Chapter Forty-Seven: The Underground Labyrinth

In the depths of unconsciousness, the only sensation Will had was that his body was endlessly falling. The whistling wind roared past his ears, and beneath him yawned an abyss without end, no matter how long he fell, the ground remained out of reach.

He had no idea how much time had passed before he slowly began to emerge from that stupor. Forcing his heavy eyelids open, Will was immediately greeted by the feeling that his neck had nearly snapped, and every inch of his body throbbed with pain. Though his limbs were numb, at least he hadn’t lost them altogether.

Grimacing, Will tried to piece together his scattered memories. He recalled tumbling into something like a deep ravine. Though for a moment he’d suspected he had fallen into a trap, he dismissed the idea—this was a small forest, devoid of any great magical beasts, and no one would bother to construct such an enormous pit here.

Before plunging into the chasm, he remembered clutching at Charlesburg, and, during their descent, casting a levitation spell over both of them—

“Perhaps it was that levitation spell that saved me,” he thought wryly. The feeling in his limbs was gradually returning, but his body still howled in agony. With considerable effort, he pushed himself up from the ground and looked around.

To be precise, Will couldn’t see the environment at all. It was so dark that he couldn’t even see his own hand in front of his face. He had to rely on the keen senses of a mage to probe his surroundings. It was exactly this that made him all the more astonished at the place he’d landed in: with his abilities, he could normally sense things four or five meters away, but after groping around in the darkness for quite some time, using all his powers of perception, he still hadn’t found anything like a rock wall. This meant that wherever he was, the space was vast—abnormally vast.

With no other choice, Will cast a fireball spell to provide some illumination. Lighting a flame in an unknown world of darkness was, in a sense, an extraordinarily dangerous act. If there were any threats lurking in the shadows, the light would make him an easy target for attack. Luckily, there seemed to be nothing dangerous nearby.

By the light of the fireball, Will quickly found Charlesburg, who was still unconscious, as well as the two soulmasters who had fallen with him.

The false Serpent Soulmaster had landed badly, breaking his leg—the left was bent at an unnatural angle from the impact. His chest was scraped and bleeding, likely from a sharp stone. As for the mad Red-Arm Green Lizard Soulmaster, his fate was even more grisly: he’d struck the ground headfirst, and the mingled stench of blood and brain matter filled the air, making Will wrinkle his nose in disgust.

Will had already estimated the distance from the opening above to the floor below: a full three hundred meters. Falling that far in this manner was certain death, but to be sure, Will plunged his blade into the Red-Arm Green Lizard’s heart. Of course, the barely alive Serpent Soulmaster did not escape the same fate.

With the two threats eliminated, Will finally turned his attention to the underground chamber he found himself in. Over three hundred meters deep, and clearly man-made—a fact evident from the regularly arranged stone floor. Whichever direction he looked, the space was immense. Most astonishing of all, despite being so far underground, the air was fresh and breathable. There must be ventilation shafts somewhere.

By the faint firelight, Will carefully explored the fifty meters around him, but found nothing unusual. With no other options, he returned to Charlesburg’s side and knelt to check his condition.

The fat man was still unconscious. Perhaps his bulk had shielded him—apart from a few scrapes, he bore no serious wounds. Will considered scrawling a message next to him, warning him not to wander off after waking, but promptly dismissed the notion. In this darkness, when even one’s own limbs were uncertain, who would notice a few words scratched on the floor?

Since there was no immediate danger, Will left a mental brand on Charlesburg and decided to venture farther afield. With that brand, he could always locate Charlesburg from a distance and need not worry about losing his way in this underground night.

Expanding his search to a hundred meters, Will finally discovered a passage. Cautiously, guided by the fire’s faint glow, he entered. The corridor twisted and branched; after only a few steps, another fork appeared. Curious, Will took one of the new passages to its end, only to find it blocked—a dead end. The realization struck him: this underground complex was a labyrinth!

Running his fingers along the walls, Will’s sense of amazement only grew. The stone, the weathering—this maze was clearly not built by people of the present era. By his estimation, it must date back seven or eight centuries, to the very age in which Will had lived in his previous life.

The deeper he ventured, the more surprise replaced his initial astonishment. This was no simple maze filled with dead ends; inside these passages were numerous traps. What truly shocked him, though, was that these traps were magical.

Or, more precisely, they were mechanisms imbued with magic.

Though time had eroded much of their power, Will could sense faint magical energy lingering in these ancient devices. He approached one cautiously—a row of black iron tubes that looked utterly ordinary. As he neared, the trap triggered automatically, just as he suspected. The row consisted of twenty tubes, each capable of firing three or four fire-element cannonballs. Each shot possessed enough destructive power to kill a fourth-rank soulmaster. But perhaps due to their age and the scant magic remaining, only two of the tubes fired before falling silent, leaving nothing but the dry grinding of ancient gears.

Will knelt to inspect the scorched ground where the two magical cannonballs had landed. The floor had been blasted to powder, leaving two half-meter-deep craters. Even reaching out, he could feel the searing heat still radiating from the pits, and the acrid stench of burning lingered in the air. Yet, rather than disgust, Will’s face showed something rare—a glimmer of feverish excitement.