The breathing behind the door stopped the moment it opened.
Everyone tightened their grip on their weapons and stepped inside cautiously.
There was no monster inside, only a vast hall.
The hall was as large as a soccer field, with a ceiling too high to see. Murals covered the walls, every scene clearly visible in the light of glowing minerals.
A straight passage ran down the center of the hall. Rows of stone pillars stood on either side, carved with strange patterns.
"Where was that breathing coming from?" Leorio looked around. "There's nothing here."
Genos ran a scan.
"I detected a ventilation system," he said. "The breathing was wind blowing through the ducts, not a living creature."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"That scared me to death." Leorio patted his chest. "I thought there was some huge monster in here."
"Don't relax." Kurapika's Chain drifted slowly around him. "In a place like this, the traps are more dangerous than the monsters."
He walked to the entrance of the passage and studied the floor tiles.
The tiles came in two colors, dark and light, arranged in no apparent pattern.
"There's something wrong with these tiles," he said. "Step on the wrong one and you'll trigger a trap."
"How do you know?" Gon asked.
Kurapika lightly tapped a dark tile with the end of his Chain.
Whoosh!
More than a dozen poisoned arrows shot from the wall toward the Chain. Kurapika pulled it back in time, and the arrows struck the opposite wall, their shafts still quivering.
The arrowheads were black, clearly coated in deadly poison.
"See?" Kurapika drew back his Chain. "The dark tiles are traps. The light ones are safe."
"Then that's easy," Gon said. "We just step on the light ones, right?"
"It's not that simple." Kurapika shook