The administrator laughed.

Not the laughter of something finding something genuinely funny. The kind of laugh something has when the threat it receives seems so far beneath what it considers relevant that the only appropriate response is that.

"What could you do against a level five administrator with full system access?" The :D gleamed. "You’re a rankless human. Without magic. With a system that doesn’t even know how to classify you."

Kai didn’t respond.

"There’s nothing you can do that will change the outcome of this." The administrator opened the panel. "But I appreciate the dramatic attempt."

[Access: Full Administrator Parameters — level 5]

[Unlocking full capabilities]

[Trap system — free mode activated]

[Creature generation — activated]

---

The traps covering the floor, the walls, and the chamber ceiling multiplied.

Not double. Not triple.

Every centimeter of the white chamber’s surface was covered in blue energy points in two seconds — the ceiling, the walls, the floor, no space between one point and the next. The entire chamber converted into a surface that activated a discharge on contact.

And the traps weren’t all the same.

Some discharged transmitting energy — the kind that lasted two seconds in the nervous system. Others emitted area pressure. Others generated a localized gravity field that increased the weight on the contact point tenfold for as long as the contact lasted.

Kai looked at them.

’No space between points.’

’I can’t move without activating one.’

’I have to choose which ones I activate.’

The administrator looked toward Serah and Lira.

The points in their direction were the area pressure ones — those that didn’t require contact, that simply existed in the radius and exerted force on anything inside it.

Serah raised her primordial aura. Her markings at maximum.

Lira set herself in stance with zero magic and her feet apart because it was the only thing she had.

---

From the chamber floor the creatures emerged.

Not the labyrinth ones — variants. The same origin, the same processed fortress material, but with the administrator’s full access behind their construction.

The four-armed ones from level 1 but with six arms instead of four, the curved claws longer and the scales denser, the movement faster from the extra pair of limbs.

The tentacled ones from level 2 but the tentacles two meters long instead of one, with tips that not only wrapped but pierced.

The quadrupedal bone-plated ones from level 3 but the plates stacked in triple layers, the regeneration movement active from the start instead of as a response to damage.

Ten of each type. Thirty creatures in total.

Twenty toward Serah and Lira.

Ten toward Kai.

---

[DraconicLegacy: (ಠ_ಠ) THIRTY UPGRADED CREATURES (ಠ_ಠ)]

[Dr_Snow: the same ones they faced in the labyrinth but worse in every way. six arms, two-meter tentacles, triple layer of plates.]

[Drakeking: twenty for Serah and Lira. Serah at 35% markings. Lira with zero magic.]

[Jack_Moore: the admin didn’t care about Kai’s threat at all. dismissed it and moved on.]

[Brandon_Haddan: (°ロ°) (°ロ°) (°ロ°) FULL ADMINISTRATOR MODE]

[RagingMutant: (╬ Ò﹏Ó) (╬ Ò﹏Ó) (╬ Ò﹏Ó)]

[Jesse_Williams: Kai has ten upgraded creatures plus the chamber full of traps plus the admin at full capacity. the threat was real. the admin didn’t know it.]

---

The ten six-armed creatures reached Kai first.

Not in formation — in a mass, each one’s six arms moving independently, the kind of attack that has no single angle because it has six simultaneous ones.

Kai activated the first trap point deliberately.

His right foot on the area pressure point — the force pushed him upward, enough that the first creature’s first arm passed under his feet instead of reaching him.

He landed on the next point.

Gravity trap — his left foot weighed ten times more for half a second.

He used that half second of extra weight to pivot from his left foot with more inertia than normal movement would generate.

His right elbow reached the six-armed creature’s side with that additional inertia behind it.

The creature went two meters to the right.

’The traps have physics.’

’If I use them as tools instead of obstacles...’

The area pressure trap pushed him upward. The gravity trap increased the pivot weight. The transmitting discharge trap that grazed his left forearm numbed his arm for two seconds but forced him to use only his right, which reached the next strike with his full hip concentrated to compensate for the left’s absence.

His forearm recovered.

’Every trap has a physics I can use if I accept the cost.’

---

[DraconicLegacy: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ HE’S USING THE ADMIN’S TRAPS TO POWER HIS OWN STRIKES ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[Dr_Snow: "every trap has a physics I can use if I accept the cost" — Kai in 10 seconds of combat]

[Drakeking: activated the pressure one to jump, the gravity one to pivot with more inertia. deliberate.]

[Jack_Moore: the cost is real — his left forearm went numb for two seconds. but the strike was stronger.]

[Brandon_Haddan: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[RagingMutant: ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛]

[Jesse_Williams: the admin created the traps to impede Kai’s movement. Kai is using them as an extension of his technique. in real time.]

---

On the other side of the chamber, Serah met the creatures.

Eight of the six-armed ones lunged with their upper arms in a horizontal sweep position — covering the full width of the available space, no lateral dodge angle.

Serah didn’t dodge laterally.

She jumped upward — her markings at maximum giving her the impulse, her claws gripping the ceiling where the area pressure trap points pushed her immediately downward.

She used the downward push as descent acceleration.

She fell onto the four creatures in the center with structural ice concentrated in both hands — not the full radius she’d used in the labyrinth, she didn’t have the energy for that. Specific points. The same ones she’d identified in each type during the labyrinth.

Four creatures frozen at the moment of impact.

The four remaining adjusted.

Serah absorbed the fifth creature’s upper arm blow on her shoulder — her markings at twenty-five percent now, the cost of structural ice added to the labyrinth combat — and counterattacked with her claw to the point between the two scale plates on the neck where the material was thinner.

The creature stopped.

’Twenty-five percent.’

’Sixteen more creatures left on my side.’

’I’m not going to make it.’