Rachel and her team stood in the scorched remains of Floor 99, panting, coughing, and cursing between gulps of air that tasted like smoke and metal. The stone beneath their feet shimmered with residual heat, still glowing faintly from the battle that had nearly broken them.

They weren't standing so much as surviving upright—shoulders slumped, knees bent, sweat-soaked armor clinging to bruised skin. A few were still on the ground, sprawled wherever they had collapsed at the end of the fight. No one had the strength to judge.

Floor 99 had lived up to its number.

Diana had said it best five floors ago—"Every new level feels like a middle finger." But this one had been worse. So much worse. A desolate, hell-forged plane torn open by lava veins and scorched cliffs, patrolled by demonspawn twice their level, each one intelligent, coordinated, and brimming with mana corruption. The air burned in the lungs. The ground split at random. The sky itself had screamed at one point.

They were all over level 15 now, but they'd earned every single point by clawing through agony and attrition. Leveling had slowed to a crawl after Floor 60, requiring victories that cost blood and grit. The System had stopped giving away power. They had taken it by force.

But the true reward hadn't been the levels. It had been the skills. The growth that only came from surviving under pressure so intense it could turn steel brittle. Their abilities had flourished in the crucible—new passives, improved timing, greater control over mana. Every floor had offered a lesson, whether in fire, fear, frost, drowning, or despair.

And yet—through it all—they endured.

Evelyn sat slumped against Paul's side, her healing magic glowing faintly as she worked through the most urgent injuries. Her voice was hoarse, her robes stained dark with ash and blood, but her hands were steady. Paul hadn't moved in ten minutes, letting her lean wholly on him without complaint.

The group was silent, save for the hiss of cooling gear and the occasional groan from bruised ribs or overused limbs. Weapons rested nearby, slick with demon ichor, their edges nicked from repeated clashes with enchanted bone.

Rachel finally broke the silence.

"Well, this is it," she said, voice low but steady. "The last floor. One more, then we're done. We get the hell out of here."

Nathan groaned and shifted, brushing grit from his scorched gauntlet. "Remind me again why we don't just use those escape stones?"

Charles, flat on his back with his shield across his chest, didn't even look up. "Because, you overgrown monkey, the door is right there. And because you like this, no matter how much you grumble."

A small laugh bubbled up from Nathan, quiet but genuine. "Damn it. You're not wrong."

None of them were turning back. Not now. Not when the end was this close.

The heat of the floor had stopped bothering them days ago. Each of them had earned a Heat Resistance passive somewhere around the midpoint of this hellscape, which had leveled fast from constant exposure. But now? That resistance had plateaued. The System wasn't challenging their endurance anymore. It gave them a chance to breathe before whatever waited on Floor 100.

Rachel waited half an hour, giving everyone time to recover what little energy they could. No one rushed. No one spoke. They just drank water, tended wounds, checked gear, and quietly, methodically prepared themselves.

Then she stood.

"Alright, everyone. Chug 'em if you got 'em."

The familiar clinks and fizzles of potions came from packs and storage rings uncorked. Health, stamina, mana—whatever they had left, they downed. Bottles were emptied and tossed aside without ceremony. Their inventories were packed now—every gear slot filled with uncommon or rare items earned from grueling floors and brutal challenges.

Rachel tilted her head back, drained two potions, and waited for the warmth to spread through her limbs. Strength surged back—just enough. She rolled her shoulders, felt the sabre slide more fluidly in its sheath, then stepped toward the massive double doors at the chamber's far end.

The bronze ring set into the blackened wood was warm to the touch. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled.

The hinges groaned, and the doors cracked open, revealing a shimmering vertical veil of blue-gold light, pulsing in place like the membrane of some unseen gate.

Rachel didn't step through immediately. She looked back.

The others were gathering behind her, weary but upright, weapons in hand. Not a one had backed down.

She nodded once.

And stepped through.

The shimmering veil of the portal faded behind them, and for a moment, silence stretched across the hilltop like a taut wire. Dust lifted gently from their boots as they stepped forward, and when they finally looked out over what awaited them, the weight of it settled like lead in their bones.

Below, carved into the valley floor with cruel symmetry, lay a sprawling stone maze. The structure was massive—its walls easily fifteen feet high, constructed from age-worn blocks stained with moss and the grime of centuries. Ivy twisted up the sides in clawing tendrils, curling along the tops where even the wind didn't dare blow. The air was dry but heavy, each breath tinged with the scent of cracked earth and old stone.

In the far distance, across a field of serpentine pathways and layered turns, they spotted it: a clearing. A faintly golden sunlit glade was a mile away if they were lucky. It shimmered like a promise. But between here and there lay a twisting nightmare of intersecting corridors, invisible dead ends, shifting shadows, and whatever traps and monsters the tower had deemed worthy of its final floor.

None of them said anything right away. There was no need. The collective groan passed silently through the group like a wave, felt more than heard.

Rachel stood near the edge of the overlook, one hand resting on her sabre hilt, the other shielding her eyes from the afternoon glare. Her face was expressionless, but her shoulders had dropped just a little, enough for Paul to notice the tension creeping into her stance.

"Alright," she said, her voice quiet but firm, "just like the last maze we hit on Floor 72. Keep to the right-hand wall. It's not perfect, but it's better than wandering blind. We're not splitting up. Call out traps, mark corners, and keep your gear ready. Can anyone see a solid starting route from up here?"

They fanned out instinctively, stepping to different parts of the rise, each scanning the visible stretch of maze below. The vantage point gave them a partial look at the first series of turns—interconnected branches, some wide and open, others narrow and curling sharply into unseen angles. The sun played tricks on the stone, casting long shadows that made distance harder to judge.

Rachel crouched near a broken stone column, tracking a line with her finger as she counted turns aloud. "One… two… damn," she muttered. "Lost it after seven. That wall blocks the rest."

"To the surprise of no one," Evelyn said from a nearby ledge, squinting against the glare. "I've got one that makes it about eight turns in before the sightline drops off."

Nathan gave a resigned shrug. "Yeah, I got lost again." He pointed vaguely at the far corner of the maze. "That wall doubled back on me like three times in my notes."

It wasn't new—navigation had never been his strong suit. He owned it, grumbling in a way that somehow became part of their rhythm.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Charles chuckled and exchanged a glance with Paul.

"I've got nine," Charles said, tapping a finger on the leather-bound page he'd been sketching in.

Paul snorted. "Same. I was tracking the left fork before it splits at the third turn—guess we both picked the same path."

Across the way, George and Felicity shook their heads almost in unison. "Six or seven, maybe," George muttered, frowning at his rough map. "Not great. It all blurs after that leftward tilt."

It seemed no one would top Paul and Charles for a moment until Diana lowered her sketchpad with a faint smirk.

"Twelve turns," she said. "And I can still see the next corner beyond that."

Rachel raised a brow. "Twelve?"

Diana nodded once and tapped the side of her temple. "Dawn Piercer. The contrast lets me spot edges and movement through visual clutter. It doesn't let me see through walls, but it damn well helps me pick apart bad angles and illusions."

"That the one from Floor 87?" Rachel asked, straightening a bit.

"Yep. I picked it up while we were chasing that boss who kept hiding behind a veil field. I spent half that floor trying to pin it down. As soon as the skill was unlocked, I saw the bastard tucked behind the cliff wall like a coward."

Felicity gave a small laugh. "It died easily once we found it."

"After thirty random encounters," Diana added flatly. "Not that I'm bitter."

Rachel exhaled and took a step back from the edge. "I keep forgetting how useful that skill is. And the trap sight?"

Diana's expression didn't change. "Two traps so far. Minor, nothing over an uncommon grade. If I'm moving fast, I can't spot everything, but if we go slow and stay methodical, we'll be fine."

Her trap detection had advanced to the point where she could visually detect embedded glyphs and physical mechanisms up to a particular grade, assuming she had time to observe. Sprinting would still trip wires or pressure plates, but at a controlled pace, Diana was as close to a living scouting array as they were likely to get.

Rachel nodded, rolling out her shoulder and letting her hand drift back to her weapon. "Alright then. Diana's in the lead. Stick tight, mark your paths, and call out anything weird. We've come ninety-nine floors for this."

She looked once more to the distant glade beyond the labyrinth.

"Let's finish it."

The first day in the maze passed with deceptive ease. Diana led with care, tracing the twelve-turn path she had charted from the overlook, and the group moved cautiously through sun-dappled corridors of worn stone and choking ivy. The walls pressed in with quiet malice, blotting out the horizon. After just a few turns, the sky was reduced to a jagged ribbon overhead—pale and flickering, as if even the light here wanted to leave.

They marked every intersection with a subtle etching—chalked runes from Evelyn, small scratches from Rachel's sabre, a trail of broken vines left by Paul's shield. But even with all their caution, progress was slow. The maze didn't just sprawl—it shifted. Subtly. Not every path, not all at once. But every few hours, a turn would reverse, or an intersection would loop in on itself in ways that defied memory.

By nightfall—if it could be called that, in a place with no sun—they were lost.

They found a half-collapsed alcove sheltered under a broken stone arch, just large enough for the team to squeeze in with some rotation. It stank of moss and old blood, but it was defensible. They took shifts sleeping, three awake at all times, weapons at the ready.

The attacks came at random intervals.

The first night brought a nest of burrowers—mole-like things with armored snouts and slick, segmented limbs. They erupted from the earth beneath Nathan's feet, forcing him into a brawl before he was fully awake. He crushed the first under his axe in a shower of brackish fluid, but they kept coming, coordinated and silent. Evelyn had to use her newly acquired Radiant Pulse spell—normally reserved for healing—to blind the creatures and buy them a chance to finish the fight.

The next day, they tried a different path.

Progress remained glacial. The heat from earlier floors was gone, replaced by damp cold and a lingering sense of something watching. Traps grew more subtle—plates disguised as crumbling stone, walls that slid sideways when disturbed, arrow slots concealed behind ivy-covered murals. Diana's trap sense saved them more than once, but even she couldn't see everything. Charles nearly lost a leg to a spring-loaded spike pit that snapped closed like a bear trap. His armor caught the edge, saving him, but the force knocked him unconscious and shattered the lower plate.

While Evelyn healed the wound, George spent nearly an hour repairing the armor with a portable toolkit he'd looted three floors earlier.

By the second night, nerves had frayed to the edge.

They found a tall, narrow staircase winding upward in tight spirals—claustrophobic and slick with moisture. At the top was a round chamber with a broken ceiling, open to the thin slice of green-tinged sky. The moonlight was wrong. Too green, too steady. But it was dry and quiet.

For a time.

That night, it wasn't monsters that found them, but the maze itself.

The chamber shrank—or seemed to. The walls inched inward over the course of hours, compressing slowly until everyone was forced to sleep upright or not at all. No one could prove it, but they all felt it. By morning, the spiral stairs had collapsed behind them. No going back.

They kept moving.

Rachel's voice grew hoarser with each order, but her resolve never cracked. She held the line in every skirmish, drove back the swarming rot-hounds on the third day when they poured from the walls like liquid hunger. She beheaded the serpent-knight that ambushed them at a three-way intersection, catching George with a poisoned glaive that left his arm numb for hours.

Evelyn never stopped healing. Her mana strained constantly, sweat pouring down her face as she pulsed out minor restorations every hour, large-scale bursts only when someone dropped. She leaned heavier on Paul now, her legs slower, hands trembling when she wasn't actively casting. Still, she never asked to stop.

Nathan kept grumbling—but he also kept fighting, hauling teammates from pits and swinging his axe until the haft cracked. Felicity barely spoke at all, her expression growing more focused with each passing hour. George's jokes thinned but didn't vanish. Charles limped more than walked, but carried on without complaint. Diana seemed to live on sheer stubbornness, her Dawn Piercer skill the only reason they hadn't wandered in circles for the last twenty turns.

By the fourth day, the team had reached their limit.

Sleep came in scraps, stolen in damp alcoves between monster attacks. Their food had dwindled to dried scraps, and their potion stores were running dangerously thin. Mana reserves were low. Patience even lower. Every step forward felt like a risk. Every turn had them bracing for a trap, a pit, a hidden door that might open into something worse than the last.

But then, finally, they saw it.

Rachel stopped mid-step as the corridor ahead widened. The oppressive stone maze seemed to ease for the first time in days. The walls here were smoother, unmarred by vines or bloodstains. The damp chill that clung to every breath lifted. There was a smell—fresh air, grass, something alive. A stone archway stood at the far end of the corridor, framed in fading mist.

It was unlike anything they'd seen in the tower.

Carved from pale granite nearly ten feet high, the arch was draped in living vines—vibrant, green, and blooming with delicate white flowers. Light spilled through its open mouth, warm and golden, not the false green luminescence of the maze but real sunlight. Just beyond it, through the haze, they glimpsed the tall silhouette of a tree and the sweep of open grass.

The glade.

Rachel blinked, her body half-tensed in disbelief, afraid it might vanish.

And then someone behind her—George, maybe Nathan—shouted, voice hoarse but jubilant. "We made it!"

That's when the sound came.

A deep, bone-rattling crack echoed behind them, followed by a low, grinding rumble like stone screaming under pressure. Rachel's head snapped around, and her stomach dropped.

The maze was collapsing.

Stone walls behind them began to move—not slowly, but in a wave, folding in on themselves like dominoes tipping forward. Corridors flattened. Arches crumbled. The path behind them warped and narrowed, like some great hand squeezing the labyrinth into a singular, shrinking path.

"Run!" Rachel yelled, her voice sharp with panic. "Move! Now!"

They didn't need to be told twice.

What strength they had left surged to the surface. Diana and Charles hauled Evelyn to her feet. George grabbed Felicity's arm as she stumbled. Nathan half-lifted Paul, who limped badly on one leg. They ran, hobbled, and dragged each other, their breaths ragged and their hearts thundering. The noise behind them rose, each collapse closer than the last, like thunder rolling uphill.

The arch grew nearer, the golden light widening, but the corridor narrowed with every step. Rachel led the charge, cutting through hanging vines with her sabre as they tore toward salvation.

One by one, they crossed the threshold—Rachel, then Diana, George and Felicity, Evelyn, Charles, and Nathan—until only Paul remained.

The walls behind him groaned as they slammed inward.

Paul dove.

The collapsing stone caught the trailing hem of his cloak and yanked him backward mid-air. He hit the ground with a grunt, one foot still across the threshold, the other trapped in the folds of cloth.

"Paul!" Rachel reached back without hesitation, sabre flashing. She slashed the cloak at the seam, the blade biting through fabric an instant before the wall slammed shut behind him with a deafening crack of finality.

Paul sprawled forward into the clearing, breath heaving, eyes wide.

Rachel dropped to one knee, grabbing his arm and hauling him upright.

"I've got you," she muttered.

Paul coughed, dazed, and managed a shaky, "Thanks."

Behind them, silence fell. The corridor was gone—sealed tight in a solid stone wall, with no sign of the path they'd escaped. Just the arch, and the golden light, and the wide-open glade ahead.

Then Evelyn collapsed.

She crumpled sideways, her skin pale and lips drawn tight from exhaustion. Rachel spun toward her, but Paul was already moving, catching her under the arms and easing her down against the wall.

"I've got her," he said again, more firmly.

Evelyn's fingers twitched as she forced out the last bit of her strength. A faint glow passed over them—her Mass Restoration casting one final, full-party heal. Burns faded. Gashes sealed. Swelling receded from twisted joints.

The light dimmed, and her eyes fluttered.

Paul opened his belt pouch with shaking fingers, pulled a mana potion free, and pressed the vial to her lips. "Come on," he whispered. "You've carried us this far. Just a little more."

Rachel stood over them, hand resting on her sabre. She glanced toward the glade—their final battlefield.

They had made it.

But the tower wasn't finished with them yet.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.