Chapter 94: Maze runners 1

Two hours flashed past in the blink of an eye, after which I felt that same darkness clouding my senses. When I saw light again, we were back at the platform on which we first appeared when we entered this tomb.

’Huh? didn’t he said we’d be transported to the designated location of the second trial?’ I thought confused as I looked around. And I wasn’t the only one, most thought the same.

Only, we were much lesser than before. We weren’t even fifty, which kind of made sense, because there was bound to be casualties in some of the winning teams. We were only around 43 or so.

And everyone was standing on guard. The reason? For all these teams to have survived in a death game that only fifty percent could come out of alive, it meant they were incredibly dangerous. And you wouldn’t know how you’d die if you made the mistake of underestimating them.

Surprisingly, my attention was drawn by two men, and a woman. The two men were at the Eta+ rank, while the woman was at the Eta rank, much like myself. They were all in different teams, but for them to be here also meant that they were stronger than the average aetherial of the same rank.

I looked away from them as the translucent man appeared once more.

“Congratulations for making it past the first trial. I won’t waste your time with useless pleasantries, and will immediately relay the makings of the second trial.” He announced.

“The second trial prepared for you tomb seekers, is called ; The maze run.”

’…Huh?’ I blinked. Maze run? Talk about a déjà vu.

“You all will enter a maze that’ll be constantly shifting and changing.” The man continued. “Only the first three teams that make it out of the maze would proceed to the third and last trial.”

“Now let’s get to the advantages you secured in the first trial.” he said. Everyone seemed to perk up at that.

“Those who eliminated a team will get a map, showing half the maze in real time.” he said as he waved his hand, making six scrolls fly towards the same number of teams.

I wasn’t worried why we didn’t get a scroll. We didn’t eliminate a single team after all, but two teams.

“For those who eliminated two teams, you will get a map showing the entire maze in real time.” He announced as two scroll flew this time, one to our team which Sia caught, and the other to another team.

Now, I wasn’t expecting that. Having the map of the entire maze in real time sounded too good to be true. But his next words made me realize why it was so.

“Notwithstanding, you are more than free to snatch others’ maps. Much like before, the locations of each map would be shown every two hours, for ten whole minutes this time.” He announced.

“I should have seen this coming.” I muttered under my breath. No wonder it sounded too good to be true. Every other team would be gunning for the two teams who had the maps of the entire maze. Especially the two teams that never got any.

“You all have the same starting point. The only rule is that those with the full map, are allowed a full five minute headstart, followed by those with half a map, and then lastly, those with no maps. If you try to enter before your time, let’s just say, the results wouldn’t be good.” He said to the displeasure of most, and to my pleasure.

This was better than I thought, we could create enough distance in those five minutes, assuming some teams aren’t persistent enough to get on our tail.

“Now, I hereby declare the start of the second trial.”

The moment he finished speaking, the platform beneath our feet disappeared without warning, leaving us pummeling down towards the ground, which was about five stories away.

Not surprising, everyone landed on their feet, the surprising thing was that the ground didn’t crack instead.

I finally turned to look at what took my attention during the fall. Before my eyes were titanic dark stone walls that rose into the sky far beyond what my vision could see.

’Damn, they’re huge.’ I mused. There, at where I presumed was the entrance, stood a massive door that was wide ajar.

“Let’s go.” Sia said, breaking me from my awe. Everyone was looking at our team, or more specifically, at the two teams that had been allowed entry at this time.

We quickly made our way into the maze together with the other team. The moment we crossed the massive door, numerous paths lay before us more than twenty if I counted right.

“Sia, give me the map.” I said as I saw the other team opening theirs. Sia handed me the map with no hesitation. I quickly unfurled the scroll, but was met with a massive jumbled mess of intricate paths.

’Shit, this is going to take a time to decipher.’ I inwardly cursed.

At that moment, the front runner of the other team, a hardened man, turned to us.

“I would prefer if we don’t engage each other in this trial.”

I spoke first, before Sia could open her mouth and spoil the situation.

“You read my mind.” I said. “Let’s meet in the third trial then.” With an acknowledging nod, they moved a few meters away from us. It was better like that, we both already had the full map, and instead of trying to hinder ourselves, it was better that we get ahead before the other teams caught up.

“Let’s go too.” I said. It would be better if we got moving, and then, we could decipher the map on the way.

“Did you already find a way?” Sia asked bewildered.

I frowned.

“Don’t be stupid, how is that possible by just looking at the map for a few seconds?”

“Then why did you say ’let’s go’?” Dpress interjected.

“Because I wouldn’t want us to waste the five minutes headstart we have trying to figure out this map.” I said almost exasperatedly.

It wasn’t that the map was so unreadable. It was just that the maze was so big that the details on the map were so tiny. A mundane human wouldn’t even have the visual acuity to be able to read it at all.

Currently on the map, there was a small blue dot on at the entrance of maze so tiny, that I reckon it was smaller than a than the tip of a needle. The dot was definitely denoting where we were at the moment.

I gazed through the map, and hurriedly found out a path that wouldn’t end anytime soon, and then picked it.

We entered through the path, and kept running with no obstacles whatsoever in our path for the first fifteen minutes. Then we suddenly met a dead end that I could have sworn wasn’t there a half a minute ago.

But now that I looked at the map, there was suddenly a new wall placed there.

“Shit.” I cursed. the translucent man did say that the maze would be constantly shifting and changing.

“What now?” Sia asked. Why was she asking me? Did she think I was some ’know it all’?

“Hmmm, now, I sit down and throughly study the map, maybe there might be a pattern to the way it’s shifti…..”

Before I could finish talking, the wall that was blocking our way suddenly began to silently shift. ’Of course the shift was silent, no wonder we didn’t pick up on it.’ I thought with a shake of my head.

But oh well, at least the path was opening. The wall completely shifted to the side, showing five new paths.

“Alright…” I paused, before checking all five paths to see if there were any dead ends in the near future. After verifying, I found two that were okay.

“Okay, that one.” I pointed to the middle one. The other one was the one at the last edge, and I mean, middle is always the lucky choice right?

“Are you sure?” Sia looked skeptical looked skeptical.

“You want to read the map yourself?” I shot her a look.

She hastily shook her head. “What I meant was since you chose it, of course it was right.” she smiled.

“Yeah right.” I scoffed.

The moment we crossed into the path however,

Whuf!

The wall behind us shifted so fast, and closed behind us, that it left a gust of air in doing so.

Our eyes darted to the wall, then the rest of their eyes darted to me.

“What?” I asked under the scrutinizing pressure of their gazes. “Is it my fault that the wall suddenly shifted?”

Grooooow!

“What was that?” I muttered, as all of our heads snapped in the same direction. And there in the distance, under the shade of a walk, were two enormous eyes staring straight at us.

The maze wasn’t dark, instead, it was much like the pocket dimension we underwent the first trial. Even though I couldn’t see the height of the walls, I could still see the bright moon that hung overhead.

However, that didn’t make the pair of enormous red eyes less unsettling, nor less intimidating.

“What is that?” Nina asked a very stupid question. How was I supposed to know what the hell it was.

But whatever it was didn’t give us time to guess. It’s shadow elongated as it stood on all fours. It about was the first thing that entered the light, after which it’s body followed.

“What the…” Dpress muttered. It was an enormous wolf the size of a building, staring straight at us.

“Son of a bitch!” I cursed. That bastard didn’t tell us there were going to be beasts here.

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