Rayleigh did not ask why.
He grabbed Cassandra by the shoulder and used Shunpo to move her several meters back as Fels and the Guild escort retreated with Merek.
The wall exploded.
Old stone burst into the corridor as something heavy struck the buried Knossos door from inside.
Rayleigh raised his free hand immediately.
"Bakudō #81: Dankū!"
A transparent barrier formed across the passage and caught the debris before it reached the others.
Broken masonry hammered against the shield and dropped into the water, while dust filled the space beyond it.
Another impact followed.
The old Guild seal cracked down the center.
Fels stared through the barrier. "They're trying to open it."
Rayleigh could already see that.
The third impact tore a section of masonry loose, exposing part of the original Knossos door behind it.
Black metal appeared beneath the broken stone, covered in old mechanisms and markings that Merek immediately recognized.
"That's one of the emergency maintenance gates. The main lock is still closed, but the internal release system is moving."
Rayleigh glanced toward him. "Can it open without an Orb?"
"From inside, yes. The designers needed a way to evacuate workers if the external key was lost."
That was information Rayleigh would have appreciated three years earlier.
The metal mechanism shifted again.
Merek continued quickly. "If the internal release finishes cycling, the Guild seal won't matter. The door itself will open underneath it."
Fels raised his staff.
"Can we stop the mechanism from this side?"
Merek shook his head. "You would need access to the lock assembly."
Rayleigh looked toward Benihime.
That was considerably more useful than access.
He dismissed Dankū once the falling debris stopped, stepped through the shallow water, and approached the exposed section of the ancient door.
Another heavy impact came from within.
The mechanism clicked.
Rayleigh placed Benihime's tip against the metal.
Fels understood immediately. "You're going to alter the lock?"
"I'm going to make sure whatever is inside doesn't finish opening it."
Reiatsu surged along Benihime's blade.
Rayleigh did not need Bankai for this.
He had spent years learning how the sword's structure responded to his spiritual pressure even while sealed, and the exposed mechanism was small compared with the constructs he had dismantled beneath Knossos before.
He drove the blade between two moving plates and twisted.
Metal screamed.
The internal mechanism tried to continue cycling.
Rayleigh forced Reiatsu through the contact point and warped the alignment just enough that the next gear struck at the wrong angle.
The entire lock seized.
Something slammed against the other side.
Once.
Then again.
The door held.
Rayleigh withdrew Benihime.
"That's staying closed."
Merek approached carefully and examined the damaged mechanism through the broken masonry. "You destroyed the emergency release."
"I prefer permanently discouraged."
Merek gave him a long look before deciding not to argue about vocabulary.
Cassandra suddenly drew Yumeutsutsu.
Everyone turned toward her.
She had not released the Zanpakutō, but the scabbard was covered in red petals now, far more than Rayleigh had seen since the Apollo War Game.
Her expression was tense.
"The person in my dream moved away from the door."
Rayleigh looked toward the sealed entrance.
"Because we stopped them?"
"I don't think so."
Cassandra closed her eyes for several seconds, trying to hold onto the changing dream without forcing meaning into it.
When she spoke again, her voice was quieter.
"They're going somewhere else."
Fels immediately looked toward Merek.
"How many internal emergency gates connect to this section?"
Merek was already studying the old map.
"Three that I know of, although only one should still reach the surface. Another was collapsed decades ago, and the third connects deeper into Knossos."
Rayleigh stepped beside him.
"Which one is closest?"
Merek traced the old route with one finger.
"About six hundred meters east, beneath the abandoned dye works."
Rayleigh looked toward Fels.
"We don't wait for another Guild team. Send the escort back through the surface route and tell Shakti to seal the streets above the dye works. Cassandra stays with Fels and Merek."
Cassandra immediately frowned. "My dream is the reason we know where they're moving."
"And that's why I need you alive enough to keep having it. You're not trained for a Knossos pursuit."
She clearly disliked the answer, but she also knew he was right.
Fels raised his staff. "I'll bring them through the safer route and continue tracking the dream. You intend to reach the second gate first."
"Yeah."
Rayleigh sheathed Benihime and touched Shinsō's hilt instead.
The passage ahead was narrow, straight in several places, and likely occupied.
Perfect.
He moved before anyone could turn the decision into another meeting.
...
The old maintenance route east of the sealed gate was barely large enough to qualify as a corridor.
Rayleigh covered the distance with Shunpo whenever the ground allowed it, switching to ordinary movement only where collapsed masonry or flooded sections made blind acceleration stupid.
Ruri'iro Kujaku's vines travelled ahead along the walls and ceiling, warning him of intersections before he reached them.
He found the first lookout less than two minutes later.
The man was hiding inside a recessed maintenance alcove with a loaded crossbow aimed toward the western approach.
Rayleigh appeared behind him.
One hand closed around the weapon before the man could fire.
"Quiet."
The lookout tried to turn.
Rayleigh struck him once behind the ear and lowered the unconscious body to the floor.
A black wrist mark showed beneath his sleeve.
Old Evilus.
He bound the man's arms with Bakudō #1: Sai and continued east.
The second group was more prepared.
Four people waited around the next junction, two with swords and two holding small alchemical launchers similar to the poison equipment found at Monsterphilia.
They reacted the moment Ruri'iro Kujaku's vines entered the corridor.
One launcher fired.
Rayleigh raised a circular barrier.
"Bakudō #39: Enkōsen!"
The dart struck the shield and shattered.
He was already moving before the fragments hit the floor.
Shunpo carried him past the two swordsmen.
Rayleigh struck one across the ribs with Shinsō's sheath and drove his elbow into the second man's jaw before either finished turning.
The alchemists retreated together.
One fired another dart while the other reached for a glass sphere at his belt.
Rayleigh pointed two fingers between them.
"Bakudō #62: Hyapporankan!"
The blue-white rod multiplied as it crossed the corridor, pinning both men against opposite walls before the glass sphere could leave the second man's hand.
Rayleigh caught it carefully.
Green liquid moved inside.
He placed it on the floor well away from everyone and restrained the entire group.
None had time to kill themselves.
That was progress.
He continued.
The vibration reached him before the second gate came into view.
This time the mechanism was already moving.
Rayleigh rounded the last corner and found the old Knossos entrance exposed completely.
Whoever had worked here had removed the Guild masonry days or weeks ago and replaced it with a false wall that could be dismantled from inside the maintenance tunnel.
Three people stood before the open mechanism.
One was operating a crude magical device connected to the lock through cables and metal probes.
The other two were watching the door.
The person on the far side was watching back.
A narrow gap had already opened between the Knossos doors.
Through it, Rayleigh saw an eye.
A human.
The figure inside noticed him at the same moment.
"Close it!"
The three Valletta agents reacted instantly.
The operator ripped a lever downward while one of the guards charged Rayleigh and the other threw a Flame Rock cylinder toward the device.
Rayleigh drew Shinsō.
"Shoot to kill, Shinsō."
The blade extended through the corridor in a silver line.
It passed beside the charging guard, pierced the Flame Rock cylinder before it reached the mechanism, and pinned it harmlessly against the far wall before retracting.
Rayleigh caught the swordsman's attack with Benihime in his other hand and drove a kick into the man's knee.
The joint buckled.
Rayleigh struck him across the temple with Benihime's guard and moved past him before the second attacker could reach the controls.
Shinsō extended again.
The narrow blade pierced the machine's main lever and tore it free.
The magical device died with a shower of sparks.
The Knossos door stopped moving.
The gap remained open barely twenty centimeters.
Enough for Rayleigh to see the person standing inside.
A woman.
Dark clothing, short hair, face partially covered by a leather mask.
She held a narrow sword in one hand and stared at him through the opening with a calmness that did not match the situation.
Rayleigh stepped closer.
"You're not Valletta."
The woman's eyes narrowed slightly.
"No."
Her voice came clearly through the gap.
One of the captured agents behind Rayleigh tried to move.
He did not look away from the woman.
"Bakudō #9: Geki."
Red light paralyzed the man before he reached the dropped weapon.
The woman inside Knossos watched the spell with obvious interest.
Rayleigh studied her spiritual pressure.
'Experienced.'
'Probably Level Three.'
'Maybe higher.'
Most importantly, she did not carry the same desperate fanaticism as the Evilus members he had fought outside.
"You've been opening the gates for her."
The woman rested one hand against the inner mechanism.
"Valletta has been opening them for us."
That answer was worse.
Rayleigh's expression hardened.
"Who is 'us'?"
A faint vibration travelled through the door.
The woman's eyes shifted somewhere behind her.
She stepped away from the gap.
Rayleigh moved immediately, thrusting Benihime into the opening before the gate could close.
Steel struck steel.
For several seconds, the ancient mechanism fought against the blade wedged between the doors.
Rayleigh forced them apart another few centimeters.
The woman had already disappeared into the darkness.
He could hear movement beyond the entrance, more than one person.
Rayleigh stopped trying to widen the gap.
He had no backup inside Knossos, did not know the route beyond the gate, and had no intention of repeating the sort of reckless decision Alfia would spend the next week insulting him for.
Instead, he drove Benihime deeper into the locking assembly.
The metal warped.
The door slammed shut around the blade.
Rayleigh pulled it free at the last instant.
The mechanism seized again.
Silence returned to the corridor.
Fels arrived several minutes later with Cassandra, Merek, and additional Guild adventurers.
Rayleigh was waiting beside the ruined control device while Shakti's people restrained the three captured agents.
Cassandra stopped before the gate and touched Yumeutsutsu.
The red petals along the scabbard slowly faded.
"The dream stopped changing."
Fels looked toward Rayleigh. "What happened?"
"There was someone inside Knossos. She said Valletta has been opening gates for them, which means we've been looking at this from the wrong direction."
Merek approached the damaged mechanism and stared at it for several seconds before looking toward the sealed door.
Rayleigh continued, keeping the explanation simple.
"Valletta isn't only trying to regain access to Knossos. She's maintaining contact with a group already living inside it, and they've been using these old emergency gates to establish routes back toward the city."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
Merek placed his palm against the ancient metal and felt the faint vibration still travelling through it.
When he finally looked back at Rayleigh, his expression had become deeply uneasy.
"The pressure we've been recording is coming from deeper inside the labyrinth. Valletta has been answering it from this side, and whoever is down there has been waiting for her to give them a usable way back into Orario."