As Rex got into a combat-ready position, the humanoid root creature raised its hands and brought them down as they stretched, turning into what Rex could only describe as whip limbs. Of course, in this narrow hallway there was no way that a whip would be effective... was what the drakin thought but it quickly became evident that the creature could manipulate its elongated limbs with much more proficiency and efficiency than anyone using a whip. Seeing this, Rex hugged one of the walls with his back to it, dodging the attack, the willowy limbs smashing into the floor instead with a clear, audible snap. The strength behind them was clearly nothing to scoff at. The creature immediately started another attack, this time a horizontal one with both arms. Rex dropped prone to the ground, causing the attack to miss him and once more snap against the wall.

This time Rex didn’t wait as he instantly sprung up into a sprinting stance and rushed toward it. In answer the creature sent another attack forward, crossing its arms in an X. Rex wondered for a moment if he should attempt to break through it with force, but instantly decided against it. He would not come out unscathed and such tactics wouldn’t affect a monster psychologically. Maybe a normal one, but not one of a labyrinth. Instead he sent himself sprawling to the ground without stopping his momentum, sliding under the attack before springing back up to running again. He had to be thankful to his current body for allowing him to do something like that without much training. The creature attempted another attack, with one horizontal and one vertical arm, but it was easily dodged by Rex jumping to the side of the vertical one, at the same time as over the other. As he landed he jumped again, this time forward, latching onto the creature by grabbing the roots it was formed of with one claw, raising the other and slashing down at the roots with it.

The sharp claw left a scratch on the root, Rex had planned to completely tear through, giving him pause. Taking advantage of the moment, the creature’s thorny head widened as the roots untwist, causing it to open up, almost like a jaw. As the creature opened its “mouth”, lunging toward Rex’ own head, causing him to snap out of his surprise. Instead of Rex’ head the creature suddenly had his tail slam into its face which it bit into nonetheless, closing its head around it. Rex grunted at the pain caused by the pressure put on the tail alone as the thorns of the creature aren’t sharp enough to break through his scales. He shivered for a moment as he thought about what would have been if he couldn’t cover his hands and feet in scales or if his scales weren’t as unreasonably hardy as they were. At the very least he wouldn’t have his feet by now, considering the wolves that had bitten into them on the previous floor.0

Now with the creature’s close-range attack method disabled Rex grabbed onto it again. Instead of trying to slash at the roots he firmly dug his lower claws into the ground and pulled the roots apart, bending them through strength, under the first was another layer. And another. The creature struggled but its thin limbs didn’t have the strength to do anything to him in close range, resulting in rhem beating his back with no avail, unable to put any strength into the attacks11. After pulling apart several layers a gem the size of a child’s fist was revealed within it. Rex plunged his claws into the creature one last time, wincing at the pain in his tail as the creature tried harder and harder to crush it. His claws grabbed the gem which seemed to be connected through thinner, smaller roots to the ones that made up the creature’s body. He pulled at it with all his might, the small roots snapping one by one, as the object was pulled out of the creature and its movement suddenly stopped.

The creature’s body suddenly went limp, falling backwards, the only thing stopping it, Rex’ tail which held up its body through its clenched head. He approached the body, keeping it half-lifted with his tail and pulled apart the thorny roots, releasing himself from its constraints. And as he let go the body of the creature fell to the ground, causing Rex to sigh in relief. He brought his attention to the gem in his hands, which cracked, breaking into pieces and then again, until it just turned into dust. ‘A core...’ he had hears of creatures that were born with these. He wondered idly if there were safe ways to extract them without them falling apart. If that was the case they would be able to act similarly to labyrinth cores in function albeit not as effectively. He was sure he wouldn’t have been the first to think of this and for all he knew there was even more than one method available, or maybe them breaking like that was just because these were labyrinth creatures. He’d look into it afterwards.

He turned his attention to the disappearing corpse of the root creature. As soon as the last part of it disappeared a white ball of concentrated mana materialized, causing Rex’s eyes to widen. He got a reward from only one creature? Then these must have been sort of elites. A creature the labyrinth created at a greater cost than others. No wonder it was so strong. Rex put his hand in the orb of mana and took out... a throwing knife? It was just like his own. Was it because he’d lost two on the previous floor?

It didn’t take the white-scaled boy long to reach another fork in the road, but only looking down to the left was enough to confirm one of his theories, as there were two human corpses lying on the ground of the path. The first thing standing out was that their heads were mangled to the point of being unrecognizable. Upon closer inspection one of them had a hammer next to him. A hammer that went along with the equipment and build of one of the corpses perfectly pointing to it belonging to the leader of the party. That was bad. Without him the others might decide to turn back. He would have to hurry and clear the labyrinth in that case. As he couldn’t allow them returning here with guild staff and catching him in the process. He tried to determine the identity of the other man as well, but failed. He was most likely not one Rex had kept a close eye on before they had entered the labyrinth.

Their equipment was left behind which meant the others probably ran, but nothing from it seemed very useful to Rex and his bag was already full enough as it was. He did take their coin though and they both had a good amount of it as well. He wasn’t one to make the same mistake twice... if... he cared enough to give it his attention. He opted to leave everything else behind and ran forward. Even weapons would do nothing but slow him down against the root-formed monstrosities of this floor.

As he ran through the floor, mapping out the labyrinth-like design worthy of the name of the creature that designed it, he encountered a few more of the monsters but opted to either go in a different direction to them or dodging their attacks and knocking them to the ground before running past them. While their defences were impressive, just knocking them down posed little difficulty.

Still. Rex would stop occasionally to rest. Or rather to wait, to observe. It seemed to him almost like the creatures in these tunnels were actually looking for him. It reminded him of how the wolves pushed him into a snake trap on the previous floor. The labyrinth seemed to be working against him. Was it afraid of him? Did it feel threatened? It wasn’t impossible. Despite the creatures acting on instinct to the point of putting normal animals to shame, it was possible for labyrinths to feel a threat based on instinct alone. After all these creatures had no intelligence. He was about to move again when a creature suddenly rounded a corner further down the corridor. Of course he had made sure to stop in a place where there were multiple ways of escape. The creature though, gave him pause from doing so.

Unlike the common, slender, humanoid figures Rex encountered previously, this one walked on four legs... and it was bulky, slow. That was the problem though. It was bulky. Given how much effort it had taken for the boy to take out the core of a normal root monster, this one would take forever, not to mention more roots meant enhanced offense as well. The drakin watched as the creature took a few steps towards him before running into another hallway going as far away as possible whilst looking for his goal. He continued running, evading the large creatures while finding some leeway in the humanoid ones which could be dealt with easily enough.

The longer he spent on this floor the more often he felt like he was encountering the creatures. He had ran past two more corpses a few minutes ago, not stopping to check them, not wanting to be discovered. Now, though, 0 he had made it. With a few pants he stared at the large door in front of him. It wasn’t as large or as magnificent as the front of the labyrinth, but it was still beautifully carved out of wood with the image of a tree’s crown and a beautiful woman sitting in it, like almost a part of it.

Rex walked up to the door and pushed it open to reveal a room with a single small tree in the middle of it. Though what was more interesting was the seven corpses surrounding it. ‘So the group hadn’t withdrawn after all.’ Concluded Rex as he entered the room, making a mental note of how the dead men didn’t seem to have any external wounds at first glance, yet a few were bleeding from their eyes and ears, most at least from their mouth.

As he stepped fully within the room, the door closed behind him. The tree in the room waved slightly as if by a non-existent wind, then its bark started shifting and all but two branches retracting. Rex attempted to take advantage as he leaped forward only to suddenly be pushed back, as a loud noise akin to a woman’s voice screaming sounded out through the room and a green wave of energy manifested around the shifting tree moving outwards away from it, knocking into its enemy.

Rex could feel the energy shake him. Not just literally as he looked down to find his right hand was as well. He couldn’t tell what caused it but he clenched his fist strongly, seeming to fix it by force. When he looked up again what he saw was no longer a tree, but the form of a woman, formed out of wood and bark. Her arms and legs, incredibly thin and ending in sharp points, though her legs didn’t touch the ground as she floated some centimetres off of it. She didn’t have a mouth and her eyes and nose were only carved to make her face look more humanly, at least so it seemed to Rex.

Rex breathed in deep and let out a sigh. He didn’t know if he should be happy or not. On the bright side he found the current guardian of the labyrinth. Since the labyrinth was supposed to be quite young he doubted it would have more than one so this was essentially the last obstacle that stood between him and the core, between him and paying his debt to Ann, his teacher. A bit of an unfair trade it was, but his gratitude was there and he could think not of skipping out on it. ‘That’s right’ he reaffirmed his resolve.

He had a debt to pay. Another shackle to break. What was anything in front of that? The country would hunt him? Let it. He was bound not to this petty country. The guild would expel him? Let them. They would be the ones to miss out. A guardian capable of magic that bypassed outward defences would stand in his way? It would die. He had chosen his name on a whim, something he thought of in the moment to appease and old hag that would have no doubt named him something against his will. But now? Now he had grown to like it. That’s right. He was Rex. Rex Tyranno. And Rex Tyranno always paid his debts.

Rex grinned facing the woman. She raised an arm pointing the sharp point towards him. It was at that moment Rex felt a fluctuation in the mana around that point and jumped sideways to evade. What he saw as he did so was a green bolt of energy, almost like lightning leave the point of the arm and strike the wall behind where Rex was standing. The wall didn’t seem damaged, but Rex knew. This monster focused on internal attacks rather than external. To a mass of dirt and rock the difference was not that great but to a creature with a hard outside and squishy insides like him even one of the attacks might have been deadly.

He landed on the ground just as the creature fixed its aim on him again. Again he felt the fluctuations of mana and jumped away, his timing marginally better this time, no longer caught by surprise. As the green lightning struck the wall behind him again, he landed once more. Evading the corpses of the previous challengers he ran forward towards the wooden woman, not stopping as she pointed her arm at him, he instead picked a corpse up by its neck and as he felt the fluctuations he threw it forward, letting the lightning hit it in his place.

Still the body didn’t slow its momentum even as the lightning hit it, showing the lack of force in the attack, and just like that it was thrown on top of the woman who desperately attempted to throw it off, finding some difficulty with her arms not formed for something like that, lacking fingers at all. In the second it took her to throw the body off Rex had already gotten to her side. He clenched his fist and with all his strength struck her with it, sending splinters flying from her protective layer.

Not stopping there, he struck again. This time in the stomach. Then again, hitting in the same spot. The guardian staggered with each of his hits, looking like it felt the pain of his heavy blows. He hadn’t thought it would be this easy but perhaps he had overestimated his enemy. As a dent formed in her abdomen he stuck his claws inside, digging them under her bark and pulled, trying to take off that layer of protection from a larger area. It was then that the creature let out a noise for the second time.

Again a wail of a woman echoed out of it as Rex felt the fluctuating mana all around him, it wasn’t that the mana was being used by her but it was reacting to what she was doing. Rex quickly got his hand out and tried to jump backwards but it wasn’t enough. Another wave of green energy came crashing into him mid-jump. Much stronger than the last one. Rather than just knock him back it pushed him along it until it pressed him to the room wall. Each moment it touched him was pure agony to Rex as he felt his insides scream in pain. His muscles stretched, his heart rate increased rapidly, his organs felt like they were being torn apart. Finally he was released as the wave passed him completely and went into the wall behind him. What it left behind though was severe damage Rex could have never expected.

He cursed in his mind, as much as he wanted to curse out loud his voice wouldn’t come out. He fell to the ground, on his knees, though barely even keeping that up. His muscles were still retching from the attack, but as he looked at the guardian it didn’t seem to be doing fine either. He felt some of the mana in the air entering it, very slowly but it was noticeable. The woman herself seemed to be having trouble maintaining herself afloat as her feet were now barely any distance from the ground looking almost to be touching it. At that moment they both knew. The first one to recover would win. Knowing that Rex started trying to force his limbs to move. At first he received no reaction, but after a moment his fingers slightly twitched causing him to scream hoarsely out in pain. Moving felt like he was turning the particular muscles he used to flames.

A

He clenched his teeth as he moved the his clawed toes, then the feet themselves. He moved one leg and one arm , using them to push himself up into a standing position. The wooden woman raised a pointed arm towards him but Rex felt no fluctuation of mana. The moment he did would likely be his end. As he currently was he couldn’t react on time to jump out of the way. Nor could he throw a corpse forwards fast enough for it to matter. He took a step forward. And another. He established a slow rhythm as he changed which muscles supported his body and which were used to move the leg forward, thus changing which part of them were bathed in a pain unlike any he had felt since coming here.

How many times did he think of giving up? How many times did he think to just stop? Yet his body, it didn’t obey. His mind. It didn’t obey. His heart. It refused! At that point he himself had no idea why but the pain had become next to nothing. The pathetic part of himself, asking him to give up was gone. And the arm of the woman was shaking as it faced his walk towards her. As he reached her he pushed the arm out of the way and dug his claws under her bark again. Then he placed another hand on her to hold her in place and pulled. Crack! One piece of bark came off and he dug his claws under another. Crack! Another came off. Crack! Another followed. As almost her entire front torso became uncovered Rex looked towards the writhing creature in agony and felt for the mana around them. Slipping his claws into the centre of her chest where it was converging. The woman twitched strongly once more and then stopped moving.

Rex pulled his claws out of her and she fell to the ground, her body beginning to disintegrate. Rex waited as his muscles slowly started screaming again, only to have him forcefully shut them up. He coughed a few times only to find the taste of iron in his mouth and some crimson on the palm, he covered his mouth with. This only caused him to frown. He needed to leave. Just as he turned towards the door on the other side of the room from where he came in, a green glow caught his eye and he turned to find another ball of mana form out of the body of the guardian. Musing for a moment , he put his hand inside. What he was holding when he took it out was a hammer made out of bark and wood with some roots wrapping around it, carved and decorated all-naturally

. It wasn’t big. He could easily hold it in one hand. But the two blunt sides used for hitting were almost disproportionately large compared to the rest of the hammer. The handle itself was a bit big for him but he guessed that when he had fully grown it would be perfect. The weight as well was perfect for him as it was. Not too much, not too little. A magic weapon, no doubt. It was too unique to be a random reward. Rex was satisfied.

Keeping the hammer in one hand, he approached the door leading no doubt to the core room. Pushing it open he found a room made on all sides of wood, not of planks or logs, but almost as if it was carved into a tree itself. At the middle stood a table rising out of the ground and made out of roots, in the middle of t resting a single fist-sized green gem. Rex placed one hand on it and immediately felt an agony similar, but unlike what he was already feeling. He felt the mana around the gem fluctuate but even as he let go, the feeling didn’t stop. The difference from the past pain was this one was deeper. Not in his body but in his being.

He felt something invade him. When had he felt that before? When he was being reincarnated. He remembered. But no. That was different. This was different. That had been even deeper. At this realisation, Rex grinned. In that case if he was able to resist that there was no reason he couldn’t this. That being said no matter how he concentrated on the force it would keep thrashing around inside him, rummaging around until he felt a different energy rise up and consume the one from the gem. He felt it. His own mana rising up. But. But it wasn’t stopping! It was rising out of his body and dispersing into the air, all of it leaking out of him, every bit making him feel slightly weaker. He fell to his knees panting between the effort to stay standing and the effort to control his mana. He closed his eyes and focused. What was he to do? He couldn’t keep his mana inside of him. Yet the more left, the weaker he felt.

He had to do something. If he couldn’t keep the mana inside him, then he would do something with it! Around his body a thin sheet of mana formed, closely fitting his form, he felt the mana try to escape him again so he had the sheet constantly rotate around him. As he did so he felt it become much simpler to maintain. Not only that but it blocked his mana from escaping him again. As it did he refocused on his mana again and gathered it in the spot it had been leaking out of the whole time. Then he tensed his inner self up and it no longer moved. It was hard to keep up at first but he quickly felt it becoming natural. Before he knew it whether the mana was released or not was just a small feeling away. A fraction of a second, if even that.

Panting, with drops of sweat falling from him to the floor, he grinned. He felt almost liberated, reborn. He found some humour in expressing it like that and combined with the hysteric laugh of his own survival he also laughed at that. The pain on his insides was weaker now. He felt his mana inside him clearly and even could see the thin sheet surrounding him. He still needed some concentration to keep it active but not much. He put a foot on the ground and once more stood up, grinning at the green gem on the table. He once more placed a hand on it. Again he felt the mana fluctuate but this time he felt and saw more. From the gem itself mana was released and it clashed with the sheet that now covered him. The sheet held up though. It was obvious this wasn’t something the core was very capable in as the drakin picked it up in the hand that didn’t carry the hammer, keeping it out of the sheet and threw it in his bag, filling up the last of its space.

Like that he stepped out of the room of the core. Many bodies lay dead in the room of the guardian, her own nowhere to be found. Rex gripped the hammer stronger. He opened the door he came into the guardian’s room through and stepped out into the dark tunnels again. Slowly walking forwards due to the remaining pain in his body and his heavy fatigue. He felt some of the mana in the air enter both him and the gem on its own, replenishing them, becoming their own. Rex’s shield didn’t block it as it lacked any intentions whatsoever.

The monsters of the labyrinth seemed almost frozen. Rex had completely avoided them before but now there was no need to. Before long they themselves would collapse and disappear along with all the plants and life that had bloomed within this cave. Rex found his way to the second floor rather easily, though anything but quickly. It had taken him a few hours. There he passed by the place where he had lost his throwing knives, picking them back up, adding up to nine And again it took him a few more hours to get back up to the first. By that time the plants on the first floor had dried up despite the small creek on the side of the cave. They were no longer alive and had started completely disappearing. Even the glowing mushrooms barely even glowed anymore, making it hard for Rex to make out the way forward.

Eventually though he stood in front of where the large door he had entered through, it being no longer there, only a hole to a large but dead cave. Just as he left the cave so too did several men come out of the foliage of the forest, meeting him head on. Some were suddenly struck with fear, others with confusion. As always Rex couldn’t read the expression of the man at the helm, using a sword as a cane to move forward, despite his limp. The old man, who had served him at the counter of the guild house so many times before, stood, blocking his way.