The hiss of sliding grains was relentless.

The grains of sand beneath his feet were hot like the one he could find outside. These grains had somehow seeped inside his socks and were hindering him already.

Sand streamed in from unseen cracks, curling around his boots and swallowing them whole. Each second stole another inch of ground. Perhaps it was coming from the murals themselves or perhaps this was from somewhere else, he did not know.

But his eyes were gliding around the chamber…

He clenched his fists and stared at the walls. Every surface around him pulsed faintly…

Unity was showing him the packs of energy, the glowing balls of light that she was seeing through her eyes.

He looked up. Through her vision, he could see the things that she was talking about, the small, glowing balls of light.

The first one was difficult to notice, but he started seeing clearly after a moment. The first one, then another. And another. These Orbs of light were embedded in the architecture itself, throbbing like heartbeats.

Unity tried to highlight these orbs with her steps, hopping from one orb to the next, tracing a pattern across the ceiling and walls.

'Wait a minute…' After not understanding anything, KiRA felt his stomach twist when his eyes suddenly saw something.

These orbs… they weren't scattered.

[{ "Uni! Use the flames to mark them please. I think this is it!" }]

-Surrrrrrrr…

The sand kept filling the chamber and all around them, there was blood from the creatures that were constantly dying each passing second.

There was a dark fog filling the room already. Some of the smaller creatures were already falling to the ground after getting affected by this mist.

[{ Master! I'm done! }]

KiRA looked at the traced order of the orbs, and his eyes sparked once again. He knew he would not have to use force to get past this trap.

"This is it," He mumbled under his breath, a smile present on his face.

This whole damn place was the answer, not just these orbs. The entire chamber wanted him to think and use his head to get out of here.

-Shrrrrrrrr…

The sand had reached his calves now, dragging him down in thick waves… but he tore his gaze back to the glowing points.

Three nearest orbs flickered brighter thanks to the flames that Uni was hovering above them. A triangle. No, KiRA could see an equilateral triangle.

His bloodflow quickened. "Angles… ratios… Law of Sines." His eyes were now seeing lines instead of just dots.

He Used his {Gale steps} and dashed toward the nearest orb, his steps unusually quicker this time. The flame was warm but it did not burn his hand. When KiRA touched the place where the energy was concentrated, his Holy power reacted to it and he instantly knew he was right this time as well.

(sin⁡θ=Opposite/Hypotenuse)

"Kekeke… Ahem!"

A laugh broke from his throat, dry and bitter… the sand was affecting his throat as well.

The first orb was here, the other one was exactly six steps away from here. The next one was also aligned according to the special numbers that formed a certain kind of triangular formation.

Three points. Three sides.

This was the kind of silly question that you would see only rarely in any kind of dungeon. There weren't many dungeon cultivators that knew how to fuck over humans using the same math that they had developed long ago.

'But that's it.'

KiRA shut his eyes, recalling the positions of each of the triangles around this chamber, seeing the lines forming between them inside his head.

The first and second cores: distance roughly equal to his height multiplied twice. If each edge matched, then sixty degrees between every line. This was a perfect equilateral.

But, the murals showed more than that… circles cutting triangles, glyphs spiraling inward. The objective here wasn't to just locate these things. He needed to infuse his energy into these points and activate them in the certain angular manner that he had just calculated.

[{ "Unity, do as I say! We will have to be quick!" }]

[{ Yes master!! }]

The bird knew the urgency of the situation so she did not even ask what she needed to do. She followed the plan as KiRA instructed and the two of them started infusing energy into these orbs present all around them.

-Ooooooooooooooooong!

He slammed his palm on the orb and infused Holy power inside the wall.

The moment he did so, the floor growled as something clicked deep within the stone. A thin beam shot upward, connecting the first two orbs.

The third one that corresponded to these two was farther, angled across the ceiling. KiRA left that one to Uni and she infused the place with her own energy.

-Ooooooooooooong!

A surge of light ignited across the dorm. Three lines blazed, forming a perfect triangle, but nothing changed despite this phenomenon.

-Shrrrrrrrr…

Sand now crept past his thighs. One wrong move, one wrong second wasted, and he'd be buried alongside the dead bodies that had formed a thick dark mist around him.

"Sixty degrees…" he whispered while watching the formation of the first triangle, eyes darting between murals and orbs. "Not clockwise but counterclockwise. The mural spiral turns left from there, here, and from that side."

There were exactly 36 packs here and each one was correlated to the other. All he needed to do here was simple, connect the dots in the right order and make triangles.

He could tell that missing even one, making even one wrong move, or connecting a wrong line with the other would hinder the entire formation, resulting in the destruction of the entire thing he had built.

He did not want that, so he focused his attention on the dots, on the lines, and on formation of the triangles.

One… two… three… triangles continued forming as his heartbeat increased further.

The poisonous mist was seeping inside his body through his skin itself so not even the protective gear was working against it.

He did not have much time left… they needed to be quicker. This was a bad situation… they needed to finish this before he lost consciousness.

He knew Unity wouldn't be able to do this on her own. He needed to guide her, but it wasn't as easy as it sounded.

-Zaaaaaaa…!

Ten… eleven… and finally, the last triangle was formed, but by the time that happened, there were dark veins present all around his body. The throbbing dark veins looked dangerous… but thankfully, he was almost done now.

[{ Master! Drink an antidote or something! Quick! }]

KiRA immediately took out his left gauntlet and produced an antidote. It wasn't going to be very effective, but it was enough for their situation.

[Ding!]

The two of them watched as the twelve triangles formed a unique geometry formation and blended into each other.

Then, along with the system notification that popped up before him, the view before his eyes changed…

For a heartbeat, silence reigned once again. There was darkness around him, but the sand inside his socks was gone.

He could feel much better now, he could also breathe better…

The threat was gone. Perhaps, they had succeeded once again… he was still poisoned though. And it was evident that there was something crawling around him right now.

{ "You've got to be kidding me!" }

An unfamiliar sound rang above him, but before he could look up, the status window that appeared before him caught his attention.

[You have entered the bonus stage. Clearing the bonus stage will enhance the earned rewards from the previous three stages.]

A bonus stage… KiRA knew exactly what that meant.

"So I take it you're the one in charge here?" Without showing any signs of weakness, hiding away all the pain he was feeling right now, KiRA stood up and looked straight at the creature standing before– above him.

The white crow was the first Luminaries that he met and the blue Naga, his superior, was the second one. Both of those mythical creatures possessed a form that he was able to understand, the form of a mythical creature that was relatively easy to understand for his mortal mind.

But the thing that he was seeing right now was completely different.

{ "How are you so casual after ruining my dungeon! It was incomplete as well!" }

Beneath his feet were strange looking tentacles resembling maggots, in front of his eyes was a structure that resembled insides of some large being, and above him was the main body of the creature that was present before him, a Luminaries resembling a cosmic horror KiRA did not want to see anytime soon in their world.

"How was I supposed to know this place was incomplete? Besides, you know the guidelines. You shouldn't have deployed an incomplete dungeon on the field."

The creature, taking inspiration from one of the Great Ancestors, was famous in the lore of many floors of the tower, among many of the species.

The role they played in these stories was different, and the positions that they held in these stories was also different. However, one of the famous titles that was given to them, sounded something like Cthulhu.

{ "You! You…! How do you know about the guidelines?" }

Instead of an octopus, the head resembled a squid's. There was no body, but, this head was connected with something that could only be described as a spine.

KiRA was facing this creature right now… and, beside him, his partner was doing her best to heal him without being noticed by the big, strange, Ugly creature.

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