The Descent Continues

The descent felt endless.

Arios had lost track of how long he and Liza had been walking down the spiraling stone stairs. The walls around them were smooth, carved from the same material as the rest of the dungeon, but now they pulsed faintly with a red hue instead of blue. The shift in color told him one thing — they had passed into the lower strata. Whatever awaited them next wasn't part of the original structure.

Liza's footsteps echoed softly behind him. She had stopped talking a while ago, conserving her breath. Arios could tell from her posture that she was alert, not tired — her hand was never far from her weapon, and her eyes scanned every corner they passed. She wasn't nervous. She was calculating, just like him.

At last, the staircase ended. They stepped into a new floor that immediately felt different from the others. The temperature dropped several degrees, and the faint drip of water echoed from unseen cracks in the walls. The air carried a strange metallic tang, and the red light from the walls seemed to pulse in slow rhythm, like a heartbeat.

"This isn't natural," Liza muttered. "It feels like something's breathing."

"It's reacting to mana signatures," Arios said. "The walls here are feeding on ambient energy. Probably converting it to sustain the illusions."

"So, same kind of mess, just more dangerous."

"Pretty much."

They started forward again, their boots crunching over loose gravel. The floor was uneven — pieces of collapsed stone and crystal littered the ground. Every few steps, faint whispers echoed faintly through the corridors, but there were no visible sources.

Arios slowed his pace and knelt by one of the broken crystals, brushing away the dust. "Fresh," he said. "This section shifted recently."

Liza crouched beside him. "Think the others might be close?"

"Maybe. Or they passed through before the shift."

She sighed. "I hate that answer."

He stood again, scanning ahead. "It's the only one we've got."

They pressed on. The passage widened gradually until it opened into a cavernous space, easily ten times larger than the previous chambers. The floor was covered in shallow water that reflected the red light in uneven ripples. Thick stone pillars rose toward a ceiling they couldn't see.

Something about the layout made Arios uneasy. It was symmetrical — too symmetrical. The pillars were spaced at precise intervals, and faint markings ran between them like lines connecting points in a web.

"Don't step in the water yet," he said.

Liza stopped immediately. "Trap?"

"Likely. The pattern's deliberate. See those etchings between the pillars?"

She followed his gaze. "Yeah… I see them."

"Looks like a summoning matrix. Probably dormant until activated."

She exhaled through her nose. "So we can't go around it."

"No. But we can test it."

Arios crouched, picked up a loose stone, and tossed it into the water. The reaction was instant. Red light flared along the etched lines, spreading through the chamber in a lattice. The ripples in the water grew violent, then stilled — and from the center, something began to rise.

A humanoid shape broke the surface. Then another. And another. Within seconds, the water was crawling with figures — distorted copies of academy students, all made from black mana residue, their eyes empty, their forms flickering in and out of focus.

Liza's hand went to her weapon. "Shadows again."

"Not quite," Arios said, tightening his grip on his sword. "These are mirror phantoms."

"Meaning?"

"They mimic us."

Before she could respond, the first phantom lunged forward. Arios met it head-on, his blade clashing against an identical copy of his own stance. The impact sent a sharp vibration up his arm. The phantom's face was blank, but its movements were perfect — a mirror of his technique.

Liza moved beside him, slashing through her own duplicate. The phantom dissolved into mist, but two more took its place. "They keep reforming!"

"They're reflections," Arios said. "The matrix keeps re-projecting them as long as the link's active."

"So we destroy the link."

"Exactly."

He broke away from the melee, sprinting across the shallow water. The red runes flared beneath each step, trying to pull his mana, but he countered the drain by cycling energy through his core, forcing the runes to overload. The air hissed, cracks spreading along the etched lines.

Behind him, Liza kept the phantoms busy, slamming one after another into the pillars, each impact echoing like thunder. Her blade glowed faintly from the mana reinforcement, each swing sharper than the last. The phantoms adapted fast, but not fast enough to match her tempo.

Arios reached the central node — a large rune glowing brighter than the rest — and drove his sword into it. The effect was immediate. The entire pattern flashed once, then shattered. The water surged outward, and every phantom in the chamber flickered violently before collapsing into mist.

Silence followed.

Liza lowered her blade, breathing heavily. "Please tell me that was the worst of it."

Arios pulled his sword free and wiped it clean. "It's never the worst of it."

"Of course not."

They regrouped near the far wall, where a faint doorway shimmered into view — the kind that only appeared after a floor objective was completed. Liza leaned against a pillar, rolling her shoulders. "You know, for an exam, this is starting to feel more like a survival test."

"That's probably the point."

She glanced at him. "You think the academy planned all this?"

Arios paused before answering. "If they did, then they knew exactly what kind of dungeon this was before sending us in."

"And if they didn't?"

"Then someone else did."

That thought hung between them as they approached the doorway. The red light flickered, dimmed, and then vanished, leaving only the faint blue shimmer of a standard portal. Liza stepped through first. Arios followed.

The next floor was different again. It was quiet — eerily so. The air smelled clean, the walls smooth, and the lighting was neutral white rather than the red hue from before. A long corridor stretched ahead, lined with doors on either side.

Liza frowned. "Looks like… dorm halls?"

Arios examined the nearest door. "No mana flow behind it. It's empty."

They walked further in. The hall seemed to repeat endlessly — same walls, same lighting, same silence. Every time they passed three doors, another identical set appeared ahead.

"Loop illusion," Arios said.

"How do we break it?"

"Find the anchor."

They continued walking, testing doors, checking walls, but the hall refused to change. Even after turning back, they ended up in the same place. Liza stopped eventually, irritation clear in her voice. "This is ridiculous."

Arios didn't respond immediately. He knelt again, pressing his palm against the floor. After a few seconds, faint symbols appeared under his hand. "Found it."

"What is it?"

"Anchor sigil. It's using reflection layers to keep us trapped."

"So we destroy it?"

He shook his head. "No. Destroying it will reset the loop, not break it. We need to invert it."

Liza watched as he began tracing counter-sigils into the floor, muttering quiet calculations under his breath. When the last symbol was complete, the air around them shifted — the corridor twisted, the lighting dimmed, and all the doors vanished at once. A single archway appeared at the far end.

"Now that's more like it," Liza said.

Arios stood, dusting off his hands. "Let's hope this leads somewhere real."

They walked through the archway together.

The space beyond was a massive circular hall. The air was cooler here, and the floor was marked with layered circles of runes, similar to the teleportation platform from before. But this one was darker, older. At the center stood a tall obelisk of black crystal, its surface swirling faintly with inner light.

Liza approached cautiously. "Think this is the core?"

"No," Arios said. "But it's connected to it."

He studied the obelisk closely. The mana flowing through it wasn't uniform — it pulsed irregularly, like something was interfering with it. He could see faint strands of external energy tethered to the sides, feeding into unseen sources.

Liza folded her arms. "You're thinking Garron again."

"I'm sure of it now," Arios said. "He's using the dungeon's control nodes to channel external mana. That's why it's been unstable."

"Then this whole exam was a cover."

"Exactly."

Liza stepped back, exhaling slowly. "So what do we do?"

Arios looked up at the obelisk, eyes narrowing. "We find the core. Then we cut him off."

"Easier said than done."

"Always is."

He placed a hand on the obelisk's surface. The moment his skin made contact, a surge of energy rippled through him. Images flashed across his mind — fragments of rooms, symbols, and faces. Among them, he saw a faint silhouette that resembled Garron, standing before a console surrounded by glowing blue light.

Arios jerked his hand away. "He's deeper in."

Liza straightened. "How deep?"

"Past the next two sectors, maybe three."

She groaned softly. "Of course it can't be one."

Arios glanced toward the other side of the hall. Another doorway had appeared, faintly glowing. "Come on. We're not stopping now."

As they walked toward it, Liza muttered, "You know, you could at least pretend this doesn't excite you."

He gave her a sideways look. "Would that make you feel better?"

"Maybe."

He didn't answer. They stepped through the door.

The world shifted again.

And the dungeon continued to change shape around them.

The descent wasn't over.

Not even close.

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