The corridor didn't feel like a hallway. It felt like the inside of a monument—too old, too deliberate, too patient to be meant for people like them.
Elara and Evan moved forward beneath rows of ethereal lanterns that floated without chains or hooks, their pale light steady and cold. The stone walls on either side were carved so deeply the reliefs seemed almost three-dimensional, figures and beasts emerging from the surface as if they were trying to step out.
Elara kept to the center as if the middle of the path were a narrow bridge over a drop she couldn't see. Her steps were measured, and shoulders tight beneath her jacket.
Evan walked beside her—mostly.
He tried to match her pace, tried to stay centered, tried to keep his eyes forward…
…but the carvings were impossible to ignore.
They weren't decoration. They were stories. Warnings. Records.
And Evan's brain—wired for patterns, myth, and the kind of lore you couldn't stop yourself from decoding—kept grabbing them like a starving hand.
"Okay," he whispered, voice low as if speaking too loudly might wake the corridor. "That is definitely a tower."
Elara didn't answer.
Evan pointed anyway, careful not to drift too far. His finger hovered a safe distance from the wall.
In the nearest carving panel, a colossal structure rose from darkness—single, vertical, and impossibly tall. It wasn't a castle. It wasn't a city. It was a tower that pierced cloud layers and vanished into a starless void above. Around it, faint geometric lines suggested floors stacked like rings, each layer distinct.
A Labyrinth, made singular.
Not a maze of twisting corridors.
A tower of trials.
Evan swallowed, excitement and dread tangling in his chest. "So that's what we're in," he murmured. "Not metaphorically. Literally. One tower."
Elara's gaze flicked to the carving for half a second. "Keep walking," she said, tone flat.
Evan made a face she didn't see. "I am walking."
"You're walking and narrating," Elara corrected. "Pick one."
Evan's mouth twitched. "I'm doing both. It's a skill."
Elara didn't dignify that with a response. Her focus stayed forward, scanning tiles, scanning lantern spacing, scanning the shifting pressure in the air like she could sense where the corridor decided to eat people.
Ahead, the pale point of light—an exit—glowed like a distant star. It was closer now, but still far enough to remind them: this isn't over until it's over.
They passed another panel.
This one made Elara's eyes narrow, if only because it was brutally clear.
A group of figures—humanoid, armed with crude weapons—were shown charging an ogre-like monster. It was massive, broad-shouldered, its face carved into a permanent sneer. Around it swarmed smaller creatures: hunched things with blades, crawling things with too many arms, a cloud of little horrors turned into stone.
The ogre held a club the size of a tree trunk.
The scene wasn't heroic.
It was desperate.
And in the corner of the panel—almost hidden—was a tiny relief of a gate like the one behind them, and a line of figures being pulled toward it.
Evan stared. "So this is… Floor One?"
Elara's voice was calm. "Or a warning."
Evan's excitement dulled into something colder. "Yeah," he admitted. "That's more likely."
They moved on.
More carvings flowed past in the lantern light.
Worlds collapsing into cracks in the sky. Cities breaking apart like pottery. Giant trees blooming from ash. Artifacts held aloft by figures whose faces were erased by time or intention—blades that hummed with lines of light, crowns shaped like bone, rings carved with runes Evan couldn't read but recognized as meaning.
And beasts.
So many beasts.
Some looked like exaggerated animals—wolves larger than horses, bears with horns, birds with too many wings.
Others were myth made stone: serpents crowned with antlers, lions wreathed in carved flame, turtles carrying mountains on their shells.
Evan's brain kept firing like he was reading a favorite wiki page at two in the morning.
He couldn't help it.
"Oh," he breathed, pointing at a spear carved into a panel. "That's—okay, not exactly, but it's close. The shape—"
"Elara," she warned without looking.
Evan lowered his hand. "I'm just saying. If those are artifacts, then—"
"Just keep moving, we need to reach the end."
Evan pressed his lips together, trying to obey.
He really did try.
But the corridor was doing something to him—something subtle. Like the lantern light pulled his attention sideways. Like the carvings were designed to lure eyes and bodies toward the walls, toward the edges.
A test for the curious.
Or the careless.
Evan's gaze drifted to another panel, and his breath caught.
It showed horse riders. Four of them.
They rode down from clouds carved in swirling stone, their horses stepping out of the sky toward a city with walls like ribs. Each rider was armored, faces hidden beneath helmets or hoods, their silhouettes more archetype than person.
And each horse shimmered in the lantern light—not with real color, but with an inlaid gleam in the stone that caught different hues depending on the angle:
Red.
White.
Green.
Black.
Evan's pulse jumped. "No way."
Elara's voice tightened. "What?"
Evan didn't answer immediately because his brain had already sprinted ahead.
Four riders. Four colors. Coming from the clouds like judgment.
"Myth," he whispered, more to himself than to Elara. "That's… that's not even niche. That's—"
Elara finally glanced back, irritation sharpening her eyes. "Evan, move."
"I am," Evan said automatically, and that was the problem.
Because he was walking.
But his feet weren't listening.
His eyes locked on the red rider—the red horse's head carved mid-snort, the rider's spear angled downward like a verdict. The inlaid shimmer on the horse's mane caught the lantern light and looked almost wet.
Evan's mind supplied a name he hadn't spoken aloud in years.
War.
Not a person. A concept.
A horseman.
He swallowed. "Elara, look at the—"
He drifted.
Just a step.
His shoulder angled closer to the wall as if the carving could pull him in like gravity.
"Elara," he began again, voice rising.
And then he stopped speaking.
Because for a fraction of a second, the red shimmer in the carving brightened.
Not reflected light.
Not lantern glow.
Something else.
A pulse.
Elara—half turned away, tuned out by Evan's constant rambling—didn't notice the change until she realized something more dangerous:
Evan had gone silent.
Elara's head snapped around.
Her breath caught.
Evan stood too close to the wall—near the edge of the corridor, his fingertips hovering inches from the carved red rider. His posture was slack, eyes fixed as if he were hypnotized.
"Ev—" Elara started, voice sharp.
Evan didn't blink.
Then the carving flared.
Red consumed the space between Evan and the wall like spilled fire.
Not flame—light so vivid it felt hot, a crimson wash that erased Evan's outline in an instant.
Elara's body reacted before her mind finished understanding.
She lunged.
Too late.
Evan's silhouette broke apart into red—like a figure dissolving into pigment.
One moment he was there, mouth slightly open, eyes wide—
—and the next there was only the wall.
Only stone.
No scream. No impact. No blood.
Just absence.
Elara froze.
Her hands hung in the air where Evan's jacket should've been. Her fingers trembled once, then clenched into fists so tight her nails bit into skin.
For a heartbeat, she couldn't breathe.
Her mind tried to reject what her eyes had seen. Tried to rewrite it. Tried to force reality back into a version where Evan was just… behind her, making a joke, existing.
But the corridor didn't care what she wanted.
Elara's chest constricted.
A hot pressure rose behind her eyes—not tears, not yet, but something close.
And then—
A soft tug.
From within.
A call from behind her sternum, distant but firm, like a hand gripping her ribs and pulling her back from the edge of panic.
Byakko.
Sealed away, but present.
A reminder: you're not alone.
Elara swallowed hard, forcing air into her lungs.
"Thank you," she whispered without thinking, as if the system could hear gratitude and soften. As if the corridor would return what it took.
It didn't.
Elara's gaze stayed locked on the wall where Evan had vanished.
The red rider's carving was unchanged again—cold stone, inlaid shimmer faint and passive, as if it hadn't just devoured her brother.
Her jaw tightened until it ached. Elara's hands shook once more—anger, fear, guilt all tangled into something that threatened to crack her composure.
Then she did what she always did when she couldn't afford to break.
She packed it down.
Compressed it into something sharp and usable.
She forced her gaze forward.
The exit light still glowed at the far end of the corridor, indifferent to what the walls had stolen.
Elara stared down the path and whispered, almost fiercely, as if Evan could hear it through stone and system rules:
"Don't die."
Then she stepped forward.
One measured step.
Then another.
Her boots landed on center tiles. She kept distance from the walls. She didn't look at the carvings anymore—not because they weren't important, but because she refused to give the corridor another opening.
Her chest stayed tight, the restless ache of Evan's absence sitting beneath every breath, but she kept moving.
He's smart, she told herself, clinging to it like a rope. He's not that kid anymore. He'll find a way.
The thought comforted her.
It didn't erase the fear.
Elara walked faster.
Not running—running was how you missed seams—but moving with urgency she didn't let show in her posture.
The carvings blurred at the edges of her vision.
And the corridor—sensing she wasn't feeding it curiosity anymore—stayed quiet.
No more flashes.
No more disappearances near her.
Just the long, pale-lit march toward the exit.
When she finally reached the end, the point of light expanded into something real.
A threshold.
A shift in air pressure.
A sensation like stepping out of a closed room into open sky.
Elara took one last breath of stone and lantern scent—
—and stepped through.
The world exploded into color.
A prairie stretched out under a wide sky, so green and vibrant it almost hurt. Grass rolled like waves across gentle hills, shimmering in the wind. The sunlight was warm—not harsh, but alive, as if the air itself carried energy.
For a split second, Elara's mind tried to call it beautiful.
Then reality slammed in.
This isn't Earth.
Earth didn't feel like this. Earth's air didn't taste this sharp. Earth's green didn't look like it had been painted too thick.
And Earth definitely didn't have an interface hovering in the corner of her vision that updated the moment her boots hit grass.
[FLOOR 1 — INITIATION PHASE]
[Environment: Verdant Prairie]
[Objective: Survive. Advance.]
Elara's breath caught.
She turned slowly, scanning.
Behind her was a gate-like opening—no corridor visible now, only a ripple of space that looked like heat distortion. It hung in the air without frame or support, a tear in reality quietly sealing itself.
Ahead, on the horizon, she saw a town.
Encircled by a simple wooden wall that looked almost primitive against the scale of the sky. Smoke rose from chimneys. The shapes of people moved along the wall's edge.
Her instincts screamed: go there.
Information. Supplies. Other humans. Maybe even—
Evan.
Elara shifted her weight forward, ready to head that way—
—and then the tug in her chest tightened.
Not just presence.
Movement.
A release.
The interface flared again with a chime that resonated in her bones.
[TAMING SPACE — UNLOCKED]
[Beast Unsealed: BYAKKO]
The air beside her shimmered.
For a heartbeat, a faint outline formed—white fur, sleek shape—
—and Byakko appeared as if stepping through an invisible door.
It landed softly on the grass, immediately alert. Its ears flicked. Its tail swayed once. Its blue eyes scanned the prairie with calm focus that didn't match a creature newly hatched.
Elara's chest loosened.
Not fully. Evan's absence remained like a thorn.
But Byakko's presence made the world feel less empty.
"Hey," Elara whispered, voice rougher than she intended.
Byakko looked up at her.
Then it turned.
It raised a paw and pointed—not randomly, but deliberately.
Toward a far corner of the prairie where the land rose into jagged teeth.
Mountains.
Snow-capped peaks glittered under sunlight, cold and sharp against the sky. Some peaks pierced the clouds. The air above them looked different—thinner, harsher.
Elara frowned. "The town is that way," she said, gesturing toward the wooden walls in the distance. "That's where people are."
Byakko didn't look at the town.
It pointed again.
Then, with a quiet, impatient sound it started walking toward the mountains as if it had a destination.
Elara stared after it, tension crawling up her spine.
Every instinct she had said: go to the settlement. Gather info. Find allies. Find Evan.
But Byakko wasn't acting like a normal animal.
Byakko was Legend-ranked. Guardian of the West. Something tied to lineage and myth and a system that carved warnings into stone.
And the bond between them—new and unsettlingly intimate—carried a sense she couldn't ignore:
Byakko knew something.
Not facts, maybe. Not words.
But direction.
Elara's fingers tightened on her backpack straps.
She looked back toward the town—tiny on the horizon, a promise of answers.
Then she looked toward the mountains—massive, cold, unknown.
Byakko paused, glancing back at her with an expression that looked too much like expectation.
Elara exhaled slowly.
Against her instincts, she followed.
"Fine," she muttered. "Lead the way."
Byakko's tail flicked once, satisfied, and it continued forward.
The wind grew colder as they walked, the prairie's warm comfort fading with distance. Elara was grateful—grimly—that they'd packed jackets. She pulled hers tighter, eyes narrowing at the way the grass seemed almost unnaturally alive, bending away from Byakko's path like it respected the creature.
She tried not to let that thought grow legs.
She tried not to think about Evan vanishing in red light.
But her mind kept circling it anyway—the carving of riders, the shimmering colors, the red horseman.
Elara swallowed hard, forcing herself back into the present.
Byakko led with quiet confidence, as if every step was part of a route already mapped.
It didn't hurry.
It didn't hesitate.
It simply moved—smooth and certain—each "meow" more like a signal than a sound.
Elara walked behind it, boots pressing into vibrant grass, eyes scanning the hills and distant shapes.
Somewhere ahead, the mountains waited.
Somewhere behind, the town.
And somewhere—lost behind stone walls and red light—Evan was alone in a place the Labyrinth had chosen for him.
Elara's jaw tightened.
She kept walking.
Because on Floor 1, survival wasn't about what you wanted.
It was about what you did next.