turn into dust a few seconds later.

Shit.

Other tribesmen did see it this time and that set the fight off.

Keynes jumped into the air and landed next to the door, then used his Talent to open it before any of the tribesmen could react. As the door closed behind Keynes, lines of runes flared to life.

Straight stairs led down. The corridor was narrow and was roughly cut out in a glistening rock. Keynes ran to the bottom where he found a … pyramid. It was quite large. At the top of the pyramid was a door.

The exit.

Easy…

The moment Keynes took into the air, flying monsters appeared. They were small, bird-shaped and attacked him with ferociousness.

I think they do not like spells in this room, Alice said and Keynes immediately deactivated [Flight], dropping to the ground. The monsters left Keynes alone in a heartbeat.

Keynes kicked the sand, annoyed but had no time for tantrums. Quickly, he rushed to the pyramid and jumped on the first layer. It was about as tall as him.

Another two layers went smoothly, on the fourth one, he started to question himself.

Why am I here? What’s the point?

Master, something is attacking your mind. You need the wand.

Keynes did as Alice told him and continued forward. On the sixth layer, he found a tribesman. He was curled up and was crying. His armour was piled up next to him.

This is another mental trap.

On the eighth layer, the doubts began piling up and physical weight tried to pull Keynes down with surprising strength.

Out of all emotions, anger was what kept Keynes up in the game. As he got to the twelfth layer, he passed another two tribesmen. One of them was flattened on the floor, only his eyes and mouth worked. Keynes noticed that the mental doubt was linked to the physical force of the pyramid. It didn’t mean it was easy to discard it.

Eventually, Keynes got to the top and was greeted with two messages.

You are 5th to reach the Pyramid of Doubt.

Only 10 contenders remain.

He entered the door and found himself inside the pyramid. Some ancient mechanism, too complex to understand, extended all around him.

And he wasn’t alone. Four other people stood next to the stone panel with hieroglyphs.

“These aren’t the same hieroglyphs we were told about.”

“Doesn’t matter. The rules are the same…” he trailed off when his eyes fell on Keynes. “Who the hell is this?”

The other three froze in place.

“How did you… I recognise him. That’s the outsider.”

“Kill him!”

The man pushed the other three tribesmen toward Keynes. For a heartbeat, they showed uncertainty, which was totally out of place as they were about to die anyway.

Keynes attacked the first one before he made up his mind. It was a trigger for the other two. The trio knew how to fight and though they were only Level 3s, they must have some fighting techniques because they showed skill.

As Keynes defeated the first one, he heard the loud snap and then grinding of stones. The stone door rose out of the ground, thickly covered by runes and the fourth man bolted through it.

Immediately, the door turned to dust and the mechanism stopped. The distraction allowed Keynes to drop another opponent.

The third one looked at Keynes with satisfaction.

“It’s too late. Long live C—” he turned to dust.

Only 2 contenders remain.

You are 2nd.

Master! Hurry up, solve the puzzle.

Keynes glanced at the panel with hieroglyphs. He had no idea what to do. Hawthorne didn’t mention the pyramid and its hieroglyphs.

Master, you have forty seconds!

***

Venarys watched as the hole opened in the ground in the middle of the stadium. Every tribesman on the stands stood up, expectation was thick in the air. Venarys’s husband tried to look calm but she sensed his nervousness.

For Bonolo, everything was at stake here. If the outsider boy wasn’t going to win the race, Venarys’s father would kill her husband for rebelling against the Capital. It might still happen even with the outsider winning the race.

For a few seconds nothing happened and then … the Capital’s candidate walked out of the hole, his arms high in the air.

Next to Venarys, her husband slowly sat down. His eyes were glued to the hole as if trying to summon the outsider boy.

But that wasn’t going to happen. The labyrinth killed all but the winner.

“Keynes…” Haruka muttered. He was as shocked as her husband albeit for a different reason. “That’s impossible. He … couldn’t have lost. Not him.”

Hawthorne grabbed Bonolo’s arm.

“We must get out of here. Quick.”

Bonolo shook his head, his eyes distant.

“It’s too late, Haw.”

He was right. As the stadium erupted, most of the tribes cheering the candidate of the Capital, a stream of guards descended the stairs to detain Bonolo and Hawthorne. Aurora was not going to be happy with that. Maybe Venarys would be able to change her father’s mind in Hawthorne’s case, but for Bonolo it was too late. She knew from the moment he’d told her about his plan to defy the Capital. He should have known better. The First Tribe’s responsibility was to set an example for others.

“Mom, what’s going on? Why have they taken dad?” Haruka asked, he was trembling.

“Your father’s plan failed with the outsider’s death. Your father’s life is now in your grandfather’s hands.”

“You must do something about it.”

“There’s nothing I can do, my son.”

Haruka straightened up, his expression hardened. She had never seen him like this.

“We’ll see about it.”

***

Vivena landed several kilometres from the Capital. [Flight] was quite a mana-hungry spell and she needed to take a break. The serum was about to run out and she would be back to her normal stats. Such a drop was never a pleasant experience.

She found a fallen tree and sat on it while fishing in her dimensional pouch. She took her mobile phone out. It was time to call Wagner and tell him about everything. With the last serum gone, she wouldn’t be able to return to the Capital and fight her way to Keynes. Level 4 might be strong but it wasn’t that strong, even with her items.

Vivena hoped that Keynes would escape them as she was pretty sure that the moment Keynes would walk out of the labyrinth, he’d be ambushed.

It was a trap and she couldn’t understand how Keynes missed that and why he didn’t listen to her when she pointed it out to him.

“About time,” Wagner’s weary voice spoke on the phone. “There’s a real shitshow here.”

“Oh,” she sighed. This wasn’t something she wanted to hear. “We have a problem.”

Wagner stayed silent for a moment then asked for details. After listening patiently to her story, he swore, which he rarely did.

“Why haven’t you contacted me earlier?”

“I … don’t know. I think I believed I could sway that idiot out of his moronic idea. I failed, I am sorry.”

“I meant before that. You had a Level 3 rift opened for months without telling me. And now it is in the hands of … who are they again?”

“Tribesmen with a big city made out of stone. With runes,” she replied then reiterated why she was calling him. She didn’t mention the Cult of Shaper. “I need your help in case Keynes is caught by those tribesmen.”

“Okay, hold on for a second. This is the World Reserve we are talking about. I cannot just come over to you, Vivena.”

“Why not?”

“Because the World Reserve is off-limits to everyone.”

“Do you think the World Government will react to your intrusion?”

“No. But there is … a collective agreement that we don’t enter this place.”

“Why?” She didn’t understand why someone like Wanger Zimmermann would hesitate to enter the World Reserve when everyone was at war anyway.

“Because we were told to stay away from it. Even Freeman complied. Listen, Vivena. I’d piece together a covert rescue mission but it may take a day or two before it’s ready. You’ll have to wait.”

***

Venarys returned to the palace on the flying construct, shortly after her parents departed. She was changing her outfit for a fresh robe when Aurora appeared in her room.

Her retainer didn’t say a word, she knew what had occured. Venarys remained silent, she had no reason to explain anything.

“You’re okay with this?” Aurora asked eventually.

“With what?” Venarys asked as she pulled the robe up. Extra stats always felt pleasant.

“With your husband being executed.”

Venarys activated the privacy bubble and beckoned Aurora closer. Every wall in this place had ears, or rather a vine.

“He understood the risk and I tried to change the outsider’s mind. There’s nothing I can do, Aurora. The First Tribe wasn’t some remote, insignificant tribe to be able to get away with an act of insurgency. At this level, one error means death.”

“You’re talking about your husband,” Aurora snapped.

“So? It wasn’t like we were close. He won the race and our marriage was arranged. I didn’t have a say in this. I’ve never loved him.”

“But I love Hawthorne and I won’t let him die.”

Venarys shook her head.

“Don’t do this, Aurora.”

“I don’t have—”

The System message interrupted her.

The Planet’s Spiritual Energy is sufficient.

The System is Online…