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Like a roaring bull.
The Noble Phantasm's activation was not dramatic — no long windup, no theatrical announcement from the Berserker itself. A labyrinth pattern materialized above their heads, vast and geometric, and then it descended.
Maverick put his hands over his head by instinct.
When he lowered them, the ruins of Ryudou Temple were gone.
Everything was white.
The floor was white. The walls were white. The ceiling, distant overhead, was white. The space was enormous — wide enough for four trucks side by side with room to spare — and entirely, uniformly, oppressively white. The kind of white that had no reference points, no gradients, no shadows. Geometry without character.
The biggest problem: they were in it.
[Chat]: oh no
[Recognizing]: this is the Noble Phantasm. it's a conceptual labyrinth. the Berserker trapped them inside the Noble Phantasm itself.
[Processing]: everyone. all three groups. trapped simultaneously.
[Strategic_Analysis]: one Command Seal. one Noble Phantasm activation. six people and their Servants removed from the field at once. the Berserker's Master is patient and smart.
[Also_Processing]: Maverick put his hands over his head. instinctively. as if that was going to help.
Artoria was beside him. That helped. Rider was there. A-bro and his partner. The Servants — present, intact, uninjured. The white space was disorienting but not immediately dangerous.
Maverick got his bearings. The other Servant standing calmly at the edge of the group, analyzing the walls with the focused attention of someone taking inventory — that was Asterius. The Berserker of the Minotaur legend, which meant the other player's Servant was the source of this space. But Asterius was in here with them, which raised questions.
"What just happened?" Maverick said. "Why did the scene change?"
"Noble Phantasm," Artoria said.
"Functional type," Rider said. "Not all Noble Phantasms are offensive. Some create conditions. This one—" He looked at the walls. "This is a labyrinth."
Lancer Artoria didn't wait for more discussion. She received a signal from her Master, summoned her spear, and drove it through the nearest wall.
The wall shattered. She kept going — through the gap, into the next section, the sound of impacts coming back muffled and distant.
They waited.
The sounds got more distant. Then they stopped getting more distant. Then, after twenty minutes, the sound of hoofbeats announced Lancer returning on her white horse, expression flat with the specific flatness of someone who had run the experiment and didn't like the results.
"No end," she said. "The walls can be destroyed. But the space generates faster than I can clear it." She looked at Rider. "Conceptual labyrinth?"
"Conceptual labyrinth," Rider confirmed. The word had landed with him some time ago, and his expression had been working through its implications since. "Which means our exit doesn't exist in a physical direction. Breaking walls won't solve it."
Asterius — who had been listening — spoke for the first time. "Then we should identify the True Name." He said it with the calm of someone noting a logical next step. "The Noble Phantasm tells us the Heroic Spirit."
Rider looked at him for a moment. Then at Artoria. The imbalance in the room — she'd exposed her True Name to deal with Ashiya Doman, and now Rider was about to expose his to help everyone, while the enemy Master sat outside with his name still hidden — registered visibly on his face.
He set it aside.
"The only hero in recorded legend associated with an inescapable labyrinth," Rider said, "is the Minotaur. Asterius." He inclined his head toward the bull-headed Servant at the edge of the group. "Born from Pasiphae, wife of King Minos of Crete, and a sacred bull. Minos commissioned the craftsman Daedalus to build a labyrinth from which nothing could escape — to contain the creature. That is Labyrinth — the Eternal Labyrinth. And it is the Noble Phantasm of the Servant who was imprisoned inside it."
"Not a hero," Asterius said quietly. "A monster."
"A monster connected to heroes," Rider said. "Theseus killed you. He escaped the labyrinth using a thread of wool as a guide — the only person in the legend to successfully exit. Which means—" He looked at the white walls. "—the exit exists in the Noble Phantasm's logic. But the only path to it is the wool thread. And we don't have it."
The weight of this settled over the group.
[Chat]: wait
[Putting_It_Together]: so the labyrinth can only be escaped the way Theseus escaped. with the thread. which they don't have.
[More_Putting_Together]: and the Berserker's Master is outside the labyrinth right now, free to go deal with the Assassin group while everyone else is trapped
[Strategic_Respect]: one Command Seal. three groups eliminated from the field simultaneously. only needs to handle one more opponent to win. this is the most efficient play I've seen in this game.
[Counter_Respect]: it's smart but it's also a bit—
[Everyone]: yeah
[Spicy_Strip_Bet]: my ten packs of spicy strips are gone. farewell.
[A_Bro_Bet]: my A-bro bet is looking uncertain
[Gilgamesh_Reference]: whoever hasn't seen the story mode stream next door — Gilgamesh is making Streamers physically collapse over there. this game has multiple types of power imbalance and they're all different.
[Game_Appreciation]: and yet none of it feels unfair. every Noble Phantasm has a logic. every Servant has a weakness. the system is coherent.
[Expanding]: "no useless Servants, only useless Masters." this setting rewards strategy, not just stats. that's why it's interesting.
[Agreeing]: Berserker's Master didn't win with raw power. they won with patience. they identified the right moment and used the right tool. that's the game.
[What_People_Want]: but what people want to see is the weak overcome the strong. it's always the weak overcoming the strong. has anyone noticed that?
[Noticing]: Maverick, six deaths, three prior kills through positioning and timing rather than Servant strength. the audience keeps coming back because the underdog is still in it.
[Counter]: Maverick is currently trapped in a conceptual labyrinth with no wool thread
[Still_Hoping]: the underdog is still in it
The white space had no echo. Their voices stayed local, which made the room feel both vast and close at the same time. Rider stood with his arms folded, running calculations on his face. Artoria held the invisible sword loosely. Asterius had gone still at the edge of the group, something in his posture suggesting he was neither fully with them nor fully separate.
Maverick looked at A-bro. A-bro looked back at him with the expression of someone who had also run out of ideas and was waiting to see if someone else had one.
Then Lancer Artoria stepped forward.
"Perhaps," she said. "I have a way to break through."
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