Nick was still in his mist form.
Turning back into his normal form would be extremely stupid right now.
'That Extractor was used as a lure,' Nick realized. 'He runs around to lure people into this place.'
'Most likely, if he was attacked, he would try to save his ass by telling the attacker that he found a mysterious place.'
'In fact, it wouldn't even matter whether or not he was killed.'
'The man is basically just an apparition created by the main Specter's ability. At most, it would lose a slight bit of Zephyx.'
'Even more, the bait was extremely realistic. It moved around convincingly and even exuded a very natural stream of Zephyx.'
Nick thought about the entrance gate.
'Is that gate even still there? What if the gate vanished as well?'
The cave system was vast, and it was possible that this labyrinth ran alongside the caves.
It could probably create and destroy entrances in innumerable locations along the different caves.
One thing was clear.
Nick was stuck, and he wouldn't be rescued anytime soon.
'I wonder how many people have already been captured by this labyrinth,' Nick thought.
Nick was just one of many flies trapped in a web.
Or was he?
Well, there were several differences between the other humans that the labyrinth had captured and Nick.
First, the labyrinth still hadn't perceived Nick.
This meant that the labyrinth didn't know that Nick was there.
Second, Nick was immune to the Nightmare's influence.
And third…
Maybe Nick was an uncomfortably big bite for the labyrinth.
Specialists essentially never vanished from Crimson City.
If a Specialist vanished, the entire city would hear about it.
Experts vanished very rarely, and as far as Nick knew, none of them had vanished near the cave system.
Veterans and Johns vanished the most, and many of them walked around this place.
'If this thing consumes Veterans, it's either an Adult or an Elder. I doubt it's a Fanatic,' Nick thought.
'As long as it doesn't know I'm here, I have a chance at dealing with it.'
Nick looked down the hallways.
'It's quite obvious what this thing feeds on.'
'Humans getting lost. It's similar to the Fog in this regard.'
Nick looked at one of the walls.
'I could try breaking one of the walls, but that would alarm it to my presence. Additionally, I'm not even sure how strong these walls are.'
'For now, I should stay hidden and look around.'
Nick decided to remain in his fog state to keep his presence hidden.
If his physical body touched the labyrinth, it might notice him.
Nick flew down several hallways.
The more he looked around, the less sense everything made.
For the next three hours, Nick searched through hundreds of kilometers of labyrinth.
He had no idea where he was anymore.
However, he didn't despair.
'There has to be some logic to all of this. Additionally, since it doesn't know I'm here, it can't actively manipulate how things work.'
'I refuse to believe that this labyrinth stretches across the entire world.'
So, Nick continued searching.
Eventually, a couple of minutes later, Nick noticed something peculiar.
Lights were turning on in one of the hallways.
Naturally, Nick kept himself hidden and watched.
Some seconds later, the lights at the intersection turned on, and Nick saw a woman walking out of one hallway and down another one.
As she continued walking, the lights behind her turned off.
Something like this would terrify any human.
After all, what if the lights above them turned off, and they were stuck in the darkness?
Yet, the woman walked around with a calm demeanor and a relaxed speed.
After the lights turned off, Nick decided to follow after them.
However, he wouldn't enter the lights and just follow from the darkness.
From the fluctuations, Nick could tell that the woman was somewhere in the later levels of the Veteran Stage.
'Pretty sure that's an actual human. Makes sense, actually. If this labyrinth kidnaps Veterans and feeds on them getting lost, it can feed off them for decades. Veterans don't need food, water, or sleep. As long as they have light and Prephyx around them, they won't die that easily.'
After around 30 minutes of following the light, the woman stopped.
'Wonder for how long she has been in here.'
After around 30 minutes of following the light, the woman stopped.
A big gate was in front of her.
'I didn't see any gates until now,' Nick thought. 'I've run through hundreds of kilometers, and I didn't find a single gate like this. Yet, after walking around for barely a couple of kilometers, she reaches one?'
Nick saw the woman sigh in defeat.
Then, she opened the door.
"Heeey! Another round!"
As soon as she opened the door, a chorus of three voices echoed out from behind it.
The woman sighed again and walked through the doors.
The lights in the hallway quickly turned off, and Nick rushed forward.
Nick slowly put one of his fog tendrils into the illuminated room.
His ability was not becoming unstable.
The next moment, he saw the woman closing the gate, and Nick rushed past it, entering the room.
Nick found himself in a big hall that was almost a hundred meters wide.
In the middle of the hall was some kind of ornate fountain made of ancient stone.
The fountain was spouting beautiful and clear water, which gathered in the basin around it.
Around the fountain were several trees with plenty of fruit and nuts growing on them.
The light in the room was constant, and it came from a big orb floating in the middle of the hall.
Nick also saw a total of six people inside the hall.
One of them was the woman he had followed.
Beside her, there were four men and one more woman.
All of them were adults, and all of them seemed to be rather relaxed and calm.
'They've probably been here for a long time,' Nick thought as he looked at the different pieces of "furniture" littered around the hall.
Tents made of clothing.
Mud huts.
Mud stools.
Stone tables.
The only material Nick didn't see was wood.
'They probably don't dare to touch the trees since it's the only source of food.'
While Veterans didn't need food or water…
Nick looked at three of the men.
They were Johns.
They had also been the ones who had shouted earlier.
Right now, the three of them were sitting on a muddy bench, drinking some kind of foul liquid from stony mugs.
Nick scanned around the room and noticed a part of the room that had several shovel marks all over it.
'I heard that alcohol can be made by burying fruit in the ground,' he thought.
"No luck," the woman said in defeat. "I'll try again later."
"Why u do dis, capn?" one of the men slurred. "Is ben laik a fundret times. Jus givup and drenk."
To punctuate his statement, the man drank from his mug.
"Why do you always talk like that when you're drunk, Jimmy?" one of the men asked with annoyance. "It's annoying."
"Fak u."
Silence.
The man sighed. "Jimmy might be an idiot, but he might be right. Why do you keep trying to get out of here? It didn't work the last thousand times. What's different this time?"
The woman frowned. "The difference is that we haven't had a Late Veteran yet. I just recently became a Late Veteran, and I want to see if I can change something."
"Melinda," the only male Veteran said with a heavy voice. "Power won't change anything. What's more power going to accomplish? We can already break all the walls."
'That's interesting,' Nick thought. 'So, they can already break the walls. Yet, they are still stuck here.'
"There must be a way," Melinda said. "I'm sure that the Specter knows that we are here. Otherwise, all the lights wouldn't keep turning on and off. It has to manually change the layout to keep us here, and if I just run fast enough, I should be able to outrun it."
"Are you even listening to yourself?" the man asked with a shake of his head. "If that were the case, it would just stop turning on the lights."
"But what if the lights are automatic?" Melinda countered.
"Automatic or not automatic? What is it now?" the man asked with annoyance.
"The creation of the hallways is manual, but the lights are automatic. It can be both," Melinda answered.
The man just shook his head. "And if it's not?" he asked with a tired voice.
"It has to be!" Melinda said with conviction. "If you would just help me and run in a different direction, we could overstress its mind!"
As the two of them kept arguing, Nick realized something.
'Funny,' he thought. 'It's actually the other way around.'
'The labyrinth doesn't know I'm here, which is why the lights are not turning around.'
'Yet, I can run for hundreds of kilometers without finding an end.'
This seemed unimportant, but only for people who didn't know a lot about Specters.
However, Nick knew a lot about Specters.
'If I'm right…'
Nick floated to the door he had come from, and this time, he dared to squeeze through one of the gaps.
His ability didn't deactivate.
Nick traveled a couple hundred meters away.
And then…
He materialized and stepped on the ground.
The next moment, a smirk appeared on his face.
'Ability's still active.'
'Just as I've thought.'