SSSSS-Rank: Negative Leveling

The four hunters pressed their foreheads against the throne room floor. Borris's ribs still ached where that lizard had slammed its tail into him, sending him flying like a child's toy.

Beside him, Misha, Jako, and Goran kept their heads down, breathing shallow and careful.

Above them, Silas sat on his throne of black geode, polishing a petrified human hand with silk. The statues around them watched with stone eyes, some mid-scream, others reaching for help that never came.

"Explain."

Borris swallowed hard, tasting blood from where he'd bitten his tongue during the fight. "My lord, he wasn't what we expected. The man could vanish and reappear instantly, like smoke."

"He teleported."

"His tactics were insane," Misha kept her voice steady, though her hands trembled. "He threw his companion at us like a weapon. Used our own karens against us. There was no pattern, no logic to predict."

Silas set the stone hand on the table beside his throne and picked up a petrified songbird, its tiny beak open in eternal song.

"Four of my best C-Rank hunters, beaten by a single man and a little girl." He turned the bird slowly, examining its frozen feathers. "Do you know what people will say? They'll say Silas has gone soft. That his dogs have no teeth."

'We're dead. He's going to kill every one of us,' Borris kept his head down, sweat dripping onto the floor.

Silas set the bird on the table beside his throne and stood.

"Goran."

The fourth hunter's head lifted an inch.

"My lord?"

"You went down first, didn't you? Got yourself tangled in a chain like some amateur."

"It was... I made a mistake, my lord. Won't happen again."

"No. It won't."

He walked down from his throne, stopping in front of the kneeling hunter.

"Your failure disappoints me, Goran. But I suppose even failure can become art."

He placed his hand on Goran's shoulder. The hunter went rigid.

"Look at me."

Goran's eyes met his master's, panic spreading across his face as he tried to look away but couldn't.

"My lord, wait, please—"

Gray energy washed over Goran's body, starting at his feet where leather boots hardened into rough stone, spreading up his legs without sound or mercy.

"Your skin has such interesting texture. Very detailed work."

Goran's scream died as his lungs solidified, his eyes frozen wide in that perfect moment of terror. The transformation took ten seconds, Silas watching with his head tilted like he was admiring a museum piece. When it finished, Goran wasn't a man anymore. Just stone.

He stepped back.

"Perfect for the garden entrance. A nice reminder about the price of failure."

Borris, Misha, and Jako didn't move. They barely breathed.

"Now," he returned to his throne, settling back into the carved stone. "I want every tracker, every informant, every piece of street trash in the Northern Wastes looking for that man. Bring me his head. The girl comes to me alive and untouched—she'll make an excellent addition to my collection."

---

Luthra drove his knee into the Shrieker's neck, feeling vertebrae crack under the impact. The creature went limp before its silent scream could begin, and he let it drop to the forest floor.

Rebecca jogged over, her clothes already torn and stained with mud and blood. She dug the glowing D-rank core from the monster's chest with practiced efficiency and dropped it into the sack over her shoulder. The bag hit her hip with a satisfying weight.

"That's twelve." She wiped her hands on her pants. "We rich yet?"

"Not even close."

He flexed his arms, testing the deep ache that lingered beneath healed bones. Three days in this Closed Labyrinth. Three days of the same cycle - hunt, rest, hunt again.

'Should've been out of this forest by now.'

He walked to a thick tree with bark like wrinkled leather and scratched another X into it with a sharp rock, adding to the dozen marks already there.

"Hold up." Rebecca came closer, squinting at the trunk. "This is the same tree from yesterday. The one I said looked like my uncle after a bender."

He studied the path they'd just walked. Six hours of walking, and they'd circled back to exactly where they started.

'This is getting really stupid.'

"Lilith, what's happening here?"

[I have been analyzing our trajectory against the initial map data. There is a ninety-seven percent probability that we are walking in a perfect, repeating circle.]

"We're lost?" Rebecca kicked at a root. "This is the lamest way to be lost. When I got lost in the city that one time, at least there were hot dog carts."

"No, this isn't just being lost." 'Something's playing with us.' "The forest is doing this on purpose."

[Correct assessment. The forest is not a natural labyrinth. Its spatial dimensions are being actively manipulated by a central entity. You are experiencing a projected illusion.]

"Wait, what? The whole forest is fake?"

[The trees are real. The ground is real. But the space between them is not. The entity is bending the path, looping it back on itself to keep you contained.]

He leaned against the marked tree, exhausted by the endless repetition. 'So there's something at the center messing with our heads. How do we find it?'

[The manipulation is psychic in nature, projected outward from the source. Your Mind's Eye skill should allow you to perceive the seams of the illusion - the points where manipulated space doesn't align with reality.]

"So I look for the parts where the forest gets glitchy?"

[Essentially, yes.]

"Alright, worth a shot." He closed his eyes and activated Mind's Eye.

The world dissolved into overlapping auras and energy flows. Trees pulsed with dim life force, dead Shriekers faded like dying embers on the ground. But there was something else now - to the north, the fabric of space itself rippled like heat rising from hot asphalt.

The distortion was subtle, barely there, but unmistakable once he knew what to look for.

'There you are.'

He opened his eyes and pointed north. "That way."

"The whole forest feels wrong, but sure, you're the one with the magic eyes."

They left the familiar clearing behind, walking toward the distortion. The deeper they went, the stranger things became. Trees shifted positions when they weren't looking directly at them.

A straight path would curve into a spiral the moment they blinked. The air grew heavy with a pressure that had nothing to do with humidity or Shriekers.

Five Shriekers appeared in a clearing ahead, but as Luthra tensed for combat, they dissolved into black smoke, their screeches fading to whispers.

"What the hell?" Rebecca grabbed a rock and threw it at one of the smoke-creatures. It passed straight through and thunked against a tree behind it. "They're not even there?"

"Just echoes." His Mind's Eye showed him wisps of death energy, nothing solid. "Not real."

[The central entity is growing aware of your intrusion. It is attempting to distract and confuse you.]

'Doing a shit job of it.'

They pushed forward, ignoring the phantom monsters flickering at the edges of their vision. The psychic pressure intensified into a low hum that vibrated through his skull, a constant drone trying to break his concentration.

"My head feels weird," Rebecca said, pressing her palms against her temples. "Like someone's playing a really annoying song but I can't actually hear it, you know?"

"Just keep your eyes on my back. Don't look at anything else."

They found the source at the base of a massive tree.

"So the big bad's in there?"

"Has to be."

He stepped inside, Rebecca close behind.