Chapter 73: When Power Fails
Alex glared at the burn mark he’d seared hours ago, his analytical mind dissecting the impossible mathematics of his predicament with surgical precision. The spatial distortion wasn’t merely warping his perception it was devouring the fundamental architecture of the corridor itself. Every forward stride had somehow dragged him back to his starting position, weaving a loop that shattered basic physics.
Yet as he scrutinized the familiar symbol, his enhanced perception seized something new. The obsidian wall beside his marker bore a hairline crack that hadn’t existed when he’d first branded the symbol into the stone. Not damage from his fire abilities, but a structural flaw that pulsed with its own faint energy.
The crack devoured the wall without his touch, spider-webbing across the surface like fractured glass. Behind the crumbling obsidian, Alex glimpsed carved stone that reeked of ancient power. When the wall finally collapsed entirely, it revealed not another corridor but a narrow staircase descending into depths that exhaled accumulated power and age.
Alex birthed a larger flame in his palm, flooding more power into the illumination as he began his descent. Each downward step felt like plunging backward through time itself. The psychological manipulation of the upper maze dissolved into something far older, more fundamental. This wasn’t constructed entertainment this was the original foundation upon which everything else had been erected.
The walls flanking the stairs bore carvings that whispered of civilizations that had grasped concepts his home dimension was only beginning to understand. His translation system devoured the ancient script automatically:
**[Ancient Script Detected]**
**[Translation: "Those who would rule must first understand the price of power."]**
**[Translation: "The strong devour the weak, but the wise devour the strong."]**
**[Translation: "Transformation is not death it is becoming what you were always meant to be."]**
The philosophy carved into stone wasn’t random wisdom but deliberate instruction, principles that addressed the fundamental relationship between power and identity. Each phrase resonated with questions Alex had been wrestling with since his resurrection: whether strength required abandoning humanity, whether survival demanded becoming something else entirely.
That’s when he felt it the massive presence he’d been sensing since entering the maze, no longer distant but immediately, overwhelmingly here.
The temperature plummeted. Alex’s breath misted in the suddenly frigid air as something vast began ascending from the depths below. Each footstep shook the maze’s foundation, sending dust cascading from the ceiling. The presence wasn’t approaching it was arriving, with the inexorable certainty of an avalanche.
**[Warning: Hostile Entity Detected]**
**[Classification: Unknown - Power Level Exceeds Analysis Capability]**
**[Emergency Protocols Recommended]**
Alex’s flame blazed brighter in his palm as the thing finally erupted from the stairwell.
The Labyrinth Keeper rose from the depths like a nightmare made manifest. Where the Arena Warden had been crude brutality, this entity was refined malevolence tall, draped in robes that seemed woven from the void between stars, its form shifting between solid matter and something that hurt to perceive directly. Ancient power radiated from it in waves that made Alex’s enhanced soul core ache with involuntary resonance.
When it spoke, its voice carried the weight of eons. "The maze-breaker arrives. How... inconvenient."
Alex didn’t waste time on words. The moment the entity’s attention fixed on him with predatory interest, he unleashed everything he had.
Fire erupted from both hands in concentrated lances of superheated energy, the same technique that had carved through S-rank beasts. The flames struck the Keeper’s robes and simply... vanished. Not absorbed or deflected erased from existence as if they’d never been created.
"Primitive," the Keeper observed, raising one hand. Reality twisted.
Alex hurled himself sideways as the space where he’d been standing folded in on itself with a sound like tearing silk. The spatial manipulation didn’t just displace air it created a void that tried to drag him backward into nothingness.
**[System Alert: Dimensional Attack Detected]**
**[Ability Analyzing...]**
**[ERROR: Cannot Classify Unknown Power Source]**
’It’s not using conventional abilities,’ Alex realized, rolling away from another reality distortion. The Keeper wasn’t wielding fire or earth or any recognizable element it was manipulating the fundamental structure of space itself.
Phantom Step activated, draining his stamina as his body flickered from visible spectrum. But when he reappeared behind the Keeper, his follow-up attack met empty air. The entity hadn’t moved space had simply rearranged itself so his strike missed entirely.
"You interest me," the Keeper said, turning with fluid grace. "Your essence channels... they reach beyond singular dimensional boundaries. Most peculiar."
A tendril of pure force lashed out, too fast for even Alex’s enhanced reflexes. It struck his chest like a sledgehammer, sending him crashing into the obsidian wall hard enough to crack stone. Blood filled his mouth as something fundamental shifted in his chest not physical damage, but something deeper.
**[HP: 94/120]**
**[Warning: Soul Core Under Direct Attack]**
**[Essence Channels Destabilizing]**
Alex spat blood and launched himself back into combat, this time channeling fire into geometric patterns the advanced techniques he’d learned from watching his duplicate in the arena. Spiral constructs blazed to life, creating a maze of superheated air that should have trapped any opponent.
The Keeper walked through them like they didn’t exist.
But as the entity moved, Alex’s Adept Eyes caught something crucial. Where the flame constructs made contact with the Keeper’s form, they didn’t just vanish they were being converted into something else entirely. Raw energy drawn into the entity’s essence structure and transformed.
**[Combat Echo Activated]**
**[Analyzing Enemy Patterns...]**
**[Warning: Enemy Adaptation Rate Increasing]**
**[New Pattern Identified: Energy Conversion Process]**
"You begin to understand," the Keeper said, its voice carrying approval that made Alex’s skin crawl. "Power is not destroyed it is transformed, refined, absorbed."
Another spatial distortion, but this time Alex was ready. Instead of dodging, he poured fire into the twisted space itself, superheating the dimensional fold until it destabilized. The backlash sent both combatants staggering, but Alex recovered first.
Emergency Overdrive activated.
The forbidden technique bypassed every limitation his soul core possessed, granting him sixty seconds of unlimited access to his astronomical essence reserves. Power flooded through his system like molten metal, and his fire abilities exploded beyond anything he’d achieved before.
White-hot flames erupted in every direction, not random combustion but precisely controlled infernos that carved through stone and superheated the air until it screamed. For the first time, the Keeper actually stepped backward, its ancient composure cracking.
"There it is," the entity hissed, and Alex heard genuine hunger in its voice. "Interdimensional essence channeling. Show me more."
The battle that followed nearly destroyed them both. Alex’s unlimited power clashed against the Keeper’s reality manipulation, fire meeting void in exchanges that reshaped the maze around them. Corridors melted, walls reformed themselves, and the air itself burned with energies that shouldn’t exist in the same space.
But even with Emergency Overdrive active, Alex was fighting something that operated by rules he couldn’t comprehend. The Keeper didn’t just counter his attacks it studied them, analyzing the interdimensional connections that made his power possible.
**[Warning: Ability Analysis in Progress]**
**[Hostile Entity Learning Essence Patterns]**
**[Overdrive: 15 Seconds Remaining]**
Alex realized with growing horror what was happening. The Keeper wasn’t trying to kill him it was trying to understand him. Every technique he used, every channeling pattern he employed, was being catalogued and dissected by something with eons of experience.
When Overdrive finally expired, leaving him gasping and powerless, the Keeper stopped its assault entirely.
"Fascinating," it murmured, approaching with predatory satisfaction. "Your Mimicry doesn’t just copy abilities it creates access pathways to power sources that span dimensional barriers. No wonder your copied techniques exceed their original limitations."
Alex tried to summon flames, but his abilities were completely exhausted from the Overdrive backlash. He was defenseless for the next twenty-four hours, exactly as the system had warned.
The Keeper reached out with one impossibly long finger, touching Alex’s forehead with gentle precision. The contact sent information flooding through his consciousness not words, but direct knowledge transfer that bypassed his normal cognitive processes.
He saw himself from the entity’s perspective: essence channels that stretched beyond visible reality, connecting to power sources that existed between dimensions. His Mimicry ability wasn’t just copying what he touched it was creating permanent links to interdimensional energy networks.
"The analysis is complete," the Keeper said, withdrawing its finger with clinical satisfaction. "The Master has what was required."
Alex felt his consciousness fragmenting as the knowledge transfer overwhelmed his exhausted mind. "What... what happens now?"
"Now? You rest. The data extraction is finished." The Keeper’s form began dissolving back into shadow and starlight. "Your purpose in this facility has been fulfilled."
The last thing Alex saw before darkness claimed him was the ancient entity retreating into the depths, its mission accomplished. No grand revelations, no offers of partnership just the cold efficiency of a researcher who had obtained the specimen data they required.
He collapsed to the obsidian floor, unconscious and powerless, while somewhere in the maze’s heart, forces beyond his comprehension processed the interdimensional secrets his battle had revealed.
The trials were over. But what came next was entirely out of his hands.