Maze at the Heart

The tower's structure grew increasingly complex.

Ryan walked alone along a hidden route that did not belong to the main exam passage. The path ahead was no longer a single corridor but a series of interweaving, spiraling sections, forming a cramped maze filled with branches. Stone walls extended to either side, creating complicated honeycomb-like passages. Each section seemed to lead in the same direction, yet farther ahead they slowly converged, Ryu, and converged again.

He drew a deep breath and raised a hand to touch the wall, feeling the rough stone and irregular cracks beneath his fingertips. Compared with the main route, the walls here were clearly much older. In some places, neglect over the years had even caused them to collapse, exposing the iron framework and stone beams supporting the tower.

He crouched and picked up a fragment of stone from the ground, gently scraping away the surface dust with his fingernail. Faint markings appeared beneath it—construction symbols left behind by maintenance workers to indicate directions and work areas. Ordinary examinees could never have understood them.

"Left..."

He muttered under his breath, then decisively chose the narrowest and most concealed side passage.

In the main route ahead, the protagonists were currently engaged in a battle of psychology and time against the prisoners. Kurapika gradually unraveled the puzzle through calm reasoning, Killua used intuition and movements far beyond his age to help overcome the challenges, Gon steadied the entire team with his powerful instincts and emotions, and Leorio helped hold the line through persistence that looked crude but proved unexpectedly effective. As for Ryan, he had kept far away from all of it.

His route ran completely parallel to the main one, a gray hidden path that was not even included in the official examination logs.

As he walked through