Owin’s projection had vanished, but the lights in the workshop hadn’t gone out. The crystals mounted on the walls kept flickering, and the thousands of puppet parts hanging from the ceiling began to tremble, clanking against each other in dry, hollow sounds.
Before long, a mechanical voice rang out from all directions.
[The main inheritance has been completed.]
[A valid successor has been confirmed.]
[The workshop will enter reclamation mode in thirty minutes.]
[All creatures not under the successor’s ownership must vacate the area before the reclamation process begins.]
[Time remaining: Twenty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds.]
The moment the announcement ended, the right wall of the workshop slowly split apart, revealing a corridor lit by white crystals.
Brakk looked at the newly appeared passage and immediately tightened his grip on the war axe.
"Finally, a way out."
A few Beastkin behind him started to move in, but Aldren raised a hand to stop them. The male Elf turned to Ethan, his face still wearing that gentle smile as though he’d never once intended to contest Ruo Yan’s puppet.
"We don’t know where that path leads. Ethan, could you check it first?"
Ethan didn’t answer right away.
The mark Aldren had left behind his cloak was still active. The thin thread of energy connecting the mark to the green stone on the Elf’s forehead had stabilized further, proving Aldren wasn’t just trying to pinpoint his location but was also quietly monitoring the energy fluctuations around his body.
’He’s no longer too concerned about whether I notice or not.’
Ethan opened the Eye of Truth briefly. The energy flow inside the corridor became immediately clear. No traps, no spatial wind, no memory-wiping rules either. This path would take them back to another central zone of the labyrinth, but it wasn’t the exit out of the space Owin had left behind.
Ethan pulled back his ability and said calmly, "The first stretch is safe. But where it leads beyond that, I can’t determine."
Brakk didn’t wait any longer. He shouldered his war axe and led the Red Fang warband into the corridor.
"That’s good enough. I don’t want to stay here until this workshop decides to turn us all into puppet materials."
Korr didn’t leave right away. The Stoneweaver looked at Ruo Yan and the Necromancer puppet standing beside her, then gave a slight nod.
"Congratulations on receiving the inheritance."
Ruo Yan was mildly surprised by his attitude, but still nodded in return.
"Thank you."
Korr shifted his gaze to Ethan, his gravelly voice still carrying little emotion.
"You held to the terms of cooperation. The Stoneweaver clan will not contest items that already have an owner."
With that, he led his eight clanmates into the corridor. The remaining smaller groups also departed quickly, since no one wanted to stay in a place counting down to reclamation.
Aldren was the last to move toward the exit.
As he passed Ethan, he paused, his gaze sweeping over the damaged Primordial Armor on the left hand, then shifting to Laira and Ruo Yan.
"You should leave soon. Your injuries aren’t light. And your Truth... your observation ability can’t be used continuously either."
Aldren only faltered for a split second before correcting himself, but Ethan heard it clearly.
The male Elf had already guessed that his ability was connected to his eyes.
Perhaps Aldren had been observing since the moment Ethan found the Wallwalker, or perhaps the green stone on his forehead possessed the ability to analyze energy fluctuations. Whatever the reason, Ethan had no intention of explaining.
He simply answered calmly, "I’ll leave after treating my wounds."
Aldren smiled, his voice still carrying that manufactured concern.
"Then we’ll wait for you up ahead."
The male Elf led his remaining people into the corridor, but the mark behind Ethan’s cloak didn’t move very far.
Aldren had left the workshop.
However, he had only stopped near the entrance rather than truly following Brakk and Korr.
Laira watched the last silhouette disappear, her orange-red eyes immediately showing irritation.
"I hate that guy."
Ruo Yan brought the Necromancer puppet closer to herself and said flatly, "First time I agree with you."
Laira glanced at her.
"You’ve agreed with me several times already."
"I don’t recall."
"I do."
"That’s your problem."
Ethan didn’t let them continue bickering. He turned to look at the wall behind the coffin.
The purple-silver line was still there. It was extremely thin, nearly swallowed entirely by the wall’s structure, but every time the light in the workshop shifted, it became clearer in Ethan’s eyes.
Laira noticed he was focused on a spot that looked completely unremarkable. She stepped to his side and reached out to support his right arm.
"What’s behind that wall?"
"A path."
Ruo Yan also looked over, but all she saw was a perfectly sealed surface with no gaps or mechanisms.
"I can’t sense any energy structure at all."
"Because it doesn’t belong to the main inheritance."
Ethan concentrated. Lines of information immediately appeared in his field of vision.
[Dead Path.]
[Survival rate by conventional methods: 0%.]
[Not under the direct management of the workshop.]
[The passage only appears when the inheritance system enters reclamation mode.]
[Time window for activation: Twenty-six minutes.]
[Hidden behind: Thunder Wings.]
[Rarity: Cannot be fully analyzed.]
Laira unconsciously placed her hand over the Solar Flame Seal.
Since entering the workshop, the seal on her chest had never been completely still. But when Ethan focused on the wall, the resonance immediately grew stronger. The red patterns on the seal glowed brighter, and a few tiny purple sparks of electricity appeared along her injured wing.
Laira frowned, but this time it wasn’t from pain. The sensation coming from the wing felt as though something behind the wall was calling to her.
Ethan observed the reaction and said, "Whatever’s behind there is resonating with the Solar Flame Seal."
Ruo Yan immediately understood what he intended to do. She looked at the still-bleeding wounds on his shoulder, back, and arm, her expression turning serious.
"You’re planning to go in like this? You nearly died saving me, then helped me receive the inheritance. We already have a Legendary Puppet at Gold-rank tier 7. There’s no need to keep pushing."
Laira also held Ethan’s arm tight, refusing to let him get closer to the wall.
"I agree. We should leave first. When you’ve recovered, we can look for another opportunity."
Ethan stopped looking at the wall and turned his gaze to Laira’s injured wing instead.
She caught on immediately and quickly tucked the wing behind her.
"Why are you looking at me?"
"What’s behind there might heal your wing."
The hand holding him suddenly tightened.
Ruo Yan said nothing either.
Ethan spoke very calmly, but Laira shook her head at once, her voice turning harder.
"No need. My wing will heal on its own."
"How long?"
"Not long."
"Specifically."
Laira avoided his gaze, then tried to seem unconcerned.
"I’m a Dragon. My recovery is far stronger than a human’s. This is just a wing wound. It’s not worth you walking into a path with a zero percent survival rate."
Ethan didn’t argue.
He just looked at her.
Under that gaze, Laira kept trying to maintain a normal expression, but the injured wing behind her trembled slightly. Even the smallest movement pulled at the membrane that hadn’t fully healed, and a fresh line of blood slowly seeped through.
Ethan reached out and touched the base of her uninjured wing.
Laira didn’t pull away, but she didn’t look at him either.
"This wing was hurt protecting me."
"Not just because of you."
"But mostly because of me."
Laira was about to argue back, but Ethan had already withdrawn his hand and turned toward the wall.
"I’m not leaving behind something that could heal it."
Ruo Yan watched him for a few seconds, then asked in a low voice, "What if there’s more than just a treasure behind there?"
"There’s definitely more than just a treasure."
"You still want to go?"
"Yes."
Ruo Yan looked at the three damaged wooden puppets beside her, then at the Necromancer puppet she had just received.
Her former master had once abandoned a broken puppet simply because the repair cost was higher than building a new one. And here Ethan was, already injured, still wanting to walk into a path that would almost certainly kill him just because it might heal Laira’s wing.
’He’s not incapable of calculating risk.’
Ruo Yan had been around Ethan long enough to know he always weighed danger against benefit very clearly. Precisely because he understood and still chose to act, she couldn’t dismiss this as an impulsive decision.
She gathered the threads she’d been using to repair her puppet and stood up.
"How do we open it?"
Laira turned to look at her.
"You agree?"
Ruo Yan answered coolly, "I don’t agree to let him go in alone. Those are two different things."
Laira studied her for a few seconds, then gave a soft huff.
"At least you’re not completely useless."
"You can be quiet now."
Ethan looked toward the main corridor and said, "Aldren is still outside."
Laira immediately whipped her head around.
"He hasn’t left?"
"The mark on me is still connected to him. Not far."
Ruo Yan frowned, her gaze quickly turning colder.
"So he’s waiting to see if we’re hiding something. Can you break the mark?"
"I can. But if I break it now, he’ll know I’ve been aware of it all along."
Laira didn’t care about keeping up the charade.
"He’ll find out anyway once we disappear."
"Which is why we wait until the last moment."
Ethan stepped up to the wall.
In the Eye of Truth’s field of vision, the surface was no longer a solid mass of material. Three energy points deep within were moving along different trajectories.
The first glowed red, the second was silver-white, and the third was a black knot formed from multiple layers of false rules stacked on top of each other.
[Conditions to open the Dead Path.]
[Point one: Fire-type energy of sufficient intensity.]
[Point two: Stable soul energy maintenance.]
[Point three: Destroy the concealing rule layer.]
Ethan pointed to a spot on the left side of the wall.
"Laira, channel fire into here. Don’t break the wall. Just maintain steady energy."
Then he looked at Ruo Yan.
"Use the Soul Thread to anchor the point at the top. When I signal, pull it down about half a meter."
Ruo Yan couldn’t see the point he was describing, but she raised both hands anyway. A silver-white Soul Thread appeared instantly, piercing into the wall along exactly the direction Ethan indicated.
Laira placed her hand against the stone surface. Crimson flames flowed out but didn’t explode, only clinging to the surface before slowly seeping inward.
The wall immediately began to vibrate.
Ethan pushed the Eye of Truth to a higher level.
The pain behind both eyeballs spiked sharply. The energy lines became crystal clear, but at the same time, hundreds of meaningless data points flooded his vision.
He ignored all of them and focused only on the black knot.
"Ruo Yan, pull."
Her fingers clamped down instantly.
The Soul Thread went taut, dragging the silver-white point out of its original position. The black knot hidden behind it was immediately exposed.
Ethan pressed his left hand against the wall. The Primordial Armor lit up, red vein-like patterns rapidly spreading outward from his palm.
"Decomposition."
The Decomposition ability pierced straight into the layer of false rules.
There was no explosion.
Only a hairline crack appeared on the wall’s surface, and then the entire face slowly turned transparent.
Behind it wasn’t a room, but a vertical path plunging into darkness. Floating stone slabs drifted and shifted through the air, purple lightning crackled along both sides of the shaft, and spatial wind appeared and vanished between the gaps.
Gravity inside was in total chaos. Some slabs were falling downward, others drifted upward, and some were even being pulled left or right as if every zone obeyed a different directional pull.
A new notification appeared immediately.
[The Dead Path has been activated.]
[The first person to enter will initiate the full cycle.]
[Duration after activation: Thirty minutes.]
[During this period, any creature meeting the conditions may enter.]
Laira looked at the lightning crackling inside, her expression turning serious.
"Anyone can follow us in?"
"Yes."
Ruo Yan glanced back toward the main corridor.
"Aldren will definitely notice."
"Which is why we have to get there before him."
The workshop’s reclamation timer had just over nineteen minutes left. If they kept hesitating, the Dead Path would vanish.
Ethan reached behind his cloak. Aldren’s mark was still there.
He activated Decomposition.
The energy thread dissolved instantly.
From outside the workshop, a very faint fluctuation echoed back.
Ethan looked at Laira and Ruo Yan and said decisively, "Go."
Laira stepped in first.
But the moment her foot crossed the transparent surface, the gravity inside suddenly shifted to the left. Her body was instantly wrenched off the ground.
Ethan was already prepared. He gripped her hand tight, while Ruo Yan wrapped Soul Threads around both their waists.
All three were pulled in together.
The Necromancer puppet and the three wooden puppets also disappeared behind the wall one by one.
The transparent surface quickly reverted to its original form, leaving behind no trace whatsoever that a passage had ever existed there.
...
Outside the workshop, Aldren stood in the middle of the corridor.
The green stone on his forehead suddenly let out a small crack.
Snap!
A thin line appeared across the stone’s surface. The smile on Aldren’s face vanished instantly.
An Elf standing beside him asked hurriedly, "What happened?"
Aldren touched the crack, his gaze shifting toward the workshop.
"The mark was broken."
He had deliberately let everyone leave, then kept a few Elves nearby. As long as Ethan came out, he could have continued pretending to cooperate.
But Ethan didn’t come out.
Not only that, a very faint spatial fluctuation had just appeared behind the workshop’s back wall.
Footsteps sounded from behind. Brakk led a few Beastkin back, his expression full of irritation.
"You called us back for what?"
Aldren didn’t look at him, his gaze still fixed on the workshop entrance.
"Ethan hasn’t left."
Brakk frowned.
"He’s treating his wounds."
"No."
Aldren touched the cracked stone on his forehead, the corner of his mouth slowly curving upward. This time, there was nothing gentle about the smile.
"He’s found something else."
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