For Early/Extra Chapters : patreon.com/scoldeyjodxd
Already 30+ Chapters Updated + Daily Updates
"This is the Labyrinth..."
The voice didn't come from the air. It vibrated in their bones. It was the sorrowful, guttural moan of a creature that had known nothing but darkness its entire life.
Before Maverick or Saber could react, the world twisted.
The ruins of Ryuudou Temple—the burning wood, the cracked stone, the smell of ozone and smoke—vanished instantly.
Maverick clamped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden shift in pressure. When he opened them, his breath hitched in his throat.
"Where..." Maverick whispered, spinning around. "Where are we?"
They were nowhere.
The ground was white stone. The walls were white stone. The ceiling was white stone, stretching up into an infinite, pale haze. The corridor was massive—wide enough to drive four semi-trucks side-by-side—but it felt suffocatingly small.
It was sterile. Cold. Dead.
"A Reality Marble?" Ryu (Lancer's Master) asked, his voice echoing too loudly in the silence. "No... this feels different."
"It is a Noble Phantasm," Rider said grimly. The green-haired hero stood protectively in front of his Master (the Gamer Girl), his spear held low. "A functional one. Not designed to kill, but to trap."
"Trap?" Maverick looked at the endless white corridor. "We're in a box?"
"A maze," Saber corrected, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the perimeter. "The enemy Berserker mentioned a labyrinth."
Lancer Alter (Ryu's Artoria) scoffed. She summoned her black lance, Rhongomyniad. The dark energy crackled, a stark contrast to the blinding white walls.
"A maze is just a wall I haven't broken yet," Lancer Alter drawled. "I don't have time for puzzles."
She spun the lance.
"Rhongomyniad!"
She thrust the spear into the nearest wall.
BOOM.
The impact was massive. The white stone shattered like glass, exploding outward in a shower of debris. Lancer Alter didn't stop. She charged through the hole, smashing through the next wall, and the next, and the next.
The sound of destruction faded into the distance.
Maverick and the others waited.
Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes.
The silence returned, heavier than before.
Then, footsteps.
Lancer Alter walked back through the hole she had made. She didn't look tired, but she looked annoyed.
"It's infinite," she reported, leaning her lance against her shoulder. "I smashed through fifty walls. Behind every wall is just... another corridor. It loops. It shifts. There is no end."
Maverick felt a cold knot of fear tighten in his stomach. "No end? So we're... soft-locked? Stuck here until the server shuts down?"
"Worse," Rider said. He walked to the center of the corridor, looking up at the featureless ceiling.
"This isn't a building. It's a concept."
Everyone looked at Rider. The green-haired hero sighed, scratching the back of his neck.
"Actually, there's not much to overthink. Just like seeing the Sword of Promised Victory allows one to recognize its wielder as King Arthur, this Noble Phantasm has a signature."
Rider turned to the group.
"There is only one anti-hero in history associated with an inescapable labyrinth. The Minotaur. Asterios."
"The Minotaur?" Maverick asked. "The bull guy from Greek mythology?"
"Exactly," Rider nodded. "Born of Pasiphae and a divine bull. King Minos was so ashamed of the monster that he hired the legendary craftsman Daedalus to build a prison. The Labyrinth. A structure so complex that once you enter, you can never leave."
Rider gestured to the white walls.
"That is what this is. Chaos Labyrinthos. The Eternal Labyrinth. It doesn't matter how fast you run or how hard you hit. The concept of this space is 'No Escape.' It denies the possibility of an exit."
"But," Ryu argued, "Theseus escaped. That's the myth, right?"
"Theseus had a cheat code," Rider countered. "He had Ariadne's thread. A guide. Without that specific counter-measure, escaping is impossible. We are rats in a cage, and the cage is infinite."
Rider glanced at Saber. There was a look of guilt in his eyes.
"Saber revealed her True Name to save the city," Rider muttered. "She exposed her weakness to defeat Caster. And now... I'm hiding mine. It feels... cheap."
Saber shook her head. "Do not worry about honor now, Rider. We need a solution."
[Chat]:[Lore_Master]: HE'S RIGHT. Asterios! That's genius!
[Mythology_Nerd]: Chaos Labyrinthos. It's a Reality Marble-type Noble Phantasm. It manifests the concept of "getting lost."
[Gamer_Bro]: Wait, so the Berserker player just... camped? He waited until everyone blew their cooldowns, then trapped them in a box?
[Tactician]: That is the most toxic, brilliant strategy I have ever seen.
[Salt_Mine]: Maverick is cooked. My ten packs of spicy strips are gone.
[Strategy_101]: This is why "weak" Servants are dangerous. Asterios isn't strong in a duel. He's slow. But his Noble Phantasm is a game-ender. If you can't get out, you starve. Or you forfeit.
[Gil_Fan]: This is "Power Imbalance"? You guys haven't seen the Gilgamesh in Story Mode. That guy literally breaks the game rules. This is just a smart trap.
The chat was exploding with analysis. They loved it.
In most games, power levels were linear. Level 50 beats Level 10. A Legendary Sword beats a Rusty Knife.
But Holy Grail War was different. It was rock-paper-scissors on a conceptual level.
Saber was the strongest combatant. She could nuke a mountain. Rider was the fastest. She could outrun sound. Lancer Alter was a juggernaut.
But Asterios? He was a "weak" Berserker. He had no flashy beams. No super speed.
But he had a maze.
And right now, the "weak" monster had checkmated three top-tier Servants without throwing a single punch.
"There is no greater high," a viewer commented, "than watching the weak defeat the strong with a big brain play."
Maverick slumped against the white wall, sliding down until he hit the floor.
"So that's it?" Maverick asked, his voice hollow. "We just... wait? We starve? Or does the zone kill us eventually?"
"We wait for him to come to us," Ryu said, checking his ammo. "He has to kill us to win, right? He can't just leave us here."
"He doesn't have to," Rider said grimly. "He can just leave the game running. Or he can pick us off one by one when we separate. In this maze, direction is meaningless. We could be five feet apart and never see each other again."
The hopelessness settled in. It was a suffocating weight. The white walls seemed to be closing in, pressing against their minds.
This was the true horror of the Minotaur's legend. It wasn't the monster that broke you. It was the isolation. The endless, repetitive nothingness.
"Hey."
A voice cut through the despair.
Everyone looked up.
Lancer Alter was standing in the center of the corridor. She was twirling her black lance, looking bored.
"Are you all done moping?" Lancer Alter asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Lancer," Ryu sighed. "We just established that it's conceptually impossible to escape."
"Conceptually impossible," Lancer Alter repeated, testing the words. "That sounds like a challenge."
She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile of a predator who had just found a loose thread in the prey's defense.
"This Labyrinth is built on the concept of 'mystery', right? It's a construct of magic."
She pointed her lance at the ceiling.
"My lance... Rhongomyniad... isn't just a pointy stick. It's the Tower at the End of the World. It's the anchor that pins reality together."
She looked at Saber.
"Hey, Shorty. You have instinct, right? Can you feel the edge of this reality?"
Saber bristled at the nickname, but she nodded. "Faintly. But I cannot reach it."
"You don't need to reach it," Lancer Alter said, her mana beginning to flare, dark crimson energy swirling around her feet.
"You just need to point me in the right direction."
She gripped her lance with both hands. The air in the labyrinth began to vibrate. The white walls started to crack, not from physical force, but from the sheer weight of the magical presence she was unleashing.
"Perhaps," Lancer Alter grinned, her eyes glowing gold. "I have a way to break through."
[Chat]:[Hype_Train]: WAIT. IS SHE GOING TO DO IT?!
[Lore_Master]: Rhongomyniad?! The Anchor of the World?!
[Physics_Student]: If you can't solve the maze... break the maze.
[Maverick]: DON'T DO IT! WE'LL DIE!
"Saber," Lancer Alter commanded. "Where is the weak point?"
Saber closed her eyes. She focused. "Up. Twelve degrees to the north. Zenith."
"Understood."
Lancer Alter crouched.
"Master," she said to Ryu. "Cover your ears. This is going to be loud."
Show Some Supports By Giving Powerstones
Next BONUS CHAPTER at 300 powerstones