CHAPTER — THE SAINT’S LIMIT
(Finn’s Group, Knossos Battle Artery)
Knossos didn’t feel like a labyrinth.
It felt like a courtroom.
Every corridor a verdict.
Every turn a sentence.
Every silence a judge waiting for them to flinch.
Finn moved at the front with Gareth, spear angled low, eyes scanning the stone like it might blink. Behind them, the formation held tight: shields, support, runners, and in the center like a protected flame, Airmid and her medical unit.
Airmid’s hands were already stained.
Not from this fight.
From the last one.
From the bolt that didn’t want to heal.
From the truth she hated most in Knossos:
Humans didn’t just try to kill you here.
They tried to teach you despair.
Finn raised a fist.
Stop.
The corridor ahead was straight. Too straight. Torches on the walls. Too even. A clean path in a place built to confuse was never mercy.
It was bait.
Gareth sniffed once. “Oil.”
Finn nodded. “And blood.”
Airmid’s voice came soft from behind him. “That’s not monster blood.”
Finn’s thumb throbbed.
Then the sound came.
A gentle clink.
Like a spoon tapping glass.
A childish laugh followed.
And then a voice, playful and wrong, echoed from somewhere in the stone.
“Captain Finn… do you know what happens when a healer runs out of prayers?”
Airmid went rigid.
Finn’s eyes sharpened.
“Move,” he ordered. “Slow. Eyes up. No one breaks line.”
They took three steps.
And the floor answered.
1. The Human Trap
A sigil ignited under their boots, not bright like magic, but dark, like ink catching fire.
A restriction field slammed down.
Not a barrier.
A weight.
It didn’t stop movement. It made every movement cost double. Limbs heavy, breath short, muscles suddenly unfamiliar.
One of the younger fighters stumbled.
Another tried to step forward to catch him—
And a wire line snapped.
A thin filament, invisible until it moved.
WHIP-CRACK.
It lashed across the man’s arm and the skin… didn’t cut.
It peeled.
Not off like meat.
Off like paper.
He screamed.
Airmid lurched instinctively to reach him.
Finn’s voice snapped like a spear point. “DON’T MOVE, AIRMID!”
Too late.
The moment she stepped into the field, the sigils pulsed.
A second set of runes flared.
And Airmid felt it.
A cold hook behind her eyes.
A forced whisper in her skull:
Heal him. Heal him. Heal him. You can’t.
Her breath hitched.
Her healing magic didn’t vanish.
It turned sluggish, like trying to pour honey through a needle.
“Anti-healing curse,” she whispered, horrified. “This is… this is forbidden.”
Gareth’s jaw clenched so hard his beard bristled. “They’re targetin’ the saint.”
Finn’s eyes flicked to the walls.
Torches.
Evenly spaced.
A stage.
“Shields!” Finn barked.
The torches popped open.
Not with flame.
With mouths.
Hidden ports in the stone exhaled smoke.
Not poison.
Worse.
Despair incense.
A subtle curse-laced vapor designed to turn courage into nausea.
Airmid’s fingers trembled.
Someone behind her started crying. Quiet. Uncontrolled. Like a child who couldn’t stop.
Then the arrows came.
Not from monsters.
From slots cut into the walls.
Bolts tipped with black lacquer that shimmered like wet ash.
Finn’s spear moved on instinct, deflecting one.
It still burned his gauntlet.
“Curse bolts!” he shouted. “Cover your eyes! Don’t inhale!”
Gareth took three into his shield and still stepped forward, roaring.
“COME OUT AND FIGHT, YE RATS!”
And the rats did.
2. Evilus Shows Its Face
They poured from hidden doors and ceiling hatches in layers, like the labyrinth had been pregnant with them.
Humans.
Not trained soldiers.
Fanatics.
Some wore masks made of stitched leather. Some had brands burned into their cheeks. Some carried tools instead of weapons: hooked chains, saw-toothed wire, hand-cranked devices that hummed with cursed energy.
They didn’t rush in to win.
They rushed in to hurt.
One Evilus man slammed a canister onto the ground. It shattered.
A spray of glittering dust erupted.
Airmid’s eyes widened.
“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” she shouted.
Too late. A blade fighter inhaled.
His veins blackened instantly.
He screamed and fell, convulsing.
Airmid dropped to her knees beside him, hands already glowing—
And her magic sputtered.
Not failed.
Fought something that refused to be healed.
The curse in the dust was designed like a lock with no key.
Airmid’s voice cracked. “It’s eating his blood… it’s rewriting his body’s acceptance of healing…”
Finn stabbed an attacker through the throat and didn’t even look away from the fight.
“Airmid. Tell me what you need.”
Airmid swallowed panic.
“Time,” she whispered. “I need time.”
Finn’s eyes went colder.
“Alright listen up everyone we are going to buy time so that she can figure out a way to heal them.”
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3. Finn’s Shell Formation Breaks
“DEFENSIVE SHELL!” Finn commanded.
They tightened into a moving circle, shields outward, Airmid in the center like the heart of a beast.
Evilus laughed.
A woman’s voice called out from the dark.
“You’re doing it wrong, Finn. Shells crack when you tap the same place.”
A whistle.
A click.
A pressure rune ignited under the rear line.
A shockwave punched upward and lifted two shields just enough for blades to slip in.
A man screamed as a hooked chain ripped through his thigh and dragged him backward, screaming, into a hidden slit in the wall.
Not killed.
Taken.
The scream didn’t stop immediately.
It faded.
Like someone was muffling his mouth.
Airmid looked up, face gone pale.
They weren’t just killing.
They were collecting suffering.
Finn’s voice lowered.
“Gareth.”
“Aye.”
“Break the wall.”
Gareth grinned with blood on his teeth. “Finally.”
He slammed his axe into the stone where the man had been pulled.
Once. Twice.
The wall didn’t crack.
It sang.
A curse resonance layer.
Evilus had reinforced the labyrinth itself.
Gareth’s grin vanished.
“Cheatin’ bastards.”
Finn’s thumb throbbed again.
Harder.
He felt it:
They weren’t trying to stop them.
They were trying to stall them.
Stall them long enough for something else to happen somewhere else.
4. Airmid’s Breaking Point
The convulsing fighter in Airmid’s arms started to go still.
Her eyes widened.
“No no no—stay—stay with me—”
She pushed healing magic harder.
The anti-healing curse pushed back like a hand on her throat.
Airmid’s lips trembled.
Not fear.
Rage.
Holy light flared brighter.
Her voice became sharp, furious, almost ugly in its devotion.
“I do not lose you to filth like this.”
The glow fought.
For a moment, it looked like she’d win.
Then Evilus did something vile.
A man hurled a small object into the center of their formation.
It landed at Airmid’s feet with a soft, innocent sound.
A toy bell.
A child’s bell.
It rang once.
And with that ring came a whisper curse targeted at healers:
Every patient you save will die later anyway.
So stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Airmid’s hands shook violently.
Finn saw it.
His eyes sharpened.
He killed the nearest Evilus with one thrust and shouted:
“Airmid! Look at me!”
She did.
Tears in her eyes.
Finn’s voice was ice.
“Anchor.”
Airmid swallowed.
“…Anchor.”
“Name.”
“Dian Cecht,” she whispered, like a prayer spoken through gritted teeth.
Finn nodded once.
“Good. Stay.”
And he turned back to the battlefield.
“We’re done bleeding don't let them scare you anymore.”
5. Finn’s Counterplay
Finn slammed his spear butt into the floor.
“Frontline, split corridor. Don’t chase. Don’t panic. We cut the hands, not the bait.”
Gareth roared and surged forward, not at the enemies, but at the trap ports, smashing the torches, ripping the covers off the wall slots with brute strength.
The moment the ports opened fully, Evilus panicked.
Not because their ambush failed.
Because their toys were being taken away.
Finn used that.
He moved like a needle through cloth, weaving between shield edges, striking precisely at wrists, tendons, weapon hands.
No wasted motion.
No heroics.
Just surgery.
Evilus fell screaming.
And in the dim smoke, Finn heard it.
A laugh.
Not Valletta’s.
Something calmer.
Smarter.
“Good,” the unseen voice murmured, pleased. “Now you’re learning.”
Finn’s spine chilled.
Enyo.
Or one of Enyo’s eyes.
The air shifted.
The restriction field loosened.
Not because they beat it.
Because Evilus was finished with this “lesson.”
They were letting Finn advance.
Because deeper down…
They had something prepared that would hurt more.
6. The Exit That Feels Like a Threat
The last Evilus fighter didn’t run.
He stood at the far end of the corridor, face bleeding, smiling.
And he spoke softly, like sharing gossip.
“Your healer’s light is pretty.”
Airmid looked up.
The man continued.
“We’re going to see how long it stays pretty.”
Then he slit his own throat.
Not from devotion.
From spite.
From the joy of making them watch.
His blood hit the floor.
The blood ignited the final rune.
A door opened ahead with a grinding sound.
Not an escape.
An invitation.
Finn’s eyes narrowed.
Gareth spat to the side. “That’s not a door. That’s a dare.”
Airmid stood slowly, exhausted, hands still glowing faintly as she stabilized the convulsing fighter enough to breathe again.
She looked at Finn.
“I can keep going,” she said.
But her voice admitted the truth:
I don’t know how long.
Finn nodded once.
“Then we keep you alive.”
He lifted his spear.
“All units,” he said quietly. “This was not their main force.”
He stepped toward the open passage.
“And it was not their worst cruelty.”
The corridor beyond breathed cold air onto their faces like a mouth exhaling.
And somewhere far below, something answered with a soft metallic sound.
Like a spoon tapping glass.
Like laughter in the dark.
