The first time the Labyrinth opened, 3 billion people died in a single day.
Governments collapsed.
Borders dissolved.
Cities burned.
Humanity survived—
But it was never whole again.
Now, no one screams when it happens.
Morning lasts six seconds.
That is how long the world pretends to be normal.
Traffic moves.
Vendors shout.
Children laugh.
Six seconds later—
The sky dims.
Not dark.
Just wrong.
Like something enormous is pressing against reality.
Rudo counts under his breath.
"One."
The air tightens.
"Two."
Sound dulls.
"Three."
Light thins.
"Four."
His heartbeat slows.
"Five."
The world holds its breath.
"Six."
Everything folds.
Cold stone replaces asphalt.
Dust replaces air.
A massive underground hall stretches endlessly beneath a ceiling that cannot be seen.
Green flames burn along the walls.
Thousands of people stand in silence.
No one panics.
Not anymore.
Everyone above ten years old is pulled here every morning.
Floor 1.
The outer skin of the Labyrinth.
There are at least ninety confirmed floors.
That is what humanity has mapped.
What lies beyond—
No one knows.
Even within those ninety, entire sections remain unexplored.
Swallowed by darkness.
The gates open.
No announcement.
No explanation.
The Labyrinth never speaks.
It simply exists.
Seven days will pass inside before night returns them to the real world.
Seven days of hunger.
Seven days of danger.
If you die here—
You do not wake up at home.
You stay.
Rudo steps forward with the moving crowd.
Floor 1 is not a simple dungeon.
It is a continent made of stone.
Tunnels branch endlessly.
Vertical shafts plunge into blackness.
Broken stairways spiral into upper layers.
Every day—
The passages change.
Safe routes vanish.
New paths appear.
There are no bosses guarding deeper floors.
No gates to unlock.
If you walk long enough—
If you survive long enough—
You may descend.
Or you may disappear.
A translucent window flickers before Rudo's eyes.
Status Window
Star Rank: ☆
Strength: 11
Agility: 12
Endurance: 10
Stars are not levels.
They are evolution.
When a Star fills completely—
You change.
Stronger.
Faster.
Sharper.
But not the same.
Those who reach higher Stars begin to feel it.
A distance.
A thinning connection to humanity.
Rudo knows this better than anyone.
Because he has already lived through it once.
He died one month ago.
And woke up twenty years in the past.
A scream echoes from deeper inside the tunnels.
Then another.
The first monsters have found prey.
They are not large.
Not dramatic.
That is what makes them deadly.
Long limbs.
Silent movement.
Eyes that reflect green fire.
Their stealth is unnatural.
Their numbers worse.
People scatter.
Rudo does not run blindly.
He remembers.
Not exact paths.
The Labyrinth changes too much for that.
But he remembers patterns.
Where collapse usually happens.
Where creatures prefer to hunt.
Where desperate humans begin turning on each other.
By the fourth day, hunger will start to whisper.
There is no food here.
No rivers.
No safe animals.
Occasionally, a pale mushroom grows in damp cracks.
Rare.
Often poisonous.
Water drips from ceilings in slow, mocking drops.
Enough to wet lips.
Never enough to satisfy.
By the sixth day—
People begin looking at each other differently.
Cannibalism is not spoken about.
But everyone knows.
Human flesh contains water.
Protein.
Salt.
Enough to survive one more day.
A man lunges past Rudo, shoving a child aside.
The child falls.
The monsters notice.
Rudo does not hesitate.
He moves.
One step.
Two.
He grabs the fallen metal pipe beside the wall.
The creature strikes—
Too fast for ordinary people.
Not too fast for him.
He twists.
The pipe caves in its skull.
Green blood splashes across stone.
The body dissolves slowly into black mist.
A faint vibration runs through him.
The status window flickers.
Strength: 12
The increase is small.
Almost nothing.
But it is real.
Killing monsters grants growth.
Everyone knows that.
What most people do not know—
Is that killing humans grants more.
Much more.
But that only becomes visible after reaching Star Rank.
Rudo discovered it in his previous life.
By accident.
By mistake.
By survival.
And by then—
It was too late to pretend he was still human.
The child stares at him.
Eyes wide.
Terrified.
Not of the monster.
Of Rudo.
Good.
Fear keeps distance.
Distance keeps survival.
The Labyrinth is quiet for a moment.
Too quiet.
Rudo feels it before he hears it.
The shift.
The stone trembles slightly.
Passages rearrange.
Somewhere behind him—
A tunnel collapses.
The way back to the Hall is gone.
Already.
Day One.
And the exits have moved.
A distant roar rolls through the stone corridors.
Not the small hunters.
Something heavier.
Something deeper.
Something that should not be on Floor 1.
Rudo's gaze sharpens.
This did not happen on the first day in his previous life.
The timeline is already changing.
His status window flickers again.
Star Rank: ☆
Evolution Progress: 3%
Only three percent.
He exhales slowly.
If he wants to survive this time—
If he wants to reach higher floors—
If he wants to avoid becoming what he once was—
He will need to kill.
More than before.
Much more.
The roar echoes again.
Closer.
Rudo steps into the shifting darkness.
This time—
He refuses to die as a human.