Talo's mechanical tone still lacked any excitement or enthusiasm, and the silent puppets suddenly quickened their pace several times over.
Upon hearing the puppet leader's words, Unas and his group behind him cried out in surprise and quickly started running after him.
As Perella ran, she asked, "What about the rest of us who are stuck elsewhere in the maze?"
"Never mind, let's get out of here first!" Unas decided. "Anyway, they're not in immediate danger. We can figure out a way to rescue them once we're out."
The female Elf nodded, and the group followed the puppet closely until they arrived at an unremarkable long corridor. Like countless other corridors they had walked through, it was cold and deep, with the darkness at the end resembling an abyss that swallowed everything.
Talo stopped in the middle of the corridor and ordered one of the guards to continue forward. The footsteps faded into the distance, and the puppet guard soon disappeared into the darkness.
After waiting a short while, the scout who had gone out to explore finally returned with good news. "A staircase has appeared ahead."
With so many people wandering in the maze for so long, and no one having encountered stairs, everyone immediately assumed that this was the exit.
Continuing forward, a stone staircase of moderate width came into view, leading downwards into a dark abyss from which no end could be seen.
Talo wasn't in a hurry at all. His programmed thinking led him to send out cannon fodder to scout ahead again. This time, something unusual happened. The cannon fodder never returned, as if it had been silently swallowed up by the stairs.
The puppet butler continued to send out the guards he had gathered along the way, but none of them returned; they all disappeared silently down the stairs.
There are only two possibilities: either they escaped and were teleported outside, temporarily unable to report back, or they encountered a trap or something and were silently killed.
Talo hesitated for a moment, but still resolutely walked up the stairs. It had no other choice; this was its last chance to rescue its owner.
After waiting for a while, Unas and the others were certain that it wouldn't be coming back.
"Let's stick together," Unas said, pulling out a long rope. "Everyone hold on tight, don't get separated, and if there's a trap, we'll carry it together."
After a brief preparation, the group entered the staircase. Sure enough, there was something strange about it. Although it was a downward path, there were forks and turns, like another small maze.
Wait a minute, maybe this staircase isn't the exit at all, but another part of the maze? No wonder the puppets never returned; they must have gotten lost in the staircase.
After hesitatingly passing several forks in the road, Unas thought for a moment and said, "Let's speed up. Although this staircase is quite winding, the downward trend hasn't changed. If we keep going, no matter which path we take or how far it goes, we'll definitely reach the end."
Is the finish line the exit?
Unas did not answer the question, because he himself had no answer and could only leave it to fate.
They ran down the stairs, panting heavily, until finally the stairs ended, revealing another empty corridor ahead.
The only slight difference is that the corridor here is a little narrower than the one in the maze above. The flame of hope in their hearts was rekindled; the unique feature might be a sign of the exit.
Carefully navigating the long corridor, to my disappointment and anger, I came upon a staircase leading upwards.
I finally made it downstairs, and now I have to run back up? Who knows if I'll end up back in the same maze?
Unas stopped in his tracks. He realized that no matter how much he ran around like a fool, there was no way out. This maze was designed to toy with people; he had to use his brain to solve it.
Everyone looked at the Warden, but they were all at a loss. Suddenly, Qingshui said, "There's something wrong with that little corridor we just saw; the stone seems to be different."
Watchers mostly act as scouts, and their habit is to mark the places they pass by to guide those who come later; this is also one of the methods for solving mazes.
Along the way, Qingshui made countless marks on the walls of the maze corridors and stairwells. When he passed by the small corridor just now, he also casually drew one and immediately felt the subtle difference. The stone in the small corridor was a little softer, which is something that only an extremely sensitive person could notice.
Unas suddenly had a strong intuition: this was an extremely important discovery, and he immediately led the others back into the short corridor.
Unas carefully touched several sections of the wall but found nothing unusual. To him, the stone walls here were no different from those in the labyrinth, and Perella, Haikesi, and the young Druid felt the same way.
Qingshui's eyes widened in confusion; she was no longer so sure. The female Elf swiftly traced her distinctive crescent moon mark in the water on the wall with her dagger, searching for a feeling.
But now she can't tell whether it was an illusion or a genuine flash of inspiration, and her mind is in a mess.
"Let's all look around, maybe there's some kind of mechanism or something."
The group carefully touched every wall and floor of the corridor, and Unas even had Qingshui stand on his shoulders to touch the ceiling, but they found nothing.
Once again trapped in a dead end, Unas angrily punched the Stone Wall. His strength was now far greater than before, and the wall immediately cracked, sending several pieces of stone flying.
Perella swiftly grabbed the largest rock and asked in surprise, "What's this?"
Unas also noticed that the cracked wall revealed strange and regular patterns, which were clearly not formed naturally.
There's hope!
His heart, which had plummeted to the bottom, immediately rose again. He took out his dagger and carefully pried open the crack he had broken. As the exposed area grew larger, the cracks became more and more numerous.
The group took out their weapons and smashed holes in the Stone Wall and floor, discovering that they all had similar patterns.
But it was of no use. After studying it for a while, the group concluded that the patterns were neither magical runes nor special markings, but most likely some kind of unusual fossil phenomenon.
Is it another case of false hope?
The group looked at each other, at a loss for what to do.
Unas felt a nameless rage rise within him, and a simple, violent thought surged to his mind. He brandished his twin hammers and roared, "Get out of the way! I'm going to destroy this hellhole! Let's see what kind of trouble it's hiding in!"
Aside from Haikesi, the others here weren't close to him and didn't dare to offer any advice. The Troll, on the other hand, was a coward who preferred to avoid trouble and ran away faster than anyone else.
Unas swung his double hammers, creating a deafening roar as the relentless hammering plowed through the entire small corridor. Gravel littered the ground, leaving no intact spot on the corridor's surface, transforming it into a pitted, primitive cave.
He felt he hadn't vented his anger yet, so he grabbed a spot and smashed it wildly until his arms were numb. Just as he was about to stop and rest, a "crack" sound came from somewhere, like the sound of glass shattering.
The surrounding scenery seemed to shatter, with ripples appearing in the air, and the broken corridor and the figures of several companions twisting and swaying.
Finally, the ripples in the air cracked open with countless fissures, and darkness burst forth from them, quickly engulfing the entire scene before them.