The eighth floor was a boundless expanse of ice, where howling winds swept past mountain after mountain.
The group flew over the ice field for a long time.
"It's too quiet." Faen frowned, his voice low beneath the wind. "The sixth floor had the Red Rock Demon and the Flame King. The seventh had the plant lifeform and the Mother Empress. The eighth can't have nothing."
"Maybe the danger hasn't shown itself yet," Desri said gravely.
"There's the passage," Tuli Lei said, pointing ahead.
A glowing entrance stood at the foot of a towering iceberg, radiating soft blue light. Everyone's spirits lifted, and they flew faster toward it. The eighth floor had been too easy—so easy it was unsettling. If they could reach the ninth, they could put that unease aside for now.
But when they were less than a hundred yards from the passage, the iceberg beside it suddenly split open.
A huge golden eye appeared.
"Watch out!" Akes shouted.
The creature's head had no features except that single golden eye, set in the center of its face. It stared coldly at them.
"I am the Evil Eye King." Its voice rang with arrogance. "I come from the Evil Eye Race of the Bing Telan Plane. You killed Lasabel, and that pleases me."
It paused, its golden eye sweeping over each of them. "As a reward, I'll kill only six of the eleven of you. The other five may return to the seventh floor alive. Now choose—who dies, and who lives?"
No one answered.
"You won't choose?" The Evil Eye King sounded disappointed. "Then I'll choose for you."
The golden eye flashed. Two gray rays shot from its pupil at unbelievable speed, one toward Linley and the other toward Olivier.
Akes had no time to block them.
The instant