Then, Everett fell to the floor. At the same time, Lucian yelled, "Master!" as he threw a spell at the General—Frozen Bind. Multiple strings appeared from his left fingers, wrapping tightly around the General.
...
The light-blue tethers of Lucian's spell tightened around the General, rooting him to the spot. Roland looked down at the glowing magic, his expression a mask of feigned shock. "Ohh?"
Everett shook his head, his eyes bleary as he was jolted back to reality by Lucian's frantic call. "Wh-what h-happen…?"
"You're being brainwashed," Lucian said, his voice taut with urgency.
"What do you mean…?" Everett struggled to find his footing, his mind a fog of grief and confusion.
"The Gale. I noticed a sick, oily darkness seeping out along with the winds. I think it's what's affecting your mind," Lucian explained, eyes never leaving the General.
Roland let out a sharp, melodic giggle that didn't match the situation at all. "I didn't think you would be able to move inside my spell, little guy~~"
Lucian ignored the taunt, focusing entirely on his mentor. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine now. I think that conversation... it made everything worse." Everett took a ragged breath. He tried to step forward, but his legs were still leaden; Roland's Gale magic was still active, pinning them down even though the man himself was bound. "How… can you move…?"
"I sought her help. I felt the same ambience as her in this place," Lucian whispered.
"And what's… that?"
"I can't say for sure. But they are related. I can feel it." Lucian's voice trailed off in a shiver of horror.
"What are y'all whispering about?" the General interrupted. Because the gale-force winds were still radiating outward, the sound was being sucked away from him, leaving him deaf to their exchange.
Then, without warning, the winds died. The silence that followed was deafening.
The General smirked, his eyes glinting with a dangerous playfulness. "I wanted to hear the rest of your conversation, so I cancelled the spell. Please, don't mind me. Continue!"
Lucian and Everett shared a look of pure dread. Finally, Lucian stepped forward. "You're buying time, aren't you?"
The door behind the General creaked open. March stepped out, his face hardening as he took in the scene—the General in chains and two intruders on the stairs. "What's happening here? And who are they?"
"Isn't it obvious? We got tracked, you idiot!" Roland whimpered with mock annoyance.
"How? I didn't sense a thing." March's brow furrowed.
The General giggled again. "Neither did I. I guess they outclass our senses, huh?"
March clicked his tongue, his irritation mounting. "Did they find anything?" "Just a few things," Roland replied airily. "What do you mean 'just a few'?! This was supposed to be a secret!" The General gave a lazy, captive shrug. "Well... I told them some. Mostly just my story. Oh, and about the Stone of Gaia. But now that you're here, is it time to eradicate them?" March looked at him with pure disdain. "Look at you. You can't even break a simple binding spell and you're talking about killing them?"
The General's giggle turned into a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated in the small space. "What makes you think I can't?" He stood up straight, his posture shifting from victim to predator in a heartbeat. Suddenly, the oxygen in the room began to vanish, sucked toward the General like a starving vacuum. A heartbeat later, a massive concussive blast of air erupted from his body.
The Frozen Bind didn't just break—it shattered into a thousand shards of light.
Lucian and Everett threw their arms up to shield their faces. Too much effort for just an intermediate spell… Lucian thought, his stomach churning. He gripped Everett's shoulder. "Something terrible is coming."
He looked at March and Roland. They weren't just confident—they were smiling with a sickening, wide-eyed joy.
Then, with a casual snap of March's fingers, the world gave way. The stone beneath them didn't just crack; it dissolved. The floor and stairs turned into a jagged rain of debris.
Lucian and Everett plummeted into the dark. Grit and dust choked their lungs, but Lucian kept his eyes fixed upward. He saw the ledge receding, but March and the General weren't there. They weren't falling, and they weren't watching. They had simply vanished.
"Flight!" Lucian screamed, reaching for his mana.
The spell caught him like an invisible tether, jerking him out of the freefall. He banked through the air, diving toward the flailing figure of Everett and catching him mid-plunge just before he hit the dark floor below. He guided their descent, landing them softly in a heavy, suffocating gloom.
One by one, torches along the walls ignited in a rhythmic pulse, like a waking heart.
The light revealed a hallway that felt less like architecture and more like an esophagus. The walls were dark obsidian, etched with continuous, pulsating curves that seemed to throb. The torches flickered with a sickly, hungry orange glow.
Everett wiped the dust from his face, his voice tight with panic. "We need to go back. Now." He looked at Lucian. "You can still use flight magic, right?"
Lucian gave a sharp nod. Grabbing Everett again, he surged upward.
As they rose toward the breach, the details became grimmer. Lucian saw frayed, snapped ropes dangling near the hole. But it was the walls that stopped his heart. Thick, crimson smears painted the stone—wet, glistening, and smelling of copper.
He drifted closer, his fingers grazing the surface. The metallic tang was thick enough to taste. "This is blood," Lucian whispered. "And it's fresh."
Suddenly, the masonry groaned. It wasn't the sound of stone shifting—it was a wet, grinding noise, like bone knitting back together. The edges of the hole began to stretch and crawl toward each other like a closing wound.
"Master, move!" Lucian yelled.
Seeing they were about to be sealed in, Lucian cut the flight spell. They dropped in a controlled freefall to gain speed. Everett hit the ground first and braced himself, catching Lucian in an impact that knocked the wind out of both of them.
Everett set him down, hands shaking. "What happened? Why did you drop?"
Lucian didn't answer. He just pointed up.
The ceiling was seamless. The hole hadn't just closed; it had vanished. Where the breach had been, there was only smooth, dark stone, without a single crack. No seams, no dust, no evidence of a hole at all.
"It's not just closing," Lucian whispered, his face turning a ghostly pale in the torchlight. "I saw the ropes. I saw the stains. That hole didn't shut... it healed."
He looked down the long, curved hallway as a deep, wet thrum vibrated through the floor. "We aren't in a ruin, Master. We're inside a labyrinth that's being fed. The labyrinth is alive."