I exhaled slowly, forcing my heartbeat to steady. The air in the collapsing chamber felt heavy, buzzing with leftover mana from the transformation.
Rune's words still echoed in my head. Their last ditch effort.
If we could overcome this… their capture was almost certain.
I tilted my head up, scanning the ceiling. The maze-like walls were still shifting and grinding against each other, but the ceiling...
...It hadn't moved at all.
That's when I sensed it. A faint hum in the air.
Thin, glowing blue threads extended from the ceiling, weaving downward like spider silk, all connecting and merging around the black-haired human.
The light wrapped around them, forming a translucent barrier that shimmered faintly every time mana pulsed through it.
My eyes widened. "That's the defense mechanism around the dungeon core!"
Rune nodded beside me, calm as ever. "That's right. Though it's made of mana, it auto-regenerates until we kill the boss monster."
