The cacophony in the energy node room reached a crescendo.
The sharp beeps of the activated beacon mingled with the crackling of the floating metal sphere, which seemed on the verge of exploding, and the shrill howl of the last Reverse Guardian reforming with frightening speed.
Its condensed shadow-and-light silhouette was taking shape again, its ocular slits glowing with an icy fury directed entirely at Alden.
Scott, on the other side of the room, was yelling something that sounded unintelligible to Alden, probably a mixture of warnings and curses.
Alden, despite the searing pain still coursing through his body from the last energy surge and the exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him, felt a new wave of lucidity wash over him, carried by the System's notifications.
Level 2.
Five attribute points to distribute.
And a new passive skill: "Sixth Sense (Rudimentary)."
No time to savor, but these gains were crucial.
"We have to get out of here! Now!" Scott's voice finally reached his ears, clearer.
"That thing is going to come down on us!" He pointed to the central sphere, whose electrical arcs were now erratically sweeping the room, striking walls and floor, disintegrating entire sections of the ancient structure.
The Reverse Guardian, fully reformed, glided towards Alden with surprising speed, its shadow hand outstretched, crackling with black, destructive energy.
"No way!" Alden thought. He had to use his assets, and quickly.
"System, allocate attribute points!" he mentally commanded, his mind calculating at prodigious speed.
He needed agility to dodge, stamina to endure, and perhaps a little more Mana for a possible use of his new skill or another attempt at self-healing if necessary.
[Agility: 17 + 2 = 19]
[Stamina (physical): 12 + 2 = 14]
[Mana: 35/51 + 1 (max capacity) = 35/52] He felt a slight surge of vigor, an increased clarity in his movements.
It wasn't a transformation; each point increased his original abilities. This method of gaining power amazed him.
Just as the Guardian was about to strike him, Alden consciously activated his "Sixth Sense."
It wasn't a vision, but an instinctive certainty, an acute perception of the room's energy flows.
He sensed an "escape route," a trajectory through the electrical arcs and falling debris, leading towards a section of the opposite wall that vibrated differently, as if it were less stable, more… permeable.
He threw himself to the side, narrowly dodging the Guardian's shadow claw, which pulverized the ground where he had been a fraction of a second earlier.
"Scott! This way! Follow me!" Alden shouted, heading with new confidence towards the wall indicated by his intuition.
Scott, seeing Alden move with disconcerting assurance amidst the chaos, hesitated for a moment, then, swearing, he scrambled after him, also dodging an electrical arc that nearly roasted him on the spot.
The Reverse Guardian, furious at having missed its target, turned towards the fugitives, preparing a new attack.
The sphere above it was now spitting tongues of pure energy fire. Entire sections of the ceiling began to collapse.
Alden reached the wall.
There was no visible door, no obvious passage.
But his "Sixth Sense" was adamant.
It was there.
He sensed a structural weakness, a dissonance in the Labyrinth's energy.
"Get back!" he yelled at Scott, who was coming up behind him.
Ignoring the pain in his injured arm and the fatigue gnawing at him, Alden focused the little Mana he had left, not for an attack, but to strengthen his own body, for an impact.
He remembered the destruction of the test terminal.
He couldn't replicate that power, but he could try to channel a tiny fraction of it.
He slammed his good shoulder against the wall, where his sense told him the weakest point was, putting all his physical strength and that Mana impulse into it.
The wall, an assembly of metal plates and crumbling rock, gave way with a tearing, crashing sound.
A narrow opening, barely wide enough for a man, appeared, revealing a dark, dusty conduit behind it.
"Incredible!" Scott gasped, his eyes wide.
"No time to admire!" Alden retorted.
"After you!" Scott, without a second thought, squeezed into the opening. Alden cast one last look back.
The Reverse Guardian was almost upon him, its shadow hand ready to strike.
The entire room seemed on the verge of collapsing into a maelstrom of energy.
Alden dived into the conduit just as a massive explosion rocked the energy node room, followed by a deafening silence.
The conduit sloped steeply downwards, almost a slide into total darkness.
They tumbled for several seconds, hitting the walls, before landing heavily on an uneven floor, in what seemed to be another tunnel, smaller, older, and above all, quieter. Alden coughed, dust and the smell of ozone filling his lungs.
He got up painfully, his body covered in bruises, but alive. Scott was already on his feet, shaking his head as if to clear the echoes of the explosion.
"Did you… did you blow up the whole room, Khan?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"I just gave it a nudge," Alden replied, trying to catch his breath.
"The sphere took care of the rest. It seems disrupting its power supply wasn't such a good idea for its long-term stability."
They were in relative silence, broken only by the sound of their own breathing and a few distant structural groans from the Labyrinth, which seemed to be still readjusting after the destruction of the energy node.
"Your 'intuition' for finding that passage…" Scott began, looking at Alden with new respect.
"That wasn't just luck, was it?" Alden merely gave an enigmatic smile.
"Let's just say I have a good sense of direction in… complicated places." He wasn't going to tell Scott about his "Sixth Sense" or the System.
"Where are we now?" Scott asked, sweeping the surroundings with his flashlight. The tunnel was low-ceilinged, the walls seeping with moisture.
Alden focused again on his "Sixth Sense."
The skill, though rudimentary, gave him a clearer impression of his environment now that the energy chaos of the node had disappeared.
He perceived a network of tunnels, some leading deeper, others seeming to go up. And he sensed a direction, a faint but persistent "thread," that seemed to be calling him.
"I think… I know which way to go to get back to the upper levels," he said.
Alden nodded. The escape from the energy core was over, but their ordeal in the Labyrinth of Echoes was far from finished.
They now had to navigate this maze to find, at last, the exit. And time continued to tick by.