The Silver Gate didn't just close; it vanished with a sound like a tomb being sealed. For a heartbeat, there was absolute, soul-crushing darkness. Then, the Labyrinth breathed.
A bioluminescent, sickly green moss began to glow along the damp, jagged walls of the cavern. It didn't provide light so much as it defined the shadows. Hundreds of first-year students stood paralyzed, their breath hitching in the freezing air. The "Safety Evacuation" was already revealing its true face: the air here didn't taste like a sanctuary. It tasted like a stomach.
"Stay together!" a boy's voice cracked from the front of the crowd. It was a noble from the B-Class, his hand glowing with a weak fire spell that guttered in the heavy atmosphere. "Form a perimeter! The instructors said—"
Rumble.
The floor beneath them didn't just shake; it slid. With a deafening grind of stone on stone, the massive cavern floor divided into four separate sections.
"The walls!" Lyra shouted, grabbing Matthew's arm as the ground beneath the F-Class began to tilt and descend into a lower sub-level.
Massive slabs of obsidian dropped from the ceiling, slamming into the earth with bone-shaking force. In seconds, the five hundred students were no longer a crowd. They were isolated clusters, separated by miles of shifting rock and ancient, hungry enchantments.
Matthew looked back. The larger group of students—the ones who had been crying for the Dean's protection—were now walled off behind a thousand tons of granite. Only a handful of students remained in their immediate vicinity: a few terrified E-Class commoners and two trembling Elites who had been unlucky enough to stand too close to the "Void Infected" F-Class.
"Andre, status!" Matthew barked. His violet eyes were the brightest thing in the tunnel, casting long, flickering shadows against the moss.
Andre was frantically tapping at his handheld sensor, but the screen was a mess of static. "The mana-interference is off the charts, Matt! The Labyrinth isn't just a maze; it's a living circuit. The walls move based on the mana-output of the people inside. The more we use magic, the more the maze tries to 'digest' us."
"Then don't use magic," Andrew said, planting his shield.
"Too late," Lyra whispered, pointing upward.
High above in the darkness of the vaulted ceiling, the clicking sound returned, louder this time. It sounded like a thousand metal insects sharpening their mandibles.
One by one, the Labyrinth Sentinels dropped from the shadows. They were horrific fusions of clockwork and bone—spider-like constructs the size of wolves, their bodies etched with the glowing silver runes of the Church. Their "eyes" were polished amber lenses that hummed with a low, killing heat.
"Evaluation begin," a cold, pre-recorded voice echoed from the walls. "Targeting: Unstable Elements. Lethality Level: Absolute."
"They're not testing us," one of the stray Elite students whimpered, falling to his knees as a Sentinel landed just feet away. "This is... this is a cull."
A Sentinel lunged, its bladed legs whistling through the air. Matthew didn't wait for it to reach the terrified student. He moved with a speed that blurred the air, his hand catching the construct's primary sensor-lens.
The "Hollow Saint" energy flared. Instead of a spark, there was a silent implosion. The Sentinel's internal mana-core didn't just break; it was sucked into Matthew's palm. The golden clockwork turned to grey, brittle ash in a second, and the construct collapsed into a pile of junk.
"Matthew, look out!" Andrew yelled.
Three more Sentinels dropped from the ceiling, their amber eyes locked on Matthew. But they weren't the only ones. Across the new walls, the muffled screams of other students began to echo through the stone.
"They're dying out there," Lyra said, her blade erupting in violet fire. "We can hear them, but we can't reach them."
"That's what the Dean wants," Matthew said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, hollow resonance. He looked at the shifting walls, then at the Sentinels circling them. "He thinks he can divide us and conquer us. He thinks the Labyrinth is the hunter."
Matthew stepped forward, the Golden Ring in his eyes spinning with a violent, white-hot intensity. He didn't just look at the Sentinels; he looked at the very walls of the Labyrinth.
"Andre, find me the central vein," Matthew commanded. "If this place is a stomach, I'm going to give it an ulcer it can't survive."
As Matthew prepared to strike, a different sound vibrated through the floor—not the mechanical clicking of spiders, but a deep, rhythmic thud.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The walls at the far end of the tunnel didn't just shift; they were punched inward. A massive, iron-bound foot stepped through the rubble. It was a Goliath Warden, a twenty-foot-tall suit of armor possessed by the spirit of a fallen Crusader.
And perched on its shoulder, looking down at Matthew with a face full of scars and divine madness, was a student they all recognized.
"Found you, Null," the student sneered, his hands glowing with a stolen, jagged light. "The Dean promised me a promotion if I brought him your head. Turns out, the Labyrinth is a great place for a murder."