The blinding, chaotic neon lights of the stadium cut out abruptly, plunging the arena into a sudden, heavy darkness.
A single, harsh, clinical white spotlight snapped on.
It illuminated a cramped, dimly lit room that looked suspiciously like a backstage confession booth for a cheap reality television show.
Cedric sat in the center of the room on a flimsy, cheap plastic folding chair.
He looked exhausted, his black t-shirt soaked and clinging to his frame from the brutal Aquatic Grand Prix, his expression calm but distant.
"Challenger Cedric," a disembodied, heavily synthesized voice echoed from hidden speakers.
"You suffered a crushing defeat by a mere two inches. The cosmic audience demands to know: is your spirit broken?"
Cedric stared blankly into the unblinking glass lens of the camera drone.
"No," Cedric replied simply.
"What is your overarching strategy moving forward into the next trial?" the robotic voice prompted, seeking drama.
"Just… finish it?" Cedric said quietly.
BZZZT.
The spotlight now illuminated Bob.
Bob stood at rigid, perfect military attention, completely ignoring the fact that his diamond plating from the last match had entirely shattered.
[I AM BOB. THE CAPTAIN REQUIRES VICTORY. I WILL CRUSH THE NEXT OBSTACLE WITH MY BARE HANDS.]
BZZZT.
The camera cut to Jerry.
Jerry was a trembling, rapidly vibrating puddle of wet sand, practically sobbing.
[I HATE THE WATER. I HATE THE NOISE. PLEASE TELL ME WE ARE GOING SOMEWHERE DRY AND QUIET.]
BZZZT.
The camera cut to Tim.
Tim was aggressively attempting to dig through the metal floor grating with his pink plastic shovel.
[PLEASE DON'T ASK ME ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED EARLIER.]
BZZZT.
The massive jumbotrons above the arena blinked off the interview feed and returned to broadcasting the live arena.
The pristine white sand of the arena floor began to violently tremble.
The artificial ocean drained away in an instant, sucked down into massive, hidden grates beneath the stadium.
The stadium's underlying architecture groaned with a deafening, metallic shriek.
High above, the VIP boxes illuminated with a harsh, glaring brilliance, the cosmic entities leaning forward, hungry for the next phase of the mortal's torment.
[Joyful]: "Haha~ What a shame, I thought the kid had won."
A raspy, echoing voice completely detached from any physical form spoke from a box shrouded entirely in shifting black fog.
[Rider]: "300,000 Void Coins on the Dealer's new team."
A cool, calculating, and perfectly synthesized voice chimed in from a geometrically perfect cube of blue neon light.
[Observer]: "200,000 Void Coins on the boy."
A massive entity, seemingly made of interconnected gears, cogs, and structural blueprints, hummed with a deep, vibrating approval.
[Architect]: "400,000 Void Coins on the Dealer."
A flamboyant silhouette, constantly flipping a glowing, golden coin that defied gravity, laughed maniacally from across the VIP tier.
[Gambler]: "I lost my shirt on the last race, but a true gambler never walks away from a hot table! 500,000 Void Coins on Cedric! Give me a miracle, kid!"
A hulking, wide entity that seemed to passively devour the ambient light around it spoke with a deep, rumbling, wet hunger.
[Glutton]: "I bet 250,000 Void Coins on Dealer."
A figure composed entirely of weaving, glowing silver threads leaned closer to the transparent barrier of its box.
[Weaver]: "He is still learning. 150,000 on the kid."
A sharp, authoritative presence wielding a massive, spectral gavel slammed it down softly, creating a ripple in the air.
[Judge]: "200,000 on Cedric."
A hazy, cloud-like entity floated languidly within its box.
[Dreamer]: "Zzzzz."
And finally, a pitch-black void within a void, absolute, cold, and uncompromising, spoke just a single, chilling phrase.
[Abyss]: "400,000 on the Dealer."
The crowd surrounding them erupted into a deafening, bloodthirsty cheer.
"OWAHHH! CRUSH HIM! RAHHHHH!!!" the holographic audience roared, their voices blending into a terrifying crescendo.
The Dealer's amplified, manic laughter drowned out the lingering, heavy echoes of the cosmic bets.
He stood at the very edge of his hovering commentary booth, his mirrored sunglasses reflecting the violent restructuring of the arena below.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! ENTITIES OF ALL REALMS!" The Dealer roared into his golden microphone, his voice dripping with sadistic glee.
"We have tested their speed! We have tested their strength!"
"Now, we test their spatial awareness, their acrobatic prowess, and their ability to outrun the very fabric of shifting reality!"
"Welcome to GAME 3: THE CLOCKWORK LABYRINTH!"
"RAHHHHH!!! THE LABYRINTH!!! YEEAAAHHH!!!" the crowd shrieked in unadulterated ecstasy.
Down on the arena floor, massive, monolithic blocks of sleek grey concrete, tempered glass, and grinding neon gears erupted from the ground.
They rose hundreds of feet into the air, twisting, locking, and forming a colossal, hyper-complex parkour maze.
It wasn't a flat maze. It was fully three-dimensional, a chaotic, towering jungle gym of narrow ledges, deep chasms, and precarious platforms.
"The rules of Game 3 are entirely different!" The Dealer bellowed, the crowd falling silent in rapt attention.
"This is not a race to a finish line! This is a hunt!"
High above the center of the labyrinth, a blinding, golden chalice materialized, hovering in the air.
"The objective is simple! The first person to physically grasp the Holy Grail claims absolute victory for their team!"
"But... the Grail is shy! It does not wish to be caught!"
"Every five seconds, precisely on the dot, the Holy Grail will instantly teleport! And it will always calculate the positions of all players, teleporting to the physical location furthest away from the person closest to it!"
Cedric's expression remained perfectly neutral. A fleeing target. He didn't care about the glory of catching it, he just needed to secure the win to get this over with.
"Furthermore!" The Dealer continued, spreading his arms wide.
"This is a living labyrinth! Do not get comfortable!"
"Every ten seconds, the entire structural layout of the arena will violently mutate! It will not simply disappear and reappear!"
"The concrete blocks will bend! The axes will rotate! Entire corridors will twist like a demonic puzzle box!"
"If you are caught between two shifting blocks... if you miscalculate your jump when the floor rotates... you will be instantly crushed into a fine paste and eliminated!"
The crowd let out a massive, collective "OWAHHHH!" at the prospect of the executions.
The Dealer paused, letting the sheer pressure of the rules sink into the minds of the spectators.
"And finally... the new mechanics."
"Void Cubes and random items are entirely removed! There is no luck in the labyrinth!"
"Instead, every player has been equipped with a CHRONOBREAK!"
Cedric looked behind himself.
Trailing exactly eight seconds behind his current position was a faint, translucent, ghostly blue afterimage of himself, mimicking his past movements perfectly.
Bob, Jerry, and Tim all had identical glowing afterimages trailing behind them.
"At any moment, a player may activate their Chronobreak!" The Dealer explained, his grin predatory.
"Activating it will instantly teleport you back to your exact location from eight seconds ago!"
"It is a lifeline! A way to save yourself from a massive drop or a crushing wall!"
"BUT BE WARNED!"
"If the labyrinth shifts during those eight seconds, and your afterimage is currently inside a newly formed solid wall..."
"Activating Chronobreak will teleport you directly into solid matter! And you will be instantly eliminated!"
"Use it wisely! It has a strict fifteen-second cooldown!"
"But wait, there's more!" The Dealer grinned, adjusting his sunglasses.
"To keep the pace frenetic, you are also equipped with a secondary movement module: THE SLIP-DASH!"
"This is a minor spatial warp that thrusts you exactly five feet forward in any given direction! It cannot pass through solid walls or save you from a massive drop, but it boasts a lightning-fast cooldown of just two seconds!"
"Use it to dodge, use it to close the gap, but remember its limitations!"
Cedric absorbed the rules.
10-second terrain shift. 5-second Grail shift. 8-second spatial rewind. 15-second cooldown. Plus, a 5-foot forward Slip-Dash every 2 seconds.
It was a complex web of overlapping timers, but Cedric merely let out a quiet exhale. He could work with this.
"Now, to face our surviving challenger!" The Dealer yelled, pointing to a high ledge on the opposite side of the maze.
"Allow me to introduce the undisputed masters of movement! The kings of the urban jungle!"
"The ZENITH STRIDERS!"
"RAHHHHH! ZENITH! ZENITH! ZENITH! OWAHHH!!!" the audience chanted rhythmically.
Four incredibly lean, aerodynamic sand-golems materialized on the high ledge, crouching like predators.
They lacked the bulky, overwhelming mass of the previous teams. Their bodies were sleek, wrapped in tight, shifting sand that looked almost like athletic wear.
"Leading the hunt, the flawless free-runner... APEX!"
Apex was tall, its limbs unnaturally long, moving with the fluid, continuous grace of a ribbon catching the wind.
"The master of the rebound... RICOCHET!"
Ricochet was smaller, constantly bouncing from foot to foot, possessing legs constructed from highly compressed, spring-like sand.
"The gravity breaker... PLUMMET!"
Plummet had heavily reinforced, dense sand-boots, designed specifically to shatter glass floors and drop through levels of the maze.
"And the master of time... SHIFT!"
Shift's afterimage wasn't blue; it was a violent, erratic red, constantly flickering and twitching.
"And now that we've introduced the participants, let's get ready for the game to begin!!"
A massive, floating holographic clock materialized high above the center of the labyrinth, counting down in bright red.
10...
Cedric looked at his team.
Bob stood tall on a narrow concrete beam, observing the terrain with mechanical focus.
Jerry was hugging a concrete pillar for dear life, vibrating so fast he was slowly sanding the pillar down.
Tim had immediately dropped to his knees and was trying to dig a hole into the solid, impenetrable tempered glass floor.
9...
8...
7...
Cedric took a deep breath, blocking out the deafening roar of the cosmic crowd.
He bent his knees, finding his center of gravity. He looked up at the golden Grail floating two hundred feet above them.
6...
5...
'I have to count.'
4...
"GET READY!"
3...
2...
1...
0...
"HUNT!"
"YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!" the stadium exploded.
The whistle blew, a sharp, piercing shriek that cut through the stadium.
Instantly, Apex, Ricochet, Plummet, and Shift exploded into motion.
Ricochet launched himself off a wall, soaring forty feet across a chasm to grab a hanging pipe, swinging his body up with flawless momentum.
Apex ran vertically up a sheer glass wall, kicking off at the exact apex to land silently on a narrow steel beam.
They were impossibly fast.
Cedric bolted forward..
He sprinted down a narrow concrete corridor, his enhanced legs carrying him at superhuman speeds.
A metal pipe swung down from the ceiling to block his path.
Cedric instantly activated his Slip-Dash. His body blurred, warping exactly five feet forward, passing right through the empty space just beyond the pipe without breaking stride.
He vaulted effortlessly over a rising barricade, his hands barely touching the rough stone.
"One... two... three..." Cedric counted silently under his breath, tracking the Grail timer.
He glanced up. Apex was closing in on the Grail with terrifying speed.
Apex leaped off a massive gear, his hand extending toward the golden chalice.
"Four... five."
VWOOP.
The moment Apex's fingertips brushed the air, the Grail vanished in a flash of golden light.
It instantly reappeared on the exact opposite side of the massive arena, hovering near the ground level.
"THE GRAIL SHIFTS!" The Dealer roared. "APEX DENIED AT THE LAST SECOND!"
"OWAHHHHH!" the crowd collectively groaned in anticipation.
Cedric didn't stop moving.
"Six... seven... eight..." Cedric counted, switching his mental focus to the labyrinth timer.
He was running across a long, suspended glass bridge.
"Nine... ten."
KRRRRR-CLANK!
The entire labyrinth groaned with a sickening, mechanical roar.
The glass bridge Cedric was running on didn't just fall; it violently rotated ninety degrees on its central axis.
The floor instantly became a sheer vertical wall.
Cedric's momentum threw him sideways. He scrambled, his fingers slipping against the smooth glass. There was no purchase.
He was falling. Below him was a yawning, three-hundred-foot chasm filled with grinding metal gears.
"Cedric is falling!" The Dealer screamed.
"RAHHHHH! CRUSH HIM!" the spectators cheered.
Cedric looked at his trailing blue afterimage.
Because he had been running forward, his afterimage from eight seconds ago was currently positioned safely on the solid concrete platform before the glass bridge.
But Cedric didn't panic.
He activated the Chronobreak.
A sharp, digital rewinding sound echoed in his ears.
His physical body vanished from the chasm and instantly materialized precisely where his afterimage had been standing eight seconds prior.
He hit the solid concrete, rolling to a halt.
"FLAWLESS CHRONOBREAK BY CEDRIC!" The Dealer hollered.
Sandy's text flashed quickly.
[CHALLENGER CEDRIC UTILIZES THE REWIND MECHANIC WITH 0.4 SECONDS TO SPARE BEFORE TERMINAL VELOCITY.]
Cedric got up instantly. He couldn't stop.
But as he looked around, the devastation of the ten-second shift became apparent.
Ahead of Cedric, the ceiling suddenly groaned. A massive, solid block of concrete detached and plummeted directly into Cedric's path, threatening to seal the corridor and crush him.
Cedric's Slip-Dash was on cooldown. His Chronobreak would just put him back over the falling glass.
Bob, who had been charging along a parallel path, saw the scene. And he didn't hesitate.
Bob triggered his own Slip-Dash, warping exactly five feet forward directly under the falling monolith. He raised his thick, sandy arms, catching the million-ton block with his bare hands.
His structure began to crack instantly, but he held it up for exactly one point five seconds—just enough time for Cedric to dive underneath and slide to safety.
Bob looked down at Cedric as he passed and then the sheer weight completely pulverized him into a fine, powdery dust.
BEEP.
"BOB HAS BEEN CRUSHED! A TRUE SACRIFICE FOR THE CAPTAIN!" The Dealer hollered, highly entertained by the brutality.
"YEEEAAAAHHH!!!" the crowd roared.
Cedric rolled to his feet. "Thank you," he muttered quietly, not stopping his sprint.
He glanced to his right.
Tim hadn't just been cowering. He had actually used his pink plastic shovel to carve a functional, narrow escape tunnel through a thick concrete pillar, successfully bypassing the rotating floor trap.
Tim popped his head out on the other side, looking around with a faint glimmer of pride in his dim blue visor.
But his spatial awareness was severely lacking.
Plummet, the heavy-booted Zenith Strider, was currently executing a massive vertical drop from the level above.
Plummet didn't even aim for Tim; the elite golem simply needed a platform to break his fall and maintain his momentum. Plummet's reinforced boots slammed into the exact section of the walkway Tim had just crawled onto, utterly shattering the concrete like brittle glass.
Tim let out a startled, silent gasp as the ground disintegrated beneath him, sending him plummeting into the grinding gears below alongside the rubble.
BEEP.
"TIM ELIMINATED AS COLLATERAL DAMAGE! THE ZENITH STRIDERS DO NOT EVEN NOTICE THE GUY!" The Dealer laughed.
Jerry was somehow miraculously still alive. He had vibrated so hard that he had managed to wedge his liquid-sand form into a small, structural gap between two moving walls, hiding in absolute, paralyzing terror.
It was essentially Cedric against the four Zenith Striders.
The Grail had teleported to the lower levels. Cedric dove over the edge of his platform, sliding down a steep, angled concrete slope.
He hit the ground running.
"One... two..." he counted the Grail timer.
He saw Ricochet bounding off the walls, heading straight for the Grail's new position.
Ricochet was too fast. The golem launched off a pillar, flying horizontally like a bullet toward the golden cup.
"Three... four..."
Ricochet extended a hand.
"Five."
VWOOP.
The Grail vanished perfectly on cue, teleporting back to the high altitudes.
Ricochet grabbed empty air, tumbling into the wall.
"THE GRAIL ESCAPES AGAIN! YOU HAVE TO TIME YOUR INTERCEPTIONS PERFECTLY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!"
"Six... seven..." Cedric counted the maze timer, his lungs working smoothly to maintain his pace.
He was running through a narrow, enclosed corridor.
He saw Shift, the erratic golem, sprinting directly toward him from the opposite end of the corridor.
Shift wasn't trying to fight. He was running past Cedric to get to a higher vantage point.
"Eight... nine..." Cedric counted.
He looked at the walls of the corridor. He noticed deep, heavy scrape marks on the floor, suggesting the walls were designed to slam together.
"Ten."
KRRRRR-CLANK!
The walls of the corridor violently snapped shut, racing toward each other with crushing force.
Cedric was perfectly in the center. He didn't have time to run out either end.
He looked at his Chronobreak interface. The 15-second cooldown was still active. He had five seconds left before he could rewind.
He couldn't use it.
The walls were inches away.
Cedric dropped to the ground, throwing his body entirely flat against the floor, calculating that the walls wouldn't scrape the absolute bottom.
SLAM!
The massive concrete walls collided violently directly above Cedric's prone body. The gap between the floor and the crushed walls was barely eight inches high.
Cedric was trapped, but he was fine.
Shift, however, had miscalculated.
The erratic golem had tried to outrun the closing walls. He was a fraction of a second too slow.
The walls caught Shift's torso, instantly crushing the sand construct into a pulverized explosion of dust.
BEEP.
"SHIFT HAS BEEN CRUSHED! THE MAZE CLAIMS ITS FIRST CHAMPION!" The Dealer roared.
"RAHHHHH!!!! OWAHHH!!!!" the crowd cheered in visceral excitement.
[TEAM DEALER REDUCED TO 75%. THE LABYRINTH IS UNFORGIVING TO FAILURES.] Sandy typed out, her neon letters glowing brightly.
The walls retracted slowly.
Cedric scrambled to his feet, dusting himself off from Shift's destruction.
His Chronobreak cooldown finally reset, glowing a faint blue.
He had to get higher. The Grail was hovering near the stadium's ceiling.
He sprinted toward a series of suspended, moving platforms.
"One... two... three..."
A large gap presented itself between the next two platforms, too wide for a normal jump.
Cedric sprinted, leaped off the edge, and instantly triggered Slip-Dash. His body warped exactly five feet forward in mid-air, allowing him to safely grab the opposing ledge.
He vaulted off a railing, catching the edge of a rising block. He pulled himself up efficiently.
He looked across the arena.
Apex and Plummet were working together.
Plummet leaped into the air, using his heavy sand-boots to utterly shatter a massive glass bridge that spanned the center of the arena.
The shattering glass created a chaotic rain of sharp debris, but more importantly, it created a massive, open vertical shaft.
Apex didn't hesitate. The agile golem leaped into the shaft, wall-running horizontally in a tight spiral up the inside of the circular opening, defying gravity with sheer velocity.
Apex was rocketing toward the Grail.
"Four... five."
VWOOP.
The Grail vanished.
Cedric tracked the flash of light.
It reappeared on a precarious, spinning gear directly above a massive chasm, roughly fifty feet away from Cedric's current position.
Cedric didn't pause. He launched himself off the rising block, soaring through the air.
He landed heavily on a narrow metal pipe, balancing perfectly, and immediately sprinted along it like a tightrope walker.
"Six... seven... eight..."
He was getting closer to the spinning gear. He could see the golden glow of the Grail illuminating the surrounding concrete.
"Nine... ten."
KRRRRR-CLANK!
The maze shifted.
The metal pipe Cedric was running on suddenly retracted sharply into the wall, functioning like a massive piston.
Cedric was thrown forward into the empty air, plummeting toward the chasm below.
He looked back. His blue afterimage was currently hovering in the empty air where the pipe used to be.
If he used Chronobreak now, he would just teleport back into thin air and continue falling.
He had to wait.
He fell for two seconds, the wind roaring in his ears.
He watched his afterimage trail behind him, falling exactly as he did.
Then, below him, a massive, solid concrete platform slid out from the wall, entirely covering the chasm.
Cedric hit the platform hard, rolling to absorb the impact, bruising his shoulder.
He ignored the pain and looked up.
Apex had already adjusted. The golem was leaping from spinning gear to spinning gear, closing in on the Grail with terrifying speed.
Cedric scrambled to his feet.
He ran toward a sheer vertical wall that led up to the Grail's gear.
He didn't try to climb it; it was too smooth.
Instead, he looked at his Chronobreak afterimage.
It was currently positioned down on the solid platform where he had just landed.
Cedric already had a plan in mind.
"One... two... three..." he counted the Grail timer.
He ran straight at the sheer wall. He leaped, planting his feet firmly against the smooth concrete, and pushed off as hard as he could, launching himself backward into the empty abyss.
"He's jumping into the void?" [Observer] said from the VIP box.
Cedric was falling backward, completely untethered.
"Four..."
He watched the Grail. Apex was inches away from grabbing it.
"Five."
VWOOP.
The Grail vanished from the gear.
Because Cedric was currently in mid-air, falling away from the center, the system calculated him as the furthest player.
The Grail teleported instantly.
It reappeared hovering in the empty air, exactly in the space where Cedric had leaped from the wall.
Cedric was currently fifty feet below it, plummeting toward the bottom.
But he didn't panic.
He looked at his blue afterimage.
Because he had leaped from the wall eight seconds ago, his afterimage was currently positioned perfectly at the apex of his jump, right next to the wall, exactly where the Grail now hovered.
Cedric slammed his hand against his side and activating the Chronobreak.
ZZZ-WRRRYP!
Cedric vanished from the abyss.
He instantly materialized high in the air, exactly where he had been eight seconds ago.
He was face to face with the floating golden Grail.
"HE BAITED THE TELEPORT!" The Dealer roared, completely losing his mind. "HE USED THE CHRONOBREAK OFFENSIVELY! WHAT A MASTERPIECE OF SPATIAL AWARENESS!"
"RAHHHHH!!! HE'S GOT IT! OWAHHH!!!" the crowd lost its collective mind.
Sandy's text flashed in a blinding strobe of pure hype.
[HOLY. CRAP. THE CHALLENGER JUST MANIPULATED THE SPAWN ALGORITHM USING HIS OWN TIMELINE AS A BAIT VECTOR!]
[Gambler]: "YES! YES! I KNEW HE HAD IT IN HIM! TAKE THE CUP, BOY!"
Cedric hung in the air, gravity suspended for a brief, glorious fraction of a second.
He reached out his hand, his fingers spreading wide, brushing the warm, golden surface of the Holy Grail.
"Six... seven..." Cedric counted quietly out of pure habit.
Suddenly, a loud, terrified shriek echoed from directly above him.
Cedric glanced up.
That was Jerry.
Jerry had been hiding in a structural gap directly above Cedric's position.
When the maze shifted ten seconds ago, Jerry's hiding spot had begun to compress.
In an absolute, blind, mindless panic, the cowardly sand construct had slammed his own Chronobreak button, hoping to escape the crushing walls.
Jerry rewound eight seconds into the past.
But eight seconds ago, Jerry had been wildly leaping across the gap, trying to find a new hiding spot.
And unfortunately Jerry's afterimage was positioned directly in the empty air right above where the Grail had just spawned.
Jerry materialized out of his Chronobreak, falling like a heavy, vibrating sack of wet sand.
Cedric's fingers curled around the stem of the Grail.
SLAM.
Jerry plummeted directly onto Cedric's shoulders with his entire physical mass.
The massive, unexpected kinetic impact entirely derailed Cedric's suspended momentum.
Cedric was violently slammed downward.
His fingers slipped off the golden surface of the Grail, missing a firm grip by less than an inch.
He tumbled through the air, Jerry clinging to his head in pure terror, shrieking loudly.
They crashed heavily onto a concrete platform fifty feet below, rolling painfully across the rough stone.
"HE DROPPED IT! HE WAS INTERFERED WITH BY HIS OWN TEAMMATE!" The Dealer shrieked.
The stadium erupted in a chaotic cacophony of groans, boos, and sadistic laughter.
"BOOOOO!!! TRAGIC! GYAHAHAHA!!!"
[Joyful]: "OH, THE TRAGEDY! THE ABSOLUTE, HILARIOUS TRAGEDY! SABOTAGED BY HIS OWN COWARDLY ALLY!"
Cedric scrambled to his knees, his vision swimming.
He looked up.
Apex, the fluid, flawless Zenith Strider was there.
Apex didn't run. He simply activated his own Chronobreak.
Eight seconds ago, Apex had been leaping toward the Grail's previous position, perfectly aligned with its new spawn point.
Apex materialized in the air, his long, sandy arm extended.
His hand clamped firmly around the golden stem of the Holy Grail.
TWEEEET!
A massive, final, echoing whistle blew, silencing the entire arena.
The golden Grail flashed brilliantly, illuminating the entire labyrinth in a blinding, victorious light.
"AND IT IS OVER!" The Dealer announced, his voice booming with finality.
"APEX SECURES THE GRAIL! THE ZENITH STRIDERS AND THE DEALER TAKE GAME THREE!"
"RAHHHHH! APEX! APEX!" the crowd cheered.
Sandy's text moved slowly, heavy with the weight of the moment.
[TEAM CEDRIC OFFICIALLY ELIMINATED FROM GAME 3. A PERFECTLY EXECUTED STRATEGIC MANEUVER FATALLY DISRUPTED BY UNPREDICTABLE ALLY INCOMPETENCE. WHAT A TRULY DEVASTATING LOSS.]
The colossal labyrinth immediately stopped grinding. The massive concrete blocks froze in place.
The Dealer teleported down to the platform where Cedric and Jerry lay.
The cosmic entities above jeered and cheered, counting their massive winnings and losses.
Cedric sat perfectly still on the cold concrete.
And he just stared at his empty hands. He had been so incredibly close. He had felt the warmth of the gold.
Jerry slowly untangled himself from Cedric.
The cowardly sand construct backed away slowly, his entire body shaking so violently that he was actively losing large clumps of sand, shrinking before their eyes.
Jerry looked up at Cedric, his glowing yellow visor wide with pure, absolute horror and crushing guilt.
Jerry knew what he had done. He had panicked. He had pressed the button blindly. He had ruined everything.
Bob, having been miraculously restored by the arena's end-game magic, teleported onto the platform.
Bob didn't look angry. Bob simply walked over to Cedric and offered a hand to help him up.
Tim popped out of a newly formed hole nearby, looking sadly at his shovel.
Cedric took Bob's hand and pulled himself to his feet.
He looked at Jerry.
Jerry flinched violently, expecting to be kicked, expecting to be shattered into a million pieces by the captain he had just doomed.
But Cedric didn't raise his hand.
Cedric just looked at the trembling puddle of sand. He didn't offer a word of comfort, but he didn't offer a word of blame, either.
He simply turned his back on Jerry, staring out at the frozen labyrinth with a blank, unreadable expression.
The complete silence from Cedric was infinitely worse than any scream or physical blow could ever be.
Jerry slumped completely to the ground, curling into a tight, miserable ball of sand, vibrating with a new, dark kind of energy. It wasn't just fear anymore. It was pure, unadulterated self-loathing.
The Dealer stepped forward, his mirrored sunglasses glinting in the neon light, a wide, terrifyingly wide grin splitting his face.
"Well, well, well," The Dealer chuckled softly, his voice dripping with sadistic poison.
"That was quite the dramatic finale, Cedric."
"You outsmarted the maze. But you couldn't outsmart the sheer, profound incompetence of your own miserable team."
"But it's not the time for regrets."
"Because we now move to the last Game."