The magic circles were proof.
ElderGlow’s were flickering back into yellow.
All of them.
Even the teams from Thornevale and Crowgarth had slowed their decline—most likely unaware that the Maze’s tempo had softened.
Just slightly.
Enough to survive.
Because Elias Verdan had returned.
And the Maze... was listening, waiting to do whatever he willed it to do.
There were no signs, no arrows, no magical indicators carved into the Maze’s walls. Only endless mirrored corridors and pulse-thin echoes of a hundred different illusions — waiting.
And yet Elias walked like soone who was alive when the maze was being made. He led like, weaving through paths like he had the maze’s map etched into his blood.
"Left," he murmured.
The others followed.
Another turn. Two passage splits. A corridor where the walls whispered in their own voices, urging hesitation. It forced people to take another path as though they would be lost in doubt if they passed through this path.
"Forward."
Each word was quiet. Unassuming. But sohow... unmistakable.
Reiz didn’t question him at first. He was still too shaken from the mory gauntlet. But by the third correct call—through a corridor none of them would’ve dared enter on instinct—he started watching Elias more closely.
The boy wasn’t just guessing.
He wasn’t feeling the path.
He was rembering it.
"You know this place," Reiz finally said, tone low.
Elias didn’t look at him. "I sort of do."
"That’s not an answer." Reiz protested. He wanted a grounded response but Elias wasn’t giving him just that.
"Not one you’d believe." Elias replied, still leading them. Even as he spoke, he didn’t stop walking. Even though they were curious, the others couldn’t stop walking just behind him.
Renna glanced between them, frowning. "Can we focus on not dying?"
Cael chuckled weakly, leaning against the corridor wall. "I’m with her. I don’t care if he’s reading it off the floor like a scroll, I’m not stopping him."
The path led downward. The deeper chambers of the Maze didn’t shimr with illusion anymore. They were still. Stone beca polished crystal. The walls no longer whispered.
Here, there were no more trials of fear.
No mory projections.
Just silence.
And at the end of it... a gate.
Black marble, shaped like a doorway from an old cathedral, covered in no glyphs, no runes, no markers.
Just a question.
Inscribed along the arch in faint etching:
"To leave this place, give sothing of yourself. Only one must choose."
The team stopped.
"...That’s new," Renna muttered.
"It’s the final test," Elias said calmly.
"You knew this was coming?"
He nodded. "I guessed."
Of course he did.
Reiz stepped forward, frowning. "What does it an, give sothing?"
"A price," Elias said. "Not pain. Not suffering. Just... weight. Sothing real."
Cael looked at the archway. "Like what?"
Elias answered again, almost as if he was he’d created the Maze himself. "A mory. An emotion. A skill. A connection. Sothing aningful. The Maze doesn’t take anything useless."
"Then we all choose?" Renna asked.
"No," Elias said. "Just one."
The words from the wall confird it. Only one sacrifice. One offering. One price.
A long silence.
Reiz stepped forward. "Then I’ll—"
"No," Elias said.
Everyone turned to him.
"You’ve led them until now," he said quietly. "You got them this far. You don’t need to lose anything."
Reiz bristled. "And you think you do?"
Elias tilted his head. "I’ve already given more than you can imagine."
He stepped forward, past the others, and laid a single hand on the gate.
A soft pulse rippled outward.
And the gate opened.
No flash. No thunder. Just the groaning whisper of stone accepting an offering.
Up above, the magic circles cluster for ElderGlow surged with a white flash.
All Participants: STABLE.
Exit Initiated.
Leana straightened instantly. "They’re out."
Dean Godsthorn said nothing.
But the faintest hint of a smile touched his lips.
Damon leaned forward over the railing. "All four? That’s—"
"Unprecedented I think," Leana finished.
The crowd erupted as the spiral reappeared on the Colosseum floor — the black stone sliding away to reveal the staircase again, now glowing softly.
One by one, the students erged into daylight.
Renna stumbled out first, blinking at the sun.
Then Cael, wincing but upright.
Reiz followed, jaw tight, shoulders squared.
And last—
Elias.
Still calm.
Still unreadable.
But sothing in the air around him had changed. Even the arena’s runes responded. His shadow deed to be even darker than others but that was only due to perception.
The Colosseum had seen power before.
But this was different.
This was stillness made visible.
Elias had just carried his entire team out of the Maze of wills completely unscathed.
The crowd didn’t know whether to cheer or fall silent.
So they did both.
Wooooah!!
Waaaahhhh!!
A scattered, confused wave of applause.
"That was crazy!"
"Elias Varden is the MVP of this trial!"
Until the announcer’s voice broke in, louder than before.
"ElderGlow... has erged. All mbers intact. First full-team success in decades!"
That got the reaction.
Roars. Shouts. Flags waved from ElderGlow’s tier in the stands. Students scread nas, though few knew the faces.
Damon just smirked.
"Always bet the odds no one else can see."
Leana let the faintest sound of amusent slip past her lips.
Behind the crowd, in a shadowed hallway near the Dean’s wing, one of the magical instructors turned to Godsthorn.
"What did he give?" he asked quietly.
Godsthorn’s eyes remained fixed on Elias’s figure below.
"...I don’t know. You should consider asking him yourself."
"Don’t you think you should?"
The Dean just smiled faintly. "I’ll just trust whatever choice he made."
Back inside the chamber — long after Elias had exited — the archway’s inscription slowly faded.
But deep beneath the Maze, in the pocket of still-space where the Three Sages dwelled...
A single voice murmured:
"He gave us silence."
And for the first ti in centuries...
The Maze was quiet.
No one knew what Elias had seen and even those he told, none of them believed him.
Elias on the other hand wasn’t willing to prove anything to them. "Congratulations to us." He said to his fellow teammates.
A/N: Hello Dear Readers. I want to use this dium to apologise to you all for the inconsistent updates these past few weeks.
This is my final sester as a University student and it is quite arduous for . It is very tasking and so I barely have the ti to write and update new Chapters but as the sester cos to an end soon, I want to assure you all that daily updates will Indo return strongly. Thank you all for reading this far. I love you all.
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