The air was cold enough to bite, a damp, metallic tang seeping into every breath. The labyrinth was no place of stone and brick—it was a living wound carved deep beneath the old city, where walls seemed to lean inward as if to listen to those who entered. Shinomiya Reiji had been here for an hour, though the way the corridors folded upon themselves made time meaningless.
His footsteps echoed in ways they shouldn't have—too loud, too far away, too close. Every sound was wrong here, stretched and warped like a voice underwater. The floor beneath him was slick, not with water, but with something faintly viscous, staining the soles of his boots with an oily sheen that glistened under the dim red glow of the ceiling lamps.
He tightened his grip on the short blade in his right hand.
The labyrinth wasn't empty.
There had been whispers ever since he crossed the threshold—faint, feminine, and maddeningly close. They didn't speak in words he understood. They were syllables strung together in a rhythm that scratched at his mind.
> Kara… shta… reiii…
The name—his name—slipped through those whispers once, too clear to mistake.
He stopped at an intersection where three corridors branched away, each swallowed by shadows that seemed to breathe. The left path reeked of rot. The right was unnervingly silent. The center pulsed faintly, like the glow of a dying ember.
A low rumble vibrated through the walls. Something massive was moving.
Reiji inhaled slowly, pressing his free hand to the cold surface beside him. The wall trembled—not from the rumble, but from something slithering just beneath its surface. The sensation was wrong. Solid stone shouldn't move.
He took the center path.
The air grew warmer, heavy with the scent of rust and something else—copper and earth. As he turned a corner, he saw them: crude symbols carved into the walls, arranged in circles and spirals. The marks weren't random; each stroke felt deliberate, ancient, and oppressive. They reminded him of the fragments he'd seen in the stolen Codex of Shadows, but here, the script was alive.
One of the carvings twitched.
Reiji froze.
It was not the wall that moved—it was the symbol itself. The black grooves swelled like fresh ink, spilling across the stone, forming jagged shapes that reached for him.
He stepped back—too late. The tendril-like markings lunged forward, curling around his wrist. The temperature dropped instantly, frost forming along the metal of his blade. A voice—clearer now—slid into his ear.
> You shouldn't have come here…
Reiji yanked his arm back, severing the tendril with his blade. The wall recoiled, bleeding a shadowy mist that coiled upward before dispersing into the air. His pulse thundered, but his grip didn't loosen.
He kept moving.
The corridor widened into a chamber where the floor had collapsed in the center, revealing an abyss too deep for his light to reach. Across the gap, a figure stood—a silhouette in the red gloom.
The figure tilted its head slowly, the movement almost… curious.
"Who are you?" Reiji's voice was low, controlled.
The figure didn't answer. Instead, it took a step forward—and the ground beneath it cracked. No sound came from the break, but an icy wind rushed through the chamber, carrying with it fragments of whispers.
The abyss between them shifted. Not physically—his eyes insisted the gap was the same—but his mind screamed it was shrinking. His instincts told him the figure would be in front of him in moments.
Reiji moved first.
He vaulted across, the soles of his boots striking the brittle stone. As he landed, the figure was gone.
Only the whispers remained.
> Reiji… you were not the first…
Something slammed into his back. He rolled forward, blade raised. Out of the shadows emerged something that should not have been human—its proportions were wrong, limbs too long, head tilted unnaturally to one side. Its face was hidden beneath strips of cloth soaked in something dark, but he could see the faint curve of a smile beneath.
The creature moved like it had no joints—fluid, almost graceful.
Reiji struck, steel cutting across its chest. Black ichor hissed where it met the blade, but the creature didn't falter. Its arm lashed out, striking his shoulder hard enough to numb his grip. He staggered back, dodging another blow, before driving his weapon into its abdomen.
A shriek split the air—not from its mouth, but from the walls themselves.
The labyrinth was waking.
He withdrew his blade, the creature collapsing into a heap of shadow that bled into the floor. The ground quaked, the corridors around him twisting, closing, and rearranging like the shifting gears of some colossal machine.
The whispers turned into laughter.
And then—silence.
Reiji stood alone in a new corridor, the chamber gone. The air was colder, the light dimmer, and far ahead, barely visible, a single door pulsed with faint white light.
He knew without question—whatever lay beyond that door was not the end of the labyrinth. It was the beginning.
And if the whispers were right… someone had been here before him.