Chapter 26: Artifact(2)

The cavern was still.

Orin's breathing slowed, but his body was still shaking from the ordeal. His wrist throbbed, the faint black sigil etched into his skin a lingering scar from something not yet finished with him.

He wasn't sure if it was truly over.

He flexed his fingers. The burning sensation had faded, but in its place, there was… something else.

A presence.

Reynard's voice cut through the silence. "Can you stand?"

Orin blinked, grounding himself back in reality. "Yeah… I think so."

Darius scoffed, crossing his arms. "Well, that was dramatic."

Amara shot him a glare. "Dramatic? He almost got consumed by whatever the hell that thing was."

Orin forced out a breath, ignoring them. His focus drifted to his wrist, where the artifact had shattered, yet its presence remained. He could feel it. Humming. Waiting.

Selene was already studying the ground where the artifact's remains should have been. But there was nothing—no shards, no dust.

Nothing left behind.

Except for him.

---

Orin turned his wrist over, tracing his fingers along the sigil burned into his skin. It didn't hurt, but the moment he focused on it, a faint vibration ran through his arm.

Like a pulse.

Selene's sharp eyes locked onto him. "It didn't disappear."

Orin exhaled. "Yeah. I noticed."

Darius frowned. "So what? It's still inside you?"

Orin didn't answer immediately. He could still feel the weight of it, even though it was gone. Like an unseen chain, still wrapped around his soul.

"It's not the same," he muttered. "The whispers are gone, but… it left something behind."

Amara looked between him and Selene. "Can you remove it?"

Selene hesitated. "No. Whatever happened… it wasn't just a possession. It changed him."

Reynard, who had remained quiet, finally spoke. "The artifact tested him."

Orin glanced up. "And?"

Reynard's expression was unreadable. "And it didn't break. It adapted."

Orin clenched his jaw.

Adapted.

Like it was waiting for another chance.

---

As they moved away from the chamber, Reynard's thoughts shifted to something else.

The Academy.

They should have sent a retrieval team by now.

Darius seemed to have the same thought. "Why hasn't anyone come looking for us?"

Selene frowned. "The Academy monitors every major labyrinth expedition. Even if they didn't know exactly what happened, they should have sensed the mana disturbance."

"And yet," Amara muttered, "no one came."

A heavy silence followed.

Reynard's fingers tapped against his sword hilt. The Legacy System was still disrupted, unable to connect to any external forces.

Which meant…

"We're being blocked," he muttered.

Selene nodded. "Or worse. We've been erased."

Darius scoffed. "So what, the Academy just abandoned us?"

Orin let out a dry chuckle. "Or they were never supposed to find us in the first place."

Reynard's eyes flickered toward him.

"What are you saying?"

Orin turned, his expression unreadable. "I'm saying we might be somewhere that wasn't meant to be found. The Academy didn't miss us. They can't see us."

The weight of that realization settled over the group.

Reynard didn't like it.

Didn't like how… plausible it felt.

Something about this labyrinth wasn't just hidden.

It was buried.

And now, they had disturbed it.

The silence stretched between them, thick and oppressive. The only sound was the faint hum of the black sigil on Orin's wrist, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

No one wanted to say it, but they were all thinking the same thing—they were completely alone down here.

No backup. No way out.

And something was still watching.

Reynard sheathed his sword with a sharp click. "We need a plan."

Darius snorted. "A plan? The Academy isn't coming, we're stuck in a place that shouldn't exist, and Orin just got branded by a cursed artifact. What part of this makes you think we can plan our way out?"

Amara shot him a glare. "Complaining won't help."

Reynard ignored them, turning to Selene. "You said the artifact's energy withdrew instead of vanishing. Does that mean it's still active?"

Selene's gaze flickered toward Orin's wrist. "Not active. Dormant."

Orin exhaled sharply. "So it's waiting."

Selene nodded. "For something. Maybe a trigger, maybe nothing. But I don't like that it didn't fully disappear."

Orin flexed his fingers, the sigil tingling beneath his skin. It didn't feel hostile, but it felt aware.

Watching.

Testing.

Reynard glanced around the cavern, his sharp eyes scanning the ancient markings along the walls. "We need to move. Whatever this place is, it's not meant to be explored."

Darius huffed. "Agreed. Let's leave before something else tries to merge with Orin's soul."

Selene frowned. "We still don't know what this place really is. The artifacts, the symbols… the Academy has hidden knowledge of this. That means they knew something was buried here."

Orin met her gaze. "And they never planned for anyone to find it."

A cold realization settled over the group.

Amara sighed. "Alright. Let's assume we're completely alone down here. What's our next step?"

Reynard's expression hardened. "We find a way out."

---

As the group pressed forward, Orin trailed slightly behind, his fingers grazing the sigil on his wrist. His mind kept circling back to a single, infuriating thought.

I should have read the full novel.

When he first arrived in this world, he had relied on the knowledge he had. He knew the major events, the main plot points, the key players. He had enough information to survive.

Or so he thought.

But this place? These artifacts? This entire buried sub-layer?

None of it was in the novel.

That meant one of two things—either this part of the labyrinth had never been explored in the original story, or it had been erased from the records.

And neither possibility made him feel better.

He clenched his fists. If he had just finished the damn novel before transmigrating, would he have known more? Would he have been prepared for this?

A bitter laugh almost escaped him. It didn't matter now. He was here, and whatever this labyrinth was hiding, he had no choice but to face it.

The worst part?

Something inside him whispered that this wasn't just a deviation from the original story.

This was something else entirely.

---

They left the chamber behind, stepping into the winding corridors of the labyrinth's buried ruins. The walls seemed to shift when they weren't looking, shadows twisting in unnatural ways.

Selene's magic flickered at her fingertips as she led the way. "Something's distorting space here."

Darius let out a dry chuckle. "Oh great, so we're lost and the walls are moving?"

Orin forced his thoughts back to the present. The sigil still tingled, but he ignored it. Every now and then, he thought he could hear something.

A whisper, faint and distant.

More than an extra.

His jaw clenched. Not now.

After what felt like an eternity, they emerged into a new chamber.

It was vast—far bigger than the previous one. The ceiling stretched so high into darkness that it felt endless. Towering stone structures lined the space, some collapsed, others standing tall, etched with crimson runes.

At the center stood an altar.

And on it—a second artifact.

This one wasn't broken.

It was waiting.