The moment they crossed the invisible line into the Crystal Labyrinth, the very air grew thick. A humming power vibrated deep within their bones.
Groooan.
With a low, grinding sound like the world tearing itself apart, the forest changed. Smooth, clear walls of pure crystal rose from the ground, moving with the slow, unstoppable force of shifting earth.
Dante heard Erica scream his name.
It was a sound of pure panic that was suddenly cut off as a wall sealed her away. Another wall rose, then another. A symphony of grinding crystal separated each of them, trapping them in their own private, shimmering prisons.
The silver mist swirled, and in the thousand-sided surfaces of the walls, Dante saw his own reflection staring back, twisted and repeated into a silent, watching infinity.
The labyrinth was not a place. It was a living thing. And the trial had begun.
His prison was a hallway of mirrors. The silence was total, broken only by the low hum that seemed to come from the crystal itself. His first instinct was a familiar one: check the situation, give a command, and destroy the threat.
He reached for the cold, hungry power inside him, for the links that connected him to his six shadow slaves. He found nothing.
The connection was there, a faint, distant thread, but it was being blocked by the overwhelming magic of the labyrinth. He could not summon them. He was alone. Truly alone.
The reflections began to move.
It was the orphanage. Not a memory, but a living, breathing copy. The air grew cold, carrying the ghost of a smell of bleach and boiled cabbage. He was a child again, small and thin, huddled in a corner of the sad, grey yard.
The ghostly laughter of the other children felt like shards of glass against his skin. A group of older boys, their faces twisted into cruel, familiar sneers, surrounded his small, reflected self.
"Mistake," one of them hissed, the word echoing from a hundred different angles, made louder by the crystal.
"Garbage," another one spat. "Left on the steps. Nobody wants you."
This was a simple, pathetic attack. It was trying to make him feel a sadness he had killed long ago. "Your words are meaningless," he said to the empty hallway, his voice flat and steady.
But the labyrinth was not just showing him the past. It was making it real. The ghost boys stepped out of the reflections.
They were no longer just images; they were partly see-through figures of shimmering crystal, and they began to close in on him.
"You're still that same little boy," they chanted together, their voices a messy chorus. "Alone. Weak. Unwanted."
He swung a fist, but it passed through the lead ghost's chest with no effect. They laughed, and their crystal hands reached for him.
Their touch was not physical, but it was real. It was a coldness that went deep into his soul, a wave of absolute loneliness that threatened to put out the cold fire of his own will.
It was the weight of every moment he had ever been alone, every time he had been reminded that he was different.
He stumbled back, his heart hammering in his chest. This was not a test of strength. It was an execution of the soul.
He forced the coldness down, rebuilding his mental walls brick by brick. "I am not weak," he growled, his voice a low snarl. "I am strong because I am alone. Loneliness is not my prison. It is my throne."
The ghosts of the bullies flickered and disappeared. The scene shifted. Now, he saw his team. They stood around a campfire, their faces filled with fear and anger. It was a vision of the future.
"He's a tyrant," the crystal version of Masha whispered to Talia, her voice dripping with poison. "He uses us. He uses all of us."
"We have to stop him," the ghost of Talia replied, her hand resting on her poisoned daggers. "Before he decides we're no longer useful."
Then the vision grew darker. He saw Edgar, his loyal lamb, lying dead at his feet, a shadowy blade in his back. His own blade.
The ghost of himself looked down at the body with cold indifference. This was not a warning of betrayal.
This was a reflection of his own dark plans, made bigger and twisted into a weapon against him. The labyrinth was showing him the final result of his own way of thinking.
The final vision was the most horrifying. He was on a throne of bone and crystal, the Manacore Pendant glowing on his chest, the skull of the Bone Dragon a footrest.
He had won. The world was his. But the throne room was empty, silent except for the echo of his own breathing.
"Erica?" he called out in the vision, his voice sounding hollow.
Her ghost appeared before him. She was a burned, broken thing, her eyes empty holes. "You won, Dante," her ghost whispered, its voice the sound of ash on the wind. "You have all the power. You have your victory. And you are utterly, completely alone. Was it worth it?"
The cold he had felt from the bullies' touch was nothing compared to this. This was the chilling terror of an empty victory.
A kingdom of one. An empire of dust.
His logic, his entire way of seeing the world, was being shown to him not as a strength, but as a self-inflicted curse. For the first time, he felt a tremor of doubt. Not fear, not sadness, but the cold, terrifying possibility that his calculations were wrong.
That his hunt for absolute power would lead only to an absolute emptiness.
He gritted his teeth, the sound loud in the silent hallway.
The ghosts, the whispers, the visions, they were all designed to break his will, to infect him with the emotional weaknesses he hated. They wanted him to feel regret.
They wanted him to feel fear. They wanted him to feel lonely.
"No," he whispered, the word a challenge against the crushing weight of the vision. He looked at the ghost of the lonely king on his lonely throne. He looked at the ghosts of his fallen team. He accepted it. He embraced it.
"If that is the price," he said, his voice ringing with a new, terrible certainty, "then I will pay it."
Chime.
The crystal walls around him shook, letting out a long, jarring sound, as if a great bell had cracked. The visions shattered, dissolving into a fine, silver dust.
The labyrinth had thrown its worst at his soul, and his soul had stared back into the darkness and smiled. The hallway in front of him dissolved, revealing a path forward.
[Erica]
The world became a cage of mirrors, and her first, only thought was Dante. He was gone.
The solid, comforting presence that had become the center of her universe was snatched away, leaving a huge, screaming emptiness.
"Dante!" she shrieked, her voice raw with a terror that took over everything. She slammed her hands against the crystal wall that had separated them, her power flaring up without thinking.
WHOOSH!
A wave of fire washed over the clear surface, but it did nothing. The crystal didn't even get warm.
Then the visions began.
On the wall in front of her, she saw him. He was fighting the Orc Champion, but he was losing. The champion's axe came down, and she saw Dante's body break, his shield shattering into a thousand pieces.
She screamed, unleashing a torrent of fire, but the vision was untouched.
To her left, another vision appeared. Dante, cornered by Rhonda's pack. She saw the mace fall, she saw his head snap back, she saw the light leave his eyes.
To her right, he was being dragged under the black water of the dark lake, his hands reaching up, his mouth open in a silent plea.
Everywhere she looked, he was dying. Over and over. Each vision was a unique, perfectly made torture, designed to attack her deepest fear.
Her control shattered. Her mind became a storm of fire and panic.
"Help me, Erica!" his voice echoed from all around her, a chorus of pain. "You're my protector! Why are you letting me die?"
"I'm trying!" she sobbed, launching fireball after fireball. Her mana drained away in a useless, fiery display of desperation. Her hallway became a furnace, the air scorching her lungs, but the crystal remained cool, the visions clear.
Then, the true horror began. A new vision formed, clearer and more stable than the others. It was the battle with the Orcs again.
She saw Dante, wounded on the ground. She saw the champion's axe begin to fall. She was about to scream, to unleash another pointless blast of fire, but then, a new person entered the scene.
Lana.
In the vision, she moved like a storm, her staff a blur of green-tinged iron. She single-handedly tore through the orc horde, her power making Erica's own look small.
She was magnificent. She was terrifying. And she saved him.
The ghost of Dante looked up at her, his face filled with a look Erica had never seen, a look she wanted more than anything. It was pure, complete awe.
"Lana," he breathed in the vision. "You saved me. You're incredible."
Erica watched, frozen, as he reached for her hand. She watched as Lana knelt beside him, her wild, beautiful face softening with a tenderness she had never shown anyone.
And then, the ghost of Dante looked past her, his gaze finding Erica through the crystal wall. His expression turned to one of cold, crushing disappointment.
"You were too slow, Erica," he said, his voice a blade in her heart. "You panicked. You were weak. You failed me."
The world dissolved into a roar of white-hot rage. Her power, fueled by the absolute poison of her jealousy, exploded from her. It was no longer controlled. It was a wild, untamed burst of pure, destructive energy.
The hallway became the heart of a star, the crystal walls glowing with a terrifying, internal light. She was burning herself alive, the pain a distant feeling compared to the pain in her soul.
She didn't care. If she couldn't be his savior, she would be nothing.
But as her own fire began to consume her, a single, clear thought cut through the storm of her rage. The vision.
The disappointment in his eyes. He had called her weak. And what was she doing now? She was losing control. She was acting on pure, blind emotion. She was proving him right.
The thought was a bucket of ice water on her soul.
To be strong for him… it didn't just mean having the power to burn his enemies. It meant having the strength to control that power.
It meant having the discipline to control herself, even when her heart was breaking. Her jealousy, her rage… they were weaknesses. They were the tools the labyrinth was using to destroy her.
With a scream that was torn from the depths of her being, a sound of both pain and defiance, she began to fight back. Not against the visions, but against herself. She wrestled with her own fire, forcing the raging fire back into her core.
It was the hardest thing she had ever done. Every part of her being wanted to let go, to burn everything to ash, starting with herself. But she refused.
Slowly, painfully, the fire went down. The flames licked back into her skin, leaving angry red marks on her arms.
She stood panting in the center of the hallway, her body trembling, her mana almost completely gone. The vision of Dante and Lana flickered, then vanished.
She had faced the reflection of her own greatest fear, and she had not been consumed by it. She was wounded, she was drained, but she was still standing. She was ready.
The low hum of the labyrinth stopped. The silver mist disappeared. With a final, soft chime, the crystal walls slid back into the ground.
They were all standing together again, in a vast, circular room.
They were a wreck. Talia was pale and trembling, Jin was leaning heavily on his sword. Edgar looked like he had seen a ghost.
Even Lana's manic grin was gone, replaced by a quiet, moody silence. They looked at each other, and in their shared, haunted faces, they saw the echoes of their own private hells.
Erica met Dante's eyes across the room. He looked as drained as she felt, but there was a new, hard-won strength in his gaze.
He gave her a single, tiny nod. It was not a gesture of comfort or praise. It was an acknowledgment. A sign of respect from one survivor to another.
In the center of the room, the great amethyst tree pulsed with a soft, internal light. Hanging from its lowest branch, the Manacore Pendant glittered, its captured star a promise of immense power. The path to it was clear.
But as Dante took a step forward, the crystal floor before the tree began to glow. The light grew stronger, and from the ground itself, five figures began to rise.
They were perfect, life-sized copies of them, made from the same flawless, clear crystal as the labyrinth walls. A crystal Dante. A crystal Erica.
A crystal Talia, Edgar, and Lana. They stood between the team and the prize, their many-sided eyes empty, their crystal hands forming weapons identical to their own.
The labyrinth was not done with them yet. Their trial was over. But the final exam was about to begin.