My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 702: Daedalus’ Labyrinth!
The door slammed shut behind Vergil.
The silence inside the waiting room lasted only a few seconds—dense, suffocating seconds—before being torn apart by an amplified laugh that echoed throughout the coliseum.
"ATTENTION, WONDERFULLY DISPOSABLE CREATURES!"
Loki’s voice exploded through the stadium skies, amplified by Norse magic and sheer showmanship. Gigantic illusions of his face appeared above the Labyrinth of Daedalus, each with a different expression: one laughing, another winking, another feigning dramatic tears.
Inside the room, everyone looked up.
Even Vergil.
Loki spun in the air above the labyrinth, his green cloak billowing, his smile too wide for someone who had been pierced by a divine spear just minutes before.
"After an absolutely thrilling, bloody, and slightly traumatic FIRST PHASE for some participants—cough cough eliminated cough—we’ve arrived at our beloved, adored, absolutely not deadly SECOND PHASE!"
The Labyrinth of Daedalus below him gleamed.
The walls moved.
It wasn’t just architecture. It was something alive. Ancient gears, Celtic magic, and Greek runes pulsed beneath the surface. Scathach’s rework breathed like a sleeping creature.
Loki dramatically opened his arms.
"The objective is simple!" he announced. "You will be randomly TELEPORTED to distinct points in the labyrinth!"
An illusory map appeared in the sky—complex, three-dimensional, impossible to memorize.
"No pre-defined teams! No guaranteed alliances! No whining!"
Some competitors exchanged tense glances.
Vergil maintained his unchanged expression.
"You will have to survive the traps!" Loki continued, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. "Hidden blades, false floors, shifting corridors, mental illusions, summoned creatures, and of course... participants against each other!"
The audience cheered.
The labyrinth trembled again.
"But that’s not all!" Loki shouted, spinning in the air. "The real objective is to reach the CENTER!"
On the illusory map, the core glowed deep red.
"In the heart of the labyrinth... waiting patiently..."
The coliseum floor trembled.
A colossal shadow formed in the projection.
"...is our beloved host of the Boss Fight!"
The illusion revealed the creature.
A gigantic Minotaur, with muscles like walls, black horns curved like crescent blades, eyes gleaming with ancient fury. Broken chains hung from their wrists, and a colossal axe rested on their shoulder.
"A Minotaur remade and improved by the lovely—and slightly violent—Scathach!" Loki finished.
The audience erupted in applause and shouts.
Inside the room, some competitors paled.
Others smiled.
Vergil merely observed.
"The first to defeat him advances automatically!" Loki announced. "The others... well... that depends on whether you survive until then!"
A dramatic pause.
"Ah! And of course! The labyrinth constantly reconfigures itself! So memorizing paths is a lovely waste of time!"
Some began to curse.
Loki dramatically put his hand to his ear.
"I love this part," he murmured to the audience. "The desperation before the teleportation."
Runes began to light up on the waiting room floor.
Magic circles formed beneath the competitors’ feet.
The air vibrated.
Mana condensed.
Vergil felt the magic trying to analyze him, classify him, choose a random point.
He allowed it.
For now.
Loki smiled almost affectionately.
"Good luck!" he shouted. "You’ll need it!"
The runes exploded in light.
Space doubled.
And one by one—like pieces being removed from a chessboard—the competitors disappeared.
The last sound that echoed in the room was Loki’s laughter.
And then...
Silence.
The Labyrinth of Daedalus had begun.
The teleportation ended without spectacle.
Without dramatic light.
Without impact.
Vergil simply moved from one point in space to another.
When reality stabilized again, he stood on cold stone. Silence.
Not the silence of the Colosseum. Not the silence filled with expectation.
It was the ancient silence of something closed for centuries.
The air smelled of dust, iron, and dampness. The surrounding walls were high, formed of dark stone blocks carved with symbols that slowly shifted position, as if the labyrinth itself were contemplating.
Vergil observed the corridor ahead.
Long. Curved. Windowless.
He let out a low sigh.
"Great."
Without haste, he adjusted his posture and took a step forward, his boots echoing against the stone floor.
First priority.
Alice.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
His energy expanded.
Not like an explosion. Not like an attack. But like a silent, refined, invisible tide. An extension of his own presence, spreading through the corridors, seeping through the cracks, seeking familiar signatures.
He had done this countless times before. Mapping entire territories with a single thought. Reading structures through walls. Sensing vital pulses from miles away.
The energy advanced...
And stopped.
It wasn’t violently blocked.
It was... diverted.
Like water meeting invisible glass.
Vergil opened his eyes slowly.
The walls were absorbing.
Not just blocking—absorbing, redirecting, fragmenting its energy before it could cross over to the other side.
He tried again.
This time with more precision. More force.
The energy spread, found the surface of the stone... and was dissolved into tiny particles of mana, as if the labyrinth digested it.
Vergil was silent for a few seconds.
Interesting.
He took two steps to the wall and placed his hand on the cold surface.
Ancient runes pulsed beneath his fingers, reacting.
"So that’s how it is," he murmured.
It wasn’t just stone.
It was a system.
A complete, interconnected magical circuit, designed to prevent external reading, mapping, and energy tracking. Each wall functioned as an insulating barrier, sealing the corridors like watertight compartments.
He couldn’t sense what was on the other side.
Not aura.
Not movement.
Not intention.
The labyrinth was, in effect, a closed world divided into thousands of smaller worlds.
Vergil let out a small sigh through his nose.
"She really didn’t want cheating."
He tried to expand his perception vertically.
Above.
Perhaps through the ceiling.
The energy rose—
And encountered the same resistance.
Redirected.
Fragmented.
Consumed.
The corridors were completely isolated from one another.
No mapping.
No vision beyond the walls.
No shortcuts.
Vergil tilted his head slightly.
A discreet smile appeared on his face.
"I understand now."
He didn’t seem frustrated.
On the contrary.
He seemed... satisfied.
A faint mechanical hum caught his attention.
Vergil looked up.
Hovering a few meters away, near the ceiling of the corridor, was a small spherical drone. Metallic. With runic inscriptions swirling on its hull. A red crystal in the center acted as a lens.
Observing.
Transmitting.
He looked directly at the crystal.
The drone slightly adjusted its position, as if focusing better.
Vergil put his hands in his coat pockets.
"You’re quite ingenious, Scathach," he said calmly.
The drone didn’t react.
But the crystal shone a little brighter.
"I like you even more now."
There was sincerity in his voice.
She didn’t just create a labyrinth.
She created a field of absolute strategic isolation.
No remote sensing.
No easy structural manipulation.
No careless explosions that traversed multiple corridors.
Every combat would be local.
Every encounter, inevitable.
Every decision, blind.
Vergil began to walk.
If he couldn’t map the labyrinth, then he’d do it the old way.
Step by step.
As he advanced, he noticed something else.
The floor.
Discreet runes were embedded in the joints of the stones. Some almost invisible.
Traps.
He stopped before stepping on one.
The rune flickered faintly.
If he had advanced another centimeter, he probably would have triggered something unpleasant.
Vergil smiled slightly.
"Cruel."
He shifted his pace.
As he walked, the corridor ahead began to move.
Literally.
The walls slid with a heavy sound, changing the direction of the path. What was a left turn became a dead end. A new corridor opened to the right.
Vergil showed no surprise.
"Dynamic reconfiguration," he murmured.
The labyrinth wasn’t fixed.
It was alive.
Or at least it reacted.
Perhaps to time.
Perhaps to the participants.
Perhaps to the entertainment.
Vergil paused for a moment.
If he couldn’t sense Alice...
Then he would have to trust her.
She wasn’t weak.
Quite the opposite.
But still.
He expanded his energy again—this time not trying to pass through walls, but simply sensing the corridor itself.
Structure.
Mana flow.
Vibration.
There were patterns.
Small delays in reconfiguration.
Slight pulses before the changes.
He could use this.
"Alright," he murmured to himself.
If the labyrinth wanted a fair game...
Then he would play.
The drone continued to follow from afar.
Vergil turned his face slightly, glancing at it.
"I hope you’re watching carefully," he said.
Then, with a single smooth movement, he vanished.
It wasn’t a complete teleport.
It was a short, almost instantaneous displacement within the same corridor—just enough to avoid a blade that descended from the ceiling exactly where he would have been on his next step.
The blade struck the ground with force.
Vergil was already a few meters ahead.
He didn’t look back.
"Fun."
The labyrinth responded with a new shift of walls.
Somewhere in the distance, the Minotaur roared.
The sound echoed through the structures, deep and menacing.
Vergil paused for a second.
His eyes gleamed.
"Center, then."
If he couldn’t track Alice...
Then he would finish this quickly.
He started walking again.
Calm.
Controlled.
Interested.
And somewhere beyond the walls he couldn’t force his way through... 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢
The game was already underway.
Vergil put his hands in his pockets and began to walk calmly.
