Kai's breath hitched as the iron blade plummeted toward him, its edges wickedly sharp, gleaming under the dim light of the maze. His body reacted before his mind could fully process the danger—pure instinct, sharpened by years of survival.
With a desperate lunge, he threw himself sideways, feeling the wind of death rush past his face as the blade carved into the ground where he had stood mere moments ago. Stone shattered on impact, dust exploding into the air, filling his lungs with grit as he stumbled forward, barely keeping his balance.
His pulse thundered, heart slamming against his ribs.
That had been close. Too close.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
Behind him, screams still echoed through the maze—some cut off abruptly, others fading into agonized cries before silence claimed them. The traps continued to spring, claiming victims in gruesome bursts of metal and stone.
Kai kept running.
His muscles burned, his soaked clothes clinging to him uncomfortably, but he refused to slow down. He couldn't.
The maze wasn't just testing endurance—it was weeding out the weak, the careless, the ones who weren't ready.
And he refused to be one of them.
But as he rounded the next corner, his breath caught in his throat.
Because what lay ahead was worse than anything he had faced so far.
Kai's lungs burned. His legs screamed in protest with every step, but he forced himself forward, pushing past the pain. There was no room for hesitation—not here, not in this twisted maze designed to devour the weak.
The walls loomed on either side, towering slabs of stone drenched in shadows. The path ahead twisted in unpredictable angles, forcing him to constantly reevaluate his direction. Every second mattered.
A sickening crunch echoed behind him—another body claimed.
He didn't look back.
Then—movement.
To his left, a figure stumbled—a noble boy, his chest heaving, desperation clear in his wide, terrified eyes. Blood smeared across his shoulder, though Kai didn't know if it was his or someone else's.
Before the boy could regain his footing, the ground beneath him suddenly shifted.
A trap.
Stone crumbled, collapsing into darkness.
Kai barely caught the fleeting moment of horror in the noble's face before he vanished, swallowed by the abyss.
A wet, splattering thud followed.
Gone.
Kai clenched his jaw, his breath ragged, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He had expected the maze to be cruel. But this—this was slaughter.
Ahead, a group of nobles sprinted together, desperate to maintain their pace. But that only made them blind to the danger lurking in the cracks of the walls, in the deceptive stability of the ground.
One of them—an arrogant girl with braided silver hair—moved too quickly, too recklessly. The floor beneath her groaned.
A second later, jagged spikes erupted from below, slicing through her like butcher's knives.
Her scream was brief.
The others recoiled, stumbling back, but hesitation was fatal. As one noble stepped away from the carnage, his foot landed on another hidden trigger.
A dozen arrows shot from the walls in an instant.
They tore into him with brutal precision—piercing through his throat, his ribs, his abdomen. His body convulsed, trembling for a split second before collapsing in a broken heap, arrows protruding like grotesque thorns.
Kai swallowed down the bile rising in his throat.
Every instinct told him to run faster, to avoid the same fate, but exhaustion clawed at his limbs. Each stride felt heavier, slower.
And then—
A grinding noise.
His body tensed.
Something was shifting.
He barely had a second to react before the wall beside him groaned open, revealing a mechanism—an iron pendulum, sharpened to a deadly edge, swinging straight toward his skull.
Death was coming for him.
Again.
Kai had no choice.
With every ounce of strength left in his body, he threw himself to the ground, barely dodging as the blade sliced through the air above him, so close he felt the wind from its deadly arc.
Stone shattered where it struck.
Dust clouded the space around him, but he didn't stop. He scrambled to his feet, pushing his body forward, refusing to surrender to fatigue.
Then—an opening.
A glimpse of light beyond the twisting corridors.
The exit.
He wasn't there yet—but he could make it.
If he survived a few more minutes, he could escape this nightmare.
But the maze was not done with him.
Because as he turned the final corner, something new awaited him.
A shadow.
Tall. Immobile. Watching.
Kai barely had time to process the figure before a deep, rumbling voice broke through the chaos.
"You made it farther than I expected."
It was not a praise.
It was a warning.
Because standing before Kai—blocking his path—was something worse than a trap.
Worse than the maze itself.
And in that moment, Kai knew—his struggle had only just begun.