The air grew thin.
Not just the oxygen—
but the emotional weight itself.
The deeper the team went, the more the world felt like it was compressing. Like reality itself was holding its breath.
They stood before a giant obsidian stairwell.
It spiraled downward endlessly, but every twenty steps was lined with a memorial plaque.
Kurapika ran his fingers over one.
"These are real names," he said.
"Known Hunters. Some missing. Some supposedly retired."
Leorio swallowed.
"You're saying the Labyrinth is a grave?"
Killua leaned in close, silver eyes narrowed.
"No."
"It's a battery. A shrine built out of fallen dreams."
Kaen knelt by one plaque.
The name read:
"Vereen Nostra. Code-name: The Sightless Cartographer."
Beneath it: He mapped Nen with his heart, until it broke.
And then, it began.
⸻
Ghost Nen – Echoed Souls of the Nexus
A low hum rose around them.
From the walls… from the plaques…
Aura.
Ghostly outlines appeared — spectral figures of former Hunters. Their Nen had outlived their bodies.
"Echoed Souls," murmured Kite. "A forbidden Nen phenomenon. When a Hunter dies with an unresolved vow, their aura remains…"
"…and attacks anyone who walks too close to their regret."
The first one moved. A translucent figure with empty sockets where eyes once were.
He pointed to Kaen.
"You still dream."
"You still believe in futures."
"Then PROVE you are worthy of MY MAP."
FLASH.
Kaen was yanked into a battle-dimension — a hallucination-layer created from the Echo's final memory.
⸻
The Duel: Kaen vs The Sightless Cartographer
The Cartographer stood in a massive, endless desert of symbols and constellations made of Nen lines.
Every step he took reshaped the battlefield.
"You seek to understand," he said.
"But I DIED trying to map the way forward. You'll die here unless you out-map me."
Suddenly—
Walls rose. Runes flared. Space folded.
Kaen activated a new wing of his Mind Palace:
"Navigation Wing – The Cognitive Compass"
He summoned a floating cube of revolving thoughts — a mental compass made of decision branches, fear reactions, and past travel logs.
"Let's see who gets lost first," Kaen growled.
⸻
The battle was nonlinear.
There were no attacks.
Only moves — like two minds writing each other's fates and trying to overwrite them.
The Cartographer launched a wave of Fake Paths — Nen illusions of "correct" moves that loop endlessly.
Kaen countered by marking Decision Points — using logic-tree pulses to test the weight of falsehoods.
Each time he made the wrong move, his mind was dragged into an echo-memory of a different Hunter's death.
But he learned.
From each one.
He saw:
• A man who died for loyalty.
• A woman who died for a Nen beast no one believed in.
• A child who died testing their limits.
And he whispered:
"I see you. I see ALL of you."
He took all those regrets… and made them into data.
"Mind Palace Construct: Grief Grid – Emotion Map."
A pulse shot through the Cartographer's false reality — revealing the true escape route: not the fastest path, but the one most walked by the fallen.
Kaen stepped onto it.
The battlefield cracked.
The Echo reeled, then knelt.
"You have my sight… and my sorrow."
"Carry it well."
⸻
New Nen Technique Learned:
Memory Locus – Grief Grid Navigation
Kaen can sense Nen trails left behind by people who died with strong emotions. By syncing with those trails, he can track, analyze, or even temporarily replicate their emotional resonance and choices.
Useful for both exploration and empathy-based counter-strategies.
⸻
Kaen woke with a gasp back on the staircase. The team had circled up around him.
Kurapika touched his shoulder.
"You were out for seven seconds."
"Felt like a lifetime again," Kaen muttered, rising.
Killua grinned.
"How many lifetimes have you lived already?"
Kaen grinned back.
"Enough to know I don't want to stop dreaming."
They continued downward.
And now, the ghosts didn't attack.
They bowed.
⸻
At the Bottom of the Stair
The stairway ended in a vast black gate.
On it, in golden Nen-runes:
"To Those Who Still Build: Welcome to the Crafter's Hall."
Inside was a hallway lined with hundreds of floating books — real, phantom, conceptual.
At the end… a shadowed figure sat cross-legged on a throne of abandoned constructs.
The Crafter.
A being born before the current understanding of Nen.
A soul who learned to build ideas from dreams — like Kaen.
And when he spoke, it was like hearing your own imagination scream.
"So, you are the boy with the Palace. The child who dreams in blueprints."
"Come forward."
"And learn what it means to be a god."
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 24 – Architect vs Crafter: Blueprint vs Eternity