The path itself was a predator, constricting like a slow, inevitable breath. It grew smaller and smaller, a visceral metaphor for time running out. They ran for their lives, hearts hammering against ribs, the air burning in their lungs. This liminal space, caught between reality and the pages of their novel, mocked their strength. Their spiritual powers flickered, unreliable and weak, like a radio signal through a storm.
On the left path, Suji ran, his grip on Kansai's arm iron-tight. Kansai had stumbled, his ankle protesting, and the crushing wall was a breath behind them. Just as despair threatened to crest, Suji saw lights ahead—not from the exit, but converging on them. A lotus-green glow and a sharp yellow gem-light came from one branching tunnel; a steady, piercing gold approached from another. They weren't guiding lights; they felt like a trap, corralling them.
"What are those?!" Kansai hissed through gritted teeth, panic and pain warring in his expression.
Suji blinked, his mind catching up to his eyes. They weren't cursed lights—they were people. Sozai, Yurei, and Kyoren spilled into the junction from the right, panting and wide-eyed. A moment later, Língxiāo emerged in a streak of golden light, his movement so fluid and purposeful he seemed to carve a path through the very darkness.
"I bet we can make it if we run that way!" Sozai shouted, his eyes glowing with that determined green hue, pointing opposite the crushing wall.
Suji's analytical mind, even in flight, made a leap. Could Sozai be one of the core pillars? The thought was half-formed when Língxiāo spoke, his voice calm and carrying an unnatural clarity.
"He's right. The way out is here. I can feel it." The small spiritual lantern Língxiāo carried floated from his hand, its golden light pulsing softly before darting down the indicated path, a silent beacon to gather the scattered.
How is he here? Suji's thoughts raced. If he's guiding us… is he a golden pillar too? There was no time to ask. The feeling was confirmation enough—a resonance in the air when these specific individuals drew close.
They ran, a desperate, ragged group, and soon found Xio not far ahead. He was trapped in a nightmarish loop, sprinting forward only to be dumped back at his starting point, his face a mask of furious frustration. They pulled him into their stream, and for the first time, truly let Língxiāo lead.
"I heard him… right there," Xio gasped, his voice tight with a guilt that seemed to physically weigh him down. "I could hear Wèi but I couldn't reach him." His eyes, like Sozai's and Língxiāo's, now gleamed with an inner light—a brilliant, troubled silver.
Suji watched as their energies subtly interacted, three distinct hues—green, gold, silver—pulsing in the gloom. "I think three of the core pillars are here," he said, the realization leaving his lips almost without his consent. "It's you, the black cat yokai, and… Língxiāo-kunsun."
Língxiāo glanced back, a faint, knowing look in his golden-brown eyes. He didn't deny it. He had already accepted the weight of his role. He simply turned and guided them on.
Xio swallowed hard, looking at his own silver-tinged hands as if seeing them for the first time. He didn't have time to dwell. Língxiāo's lantern led Língxi, Kage Ou, and Lànhuā to them from a side passage. Kage Ou's expression was stormy, his gaze fixed on the path Língxi had wanted to take earlier—the one now proven right.
"I told you," Língxi said, his voice cooler than the surrounding air, a slight reproach in his gem-like eyes, which now glowed with a deeper, more potent light. "But you never listen to me."
Kage Ou fell silent, his own eyes darkening not with anger, but with a profound, swallowing blackness that seemed to drink the weak light around them. He saw the same unearthly gleam in Língxi's eyes. "Fine," he hissed, the word an admission and a surrender.
Two more, Sozai thought, his mind racing even as his feet pounded the stone. Língxi and Kage Ou. That makes five. Kirihito is the sixth, the heart. Then who is the seventh?
A violent crackle of violet lightning, pure and unmistakably Wùji's, arced across the ceiling ahead. They were close.
"If we can make it to where Wùji-kunsun is holding the line," Língxiāo instructed, his voice taking on a resonant, almost oracular quality, "we can combine our strength. We can shatter this labyrinth from within."
For the first time since arriving in this cursed space, purpose unified them. It was no longer just about survival or finding their creator. It was about saving the very universe that contained them.
The labyrinth fought back with cruel creativity. Insectoid curses swarmed from cracks. Petrified, grasping tree roots erupted from the floor. Pages from unseen books, edges sharp as scalpels, whistled through the air. But the most insidious trap was the last: their own reflections.
Mirror-perfect copies stepped from the shadows, wearing their faces, their clothes, their determined expressions. The only difference was in the eyes—where their own held fear, resolve, and recognition, the copies' eyes were flat, empty, or shone with malicious intent.
"Look at their eyes!" Língxiāo called out, battling a golden-hued copy of himself. "The motive is clear in the eyes. Don't let them confuse you!"
Chaos erupted. Sozai ducked as a silver blade meant for his throat—wielded by a Yurei with dead eyes—whistled past his ear. He spun to retaliate, only for the copy to dissolve and be replaced by the real Yurei, barely blocking a blow from a fake Sozai.
"Sozai, it's me!" Yurei hissed, his real eyes wide with alarm.
Sozai pulled his strike at the last millisecond, their auras flaring. For a heartbeat, they just stared, imprinting the truth of each other's gaze—the living spark, the shared history—as a shield against the deception.
The fight was a psychological torture. They knew each other's strengths, weaknesses, and fighting styles intimately, making the fakes devastatingly effective.
The fake Sozai lunged for Yurei with predatory grace, while the fake Yurei moved against Sozai with agile ferocity. In a moment of perfect, unspoken synergy, the real Sozai and Yurei dodged not away, but past their own attackers. They grabbed the backs of the copies' heads and slammed them together with a sound like shattering glass. The duplicates exploded into dissipating fog.
Língxi had the hardest time. He faced not only a cold, efficient copy of Kage Ou but also aggressive doubles of Xio and Lànhuā. He moved with defensive precision, but his breaths grew labored, a hand pressed to the chronic ache in his chest.
"Líng, don't move too much!" Kage Ou's real voice shouted, thick with a concern that overrode the battle. He was terrified the fragile equilibrium of Língxi's health would shatter completely.
Língxi coughed, a light but painful sound, as the real Kage Ou and Lànhuā cut their way to his side, forming a protective triangle.
Then, as suddenly as the reflections had appeared, they were gone. The group stumbled into a final, open space that felt like a dark, starless forest clearing. And here, the rules changed again. A surge of power, clean and potent, rushed back into them. Their spiritual energies flared to life, not as weak flickers, but as roaring flames.
"Now!" Língxiāo commanded.
As one, they turned on the pursuing, crushing wall. Five beams of light—silver, green, gold, icy blue, and profound black—lanced from their hands, intertwining into a single, brilliant spear of collective will. It struck the advancing stone with a sound that was both a crash and a chime.
The wall didn't just stop. It shattered, collapsing into harmless pixels of fading dark light.
"We made it…" Xio whispered, the words a sigh of utter exhaustion as his knees gave out. Língxi sank down beside him, pale but relieved, as Kage Ou immediately placed a steadying, healing hand on his back.
But the victory was hollow. The game was not over.
Before them lay the heart of the maze, and it was a vision of silent, digital anguish. Glitching, fractured screens hung in the air like malevolent ghosts. On them, broken words looped in a relentless, whispering assault:
"no one will read your words"
"nobody cares"
"this story has no future"
"focus on study instead"
"why are you so bad at study while we were good?"
In the center of this psychic storm, standing in a small circle of faint, protective light, was Kirihito. He looked beaten, his clothes torn, breathing in ragged, panicked gasps as he stared at the haunting screens.
And just beyond the circle, holding back a cascading wave of corrosive darkness with nothing but the strained chords of his guqin and sheer force of will, was Wùji.
They had found it. Not an exit, but the epicenter. The wounded, vulnerable base of their universe—their creator's heart, under siege by its own deepest fears.