Samael appeared in the vast blue void Kael had previously been in, surrounded by countless cubes of all shapes and colors—dimensional prisons of all kinds—and a vast stretch of nothingness.

Instantly, he turned to Korynth who now, rather than having the pike running through her chest, had a series of chains wrapped around her heart that exited her wound to tightly wrap around her limbs and neck.

The chains were silver, and glowed with a faint rose light.

"Let’s be quick. Where do we go?" Samael hurried to ask.

He knew Uriel had remained to stall for them. The quicker they completed their task, the more likely Uriel’s survival was.

"..." Korynth simply stared at Samael, her jaw tightening by the second as her gaze smouldered with fury and her soul became more and more agitated.

Samael didn’t even bother entertaining her. Taking the command key Uriel had given him—a small silver disk covered in runes—he pressed on a specific set of runes and—

"Stop!"

—Korynth suddenly felt like her soul was being torn in half.

"Then guide me to my brother. Quick," he said sternly. "We don’t have time for your games of silence. Where do we go?"

He didn’t even wait for her to answer before he pressed again, this time tripling the pain. She roared out and nearly fell to a knee, her legs buckling and body overflowing with weakness.

She didn’t know what Uriel had turned the pike into, but it was agonising beyond words.

"Okay! Okay!" she rapidly pleaded. "We need to get to the omega floor! This is the Void Net, and it’s a zone with a bunch of individual cells for transit prisoners!"

Samael pressed again.

"Arghhh!" Korynth screeched out loud. "I-it’s right over there, near the ends of the third zone! I-I’ll guide you, but please stop!"

Samael nodded, then turned off the command that drowned her in pain.

"Let’s go. Guide the way."

He didn’t even let her recover and immediately got moving, and afraid of the pain, Korynth didn’t dare hesitate or stall. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

She straightened, then immediately took off toward a specific direction, northeast of their initial position.

They stepped across the nothingness of the blue void as if it were solid ground and weaved through the floating cubes with practiced ease.

As they ran, Samael pushed his mind to the limit.

’Uriel is strong. He can hold Kael without dying for a while, I’m sure of it.’ His eyes narrowed. ’He wouldn’t do this if he wasn’t sure he could survive. He has no reason to sacrifice himself for me or her.’

’He... doesn’t care about us. He can’t. Yeah, that’s right.’

Samael weakly nodded to himself. ’And he won’t betray me because he needs me to guide him to the Spire.’

It felt redundant to have such thoughts at such a moment, but after what Korynth had done, Samael preferred to second-guess everything.

It was supposed to be impossible for her to harm or betray him in any manner, and yet, she had.

Part of him was hoping this was simply due to a trick she’d used, while another part of him feared the methods his brother had put in place had vanished because something had happened to him.

And if the latter option was the right one...

’Focus!’

"How far out are we?" he asked Korynth, who had been silently running the entire time, galloping ahead with a dark gaze.

"It’s right here."

Suddenly, she came to a stop, the zone where they stood more than hundreds of meters away from the closest dimensional prison.

She squatted down, and her hand, covered in strange black energy, moved to wipe and caress the ’void’ ground in front of her.

Her palm danced against the smooth and hollow surface of the void, and it, in turn, shook before revealing a small circular formation of white runes.

She looked at the formation seal, then up at Samael.

"When I break this, the entire guardian floor will be alerted, and beyond that, we’ll land in a high-security zone, dropped amidst a sea of Guardian Knights."

Samael frowned. "Damn it... so what do we do?"

"I’ll take care of the Guardians and Guardian Knights, then send you toward your brother. The moment you find his cell, I’ll join you and help you open the door."

She paused. "If we’re fast enough, then at that point Uriel should appear and we should be gone. If not, you’ll have to find a solution."

Samael shook his head. "In what world am I leaving you out of my sight? You’ll take the opportunity to betray me."

He brandished the command key. "Do I look like an idiot? This thing doesn’t suddenly make you kind. I know what you have in mind."

"No," his gaze sharpened. "We’ll enter the omega floor, then lure the guardians and knights into a trap and go to—"

Samael came up with a plan.

....

The hall was gigantic.

Silver steel stretched out to form a sleek surface upon which guardians walked, their boots clinking against the metal in steady rhythm.

The walls were tall and made of dark marble, entirely covered in ancient white formations layered to form a seemingly endless tapestry of runes.

Across the walls, circular entrances—each sealed with wood and layered in talismans—could be seen, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions.

In the deepest reaches of the hall, there was an even larger portal of swirling blue waters embedded into the wall, guarded by two Guardian Knights who stood tall.

They stood unmoving, their auras muted yet sharp beyond words.

Their armor was entirely made of gold, covered in emerald runes as they wielded large silver glaives. They themselves were towering, each nearly seven feet tall and as broad as they could be, overflowing with muscle hidden beneath the metal.

They stood as behemoths.

"..."

The hall was mostly silent.

From time to time, guardians and knights of all kinds would appear, instantly heading toward one of the sealed entrances before vanishing into its depths.

"..."

One of the guardians, suddenly, had his golden gaze. specked with shards of emerald, narrow.

He didn’t move, didn’t react, but something deep within him—

[ALERT!]

—sensed a threat.