Elijah kicked off the ceiling, propelling himself forward with blistering speed. He hit the automaton less than a second later, and hard enough to send it sprawling backwards. It smashed into the wall, sending dust and a few shards of stone into the air, but Elijah ignored it. Instead, he wrapped his arms around the creature and rammed it with his horned head. Each blow dented the thing’s chest plate until, after the fifth attack, it split.

  A geyser of scalding ethera nearly took out his eye, but he managed to turn his head just enough to avoid that fate. His scales melted, and the rubbery skin beneath cooked in an instant. Elijah let out a roar of agony that somehow turned into discernible words. “Now!”

  He leaped away just in time to avoid four swords that descended from above. Benedict’s summoned demon, which he referred to as the Infernal Queen, attacked with ruthless efficiency, thrusting her blades into the crack and using them to lever it wider.

  Before Elijah even landed, he’d already begun his latest transformation – this time, back into his human form. As it completed, the automaton recovered enough to kick the Infernal Queen free, sending her to carom off the wall, where she crumpled into a twisted pile of limbs.

  Hu Shui replaced her, lancing in and unleashing a barrage of attacks that utilized his teleportation powers to speed his blades. It sounded like someone had shoved an aluminum can into a blender, and it was just as effective. The Astral Duelist was the least powerful among them, but he had proven that, given a chance, he could hold his own well enough to contribute.

  But he had to take great care, because as much damage as he could inflict, he was in no position to take a hit. One blow would be more than enough to shatter his entire skeleton.

  The same was true of Benedict, though he remained at a distance, letting his summoned demons engage in melee combat.

  Of the three, Elijah was the only one capable of taking a hit from the automatons, and even he could only do so in the Shape of Spores. Still, he didn’t hesitate to throw himself back into the battle, which had been ongoing for longer than he cared to measure. The evidence of that was the automaton’s increasingly twitchy movements.

  In his humanoid form, Elijah hit the thing shoulder-first, then latched onto the creature’s arm. In a move he’d seen in countless MMA fights, he wrapped his legs around it, then used every ounce of strength he could manage to yank backwards. His back arched, and the arm protested. But when Elijah used Savage Might, it gave way to his superior strength.

  It cracked, erupting with ethera that burned his legs. Thankfully, it wasn’t as dense or destructive as the ethera near its core.

  Even as Elijah held that arm at bay, the Queen recovered and, with a limping but still rapid stride, charged the other limb. She mimicked Elijah’s actions, though to much lesser degree of effectiveness. The arm didn’t break, but she managed to hold it still.

  “Get the core!”

  Hu Shui needed no such order, and he was already moving. He landed on the creature’s chest, then disappeared – but only for a split second. When he reappeared, he was holding a densely inscribed cube, and he was standing fifteen feet from the creature.

  The automaton went limp, and Hu Shui threw the cube back the way they’d come. It only traveled forty feet before exploding.

  No one avoided the shockwave, which swept over them with roiling fury. It sent them all skipping across the corridor, and they didn’t stop until the momentum was spent. Or, as was the case with Elijah, they hit a wall with bone-breaking force.

  He collapsed, his body already mending from the ongoing effect of the heals he’d cast before Hu Shui’s attack on the creature’s core. Still, it was a few moments before he finally picked himself up and took stock of the situation.

  Benedict had already risen, though his stance was unsteady. Meanwhile, Hu Shui remained on the ground, though Elijah could tell that he was still alive. He limped to his companions, then re-cast his healing spells.

  Once he’d assured himself that everyone was going to be okay, he sank to the ground. He wasn’t exhausted – not exactly – but the constant need to ensure the safety of the others had definitely worn him down.

  It had been most of three days since they’d defeated that first creature, and in that time, they’d battled nine other automatons. Each fight was difficult, though with every iteration, they’d developed a slightly more refined technique of finishing them off. The key was exposing the core so they could separate the creature from its ethereal power source. But that was complicated by the fact that the cores tended to explode in those situations.

  Thankfully, Hu Shui, with his teleportation abilities, was fast enough to do it relatively safely. Still, as the latest fight had shown, doing so didn’t come without significant risk.

  But so far, they’d managed to overcome each automaton without having to start over from the beginning. Even so, Elijah couldn’t escape the existential dread that came from looking at the countdown. Ninety-six lives was a lot, but the implication – that they’d need them – hung over him like a storm cloud.

  Those thoughts accompanied him as he tended to everyone’s wounds. Benedict had some degree of self-healing, but it required a living enemy from which he could drain vitality. Unfortunately, the automatons didn’t count, as they ran off pure ethera.

  Hu Shui was even worse off. He had no self-healing, and he was entirely dependent on his teleportation and speed to avoid being killed. Against such powerful opponents, that was not always enough.

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  But at least Elijah was there to keep him upright and working toward the greater good.

  Once everyone was healed, Elijah pushed himself to his feet and looked around. Predictably, the portal had planted them in the middle of a maze. The walls were weathered, and parts were covered in creeping vines. However, it remained as sturdy as if it had been freshly built, and because it was entirely enclosed, Elijah couldn’t just fly above and mark the route for the others.

  So, in addition to battling the powerful automatons, the way was muddied by the necessity to discern the path they needed to take. To do so, Elijah chose to use the same method he’d employed back in the Sea of Sorrows tower, when he’d been forced to traverse a similar maze.

  The only issue was that it was slow going, and it required quite a lot of backtracking.

  But none of them had reached their current levels without significant willpower, which they employed to keep themselves moving forward. However, on the seventh day, it became clear that they all needed to rest. With that in mind, Elijah deployed his tent, mostly because of the creature comforts it held, and they decided to camp for a few hours.

  Benedict tore into his canned food, while Hu Shui seemed to summon MREs out of nowhere. As Elijah watched them eat food that couldn’t have been very appetizing, he took a massive bowl of whale stew from his Arcane Loop and chowed down. By the time he’d finished, the others were glaring at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “A little hungry?” Benedict asked, an empty can of ravioli having been discarded nearby.

  Elijah shrugged. “I eat a lot.”

  “Clearly.”

  Hu Shui remained silent as he choked down the vaguely food-like pasta from his MRE. Elijah thought it might’ve been spaghetti, but it smelled a little off.

  “How much longer do you expect to be in this maze?” asked Hu Shui, obviously trying to distract himself from his unappetizing meal.

  “There’s no telling,” Elijah answered.

  “If you had to guess?”

  “Weeks, maybe? Primal Realms are meant to take months to conquer, even when they’re attempted by an appropriate number of people,” Elijah answered. “The whole thing could take a year or more. I told you all of this before we left. Did you think I was exaggerating?”

  Hu Shui shook his head. “Hoped, perhaps.”

  “There’s not much room for hope in a Primal Realm. There’s just putting one foot in front of the other and surviving,” Elijah stated. Then, to Benedict, he said, “When we see another –”

  He was cut off by a flash of light followed by a wave of intense heat. A moment later, he was back where they’d started, and the countdown had ticked down to ninety-five. Elijah was so surprised by it that he didn’t even dodge before the automaton’s sapphire-bladed axe removed his head.

  By the next iteration, he’d managed to corral his shock and focus on the task at hand. Thankfully, they’d already established viable strategies to deal with the creatures, so it only took a little adjustment to hit the ground running. Armed with those techniques, they destroyed the automaton the same way they had the first time – by sacrificing it so Benedict could summon another demon. This one was a normal – if a little more powerful than usual – oni-demon.

  In the aftermath, Benedict revealed that summoning the much stronger Infernal Queen required the use of a long-cooldown ability. “It will be a week before I can use it again,” he admitted.

  “What happened?” asked Hu Shui. “What was that bright light?”

  “I don’t know,” Elijah admitted, but he had a suspicion that was confirmed when, a week later, it happened again. This time, he was prepared, so they didn’t sacrifice another death just because they were too shocked to respond.

  “It’s a timer,” Hu Shui stated.

  “Seven days. Probably down to the minute.”

  “Are you saying we need to find our way to the end of the maze in a week?” Benedict asked.

  “I think that’s pretty clear.”

  “Is that even possible?” asked Benedict, clearly wishing he hadn’t entered the Labyrinth of Dead Gods.

  “I don’t know,” Elijah admitted. “But we’re here, and there’s no other way out but forward. And considering we’re on a timer, we need to get going.”

  “What about food? What about rest?”

  “We can’t always afford those luxuries.”

  With that, Elijah strode forward. Armed with foreknowledge of the rough location of the next eight automatons, he led the way with confidence. He didn’t remember the exact route, but this time, he set his mind to memorization. So did the other two, largely because they knew they would need multiple loops to overcome the challenge.

  If they could at all.

  It took six more loops before they reached the spot where the bright light killed them the first time, mostly because, in their haste and impatience, they made plenty of mistakes that ended up getting them killed. The automatons were completely beatable, but there was no room for error. One mistake – even something small – ended in their defeat. And that meant going back to the beginning.

  On top of that, taking a single wrong turn was enough to doom them to failure. With every iteration, it became increasingly obvious that, to find the end of the maze, they would need to be perfect.

  And perfection was hard to come by.

  After that, each loop taught them a little more. Thankfully, the experience from killing the automatons stayed with them, even when they were reborn, so the other two gained multiple levels that made their progress a little easier. Elijah gained experience as well, though he knew he still had a long way to go before he reached level two-fifty. And even when he did pass that milestone, he wouldn’t get any benefits until he found a Branch and evolved his class so he could step into the demi-god tier.

  It was too much to hope that would happen in the middle of a Primal Realm.

  Still, all growth wasn’t tied to levels. Elijah took some of the examples he’d seen from the asharii to heart and used them to push his spells to generate a little more potency. It wasn’t a lot, but every little bit helped.

  In addition, he further refined his fighting style. He’d long since considered himself a master of shifting between his various forms, timing their abilities to produce the results he wanted. However, there was always room for improvement, especially when it came to the expression of combat. A small adjustment here and there made him that much more lethal.

  The familiar foes proved to be a boon. A constant that allowed him to experiment with various techniques and get verifiable results. And Elijah used it to great effect.

  Still, time was always the most potent enemy, and even as they found their way deeper and deeper into the maze, they began to wonder if an end even existed. Hu Shui often suggested that they’d missed some important detail that would have guided them to an entirely different solution. Though try as they might, they found no evidence he was on the right track.

  By the time the counter ticked below fifty, they were sprinting through the maze as quickly as possible. Having long since memorized the path, they barely had to stop to kill the automatons, instead dismantling them with cold efficiency.

  But each time, they found themselves destroyed by that white light.

  Until, at last, everything changed, and they finally broke free of the maze.

  “This…this is unexpected,” Elijah breathed as he looked out across the landscape. A second later, the explosion once again destroyed them. Though Elijah did get the chance to see its origin in the distance.

  And the creature guarding it.

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