The dense forest of the Myriad Labyrinth’s first Stratum unfurled around them like a living thing, twisting roots beneath their boots, the thick canopy above casting the realm in perpetual twilight. 

Vines dangled like nooses from ancient trees, the silence broken only by distant chittering and the soft rustle of their footfalls.

Talia and Mary walked ahead, voices low, trading gossip and cheerful banter.

 Their laughter echoed softly through the trees, an odd comfort in the suffocating quiet. 

Aeris lingered a few paces behind, hands resting at her sides. She should’ve been listening especially to Talia but her thoughts swirled like leaves in a whirlwind.

The quest still itched at the back of her mind.

Protect Zarena Ringtail. 

A name the game never mentions. 

There were demi-humans in Lustrous Hearts, sure but not her. 

Not this girl with twitching raccoon ears and wide, trembling eyes.

She glanced sideways. 

Zarena shuffled behind Talia clinging like a blood sucking tick. 

Everything about her screamed forgettable down to the washed out gray of her cloak and the perpetual sniffle in her breath.

“Over here!” Mary called, already crouched near a moss-covered obelisk. 

Jagged runes etched its surface, warped by age and lichen.

Zarena stepped forward, hesitantly then caught her foot on a root and tumbled forward with a yelp.

 Her arm scraped along a thorny vine coiled around the base of the obelisk. Blood spattered the stone.

“Zarena!” Talia knelt beside her.

Aeris sighed, voice sharp. “Watch your damn step. This isn’t a flower garden.”

Mary straightened, her expression unreadable but then, the obelisk pulsed.

The runes flared crimson.

A sanguine magic circle bloomed beneath them, dazzling as the air started to vibrate.

“Shit,” Aeris muttered before the world vanished in a burst of blinding light.

When the light cleared, the forest was gone.

Aeris, Talia, and Zarena stood in a circular chamber of smooth gray stone. 

There were no doors, no stairs. Just silence.

And statues.

Ten of them lined the perimeter, each easily two meters tall, armored in ancient regalia.

 Every one held a different weapon, a sword, spear, halberd, mace, staff, dagger, crossbow, glaive, flail… and scythe.

Talia was already pacing the room’s edge, fingers trailing across the walls.

 Zarena trembled beside the pedestal in the center, panic rising.

“There’s no exit,” Talia said. “None I can see.”

Aeris counted the statues again. Ten. Each is different. Her mind worked fast. 

It’s a trial. She stepped toward the pedestal.

“Talia.” She turned. 

“Your sword.”

Talia blinked. “What for?”

“Trust me.”

Without argument, Talia drew her blade and passed it over. Aeris sliced her palm and handed it back.

 “Don’t sheath it.”

Then she pressed her bleeding hand against the pedestal.

A deep rumble echoed through the chamber. The statue holding the great sword flickered with golden light.

System Notification:
 

Flavum, the Topaz Knight. Lvl: 24
 

Summons: 6x Swordbearer Knights 

Lvl:12

Stone groaned as the statues moved.

 Six lesser knights stepped forward in unison. The Topaz Knight raised its sword, pointing it at Aeris.

“Back against the wall,”

 Aeris commanded, voice hard as steel.

"Both of you. And what happens here… you don’t speak of it. Ever.”

Talia nodded. “I trust you, my hero.”

Zarena whimpered but obeyed.

Aeris cracked her neck. 

“Boss rush, is it?” She smiled coldly. 

“Fine.”

She summoned her twin blades, Necrotic Sickle and her assassin's dagger, dark steel gleaming. But she wasn’t done.

“Come forth, my dead.”

A wave of dark energy burst outward 

Ghoulish Summon.

 Six rotting corpses pulled from Aeris’s storage plane rose from black mist, snarling, forming a defensive circle around the girls.

And then, her trump card.

“Come, Melina,” she whispered, eyes glowing green.

The floor ahead erupted in emerald fire.

Melina emerged, her skeletal drider form towering, her spiderling brood scuttling behind. Her eyes gleamed crimson, her fangs bared in an eager smile.

“You summoned me, Mistress?” Her voice a silky rasp.

“Defense only. Any stragglers eviscerate them. Keep them away from… Talia.”

“As you wish.”

With her undead army behind her, Aeris turned to the knights.

“Spiderlings,” she hissed. “Feed.”

The swarm shot forward, chittering and shrieking.

Shadowstep

Aeris said emerging mid-air in front of Flavum.

 Her dagger clashed with his sword, sparks lighting the air.

The knight pushed her back with a roar.

But Aeris was grinning.

‘Come on, let's dance’