[Chapter 203. The Echoes of Absence]

Searanox returned to the inner city, his sleek magitech drone flying rapidly over the outermost walls of Androxis without slowing down for a fraction of a second as it descended. It flew right into the massive, domed building where the Gates of Tartarus stood. With a fluid, practiced motion honed by countless dismounts, he slid seamlessly off the sleek metal chassis just as it dissolved into shimmering particles, instantly returning to his drone storage. A sharp, metallic tang lingered briefly in the air.

"Have you waited for my approval to enter?" he demanded, his deep voice directed at the four young women standing nervously in front of the imposing gate. They were staring intensely at its opulent, terrifying design, the weeping angel and the grim reaper wings of the gate casting their silent judgment over them. His voice was incredibly cold, cutting through the silence of the massive chamber.

Lana and Sarah turned around abruptly, looking at him as he drew closer. Their movements were incredibly stiff, locked with a palpable tension he could easily feel radiating from meters away.

"No," Lana said in a somewhat quiet, trembling tone, her eyes briefly darting toward the swirling green portal before locking back onto his armored chest, a deep flicker of unease in their depths. "Actually, we are still waiting for Iris to return."

"She isn't back by now? How long ago did she enter?" The question was a sharp razor's edge, his patience already worn incredibly thin by the day's endless bureaucratic nonsense.

Carmen, who was playing nervously with the frayed hem of her tunic, her terrified gaze fixed strictly on the polished marble floor ever since he made himself known, flinched at his harsh tone. "About five hours." Her voice was barely a fragile whisper, the words hanging like lead weights in the air.

Searanox stopped dead in his tracks, his body going unnaturally still.

"Five hours.... It's quite unusual for a single beast," he muttered, immediately stepping past the four women. His shadow fell over them like a physical weight. The low hum of the labyrinth portal seemed to intensify, mirroring his rapidly rising agitation.

Vanessa took a sudden, bold step forward, standing now right behind his broad back. Her hands were fiercely clenched into tight fists at her sides, her knuckles white. She was trying to weaponize her corporate courage.

"Lord Searanox, we have to talk," she stated in a forced, highly confident voice.

But just as the words left her lips, his dark figure vanished. He had stepped directly into the churning vortex without a single backward glance. He was swallowed by the green-blue maw of the Gate, her words entirely lost and rendered meaningless in the roaring silence of the portal's wake.

His boots crunched down on the hard, sun-baked ground of the first floor, the sharp sound swallowed by the vast emptiness. He looked briefly over his shoulder, a frown creasing his brow. He was sure he had heard something at the exact moment he stepped into the turning maelstrom. A faint, almost imperceptible whisper; a flicker of sound on the absolute edge of his hearing.

With a dismissive, impatient shrug of his shoulders, he flexed his leg muscles. The densely enhanced fibers in his calves coiled tightly with raw, explosive power, and he shot forward like an artillery shell toward the colossal black tree in the far distance. A trail of dust and upturned earth flew up high into the air behind him with each long, ground-eating step he took, his armored form a dark blur of motion against the desolate landscape.

At the same time, five sleek, teardrop-shaped recon drones came into existence, fanning out with even greater, speed. Their polished metallic forms glinted sharply in the harsh, white light of the sky. They shot off in different directions, their advanced lenses scanning the vast expanse with mechanical efficiency.

Within mere minutes, he stood at the base of the blackened tree, its petrified bark forming an imposing silhouette against the washed-out sky.

The sudden, feral snarling sound of one of the Ridgeback Ravagers broke his train of thought. It was a wet, guttural growl that was almost instantly upon him as the beast lunged. Before the spiked hound could even attempt to sink its fangs into his flesh, his armored fist collided squarely with its ribcage.

The impact caved the beast in completely with a sickening, wet crunch, sending the heavy monster flying backward from where it had just leaped. It hit the rocky ground as a broken, bloody heap.

"I don't have time to play around with the likes of you," he said coldly, his deep voice devoid of any emotion.

Two crescent-moon-shaped drones flickered into existence beside his shoulders, their curved surfaces reflecting the sun above. The crimson light of their beam cannons lit up his immediate surroundings in rapid, rhythmic pulses.

He closed his eyes briefly, and went over the memories of the five drones he had sent out ahead. He instantly saw the vast expanse of the Labyrinth's first floor. He saw the Striders grazing peacefully, utterly oblivious to the danger lurking deeper within the floor. Another memory showed him a vicious pack of Ravagers violently tearing a small, isolated herd of them apart, a brutal display of nature's savage hierarchy.

Searanox rapidly combed through all the memories from his drones searching for any trace of her. Any sign of her passage. Any flash of her turquoise blade. But nothing showed him what he was looking for. The absence of her presence was a gaping, terrifying void. A deafening scream of silence in his mind.

He turned sharply toward the tree and balled his hands into tight fists. The reinforced joints of his fingers popped loudly, sounding like brittle twigs snapping under immense pressure.

"Don't tell me..." his voice was a low, vibrating growl that physically made the earth around him tremble, a cold tremor traveling rapidly up through the soles of his boots.

With an explosive motion, the dense ground beneath his boots splintered and cracked as he dashed blindly into the lightless, subterranean depths beneath the tree. His boots were sliding down the steep, earthen descent much more than he was actually running. The intense friction of rough earth against his soles was the only thing keeping him upright as gravity pulled him downward. He entered the cavernous interior within a fraction of the time it had taken him during his first, cautious delve. His vastly enhanced agility allowing him to perfectly control his descent.

His gaze instantly fixed on the bright, pulsing beam of emerald green light that clashed against the high earthen ceiling of the chamber in front of him. It was a pulsating beacon cutting sharply through the darkness.

`The Floor Guardian was clearly dead. But that absolutely didn't mean that she was okay.`

He had no idea how the Basilisk's petrification functioned. `Was the petrification instantaneous? Did it take a few seconds, or even slow minutes to fully turn living flesh to stone? What were the long-term effects? Could it have been partially resisted by her beast-kin physiology?` The unanswered questions flew wildly through his accelerated mind, each one a sharp needle prick of anxiety piercing his carefully controlled exterior.

"IRIS!" he bellowed into the heavy darkness. His roaring voice echoed deafeningly off the cavern walls and the massive, overlapping roots like thunder.

He simultaneously recalled his recon drones from the surface, instantly summoning them right back to his side. They reappeared one after another, shimmering into existence with soft, pulsing blue light, flying off without a millisecond of delay into the sprawling maze of twisting roots that crisscrossed the cavern floor like skeletal fingers reaching up from the grave.

He dashed forward after waiting only a single second for a response that never came. He jumped over the incredibly thick roots that blocked his direct path with inhuman, fluid grace, running frantically along them deeper into the labyrinthine interior. The stagnant air grew noticeably cooler and damper the deeper he plunged, carrying the metallic tang of freshly spilled blood mixed with the earthy scent of damp stone.

The moment one of his drones finally found something of enough worth to ping him, his heart dropped heavily into his stomach.

Within a single heartbeat, his boots slid over the rough, stony bark of the root he was sprinting on, changing his trajectory with impossible speed. With a powerful, thundering leap, he landed right next to a shattered root and an enormous crater gouged into the earthen ground.

His sharp eyes rapidly peered over the immediate blast area. He saw absolutely nothing but the tell-tale signs of a battle. His recon drone flew a tight, scanning circle overhead, reporting absolutely nothing else of interest, its advanced sensors detecting only the fading, traces of a massive magical discharge.

`It doesn't appear like an extended fight had transpired here.`

The thought was a very hollow comfort as he meticulously noted the physical signs. `There was a single, devastating impact crater, rather than a protracted, messy struggle. This meant only one thing: she executed an incredibly efficient kill.`

His intense gaze drifted slowly over toward the pulsing beam of green light in the near distance. All his deployed drones were already rapidly making their way toward the three-sided pyramid that generated the light, their metallic forms flocking like moths drawn irresistibly to a flame.

As he finally reached the glowing structure, he realized that neither he nor his drones had seen even a single trace of Iris's physical body or her sword.

"She wouldn't enter the second floor without my approval... Have I just simply missed her?" he muttered quietly, his voice laced with a uncertainty.

He slowly reached his armored hand out for the glowing, metallic spike protruding from the center of the pyramid. His fingers brushed against the ancient metal.