Kane stood at the threshold of the inverted room, his body anchored to the impossible ceiling by the strange gravity of this vertical city. It was his first time standing "upside down," and the sensation was disorienting, a constant assault on his spatial awareness. "Seriously, my luck is weird," he muttered, the words feeling heavy in the air.
He bent his neck upwards, his gaze tracing the impossible angles to where Linia waited at the other, lower door, a tiny figure in the distance. She met his gaze, her mouth curling into a determined smile, and nodded. At the count of three, they both opened their respective doors and stepped inside.
Kane sighed deeply as he entered. Luckily, his new Memory, [Levitation Cloak], allowed him to traverse the opposite direction, granting him the surreal ability to fly through the twisted space.
He found himself in a vast, overgrown garden that surrounded a house. It was a dull, mournful garden, its once vibrant hues leached into shades of decay, with a small, immaculate mansion at its center. The architectural style was completely different from anything he had seen in the maze so far. It was pristine white, crafted from glistening marble, and the mansion boasted enormous glass windows framed with intricate metal rims. Large, fluted pillars supported the structure, hinting at multiple floors within.
'Did I just get trapped in a nightmare scenario?' Kane thought, the stark, unsettling beauty of the place filling him with dread. 'This architecture isn't what Professor Julius taught in his classes. It's alien.' Ethereal lights glowed softly within the mansion, a deceptively inviting beacon.
Kane spent several tense minutes circling the garden, meticulously checking his surroundings. The grass was cut into bizarre, unfamiliar shapes, not decorative hedges, but grotesque, organic sculptures that shifted and distorted in his peripheral vision. It was as if he had stepped into a different world, one shaped by a mad, artistic hand.
As he finished his cautious reconnaissance, Kane entered the mansion through one of its grand, white doors. He found himself in a large bedroom, dominated by a huge white bed draped with silken curtains. The entire floor was covered with a plush, pristine mat, luxurious beyond anything he had expected.
'There isn't anything bad here,' Kane thought, the absence of overt danger itself being the most chilling aspect. 'That's what's giving me the creeps.' The walls were covered in all sorts of paintings, their subjects obscured by a strange, hazy shimmer.
He slowly walked around, his senses on high alert, searching for any hidden traps, any sign of the grotesque. 'Seriously,' he mused, a cold sweat trickling down his spine, 'if there was any danger, this would be its sanctuary.'
Kane exited the room and explored the rest of the mansion. Grand staircases spiraled upwards with an almost decadent richness, leading to more pristine, empty rooms. After exploring every nook and cranny, a perplexing thought solidified in his mind. 'Clearly, there's no monster here. So how am I supposed to clear this and move on?'
He returned to the opulent master bedroom he had first entered. As he stood in the center of the room, his eyes fell upon a particular painting, covered by a pristine white cloth. A primal curiosity, or perhaps a premonition, compelled him. Kane removed the cloth, revealing a portrait of a nude woman with long, flowing brown hair, strategically covered with delicate flowers. She was depicted in a languid, sitting position.
The woman's beauty was exhilarating, a radiant force that transcended anything he had ever seen. She was even more beautiful than Linia, Cassie, or Nephis. Her ethereal allure was off the charts, almost otherworldly. Kane's face flushed with a blush, and he thought, 'Damn, she's beautiful.'
Suddenly, an icy shiver raced down his spine, a primal warning that bypassed his intellect and struck straight at his core. Kane immediately spun around, his new armor rattling softly, but there was nothing there. Yet, the sensation persisted—something was watching him, something ancient, overwhelming, and reeking of utter destruction.
Kane immediately summoned a sword using [Sleeper Killer] and, following an instinct, was drawn to a nearby safe. It stood open, revealing its contents: a pure white, palm-sized bone statue vaguely resembling the beautiful woman in the painting. Her hair reached her ankles, and each strand was intricately carved with distinct, snake-like eyes, some open, some tightly shut, densely packed and unsettling.
Kane reached out to pick up the statue.
Suddenly, a searing pain lanced through his back. Kane instinctively activated his [Wood Shell] in a flash of dark, chitinous armor, and propelled himself backward. Standing where he had been was the woman from the painting, impossibly real, impossibly seductive. Her beauty radiated outward, so intoxicating that Kane felt his body heat spike, his will momentarily subdued by her mesmerizing presence.
He recognized the danger instantly. This was no ordinary beauty; this was a weapon. Kane, with a desperate act of self-preservation, stabbed his own hand with the summoned sword, the sharp pain cutting through the haze of enchantment. The woman opened her mouth, uttering a series of melodic, haunting sounds, but Kane couldn't understand a single word. Her smile widened, revealing a malicious glint in her eyes. Both the woman and Kane took a combat stance.
The opulent master bedroom, draped in silk and velvet, became an arena of immediate, visceral conflict.
The Woman vanished in a flicker of movement, her invisibility instantaneous. Kane didn't flinch. His [Levitation Cloak] flared a deep, furious crimson, lifting him an inch above the floor. Good timing, too; the marble beneath his ghosted feet frosted over, the entire flooring transforming into a treacherous sheet of ice that shimmered with cast-off light from the crystal chandelier.
Kane's arm snapped forward, the air around his hand warping as the [Sleeper Killer] manifested—a thick, serrated short sword, obsidian black and hungry. He spun, swinging not at a visible target, but through an anomaly, a ripple in the air that only his heightened senses could detect.
It was enough. The air resistance was met by a net of Threads—thin, almost invisible strands, hair-fine and diamond-tough—that scraped across the sword's edge with a high-pitched screech, leaving tiny abrasions. The Woman reappeared, a stunning, lethal vision, her silver hair whipping as she pulled the threads taut, attempting to bind Kane's arms and legs.
"Too slow," Kane grunted, his voice a low growl from within his helmet. The Threads might have held steel, but they couldn't bind a concept, a changing form. The sword dissolved into a heavy, flanged mace, and Kane brought it down not on her, but on the mirrored bedside table. Glass, wood, and marble exploded outward in a chaotic symphony of destruction. The threads, momentarily severed by the debris, snapped back, lashing the air like furious whips.
Furious at her failure to restrain him, the Woman shifted tactics. She didn't retreat; she attracted. Her beauty became an intoxicating, distracting wave, radiating outward in an attempt to bewitch him, but Kane was past seduction, past enchantment. Her skin began to smoke as Black Flames erupted from her palms, coalescing into a dense, terrifying sphere of condensed inferno.
She hurled the condensed flame—a cannonball of pure, scorching destruction. Kane took the hit head-on.
The impact was bone-shaking, throwing him through the silk-draped four-poster bed, shattering the ornate frame. A searing, agonizing pain tore through his chest as the Woman detonated the flame from a distance, the force rupturing the skin and muscle beneath his ribs. Blood, dark and arterial, soaked the ruined mattress.
But the pain was a catalyst. The moment his blood touched the fine sheets, the dormant [Wood Shell] activated with a terrifying, organic surge. Thick, gnarled plates of dark, chitinous armor burst forth from his skin, encasing his torso and limbs. The cracks in the armor glowed with the residue of the Woman's Black Flames, and the Black Flames coursing through him were consumed, fueling his strength. His roar of pain transformed into a guttural bellow of pure, unfettered rage.
"You burn me, I grow stronger," Kane snarled, tearing a jagged piece of the bed frame from the floor to use as a makeshift shield.
Seeing her damage backfire, the Woman spat a drop of blood onto the plush carpet, murmuring a quick, guttural Curse. Kane felt his movements stiffen, his senses dull, but the effect was minimal; his Wood Shell, now hardened by rage and pain, shrugged off the systemic assault. She was out of time.
Kane lunged. The [Sleeper Killer] appeared again, but this time not as a mace. It was a massive, two-handed Glaive, wickedly curved and wide as a man's torso, its edge gleaming with malicious intent. He swung low, with bone-shattering force, severing the Woman's right arm at the elbow.
A fountain of blood stained the far wall, splattering the golden mirror hanging there. But as her severed arm hit the carpet, the Woman was gone.
A crystalline Mirror Substitution flickered on the wall, and she instantly materialized across the room, unharmed, leaning on a heavy brass staff that had materialized beside her—the medium for a potential Staff Substitution. Her face was no longer serene; it was contorted in a snarl of panicked desperation.
Kane understood: her substitutions relied on mediums—breakable objects. For an extreme, decisive victory, he couldn't just kill her; he had to destroy every escape route simultaneously.
He didn't swing. He exploded.
His [Levitation Cloak] pulsed, and Kane, powered by the maximum fury of his Wood Shell, became a blur of unstoppable force. The Glaive vanished, replaced by a twin-horned, heavy Siege Hammer—the apex of the [Sleeper Killer]'s destructive power.
He brought the Hammer down in a collapsing arc of kinetic energy. The target wasn't the Woman, but the building itself, the very foundations surrounding her.
The Hammer struck the floor.
The impact of the blow didn't just break the ice or the marble; it shattered the foundation of the mansion. A shockwave of pure force annihilated the immediate area. The brass staff, the golden wall mirror, and the Woman herself were seemingly pulverized in the same instant. The ceiling of the first floor groaned and collapsed.
The Mirror Substitution medium was destroyed before it could trigger. The Staff Substitution medium disintegrated into dust before the magic could transfer her soul.
The Woman's body was reduced to a spray of crimson mist and bone fragments. She did not substitute. She simply ceased.Luckily,The mansion is weak than its appearence
Kane stood alone in the gaping crater where the bedroom had been, the dust settling around his blood-soaked, crackling Wood Shell. The silence was broken only by the mournful drip of blood from the collapsing chandelier.
The victory was total. The difference, extreme.