Chapter 146: Vertical Maze
The S-Class Spire was even uglier up close.
It rose from the earth like a blackened bone, roughly three hundred feet tall and sixty feet wide at the base. Its surface was made of rough stone that looked like it had been forced upward from deep underground by something massive and angry. Dark veins of red energy pulsed beneath the surface, crawling up the tower like cracks in a dying battery.
The air around it was wrong too.
Team Soup stood at the entrance.
A massive pair of iron doors, fifteen feet tall, had been set into the base of the tower. They were already open, revealing a pitch-black interior that seemed to swallow the morning light around it.
A squad of Royal Guards stood to one side.
Ten of them, all wearing full dress armor. Their captain was a stocky man with a beard trimmed to a perfect point and the kind of confident smile worn by someone who knew he would never be the one walking into a dangerous place.
He gestured toward the entrance.
"Right through there. The doors will seal behind you automatically. Standard Spire protocol."
"How thoughtful," Holden said.
The captain’s smile widened.
"The Emperor sends his regards."
He paused, then added with a grin, "Enjoy the climb, dead meat."
Renna’s hand twitched toward her bow.
Lyra calmly placed a hand on her arm.
"Don’t."
"I’m not doing anything," Renna whispered.
"You were reaching for your bow."
"I was thinking about reaching for my bow."
"That’s usually how it starts."
Holden looked at the captain for another second before turning toward the entrance.
"Let’s go."
He walked through the doors first.
The others followed.
Behind them, the massive iron doors swung shut.
CLANG.
Silence followed.
Total darkness. No light. No sound except for a strange hum vibrating through the walls.
Then Emric’s wrist display flickered on.
A soft blue glow pushed back the darkness, revealing a narrow stone corridor that stretched ahead into nothing. The walls were rough and uneven, covered in faint traces of red energy.
Emric studied the corridor.
"Standard maze configuration. The walls appear to be natural stone reinforced with Abyssal energy. The corridor is approximately eight feet wide, which limits flanking maneuvers and restricts our movement."
He glanced at the others.
"I recommend a tight diamond formation."
"Lead the way," Holden said.
Emric moved to the front with his shield raised. Lyra followed directly behind him, her spear glowing faintly in the darkness. Renna took the rear, an arrow already nocked.
Holden stayed in the center.
His hands were empty.
His sword remained inside his System Inventory.
They moved through the corridors in near silence.
The maze twisted left, then right, then split into three different branches before merging again. Emric navigated carefully, marking certain turns with small scratches on the walls while paying attention to the air currents coming from deeper inside the Spire.
Three minutes passed.
Then Holden stopped.
His 10,000x senses had caught something above them.
A faint scraping sound.
"Ceiling."
Emric stopped immediately.
"How many?"
"Lots of them."
Renna looked up.
The ceiling exploded.
Stone fragments rained down as gargoyles poured from hidden alcoves in the walls and ceiling.
Thirty of them.
Maybe more.
They were about the size of large dogs, with rough gray bodies that looked like carved stone. Bat-like wings stretched from their backs, while their mouths were filled with jagged black teeth. Red Abyssal energy burned in their eyes and leaked through cracks in their bodies.
They dropped straight toward Emric.
"Three from eleven o’clock!" Emric shouted. "Two from two! Steeper angle!"
He didn’t flinch.
He raised his shield and planted his feet.
The first three gargoyles slammed into the barrier together.
BOOM!
Claws scraped across the shield. Teeth snapped inches from Emric’s face. The impact forced him back half a step, but he recovered immediately and shoved his shield forward.
The gargoyles bounced away, stunned.
"Lyra, left group! Renna, right!"
Lyra was already moving.
She swept her spear through the air, and a wave of frost exploded from the blade. The next group of diving gargoyles was caught in the middle of their descent.
Their wings froze solid.
Ice spread across their bodies in seconds, locking them in place.
They dropped.
CRACK!
CRACK!
CRACK!
The frozen creatures shattered as they hit the floor.
"Three down," Lyra said calmly.
She turned toward the next group.
"More coming."
Renna didn’t need to be told twice.
Her bow became a blur.
Twang!
A storm-arrow tore through the darkness and struck a gargoyle directly in the eye.
The creature twisted in midair.
BOOM!
Its head exploded into chunks of black energy.
Renna blinked.
"Got one."
Twang!
Another arrow.
"Got another."
Twang!
A third.
"And another."
She fired again.
"And that one."
Another arrow.
"Okay, they keep coming, but I keep hitting them, so everything is completely under control."
She paused.
"Mostly."
Holden glanced over his shoulder.
"You’re doing fine."
"Thank you!"
"That wasn’t encouragement."
"I’ll take it anyway!"
Three more gargoyles dropped from the ceiling.
Renna fired before they could even spread their wings.
Twang. Twang. Twang.
Each arrow found a weak point.
One struck an eye.
Another hit the joint beneath a wing.
The third went straight through an open mouth.
The 10x cognitive enhancement had turned Renna’s natural accuracy into something terrifying. She wasn’t simply firing quickly. She was reading the creatures’ movements, predicting their paths, and placing her arrows exactly where they would do the most damage.
A gargoyle broke away from the main group.
It dove straight at Holden.
He didn’t even draw his sword.
The creature came screaming through the darkness, claws extended and teeth bared.
At the last possible second, Holden stepped aside.
The gargoyle missed him by inches. It continued forward and flew directly into Lyra’s frost field.
Its wings froze.
The creature dropped from the air and crashed into the floor.
Holden kept walking.
"Try to leave some for me, guys."
"Sorry!" Renna shouted from behind him. "They’re just coming at us so fast!"
She fired another arrow.
Twang!
"See? That one was already coming toward me!"
Holden glanced at the corpse.
"You shot it before it got close."
"Exactly. Very efficient."
"Right."
"Don’t ruin this for me."
The battle lasted roughly four minutes.
Not a single member of Team Soup had taken a hit.
Emric lowered his shield and adjusted his glasses.
"We barely wasted any energy. Our coordinated response time was approximately point four seconds faster than our outpost average."
He looked down at his wrist display.
"The 10x cognitive enhancement is performing extremely well under dungeon conditions."
Renna grinned.
"Translation: we’re awesome."
Emric considered that for a moment.
"Your translation is questionable."
Renna’s smile faded.
"But?"
"Not entirely inaccurate."
Her grin returned.
"I knew it."
Holden shook his head.
"Let’s keep moving before you two start giving each other medals."
They continued deeper into the maze.
Two more gargoyle ambushes came and went.
The first was over in less than two minutes.
The second lasted barely one.
Each fight became smoother than the last. Emric learned to predict the creatures’ attack patterns, while Lyra controlled entire sections of the corridor with her frost techniques, forcing the gargoyles into predictable paths. Renna picked off anything that slipped through.
Holden mostly watched. He didn’t need to interfere.
That was almost the point.
He wanted to see how his team performed when they were forced to rely on their own abilities. If the Spire really contained hundreds of monsters across dozens of floors, he couldn’t spend every second protecting everyone.
Ten minutes after entering the Spire, they reached the end of the first floor.
A heavy stone door stood at the end of the final corridor.
Beyond it, Holden could sense a spiral staircase winding upward into darkness.
But the door was sealed.
Beside it, embedded into the wall, was a small glowing crystal pulsing with faint red light.
Emric stepped closer.
"End of floor one."
He examined the crystal.
"The crystal is likely the floor seal. Destroying it may unlock the stairwell."
Holden reached toward it. His earpiece crackled.
"Holden."
Maeve’s voice was sharp and urgent.
Everyone immediately stopped.
Maeve rarely sounded worried.
"This isn’t normal."
Holden looked at the crystal.
"Define normal."
"I’ve been analyzing the Spire’s energy signatures from the hotel. At first, I thought the readings were just unusual because it’s an S-Class formation, but I found something."
"What?"
"The energy flow."
Maeve paused.
"Natural Abyssal Spires are chaotic. Their energy moves unpredictably through the structure. This one doesn’t."
Holden’s expression grew serious.
"What does it do?"
"It pulses."
Everyone looked at the red crystal.
It brightened, dimmed and brightened again.
Maeve continued.
"I dug through the geological records and compared the current readings against the Crown’s old Abyssal research. There are traces of a synthetic magical structure embedded inside the Spire."
Emric’s expression hardened.
"A magical structure?"
"Yes. A totem of some kind."
Maeve tapped rapidly on her tablet.
"It’s feeding energy into the floors. And the energy isn’t just powering the dungeon. It’s changing the monsters."
"Changing how?" Lyra asked.
"Making them more aggressive. Increasing their numbers. Possibly strengthening them."
The corridor fell silent. Renna slowly lowered her bow.
"So..."
She looked around.
"Someone made the murder tower worse?"
"That’s one way to put it," Maeve said.
"Great."
Renna sighed. "I liked the natural murder tower better."
Even Emric looked slightly amused.
Maeve continued.
"There’s more. The enchantment pattern on the totem matches Royal magical standards."
Lyra’s expression changed.
"Royal?"
"Yes. I’m not saying the Emperor personally built this thing. But whoever modified the Spire had access to Royal-level enchantments."
Emric looked toward the ceiling.
"The timing also makes sense. The Emperor announced the mission almost immediately after the Spire appeared."
Holden stared at the pulsing crystal.
The pieces were starting to fit together.
The strange summons.
The public announcement.
The S-Class classification.
The ninety-five percent mortality rate.
And now this.
"Can you confirm the Crown activated it?" Holden asked.
Maeve hesitated.
"Not completely. I don’t have enough evidence for that."
She paused.
"But the energy network is connected to a control system outside the Spire."
Holden’s expression darkened.
"Where?"
"Somewhere in the Capital."
That was enough.
Lyra’s hand found Holden’s arm.
"So they didn’t just send us into a dangerous dungeon."
Her voice was quiet.
"They made it more dangerous first."
Emric slowly lowered his shield.
"If Maeve is correct, then the Spire has been deliberately modified into a kill zone."
"Exactly," Maeve said.
Renna looked at the red crystal.
"That’s incredibly rude."
Holden almost laughed.
But then his mind went back to the Emperor’s smile. The hand on his shoulder. The threat whispered into his ear.
Refuse, and the law would do his work for him.
The Emperor had expected them to walk into this place and die.
Maybe he expected the Spire to kill them.
Holden looked at the pulsing crystal.
The playful expression disappeared from his face.
"Then we take it apart."
He stepped forward.
"Floor by floor."
Lyra tightened her grip on her spear.
Renna drew another arrow.
Emric raised his shield.
And somewhere deep inside the Spire, something enormous roared.
The sound traveled through the walls.
Holden smiled.
"Looks like they know we’re here."
Renna swallowed.
"I really wish you wouldn’t sound so happy about that."
"Why?"
"Because whenever you smile like that, something usually explodes."
Holden started walking toward the sealed door.
"Then stay close."
Behind him, Renna muttered, "That was not reassuring."
The red crystal pulsed again.
Then the door groaned and began to open.