Chapter 93: Divine Maze (3)
The construct looked confused, genuinely confused. "Why do you continue choosing inferior paths?" it said.
"Because they work," Kai said.
"Only temporarily," the construct said.
Then the Core Layer was activated, and the chamber was vast. Not in the way that Storm Castle’s interior had been vast, that wild open-sky scale.
This was different.
The ceiling was so white it was difficult to look at directly, and from it descended thousands of roots, every one of them glowing, filling the space between floor and ceiling like the threads of something enormous that had been growing here for a very long time.
Floating geometric platforms moved through the root network in slow orbits. The floor was clear white stone that reflected everything above it perfectly.
At the center of the chamber stood something that looked nothing like a boss.
White robes. White eyes. Human-sized. Calm expression. No weapons visible anywhere. It stood with its hands at its sides and looked at Kai with the patient expression of a teacher waiting for a student to arrive at the correct answer.
[Divine Arbiter.]
[Level 50.]
"Every inefficient choice creates suffering," the Arbiter said. Its voice was even and unhurried. "Every incorrect path creates loss. Humanity would prosper if guided."
"Sounds terrible," Kai said.
"Your resistance is expected," the Arbiter said. "It is a common initial response."
Then the roots moved.
Dozens of them swung down from the ceiling simultaneously, the Arbiter not moving at all while the chamber itself attacked. Kai activated Flame Swordsman, and the Fractured Blade came up blazing, cutting through the first three roots before they reached him. The Tempest Fang stored the kinetic energy from each cut, and Kai released a pressure burst that knocked the next wave back.
Constructs materialized on the floating platforms above, raining white energy strikes down into the spaces between the root attacks. Kai used the air-step to cross from platform to platform, the distortion pulling him left when a construct’s attack was already committed to his current position, right when two roots crossed into a cage he was about to step into.
He landed on a platform, activated Earth Mage, and drove stone pillars up through the platform’s surface toward three constructs overhead.
Two of them took the hit.
The third was already moving.
[Class Emulation: Blood Tyrant – Partial: Stack 2.]
He drove toward the third construct, and a crimson shockwave swept through, shattering the construct.
The Arbiter watched all of this without moving.
Then the system produced a message unlike any system message Kai had seen before.
[Optimization in Progress]
[Thread Caster: Removed]
He felt it before he tested it. Something gone, a door that had been open now closed. He activated Thread Caster anyway, and the Fractured Blade’s edges produced nothing. No threads.
The emulation ran and produced nothing.
"What?" Kai said in disbelief and shock.
"This option has proven inferior," the Arbiter said. "Within my domain, I may designate which possibilities exist."
Kai stared at the message before glancing at the Arbiter. Then at the space where his threads should have been.
...
In the staging area, Mayor Ko stood with his hands in his coat pockets and looked at the white gate.
No footage, or updates, and no signal from inside.
Someone behind him said, "How long?"
Nobody answered.
...
Kai’s breathing slowed as he stared at it. The alternates flashed through his mind; each of them was very similar to him. But that was the odd part, the dungeon shouldn’t have been able to create beings like those. His mind flashed to his siblings, something the dungeon shouldn’t know about.
Kai finally understood. These weren’t simulations but they were possibilities. That thought hit harder than any attack, but he had no more time to think as the roots moved.
The floor exploded as hundreds surged toward him from every direction.
Kai reacted instantly.
[Class Emulation: Earth Mage – Partial.]
Stone erupted upward before massive walls rose from the floor. Pillars shattered roots before they reached him.
Kai launched forward.
[Class Emulation: Blood Tyrant – Partial.]
A crimson light gathered around the Fractured Blade. The constructs waiting beyond the roots never had a chance as Kai tore through them. The Fractured Blade split armor and Blood Tyrant stacked with every impact.
He felt the momentum build as he sword cut through construct after construct as he approached the Arbiter.
Then a message appeared.
[Earth Magic: Removed:]
The stone wall behind him collapsed.
Kai blinked.
Nothing happened when he reached for the emulation, and the connection was gone.
Completely.
"Proven inferior," the Arbiter said, and it genuinely did not sound cruel. It sounded like someone explaining a correction.
Kai moved without the terrain assist, using the air-step to cross the gap the Earth Mage had been going to bridge. The distortion pulled him through the constructs’ attack pattern, guiding the Fractured Blade to the joints and gaps the way it had been doing since before he understood what distortion was.
Then another message appeared.
[Blood Tyrant: Removed]
Just as a row of roots rushed towards him from above. Kai quickly switched to Guard and summoned a shield from his inventory to block the attack.
But then another notification appeared.
[Guard: Removed]
The blue glow from the shield vanished before the roots smashed into the shield and sent him crashing into the ground. Kai gasped as his body bounced up from the ground before two constructs blasted their fists.
He quickly kicked his leg in the air and evaded their attacks.
But then again.
[Air Step: Removed.]
Kai’s expression hardened as he saw, one by one, everything disappearing. But if that wasn’t bad enough, the roots continued closing in as the chamber became increasingly hostile.
But the distortion kept pulling him through it.
Left.
A root missed him.
Right.
Another missed.
Forward.
A construct’s spear passed inches behind his neck, all while the Arbiter watched silently.
"I am not trying to harm you," the Arbiter said.
"Could have fooled me," Kai said.
"I am trying to correct you."
Kai stopped for half a second.
He understood.
The Arbiter wasn’t trying to kill him, but instead it was trying to fix him. He thought about Lily changing herself and allowing flexibility instead of trying to be perfect. Mira carries seven unconscious people through a collapsing tower, even with her body being pushed beyond.
Sera’s moments of weakness and her trust in overcoming them. Leo’s willingness to cheer for him while hiding the fact that he knew about what he did to Ironpact. And Mina has constant support for him, being the person who has always trusted him with everything.
None of them was optimal and even cost him something. Every choice since the first F-rank gate had been inefficient by every measure the Arbiter was using.
He wouldn’t trade a single one.
"A perfect path exists," the Arbiter said.
"Then it’s not mine," Kai said.
The Arbiter raised both hands.
[All Inferior Options Removed]
Kai’s eyes widened.
He tried Flame Swordsman, but he felt nothing. It felt like every emulation was locked, and the only thing in his hand was the Fractured Blade.
One weapon.
One path.
The path the Arbiter had chosen for him.
"You have no remaining options," the Arbiter said.
The roots surged from every direction. Thousands of them rushed towards him, and it felt like an entire forest trying to consume him.
"There is only one path you can take." The Arbiter’s voice echoed again across the chamber.
For the first time since entering the dungeon, Kai felt trapped. The roots closed in, and the chamber shrank around him.
As the first roots rushed towards his side, the distortion pulled him left. And he went left, evading the root before another came from above. It pulled him right, making him miss that one, and then another set of roots came.
But Kai kept evading them through the distortion pull. He furrowed his brows, wondering why the Arbiter wasn’t removing his distortion. Even after he evaded the tenth root, the Distortion kept working.
Then he stopped.
The Arbiter had removed classes, removed skills, and slowly, his choices. But the Distortion was none of those things, as it existed outside the system and always seemed to pull him to a new path. It was outside categorization, and that was something the Arbiter couldn’t remove.
Which meant something else.
The Arbiter had banned the old versions.
Kai smiled.
The Arbiter’s calm expression broke for the first time. Its eyes moved as it had finally seen something unexpected.
"Why does your face look like that?"
Kai laughed before he thought of Rin when she visited the hospital. He didn’t recall when he first saw her thread in the dungeon; that was an old version that was locked.
The old version was gone.
This one wasn’t.
[Class Emulation: Thread Caster – Half.]
Silver threads exploded into existence, and Kai’s eyes shone in realization.
The Arbiter’s expression changed for the first time since it appeared. There was confusion on its face, actual confusion at what was happening.
The roots lunged.
Kai moved as the Tempest Fang sword appeared in his hand, and then it illuminated the area in dark blue light.
The Tempest Fang’s Storm Authority triggered.
Wind erupted through the chamber in a controlled spiral! Kai directed the force through the root network and shredded the roots the wind reached before they could respond. Wind blades carved through three construct formations simultaneously.
A pressure burst knocked the Arbiter back one step, the first time it had moved involuntarily. Lightning arcs descended from the storm Kai had generated and struck the platforms, disrupting the constructs’ positions.
Platforms shattered as the chamber descended into chaos.
Kai kept going.
He activated the Ashen Seal.
The inventory opened, and four weapons rose into the air around him. The Explosion Sword from the Sunken River Tomb. The Bloodthorn with its dark red blade. The Null Fang that Victor’s assassin had put through his chest. All three joined the Fractured Blade, orbiting him in slow rotation, the Ashen Seal’s telekinetic control holding all of them simultaneously.
He went forward.
The Fractured Blade in his grip led the attack while the other three weapons moved independently. All of them covered angles he could not cover himself, striking at the same moment from different directions, defending him while he committed the main attack through the Arbiter’s defenses.
One blocked.
One cut.
One pierced.
One exploded.
[Class Emulation: Iron Breaker – Half.]
As Kai reached the Arbiter, roots burst out to defend against it. But Mira’s strength crashed through the Arbiter’s defense. The maul tore through the roots and crashed into the white robes.
Cracks spread across the robes.
[Class Emulation: Arcane Sentinel – Half.]
The Fractured Blade became a long staff. The Arc Lance fired from the Bloodthorn’s position in the orbit, and the Sevenfold split punched seven simultaneous lines through the crack the Iron Breaker had made.
[Class Emulation: Sovereign Blade – Half.]
The Fractured Blade became a greatsword that glowed before the energy wave discharged through the Explosion Sword. The detonation drove the Arbiter back even more, and the impossible happened.
The Arbiter took a step back and then another. For the first time since the fight began, it stopped speaking. The Arbiter raised its hand, and roots came from every direction at once, the chamber’s full defensive capability deploying simultaneously.
Kai’s distortion pulled the Fractured Blade to the angle that cut through the densest concentration before it closed. The Ashen Seal directed the other three weapons through the gaps.
The Thread Caster wrapped two roots and pulled them into the path of three others, disrupting the pattern. The Spirit Archer emulation put an arrow through the Arbiter’s center from the Bloodthorn’s orbit position.
The Null Fang dropped from orbit.
Kai caught it.
He closed the remaining distance in two steps. The Arbiter tried to raise their arms, but it was too late as the Null Fang tore through the air and was pushed through the Arbiter’s chest. Whatever the white robes were made of, the defensive rating registered as zero.
The chamber went silent.
The Arbiter looked down at the blade in its chest and then looked at Kai with a curious expression.
One final question.
"Why?"
Kai held his gaze because now he knew the answer, and this fight had never been about strength.
"People aren’t puzzles."
The Arbiter stared at him, and for a long moment neither moved. Then something changed behind its white eyes. For the first time, it wasn’t processing or calculating but instead understanding.
The Arbiter smiled; it was almost peaceful.
Then its body dissolved into light while the roots stopped moving.
[Mythical Gate: Cleared]
[Divine Maze: Sealed]
[Solo Cleared]
[Drop Quality: Optimized.]
[Chain Bonus Applied.]
[Level Increased: 49 to 52.]
[Rank Increased: C-rank to B-Rank!]
Kai’s eyes widened before a smile appeared. He had finally surpassed the C-Rank and reached the B rank, where the others were.
The same rank as Raze.
The same rank as Lily.
The same rank as Mira.
[Reward Calculation in Progress]
Kai exhaled a full breath, the first one in what felt like a significant portion of his recent life. He walked towards the drops and picked up the massive pile. The biggest he has ever seen in a Mythical Dungeon, but he supposed it was because he did it solo.
First, he saw a white compass in the pile, and when he picked it up.
[Divine Compass. Grade: S-Rank.]
[Shows the most efficient route toward any chosen destination.]
He looked at it for a moment. "Of course," he said.
Then he picked up the spinning black-white thread that looked like a root system.
[White Thread Mantle. Grade: S-Rank.]
[A spinning shield that absorbs incoming force and releases it as a shockwave or strike. Adapts the wearer’s body to dangerous environments.]
He equipped the Mantle. It settled across his shoulders like it had been made for exactly where he was standing, and then he shivered as it gently nudged his cheek. He raised a brow before smiling as he could feel the Mantle’s desire to protect him.
Then he went on to pick up the other drops, which were rare weapons, materials, books, and other items.
Then the system produced a message that had no formatting he recognized.
[Contribution Analysis In Progress]
He didn’t care as he stood up after getting everything.
[Reward...]
The message froze.
Kai paused before raising an eyebrow.
[ERROR.]
Then it disappeared.
[ERROR.]
And then everything around began shaking. That was the only warning before Kai began seeing the White City being erased. None of these buildings was falling or collapsing, but instead they were vanishing.
The streets were also disappearing, and the white tree was gone before he had turned to look at it. Sections of the sky became black emptiness in patches that spread outward from the tree’s location.
"Okay," Kai said. "That’s new."
He started running.
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[RECALCULATING]
[ERROR]
The system looked broken. The darkness consumed the streets behind him faster than any dungeon collapse he had seen.
Not chasing him but simply spreading outward from where the Arbiter had dissolved, erasing the Divine Maze as if it was removing evidence of itself.
The distortion pulled him left at an intersection where the right path had already been consumed. Forward, where a building had vanished and left a direct line to the gate. It was navigating the erasure the same way it had navigated the reorganized city on the way in.
He reached the gate.
And leapt through it.
Just as he crossed it, one final message appeared for less than a second before the gate closed behind him.
[Unknown Variable Detected]
Then it went alongside the entire area behind him.
