“Kid, spill your blood!” the Vermilion Demon Lord barked, his voice like molten iron striking a gong. “That Golden Dragon Bloodline of yours sits atop every draconic lineage. A tower built to shackle dragons will kneel to it. Draw the blood, spark the resonance, now!”
Without a heartbeat of hesitation, Jared slashed his own palm with the Dragonslayer Sword. Liquid sunlight, pure dragon essence, thick and gold, splattered across the shimmering ward.
Sizzle! The blood boiled on contact, the way icy rain sizzles on a forge. Runes woven into the barrier guttered, their glow dying, and the once-solid screen quivered like disturbed water.
“This is it! Break it together!” Jared roared.
He, Cyanna, and Coall unleashed every shred of power they had, converging their strikes on the blood-soaked spot.
Crack!
A shattering noise rolled through the tower. A jagged mouth tore open in the fifth-floor shield, wide enough for a man to leap through.
“Move!” Jared dove through first, a streak of crimson and steel. Cyanna and Coall followed him.
The fifth floor was no simple chamber. It was a living maze, corridors folding, walls sliding, space itself grinding like gears out of sync.
Mirror-slick surfaces rose, vanished, re-formed, throwing back endless copies of the trio until direction lost all meaning.
Warped light bent across the air, and every breath vibrated with chaotic spatial ripples.
“Back again, are we? And you brought two new toys to play with?” a childlike voice giggled, ringing from every reflection at once.
Coall’s voice thundered, “Quit hiding and show yourself!”
He slammed a fist the size of a battering ram into the nearest wall.
Boom!
The surface shattered, then instantly regenerated, new panels sliding into place as though the tower had infinite stone to spare.
“Save your strength, Coall,” Jared warned, breath steady though his eyes sharpened. “Brute force won’t help here.”
Activating his Nethersky Eye, Jared swept the maze for a pattern, but the laws woven into this dimension ran deeper than any puzzle he had faced.
For the moment, even that mystical sight found no seam to pick.
“This floor is my playground,” the unseen child sang, delight dripping from every syllable. “So please, keep playing. Play until you drop dead.”
All at once, every mirrored wall around them spat twisted lances of light. Each burning ray carried raw chaotic energy, a power meant to tear matter apart. The beams knifed in from impossible angles, converging like a thousand spiteful spears.
Jared, Cyanna, and Coall slammed their backs together, weapons and will flaring to meet the storm.
Sword intent screamed from Jared’s blade, carving dark seams through the white glare.
Azure Dragon breath curled from Cyanna, weaving a rippling shield. Coall trusted only his hide; stone-tough skin drank the impact head-on. Yet the deluge refused to end.
With every shift of the maze, the assault thickened, each reflection birthing a fresh killing angle.
“We can’t just stand here and take it!”
In the split second that followed, Jared’s mind raced.
*Space… That is its heart… The Beast-Subduing Tower was forged from a Beast Overlord’s core; every brick hums with dimension law.*
Realization flashed across his eyes.
“I’ve got it!” he cried, voice as sharp as the sword in his hand. “The maze isn’t invincible. It has a core node. Find it, and we break free!”
He stopped wasting strength on the walls.
Closing his eyes, he fused his spiritual sense with the Nethersky Eye, feeling for the hidden currents binding the labyrinth. Sight vanished, only the pulse of space remained, a dim blue lattice he perceived rather than saw.
A heartbeat later, he snapped his gaze open and leveled the Dragonslayer Sword at a seemingly ordinary corner sliding across the floor like a hunting shark.
“There! Break that point!”
Cyanna and Coall did not pause to question him. Trust moved their feet before thought, every reserve of strength pouring into the single point his sword illuminated.
Boom!
Their combined strike, bright as sunrise, drilled straight into the hidden node. The entire labyrinth convulsed. Moving walls froze, then shattered like glass, falling away into nothing. Reality settled into a modest stone chamber, no wider than a city jail cell.
At its center crouched a boy of seven, perhaps eight, dressed in a gaudy, flowered coat, hair tied in a braid. His eyes, however, were ancient and cunning. Blood rimmed his lips, skin chalk-white—the backlash of a collapsed maze.
