Danmachi : Shinigami

Chapter 262: Chapter 262

Merek remained hunched in Rayleigh’s doorway, one hand pressed against a cut beneath his ribs while black stone dust covered his coat and hair.

Rayleigh caught him before his legs gave out.

"Where did Valletta get the Orb?"

"The Guild recovered it from a collapsed chamber near the old drainage routes. I identified the markings this morning, and they moved it before anyone outside Ouranos’s circle could learn what it was."

Merek clenched Rayleigh’s sleeve.

"Valletta was waiting for the convoy! She killed the escort, took the Orb, and opened a Knossos entrance beneath the western market!"

Alfia pulled Merek inside and pressed a folded cloth against his wound.

"How long ago?"

"Less than twenty minutes. She had men carrying ritual equipment, so this wasn’t an opportunistic theft. She knew exactly when the Guild would move it!"

Rayleigh reached for Benihime.

Alfia caught his wrist.

"You can barely stand."

"I’m standing just fine."

"You nearly fell on the stairs thirty seconds ago!"

"The Orb can control Knossos."

Rayleigh met her eyes.

"If Valletta connects it to the surviving network, she can open every sealed route beneath Orario or collapse them beneath the city. I don’t get to sleep first."

Anger and fear travelled through the red thread between their souls.

Alfia released him only long enough to push a vial into his hand.

"Drink this, and do not insult me by claiming you can fight at full strength. Your body is exhausted, your spiritual power has not recovered, and another careless release could leave you unconscious inside the labyrinth."

Rayleigh swallowed the medicine.

"I’ll be careful."

"You said that before entering Ishtar’s house."

"That situation became unreasonable."

"You sent a goddess back to Heaven."

"She refused to leave."

Alfia stared at him until Rayleigh looked away first.

Nira helped Merek into a chair.

"Bring Belka back safely."

"She isn’t coming."

Rayleigh fastened Senbonzakura and Benihime at his hips, then secured Hyōrinmaru, Sakanade, and Ruri’iro Kujaku across his back.

"She has four hundred people connected to her Zanpakutō and an entire district trying to rebuild before breakfast. This team needs to stay small."

Alfia tightened the final strap across his shoulder with enough force to make the leather bite.

"Then come back before I have to enter Knossos and retrieve you myself!"

Rayleigh paused at the door.

The anger in her voice could not hide what passed through their bond.

"I’ll come back."

...

The western market looked as though a monster had torn through it.

Three Guild carriages lay overturned across the road.

One had been split from roof to axle, while another burned beside a collapsed fruit stall.

Shakti’s officers had already blocked the surrounding streets.

Bodies covered in grey cloaks lay among the wreckage, most bearing wounds too precise to have come from ordinary bandits.

Kaguya waited beside the ruined convoy with blood on her sword.

Ryuu knelt near the third carriage, checking the Guild escorts one by one for survivors.

Cassandra stood behind them with both hands wrapped around Yumeutsutsu’s hilt.

Red petals drifted from its released blade despite the complete absence of wind.

Rayleigh stopped beside Shakti.

"How many did Valletta bring?"

"Fourteen confirmed attackers. Nine bodies are here, three escaped into the passage with her, and two may still be hiding nearby."

Shakti pointed toward a round opening beneath the remains of a merchant warehouse.

The stone entrance had not existed when Rayleigh passed that street the previous week.

A black spiral had been burned into the surrounding floor.

"The entrance opened when Valletta raised the Orb. Every lock beneath the warehouse released at the same time, and the wall folded inward as though Knossos recognized her."

Merek stared into the darkness.

"It recognized the Orb. Valletta is only carrying the key."

Ryuu rose from the final escort.

"This man is alive, but he cannot tell us anything until a healer stabilizes him. The others were killed before they could draw their weapons."

Kaguya wiped her blade clean.

"Valletta left enough followers behind to delay pursuit, though they proved less useful than she expected."

A scream came from inside the burning carriage.

Ryuu moved first.

She reached the rear door before the others had turned, but a curved metal arm punched through the carriage wall and caught her around the waist.

"Ryuu!"

Kaguya cut at the limb.

Her blade struck black metal and threw sparks across the road without severing it.

The carriage exploded outward.

A creature unfolded from the wreckage, dragging Ryuu with it.

Its body had been built from jointed stone plates and rusted metal, while six narrow arms extended from a torso shaped like a closed eye.

Daedalus markings glowed across its surface with the same black light surrounding the hidden entrance.

Merek’s face went pale.

"That is a Watcher frame! The Orb has already activated the old defenses!"

Ryuu drove both feet against the creature’s chest and twisted free before its second arm could close around her throat.

She landed beside Kaguya.

The Watcher opened along its center.

Dozens of thin blades launched from the gap.

"Blood Mist Shield, Benihime!"

A crimson barrier opened across the street.

The blades struck hard enough to cover its surface in cracks, but none reached the wounded escorts behind Rayleigh.

More movement came from the overturned carriages.

Three smaller constructs pulled themselves from beneath the wreckage, their bodies assembled from pieces of broken wheels, armor, and dead attackers.

Valletta had left the Orb’s influence behind.

’Twenty minutes, and she’s already making the labyrinth build soldiers on the surface.’

Rayleigh drew Senbonzakura.

"Scatter, Senbonzakura!"

The blade dissolved into a storm of pale petals.

They swept across the market and entered every opening in the smaller constructs.

Metal screamed as thousands of fragments cut through their inner joints, reducing all three to piles of twitching parts before they completed a single step.

The larger Watcher covered its glowing core with overlapping plates.

Senbonzakura struck from every direction, shaving away stone but failing to penetrate the reinforced shell.

"It is protecting the central mark!"

Merek pointed toward the closed eye in its chest.

"The Orb’s command is entering through that symbol. Destroy it, and the frame will collapse!"

Kaguya rushed beneath the Watcher’s swinging arms.

She cut through one knee joint and forced the creature low enough for Ryuu to reach its back.

Ryuu drove her wooden sword into the gap between two plates, then released a burst of wind that tore the upper shell apart from within.

The central eye opened.

Rayleigh raised one hand.

"Hadō #33: Sōkatsui!"

Blue fire crossed the road and struck the exposed mark.

The Watcher’s chest burst apart.

Its six arms fell limp before the entire body collapsed into the burning wreckage.

Shakti stared at the pieces.

"Valletta can send those things through any entrance she opens?"

"If she gains full control of the Orb, this will be the smallest thing she can wake."

Merek limped toward the hidden passage.

"We need to move now! The central control chambers lie far below us, but the Orb can shorten routes and unlock sealed paths. Valletta may already be halfway there."

Shakti caught his shoulder.

"You are injured."

"I am also the only person here who can read Daedalus’s original control marks!"

"You will bleed out before reaching the first junction."

Merek pulled the cloth away from his side.

The cut was shallow enough to hurt, yet it had stopped bleeding after Alfia’s treatment.

"I have survived worse injuries while being chased by creatures that wanted to wear my face. This is manageable."

Kaguya looked toward Rayleigh.

"Astraea authorized Ryuu and me to pursue Valletta. Alise is helping Ganesha Familia secure the surface in case more entrances open."

Ryuu glanced at Cassandra.

"Daphne wanted to come, but Cassandra insisted the pursuit team could not be larger than five."

Cassandra held Yumeutsutsu in front of her.

The red petals had gathered into a narrow trail leading directly into the passage.

"I dreamed of six people entering Knossos. Only five came back."

Merek counted the group.

"Rayleigh, Kaguya, Ryuu, Cassandra, and me. That is five."

"The sixth person is already below us."

Cassandra’s hands tightened around the Zanpakutō.

"Valletta reaches a chamber filled with hanging chains. If she places the Orb inside the stone eye, the labyrinth wakes and begins climbing toward the city!"

Rayleigh looked at the passage.

"How long do we have?"

"I don’t know! The dream kept changing every time the eye opened, but the final image was always the same. Valletta was laughing while Orario fell into the ground!"

That was enough.

Rayleigh turned to Shakti.

"Seal the street after we enter. If another construct comes through, destroy the black mark before attacking the body."

Shakti nodded.

"If the passage closes behind you?"

"Then we make another one."

Merek stepped into the opening first.

The stone floor reacted to his Daedalus blood, revealing pale lines that led downward through the darkness.

Kaguya and Ryuu followed him.

Cassandra entered next, still watching the petals from Yumeutsutsu.

Rayleigh stopped beside the threshold when the red thread inside his soul pulled tight.

Alfia had felt the battle through their bond.

Her anger reached him from across the city, followed by one sharp demand.

Come back.

Rayleigh placed one hand against his chest.

’I said I would.’

He entered Knossos.

The wall sealed behind him before his second step.

Darkness swallowed the passage.

Then hundreds of black eyes opened across the ceiling.

Cassandra screamed.

"THEY’RE ALL AWAKE!"

Stone limbs tore out of both walls as the entire corridor lunged toward them.

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