Thud! Arad landed on the tenth layer, seeing an empty wasteland spanning as far as the eyes could see.
"This looks like a rock desert," Merlin said, looking at the brownish stone formation, mountains, and bright sun in the sky. But strangely, it didn't feel hot.
"I don't see any monsters around here," Arad said, looking around them with a worried stare.
"There aren't any monsters in this layer," A woman's voice came from atop a mountain, and they looked up, seeing a black-haired Merlin with glowing white eyes staring down at them.
"So you're the one behind all of this," Arad smiled.
"I was a mere succubus imprisoned by her." She replied, "You can call me Ann, that what I was called before getting caught,"
"Caught?" Merlin giggled, "You can't complain after sucking over a thousand men to death, succubus of Avalors."
"It's how we eat. The cows don't blame you for drinking their milk," She slowly lifted her hand, "With the labyrinth, I mana to suck all of your power and make it mine. After I'm done with you two, I'm going for a well-deserved meal,"
She giggled, "Let's start by draining Alina first,"
"Merlin, don't waste time," Amber growled, "Get your power, now,"
"I know," Merlin replied, slowly lifting her hand.
BAM! Ann fired a massive fireball at them, and Merlin easily deflected it, absorbing the mana in the process.
"Magic doesn't work. You're only empowering me." Merlin said, "And I'm already capable of stabilizing the twisted mana you tried to poison me with."
"I bet there is a limit to how much you can clean at once," Ann smiled, firing a second fireball at them.
Arad blinked, sensing Doma's presence in the layer. Now that they are on the same layer, she's trying to pull herself back into his body with all of his power.
"Where are you!" Arad shouted, looking around, "I'm here!" He screamed.
"Find her," Merlin lifted her hand to block the fireball. ^It works for us if Doma is looking for Arad. I'll deflect this fireball and charge my mana then search for curses,^
CRACK! As Merlin blocked the fireball, something solid came out of it. It blasted right through her and Arad.
Arad puked blood, looking down to see a head-sized hole in his chest and Merlin missing a chunk of her right side. Whatever it was, it had blown right through his barrier as well.
"Do you take me for a fool?" Ann looked at them with a bored face, "Why won't I mix something nonmagical in there?" She pointed back at a sharp stone. "I've been accelerating it for a while just to make a magicless weapon to take you down with, Merlin."
Merlin's vision went dark. The stone took a chunk of her stomach, her right kidney, intestines, and liver. Her body instantly started to shut down. She isn't a paladin or a cleric. She doesn't have the healing to keep up with such wounds.
Thud! Arad fell on his face. Now that he's missing a chunk of his spine, his legs stopped moving.
"Damn it!" Amber screamed, lunging forward and creating a firewall. She immediately reached into her pocket, "Forget about powers. Cultivate them once again," She pulled a small red crystal and threw it between Arad and Merlin.
"Wait, what are you..." Arad growled, his vision blurring.
"You got to S-rank in a few months. I'm sure you can do it again," As she smiled, a massive burst of fire shattered her firewall.
DING! The crystal cracked, and both Merlin and Arad were transported outside the labyrinth, allegedly without their powers.
The last thing Arad could remember was lying in the snow in Alina's street, looking at Merlin's bleeding in front of him as he quickly lost consciousness from the rapid blood loss.
Ann looked at Amber, "You could've sent them out all this time? Why didn't you do it before?"
"Their powers are important, unlike me. The world needs them," Amber smiled, "I wanted to give it a try if we could retrieve them,"
"And you failed," Ann giggled, "Now you're left here to die,"
"I'm not debating that. I'm so dead now, but..." She gasped.
"Laugh as much as you like, abomination," She took her hat off, "You might have their powers now. They can't kill you." Her eyes turned orange, "But that means nothing to me,"
CRACK! Her skin cracked, setting her robe ablaze, "If I'm dying anyway, I might as well do it,"
"You're about to..." Ann stared at her.
"I hail from the Burnhilds, a long line of clergy in service of the goddess of fire, ruling over the elemental plane of fire," Amber shouted, and her blond hair turned bright right as it ignited.
The ground around her started melting as a burst of flame engulfed her. BAM! A massive explosion shattered the place, and Ann barely dodged.
"Did she just blow herself off?" She looked around, but her eyes opened wide. The massive explosion still persisted, flying across the sky at a supersonic speed akin to a massive fireball.
"Taste the power of our goddess, Zaleria," Amber shouted.
In the elemental plane of fire, the goddess sighed, "How faithless can you be to mistake my daughter for me? Well, her power should be more than enough so take it," She smiled.
"The cataclysmic flare that blinded the sun, and terrified the gods."
Even though the tenth layer looked almost limitless from the inside, Amber flew so fast that she started orbiting at its edges, accelerating beyond belief into her flames encirculating the outer edges.
"I shall burn everything away, and become the spark that once ended the world!" Amber shifted her direction, flying directly toward Ann who formed a massive barrier with all of the magic she could use from Merlin's power.
"Zaleria's! Final Flash!"
Coming like a raging meteor, Amber smacked herself into the wall, sending a horrid blast of pure heat, igniting the whole layer at once in a blaze of purgatory.
The blast instantly filled the whole layer, shaking the whole labyrinth seeping through the hole, and burning everything down to the first layer.
The sound alone was so loud that it escaped the labyrinth, shattering half of Alina's houses and getting heard from miles away as a crimson flare illuminated the top of the labyrinth like a light bulb and turning the night into a bright day.