They didn't have time to fully wake.
Because the blackness rose to meet them.
A thick, glistening surface surged upward out of the void—not water, not sludge, but something alive, something that moved with intention.The pit below churned like a brewing storm, folds of dark liquid folding and unfolding as if breathing.
Damian barely had time to shout—"Brace!"
—before they hit.
Impact.
Engulfed.
Airless black.
The creature's inner chamber swallowed them whole.
The fluid chewed at armor, skin, nerves—turning pain into something sharp and crawling. Caleb hissed. Ethan roared. Marcus clutched Neol higher as the liquid seized whatever exposed flesh it could reach.
But Damian barely felt the bite.
Because something else hit him harder.
A pull.
Not from the fluid.
Not from the living walls.
Not from pain or instinct.
It felt older.
Deeper.
Set into the marrow of the maze itself.
Like a distant heartbeat tapping against the inside of his ribs.
A pressure.
A vibration.
A silent urgency humming through the flesh around them.
He didn't hear it.
He felt it—
a direction that pressed into his mind like a thumbprint, unmistakable and absolute.
It wasn't telepathy.
It wasn't the Mirage.
And it wasn't the creature guiding him.
If anything, it was the opposite—
something trapped inside resisting the creature,
pushing back,
flaring just long enough for him to sense that sliver of defiance.