Golden blood drifted through the labyrinth space.
The Great Stele Priest steadied its retreating body, the searing pain in its back nothing compared to the storm raging within.
It knew it had been used.
The optimal escape route it had believed correct had been a trap from beginning to end.
In truth, it had never been arrogant enough to think it could decipher the Dark Tide's spatial technology system.
Everything it had done earlier was merely an effort to collect the "Evil Spirit behind the scenes'" thinking habits as it repeatedly destroyed the labyrinth.
The connections between spatial structures, the rhythm of shifts between labyrinth forms, the distribution patterns of energy nodes... it had tried to work backward from these outward signs to deduce the logical pathways of the Evil Spirit hidden behind the scenes.
The essence of this method.
Was to force the Evil Spirit into hurried responses through frequent destruction, then gather information for analysis.
But it had never imagined that the Evil Spirit behind the scenes was also reading its thought processes in a way it could not comprehend.
Its probing attacks and the routes it attempted based on the "patterns" it collected had all become samples for the Evil Spirit to analyze its approach to escaping.
Then, targeting that approach, the Evil Spirit had tailored and deliberately presented a seemingly perfect escape route.
Because the answer matched its problem-solving habits, and repeated probes had yielded clear feedback, it had believed without question.
Ultimately, it had been guided into gathering all its strength to execute a "breakthrough" that stabbed itself in the back.
That blow had also shattered the Great Stele Priest's confidence.
Its swaying body betrayed its sense of defeat.
Roar!
A roar of grief and fury shook the Spatial Maze.
The Great Stele Priest swung