Chapter 704

Elder Gods.

Though they were not as overwhelmingly vast a force as the Outer Gods, to which Nyarlathotep belonged, they were the only faction in the entire Tower of Trials capable of waging war against them.

Because of their noble and cautious nature, they had long been extremely reluctant to step forward and interfere in the Tower. However, a single anomaly had completely overturned that fundamental principle.

Plop. Plop.

Severed tentacles fell to the ground.

“We were aware that you had been wandering here and there throughout the Tower. Well, considering your insatiable curiosity, I suppose that was only to be expected.”

Countless blades materialized in the woman’s hand.

Each one contained an absurd amount of Mana, comparable to a high-level Unique Ability.

“However, playing tricks outside the Tower… doesn’t that violate the agreement we made? No matter how much time has passed, Nyarlathotep, I doubt you could have forgotten.”

“Ha! Still keeping up that noble act to the bitter end. Stop dragging up that dusty old agreement and just say what you really mean. Listening to it makes me sick.”

Nyarlathotep slammed his staff against the ground.

Rumble!

At once, cracks several meters long spread throughout the entire area.

Crack! Crack!

From the seams of those fractures, tentacles began crawling out, far thicker and more massive than before.

“The Necronomicon. Isn’t it only because that book ended up in the hands of a third party and was buried in some pit that your kind was able to crawl back out? Disgusting Elder God, Shub-Niggurath.”

“…”

At Nyarlathotep’s words, Shub-Niggurath’s smile only deepened.

“Heh heh. That’s right. At last, we can shatter this tiresome balance.”

For peace? For balance and harmony?

All of it was nonsense.

The only reason the Elder Gods had remained quietly beyond the horizon was because their power was significantly inferior to that of the Outer Gods.

But if they could just obtain the Necronomicon…

Then they could close that gap and aim for everything that came after.

“To do that, it seems I first need to stop your little game here. That hollow avatar of yours stands no chance against me, so I suggest you surrender quietly.”

The number of blades continued to increase.

The entire space, unfolded into a primordial domain, trembled.

However, Nyarlathotep’s expression barely changed.

Instead, he raised one finger and gently pressed it to his lips.

“Please call me Shuette here, not by that other name.”

There were many eyes watching and many ears listening.

Above all, the Elder God was nothing more than an unwanted, noisy guest in a banquet hall he himself had prepared.

[Nyarlathotep activates the Unique Ability ‘Night Walker’!]

Shadows stretched out in a long, connected chain.

Enough to blot out the countless gleaming blades.

“So you have no intention of going quietly.”

Shub-Niggurath likewise released the surging Mana she had been gathering in one explosive burst.

Rumble! Boom boom boom…!

Purple sparks dyed the entire field of vision.

And so,

the battle between primordial Divinities began.

===

“How foolish.”

“Doesn’t he realize they’re openly targeting him?”

“Refusing even the Samurai Guild’s escort was a mistake.”

“I had some expectations since he won a Main Event participation ticket, but it seems he’s really that thoughtless.”

“Well, it’s not as if he got it through his own strength anyway. It was thanks to someone named Adel.”

The murmuring grew a little louder.

Because to them, Jinhyuk’s choice was practically the same as choosing death.

Except for one person.

One man stood apart from the rest, dark-skinned and holding a long spear.

Nkrumah, a high ranker of Shuja, one of the Seven Great Guilds.

Among them, he alone was a top-tier player ranked within the world’s Top 100.

‘Strange. He looks flimsy, but there’s a beast-like aura about him…’

While everyone else sneered, Jinhyuk felt different to Nkrumah. Unlike the ordinary stones rolling around by the roadside, there was a strange sense of dissonance about him.

‘Is he hiding something?’

Nkrumah made no comment about Jinhyuk’s decision.

There was no reason to stir things up here and provoke the already enraged Dreadroar players.

Thus, the raid party split into two groups and moved quickly to search for the Book of Light and the Book of Darkness.

“This way.”

Following the guide’s lead, they descended deeper and deeper.

After some time, a vast empty space appeared before them.

A heavy silence settled over the entire raid party.

“Doesn’t really look like the kind of place where a book would be, does it?”

Jinhyuk lightly kicked a pebble lying on the floor.

The pebble skipped and bounced for a long while, yet still failed to reach the other side.

“The book isn’t on the second downward path. You should’ve taken the third upward one.”

“Seeing as you knew that and still came here, you must be a seriously terrible navigator, huh? Tsk tsk. No wonder you keep getting people killed.”

“…It seems you misunderstand. I brought all of you here because I intended to kill you first, then search for the book ourselves.”

“Hehe. The fact that you’re making such a pathetic excuse proves you’re bad with directions. Well, Hyung understands. Must be embarrassing in front of the kids.”

“You bastard…!”

One of the Dreadroar players, unable to hold back any longer, threw a hidden weapon.

Whoosh!

“Waaah?!”

Startled by the axe flying straight at him, Jinhyuk swung his sword wildly.

Clang!

He somehow blocked it.

But the angle was completely off.

And it flew somewhere no one expected.

Thud!

“Guh… urgh?”

The spinning axe buried itself in the chest of another player who had been standing there, giggling.

Blood sprayed at once, staining the floor red.

It all happened before the healer could even raise a hand.

“Anderson!”

“H-he’s dead.”

“You brutal bastards. How could you kill your own ally like that? We have someone named Chun Yoosung who’s similar to you, and honestly, you’re practically on the same level. The same level.”

Jinhyuk hugged his shoulders as if brushing off a chill.

“What the hell are you talking about?! He died because of you!”

“I just blocked it. He’s the one who threw it.”

To think someone could die from an axe tossed as a joke.

Hopefully this would serve as a chance for him to truly feel remorse and reflect on his mistake.

“Enough. The longer this goes on, the more it only hurts us. I’ll just deal with you myself.”

Mayer pulled a massive greatsword nearly two meters long from Subspace.

A ranker renowned even within Dreadroar Guild for his extraordinary skill in PvP.

And because of the extreme cruelty with which he killed people, he had earned the epithet Butcher.

“My Lord.”

“Clatter. Master. Give the order.”

Wolyoung and T-Bone stepped forward.

“No. Both of you stay back.”

“You intend to face him yourself?”

“No.”

There was no need for him to step in yet.

Jinhyuk’s gaze shifted to the darkness behind the Dreadroar players.

‘A labyrinth wouldn’t have a space this vast without a reason.’

Whoever had set up this trick, the labyrinth’s design was surprisingly faithful to the settings of the existing Tower of Trials.

Which meant that even if this was his first time here, he could still predict certain things.

Boom boom boom!

At that exact moment, a deafening roar erupted.

“Kyaaaak!”

“Aaaak!”

Sharp screams rang out, and a pungent, bloody stench stabbed into his nose.

“Vice Leader Mayer!”

“W-what’s happening?!”

Mayer, who had been about to swing his sword, hurriedly turned around.

There stood a giant insectoid creature walking on four legs.

“Kieeeee!”

It was nearly ten meters in size.

The blood of the players it had just sliced apart was thickly smeared across its two scythe-like forelegs.

[Named Monster ‘Shareek’ awakens!]

[The Queen’s special effect and the Nest’s additional buff are stacking!]

[All players currently in the area have their stats reduced by 10%!]

Red status windows appeared one after another.

The sudden appearance of a Named Monster was bad enough, but the truly horrifying phrase wasn’t Shareek.

‘Nest’.

A word no player ever wanted to encounter.

Because they were endless, and they almost always led to bloody, chaotic battles with unpredictable casualties.

‘Please, just don’t let it be a large nest.’

With something close to a prayer in his heart, Mayer shouted.

“Secure our field of vision!”

“Y-yes, sir!”

Whoosh!

Several fireballs flared up, illuminating the surroundings.

And where everyone had assumed there were only walls, countless holes roughly thirty centimeters wide were packed together in dense clusters.

“No way…”

“It can’t… be?”

Despair became reality.

Even by the roughest estimate, this was clearly a top-tier nest.

A raid party of barely over a hundred people wouldn’t last even an hour here.

Skitter skitter! Chitter chitter!

Beetles with green shells began pouring out without end.

“T-they’re coming!”

“Form ranks! Damn it, we have to hold somehow!”

Veteran Corporation was no longer the issue.

Survival.

And securing the book so they could rejoin the rest of the guild.

Everything had to be focused on those two things.

Boom boom boom!

As magic and all kinds of skills concentrated on the enemy, a full-scale battle began.

Even so, they were still an elite raid party from a major guild, veterans of countless battles. True to form, the tank line held the front solidly.

“Do you have a plan?”

“It won’t be easy to endure this by simply standing our ground. We’ve informed the other group of our situation, but it’ll still take a long time before reinforcements arrive.”

Kiyov and Ivankovich each added a word beside Mayer.

Because they had been the first to discover Jinhyuk’s connection to Titan Guild, the two of them had been allowed to join this raid as some of Mayer’s closest aides.

They had already reported the situation to the group searching for the Book of Light. But that group was also occupied dealing with another Named Monster and had no room to spare.

If they stayed here, only isolation and annihilation awaited them.

“That can’t happen. I refuse to die some meaningless dog’s death.”

Mayer ground his teeth as he watched the insects swarming in madly.

After climbing all the way to this position, there was no way he could accept a meaningless death in a place where no one would ever acknowledge it.

Then—

“Everyone, listen carefully!”

All he needed to do was create a path to survival.

“I will lead a separate detachment and search for the Book of Darkness. Moving in a small group will be far more dangerous, but this is the only way for all of you to survive. I, too, am putting my life on the line, so hold out no matter what! This is my final order as raid leader!”

He wrapped it all in a plausible excuse.

===

“Hmm. So he’s planning to sneak off alone with only his own people?”

Jinhyuk let out a soft chuckle as he watched Mayer’s shameless act.

He had been observing at his leisure while considering how best to handle the situation, but Mayer had lived down to his nature and chosen the worst move a raid leader could possibly make.

‘Then I suppose I should answer in a way that suits that kind of character.’

The first task he had secured through Takeshi.

Jinhyuk pulled out a small box crafted by the artisan.

Click.

The lid opened.

Inside lay an old key engraved with the figure of a fox, the kind commonly seen at Japanese shrines.

[Using the ‘Key of Great Tribute’!]

A Sacred Relic that allowed the user to borrow one item from the other’s treasury, limited to those bound by either enmity or favor.

‘There is a condition that the target item must have once belonged to you, but even so, it’s a fairly useful item.’

For others, maybe not.

But for him—

Vwoom!

A rift opened, revealing a familiar space.

[Target: ‘Rick Hennessy’s Personal Collection Vault’.]

Countless collections filling a section within the Infinite Library came into view.

Rare treasures ordinary players would be lucky to see even once in their lifetimes overflowed before him.

And among them, the one he chose was…