The monster crumpled into wisps of darkness.
The divine energy churned, and another Minotaur appeared.
Before it could attack, the boy wrapped his blade in Death and Darkness.
The sword’s size increased.
He slashed and sliced off the Minotaur’s ankles.
The monster fell.
The boy jumped high in the air, wrapped in a condensed bolt of red lightning, his sword raised high, and stabbed it into the Minotaur’s head.
The giant monster roared, but before it could react, the boy pushed red lightning inside its head through the sword.
The Minotaur’s body started to crack.
Red lightning glowed beneath its skin.
Just when it seemed the Minotaur would die and revive, the boy’s shadow moved.
The darkness hiding within it bloomed.
It spread out like a flower and bit off half of the Minotaur’s body in one go.
The monster roared, not in anger but in pain and fear.
—
**Ten minutes earlier**
The holographic screen continued to flicker in a dark room.
The room was littered with drinks, half-eaten packed food, and dust.
The woman with deep dark circles and unkempt hair sat before the hologram.
Her eyes were glued to the screen.
“There is nothing to watch today.”
She moved the mouse and joined another stream.
After finding nothing, she scrolled the page and filtered it by rising.
There was nothing interesting.
She continued to scroll until her eyes stopped at a Labyrinth streaming channel.
**[MI&Gi]**
**[View Count: 1112 (Skyrocketing)]**
“Skyrocketing?”
The tag signified that the channel had gained several times its peak live views within the last hour.
Intrigued, the woman opened the channel.
“I’m still a virgin, dammit!” the blonde woman in the stream shouted.
It didn’t take long for Luna to understand what was happening in the stream.
“They are going to die in the Labyrinth.”
She clicked her tongue and pursed her lips.
“So that’s why the channel had the skyrocketing tag.”
Luna was about to leave the channel when suddenly the monsters in the video started to die.
Mira and George, the two streamers, froze.
They heard a voice behind them.
“I’ll be taking the key in exchange for saving you two.”
The streamers, frozen from fear, couldn’t move until the person who killed the monster left.
They collapsed to the ground, relieved; however, Luna’s gaze was fixed on the flickering red lightning in the corner.
“Death element…?”
She gulped.
Although stunned, she continued to analyze the stream.
“He could kill the monsters of the Labyrinth with the element alone.
“That’s Adept mastery.
“No, maybe even higher.”
Her eyes gained life.
She frantically messaged the streamers to follow the boy and gave them a tip.
“I have to find him—”
Luna froze when she realized the boy had taken the key from the streamers.
“He is trying to fight the Minotaur…”
“Damn it, I finally found someone with high mastery in Death!”
Luna swiftly stood up.
She left her room and banged on the door opposite her own.
“Shelly! Shelly!”
“What…?”
The door opened, and a woman with messy hair, wearing pajamas, came out.
“What do you want at midnight?” Shelly yawned.
“T-this!”
Luna showed her the stream.
“I’ve found someone with the Death element and a high mastery!”
Shelly’s sleepiness disappeared, only to be replaced by a frown.
“You’re still on that? It’s been five years, Luna. Give up—”
“Warp me to the Labyrinth!”
Luna cut off Shelly, her eyes fixed on the stream.
“Hurry! The kid is trying to fight the Minotaur! I need to save him!”
Shelly sighed.
She knew her advice wouldn’t change Luna’s mind.
“Don’t come to me for something like this again.” She clicked her tongue. “Go get changed.”
“We don’t have time for that!”
Shelly’s expression worsened, seeing the desperation and hope in Luna’s eyes.
She placed her hand on Luna’s shoulder and raised her other hand before closing her palm.
The two appeared high in the sky.
They hovered in the air.
“Where is the Labyrinth?”
“There.”
Shelly followed Luna’s directions and stared into the east.
Of course, she couldn’t see the Labyrinth since it was several cities away, but a general direction was enough for her.
She pointed her open palm towards the Labyrinth and closed it.
The world warped.
The space between the Labyrinth and Shelly’s location was compressed into three centimeters.
“Thank you!”
Luna jumped to the other side.
A sigh escaped Shelly’s lips as she let go of her hold over the space.
“I’m gonna get scolded again for using my abilities in a public area.”
—
Luna arrived before the Labyrinth.
No one had noticed her arrival.
Only Shelly and those Shelly touched could see her warp abilities.
Luna was about to enter the place when the guards at the entrance stopped her.
“We need to see your ID, Miss…”
The guard’s gaze scrutinized her appearance.
Looking like a hooligan was one thing, but Luna was ‘defective.’
“We can’t allow entrance to you unless you have special permission,” the guard spoke while looking at her mechanical legs.
‘Judging by how comfortable she is with those legs, it’s clear she lost her original legs a long time ago,’ the guard thought. ‘There is no way she can fight with those things.’
Luna’s face contorted.
“Do you even realize who you are talking to? I’m an—”
Before she could complete her sentence, the kid in the stream encountered the Minotaur and was crushed in a single attack.
Luna’s eyes widened, her gaze filled with horror until the dust suddenly cleared.
The boy was alive.
Not only alive—he took 10 seconds to subdue the Minotaur.
Just 10 seconds to kill the mythical monster twice.
“What…?”
The Minotaur didn’t revive.
The implications made Luna shudder.
Greed and desire appeared within her gaze.
“He has built a portion of his Concept of Death. That’s the only way he can kill an Immortal with two attacks.”
The guard, realizing something was amiss with her, was about to tell her off when suddenly the Labyrinth shook.
The ground started to break.
“W-what? What is happening!?” the guard shouted.
The adventurers entering the Labyrinth started to leave the Labyrinth in droves, and the whole place was chaos.
Nobody understood what was happening.
Instead of explaining what was happening to them, Luna focused on the stream.
When the boy killed the Minotaur, the Labyrinth started to close.
The walls broke, and the door cracked.
The whole place was filled with dust.
Coupled with the bad camera quality, she couldn’t see the boy’s face.
He was picking something from the chamber and storing it in a bag.
While he was doing his work, the boy spoke to the streamers,
“You two should hurry and leave. The Labyrinth will close soon.”
“But what about you—”
“I killed the Minotaur. Can you two do that?”
“… ”
The streamers closed their mouths.
“Leave quickly if you don’t want to be buried alive,” the boy added. “All paths of the Labyrinth open at the exit when it’s about to close.
“If you two run now, you should be able to escape.”
“No, no, no, no…” Luna muttered. “Get his name at least! This shitty camera quality, dammit!”
She gave another tip to the streamers.
However, instead of following her request, they left the Labyrinth.
Luna was fuming with anger.
She wanted to rush into the Labyrinth, but she knew going inside now was counterproductive.
It was better to wait for the kid outside.
The Labyrinth started to sink.
Thousands of adventurers rushed out of the Labyrinth before it sank into the ground, leaving a kilometer-wide chasm.
The chasm was so deep they couldn’t see its bottom.
“The Labyrinth closed…?”
“Someone defeated the Minotaur!”
“Did an Empyrean Demigod or something enter!? How could a Mythic Demigod defeat that monster?”
“Someone call the authorities! Too many people are injured here!”
“I need help…”
Luna ignored the crowd.
She scanned the place for the kid.
Suddenly, the ground shook as if an earthquake had arrived.
Darkness and shadow elementals rushed out of the chasm.
They flowed into the sky and hit an invisible roof.
“Hey, what is that…?”
The powerful force of the elementals continued to strike against the roof.
The sky cracked.
Slowly, the crack enlarged, and a portion of the sky shattered, revealing swirling darkness beyond.
A heavy pressure flowed out of the crack and hit the city below.
Dozens of adventurers fainted, unable to handle the pressure, while some barely resisted and managed to stay awake.
The adventurers had no time to rest.
Shadow monsters, with sharp claws and wings, started to descend from the crack.
“Look above!”
“Incoming!”
“An unidentified Window has appeared! Retreat! I said, retreat!”
All hell broke loose.
While the disappearance of the Labyrinth was shocking, the Window was far more dangerous.
Seeing the sky covered, they felt as if the world was coming to an end.
Luna remained calm.
“That looks a bit dangerous.”
Although she had no intentions of closing the Window, she wondered if she should take care of the shadow monsters emerging from it.
She was about to move when suddenly she sensed a powerful force of Death gathering in the distance.