Chapter 8

When the spinning in Lewis's vision and the sense of misalignment in his body finally stopped, a blue sky greeted him above and green grass below. Lewis laid, staring up in pure irritation. The last sentence shouted by Dan pissed him off to no end, why? It was because no one told him about 'Gates' or the side effects of its portals. The pack Lewis was carrying was off to the side, having been somehow separated by the suction and swirling of the portal. Upon sitting up, Lewis immediately took in the surrounding scenery. He was sitting in a small clearing with a single entrance and exit. On either side of said entrance/exit, were black stone walls that rose to the heavens with seemingly no end in height, even the sky seemed to turn black at the entryway.

"Well that's fucking ominous. Where the absolute fuck am I?" Lewis swore as he stood up. His senses were going ballistic with the new information surrounding him. Though none were dangerous, the sights, sounds and smells were overpoweringly new to him. The air smelled earthy and sweet, the sounds were distant but acute as he heard the rumbling and crashing of stone against stone, and the sights were vibrant and bright with a dullness right before the entrance that confused Lewis.

"No sense in standing around I suppose." Lewis muttered as he gathered his bearings and the pack. He headed towards the entrance, its coldness enveloping him as he moved closer. Upon stepping past the edges of the stone walls, a brief shift, similar to the portal but less powerful, overtook his senses and when it ended, the clearing behind him was replaced by a black stone wall.

"Nothing about this instills any sense of confidence in me." Lewis sighed, his senses lit up with all sorts of warning signals, so Lewis deactivated the Blessing to retain his sanity. The only weapon he was armed with was a simple steel short sword, resulting in his confidence for survival being only slightly higher.

"This damn sword has been nothing but decoration, since I haven't been trained in anything except swinging the damn thing, but at least it's a minor means of protection. The pack has rations and protection talismans with twenty-four hours worth of a barrier, so I can at least sleep safely and eat as well. Hopefully Dan and his team clear this within three days." Lewis stretched and headed off on the path in front of him.

***

Five days had passed and Lewis was worn and torn from the events that had transpired. First, he learned that this was a maze, but not just any maze. It was a Labyrinth, a labyrinth full of crazy creatures that looked half animal and half demon monster thing. Lewis's clothes were ragged and dirty, the supplies had been slowly dwindling from use. He was down to one last talisman, a week's worth of food and maybe three days of water. His basic steel sword was dull and stained with blood from the numerous monsters he had fought off and killed.

"It's been five days, and I've not seen a hint of anybody from C-Team. I'm tired and exhausted, I smell like a tub of sun spoiled cottage cheese, and I've been stumbling through this labyrinth that constantly changes! What the hell is going on?" Lewis complained to himself again for the millionth time. To make matters worse, his system seemed to be on the fritz, as all the information was corrupted with blanks and blurred words. As Lewis was complaining, a chilling and familiar roar sounded out from behind him a ways back. Lewis immediately took off in a dead sprint. The second thing he learned was that the boss of the labyrinth was the classical Greek monster of said labyrinth. The Minotaur.

As Lewis ran, he heard the beast slamming through walls and roaring loudly, each roar getting closer and closer. Lewis's feet hurt from how hard they were pounding against the black stone pathways as he navigated the labyrinths confusing maze. In the corner of his eye, Lewis caught a glimpse of the only saving grace he learned about, lesson number three, the walls open and close at unpredictable intervals. This particular section was closing off, and without hesitation, Lewis spun and dove through the closing gap, into an unknown section of the labyrinth. As he looked back at the now mostly closed gap, he saw the piss yellow eye of the minotaur staring at him hatefully. The chill that ran down Lewis's spine was one he had gotten used to every time he saw the beast, or even a glimpse of it.

"I wonder if this really is Daedalus's Labyrinth commissioned by Minos himself. I wonder if that minotaur is actually The Minotaur. Doesn't matter really, just curious… Why do I still bother talking?" Lewis groaned as he laid on the soft grass…

"Grass?" Lewis sat up and looked around. He was still surrounded on all sides with the black stone walls, but now instead of only the stone, there were also trees in neat order and a few grazing animals; goats, cows, pigs, rabbits etc. A glass dome decorated the area above and some birds could be seen flying around. As Lewis looked around in awe and amazement, his eyes locked onto a small cabin with smoke billowing from its chimney. Excited, Lewis ran to the cabin and burst through the door, startling a fair skinned young woman with long brown hair, as she was cooking a stew.

"Oh my! I was not expecting guests today." The woman composed herself, after the brief startle she experienced.

"Oh, uh, my bad?" Lewis replied in confusion.

"Oh, don't feel bad! It's just been quite some time since I've seen another person. Did Minos send you here as well dear? No, wait, that's not quite possible now is it? Seeing as he's dead." The woman began mumbling after asking the question.

"Ah, so it is Daedalus's Labyrinth! Wait, so that is The Minotaur? How absolutely fucking terrifying." Lewis exclaimed as everything he was curious about was confirmed.

"His name is Asterion, but yes." The woman confirmed.

"Uh, right… Asterion. Look, honestly I just want to get out of this Labyrinth, maybe find the others I came here with. Can you help me with that?" Lewis asked the woman after a brief pause.

"I wish I could, but even I don't know anything beyond these walls. As for other people, you're the only one here. You look tired, how about some stew and perhaps a good bath?" The woman instead offered hospitality, pointing to a chair and holding a bowl freshly filled with the stew she had just made.

"Uh, yeah, I suppose a hot meal would be nice. A bath sounds amazing as well, so I'll take you up on that offer." Lewis relaxed and took the seat offered as well as the bowl.

[Warning! Hostile intentions detected!]

Lewis stared at the broken up message in confusion, but the urgency was clear. Lewis put the stew aside and stood up.

"Is the stew not to your liking?" The woman asked with clear hurt.

"Uh, I just thought I should take a bath first, I mean, I smell pretty bad. It's not great for when you're eating." Lewis explained exclusively.

"Oh, well if that's how you feel, there's a stream out back, hard to miss. Go on and wash up, the stew will be waiting here for you, nice and hot." The woman directed Lewis to the bathing area. Lewis excused himself and followed her directions. Sure enough, there was a beautifully clear spring that bubbled forth from seemingly nowhere and disappeared in the same fashion, just behind the cabin, right where the woman said it would be. The flow seemed to go away from the cabin and towards a grate built into one of the labyrinth walls. Lewis sighed and began to undress, throwing his clothes next to the stream, as he wanted to at least rinse them off. Once he was fully undressed, Lewis stepped into the cold, yet refreshing, spring and quickly began to wash himself and his gear. While he was doing so, he did not notice the woman watching him closely.

Lewis, after washing himself and his clothes, began to dress himself on the spring's banks. While he was distracted, he accidentally kicked his left boot back into the water, and the stream carried it towards the grate. Lewis immediately took after it and chased it all the way to the grate and grabbed it before it could pass through. Lewis sighed in relief and began to take it out of the water, but paused as he noticed something familiar in the water, caught on the grate itself. He reached in and pulled the cloth out, immediate chills ran down his spine as he stared at the Hepheastus's Guild insignia embroidered upon it. Further down below the surface of the water, he began to notice more objects. Skulls and bones as well as weapons and armor. The depth being at least fifteen feet, Lewis dove down into the water to get a better look. He immediately recognized Dan's shield as well as a few other belongings of the other C-Team members. Lewis grabbed a sword to replace his dull one and quickly swam back to the surface.

Lewis broke the surface and took in a deep breath, his attention immediately drawn to the cabin. The woman stood outside, staring at Lewis with a menacing smile. Lewis climbed out of the water and put the boot on, strapped the new blade and sheath to his belt and readied his old one.

"So when she said I was the only one here, she meant I was the last one left? Fuck, this labyrinth has nothing but danger here!" Lewis cautiously approached the woman.

"Why do you look so distrusting towards me dear? Surely I haven't harmed you… yet." The woman grinned, but everything about her looked threatening now.

"Why did you kill my team members?" Lewis asked first, stalling for time to look for an exit.

"To feed my son and myself." The woman responded as if it were normal.

"I didn't notice anybody else in the cabin… wait, you ate them?" Lewis turned pale from nausea.

"Of course, not all of them, but they all had the same look when they found out the person before them was turned to stew, from my son's leftovers, of course. A mother should feed her son before herself after all." The woman continued to speak as if what she was doing was perfectly sane.

"You're fucking sick! That's what, who was in the stew? Dan? And what son?" Lewis shouted in reply.

"The one that's behind you silly. He's been here the whole time." The woman laughed. Lewis spun around and froze. Standing behind him was a eight foot tall beast with the head of a bull and the overly muscular body of a man. He wore a simple loincloth and held a giant greatsword. His piss yellow eyes stared at Lewis in triumph as it had finally caught its most elusive prey. With its big, meaty, unarmed fist, it slammed Lewis away from the woman and Lewis flew into a wall at breakneck speeds. The wall itself shook from the force, and Lewis nearly blacked out. Several bones in Lewis's torso had been shattered, and he fell weakly to the ground, gasping for breath.

In that moment, Lewis chose to activate the Jungle Vine Blessing, and slight relief entered his body as the miniature vines began to pull the broken parts together. The woman approached Lewis and smiled happily at his pain.

"Asterion and I have been stuck in this hell since Thesseus used Ariadne's magic tools to banish the Labyrinth into another dimension. When Thesseus found he could not defeat Asterion, he chose to instead banish the entire Labyrinth, using Ariadne's infamous thread to keep himself tethered to earth, the rotten coward. When he came out and announced he had slain 'The Minotaur', I was devastated. But, it was only after my disloyal daughter had been betrayed by that hero, that I learned the entire Labyrinth had been banished instead. So I went to plead with Daedalus to open a way for me, hoping to use his inventions and my magic together, to retrieve my beloved Asterion. But, Minos had stupidly thrown the man into that very dimension along with his son Icarus and tossed the key to opening it into the sea, where it was lost forever. So, using my daughters' knowledge from their teacher Daedalus, I fashioned a key with two uses. One use to get in, and one use to get out with my son.

But! I was once again betrayed by disloyalty when Daedalus, upon me meeting him and telling him about my plans, stole the key and released him and his son from this place, leaving me stranded. But, the gods never forsake me, for every few years fifteen to twenty humans would find their way in, and provide me and Asterion a steady source of food. Daedalus had built this for him and his son, so it provided us a place to stay, of course it warded against Asterion before I stumbled upon it, but that's been fixed now." The woman told her story, Lewis stared at her in pure dumbfoundedness at the absurdity of her antics.

"I… didn't ask?" Lewis huffed as he sat up and leaned against the wall. The minotaur was still standing by the cabin, watching.

"He won't attack unless I allow him to." The woman noticed where Lewis was looking and stated.

"How obedient." Lewis's vision was pulsating, the vines only held him together, they didn't heal him, so his body was still in severe pain and internally bleeding. He had at most, maybe five minutes of life left.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll allow you to die naturally. No need to rush it after all, you're dying anyway." The woman too noticed the condition Lewis was in.

[User's health is critical! All emergency functions activated. Would the user like to sacrifice Rose Blessing for full recovery? User considered to not be capable of rational thinking. Sacrificing. Sacrificing Brown Bear for Temporary Boost of House Centipede to 'Unique Tier'. Successful.]

As the woman began to walk away, the broken message appeared. Lewis assumed it meant he was dying and was recommending him to run away somehow, but the sudden feeling of being perfectly healed caught him off guard. To add onto it, there was a sudden surge of electrical like energy passing through Lewi's veins that woke him up and cleared his mind. This change was noticeable to the woman as she turned around quickly, only to be greeted by the sight of an entirely different person. The boy now had white hair and electric blue eyes, his skin was darkened to caramel and electricity sparked off of his body in disorganized intervals.

"Are you the son of a god?" The woman asked simply. Lewis did not answer, for he knew that he had a limited amount of time with whatever ability had been activated. He picked up the dull blade he had been carrying and ran towards the minotaur, he took one step and flashed right up to the minotaur within less than a second. Where he dashed from, a thunderclap was released that blew the woman away and rattled the glass dome. The animals and birds began to freak out and swarmed away from the immediate area. The minotaur roared and swung its blade, only to hit air as Lewis vanished and reappeared behind the beast. Lewis used the speed to stab and slash at the minotaur, several thousand times within a second.

Each movement sounded like the air around him was exploding as his movements exceeded sound, reaching nearly mock light speed. Though it wasn't nearly to that level, it was still faster than the minotaur could process. Its body was tough, and the blade only left minor scratches. Eventually the blade broke and Lewis resorted to adding the black ant blessing on top of the ability being used. Now his punches were fast and powerful, causing the immediate area to quake from the blows. The minotaur swung blindly and hatefully, temporarily relieving the onslaught as it forced Lewis to dodge around the beast.

"It's like the speed of Hermes and the might of Heracles in one." The woman stared in disbelief as she watched the skirmish happen right before her eyes. The ground beneath the two had been torn up past the dirt to the stone of the Labyrinth. The glass dome rattled and cracked from the reverberations of the air being ripped apart with every blow thrown by the small boy. Asterion was slowly being worn down, his jaw slack from being shattered over and over again. He no longer could lift his giant sword, as his arms were now useless. Asterion fell to his knees and Lewis stood still before him.

"You are a powerful creature, but you have committed atrocities that can never be forgiven. Don't blame yourself though, you're only half bull, the human part is what's wrong." Lewis spoke kindly to the minotaur. Lewis drew his fist back and began to charge the unruly energy into his fist.

"NOOO!" The woman screamed as she ran towards the minotaur, tears in her eyes. Electricity sparked from the closed fist of the boy, and faster than the eye could blink, Lewis thrust his fist through the minotaurs heart, flashing like a lightning blast from the sky. The glass dome shattered and the thunderclap shook the mortar of the Labyrinth walls, sending it down like sandy rain. The glass fell around the once beautiful little area, but the devastation from the battle had destroyed everything. The trees had fallen, the stream was full of debris, the cabin razed and the ground itself was torn up from the shockwaves. The minotaur had a hole in his chest the size of a truck tire, his blood painted the area around him red. He was officially slain, no credit to Thesseus, but rather whatever divine intervention allowed such a feat. The woman fell to her knees, glass dug into them and released blood that trickled slowly around her.

"You… you killed him? You killed my boy… my beautiful son!" The woman cried.

"So you are Pasiphae, Queen of Crete, wife to King Minos, mother of The Minotaur. None of this made any sense, but now that the boss is slain, I can go back right?" Lewis sighed, the energy left him and he returned to normal, just overly tired.

"No. You can't return until you find the center of the Labyrinth where Ariadne's thread is being held. But, you won't make it there. I won't let you live! But, I can't beat you the way you are, so I'll make it so you can never reach the center!" Pasiphae shouted as she gathered a strange energy around her before she slammed it down into the ground. Within a blink, Lewis was back in the clearing he had started at, but the entrance was closed. Lewis walked up to it, used the black ants blessing, and punched the wall. It broke, but instantly fixed itself with the same glowing energy that Pasiphae used.

"Oh come on!" Lewis shouted.

***

Lewis was leaning against the wall, several days had passed and he was starved. No matter how many times he broke the wall down, he was never able to make it through its instantaneous regeneration. He stared up exhaustedly at the sky above him, wishing to simply go back to earth. As he did so, the wall behind him crumbled to dust and he fell backwards, still staring up, but now it was at the pale and haggard face of Pasiphae. She held a curved dagger in her hand and began to stab down at Lewis's chest. Lewis was a tad bit faster as he activated the vines and bound her up in a t-pose.

"How! How do you hold so much power even when you're at death's door?" Pasiphae screamed with tears streaming down her face. Lewis unsheathed his sword and cut her head off without changing his expression.

"My willpower is superior to yours." Lewis replied as he sheathed the bloodied blade. Blood had splattered on his face, but he remained unbothered. His goal was to simply make it to the center of the Labyrinth.

"You fool! I'm an immortal goddess! I'll just reattach my head to my body!" Pasiphae continued her shrieking. Lewis turned around, hellfire in his hand as he simply burned the body, then he picked up the head.

"And? I'll just burn it to dust. What can a mere head do to me without its body?" Lewis stared into Pasiphae's eyes, no amount of mercy could be seen in his cold steel eyes.

"You're a monster-"

"Shut the fuck up. You're so fucking cliche." Lewis slammed the head into the wall a few times out of irritation. Pasiphae's body lay crisped on the ground next to the entrance, but still twitched with life.

"Stop! Please! I'm sorry!" Pasiphae cried, her face bruised and bloodied, but still slowly regenerating.

"Hmm, put yourself together. An immortal that I can cut up as much as I want sounds entertaining." Lewis tossed the head at the body and waited until it was put back together. Pasiphae stood up shakily and naked. Her face red from embarrassment.

"Oh please, you're not attractive enough to feel so shameful." Lewis told her bluntly. Her face shifted through shame and rage upon hearing those words.

"I'm still a woman, at least give me that decency." Persiphae grumbled. Lewis took his ragged shirt off and tossed it at her. His bare torso now only protected by a dented and cracked breastplate.

"Find your own pants and shoes. And be quick about it, the smell of burnt fish is not something I'm keen on catching a whiff of." Lewis turned and began walking.

"You bastard! I'm cleaner than you are!" Pasiphae yelled back in disdain.

"Yeah, says the one that fucked a bull and gave birth to a monstrosity. I think you may be overestimating your cleanliness." Lewis shot back without hesitation.

"Fucked a bull? Is that what was passed down in history? That is so far wrong, it's gross. Asterion was an offspring of me and Minos, but Minos had the White Bull Blessing active… they really say I had mated with a bull? How vulgar!" Pasiphae gasped and explained as she followed along with Lewis.

"Oh, right, this world." Lewis sighed as he remembered he wasn't on his earth.

"Minos was so ashamed of the birth, he hid the fact Asterion was ever conceived? That rotten low down piece of shit! He had this Labyrinth created for Asterion to be entertained as well as to hunt! Are you saying he was just pretending to be devastated at our son's death? Oooh, if he was still alive…" Pasiphae mumbled and rambled. Lewis kept his mouth shut, the sudden realization that mythology in this world may be in fact truthful history.

"Are you aware of gates? Or dungeons then?" Lewis asked the woman.

"Of course, I'm not an immortal goddess in name only you know. Dungeons appeared centuries before I was born, so they've been a part of my culture for generations. Gates were rare, honestly this was the only gate I've ever been aware of." Pasiphae replied haughtily. Lewis stabbed her in the throat, catching her off guard, but also causing great pain. She was immortal, but she still felt pain. Her gurgled screaming proved that point. Lewis sheathed the blade and continued.

"Don't act like you're above me. It irritates me." Lewis smiled in amusement. Pasiphae had a pale look on her face, she perhaps should have let the boy go instead of tormenting him. None of her magic had any effect on him. No charms intoxicated him in her beauty, and no curses fully befell him. It was as if he was being protected by greater forces.