Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons-Chapter 249: Regulus

The mercury being extended an arm that elongated unnaturally, pointing at Arthur.

Arthur's hand instinctively moved to his weapon, but the being made no aggressive moves.

"Before you proceed, you must be tested. The unworthy cannot look upon Regulus."

With that declaration, the courtyard began to change. The floor cracked and shifted, pieces rising to form a labyrinth that assembled itself before their eyes.

"Complete the Labyrinth," the mercury being instructed. "Reach the center, and you may proceed to the inner sanctum."

The being began to dissolve, its form losing cohesion, mercury-like substance dripping into nothingness until no trace remained.

Arthur found himself teleported directly into the heart of the maze. Walls towered on all sides, their glossy surfaces reflecting distorted images of himself. The ground beneath his feet pulsed with faint blue light, marking pathways that appeared and disappeared seemingly at random.

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He unsummoned the Drake and the Poisonous Painted Serpent with a flick of his wrist.

"The labyrinth would have been a difficult challenge to most people..."

Arthur murmured, a smile creeping across his face.

He closed his eyes, extending his senses outward.

The SSS-Rank Space talent within him allowed him to perceive the spatial distortions of the maze—not just as they were, but as they would be. He could feel the subtle shifts before they happened, the fabric of reality bending and folding around him.

Arthur chose a path to his right, moving with confident strides as walls shifted behind him, sealing off the way he'd come. The labyrinth was alive, changing constantly, but to someone who could manipulate space itself, it was merely an elaborate puzzle.

After twenty minutes of navigating twisting corridors and gravity-defying walkways, Arthur stopped before a wall that had suddenly materialized in his path.

"Dead end," he sighed.

He focused his talent, visualizing the last major intersection he'd passed—a T-junction with glowing blue symbols etched into the floor.

In an instant, space folded around him, and he teleported back to that exact location.

"Let's try the other way."

The pattern continued for nearly an hour. When faced with impassable barriers, Arthur simply teleported back to previous checkpoints he'd noted in his mind, trying different routes each time.

As he rounded a corner that sloped unnaturally upward, he spotted something.

The corridor ended in what appeared to be a small chamber, and something lurked within.

Two sets of eyes glowed in the darkness—no, four eyes, paired in twos.

A massive canine form prowled forward, saliva dripping from not one but two snarling muzzles.

Its fur was midnight black, matted with what appeared to be dried blood, and muscles rippled beneath its skin with unnatural power.

[Two-Headed Bloodhound (Epic-Boss)]

The beast's twin heads worked in perfect synchronization, one scanning high while the other watched low.

Each skull bore razor-sharp teeth stained crimson from previous kills, and the creature's shoulders stood as tall as Arthur's chest. A low growl rumbled from both throats.

"Interesting," Arthur murmured, already analyzing the creature's movements.

The Bloodhound lunged without warning, both heads snapping forward in perfect coordination. Its speed was remarkable for something so large, covering the distance between them in a heartbeat.

But Arthur was faster.

He sidestepped at the last possible moment, the beast's claws scraping against the floor where he had stood a split second earlier. Before the Bloodhound could reorient itself, Arthur had drawn his blade.

[Blazing Arc!]

His katana gleamed with flame as he moved. The air rippled where his blade passed.

The Bloodhound tried to dodge, surprisingly agile for its bulk. But Arthur's hit did not miss.

The beast's twin heads howled in pain as the katana sliced through a large portion of its belly.

Seeing the beast howl in pain, Arthur did not stop.

His katana moved with grace as it severed both heads in a single stroke before the beast could comprehend what was happening.

[You have slain a level 19 Two-Headed Bloodhound (Epic-Boss)]

Arthur collected the item the bloodhound dropped before pressing forward. The dead end the Bloodhound had been guarding revealed a hidden passage that only became visible after the creature's defeat.

"Clever design," Arthur noted. "Force challengers to face guardians rather than bypass them."

The new pathway led him deeper into the labyrinth, where gravity began to shift more dramatically. At one point, Arthur found himself walking on what had been a wall moments before, the entire maze rotating around him without warning.

His Space talent proved invaluable, allowing him to maintain orientation even as the labyrinth attempted to disorient him. When passages folded in on themselves, creating impossible geometries, Arthur simply calculated the spatial distortions and teleported through them.

After another forty minutes of navigating the ever-shifting maze, Arthur encountered another dead end.

At the dead end, there was a creature unlike any he'd seen before.

It resembled a hyena in basic form, but its proportions were all wrong—limbs too long, jaw unnaturally distended, eyes bulging with bloodlust. Its fur was the deep crimson of fresh blood, and irregular patterns along its back.

[Crimson Hyena (Elite-Boss)]

The beast's laughter-like call echoed off the walls as it circled Arthur predatorily.

Its hunched back bristled with spines that oozed a virulent green toxin, while its massive jaws could easily crush bone.

Most disturbing were its eyes.

He could tell that the beast enjoyed hunting...a lot.

"Another guardian? But it's weaker than the previous one? " Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Well, it doesn't matter."

The Hyena responded with a bone-chilling cackle before launching itself at Arthur's throat.

This time, Arthur didn't bother dodging. Instead, he activated his spatial compression ability, creating a barrier of densely folded space between himself and the attacking beast.

The Hyena slammed into the invisible wall at full speed, its momentum coming to an immediate, jarring halt. Before it could recover from the impact, Arthur expanded the spatial compression to envelop the creature entirely.

Reality folded inward around the Hyena, compressing the three-dimensional space it occupied into an increasingly smaller volume. The beast's mocking laughter transformed into silence its body was forced to occupy less and less space.

Arthur closed his fist, completing the compression.

The technique he used wasn't a skill, but merely him using his talent. He had gotten the idea after watching Aether's Singularity collapse.

"Let's call that...Spatial Collapse." He muttered.