Chapter 483 The Door at the End

Without stopping for even a moment,

Hulim Heyerar surged forward with Miko and the others.

Rustle…… rustle……

A sound like an onrushing tide closed in from behind.

She did not need to turn to know it was the churning noise made by the monstrous horde, their numbers beyond counting.

Before long,

the black tide caught up to them.

Countless tiny claws reached out toward their backs.

Miko and Prarlulu had already braced themselves to leap.

But a sudden change took hold!

The white light and the rift that had appeared so many times before——

they did not manifest at all……

Hum——!

At the very last moment,

Hulim cast a spell to hold the horde back temporarily.

“Wh-Why…… it didn’t appear?!”

Miko cried out in disbelief.

“It will never appear again.”

Hulim replied with unnerving calm.

The entities behind us have grown tired of toying with us. This time——

“If we are caught, we will truly die.”

Buzz, buzz……

Boom——!

A crimson light beam blasted backward.

Countless monsters, with nowhere to dodge, were vaporized on the spot.

It seemed that when their numbers reached this extreme, all their constant physical adaptations had become meaningless.

And yet, for these creatures, so long as a single one could land a single attack, the mission was accomplished. Such sacrifices meant nothing to them.

Hum! Hum! Hum……

One after another, white shockwaves erupted toward the rear.

The straight, narrow corridor actually worked to Hulim’s advantage.

Her magic could seal off every corner,

leaving no gap for the monsters to slip through.

Though her spells could barely repel them anymore, Hulim only needed to slow their advance.

The one lingering doubt was: did this corridor even have an end……?

No matter how far they ran, the path ahead remained unchanged,

endless as ever.

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If this road truly had no end at all,

they would eventually be worn down and killed here.

“I have no choice but to gamble.”

Hulim did not stop to have Prarlulu open an escape passage.

She continued charging forward.

On and on they ran, time slipping away……

Until, at the end of the pitch-black corridor,

a great door abruptly materialized.

It was tightly shut, forged from some unknown metal.

“Hulim…… that’s it!”

“Yes. It seems we have finally reached the true end of the labyrinth.”

As she approached the door, Hulim extended her right hand.

Buzz! Buzz!

Crimson light converged rapidly before her palm.

There was no time to puzzle out the proper way to open it.

She would use a method that would guarantee breaking through.

“……I’ll blow it open!”

Boom——!

The crimson beam shot forth,

piercing a gaping hole straight through the door in an instant.

From that hole as its center, the great door slowly dissolved into nothingness.

Behind the door lay only pure darkness.

Having used her Annihilation Divine Light countless times in the labyrinth, Hulim knew what such darkness truly was: empty, meaningless void, outside Hena’s power of imagination.

There was nothing within it to destroy—not even her annihilation magic had a target. To enter was to vanish into the unknown.

But none of that mattered.

The door was open.

A vortex swirled open within the darkness beyond the door.

“Move!”

Hulim leaped into it without hesitation, taking Miko, Prarlulu, and Hena with her.

……

Clink…… clink……

The sound of sliding chains echoed from above.

Prarlulu slowly opened her eyes.

“Nngh…… where am I……?”

She lifted her head blankly, gazing around.

All she could see were metal pillars arranged in a circle all around her.

Her eyes drifted upward. All the pillars converged at the top, forming a giant, cage-like structure.

High above the cage, a massive dark-red chain held the entire enclosure aloft, slowly lowering it downward.

At the edge of the cage, Hulim seemed to be examining something.

Not far away, Miko was similarly tapping the metal bars curiously.

As for Hena…… she had grown older still, now appearing around thirteen or fourteen years old. She huddled motionless on the ground, curled into a tight ball.

“You’re awake.”

Hulim turned her head.

“Ah! Yes, I’m awake!”

Prarlulu scrambled to her feet at once.

She then asked, confused:

“Hulim, where are we?”

“Isn’t that the question I should be asking you……”

“Uh——”

Prarlulu froze, her face flushing bright red.

I forgot!

I’m the one who’s supposed to guide us!

How embarrassing……

She covered her face in shame.

“Are you alright? Is something wrong with you?”

“N-No, I’m fine!” Prarlulu said hurriedly.

“Right! I’ll sense where we are this instant!”

With that, Prarlulu closed her eyes.

Hulim did not disturb her, waiting patiently by her side.

After a short while,

Prarlulu opened her eyes again.

“We’ve passed through that endless path to the deepest layer. I can feel that we’ve reached an extremely deep part of the Inner World—the very core is not far now.”

“Is that so? Good.”

Hulim let out a small sigh of relief.

It seemed they had truly escaped the labyrinth.

“Can you tell what this place is?” Hulim asked further.

“Um…… I’m sorry. This place is still shaped by Hena’s mind.”

“I see. Then we’ll have to take things as they come.”

At this, Prarlulu hung her head in shame.

She felt utterly useless, like she had contributed nothing at all.

No.

This is too humiliating.

I have to pull my weight!

Prarlulu silently cheered herself on.

She lifted her head again, staring intently at the empty cage with renewed determination.

Some time later,

“I…… I can’t figure it out.”

Prarlulu flopped backward onto the ground.

No matter how hard she wracked her brain, she could not deduce a single thing.

“Are you really alright?” Hulim walked over and asked with concern.

“I’m totally fine……”

“Um…… come to think of it, Hulim, what was really going on with that labyrinth? How did you know we just had to keep going forward?”

“You mean that?”

Hulim looked at Prarlulu with a faintly amused expression.

“I didn’t figure it out on my own. You told me.”

“Huh???”

Prarlulu stared in utter confusion.

“Me?”

“Of course. Don’t you remember? You said it was the path leading to the deepest layer.”

“I…… I guess I did say that……”

“Right. Since it was a path, it wasn’t like the village with side doors and false exits. It only had a beginning and an end.”

“The beginning was the rift at the windmill. So the rift wouldn’t appear again in the labyrinth. The only thing waiting for us there was the end. If we just kept going, we would reach it eventually.”

“B-But…… a path can still make you lost, right?! Ah! So we were getting lost all those times?!”

Prarlulu thought she had finally uncovered the truth.

But Hulim only looked at her with a strange, knowing expression.

“No. We were never lost. Aside from the few times we walked into dead ends, we stayed on the correct route the entire time.”

“Ehh——!!?”

Prarlulu was stunned.

“But we went through it so many times……”

“Didn’t you notice the labyrinth changed every single cycle?”

“Uh…… huh. Now that you mention it…… it did.”