The Choker: a wretched, diminutive predator born of pure malice.

  They coveted the suffocating gloom of vaulted ceilings, forgotten arches, damp wells, and derelict stairwells, lurking motionless within the shadows to ambush any prey unfortunate enough to drift into their periphery.

  Their elongated, multi-jointed limbs terminated in fleshy, barbed pads capable of adhering to and grasping nigh any surface. Silent as the grave when lying in wait, yet striking with the terrifying velocity of a viper, they were born masters of assassination in the dark.

  Though slight of frame, the Choker possessed a muscular lethality that rivaled a human Knight at the absolute peak of their prowess. Even a Grand Knight, if taken unawares by the darkness, would pay a grievous, often fatal price under their strangulating grip.

  "To think they would seed the labyrinth's perimeter with Chokers," Pierce clicked his tongue, a trace of cold annoyance threading his voice.

  Yet, he understood the unseen architect's intent perfectly. The labyrinth, with its claustrophobic depths, jagged masonry, and winding complexities, was the natural hunting ground for such ambush predators. More critically, the Choker earned its macabre moniker from its instinctual predilection for crushing the throats of its victims. By obliterating the vocal cords, they instantly severed a wizard’s ability to chant incantations.

  In a very practical sense, the Choker was the natural bane of the sorcerer's apprentice.

  Regrettably for the beast above, Pierce was no ordinary apprentice.

  Aside from having long mastered the metamagic art of Silent Spell—allowing him to weave complex enchantments without uttering a single syllable—his sheer physical constitution, honed to the terrifying tier of a Grand Knight, ensured that the Choker's ambush could not shake him in the slightest.

  Skreeeee—!

  A shrill, agonizing shriek tore from the creature's mangled throat. A narrow, ruthlessly precise sword wound bisected its torso, from which a fountain of dark, foul-smelling crimson gushed into the air. Pierce’s instantaneous riposte had been devastating.

  Realizing the true terror of the prey it had blindly chosen, the Choker abandoned all instinct for combat. It scrambled up the masonry with unnatural agility, its barbed pads adhering to the smooth stone as it skittered upside down across the ceiling, fleeing desperately toward the deeper, comforting shadows.

  Running away?

  A cold, merciless sneer tugged at the corner of Pierce’s mouth. His figure blurred, erupting into explosive motion. The steel longsword in his grip transformed into a streak of thundering, lethal brilliance.

  Void-Flash.

  Even after the Respiration of the Azure Gale had evolved into the supreme Respiration of All-Knowing, the devastating martial techniques of the Tempest Cleave and Void-Flash were retained, their kinetic potency now far eclipsing their former glory.

  The strike was faster than a mortal heartbeat, spanning a hundred meters of stagnant air like a falling star, driving unerringly into the spine of the fleeing monstrosity.

  The Choker barely managed a truncated wail before its entire wretched form was detonated by the violent surge of Pierce's internal Qi, exploding outward into a grisly mist of blood and shattered bone.

  Pierce flicked his blade, the sharp gust from the motion clearing the sanguine fog from the steel. He glanced upward, his enhanced vision piercing the gloom to spot three or four other Chokers several hundred meters away, scattering in sheer panic along the vaulted ceiling. The instantaneous, gruesome demise of their kin had evidently shattered the courage of these cunning predators.

  Pierce offered a faint, indifferent smile. He did not bother to give chase. Instead, he resumed his measured march down the echoing corridor. At every diverging fork, he exhaled, dispatching a flock of his conjured Mist Ravens to scout the winding paths, casually purging the adjacent chambers of their monstrous inhabitants as he went.

  The journey was a grueling gauntlet of horrors. Nearly every chamber harbored some foul denizen of the dark, waiting to claim trespassers.

  From Knight-tier reinforced Skeletal Warriors, brutish Bugbears, shambling Zombies, and terrifying Hook Horrors, to the far deadlier Grand Knight-tier threats: hulking Three-Armed Trolls, life-draining Bodaks, and heavily armored Skeletal Knights.

  Pierce even encountered an Aranea and a phase-shifting Ethereal Marauder.

  The Aranea was a grotesque, medium-sized magical beast capable of shifting between arachnid and humanoid forms. Beyond its paralyzing venom and suffocating webs, it could weave spell-like abilities such as Ghost Sound, Light, Silent Image, and Sleep. The combat prowess of a mature Aranea easily rivaled that of a mid-tier Grand Knight. To stumble into its territory unprepared and become ensnared in its webs meant a slow, agonizing death, even for the strong. For a fragile wizard apprentice, the Aranea’s inherent spell resistance made it a nightmare incarnate.

  As for the Ethereal Marauder, it was a bizarre, reptilian aberration dwelling within the overlapping Ethereal Plane.

  Hued in shifting, iridescent shades of cerulean and deep violet, it stood merely four feet tall, yet its pliable, serpentine frame could extend to nearly seven feet in a fraction of a second. Ordinarily, they prowled the Ethereal Plane in an intangible spirit form, shifting to the Material Plane only for the split second required to deliver a fatal, venomous bite—an assassin far more terrifying and elusive than the Choker.

  Even Pierce, with his heightened senses, had failed to detect the Marauder until the very moment its jaws snapped shut. He had been forced to rely entirely on the impregnable defense of his magical heavy armor to weather the lethal strike, before pivoting and cutting the beast down with a brutal backhanded slash as it attempted to phase back into the aether.

  Beyond the endless legions of monsters, the labyrinth was riddled with insidious, cruel traps.

  Floorboards that looked like solid granite but would instantly liquefy into voracious, acidic quagmires; polished gems embedded in imposing stone doors that bloomed with prismatic sprays to induce permanent madness; seemingly empty chambers that sealed tight upon entry, instantly flooding with incinerating hellfire.

  It was a layered defense impossible to fully anticipate. Without sufficient countermeasures and a body forged of iron, an ordinary apprentice would have perished a dozen times over before even brushing the labyrinth's heart.

  As Pierce ventured deeper into the belly of the maze, the raw strength of the monsters and the lethal ingenuity of the traps escalated significantly.

  After clearing yet another blood-soaked three-way junction, Pierce halted his advance, his expression turning contemplative beneath the dim light.

  The Mist Ravens were effective; he had not yet stumbled into a fatal dead end. But logistical problems were rapidly arising.

  Firstly, the deeper he delved, the more numerous and fractal the forks became. Every path branched into multiple chambers, sometimes connecting to even more maddeningly complex intersections. Pierce was forced to explore every mathematical probability to determine the true path, a tedious task that was consuming excessive amounts of time and mental energy.

  Secondly, there was the unsustainable attrition rate of the Mist Ravens.

  In just over an hour of exploration, he had lost more than three hundred of his spectral birds to traps and magical wards. As the ambient danger grew stronger, this consumption would only accelerate. He could not guarantee his current aetheric supply would last until he breached the center.

  "I need a different approach."

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  Pierce’s gaze swept critically across the damp, surrounding walls. A sudden thought struck him. He approached the ancient masonry and rapped his knuckles against the cold stone.

  Tap. Tap.

  "Judging by the hollow resonance, these partition walls aren't excessively thick. Breaking straight through shouldn't be too difficult."

  Pierce mused quietly. If he could violently smash his way through the walls, entirely bypassing the winding corridors and treacherous intersections, he could cut a straight, bloody line to the center, saving an immense amount of time.

  But would it truly be so simple? Would the sadistic architect of this maze leave such a glaring, brute-force exploit for the challengers?

  He harbored deep doubts. Yet, doubt or not, the theory was worth a calculated test.

  To be safe, Pierce eschewed deafening Evocation spells like Fireball or Magic Missile that might draw a horde with their concussive blasts. He opted for the subtler, corrosive touch of Acid.

  Chanting silently through his mental pathways, Pierce pointed a single finger. A sphere of bubbling acid, the size of a human skull, coalesced from the damp air and shot forward like a cannonball, slamming heavily into the corridor wall.

  The stone hissed violently, emitting thick, pungent green smoke as the highly concentrated acid ate a deep, visible crater into the rock face.

  But then, the entire length of the wall began to shudder, convulsing as if a sleeping giant had been disturbed. The surface of the stone warped grotesquely, undulating like diseased flesh, and suddenly, hundreds of pallid, lip-less mouths birthed themselves from the solid masonry.

  In the next agonizing instant, the unnatural mouths snapped open in unison, emitting a shrill, ear-splitting scream of pure, concentrated agony.

  The sonic wave, capable of directly shredding mortal nerves, swept through the confined corridor and echoed endlessly into the distance, layering upon itself in terrified, cacophonous waves.

  Caught off guard by the psychic assault, Pierce felt a sharp, piercing pain in his eardrums and hastily covered his ears with aether-infused palms. The terrifying shrieking persisted for over ten grueling seconds before gradually fading into a low, collective sobbing and moaning that chilled the marrow.

  Pierce frowned deeply at the wall. Centered around the smoking acid burn, a stretch of nearly a hundred meters was now covered in densely packed, blindly opening and closing mouths. It was a sight to curdle the blood of even a seasoned veteran.

  But he had no time to dwell on the grotesquerie of the magic.

  From the shadowed corner at the end of the corridor came the heavy, chaotic thunder of a hundred rushing footsteps.

  Seconds later, a massive, frenzied horde of monsters flooded around the bend, their eyes glowing with unnatural malice.

  Brutish Bugbears, rotting Zombies, skeletal Samurai wielding rusted blades, and soulless Bodaks... creatures of vastly different origins that could never peacefully coexist in a natural ecosystem were now crowded together, charging toward Pierce with absolute, murderous intent.

  Pierce’s cold eyes locked onto a leading Bugbear. The beast was clearly abnormal—its irises were a solid, glowing blood-red, and thick saliva dripped uncontrollably from its snapping jaws. It had fallen into a state of absolute, berserk bloodlust.

  Evidently, the wailing of the flesh-wall carried a subtle curse, one designed to lure all surrounding monsters and drive them into a suicidal frenzy against the intruder.

  "I knew it wouldn't be that simple."

  Pierce sighed lightly, the breath a plume of white in the cold air. His fingers traced rapid, intricate patterns in the void, and in the blink of an eye, a profound, azure rune materialized, crackling with static.

  He grasped the arcane sigil and slapped it onto the flat of his blade. Crack! The steel erupted with thousands of tiny, violent arcs of blinding lightning. Immediately following, his fingers danced again, sketching a heavy rune of khaki earth and a swirling rune of verdant wind, slapping both directly into his own chest.

  Bathed in the interweaving, protective glow of earthen yellow and gale-force green, his aura surged violently, pushing back the oppressive gloom of the corridor.

  Preparation complete, Pierce’s gaze hardened into glacial ice. He launched himself forward like a ballista bolt, crashing headlong into the oncoming, roaring tide of monsters.

  BOOM!

  They collided in the dead center of the corridor. Despite the horde's absolute numerical advantage and collective mass, the sheer kinetic impact of Pierce's charge sent them flying, their vanguard formation instantly shattered.

  The dozen monsters at the very front were instantaneously reduced to charred, smoking husks by the violently expanding arcs of runic lightning, collapsing lifelessly to the stone floor.

  Pierce became a tiger unleashed amongst sheep, harvesting lives with a cold, terrifying efficiency.

  The blinding flashes of lightning illuminated the dark corridor as if it were high noon. Under the aetheric blessing of the Rune of the Gale, Pierce’s speed was preternatural, his figure blurring into a ghost that wove effortlessly through the dense, chaotic mob. Most of their crude attacks failed to even graze the hem of his robes. The few desperate strikes that connected were effortlessly absorbed and deflected by the unyielding yellow halo of the Rune of the Earth.

  The roar of dying beasts and the sharp crackle of thunder echoed endlessly through the labyrinth.

  The one-sided slaughter lasted less than five minutes.

  The deafening roaring faded, weakening rapidly until it vanished entirely. As the final, bisected Bugbear crashed heavily to the floor, the corridor returned to a deathly, blood-soaked silence.

  Standing amidst the steaming heaps of twisted corpses, Pierce flicked his longsword, shedding the foul, blackened blood from the steel. The lightning arcs on the blade were sparse now, flickering weakly, and the halos of elemental light around his body were dim, bordering on complete dissipation. The arcane energy of the three elemental runes was nearly exhausted.

  Yet, despite the sudden ambush, Pierce was deeply satisfied.

  The horde had numbered between two and three hundred, with over half possessing genuine Grand Knight-level strength. To completely annihilate such an overwhelming army with only the aid of three basic elemental runes... the practical combat utility far exceeded his initial expectations.

  "And this is merely the unrefined, basic iteration. Once I thoroughly deduce the optimal improvements with the Eye of Omniscience, the destructive potential is practically limitless!"

  A look of burning anticipation flashed in his dark eyes.

  He turned his gaze back to the wailing wall. The horrific mass of sobbing mouths had vanished back into the stone, leaving only the ugly, scorched crater of his initial attack.

  "It seems the shortcut of breaking through the walls is a deliberate dead end." Pierce sighed with a touch of genuine regret.

  The labyrinth's designer had left no careless loopholes. Breaching the walls forcibly summoned the localized horde. One or two waves of such magnitude he could handle with grace, but a sustained, relentless assault over miles of tunnel would drain his mana and stamina dry. If he forced his way through using that method, he would arrive at the center completely exhausted, hopelessly vulnerable to whatever final, apocalyptic dangers guarded the Prismatic Gem.

  Moreover, he was fully aware he was still in the outer reaches. If he brazenly breached the walls within the deep labyrinth, the wailing curse might draw the ire of true Legendary-tier magical beasts. Not even the most arrogant, delusional wizard apprentice would dare claim they could survive a coordinated siege of Legends. Pierce included.

  "I have to rely on the Mist Ravens, tedious as it may be."

  Pierce turned from the carnage and sped gracefully toward the end of the bloodied corridor.

  He resumed his methodical routine, continuously summoning flocks of ravens to scout the dark. As the casualties of his spectral birds steadily mounted, he pushed ever deeper into the labyrinth's suffocating belly.

  Then, as he rounded a particularly long curve, Pierce noticed a distinct shift. The hue of the stone walls abruptly changed from a drab, unremarkable grey to a cold, cadaverous white, resembling polished bone.

  He understood immediately. He had finally crossed the invisible threshold from the perimeter into the true Deep Zone.

  The brutal encounter that immediately followed confirmed his grim hypothesis.

  Every monstrous entity from this point onward was a terrifyingly powerful magical beast solidly entrenched in the Grand Knight tier. The so-called "weaklings"—the Bugbears, the common Zombies, the simple skeletons—had vanished completely, replaced by apex predators.

  Facing such a suffocating density of high-tier threats in enclosed spaces, Pierce found relying solely on his swordsmanship and basic elemental runes to be slightly taxing on his reserves.

  He decided it was time to shift tactics. He cast Summon Monster I, reaching across the dimensional veil to call forth a Dire Boar-kin, intending for it to serve as his brute-force vanguard to clear the immediate obstacles ahead.

  Summon Monster I was a complex conjuration that could pull a suitable creature from the Outer Planes, the Elemental Planes, or chaotic magical dimensions. The summoned being obeyed the caster's will absolutely. Its physical strength and the duration of its stay depended entirely on the caster's mental fortitude and mastery of arcane binding.

  Pierce had rigorously tested this spell before. With his current, monstrously expanded mental attributes and his personal, mathematically modified version of the incantation, he could reliably summon a creature rapidly approaching the sheer physical power of a First-Order Legendary Knight.

  "A Dire Boar-kin... excellent."

  Pierce nodded in dark satisfaction as he looked up at the towering giant that had materialized before him—standing over five meters tall, impossibly burly, covered in coarse bristles, and radiating a suffocating aura of savage pressure.

  The Dire Boar-kin was an incredibly violent sub-species of the Hill Giant, possessing a natural, corrupted lycanthropy. Possessing seemingly boundless, terrifying physical strength, they delighted in nothing more than crushing their enemies into unrecognizable paste with massive, uprooted wooden clubs.

  An adult Dire Boar-kin possessed a resilient constitution rivaling that of a First-Order Legendary Knight. It was only their complete lack of magical ability and tactical intellect that placed their overall combat rating slightly below a true, civilized Legend.

  But against ordinary Peak Grand Knights or mindless labyrinth beasts? They possessed a crushing, overwhelming, and utterly brutal dominance.

  "A pity that the current iteration of Summon Monster I can only maintain a single anchor point at a time. Otherwise, I could raise a small, unstoppable army to march on the center."

  Suppressing the slight flare of regret, Pierce issued a silent, mental command. He signaled the moving fortress of muscle and fur forward. Together, master and beast marched onward, plunging fearlessly deeper into the cadaverous white abyss of the maze.