I didn't even wait to catch my breath this time.
The moment the vertigo faded and the sickly-green gas lamp came back into focus, I slammed my hand against the heavy iron gear-lock on the door. I didn't even say the skill name out loud. I just fed the royal blue Ether into the metal, forced a millimeter of infinite space into the gears, and let the pressure crush it.
CRACK.
I kicked the door open so hard it splintered against the outer wall.
"Okay. Let's go," I muttered, splashing out into the flooded corridor. The water was still freezing, still coming up to my calves, but I barely felt the cold anymore. The burning annoyance in my chest was keeping me plenty warm.
TICK... TOCK...
The metronome was still echoing through the floorboards. That damn, out-of-tune opera waltz was still playing. It was identical. Every single detail was exactly the same as the last two times I lived this exact minute.
I started jogging down the curved hallway, my boots sloshing loudly in the black water. I didn't bother looking down into the massive, submerged theater whirlpool this time. I kept my eyes locked on the peeling red velvet wallpaper ahead, waiting for it.
There. The red light.
It swept across the floor, painting the dark water the color of fresh blood. The mechanical brass gargoyle was hanging from the ceiling, its head swiveling slowly.
I stopped about ten feet away from the edge of the light. I remembered the speed. It dragged slowly to the left, hit the wall, and then whipped back to the right in a fraction of a second. If I tried to run across the floor, the water would slow me down just enough to get me turned into a pincushion by those iron bolts.
"Right," I breathed out. "Let's cheat."
I channeled the Cenotaph's power into my legs. King's Aura, inverted.
The heavy, suffocating weight of my body vanished. I felt lighter than a piece of paper. The moment the red beam hit the far left wall, I leaped. I didn't just jump forward; I aimed for the wall to my right. My boots hit the damp, rotting wallpaper, and because I had basically turned off my own gravity, I just ran along the wall itself, completely bypassing the flooded floor and the path of the light.
I dropped back down into the water on the other side of the gargoyle just as the red beam whipped back around.
THWIP-THWIP. Two bolts fired, hitting the water where I had landed, but they were a second too late.
"Not this time," I smirked, catching my breath.
"Well," a voice echoed lazily from the shadows ahead. "That was creative."
I spun around, royal blue Ether sparking in my right hand instantly. I was ready to kill something. But the moment the flickering green gas lamp illuminated the face, I just sighed.
It was Raphael.
He was leaning casually against the railing of the balcony, a safe distance from the next trap. He wasn't wearing his silver guard armor from the last dimension. He was back in his high-end, dark, perfectly tailored coat. In fact, he looked completely dry. The freezing black water around his boots was evaporating into thin air before it even touched him, his passive body heat turning it into a faint cloud of steam around his legs.
He was tossing a small, rusted gear he'd pulled from the wall into the churning whirlpool below, looking completely unbothered by the fact that the entire dimension was sinking around us.
"You," I growled, splashing over to him. "How many times have you died?"
Raphael looked at me, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow. A slow, genuinely amused smile spread across his face.
"Died?" he chuckled, his voice smooth and infuriatingly warm against the damp cold of the theater. "Please, Lucian. I haven't died once. I've just been standing here, enjoying the show."
"How many times?" I repeated, glaring at him.
"I lost count after eight," Raphael sighed, turning back toward the dark water. He casually produced a small crimson flame on his thumb, staring at it for a second before letting it die out. "The first few times, I was curious to see how the loop worked. I woke up in a room identical to yours, but with a lever marked with a Roman numeral II. Then, right as I was about to inspect it, the world snapped backward."
He turned back to me, the amusement in his eyes turning sharp and dangerous.
"It didn't take me long to figure out who the weak link was," Raphael said. "That booming voice. The sheer, unfettered idiocy."
"The King," I confirmed, my jaw tight. "He's running straight into the traps and dragging the whole clock backward."
"Precisely," Raphael smiled. "He doesn't have the intellect for a Tier 4 puzzle, nor the patience. He's a Tier 5 Emperor. He thinks he can brute-force a dimension that explicitly punishes mistakes. And because we are all tied to this specific story, his failures are our failures."
The heavy ticking of the metronome echoed through the floorboards again. Tick... Tock... It was getting slightly faster now.
"So what's the play?" I asked, looking up at the ceiling. "We have to pull all the levers at the exact same time, don't we? That's what the Roman numerals are for."
"I assume so," Raphael nodded, brushing a speck of dust off his coat. "The levers likely open the central gate to the top floor, where the water hasn't reached yet. That's where the heart of this dimension will be waiting for us."
"But we can't pull them if he keeps dying before we even get into position." The bitter irony of the situation tasted like ash in my mouth. We were here to kill him. And to do that, we had to become his personal bodyguards in a death-trap funhouse.
"I AM THE EMPEROR!"
The voice echoed from the other side of the theater, booming through the flooded halls.
"OUT OF MY WAY, YOU MECHANICAL TRASH!"
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. A headache was already starting to form. "That absolute moron. He's doing it again."
"Yes, he is," Raphael chuckled darkly. "He's currently in the eastern corridor. He usually dies to the sweeping red lights or the pendulums about... right now."
"Your Majesty, wait! The red light—!"
"Silence! I yield to nothing!"
I didn't even wait for the sound of the gunfire this time. I looked at Raphael, the annoyance in my chest flaring into hot anger.
"We have to save him," I said through gritted teeth. "We have to clear the traps for him so he can actually reach his lever without killing himself."
Raphael's smile widened. It wasn't a hero's smile; it was the smile of a predator watching a particularly fat, stupid bird waddle into a cage. "An escort mission," he purred. "How delightfully degrading for him. He won't even realize we're doing it."
BOOM.
The explosion rocked the tower again. The gas lamps shattered. The water froze in mid-air. The waltz music cut out.
I barely had time to brace myself before the sickening SNAP tore through my spine.
The vertigo slammed into me. The world inverted, and I was violently yanked backward through the dark once again.
[System Alert: Entering Tier 4 Mirror Dimension]
[Scenario: The Symphony of the Sinking Tower]
I opened my eyes to the familiar green light, the rotting velvet, and the freezing water.
I didn't groan this time. I just stared at the heavy iron door, my royal blue Ether already coating my right hand in a thick, blinding layer of gravity.
"Right," I muttered, cracking my knuckles. "Let's go babysit a King."