Zhu Shi spoke with absolute certainty, as if she wasn't speculating but recounting something she'd witnessed firsthand.

  As her listener, I couldn't help but be swayed by her confidence, instinctively believing her. Even our opponent, the monster—whose whereabouts were unknown—seemed intimidated, falling silent for a moment.

  After the pause, the monster responded in a smug, unflappable tone: "So, according to you, what is my real ability?"

  "It's 'damage transfer,'" Zhu Shi replied calmly.

  "..." The monster didn't refute her.

  "Your true power is the ability to transfer any damage you receive to your clones," Zhu Shi continued. "You've probably set up a bunch of shadow clones somewhere else. I can't tell exactly how many, but there must be quite a few. Whenever you're hurt, you can shift the damage to one of them.

  "It's an ability that twists cause and effect, altering reality itself. It doesn't just activate when you choose to use it during an injury—even if you die, it triggers passively, passing the death onto a clone while you return to perfect condition.

  "The downside is obvious: your clones are finite in number. As a form of immortality, this consumable ability is pretty mediocre. Sure, you can keep summoning new ones to take the hits for you, but if you're thrown into a high-damage environment like lava, your 'lives' would plummet.

  "And if an opponent restrains you, you can't escape using this power. As a monster, if you're captured alive, your power source abandons you, triggering self-destruction. At that point, you couldn't revive with an ability that's already gone. Am I right?"

  She wasn't saying this for the monster's benefit—it was for me, to help me understand the enemy better.

  "...How did you figure it out?" the monster asked after a stunned silence. "I could buy it if you guessed my ability by chance, but how did you see through it so thoroughly without any clues? Is 'piercing through an opponent's powers' your ability?"

  "That's for you to imagine," Zhu Shi shot back.

  "Hmph... Fine, whatever. You're both going to die here anyway," the monster said, exuding the calm of someone in an unbeatable position. "Since you've seen through my ability, can you also see through the nature of this alternate space?"

  This time, it was Zhu Shi's turn to fall silent. She slowly closed her eyes.

  "You're going to realize what this place is soon enough. To speed up your despair, I'll just tell you the answer," the monster chuckled. "This is a labyrinth—an infinitely vast one."

  "Infinitely vast?"

  I instinctively distrusted the idea of that word applying to reality. At the same time, I released a dozen "fireflies," sending them speeding deep into the corridor to explore.

  "This space won't dissolve until you're dead; no matter how many centuries you wander here, you'll never reach the edge," the monster emphasized with two absolutes. "You two are both Luoshan Impermanents, right? This barrier was designed specifically to counter you Impermanents. How does it feel to hunt me down, only to end up caged by your own prey?

  "I'll be watching your final pathetic struggles from the best seat in the house. You'll starve and thirst to death here, and your souls will become my sustenance."

  "—The best seat in the house?" Zhu Shi finally opened her eyes.

  She wore that all-seeing expression again. More than that, the color of her irises had shifted. A chilling lake-blue glow resided in them, radiating an aura of mystery.

  What was this change? I was incredibly curious, but it wasn't the right time to ask in front of the enemy.

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  "You're not sitting there by choice—you can't leave either," she said slowly. "When this space unfolded, you fused with it.

  "Moreover, your claim that this is a space made specifically to counter Impermanents is a lie. If it were truly your own ability designed for that, you'd have used it from the start, not after realizing you couldn't escape.

  "This space must have been summoned using some kind of consumable item, and it wasn't originally meant for us... That item probably isn't even yours. Something that special isn't what a nobody like you could just pull out of nowhere—someone else must have given it to you. Who was it?"

  As she spoke, her demeanor seemed to shift strangely. The original "demon hunter Zhu Shi" had always carried a hint of cool, chivalrous vibe, but now she felt like an emotionless warrior.

  "You sure talk a lot..." The monster seemed irritated by her aggressive aura. "Looks like you do have some kind of insight ability... So what? The more you know, the more it'll crush you.

  "That's right, I can't leave until this space ends, just like you. But there's one difference: fused with the space, I don't need food or water, while you do.

  "As payback for forcing me to break my deal with the monster creator, I'll enjoy watching you both spiral into breakdown."

  "Who's the monster creator?" I asked.

  But the monster seemed determined to stay silent now—his voice vanished completely from around us.

  Monster creator... As the name suggests, it must mean "the person who creates monsters." Were all these monsters turned into what they are by this so-called creator? Was Agent Kong one too?

  This was a crucial clue—I hadn't heard anything like it from Lu Youxun or Zhu Shi before. Monsters weren't supposed to spill info like that in front of us, which meant he truly believed we'd die here.

  The chilling blue glow in Zhu Shi's eyes faded gradually, returning to her usual deep brown.

  "I'm sorry, Senior Zhuang, for dragging you into this mission," she sighed, then her gaze turned resolute. "But don't worry—I'll get you out of here."

  "You don't need to worry about me..."

  Truth be told, I could teleport out right now using the flames I'd left in the real world.

  Unfortunately, the flame teleport only works for me—I couldn't bring Zhu Shi along. If I mentioned it, she might overthink things, so maybe it was better not to say anything. In the worst case, she wouldn't starve or thirst like the monster said, because I could leave flames here and shuttle food and water back and forth from the real world.

  The monster's so-called death trap was flawed from the start.

  Plus, the "fireflies" I'd sent out had roughly mapped the surroundings. It really was a labyrinth, as the monster claimed. Beyond the corners of this gray corridor were more corridors—no matter how far you went, no exit in sight, with frequent forks. Whether it was truly infinite remained to be seen.

  Zhu Shi adopted that all-seeing look again, scrutinizing the space around us. Maybe she really did have an ability to "see through opponents' powers," and now she was applying it to this space.

  But she seemed to hit a snag quickly, her brows furrowing deeply.

  I wasn't about to sit idle either.

  I conjured a fireball in my palm and aimed it forward, then launched it at a speed far exceeding sound.

  I'd programmed this fireball with the instruction to "hug one wall as it moves." I'd seen online once that in most mazes, if you stick to one wall, you'll eventually find the exit. This place might not have an exit, but it was worth a shot.

  At the same time, I blasted the nearby wall with flames, curious about what lay on the other side.

  As expected, it was just another identical corridor.

  I fired massive fireballs upward and downward, punching through the ceiling and floor. I didn't even need to peer through the melted holes—the information relayed back from the penetrating fireballs told me that above and below were the same monotonous corridors, and even further up or down, it was still more corridors.

  I felt my heart heating up with excitement.

  This might sound out of place, but this unknown-filled labyrinth stirred an irrepressible urge to explore in me.

  I loved the concept of "spaces beyond reality." Whether it was the basement in the fifteenth-floor room or the shadow world Agent Kong had shown me, they all captivated me. This labyrinth dimension ignited a desire to conquer it. The monster claimed it was absolutely inescapable, with no boundaries?

  Then I'd hold off on using the "flame teleport"—that rude cheat move—and try breaking this "level" from the inside!

  Honestly, if it weren't for the pressing matter of "finding Alice" weighing on me, and having a companion along, I'd have approached this fight with the monster in a challenger's mindset—enjoying the battle, slowly unraveling the mystery of his powers. Not the goal-oriented "take his head first, ask questions later" attitude I'd had before.

  I sensed the scene around the fireball I'd launched earlier. From old tests, a serious fireball in my normal state easily exceeded Mach 4—over 1,300 meters per second. I wasn't sure how fast this one was now, but it was blazingly quick.

  In just this short time, that fireball had flown an immense distance, yet the surroundings were still the same repetitive corridors.

  Was this place really infinite? Thinking back to the monster's tone in his conversation with Zhu Shi, this space originally had some "purpose." Even if not for trapping Luoshan Impermanents, maybe it was for someone else... If so, why the "labyrinth" theme?

  If it was truly infinite, there'd be no need for winding corridors—an infinite space is an inescapable maze on its own.

  I felt like I'd glimpsed a direction for breaking out, one I could pursue with Zhu Shi.