Finn and Iris stood on the single pillar that wasn’t a trap while the latter glanced around for any clues.

“There has to be a way for us to tell which pillar is the right one…” She muttered. “If there wasn’t, whoever set this up might as well have just made all five of these pillars traps.”

“That is true, but…” Finn trailed off, letting Iris focus. However, a question still lingered on his mind.

‘If this is truly a Dungeon manifested by Ghosts, then why would there even be a solvable mechanism involved, almost like in a video game?’

It didn’t make sense for these Ghosts to utilize a mechanism that could backfire against them once the Ghost Hunters figured out how it worked. But alas, he wasn’t going to get answers to these questions anytime soon.

Iris then decided to use her Oculus Angelica to see if there was any hidden clues, closing her eyes while placing her right hand in front of her chest and raising her index and middle fingers in a ninja-like gesture.

“Eye of Omnipotence — Transcendence!”

Her eyes snapped back open with a fiery golden glow as she did performed this chant, body lighting up as well with the power of her Angelica. Finn could feel her body’s energy within his arms, warm and soothing.

Naturally, this was because he was in fact consuming her mana by standing this close to her, due to the uncontrollable intrinsic instincts of Ghost Blood. Realizing this, he hurriedly let go of Iris — her power would come in useful later on.

Iris, meanwhile, had no idea why he let go of her, but focused on searching for clues instead. And then, she tilted her head up, and widened her eyes.

“This…”

In her vision, there were five white circles painted on the ceiling, each with a different symbol within them. From left to right, they were a snake with two heads, two snakes forming an 8 shape, a snake forming a circle, a snake coiled around a sword, and the front view of a snake’s gaping mouth, fangs and all.

Of them, the one correspondent to the pillar they were currently standing on was the circle snake.

“What do you see, Ivy?” Finn asked.

“A bunch of symbols, but…” Iris glanced a little bit ahead, above the next section of pillars, and saw the same exact set of symbols again — in the same order, too. “The pillar we’re standing on right now has a circling snake icon above it, but this doesn’t tell me which one is the right one…”

“Screw it,” Octane said impatiently. “We don’t necessarily need to find the right pillar, since you two can both fly, no?”

“Er, that’s true, but…” Iris trailed off, eventually sighing and giving in, turning off her Angelica as well. “Whatever. Let’s go, Finn.”

Finn nodded and slid his arms around her waist once more, activating his own wings while Iris did the same. The next set of obstacles were various sets of rolling spiky logs. They weren’t hard to get across; just required some pretty precise timings. Luckily, Iris, having been trained in an advanced facility ever since a young age, was good at that.

It didn’t take long for the two to make the rest of the way, either. There were five sets of pillars in total, but the duo had great synchronization — Iris made the callouts on when and where to go while Finn provided more power and speed with his wings — making it past all of them.

And of course, once the two made it across, the correct pillars had already been marked. This allowed for Octane to pass this little parkour section with ease as well, given his incredible speed. As for Reaper, he attempted to cut through the obstacles, but his scythe was unable to do so — which came as quite a surprise. Still, he made it the normal way with relative ease too with his ability to fly.

Meanwhile, Iris had activated her Angelica again while riding on top of Finn’s shoulders — there was no point wasting mana on her wings now that they had made it across. She stared at the ceiling, still trying to figure out what those symbols meant. If they were hidden so deeply and couldn’t be seen without special vision, they obviously weren’t just put there for no reason.

“Circle snake… 8 snake… snake face… twin snake… and sword snake…” Iris murmured subconsciously at the symbols correspondent with the correct pillar for each set.

Once everyone had made it across, the four began continuing down the hallway, until finally arriving at a large handle-less stone door with runic markings all over its surface.

“Looks like this is the end of the hallway,” Octane said. “Whatever’s waitin’ for us on the other side, I hope they’re ready.”

“I hope YOU’RE ready,” Fanatic cut in via the earpieces, having heard their whole exchange. “I’m detecting a strong hostile signature on the other side of that door. Phantom archetype, approximately Boss-level in terms of strength.”

“Got it,” Finn replied calmly. “Thanks for the info.”

“It’s what I do,” Fanatic chuckled lightly. “Good luck.”

“Yeah.”

Finn, carrying Iris, stepped closer to the door. And as soon as he did so, the rune-like symbols on the door’s surface lit up white all at once. Smoke was released from the edges of the doors as they slid open, revealing a circular chamber behind. Fanatic said he had detected a hostile in here, but they couldn’t see anything.

“Hey, Fanatic… you sure you detected a hostile in here?” Octane asked, pressing his earpiece.

“Yes. According to what the computer is telling me, the hostile is right inside the room you are about to enter.”

“Well…” Iris murmured, trailing off.

The room was completely empty except for five terminals of some sort placed in a circular fashion surrounding the center, each with an equal distance between them. Confused, the group headed inside to investigate in more detail.

And the moment they did so, the doors slammed shut behind them.

“Wha-?!” Octane immediately spun around and tried to dash back out, but even his speed couldn’t make it in time. He punched the door, but was unable to break through. Reaper also slashed at it with his scythe to no avail.

Should’ve known, should’ve known. That said, these four were still beginners in terms of Baron Hunts — it was only natural they were still inexperienced and fell for blunders like this.

But would they make it out of this one alive? Only the heavens knew.

“Okay… so, classic door shuttin’,” Octane remarked. “But there’s still no enemies, so… good, I guess?”

Just as he said this, the entire room began shaking as a horrible shriek rang out from above — high, high up. This wasn’t a room, or a chamber. This, was a tower.

Then, the distorted, terrifying voice of a woman spoke, words echoing against the tower’s round walls.

“WHO ARE YOU, O FILTHY CREATURE?”

The group looked up in shock to see the ugly and bone-chilling figure of an Phantom stare down at them, Glasgow smile lined with sharp teeth. But the creepiest part… was that this Phantom had blond hair, almost resembling a real woman. It also wore the clothes of a priestess, though bloodstained and battered. Familiar white tentacles sprouted out of its back, though these were dangerously sharp unlike Morpher Phantoms.

And that’s not all.

“W-What the hell…” Octane gasped in surprise. “Did this Phantom… just speak?!”

“I AM SYNIA, BOUND TO DAR’ TALOR. YOU DARE DISTURB MY LORD’S DOMAIN… SO YOU MUST DIE.”

She began chanting in some sort of unknown language as the platform Squadron 154’s members were standing on suddenly began moving — rising up, closer and closer to the Phantom who called herself Synia. To make matters worse, four portals suddenly opened up beside the group, and out came a plethora of Phantoms, squealing in delight at the sight of food.

“O-Okay, this is not good,” Octane cried, gulping in fear as the four were pushed back to back into the center of the room. “This is definitely not good!”