Danmachi : Shinigami

Chapter 265: Chapter 265

Black light rushed up the shaft and swallowed all five of them.

Ryuu forced more wind beneath the group, but the current buckled as the pressure from below dragged them toward the open stone eye.

"Something is pulling us down!"

Merek twisted in the air and stared at the rings turning around the opening.

"The Orb has reversed the maintenance shaft! It’s treating us like material being delivered to the central chamber!"

Kaguya drove her sword into the wall.

The blade carved a long trail through frozen stone without slowing her enough to stop the fall.

"Then stop explaining and find us somewhere to land!"

"There should be a maintenance bridge beneath the third ring, but Valletta has moved everything!"

Cassandra held Yumeutsutsu against her chest as red petals tore away from the blade and vanished into the darkness.

One petal returned.

It struck Ryuu’s shoulder and pulled sharply toward the left wall.

"There! The bridge still exists, but it only appears after the second ring closes!"

The first ring rushed past them.

The second began folding inward like a mouth.

Ryuu gathered every current around her body.

"Hold on!"

Wind slammed the group sideways an instant before the ring sealed.

They burst through a narrow opening and crashed onto a metal bridge suspended above the central chamber.

Rayleigh hit first and rolled across the grated floor. Merek landed against him, while Ryuu caught Cassandra before she went over the edge.

Kaguya struck the railing hard enough to bend it outward.

She pulled herself upright with blood running from one sleeve.

"You could have warned us that the landing would be terrible."

Ryuu released Cassandra and wiped blood from her forehead.

"I was busy stopping everyone from becoming paste."

The bridge shook beneath them.

Stone claws tore through the metal.

A headless construct pulled itself onto the walkway, followed by another with four torsos fused around a single set of legs.

Rayleigh drew Ruri’iro Kujaku.

"Bloom, Ruri’iro Kujaku!"

The blade split into hooked branches.

Vines burst from the steel and wrapped around the nearest construct before its claws reached Merek.

Thorns pierced the black lines running beneath its stone skin, and the creature staggered as Ruri’iro Kujaku began draining the energy feeding it.

The glow inside its body faded.

Rayleigh tore the weakened construct off the bridge and sent it tumbling into the chamber below.

Three more climbed over the railing.

Kaguya met the first one head-on.

Her sword passed through an exposed shoulder joint, severed the arm, and continued into the second neck attached to its chest.

The other heads turned toward her.

"Too slow."

She ripped the blade sideways and removed all three at once.

Ryuu drove a burst of wind beneath the second construct and lifted it from the bridge. Cassandra’s red petals gathered around a black mark hidden beneath its abdomen.

"There! That mark is keeping it alive!"

Ryuu changed the direction of the wind.

The construct flipped in midair.

Kaguya’s sword pierced the exposed mark before it came down.

Its body broke apart across the bridge.

The third creature charged past them toward Merek.

He pressed his bloodied palm against the railing.

A Daedalus symbol flashed beneath his hand, and part of the bridge folded upward into a solid barrier.

The construct struck it at full speed.

Metal buckled.

Merek stumbled backward, but the wall held long enough for Ruri’iro Kujaku’s vines to slip around both sides and drag the creature against it.

Rayleigh closed his fist.

The vines tightened.

Stone plates cracked inward as the Zanpakutō drained the power beneath them.

Merek stared at the dead construct.

"You can absorb the Orb’s energy?"

"Some of it."

Rayleigh pulled Ruri’iro Kujaku’s vines free.

"The sword can drain what reaches the constructs, but the Orb is replacing it faster than I can take it."

Valletta’s laughter rose from below.

"You finally brought out the hungry one!"

The central chamber opened beneath the bridge.

It was larger than the workshop above, built around a stone mechanism shaped like an enormous eye.

The Daedalus Orb floated where the pupil should have been, held inside rotating rings covered in fresh blood.

Valletta stood on the lower platform with both arms spread.

Black lines had reached her neck.

Her remaining skin looked grey beneath them, while blood ran from her nose and ears.

"You look terrible."

Rayleigh sent Ruri’iro Kujaku’s vines toward the platform.

Valletta slammed one hand against the stone eye.

The chamber reacted before the vines reached her.

A wall of chains rose from the pit and caught them in midair. Black energy rushed through the metal, burning along the vines toward Rayleigh’s hand.

Ruri’iro Kujaku pulled greedily against it.

Too greedily.

The branches around the blade swelled as the Zanpakutō absorbed more power than Rayleigh could safely control.

Pain tore through his arm.

He severed the vines before the energy reached his shoulder.

The cut lengths burst apart above the pit.

Valletta laughed harder.

"You can eat a stream, Yōtōsai, but this is the entire river!"

Rayleigh sealed Ruri’iro Kujaku and returned it to his back.

’She’s right. The Orb isn’t creating power. It’s pulling it through all of Knossos at once.’

Merek reached the center of the bridge and looked down at the stone eye.

Four ritual plates had been inserted around the pupil.

Only one remained dark.

"She has connected the construction routes, the defense network, the sealed passages, and the disposal system. The last plate controls the foundation supports beneath Orario!"

Cassandra’s face went white.

"That’s what I saw! When the last plate lights up, the labyrinth begins climbing!"

Valletta lifted the final ritual plate from the floor.

Kaguya leaped over the railing.

She dropped directly toward Valletta with her sword held above her head.

The stone eye blinked.

A chain struck Kaguya across the waist and hurled her into the chamber wall.

"Kaguya!"

Ryuu jumped after her.

Wind caught Kaguya before she fell into the pit, but three more chains snapped toward them from different directions.

Ryuu twisted between the first two.

The third wrapped around her ankle.

Valletta pulled one hand toward herself.

The chain dragged Ryuu downward.

Kaguya caught her wrist with one hand while stabbing her sword into the wall with the other.

Both women hung above the pit.

"Rayleigh, deal with Valletta! We can handle this!"

The chain tightened around Ryuu’s ankle.

She bit back a cry as metal cut through her boot.

"You sound very confident for someone holding both of us with one arm!"

"You are welcome to let go first."

"I was talking to Rayleigh!"

Rayleigh sent Senbonzakura across the chamber.

The petals sliced through the chain around Ryuu’s ankle and continued toward Valletta in a wide wave.

The stone eye closed around her.

Senbonzakura struck the outer shell.

Thousands of cuts filled the surface, but the mechanism repaired each one before the petals reached the inner chamber.

Merek grabbed Cassandra’s arm.

"The eye is using every connected route to rebuild itself! We have to disable the ritual plates before Rayleigh can reach Valletta!"

Cassandra raised Yumeutsutsu.

Red petals appeared across the eye.

Four gathered around the active plates.

The fifth hovered over Valletta’s hand.

"The plates have to be broken in the order she connected them! If we destroy the wrong one first, the energy rebounds into the foundation network!"

Merek looked at the petals.

"What order?"

Yumeutsutsu shook violently.

Images struck Cassandra faster than she could describe them.

"The chain! The open door! The broken body! The moving wall!"

Merek understood.

"Construction, passages, disposal, defenses!"

"The foundation plate is last!"

Valletta raised it toward the remaining slot.

"You’re too late!"

Rayleigh thrust one hand toward the first ritual plate.

"Hadō #4: Byakurai!"

White lightning crossed the chamber and struck the construction plate.

The stone exploded.

Every unfinished construct still climbing through Knossos collapsed at once.

The eye’s outer shell stopped repairing itself.

"Passages next!"

Merek pointed toward the upper-left plate.

Ryuu cut the chain pulling her down and launched herself from Kaguya’s grip.

Wind carried her across the stone eye.

Valletta redirected two chains toward her.

Ryuu turned sideways between them and released a concentrated blast through the passage plate.

It cracked but did not break.

Kaguya landed above her.

Her blade entered the existing fracture.

The plate split.

Throughout Knossos, moving corridors stopped halfway through turning.

The chamber lurched as several routes locked in place.

"Disposal!"

Cassandra’s petals rushed toward a plate near the lower edge of the eye.

Senbonzakura reached it first.

The petals compressed around the stone and ground through its surface until the black mark beneath it disappeared.

A roar echoed from the pits below as the Grinders and disposal mechanisms lost power.

Only one active plate remained.

The defense network.

Merek stared at the location.

The final plate sat inside the eye, less than a pace from Valletta.

"She has to open the pupil before we can reach it!"

Valletta pressed the foundation plate against the empty slot.

The stone rejected it.

Without the defense plate maintaining the ritual sequence, the connection could not complete.

Her smile disappeared.

"No!"

Rayleigh recalled Senbonzakura into his hand.

"Open the eye."

Merek placed both palms against the bridge.

His blood entered the Daedalus symbols beneath the metal.

The stone eye resisted him.

Veins stood out along his arms as the mechanism tried to reject his command.

"My blood opened the routes before Valletta ever touched that Orb! Daedalus built this place for his descendants, and I’m done letting his corpse decide what my life is for!"

The bridge split beneath his hands.

Pale symbols raced toward the eye.

Its outer shell began opening.

Valletta grabbed the Orb with both hands.

Black energy burned deeper into her body.

"You don’t want the eye open? Fine! I’ll tear the command out myself!"

She pulled the Orb free of its rings.

Every chain in Knossos snapped taut.

The defense plate shattered inside the mechanism.

Power surged through Valletta instead of returning to the network.

Her back arched.

A scream tore out of her as black lines covered her face and entered both eyes.

The stone eye opened fully.

Valletta stood inside the pupil with the Orb fused between her hands, surrounded by a storm of broken chains and raw labyrinth energy.

Cassandra’s red petals turned black.

"The future changed!"

Rayleigh looked at her.

"What happens now?"

"She doesn’t need the foundation plate anymore! Valletta has become the command point!"

The chamber convulsed.

Every inactive defense in Knossos awakened at once.

Walls pushed upward.

Support pillars twisted out of alignment.

Deep beneath their feet, the entire labyrinth began forcing itself toward the surface.

Merek fell against the broken bridge.

"She’s given Knossos one command!"

Valletta raised her burning hands.

Her ruined eyes fixed on Rayleigh.

"CLIMB!"

Stone erupted beneath Orario.

The central chamber shot upward, crushing every sealed level above it as the labyrinth obeyed.

Rayleigh felt streets, homes, and thousands of people directly overhead.

Benihime could cut Valletta.

Hyōrinmaru could freeze one section.

Senbonzakura could destroy every chain in the room.

None of them could stop all of Knossos from rising while protecting the city above it.

He returned Senbonzakura to its sheath.

Kaguya saw his hand move toward Benihime.

"Rayleigh, what are you doing?"

His spiritual pressure filled the chamber.

The red thread between his soul and Alfia pulled tight enough to hurt.

Across Orario, she felt what he was about to release.

Rayleigh drew Benihime and held it before him.

"Get behind me."

Valletta laughed as the ceiling collapsed toward them.

"You can’t cut an entire labyrinth!"

Rayleigh tightened his grip.

"No."

The blade’s crimson light spread through the rising chamber.

"I’m going to take it apart."

"Bankai."

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