Wake up.

  I don’t wanna.

  It’s been ten minutes. The assassin likely hasn’t stopped trying to hunt you. They know where you are.

  A heavy groan was all I could respond with. It was hard to think about anything. My nanites were capable of keeping my body in peak condition. But that meant nothing for my mind.

  You keep telling me that. Just because you repeat it over and over, it doesn’t help. Can’t you do something about this mental fatigue?

  The host can’t afford augments to replace their brain. Prolonged exposure and production of adrenaline would damage a human heart. We can repair that. A human mind is significantly more complex. Production of endorphins and other biological chemicals drastically influences the host’s mind. We do not possess the capacity to influence the host to that degree, yet.

  Yet?

  As the host gains power, so do we.

  How? When will you be able to? What does that eventually lead to?

  We don’t know. We will notify the host of any changes. However, the host is stalling. They should seek safety and sustenance.

  The disconnect between mind and body was disorienting. Since my brain was controlling, its condition dominated my mood. My sluggish movements were still likely faster than I ever could’ve been capable of on Earth. But even the greatest athletes on Earth would fall pathetically short without the system.

  “You’ll be the weakest to challenge the Soul Nexus, ever.”

  Mr. Black’s words haunted me. I am weak.

  The slow, methodical dragging of my feet filled the empty hall. Only a solid metal door stood between me and yet another death trap room. I needed to wake myself up. Repressing my dark thoughts, I slapped myself.

  It was both effective and stupid.

  Slapping myself is really dumb now. Hitting yourself in the face with metal hurts.

  My nanites buzzed in my cheek to repair damage. If I had to guess, it would’ve just been a bruise. Nothing serious. But my nanites have to repair even the slightest damage to my body. By coincidence, the cold touch of my hand also helped with the pain it inflicted.

  I looked down at my hands and rubbed them together. The sound of metal sliding against metal drove home how inhuman they were. In that one moment, I sacrificed a piece of my humanity for safety.

  Several times now, they have saved me from worse injuries and even saved my life. The descriptions of my options when Mr. Black gave me my system came to mind. Replacing parts of my body with cybernetic versions. Was it even possible to climb the Soul Nexus as a human? I couldn’t pass Mr. Black’s test as a human.

  The metal was supposedly an “organic” metal. I had no idea what that meant, but the skin on my arms was just one piece of me. My eyes were another. Orange hinted that replacing my brain was possible too. My system, through Orange, will replace me with robotic parts.

  I’m literally buying my humanity away.

  The host’s worry is unfounded. But this location is not appropriate for such ponderings.

  If I get out of this, we need to have a long, long talk, Orange.

  Understood.

  Everything would have to wait. Until Orange and I had our talk, any augment purchases would be put on hold. As much as I hated it, Orange was right. I needed to focus on the problem in front of me. Bark is consumed with his obsession with my nanites, and I have the assassin chasing me. I need help, and the only one I know I can trust anymore is Killa. She’ll help me deal with all of it. She’s strong—stronger than me.

  So, with a new goal, I walked into the next room. I scanned the room cautiously, expecting another trap to spring. The walls, lined with rusted gears, housed three doors, while chains dangled ominously from the ceiling. The majority of them ended up in shackles. Large, thin cobwebs draped over almost everything. Their placement seemed haphazard.

  Orange, what kind of trap should I look for here?

  Insufficient information. The host should focus on any detail that doesn’t belong or…

  Before Orange could finish, the floor shifted beneath me. A sudden jerk sent me stumbling forward, barely managing to catch myself on one of the dangling chains. The floor rotated like a giant disk set in the floor. What parts of the floor that weren’t spinning revealed jagged spikes of broken metal ready to impale anything that flew off the spinning disk.

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  The chain I was holding on snapped, and I hit the spinning plate hard. Almost instantly, the centripetal force guided me to the spikes. My fingers couldn’t grip the stone, and I was slowly sliding further and further to the outer edge.

  Orange, I need a hand. Now!

  Head to the center of the disk. If the host remains in the center of the disk, they can wait out the spinning. The host should use their dagger to gain a more secure handhold to pull themselves to the center.

  All that was easier said than done. The disk was spinning so fast that it took all my concentration to not fly off it. The chains swung in wide circles, creating a whipping hazard. But if I could grab one and reach the center, it would be possible to pull myself in. But that would require me to stand up, something I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do.

  Finding a place to dig my dagger in wasn’t easy either. The spaces between stones were thin, few, and far between. The first time I managed to get my dagger stuck, it broke free before I could pull on to it. But the time after that, I got a good grip on it. Heaving myself towards the center was harder than I thought. My arms burned as my feet skidded over the smooth surface.

  I made it to the center of the disk and, with Orange’s help, evenly distributed my weight so that I wasn’t being pulled in any one direction. The stone was slick with sweat that rolled off me in buckets. All I was left to do was stare up at the ceiling.

  The spider creature wasn’t attacking me directly, just toying with me, playing its twisted game. I hated it. My only hope was that it was doing something equally devious and torturous to the assassin since she couldn’t follow me through the caved in room.

  I gritted my teeth, feeling my frustration bubble up. How long will this take to stop? Will it stop?

  It will. The disk has been slowly losing speed compared to the initial turn. By our calculation, it will take eighteen minutes.

  My thoughts felt sluggish, and the mental fatigue weighed on me. But since I had eighteen minutes to myself, I let myself relax more. My heart pounded as doubt crept in. Was I strong enough for this? Could I even make it to Killa? Or would I die here, broken and outsmarted by a creature that refused to face me directly?

  The minutes ticked by, and the wheel slowed down more and more. In all honesty, I didn’t have to wait until it stopped completely. Orange didn’t want me to. But I didn’t want to move. The room was one of the easier traps to deal with, but the spider creature wasn’t even close to running out of ammunition to throw at me.

  Or maybe it is, I don’t know how many rooms there are.

  My stalling wouldn’t last forever, and Orange was right. The wheel did stop. I sat up, feeling just as tired as before I entered the room. If the spider’s traps don’t kill me, the assassin will.

  Didn’t the host have a plan to pit the assassin and the spider against one another?

  I did. But getting the spider to focus on the assassin is impossible unless they’re in the same room. And I just can’t risk being that close to the assassin. So maybe, if I don’t move, it will have to focus on her since she’s going to go from room to room trying to reach me in this labyrinth.

  That is possible logic. However, what will the host do if the assassin finds them lying in the center of this room? The traps haven’t stopped you completely. It would be logical to consider that the assassin could have the same level of success.

  Orange, sometimes, I hate when you make sense.

  I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the protests from my mind. There was a door at the far end of the room, and I needed to go through it. If my pursuer won’t stop, neither can I. That meant there was only going to be one way those two would be guaranteed to fight; I have to put them in the same room together.

  The network of webs on the ceiling is key to the creature’s entire network. Is there a way I can use it against it?

  I wasn’t coming up with any ideas. My thoughts kept drifting away from me. Most of the time to Killa and hoping she was okay, but others missing the delicious food I had back in the city. But I picked a door that I hadn’t entered through at random.

  I really need to get out of here. If I find the spider creature, I can’t try to kill it. I need it alive. But does my plan stand even a chance?

  The wide range of variables makes predicting with any certainty impossible. Unless the host finds proof that the plan can succeed, it would be better to assume it will fail. Inversely, the host may believe the plan will succeed unless proof is found that it will not.

  Orange, that is maddeningly unhelpful. Actually, Orange, just shut up. Don’t talk. Even if it sounds like I might be talking to you, assume I’m talking to myself. Unless I bring your name up, I don’t want to hear you. Not right now. Thank you for your help with the last two rooms, but right now you are only making things worse. And I can’t deal with that right now.

  Understood.

  Regret washed over me. It was unfair of me to snap on Orange like that. All they ever try to do is to be helpful. They can be lifesaving one moment and gratingly useless the next. It’s like they don’t understand how to interact with me socially.

  But for the time being, I needed silence, solitude, and focus. I took a deep breath and shook my head, all attempting to clear my head. My priority was finding a way out of this labyrinth.

  The room beyond the door was small, with walls covered in webs. The ground was coated in a thick layer of webs that looked like a single giant piece of fabric. As soon as I entered the room, the floor sank slightly and stretched as I stepped onto it.

  In the center of the room, just in front of me, was a large orb suspended on a pillar of stone. The pillar looked like it went below the carpet of webs. My feet stuck to the web.

  So, more of the sticky webs. It doesn’t feel like there’s a floor underneath me.

  The orb looked odd too. It was hard to tell what it was made of, stone, glass, or something else entirely. It gave me the strangest feeling in my gut. Like it was important, but also dangerous. I approached it slowly, waiting for this room’s trap to trigger.

  From the other side of the orb, the spider creature crawled to observe me. Its ten hands gripped the orb with its unsettlingly long fingers. Its eight eyes locked onto me as I stood on the other side of the orb. My body tensed up as it stared at me.

  I was hoping to run into it, but not so soon. It hopped on to the ceiling with a hiss. My heart dropped as the orb rolled off the pedestal.

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