The absolute darkness didn't fade gently; it shattered.
A heavy, jagged fragment of masonry broken loose from the vaulted ceiling slammed directly onto my chest, violently knocking the breath from my lungs. My eyes snapped open, my vision instantly flooded by a lancing electric jolt that crawled over every nerve and every fiber of my muscles. It wasn't the dull, throbbing ache of an intense fight; it was the raw, jagged aftermath of forcing my body to become a literal lightning rod for the Labyrinth's feedback system.
My limbs twitched involuntarily, jerking with residual tremors I couldn't suppress.
"Ahh… fuck!"
Each micro-movement sent a silver shiver of electricity up my arms, making my fingers curl into tight, useless claws. I forced myself to move, inch by agonizing inch, dragging my ruined frame across the debris until I could manage to haul my torso up into a cross-legged position on the cracked obsidian ground.
[ Alert: Shock debuff incurred from Crackline Overdrive use. ]
[ Duration: 00:59:06 ]
Almost immediately, another interface menu flickered to life on my left, pulsing with a softer, more rhythmic light that cut through the harsh crimson warnings.
[ Vitality passive: Activating. ]
[ Tenacity passive: Activating. ]
[ Notice: Recovery from shock debuff has been hastened. ]
The sharp, high-frequency beeping in my ears gradually dulled into a steady, heavy thrum, mimicking the frantic pace of my heartbeat and stubbornly refusing to let me slip back into the void of unconsciousness.
My entire body screamed in protest, but slowly, under the relentless, passive work of my high attributes, the agony dial was turned down from unbearable to manageable. It was a constant, buzzing reminder of the steep price I had just paid to keep my piece on the board.
The sharp, high-frequency beeping in my ears gradually dulled into a steady, heavy thrum, mimicking the frantic pace of my heartbeat and stubbornly refusing to let me slip back into the void of unconsciousness. My entire body screamed in protest, but slowly, under the relentless, passive work of my high attributes, the agony dial was turned down from unbearable to manageable. It was a constant, buzzing reminder of the steep price I had just paid to keep my piece on the board.
"G-good thing..." I croaked, the words catching on a dry heave. I clamped my jaw shut as a residual spark snapped across my tongue, leaving the sharp, metallic taste of copper. I swallowed hard, forcing my lungs to expand against the crushing weight in my chest. "Good thing I... pumped those... points into... Vitality..."
I dragged a trembling hand across my face, my breath hitching as another micro-tremor seized my throat. "...and Tenacity."
The sentence felt like hauling boulders, my voice sounding less like words and more like grinding gravel.
I wiped a layer of ash and dried ichor from my eyes, looking around the ruined perimeter. The relief vanished instantly. Cold panic crept down my spine as I realized the reality of my surroundings: I was still sitting in the same shattered grand hall.
"SYSTÉMA," I barked—or tried to, though it came out as a fractured, breathy wheeze. A sharp knot tightened in my stomach. "Floor... report. N-now."
[ Floor 68 – Cleared. ]
[ Collecting rewards for this floor… ]
[ Error: Reward registry not found. ]
[ Attribute points: +0 ]
[ Attempting recalculation of attribute points… ]
[ … ]
[ Failed. ]
[ Error detected: Unable to collect rewards. ]
[ Initiating compensation protocol… ]
Huh?
I stared at the blinking error log, confusion doubling instantly and overriding the residual pain in my muscles.
Another question crept into my mind: if the floor was cleared, why was I still breathing the stale air of Floor 68? More importantly—how was I not triggering the punishment sequence right now?
Memories of my previous failure flashed vividly behind my eyelids. Before, after dealing with the Kraken, the very next thing I saw when my eyes opened was a completely different, hostile floor. The Labyrinth had given me a brutal, impossible two-minute timer left to clear it. Because I couldn't beat the clock in my groggy state, the system had ruthlessly triggered a punishment sequence.
But now? The air was still. No ominous red timers were counting down in the corner of my vision.
"SYSTÉMA," I demanded aloud, leaning forward against my knees. "Why haven't I progressed to the next floor if this one is already registered as cleared?"
[ System status: Data breach detected // Progression cores: Paused. ]
[ Error: System passive 'Total Restoration' has been enforced-halted. ]
I looked down at my tattered, blood-soaked uniform, the torn fabric exposing the raw, unhealed scoring across my skin. So that explains my current state. Without the automatic full heal upon floor completion, my body was entirely on its own.
[ Timestamp: 72.00 hours elapsed since user blackout. ]
My jaw dropped. "I was asleep for three days?!"
[ Diagnostic: Due to severe fatigue, Crackline Overdrive accumulation, and active system pause, user physical frame required 72 hours for manual biological repair. ]
Three days sleeping like a log. If another intruder with the same terrifying level of combat skill as the one I just faced had happened to enter this floor while I was out cold, I would have been gone for good.
The sheer weight of that realization turned my stomach. I reached up, my hand trembling as I tried to rub the back of my neck to shake off the lingering cognitive fog and stretch out the stiffness in my spine—but the small movement triggered something catastrophic.
A sudden, vicious spike of residual jolt shot straight up my nerve pathways.
My throat locked as a sharp spasm violently jerked my chin downward. My muscles seized completely under a brief, blistering current, locking me into a rigid, agonizing posture while my skin tingled with the bitter taste of ozone. I sat there, paralyzed and panting through clenched teeth, waiting for the electric aftershocks to release my body from their grip.
I forced a ragged breath through my teeth, waiting for the tremor to pass, and forced my gaze across the ruined room.
That's when I saw it—a familiar, jagged silhouette resting in the rubble a few meters away.
It was the intruder's decapitated head. The rest of its massive, armored body was entirely gone, leaving only the alien-looking skull behind like a grim monument.
Yet, even completely severed, its surface still pulsed faintly. It was a slow, steady, rhythmic thrum that felt deeply unsettling; it felt less like a malfunctioning machine and more like a muted heartbeat trapped inside cold, alien metal.
"SYSTÉMA," I rasped, dragging my body forward on my hands and knees. My throat felt like it had been scraped with broken glass as I closed the distance to the remains.
As I got within arm's reach, a sudden wave of unnatural cold radiated from the skull. It wasn't a chill that merely bit at the skin—it bit straight into the soul, threatening to freeze the dark energy tethered to my core. "Run a full analysis on this… this thing. Argh!"
Before I could touch the plating, another violent sting of residual electricity arched from my own nerve endings, snapping through my marrow like a live wire. My arm buckled instantly, my shoulder hitting the stone floor with a hollow thud. I gritted my teeth, ignoring the spark, and forced my eyes up to read the washed-out grey text materializing over the skull.
[ Analysis complete: Displaying results. ]
[ Entity classification: Abyssal (Uncategorized) ]
[ Origin: Unknown. ]
[ Behavioral profile: Abyssals exhibit highly parasitic, evolutive behavior. ]
[ Conclusion: This entity exists outside the baseline system parameters. ]
I stared at the final line of the report, the cold radiating from the severed head suddenly feeling much, much colder. It didn't just belong outside the system—it was actively independent of it.
I clenched my fists, the tremors from the Shock Debuff finally subsiding into a dull thrum. My gaze remained fixed on the severed head of the intruder.
"Is it… alive?" I asked the empty room.
[ Artifact scan: Completed. ]
[ Artifact named: "Abyssal Maw" ]
[ Vital status: Biological expiration confirmed // Host signature = 0% ]
[ Re-classifying target encounter data... Type: Object (Equippable) ]
"An artifact?" I rasped, my interest piqued despite the lingering pain. "Can I actually use it?"
[ Warning: Artifact is not fully cataloged within the Labyrinth archive. Proceed with extreme caution. ]
[ Detecting: High-density residual 'Abyssal' energy patterns within core. ]
The system's crimson warning label bled a harsh light over the stone, but it was the second prompt that made my breath catch—high-density residual energy. The text itself seemed to tremble on the periphery of my vision, washed out by the raw, volatile signature pulsing from the skull. A cold sweat broke out across my collarbone. This wasn't a standard loot left after killing a boss-level monster; it was a concentrated pocket of the same alien anomaly that had just ripped through the floor's architecture.
I kept my distance, observing the pulsing mass from a safe few paces away. Every instinct drilled into me over sixty-eight floors of survival screamed at me to stay back. Back home, I used to read cheap thrillers where the absolute idiots in the story would smugly poke an unknown artifact just to see what happened, and I had always mocked them for it. I wasn't going to be that stereotype. I was smarter than that. I knew exactly what happened to characters who let curiosity override basic survival. I just needed to stand completely still and let the system finish its logging.
But the Labyrinth didn't care about my caution.
Without warning, a sharp, residual spike of latent electricity flared violently at the base of my neck.
"Argh!"
My left arm buckled as a brutal spasm jerked my shoulder forward. I completely lost my balance, my hand slamming onto the soot-covered floor to catch my fall—and my trembling fingers brushed directly against the cold, armored plating of the Abyssal Maw.
So much for being the smart protagonist.
The response was instantaneous.
The severed head didn't just move; it exploded.
The realization had barely registered before I was completely locked in place.
The interlocking metallic plates of the skull unhinged like a mechanical trap, liquefying into a violent, writhing swarm of dark, tendril-like wires. Before a single neuron in my brain could signal a retreat, they struck, driving straight into my open palm and latching onto my left hand with a sickening, metallic crunch.
"What the—!"
A sound escaped my throat, but it wasn't a roar; it was a high, strangled gasp of pure terror. Panic slammed into my chest like a physical blow, completely cutting off my oxygen. I scrambled backward, my boots kicking uselessly in the soot, thrashing my arm wildly against the obsidian floor to throw it off.
It didn't shake. It was burrowing.
The cold, alien metal rapidly wound its way past my wrist, consuming my forearm like a living parasite. It constricted with a brutal, bone-crushing force, locking the muscles in my arm into a rigid, paralyzed state. I watched in horrific fascination as the liquid metal began to lace beneath my skin, tracing the paths of my veins in a sickening shade of bruised violet. My flesh began to freeze, turning a pale, bloodless white on the surface, while a paradoxical, agonizing heat bored directly into my marrow, cooking my radius bone from the inside out.
The pain wasn't just physical—it felt loud. It felt invasive. It felt like the creature's dying-star blue eyes were opening inside my own skull, starving, looking out through my eyes.
I couldn't breathe. The room was spinning. My vision tunneled as my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
It's going to take me over. It's going to erase me.
Driven by the primal, unvarnished instinct of a cornered animal, I didn't think. I hyper-focused on the only solution left. I ripped my Voidsteel Dagger from its sheath with my right hand, my knuckles turning skeletal, and raised the blade high. My eyes locked onto my own elbow joint.
I was going to hack the arm completely off before the metal reached my shoulder. I braced my weight, locked my jaw, and drove the dagger downward with everything I had left—
[ Critical Alert: Unknown Datalink Detected. ]
[ Warning: Foreign energy intrusion detected in User core. ]
[ System Intervention Failed: Unable to isolate anomalous mass extension. ]
The blade never hit my elbow.
Instead, a concussive shockwave of distorted, crimson code erupted from the interface, slamming into my chest and freezing my entire body in mid-air. The dagger trembled millimeters from my skin, held back by a glitching, flickering system barrier that buzzed with the sound of a dying engine.
The SYSTÉMA wasn't protecting me from the artifact; it was desperately trying to quarantine both of us.
The tendrils inside my arm didn't gracefully stop because of a system order. They slammed violently against the internal walls of my bone, a sickening, metallic thud vibrating through my marrow as the parasitic mass hit a hard, artificial ceiling enforced by the Labyrinth's raw core protocols. The liquid wires violently compressed, fusing and hardening into a heavy, dark gauntlet that bound itself directly to my nervous system.
[ Notice: Compartmentalization forced by localized core backup. ]
[ Sync Ratio: 9% ... Rejection Failing. ]
[ Warning: Object 'Abyssal Maw' has permanently anchored to user core. Safety parameters compromised. ]
The crushing pressure receded slightly, leaving behind a cold, leaden weight that made my shoulder sag. The Voidsteel Dagger slipped from my trembling right hand, clattering against the soot.
"Safety parameters compromised?" I whispered, my chest heaving as my eyes tracked the way the dark metal pulsed in perfect time with my racing heart. I watched the interlocking plates of the gauntlet ripple like the scales of a serpent, shifting as if trying to breathe through my pores. The system wasn't in control here. It was barely holding a shield between this thing and my soul.
I exhaled slowly, the sound echoing off the cracked marble like a dying breath as I stared at my newly encased arm. "Abyssals…" I murmured, the terror slowly giving way to a grim numbness.
Something tugged at my memory—the way the entity's voice had splintered and cracked right before I took its head.
"Sta-r-ving…"
It hadn't been a battle cry or a declaration of malice. It was a plea. A fundamental, cosmic need that didn't care about the rules of the Labyrinth or the lives of those caught within it. It was just pure, unadulterated hunger.
Still deeply skeptical of this living parasite welded to my flesh, I turned back to the floating, glitching interface.
"SYSTÉMA, pull up everything you have on these things right now," I commanded, my knuckles whitening as I stared down the foreign weight on my left arm. "Where the hell did it come from, and what exactly have I just been bonded with?"
[ Retrieving data... ]
[ Description: Abnormal entities designated as 'Abyssals' demonstrate rapid evolution from origins outside confirmed reality zones. ]
[ Classification: Target object structural layout matches a heavy arm gauntlet framework. ]
[ Notice: Functional capabilities remain unverified due to missing system archive data // Object is permanently bound to host core network. ]
The system text flickered erratically, the washed-out grey letters bleeding slightly into the crimson error borders.
"If their origin is outside reality, then how the hell did one enter the Labyrinth?" My heart hammered violently against my ribs as a sudden, suffocating thought struck me. "Did... did my father ever encounter one? Did Thiago know about this?"
[ Analysis ongoing: External infiltration registers as a mathematical impossibility within baseline core logic. ]
[ Cryptographic authentication logs verify zero historical vectors of engagement between The Artificer and the designated entity archetype. ]
The realization settled in my gut like a lead weight. This thing wasn't some hidden, high-level "feature" or an intentional trial left behind. It was a blind spot. The fact that an unknown infection had successfully broken into a secluded dimension designed by the Artificer himself was a mystery that made the hair on my neck stand up.
The gauntlet didn't answer with words. Instead, it responded with a low, guttural purr that vibrated deep against my bone.
I looked down at the thing latched onto my left arm. It didn't answer with words. Instead, it responded with a low, guttural purr that vibrated deep against my bone. It was the feeling of a predator finally settling into a long-overdue meal—a quiet, terrifying satisfaction.
At a 9% sync ratio, it was just a tool—a heavy, strange piece of armor. But beneath that surface, I could feel the dormant potential. It radiated a cold hunger that seemed to wait for the sync ratio to climb higher.
I flexed my fingers, and the gauntlet mimicked the movement with terrifying precision. There was no lag. No friction. It was as if the Abyssal Maw was already learning how my nerves fired, preparing itself for the moment I finally let it feed.
"SYSTÉMA," I muttered, staring at the dark, interlocking plates. "What is this? Is it armor, or is it a weapon?"
[ Classification: Object structural layout matches a heavy arm gauntlet framework. ]
[ Notice: Functional capabilities and combat deployment metrics remain unverified. Internal attributes are yet to be determined due to missing system archive data. ]
"A framework?" I rasped, my breath catching as I tried to pull my arm away from my chest. It felt like trying to lift an anchor with a thread. "I didn't equip this. SYSTÉMA, unequip it. Do something. Anything. Force an inventory transfer. Now!"
[ Error: Targeted object is permanently bound to host core network. Structural removal impossible through baseline interface commands. ]
"Fuck!" I slammed my right hand against the dark metallic forearm, hoping to trigger some kind of manual release. The impact yielded only a dull, deadening clink that vibrated straight through my bone.
I stood up slowly, the sheer, dead weight on my left arm dragging aggressively at my shoulder. It felt entirely wrong—a physical, heavy reminder that a piece of the very nightmare that had tried to delete me was now physically woven into my flesh. I flexed my hand, and the metallic claws of the gauntlet clicked together with a sound like sharpening glass. The movement felt horrifyingly natural, fluidly mimicking my impulses before I even finished thinking them.
My stomach churned. I wasn't wearing armor. I was sharing a nervous system.
"SYSTÉMA," I said, my voice tight and strained as I watched the interlocking plates ripple in sync with my erratic breathing. "Keep running passive scans. If this thing shifts, if it tries to climb higher, or if it starts acting on its own... I want a terminal alert. Immediately."
[ Affirmative: Passive monitoring engaged. Internal artifact activity logged. ]
I stood there in the center of the ruined hall, my left arm hanging heavy and unnatural at my side. I tried to force myself to rationalize it, to tell myself I was stronger now—a Threadless who had survived a cosmic parasite—but the heavy, alien thrumming against my wrist bone made the lie impossible to swallow. The Labyrinth didn't know what this thing was, and neither did I.
While my mind raced, desperately searching for a way to sever this parasite from my nervous system, another sharp notification from the SYSTÉMA snapped into view.
[ Progression cores: Resumed. ]
[ Next floor will be available in: 00:24:45. ]
There were only twenty-five minutes left before the gate to the next floor would stabilize, but rest was entirely out of the question. I spent the remaining time obsessively pacing the perimeter of the ruined hall, reviewing the fragmented, washed-out text on the interface over and over again, desperately hunting for a single line, a loophole, or an unverified historical record that would tell me how to purge an infection from a user core.
But nothing changed. The logs remained blank, a silent wall of missing data.
Instead, a persistent flicker in my peripheral vision kept drawing my eye back toward my profile icon. It wasn't the normal, steady green light of a cleared floor. It was pulsing—a slow, erratic beat that perfectly matched the cold vibration currently radiating through the marrow of my left arm.
The infection wasn't just sitting on my skin. It was already writing itself into my data.
With a sinking feeling in my chest and a hand that wouldn't stop trembling, I reached out and tapped the flashing icon.
[ PROFILE ]
[ Name: Hasphien Maxence ]
[ Level: Unclassified ]
[ Floor Cleared: 68 / 100 ]
I stared at the lines of text. The font itself was subtly shifting at the edges, the clean systemic lines fraying into jagged, microscopic static that matched the erratic pulse in my arm.
A sudden memory hit me, cold and heavy—the day before I was dragged into this place. I had been a normal student, completely unremarkable, just trying to survive the day without drawing attention to how powerless I was. When I first arrived on Floor 1, I was a ghost. I was terrified, running from fiends, waiting for the inevitable end of a story I had no control over.
And now, sixty-eight floors later, I was looking at a profile that didn't even read as entirely human anymore.
The numbers on the screen didn't make me feel triumphant. They made me feel detached. I had survived reality-bending traps, slaughtered nightmares, and just wrestled a cosmic parasite into a stalemate because my body had grown too stubborn to die. The Labyrinth hadn't changed its brutal rules, but it had stripped away everything else I used to be.
Thirty-two floors left.
I wasn't climbing to prove something anymore, or to play the hero. I was climbing because going backward meant death, and staying here meant letting this thing on my arm eat whatever was left of me.
I clenched my left fist. The Abyssal Maw let out a faint, low hiss against my forearm, its scales tightening in response to my grip. It was quiet, for now, but the hunger radiating from it felt like an open mouth pressed against my skin.
"Threadless," I muttered, my voice hollow as I looked toward the dark archway. "But I'm not letting this Labyrinth finish me."
I stood, brushing the white dust of the shattered pillars from my coat with my right hand. The weight on my left arm dragged at my shoulder, a permanent, disquieting anchor.
I opened the system shop, initiating the mechanical, hollow routine of preparation just to keep my mind from spiraling. My movements were entirely automatic—checking the edge of the Voidsteel Dagger, restocking minor health potions, verifying the durability on my boots, and tracking my active resistance timers. It was a survival checklist carved into my brain over days of near-death experiences. A normal human would have needed days to process the trauma of what just happened to my flesh, but the Labyrinth had trained me to just keep moving.
Yet, no matter how many menus I cycled through, the gauntlet stayed completely invisible to the shop and inventory systems. It didn't belong to the Labyrinth. It was a foreign parasite that had forced its way into my biology.
I looked down at my hands. One was scarred and calloused from months of climbing; the other was encased in a living nightmare of black metal. I was becoming a patchwork of survival.
The gateway at the far end of the chamber began to groan, the obsidian pillars surrounding it glowing with a sickly, iridescent light. The "Next Floor" timer hit zero.
[ Direction to Floor Sixty-nine is now available. ]
[ Please follow the path to the next floor. ]
I didn't hesitate. I couldn't afford to. I stepped into the shimmering veil before the dread could paralyze my legs.
As the light caught the edge of my vision, the gauntlet pulsed once, a sharp, icy vibration against my wrist bone. I couldn't tell whether it was responding to the acceleration of my own terrified heartbeat... or to whatever nightmare was waiting for us up in the dark.