Adam looked around, walking in a straight line, cautious, just in case anything happened. He kept walking, turning from corner to corner, the maze confusing him, as he had forgotten where he had come from. He realized that it may have been a side effect of entering the maze.
He kept walking, hoping to find Nova, but he wasn't able to find anyone or anything. Nova had told him to get to the volcano, which loomed much higher than the maze walls, very vividly in sight from anywhere in the maze. It looked so alive, yet so abiotic. It crept Adam, which he kept moving.
---
Nova kept running, turning corners, his stamina not showing any signs of depletion. Something good he had in a while. Something logical. Then, as he kept running, he heard a distant scream. A scream of a man getting eaten alive. No one could die, technically, since they would be summoned back to get healed, but still, the pain would be both a problem and heaven.
I need to find Adam as soon as possible, he thought, worrying about Adam more than his own life, even though that scream wasn't too far from where he was previously. Those monsters I saw have been released, and they have already started to attack people. And Adam isn't exactly a person who could defend himself against such creatures.
He ran away from the scream, his eyes wide open, analyzing everything and anything like a robot, one of the skills he had transferred from his previous life. He turned a corner, and in front of him was one of the creatures. The Circle of Pillar showed it to be an F-rank monster, which was still better than encountering an E-rank creature.
Nova and the creature circled each other, anticipating the other's move. It was a wolf, but bigger and more mutated. Sharper claws, extra claws. Its fur was irregular, clumps of coarse black hair extending out over raw, scarred skin. The thing's shoulders were so broad they made a guy with the golden ratio look minimal. Each step it took was deliberate, the claws, six on each paw, scrapping against the ground with a sound like metal on stone. Its muzzle was longer than it should've been, teeth jagged and uneven, some extending sideways as if they'd grown without care for the mouth that held them.
Its eyes weren't gold or amber like a normal wolf; instead, a deep, wet red, like fresh blood catching the light. And when it exhaled, the air came out in a slow, rattling hiss, carrying the stink of rot and old meat. This was an abomination. It was designed to hunt, to tear, and to keep tearing long after the fight should've been over.
Nova didn't sweat; he was quite liking the moment. The intensity. The struggle he would have to fight, and to avoid the beast from tearing him wide open. He smirked, as if ready to face the monstrosity.
He cracked his knuckles, which didn't sit right with the beast. It aggravated it more. Nova realized this and cracked more of his body parts, as they kept circling each other, making a perfect circle. No mistakes, only perfection. The wolf was getting irksome by how many bones Nova had cracked, and growled at him, which was its first mistake.
Nova had realized that the wolf couldn't handle the sound of bones cracking, so it would make a very irrational decision to attack first, not realizing that Nova had picked up a stone as they circled, since it was so fixated on the bones cracking.
As the wolf lunged at him, he barely sidestepped and met eye to eye with the wolf, grinning at it with malicious intent, then, with the rock at hand, pierced right through the wolf's eye, making it rabid. The wolf couldn't control the pain, and blood was pouring profusely from its eye, as its eye collapsed, its vision buffering for a while, until it didn't see Nova in front of it.
Then, Nova whistled at the wolf, piercing right through the other eye, as the wolf cried in agony. Nova left the wolf to suffer in the pain, as he didn't want to waste too much time trying to kill the wolf. He left, running to a completely new section of the maze that looked vastly different.
Then he realized where he was. The vines he had seen earlier. He was there. Which meant he was getting closer to the volcano as well, since the volcano looked much bigger than before.
He had to be quiet, not making a single sound. He was succeeding at first. Getting halfway through the section, until a group of people encountered him, and it turned his head around as their loud voices were waking up the vines, angering them. The group looked at Nova funny, as if they were going to kill him, but he only felt pity for them. He remained completely still, still as a statue, as the group ran towards him, and just at the last second, the vines grabbed the people. Some were awakened and tried to use their abilities, but the vines were much more durable.
The vines threw a couple of people far and wide, where they would die by landing at a high velocity. Crushing their entire body. Then, some of the people the vines threw right in front of Nova, piercing through their stomachs at a terrifying force. Everyone was teleported back, getting disqualified from the tournament.
Then the vines turned their gaze onto Nova, who was as still as a rock. They inspected him, then realized that he wasn't making a sound, so classified him as an inanimate object, leaving him be. As he left, he slowly made his face, only to accidentally step on a rock, which seemed to have made a little too much noise.
I mean it only vibrated through the entire maze.
"Oops, I guess I made a sound," Nova said, smiling at the vines that were awakened once more.