The sound of grinding crystal was the sound of a closing cage.

The archway they had entered through was gone, replaced by a solid, seamless wall of shimmering, translucent mineral.

"Well," Jax said, his voice a little too high, a little too cheerful. "That's not ideal."

He gave the new wall a tentative poke with his crutch.

"Definitely not on the blueprints."

The chamber itself was shrinking.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The beautiful, crystalline walls were flowing, shifting, rearranging themselves with a cold, intelligent, and deeply malevolent purpose.

"It's a compactor," Jinx growled, her voice a low, dangerous thing. "A giant, sparkly trash compactor."

"The labyrinth isn't just a place," Michael said, his own voice quiet, his [Void Sense] a screaming, chaotic mess of phantom echoes and imminent, pointy death. "It's the monster."

"Luna!" Chloe's voice was a sharp, urgent command in their ears, cutting through the rising tide of panic. "I need a path! Now!"

Luna stood in the center of the shrinking room, her eyes squeezed shut, her face a mask of pure, agonizing concentration.

"There are… tunnels," she gasped, her voice trembling. "Inside the walls. They're constantly moving. Shifting."

She pointed a trembling finger to her right, at a section of wall that looked no different from the rest.

"There," she whispered. "A passage. It's unstable. It won't be there for long."

"Jax!" Jinx barked, her professional, survivalist instincts taking over. "Make us a door!"

"On it!" Jax chirped, already pulling one of his new "Crystal Calamity" grenades from his belt.

He hobbled over to the spot Luna had indicated, slapped the grenade onto the wall, and slammed his hand down on the detonator.

The high-pitched, resonant pulse was a physical thing, a vibration that shook their very bones.

The solid crystal wall didn't explode.

It dissolved.

It turned into a cascade of fine, glittering dust, revealing a dark, narrow, and deeply uninviting tunnel.

"Go! Go! Go!" Jinx yelled, shoving them towards the opening.

They scrambled into the tunnel just as the main chamber behind them sealed itself shut with a final, grinding groan of finality.

The tunnel was tight. Claustrophobic.

And it was moving.

The crystalline walls seemed to breathe, to shift, the very ground beneath their feet vibrating with a low, ominous hum.

"Okay," Jax panted, leaning heavily on his crutch. "This is officially the weirdest escape room I have ever been in."

"The path is splitting," Luna said, her voice a thin, worried thread. "I… I can't feel which way is safe."

The tunnel ahead of them forked, two identical, shimmering passages leading off into the disorienting, crystalline dark.

They were at a dead end.

"We have to split up," Jinx said, her voice a flat, final verdict. "It's our only chance."

"Jax, you're with me," she commanded. "Your leg is a liability. I'll watch your back."

She turned to Michael.

"Kid," she said, her electric-blue eyes meeting his. "You've got the Seer. Keep her alive."

The order was absolute.

Michael just nodded, a new, heavy weight of responsibility settling on his shoulders.

"Chloe," Jinx said into her comms. "We're splitting. Try to keep a track on us if you can."

"Negative," Chloe's voice crackled back, full of static. "The labyrinth's energy is interfering with my connection. You are… on your own."

The line went dead.

The silence that followed was absolute.

"Well," Jax said, a manic, terrified grin on his face. "No adult supervision."

"This is going to be so much fun."

Jinx just grunted, grabbing his arm. "Let's go, Boomer."

And then they were gone, disappearing down the right-hand tunnel, leaving Michael and Luna alone in the shimmering, shifting silence.

The tunnel was a nightmare of disorienting beauty and imminent, pointy death.

Luna was their guide, her visions a chaotic, fragmented roadmap through the living maze.

"Wait!" she would gasp, her hand flying to his arm. "The floor… it's going to drop."

And a moment later, the crystalline ground in front of them would dissolve into a chasm of swirling, rainbow light.

Michael was her bodyguard.

Small, scuttling creatures, like spiders made of razor-sharp crystal, would periodically burst from the walls.

He was a phantom of controlled, deadly violence, his Reaper's Fang and his Revenant a whirlwind of black and purple against their shimmering, crystalline forms.

They were a team. A strange, desperate, and surprisingly effective team.

The Seer and the Reaper.

The one who saw the path, and the one who cleared it.

They finally burst out of the narrow, shifting tunnels and into a massive, central cavern.

The air here was different. It was heavy. Charged.

The ceiling soared a thousand feet above them, a single, massive, and perfectly formed crystal that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic, and deeply malevolent light.

And in the center of the cavern, coiled like a great, sleeping serpent, was the source of the labyrinth's song.

It was a Hydra.

Or a nightmare's version of one.

Its body was a massive, twenty-foot-tall mass of twisting, razor-sharp crystal.

It had three heads, each one on a long, sinuous neck, their eyes burning with a cold, internal fire.

As they watched, one of the heads let out a silent, hissing roar, and a new, fourth head began to grow from its neck, forming out of pure, crystalline energy.

[CRYSTALLINE HYDRA (LV. 20) IDENTIFIED.]

Okay, so this is the mini-boss, Michael's inner monologue drawled. And it has a regeneration mechanic. Fantastic.

Just as he was about to formulate a plan that probably involved a lot of running and screaming, a new sound echoed from the far side of the cavern.

The grinding of crystal on crystal.

Another archway was opening.

Jinx and Jax stumbled out, looking battered, bruised, but very much alive.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," Jinx grunted, a cynical smirk on her face. "Thought you two got lost."

"Lost?" Jax scoffed, leaning heavily on his crutch. "We were taking the scenic route!"

Their brief, triumphant reunion was cut short by a low, ominous hum.

From a third archway, a new group of figures emerged.

They weren't monsters.

Their armor was a gleaming, arrogant silver, reflecting the Hydra's malevolent light.

It was Sterling.

And the entire Vanguard A-team was with him.

They hadn't come to help.

They had come to hunt.

"Well, well, well," Sterling purred, his handsome face a mask of smug, condescending victory. "Look what we have here."

He looked from the cornered, battered members of Thanatos to the massive, regenerating Hydra.

"A nest of rats," he said, his smile turning into a cruel, sharp thing. "And a very big, very angry cat."

He raised his energy blade, its hum a final, damning verdict.

"It seems," he said, his voice dripping with a false, theatrical pity, "that you're having a very, very bad day."

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