Cyril Sarnath
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Chapter 86: The Bottom 10
🕑 Added 2022-06-13 19:32:44 +0000 UTCThe next few rooms had no active traps as far as Keynes could see, even though they had the features like holes in the walls, floors and ceilings, slits that ran across and alongside the long corridor and could hide saws, or runes.
Nothing attacked Keynes and that bothered him and put him on edge for the whole time.
Some rooms were larger and merged with other smaller rooms. All the different routes of the labyrinth seemed to come together.
And yet, Keynes didn’t meet anyone for seven rooms. He didn’t know if that was normal or not, nothing in this place was normal, but he didn’t like it.
When he stepped into the eighth room, after the lava pool chamber, Keynes found the floor and walls made out of white pristine marble. The ceiling was black and made out of material Keynes didn’t know. The room, like most, was very long and at least twenty metres wide. It was the first place that had a bright colour scheme. All other rooms were either black or grey because of the materials they were made of—mostly rock. Like any other room, it didn’t have an apparent source of light.
Do you sense any threats? Keynes asked.
No, master. It feels … strange though.
Keynes had a similar feeling about this room. It not only appeared to contain no threats, but it also had a calming effect. The sense of the disparity between how Keynes should have felt and how the room made him feel only increased with time. And something told him that he was aware of this only because of his memory, otherwise, he’d not see it.
We must leave, Keynes said, keeping panic from rising to the surface. The effect of the room was slowly getting out of hand. Each step was a struggle. Keynes’s body wanted to remain here. Everything was telling him that everything was going to be fine. But he hadn’t trained his Will for nothing and even though his attribute was 30, his Will felt stronger than that. He also had an ace up his sleeve. He took out a wand that added 7 points to his Will.
It immediately triggered the runes in the room.
Using weapons inside the Labyrinth of Worth is forbidden.
But nothing happened when he just kept it in his hand, which led him to believe that the labyrinth would only act if Keynes used the wand.
With additional points to his Will and the Purifying Body buff, Keynes was able to break out of the room’s grip on his mind. He got to the exit and left it, taking a deep breath. That marbe room spooked Keynes but before he could properly think a message appeared.
Only 100 contenders remain.
It didn’t tell him which place he occupied but the number shocked him to the core. How much time did pass? Half an hour?
And already the number dropped from five hundred to just a hundred.
Keynes could see how that had happened. Almost everything in the labyrinth was designed to kill. But it still boggled him how quickly it’d happened.
We need to pick up the pace, Keynes said.
Based on everything I have seen, I do not think that the pace is a problem, Alice replied.
What do you mean?
It is only a guess, but it seems like most of those people have died because of recklessness and fighting with other contenders. The labyrinth has only killed thirty-two racers.
Right. The Labyrinth killed the last racer every minute so it couldn’t have killed four hundred people in thirty minutes but Alice missed something else, something she couldn’t properly understand. Other racers might be reckless as she’d pointed out but what they were doing made sense. It didn’t matter how careful they were. The other racers, the reckless ones, would be so far ahead that catching up with them would be impossible.
So, in other words, the tribesmen threw their bodies at the Labyrinth hoping for the best. Only one person would walk out of this alive. Playing a careful hand wasn’t an option here.
Only a minute later another message popped up.
Only 90 contenders remain.
And then came a warning.
You are the bottom 10 contenders. Hurry up or you will die.
This was bad.
Keynes put the wand back into the dimensional pouch and rushed through the next room which looked like a cave with an even floor made out of beaten gravel. The cave wasn’t straight and bent after a few metres, then it split into two, leading in opposite directions.
Keynes decided to check the right tunnel. It split up again after barely ten metres.
At this point, it was clear what was wrong with this room - this was a labyrinth, just a smaller one. Keynes picked the right tunnel again. It walked on for a minute until he reached the dead end. He started to panic slightly.
I’m stupid for listening to Shaper and his vision. If I die because of him… No. I’m not going to die.
The bond with Alice remained quiet. She was checking on other tunnels.
He turned around, retracting his steps. He stilled, hearing an argument.
“I told you it is this way, not that way!”
“No, no, no. You got it all wrong.”
“No, I don’t. My chief told me to always turn left.”
“We did and nothing happened.”
Master! I found the exit, Alice said when she arrived a few seconds later. This way.
As Keynes returned to the starting point, he found the two tribesmen from the lava pool chamber. They looked exhausted, they were sweating. One of them was missing parts of his armour.
“Outsid—” The man collapsed as runes appeared all over his body. His body turned to dust.
Only 80 contenders remain.
You are the bottom 10 contenders. Hurry up or you will die.
Such runes should not be used! Alice thundered.
We don’t have time for that. Focus and lead me out of here, now.
The other man realised what had happened and charged at Keynes but Keynes dodged his grip with ease and ran to the exit as if seven hells broke loose.
As he shot through the exit, his feet found nothing and he plunged into the darkness below. His skills once again were disabled by the runes in the room.
He heard a scream behind him and then saw a flash of runes, the man who chased him was gone.
I AM THE LAST ONE! Keynes roared in his—
Pain exploded as he hit the surface of the water. Immediately, he was dragged underneath it by the strong current.
Master! Hang on, I will look around and find a way out.
The underground river was merciless. It was deep enough that he couldn’t find where the surface was and where the bottom was. Each time he tried to get control, the current would brutally turn him upside down.
His mind was filled with another river.
The river of emotions: anger and fear. He was about to die because he hadn’t listened to Vivena. Because he’d been too stupid to see the—
Master, I found the exit. The river runs around a massive tall rocky pillar. The exit is at the top.
I’m dead anyway.
No. You aren’t the only one in the river. There are twenty other people in it. And thirty are already climbing the pillar.
Show me the way!
The bond with Alice unfurled in his mind and Keynes could mentally see where the pillar he needed to get onto was.
The current seemed to sense his attempts to get free and doubled its effort to keep Keynes underwater. Keynes’s lungs burned from exhaustion but knowing that he wasn’t going to turn into a pile of dust in the next few seconds, gave him a boost of strength he badly needed.
In a few strong strokes, always following the direction of the bond, Keynes managed to touch and then get a grip on a rock. As Keynes's head broke the surface of the water, all he could see was darkness around him. Instinctively, he attempted to activate [Night Sight] but failed.
After taking a deep breath, Keynes started his climb up the pillar. He could hear the thunderous river now, once he’d escaped its clutches.
Only 70 contenders remain.
He waited for the warning that he was in the bottom 10 but it didn’t appear. It was a relief though he wasn’t out of the woods yet. Alice warned him that the pillar was three hundred metres high and had many smooth places, making the climb difficult without the ability to see.
Keynes realised that the labyrinth was impossible to finish without having a spiritual companion. If not for Alice, Keynes would’ve been dead. Their relationship, in the beginning, hadn’t been the most fruitful thing but now it paid dividends.
Several times during the climb, Keynes heard screams of falling contenders. And a good number of them came from above Keynes which was a bad sign.
What makes them fall from up there? Keynes asked Alice.
She disappeared for a moment and then returned with bad news. There were only two narrow passages that led to the exit, the rest of the pillar was smooth. Some of the contenders stayed behind and barred the way for others.
He didn’t think they were there for him, but he couldn’t rule it out.
Keynes got to one of the two passages when the number of contenders dropped to fifty. The man who barred the way there had a Talent associated with climbing because he didn’t even use his hands to stay on the wall, though they had to rely on Alice’s spiritual vision and that kind of vision could be easily fooled.
When Keynes got three metres away from him, the other man sniffed.
“You shall not pass. The Capital must triumph.”
“As if you could stop me.” Keynes blasted the man with his aura. It was a concentrated blast, which Keynes had been learning before the race. The strength of Keynes’s aura dropped the man like a stone.
Fifty metres later, Keynes reached the ledge. Strangely, no one was waiting here. It’d be the best place to defend but luckily for Keynes they weren’t the smartest or the strongest lot.
How many people are behind us?
Twenty-two.
Assuming they’d die only to the Labyrinth's deadly countdown, it gave Keynes 22 minutes before it was his turn.
Keynes looked over the ledge, but there was nothing to see but pure blackness. He was unharmed but his stamina dropped low and it’d need time to recover. Time, he didn’t have. On a positive note, he expected others to be in a similar shape.
The next room consisted of constantly moving elements. Walls, floors, ceiling. Everything was in motion. Twice he heard a scream of agony as contenders were crushed. The only safe space was two metres in front of him.
He stayed long enough to get another message. Only 40 contenders remained in the race. Alice grew agitated a little with Keynes’s lack of haste and nagged him to move.
Over the ten minutes, Keynes memorised the sequence of the room. The only issue was that he couldn’t see the entire sequence as the passages appeared and disappeared, blocking the sight of what lay further ahead.
Still, he knew that the room must be beatable to someone without his memory. He picked the moment and rushed forward. Two seconds later, a wall closed behind him and a passage opened on his right.
Then on his left; then straight ahead.
As he got a better grip on the sequence, he managed to catch up with two other contenders who seemed to run in circles, from one passage to another, always missing the right timing that led out of the loop they had gotten themselves in.
They saw Keynes and it cost them their lives. One fell through the hole in the floor that opened beneath him, and the other one died to the ceiling that dropped on him.
Keynes threw them out of his head and kept forward until the last passage turned out to be an exit.
Eagerly, and still a little disoriented by all the motion, Keynes ran to it.
A fist scraped his face.
An attacker tried to push Keynes back into the previous room. But his Level 3 strength wasn’t enough to defeat Keynes even with Keynes’s lack of one-on-one fighting techniques.
Keynes swiftly knocked him out only to face a pair of burly-looking tribesmen with well-made leather armours.
“Outsider!” one of them hissed. “This is where you are going to die.”
