Chapter 1883 - 1882 - Myriad Maze

The interior of the hull was damaged so badly there was nowhere to stand. Conversely, it was clear there were many entrances on the interior wall. The formations were broken and generally inert revealing the doors they had hidden.

Lind still sent out a few test artifacts severed from him entirely. There were no further reactions from Fiend Qi. The raw material was breaking down due to exposure to such high density harmonic Qi.

He transformed his arms into claws and finished the job. There was no black abyss but a rather banal corridor lit with actual candles. If not for the fact he saw no wax at all anywhere, he would think they were regular candles as well.

What they burned he did not know but he tested the air immediately for anything that might be harmful or affect their minds. He found nothing. The complete normalcy after the lethal traps spoke volumes about the danger inside.

If the hallways were safe, the destinations were far from it. That was the most likely confrontation awaiting them.

[Groups no smaller than four should check each entrance. We can't all fit inside here.] That was the reality. A massive army facing a choke point became powerless against a smaller force.

He may as well make it harder to bring all force to bear if they invaded all the entrances at once. It was still likely laced with traps or to guide them to places to kill them as efficiently as possible, but so many could not be easily addressed.

It was clear that while the hallways were lit and intact, all the entrances were dead. No one had even a scratch so the first attempts had failed.

Lind looked at his family and sighed.

[Fey, Shoti, and Ethry pick 3 others and enter near me.] Qing, Annabelle, and Chu smiled at him but Shoti only pointed at Chu in confusion as she was clearly on par with the 3 chosen to lead in skill or power. Lind sighed.

[Chu is powerful but she fights solo. She does not want to tell others to obey but expects them to react to her. Only her daughter and I could ever keep up.] Chu was now glaring at him but she could not deny his words.

As a warrior she was nearly unparalleled but that was a vastly different skill set from leading. Shoti, for all her similarities, was a born strategist. She loved planning and moving pieces on the board.

Ethry and Fey had learned from all of them and led many forces as they had been independent from the family at times. They were well respected by many, also very feared in the case of Fey.

He hugged them all and wished everyone to be safe. It was very possible it was the last time they would see each other. Lind hoped not but did not delude himself.

The Bastard was on his final chance. There was no holding back for a future iteration anymore. Both sides were rolling the final dice.

Lind advanced with his group. While Qing was not battle oriented, she was far more sensitive to anything related to the soul. Very few could accept such an inexperienced Eternal Realm no matter what confirmation was given by him.

Chu would work well with them as she had long learned to trust his command against enemies. There was nothing else that mattered to her in her eyes save his being her mate.

Annabelle was a bit of an exception. She absolutely could have led her own group but the issue was her style was more suited to a true battlefield. She could create illusions to lead vast numbers into death traps or confuse them where a target really was.

Against a singular enemy or pure artifacts, her illusions were not as effective. No matter how real they seemed to cultivators, she had no way of knowing how non-living things perceived targets.

In a group however, she was hell on 2 legs in that same scenario. With those able to figure out what traps are looking for, her illusions became a skillful weapon to clear the way!

Just as with Qing, however, no one would fully trust her despite acquiring the Eternal Illusion Goddess title on her ascension.

It was impressive but just too little time had passed. Lind knew better. Her illusions were far more terrifying than anything he could ever weave. His sigils had the power to defy as part of them but they did struggle against her.

So while the 3 were considered weak by many due to the lack of time to grow, Lind knew his team was horrifyingly powerful. The frustrating part was that so did his enemy.

The Bastard was fighting from a place of firm knowledge and a lot of variety that Lind lacked. Despite all that he had been given, it was quite possible that the previous battles the Bastard had faced made him even more prepared than anything Lind could anticipate.

The most he could do was create a scalpel of a team that could cut through any variety of attack. The 4 of them landed in the hallway and the feeling changed. It was too quiet and too peaceful.

The flickering candles only added to it and he confirmed they were not normal. They were absorbing Qi to be lit. It was not a little Qi either but it was not Fiend material. He had never seen such a simple use. Further, he could not stop it.

The waxy material was very flexible and any attempt to harm it just made the flames grow. Once made and lit, it was nearly impossible to destroy them. In the hallway alone there were a little under a dozen.

While it was negligible to them, it was constant. Lind also suspected there were far more.

"Unexpected for the little monster to come up with this. While Eternal Realm cultivators do not rely on Qi it was still part of what they needed to perform their Path or Intent powers. If it was stripped away, it would take more power to pull off the same feat." Chu coldly spoke but none of them were concerned.

Lind only nodded and they moved down the hall slowly. As they moved, more candles were revealed and they noticed something else. Despite the distance, they could feel their Qi was being pulled on even more the deeper they went.

Lind frowned. It would not work that way. He wanted to examine it more but the candles had another effect. It dulled his aura enough that details were hard to see very far into the wall around them.

He was a Forger, however, and could make some inferences.

"Despite how efficient that waxy material is, it has to have a limit even that flame cannot satisfy. The only answer is that the base has a chute leading somewhere." He gave action to his words as his left hand transformed into a claw and ripped a sconce off the wall.

Sure enough, a decently sized vein of wax was coming out of the bottom and going into the wall. Lind could exert his strength but there was no idea how far he would have to go to eliminate the wax.

It was a rather ingenious method to weaken and limit his enemies but not lethal. Even if the Bastard met them at that moment, he would face 4 powerful Eternal Realm cultivators. The minor loss would hardly impede them.

The issue was that the hall did not end in a door but a choice. Left, right, or straight ahead stood before them. Lind also frowned as the feeling of being drained increased just standing there.

"It's a maze but how big could it be?" Annabelle was likely right but he did not hold out hope for just a smaller interior of the construct. He had not felt space change yet it was a basic skill of even an Immortal.

Fiends might follow a vile path but their powers still mirrored other cultivators in the basics. It then became likely that the Bastard could manipulate space even in a construct.

"We have to assume it is worse than that." His words dispelled their hope of meeting up quickly with their fellow cultivators. The question then became, which direction?

Lind summoned 3 metal balls. They were different from the crystal loci he used before or the I-beam later. They were, however, useful in the current instance. He had charged them with a little harmonic Qi.

"Each of you infuse your Path power alone into these." All 3 frowned but trusted him. The spheres lit up with their respective colors. The azure gold was sent down the middle, black and emerald to the left, and a softly glowing blue one to the right.

Lind then summoned a crystal tablet. It showed all 3 spheres that were now moving! He watched as the spheres rolled and sped along various halls to reveal an ever expanding layout. The 3 never came close to each other despite guiding them to take turns towards the others.

He frowned as they began to weaken far faster than they should. After only a short time, all 3 vanished.

"This is a Myriad Maze." The proper name made all 3 women frown. It was a favorite trial from many special realms or Inheritances. It was not about getting through the maze itself but grasping how to escape it.

The rules vary but the construction was rather strict as well. It naturally inverted space to fit a nearly infinite maze inside a building. The exterior did not matter but in order for it to be stable it had to have a way to break it.

Lind looked at the flickering candles once more and sighed.

"Clever Bastard." His wives also seemed to grasp the truth. It was simple but also devastating. The farther one moved into the maze, the greater the drain, yet to solve the maze had to be tied to the same candles. It was a rather simple if devastating Myriad Maze.

It weakened the cultivators but was also the solution. Going deeper was only part of the answer. They had to find the right path to get to it.

Lind sighed as it would consume a lot of his artifacts to test that out and that assumed the maze could not be adjusted. He summoned 3 more metal spheres and began again. It was going to be a slow start it seemed.