While Kaelen and Lyra pushed onward from the Chamber of Silence, elsewhere in the labyrinth, the Crimson Harrowers stormed through their own trial.
They were not seekers of balance or enlightenment. They were marauders, war-bred scavengers who thrived on violence. Yet even they, hardened by endless conquests, faltered before the labyrinth's test.
The Furnace Corridor
The Harrowers entered a corridor bathed in searing light. The walls pulsed with molten veins, rivers of glowing crimson like exposed arteries. Heat struck them in waves, boiling sweat from their bodies, searing the air in their lungs.
At their head strode Captain Varrek, a brute of a man with skin like scorched bronze and eyes that burned with feverish ambition. He carried a war axe etched with trophies of past kills, and his armor bore the marks of battles survived only by brutality.
"Forward!" he bellowed, voice booming despite the oppressive heat. "This is just another battlefield — cut through it, and the power is ours!"
But this battlefield had no flesh-and-blood enemy. The walls themselves came alive.
From the molten streams, shapes began to rise — towering figures of fire and stone, their eyes glowing like coals. They carried weapons forged of flame, each swing leaving trails of scorching light in the air.
Fire Against Fury
The Harrowers charged with savage cries, axes and blades clashing against burning giants. Steel met magma — and screamed. Weapons warped, armor melted, flesh blistered.
But the Harrowers did not retreat. Their creed was survival through dominance. They hacked through the burning forms even as fire scorched their lungs.
Varrek laughed, a sound both defiant and mad. "You think flame frightens us? We were born in fire!" He buried his axe in one of the molten giants, splitting it in half with a roar.
For a moment, it seemed they might triumph. The giants shattered, crumbling into rivers of molten rock.
But the labyrinth was merciless.
The rivers surged back together, merging into a single, monstrous Infernal Colossus. Twice as tall, thrice as fierce, its roar cracked the corridor walls.
The Price of Rage
Panic rippled through the Harrowers. Their bravado crumbled as the Colossus swung a flaming arm, crushing two warriors instantly, their screams drowned by fire.
Varrek alone stood his ground, eyes wide, veins bulging with fury. He struck again and again, each blow splintering his axe further, each roar louder than the last.
"NO FLAME CONSUMES THE HARROWERS!" he shouted, his voice cracking the heat around him.
And for a heartbeat, the labyrinth seemed to listen. His fury fed the Colossus — its flames blazed brighter, as if the labyrinth thrived on rage.
One by one, the Harrowers fell, their screams filling the Furnace Corridor until only Varrek remained, his body blistered, armor fused to his skin, but still striking, still laughing through the pain.
The Labyrinth Watches
Far above, unseen, the labyrinth shifted its walls. Its trials were not random — they studied. They adapted.
The Crimson Harrowers were consumed, their bodies reduced to ash and molten bone. But Varrek's final roar lingered, echoing through the labyrinth as though it had been claimed.
The labyrinth did not just test. It remembered.
Meanwhile — Kaelen and Lyra
Far away, Kaelen froze as the faint echo of that roar reached him through the corridors. Lyra's hand tightened in his.
She whispered, "Another has fallen."
But Kaelen's jaw clenched. That roar hadn't sounded like defeat. It sounded like something worse.
Something the labyrinth had kept.