Lu Na struggled as hard as she could, but the weight on her back was too much for her to overcome.

  Yang Deli reached down toward her chest, but then stopped.

  “That damned brat’s curse also stops me from touching you?” Yang Deli spat on the ground near Sun Ren. He pointed at one of his followers. “You, search her chest pocket for the device.”

  A woman kneeled down beside Lu Na. She wore a green tunic and thick black gloves. She reached into Lu Na’s chest pocket and yanked things out.

  After a few minutes, all Lu Na’s prized possessions were on the ground beside her. They took off her null metal bracelet as well before tying her up along with Sun Ren and her mother.

  “You have a small treasure trove in here,” Yang Deli said. He picked through the items, but the first thing that caught his attention was Sun Wukong’s scroll. “What’s this? I’m no summoner, but I can tell this is something powerful.”

  He opened the golden scroll and frowned.

  “There’s nothing here except a monkey showing me his butt. Is this the type of depravity you’re into, Young Miss Lu?”

  Lu Na closed her eyes and focused her mind. There was someone she hadn’t talked with in a long time, but it was probably her only hope.

  “Ah, there’s the Xia device.” Yang Deli picked it up. “Finally got what we came for.”

  “I’ll take that,” a familiar voice said.

  Lu Na opened her eyes. It wasn’t Nugua as she had hoped, but the monkey king himself, Sun Wukong. He held in his hand the Xia device and his staff in the other.

  “Stop him.” Yang Deli thrust his dagger at Sun Wukong. The two other summoners pulled their spirits to fight the monkey king, leaving only the spirit net on top of the phoenix spirit.

  Sun Wukong laughed as he swung his twirled his staff with one hand. A large gust of wind blew the two spirits back with ease while knocking down the humans.

  “I don’t have time to play with you fools.” Sun Wukong made a fist and pulled it down, summoning a large cloud beneath him. He turned toward Lu Na. “Young Miss Lu, it was a pleasure riding along with you on this journey. Once I’ve become a god with this device, I might spare you just for fun.”

  Lu Na didn’t know what to say to that. Where did Sun Wukong come from and was this his plan all along? What she knew was that when she got out of there, she would pay a visit to his magical forest with her mother.

  With a gust of wind, Sun Wukong shot up into the sky until he breached the labyrinth’s ceiling and disappeared.

  “Well, that was a waste,” Yang Deli said. He spat on the floor again.

  “What should we do with them boss?” the man restraining Lu Na asked.

  “Kill them. We don’t need the extra headache they will cause when we get out of here. Start with Sun Ren. She made it so I couldn’t kill her, but nothing in that blood oath stops my underlings from killing her.”

  “Wake up Sun Ren. Please, wake up!” Lu Na screamed. How had she become the only one awake? Where was Hen Li? Where were the Wintersweet disciples? No, where was her spirit? The one that was going to be with her until the end?

  The weight on Lu Na’s back lifted. She coughed as she inhaled the dirt from the ground.

  Lu Na grabbed her null metal bracelet as she scrambled forward. She clenched her fist and flicked it left. The earth wall rose between Yang Deli and Lu Na. She flicked her wrist again, raising up earth walls to surround Sun Ren and her mother.

  She looked up in time to see Nugua slithering over to her with her band of naga behind her. Baihu was with her as they all strode across the battlefield of fallen spirits and men.

  “You finally came,” Lu Na said.

  “Of course. The hero always shows up at the end,” Nugua said. “Besides, I was dealing with the feral spirits. They wanted to eat the monk’s friends downstairs when they ran from upstairs.”

  Lu Na hugged Nugua.

  “It’s nice to see you too, child.” Nugua hugged her back. The naga’s body warmed Lu Na’s.

  To think that Lu Na feared being eaten by her spirit before. Now she was the closest thing to family she had on this journey.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Well, it’s time for us to go back. We secured the Wintersweet disciples downstairs and I doubt the rebel leader is going to do anything with my naga family here.” Nugua let go of her hug.

  “Yes, finally some good news. The only bad thing was that the monkey king stole the Xia device before I could examine it,” Lu Na said.

  Nugua nodded.

  “I told you that scroll was dangerous. Luckily, he didn’t kill you on the way out.”

  Lu Na wasn’t so sure that he intended to do that. She knew that while Sun Wukong had great techniques; he didn’t know how they worked. If he did, he would have broken the mountain that crushed him. She had a feeling that he would come crawling back to her to help him figure out how that device worked.

  Lu Na would be ready when he came.

  “Let’s get out of this labyrinth and go home,” Lu Na said.

  It took a better part of a day before Lu Na’s group got back to the entrance of the labyrinth. While the feral spirits gave way to Nugua’s aggressive nagas and most of the ghosts disappeared to wherever they went after death, it was still a long walk. The labyrinth was huge.

  Lu Na had to make a small stop before leaving. She had to settle things with Jie, her spirit, and her villagers. Not only that, her mother hadn’t woken up since she collapsed earlier. Only the presence of her phoenix spirit told them she wasn’t dead.

  The group walked through the large gates that separated the sections. The large village within the labyrinth stood tall, with its taller walls. The feral spirits that Lu Na lured to the city didn’t break their defenses.

  Yang Deli walked forward first and knocked on the makeshift gate. There was a ruffling and shift behind the gate, but it didn’t open.

  “Open up already. I’m back with the prize,” Yang Deli shouted.

  A voice shouted back, “No. You tried to kidnap us and forced us to come here. We’re not letting you back in.”

  “It seems you’re not the only one that goes back on your word,” Sun Ren said. She stepped forward and knocked on the wooden gate. “I’m Sun Ren, daughter of the Marquis of Wentai. We’ve solved the labyrinth and we can leave this place. Or if you prefer, I can petition my father to move your entire village somewhere else.”

  “That can’t be true. No one had ever solved the labyrinth in over two thousand years. We’re not letting you in. Now leave before we summon the spirits to attack you.”

  Lu Na had no more patience for this. Her mother needed help now. She clenched her left fist and flicked it left. A large earth wall shot up from the ground right at the gate. It pushed the wood so hard that it splintered and cracked. But it held.

  “If you think I didn’t think about that, then you underestimate me, Young Miss Lu,” Yang Deli said. “I had my summoners fortify these wooden gates. It’s how we held off your surprise attack when you lured the feral spirits to us. Unless you’re a stage three summoner, you’re not breaking through this.”

  “Then let me.” Senior Wong stepped forward with her metal rooster spirit. She pointed at the door and the metal rooster charged at the wood. It pecked at the gate with its razor sharp beak. It left a couple of marks on it, but it didn’t break. “The hell? Whatever.”

  Senior Wong walked back to her group of Wintersweet disciples, all dressed in purple. They had Elder Hen and Hen Li on two separate litters. Elder Xu stood at the back with her hands behind her.

  When the group looked at her she said, “Don’t look at me. My spirits are more for tricks than actual power.”

  “Let’s leave them and get out of here already,” Yang Deli said. He marched back to his men, prepared to leave. “I only made this village in case we had to survive in here. If they want this prison, let them have it. There is plenty of farmland and such outside and a entire world of treats that these ancient people have never experienced.”

  “As much as I hate him, he’s right,” Sun Ren said.

  Lu Na agreed as well. She had hoped that the villagers had someway to help her mother before she left. It was going to be another day or two of travel before they reached Qingxizhen again. Maybe longer because they had to carry a lot of injured.

  “If you guys could let Jie know that I will be back one day to help her fix her inventions,” Lu Na said. “I’ll bring her lovely incense too.”

  “Yeah, okay. See you,” the voice called over from the other side.

  The group walked away from the village within the labyrinth toward the area where they all teleported into the labyrinth.

  “Do you know how to leave this place?” Sun Ren asked Yang Deli.

  “After a lot of research and paying some archaeologists, I only have a vague idea of how to get out of here,” Yang Deli said. He walked up to the wall and tapped it. Xia symbols showed up on the walls in different colors. “Now the hard part is understanding what these mean and how we can use them to get out. That’s where I hope Young Miss Lu can help us with.”

  Lu Na walked up to the symbols. They all glowed in a particular pattern and they reminded her of the platforms outside of the labyrinth the first day they were there. The only problem though was that she did not know then on what to do. It was her silver phoenix hairpin.

  Lu Na took out the hairpin and stared at it, hoping that it would activate like the last time. Nothing happened.

  She turned to the phoenix spirit.

  “Is there anything you can do?”

  The phoenix spirit looked down at the hairpin before shaking its head.

  Lu Na knew that if she had enough time, she could figure this out but her mother needed a doctor. She did something she normally wouldn’t have done. She simply reached out and touched one symbol, hoping that it was enough to get them out.

  The symbol she tapped turned purple and kept cycling with the other symbols. They formed a circle and kept going round and round without stopping.

  Lu Na took out her analysis tool and plugged it into the wall. It lit up in all white. She pressed another of the symbols and her tool turned green, then back to white.

  “What does that mean?” Yang Deli asked.

  “I have no idea. I’m guessing here.”

  A chill embraced Lu Na, her fingers stiffening. She could see her breath coming from her mouth and nose.

  The group turned to see Jie walking toward them with her large boar spirits beside her. From a glance, anyone could tell that the boar spirits were angry. It lowered its head as if ready to charge at any moment and it paced forward.

  “It’s true. You work with bad man. You take my people. You not nice,” Jie said.

  “No, you got it wrong. We’re—”

  Jie said something to her boar spirits in the Xia language, enraging them further. They plowed the floor with their hind legs before leaping forward at Lu Na and her group.