Danmachi : Shinigami

Chapter 263: Chapter 263

The corridor attacked from every direction.

Stone arms burst from the walls, jointed fingers closing around empty air as Kaguya dragged Cassandra beneath the first sweep.

Ryuu cut through another wrist before it reached Merek, but the severed hand struck the floor, turned on its fingertips, and crawled after him.

The black eyes across the ceiling followed every movement.

Rayleigh drew Senbonzakura.

"Scatter, Senbonzakura!"

The blade dissolved into pale petals that flooded the narrow passage.

Stone fingers shattered beneath thousands of cuts.

The crawling hand disappeared inside the storm, while three arms reaching from the left wall were reduced to broken joints before they could withdraw.

More limbs replaced them immediately.

"They’re rebuilding faster than he can destroy them!"

Cassandra’s warning rose above the grinding stone.

The walls absorbed the shattered pieces and pushed them back out as fresh arms.

Each new limb emerged thicker than the last, reinforced by black lines carrying the Orb’s power through the corridor.

Merek pressed one palm against the floor.

"The eyes are directing the walls! Valletta connected the Orb to the corridor’s observation network, so Knossos is changing its attacks whenever it sees us survive!"

Ryuu drove her sword through an eye above them.

The black surface burst, but the symbols surrounding it shifted toward the next mark before the pieces reached the ground.

"There are too many!"

Rayleigh recalled Senbonzakura around the group, turning the petals into a rotating shield that shredded every hand trying to enter.

"Then we stop letting them see the same corridor."

His hand closed around the second Zanpakutō across his back.

"Collapse, Sakanade!"

A sweet scent filled the passage as the blade released.

The black eyes blinked together and their pupils twisted sideways.

Every stone arm changed direction at once.

The hands emerging from the right wall struck the left, while the limbs reaching down from the ceiling drove their fingers into the floor.

Two larger arms collided in the center of the passage and crushed each other at the elbows.

Kaguya ducked beneath the wreckage.

"You reversed their perception?"

"Direction, distance, and orientation. The corridor thinks we are standing where its own attacks are coming from."

Rayleigh turned Sakanade once in his hand.

The eyes attempted to adjust, but every correction sent the next wave farther from its target.

Stone limbs punched through neighboring walls, tore apart support pillars, and ripped black observation marks from the ceiling.

Senbonzakura swept through the exposed symbols.

The corridor stopped moving.

Merek stared at the destroyed eyes.

"That defense was built to recognize intruders, learn their movements, and trap them between attacks. Daedalus never designed it to question whether its own senses were lying."

Rayleigh sealed Sakanade but kept Senbonzakura released around them.

"He should have."

A heavy impact shook the passage ahead.

The floor tilted beneath their feet.

Cassandra grabbed Kaguya’s arm as the corridor rotated around them, turning the right wall into the ground while broken stone rained through the passage.

Merek slammed both hands against the new floor.

"She’s moving the route! Valletta knows the corridor failed, so she’s trying to throw us into the disposal shafts!"

A section of stone opened beneath Ryuu.

She leaped clear, but the opening widened across the passage faster than the others could retreat.

Darkness waited below, filled with the sound of metal grinding against metal.

Rayleigh sent Senbonzakura under the group.

The petals packed together into a broad platform and carried them across the growing gap while the floor continued splitting beneath them.

Something struck the underside as the platform lurched.

A massive jaw rose from the shaft, built from curved stone plates and rows of rusted blades.

It snapped through half the petals and nearly caught Merek’s leg before Kaguya pulled him back.

Ryuu dropped from the edge of the platform.

"Luminous Wind!"

A green whirlwind exploded inside the open mouth.

The force tore several blade-teeth free, but the creature climbed higher, revealing a long segmented body wrapped around the shaft walls.

Merek looked down and swore.

"It’s a Grinder! Knossos used them to destroy failed constructs and dispose of bodies!"

The Grinder lunged again.

Rayleigh brought Senbonzakura together above its head, compressing thousands of petals into a single descending mass.

The strike drove the creature back into the shaft.

Kaguya followed before it could recover.

She jumped from the platform, ran three steps down its plated face, and drove her sword between two segments.

"Ryuu!"

Ryuu understood immediately.

A blast of wind entered through the cut Kaguya had opened. Pressure raced through the Grinder’s hollow body until every joint expanded at once.

The construct ruptured from within.

Kaguya kicked away from the explosion and caught the edge of Senbonzakura’s platform as stone and metal disappeared into the darkness below.

Cassandra stared at her.

"You jumped into its mouth!"

"I jumped onto its head."

"It had teeth all over its head!"

Kaguya climbed back onto the platform.

"Then my choice of footing was poor."

’How does she say things like that without sounding insane?’

Rayleigh guided the platform to the far side of the shaft.

The moment they landed, the passage behind them collapsed.

Thick stone barriers dropped across every route back to the surface, and black seals spread over them before the dust settled.

Merek checked the nearest mark.

"These are permanent closures. Valletta is sealing every corridor after we pass."

Ryuu looked down the only remaining path.

"She wants us to keep following."

"Of course she does."

Kaguya wiped black fluid from her sword.

"She has the Orb, control of the passages, and enough ritual equipment to complete whatever she prepared below. Every obstacle we overcome gives her more time."

Cassandra raised Yumeutsutsu.

Its red petals no longer pointed straight ahead.

They gathered into two trails, one following the corridor and the other disappearing through the floor.

"My dream is splitting again."

Merek looked at the second trail.

"What is beneath us?"

"A room filled with chains. Valletta reaches it through the lower route, but the path in front of us leads somewhere else."

Rayleigh studied the walls.

"She opened an obvious corridor because she wants us away from the central chamber."

A laugh travelled through the black seals.

Valletta’s voice came from every wall at once.

"You finally noticed! I was beginning to think Ishtar’s little rebellion had exhausted the great Yōtōsai."

Cassandra flinched.

Kaguya’s expression sharpened.

Rayleigh looked toward the nearest seal.

"You killed a Guild convoy and ran underground with three followers. You sound confident for someone who needs an entire labyrinth between us."

Valletta laughed again.

"I don’t need Knossos to protect me. I need it to keep you busy while I finish what you interrupted!"

Black light spread through the corridor.

A rough image formed across the wall, showing Valletta standing beside a stone pedestal.

The Daedalus Orb floated above it, surrounded by rotating metal rings and hanging chains.

Three surviving followers worked around the chamber, pressing ritual plates into openings along the floor.

Valletta’s face appeared beside the Orb.

"You used that monstrous power to reseal the lid and destroy my ritual, but you left the labyrinth intact. All these corridors, traps, and forgotten weapons were waiting for someone with the right key!"

"You don’t understand the Orb."

Merek stepped toward the image.

"My ancestor designed it to command construction routes, not activate every defense at once. The network will tear itself apart if you force the central system to obey conflicting orders!"

"That is the point!"

Valletta’s grin widened.

"When Knossos tears itself apart, Orario tears with it. The streets collapse, the Guild falls into the dark, and every god who celebrated Evilus’s defeat learns that the city was standing on our grave!"

The image vanished.

The corridor began narrowing.

Both walls moved inward with enough force to grind the stone floor between them.

Merek turned toward the path Valletta had left open.

"That corridor leads away from the chains. She expects us to run through it before the walls crush us."

Rayleigh recalled Senbonzakura into his hand.

The blade reformed.

"Then we go down."

Merek looked at the solid floor.

"The lower route is sealed behind several meters of adamantine-reinforced stone!"

Rayleigh raised Benihime.

"Several meters isn’t enough."

"Wait! If you cut blindly, you could open a drainage shaft, a poison chamber, or another Grinder nest!"

Cassandra stepped between them and pointed toward the red petals sinking through the floor.

"Three steps behind Rayleigh. The safe point is directly beneath him, but it won’t stay safe once the walls meet!"

The passage had already narrowed enough that Ryuu and Kaguya could touch opposite sides with their swords.

Rayleigh positioned Benihime over the mark Cassandra indicated.

"Stand close."

Merek grabbed Cassandra’s shoulder while Kaguya and Ryuu moved beside them.

The walls accelerated.

Stone screamed around the group.

"Blood Mist Shield, Benihime!"

A crimson barrier closed around all five of them just as the corridor crushed inward.

The force drove cracks across the shield.

Rayleigh reversed his grip and drove Benihime into the floor.

"Shibari, Benihime!"

Red energy cut downward in a controlled line, opening the stone without allowing the surrounding pressure to collapse the tunnel immediately.

The barrier groaned.

A crack split beside Rayleigh’s face.

"Jump!"

They dropped through the opening as the corridor crushed the shield above them.

Rayleigh fell last, ripping Benihime free an instant before hundreds of tons of stone slammed together.

Darkness swallowed them.

The fall ended abruptly when they struck a steep metal slope and began sliding through a narrow shaft.

Cassandra screamed.

Merek shouted something about old transport channels, but the noise of their descent tore the words away.

Sparks flew from Kaguya’s blade as she tried to slow herself against the wall.

Ryuu caught Cassandra before she spun sideways, while Rayleigh drove Benihime into the metal and dragged all five of them to a violent stop.

They hung above a vertical drop.

The shaft opened into an enormous chamber beneath them.

Hundreds of chains descended from the ceiling, each connected to a different corridor of Knossos. Black energy ran through them toward the Daedalus Orb floating at the center.

Valletta stood on the platform below.

She looked up.

"You took the shorter path!"

Her surprise lasted less than a second.

Then she slammed one hand against the Orb.

Every chain in the chamber snapped tight.

The walls opened.

Dozens of unfinished constructs crawled out of alcoves around the platform, some with too many limbs, others missing faces or carrying weapons fused directly into their bodies.

Merek stared down at them.

"This is the rejected workshop. Daedalus buried every failed weapon he couldn’t safely dismantle here."

Valletta spread both arms.

"Then let’s see whether Yōtōsai can fix them!"

The Orb flashed.

Every unfinished construct looked up at once.

Rayleigh pulled Hyōrinmaru from his back as the entire chamber began climbing toward them.

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