Chapter 701
“Cockroach-like bastards.”
Seo Jeonghee clicked her tongue as she received the report.
She had suspected it might happen, and sure enough, they had overcome the brutal odds and made it up.
Thanks to the player named Adel running wild, the others had managed to climb by taking advantage of the chaos around them, but even so…
“Still, they’re lucky too. Who would have thought they’d get tickets to the main event of the War of Stars just because they happened to be on the same team?”
Surviving the Swingbat Mercenary Corps was one thing.
They must have some absurd item that massively boosts luck. There was no other explanation.
Seo Jeonghee’s gaze shifted to the side.
There stood the rankers she had poached from the American Titan Guild and the Korean Dangun Guild.
They were on a completely different level from the Swingbat mercenaries. Every one of them was a seasoned veteran with experience clearing upper-floor ruins of the Tower.
“So, can you handle it?”
Seo Jeonghee asked, as if seeking reassurance.
At that, sneers spread across the faces of the waiting rankers.
“As you said, the only one we need to be careful of is someone named Adel. But once the main event starts, the teams will be disbanded, so he won’t get in the way of dealing with Kang Jinhyuk and the others.”
Jang Bo-kyung.
She had started in Dangun, but now she was the main dealer of the American Titan Guild.
“Judging by how Director Seo Jeonghee is acting, it seems you have quite a history with those people. We’ll take care of them cleanly for you. If we chop them into little pieces and dump them at the bottom of the sea, they won’t even find the bodies.”
Despite her youthful, almost cute appearance, the words coming out of her mouth were shockingly cruel.
[Jang Bo-kyung activates her Unique Ability: Duty of the Ocean!]
Gurgle… gurgle.
Moisture gathered in the air, forming countless droplets of water.
The power to manipulate water at will.
The unrestrained force of an area dealer, a type even most rankers hesitated to face, revealed itself in full.
The other rankers nearby each added a remark.
“Just make sure our compensation is guaranteed.”
“We’ll handle it quietly. No noise.”
“Ah, but before we deal with them, we need to clearly determine what kind of connection they have to Dreadroar. If we kill them first, my position will become very awkward. You understand, right?”
“Don’t worry so much. The odds of ordinary people enduring our interrogation are practically zero.”
Jang Bo-kyung reassured Seo Jeonghee one more time.
Right.
As long as rankers were involved, the proven top 0.1% of humanity, there would be no room for surprises.
But still… why?
Seo Jeonghee couldn’t shake off the unease stuck in her mind like gum.
===
The first day of the main event.
Those who had received invitations were thrown into a massive artificial labyrinth.
[Survive and reach the next stage.]
[The labyrinth contains not only various items necessary for survival, but also extremely rare treasures that exist within the Tower.]
Jinhyuk scanned the list of rewards scattered throughout the labyrinth.
It was a record of part of the internal information Kiyov and Ivankovich had managed to obtain.
A total of 392 types.
Among them, there were three specially marked items that had to be secured.
‘Golden Reins of Archella.’
‘Beeswax of the Itkle Desert.’
‘Pheromone of the Red Legion Ants.’
‘To think these would be here.’
Jinhyuk smacked his lips.
He had already been searching for items absolutely necessary for the coming war against Eden, and now several things that couldn’t even be bought on the Coin Exchange were openly listed as rewards?
What he truly wanted most were items that were difficult to obtain even inside the Tower, but the three above were enough to serve as substitutes.
‘And on top of that, I need to sow discord between Titan and Dreadroar, while also keeping an eye on Chun Yoosung in case he attacks at any moment. Looks like I won’t have as much free time as I thought.’
Compared to the gods and ancient beings he used to fight, this event should have been little more than a break.
But with so many interests and rewards tangled together, it wasn’t something he could afford to take lightly.
It meant he needed a more delicate approach than usual.
Jinhyuk looked over the endlessly sprawling labyrinth.
…It’s well made.
So well made that it rivaled the inside of the Tower itself.
[A 7-star spatial distortion barrier is currently deployed within the facility.]
The facility itself was less than 500 meters in size, but because of the barrier, its effective scale had expanded to hundreds of times that.
And the many stars marked throughout it showed the difficulty and value of each location.
“So where do we go first? If possible, I’d like to challenge the hardest place.”
Teresa asked Jinhyuk.
Rather unusually for her, her whole body was fidgeting restlessly.
It seemed she had contacted Gabriel before the event opened, and ever since then, she had looked overflowing with confidence.
She must have gone through something as intense as Chun Yoosung had.
‘Teresa has a cute side too.’
The way she was trying to grow stronger so she wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
Like a child impatient to show off a new power. Seeing her eyes gleaming like that brought a smile to his face.
“It’s not far from here.”
[3 Stars – ‘Great Ramses Temple’]
A place modeled after Egyptian mythology.
Two of the items he was after were sleeping there.
The problem was that the place also contained an Indigo-grade Sacred Relic, arguably the most desirable prize in the labyrinth.
A treasured sword forged from equal parts Adamantium and Orichalcum, then tempered in the river of Eden.
And it even came with the special effect [Michael’s Prayer], an ability impossible to leave out in any discussion of divinity.
With a reward that was difficult to obtain even on the upper floors of the Tower being offered there, it was only natural that everyone’s attention would be drawn to it.
“With our Lord with us, it won’t matter how many flies gather.”
“Clatter. Earlier, I thought I could handle it with just one rib.”
Wolyoung and T-Bone radiated confidence.
“Hmph! How lowly.”
“The probability of a ranker existing who can stand against us is 0.000192%. Yes.”
With our noble queen and the strongest Homunculus with us as well, something like competition rate means nothing.
‘Yeonhwa and Tae-min will be moving with Elder Yoo Cheonyeong, so for now, I just need to deal with what’s in front of me one step at a time.’
With his objective settled, Jinhyuk headed for the Great Ramses Temple.
How long had he walked like that?
Only after crossing several hours’ worth of rugged terrain did the destination finally begin to reveal itself.
Buzz buzz!
A huge number of guild rankers and players had already gathered at the entrance.
As expected of such a popular hotspot, the competition was vicious from the very start.
“Going in through the front looks impossible, doesn’t it?”
“I agree with Lady Teresa. Judging by the clashes already happening, they won’t willingly make way for us. Of course, we could force our way through, but there’s no need to leave them the chance to catch us from behind.”
Jinhyuk agreed with both of them.
There was no reason to deliberately choose a dangerous route.
With a structure this large, there had to be more than just the main entrance.
And more importantly…
‘Fortunately, this entire event site is built from barriers.’
This wasn’t the kind of thing where someone with a shovel could ever compete with a bulldozer.
When it came to barriers, no ordinary player could ever keep up with him.
Even if every so-called genius in the world came rushing in at once.
Whoosh!
[Class-specific trait activates!]
As the authority of the Barrier Master unfolded, Jinhyuk began probing the core of the barrier that made up the entire Great Ramses Temple.
There were webs and shield layers placed here and there with some care, but Jinhyuk slipped past them as if mocking their existence.
No, he did more than that.
As he passed through the barrier, he touched several points, completely altering its properties.
In a few hours, the association staff who noticed the anomaly would no doubt be in complete chaos.
“Found it.”
Jinhyuk pointed to a spot near the western side of the Great Temple.
At first glance, it looked like nothing more than a section of ruins covered in granite walls and ancient paintings, the sort of thing you could find anywhere in a ruin.
But a moment later, when Jinhyuk arrived and placed his hand on the wall, something strange happened.
‘First, the snake.’
He pressed the snake’s fang, then slowly dragged his hand toward its tail.
The painting began to move as if it were alive.
Creak…!
[The ‘Ouroboros Serpent’ opens a new door.]
Game developers really loved this kind of thing.
These bastards never escaped their obsession with clichés.
‘Still, twisting it one step further to hide a trap deserves some praise.’
Even if someone happened to discover the Ouroboros opening by chance, they still wouldn’t be able to enter. More precisely, the structure was designed so that anyone who stepped in carelessly would immediately fall into an even deeper trap.
Chuckling, Jinhyuk reached for another painting on the wall.
Several bird-shaped carvings.
The moment he touched the wings and beaks of the bird carved from white granite, countless birds sprang out from the rock, widening the Ouroboros opening.
“Done.”
Jinhyuk nodded.
But the moment he stepped into the Great Ramses Temple—
“…!?”
“…”
Jinhyuk and Alice both felt a powerful sense of incongruity.
This place was clearly artificial.
But why…
“It feels like we’re inside the Tower, doesn’t it?”
“…Contractor.”
A faint sense of dissonance that others would never notice.
But Alice, who had lived inside the Tower for eons, and Jinhyuk, who was practically an ancient being himself, caught that subtle difference.
This place…
…is not part of the modern era.
===
What kind of joke is this?
He had no idea who had done this, or for what purpose, but someone had set up an absurdly large-scale game.
Linking the modern era and the Tower of Trials within a single space required influence and wealth beyond imagination.
‘Should I treat this as some kind of outbreak?’
No.
Since almost no one was aware of it, this had to be something far more advanced and sophisticated.
Whatever it was.
The carefree entertainment they had intended was over.
No matter which floor this was connected to, he had to assume he had stepped into one of the Tower’s labyrinths and respond accordingly.
[Primordial Flame activates!]
Whoosh!
Flames lit up the dark corridor.
The dark temple slowly revealed its true form.
“Something feels off.”
A beat later, Teresa also realized something was strange about the air inside the temple.
Wolyoung, Frey, and T-Bone also entered slowly, staying alert.
Right then—
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Kaaang!
“Kuaaaak!”
“Fight! Don’t fall back!”
“Healer! Keep healing! Damn it, the tank line on the front is collapsing!”
“Keep the damage cycle going! We have to hold this place, even if all we can secure is a single breath!”
The shouts and screams came from not far away.
As if an intense battle was underway, mana surged without pause.
“My Lord, shall we turn back?”
Wolyoung tried to look for another side path.
Judging from Jinhyuk’s usual preference for moving alone, he normally wouldn’t have gone anywhere a commotion like this was happening.
Normally, he wouldn’t have.
But this time, an unexpected variable had appeared.
To maximize profit and minimize risk, he needed to make a slightly different choice than usual.