The sixth floor of the Displacement Labyrinth.
The cold, damp air weighed heavily on Roxy's chest like gauze soaked in ice water, leaving her barely able to breathe.
On the labyrinth's stone walls, an unfamiliar kind of "magic moss" gave off a faint, ghostly phosphorescence, making the narrow passage look like a corridor through the realm of the dead.
The air reeked of blood and rot-her own blood, and that of the countless monsters she had slain over the past month.
Roxy's magic power had long since neared exhaustion.
As a Water King-level magician, she possessed reserves of magic power that ordinary Advanced Magicians could only dream of matching.
But in this endless, grueling war of attrition, even a vast ocean of magic power would eventually run dry.
The gray mage's robe that had once been pristine and well fitted was now torn and tattered, covered in clotted black blood and the foul slime of unknown monsters, giving off a nauseating stench.
Damn it... is it... still no use...?
Roxy leaned against the cold stone wall, gasping for breath.
Every breath tugged at the wound beneath her left ribs, sending waves of tearing agony through her.
An Eat Devil's claws had gouged it open as she dodged its ambush, leaving a wound deep enough to expose bone.
Not far ahead of her stood several Eat Devils, their compound eyes gleaming scarlet.
The monsters moved their lower limbs, slowly closing in on her in a fan formation.
Highly acidic slime dripped from their mouthparts, eating white pits into the hard stone floor with a sizzling hiss.
Her escape route was already sealed off.
Someone... someone save me! I... I don't want to die!
Despair swallowed her little by little, silent as an icy tide.
I don't want to die here.
*There