Thales had traversed deep into the Labyrinth now. It was progress. Good progress.
He wondered what could possibly stop him next.
"Perhaps nothing," he mused. He felt invincible.
Whatever he had touched in the prior segments of the Labyrinth — even if forgotten — had stirred something dormant in him. The experiences couldn't be retained consciously, but he was sure his soul remembered.
I should still be able to cultivate what's left. Haven't I been making conceptual leaps?
"I haven't even been doing that extra shit Beatrix mentioned," he muttered aloud, "and it's been just fine."
Then he heard it.
Not quite a sound — a distortion. The air itself seemed to freeze, not from temperature but from presence.
The waves of sound that followed weren't sharp; they were curdling. And then it built up —
A laugh.
It wasn't the crackle of a madman or the shriek of a witch. It was a gleeful, childlike, almost saccharine joy.
Yet behind it lurked something ancient, gaping, and unknowable. A laugh that could only belong to the monster a child imagined under the bed — if that child was right.
Then it appeared.
A swirling vortex of scales and teeth — but teeth far beyond comprehension. Maw as infinity.
In that moment, Thales' primal fear folded into something far worse: memory.
His soul remembered.
The man-shaped silhouette who had flayed everything from him — not just body, but identity.
"When I was at my lowest, I thought I knew darkness. Coldness. Evil.
But there was a deeper evil still.
Not malice. Not hatred.
Just a singular manifestation of self — so complete that it needed no justification."
This was not a man. It had worn the shape of one, once.
"There, there, little feather," the voice cooed with almost erotic cruelty.
"You are akin to a tabula rasa — allow me to savour this delicacy again and again."
"No meal is as tantalizing as you."
Thales' kin had been devoured by feral hunger.
But only he, cursed by fate, had survived to be loved by his devourer.
To be consumed not out of necessity — but affection.
"Leave me," Thales begged.
"Stay away from me. Please."
He tried to flee, but death flew at him from all directions. Jagged fangs — ethereal, cosmic — closed in from every angle.
"Why?"
"Why does anything change? Because it must adapt, or perish.
Only the weak cannot change."
The voice curled through him like a serrated blade.
"You, my nephew, were weak. You are nothing.
He tried to save you. Tried to starve me.
But I will never go hungry."
"I will devour you, again and again.
You delude yourself, Thales.
You think appearances are reality.
They never were."
The jaws closed.
And Thales shut his eyes, waiting for oblivion.
...
But the bite never came.
He opened one eye. What he saw wasn't salvation — it was geometry.
Fractals.
Perfect structures.
Impossible patterns.
Interlocking barriers that had materialized from thin air.
"Good. You're alive," a girl said coolly. "I don't know what you were seeing… but my cultivation is this place's worst nightmare."
She stood there, hands moving through space like a conductor — weaving runes and stabilizing the walls. Her very presence dismissed the vision of Thales' devourer. The sinister laugh faded.
"Thales, right?"
"I'm your sister. Hypatia."
Thales remained silent. His mind was nearly shattered.
She slapped him across the face.
"Shit. I'm alive," Thales said, eyes widening.
"I don't know what happened. Or—more accurately—I don't remember."
"Yeah, this place tends to do that."
She studied him.
"But you're weird, Thales.
I could see you struggling more than I ever have...
And you didn't give up."
"I wonder what you faced."
"But to be honest... I saved you out of selfish curiosity."
"It was a whim."
"You see, I have a bad affinity with chaos…
But it feels like you're on the opposite side of the spectrum."
"I'd love to cultivate you."
Thales stared at her.
His black eyes — like collapsed stars — made her spine stiffen.
They were unreadable. Hungry.
"I'm going now," he said at last. "I don't know how much longer this Labyrinth is, but The Mystery awaits. Thank you."
"Uh… The Mystery? Isn't that some old myth from a book barely anyone can read?"
"You believe in fantasies? That's… not very logical."
"Farewell," Thales said coldly.
And he vanished deeper into the Labyrinth.