[ Labyrinth Leaderboard ]
1. Dylan Vopuntail | level 200 | Points: 37,282
2. Viena Raindrop | level 200 | Points: 36,398
3. Sofia Tranil | level 200 | Points: 34,102
4. Chef Ainen | Level 184 | Points: 32,737
Lilian and Yelvina saw that Ainen was once again steadily leveling up after a long break.
'Can Ainen turn around the situation?' Lilian looked at Ainen's name and relayed it to Yelvina.
Yelvina replied as her voice entered Lilian's mind. 'It depends. We also don't know the situation of the floors inside the Labyrinth. The weaker people are still alive, but our Adventurers are dead except for those three.'
'We need to see Ainen's spotlight.'
'And that will only happen once Ainen fights against one of the enemies.' Google seaʀᴄh novęlfire.net
"Why are the weaker people still alive?" The skin-changing woman looked at the leaderboard after putting away the book and taking out a new one. "Are those trash of Awakened-rank who just broke through inside? Could it be those bastards captured them instead of killing them?"
"If that happened, they wouldn't be leveling up." The bald man chuckled. "If I have to guess, the floor conditions might be tricky. It's not uncommon."
"Yeah. They wouldn't spare those trash unless they couldn't kill them. They must have passed by them and encountered stronger ones who were ahead instead." The dark-circle lady speculated.
Suddenly, Naresh's party member, Remia, appeared several meters away from the Labyrinth's entrance.
She was fighting on the 10th step, but couldn't defeat the Goblin Elite Champion and had to use the bangle since she would have died otherwise.
"W-What is going on?" Remia's face paled as she saw tons of dead bodies.
The only ones alive were Yelvina and Lilian, who were bound to strange wooden stacks, and Irnia was inside a black crystal prison, knocked out.
"Now then, do you want to live or die, little girl?" the bald man smilingly asked Remia.
Remia trembled, fear filling her.
But suddenly, the bald man's smile faltered as Remia was split into four by a cross-shaped black light.
"Don't start collecting trash. Their vital soul energy is what we need," The dark-circle woman indifferently said.
"I might not know many things, but I can tell you one thing," Yelvina coldly smiled. "You all will not have a normal death."
"Is that so?" The bald man ruefully smiled. "Unfortunately, you will not be alive to see that."
"We may die today, but there's a chance your people won't succeed in inverting this labyrinth today," Lilian said in spite. "We have a monster of our own inside, and he might just beat all of your people."
"Still hopeful, huh?" The dark-circle lady looked at Lilian and shook her head. "You saw the spotlights of Elber, yet you think your chef can turn around the situation?"
"That boy will have a good future if he wisely chooses to join Cradle when met with the choice," the bald man said with a chuckle. "He is good, but not as good as those two."
Yelvina sneered. "Those two might have S-rank elemental manipulation, but Ainen has completely mastered his S-rank Fire, not to mention his Fire is already enchanted. I haven't seen its true aspects, but I could tell it has quite a powerful mystic attribute."
"You are wrong," The dark-circle lady flatly said with indifference. "Those two are a league above your chef, who doesn't even have a combat-oriented class."
"Allow me to bury your hopes once and for all. For starters, Elber and Prisha have Tier-3 Legendary-rank armor sets, weapons, and far superior skills than the rest, as they have multiple S-rank skills."
"And yes, both of them have S-rank elemental manipulation and S-rank classes."
"One of them, the girl Prisha, has an innate arcane physique of Myriad Poison she was born with. On top of that, she has completely mastered her S-rank Wood Manipulation due to her high affinity. She has no opponents within the Adept-rank spectrum, at least, not in this Labyrinth."
Yelvina and Lilian heard all that, and even if they wanted to believe in Ainen, they were shaken.
"Aw, they are laden with sadness now," the bald man said with pity.
Liliath gritted her teeth, her eyes reflecting anger as well as a hint of despair.
She couldn't see a way out of this situation. Hearing the power of those two also made her feel that Ainen might not succeed.
'Ainen…can you defeat them? I hope you can.' Lilian looked at the leaderboard. Ainen had already reached level 200 in just a minute.
On the large island of the layer, at its very center, three people were imprisoned inside a vine prison that bloomed exotic flowers.
Inside were none other than Viena, Dylan, and Sofia.
Both Dylan and Sofia lost the duels. The opponent gave them a chance to surrender, and they surrendered due to fear of death.
With that, they were commanded to be captured, and here they were, though they were confused why they didn't just command them to sign that contract and demanded that they sign it after capturing them.
"I am bored. I am going ahead." Prisha got off the boulder. "You can kill or capture others. I'll go and clear this floor."
"Alright." Elber nodded.
"Boss Elber, what do we do about those at the bottom? I doubt they can climb here."
"I tried going down, but it's not possible. I was teleported back on the island the moment I jumped on a step down."
"Forget about them," Elber waved his hand. "Since they can't climb, they can't interfere with our plan. Once the Labyrinth inverts, they'll be the first ones to die."
"For now, take shifts standing at the four entrances and kill those who come here except for that one red-haired guy I showed you in the list."
Ainen jumped on the 20th step.
Seven to ten steps behind him, Naresh and others were fighting. Saffa, Clovelle, and Fraisea were closer to Ainen, their combat arsenal clearly superior to Naresh, Diana, and Hammer.
They were strong and filled with buffs, so they were winning the duels with ease, but Ainen was taking literally two seconds or less to finish each of his duels.
[ Ainen vs Molten Inferno Bull ]
Ainen arrived in the ring and faced a three-meter giant bull standing thirty meters away.
He pointed his index finger forward. 'Fire.'
Above him, a rectangular box with a single circular barrel glowed with sparks before a missile shot out, releasing a burst of blazing wind and piercing the sound barrier at the speed of Mach 12.
In an instant, the bull was blasted into small chunks, with some turning to ashes.
[ You have won the duel. ]
"Damn it. I thought the bull would have higher fire resistance, but most of it got burned." Ainen sighed. "Can't collect that meat."
Opening his eyes back on the 20th step, Ainen jumped off and landed on the island. "Finally."
Ainen heard the additional rules of this island and was surprised. 'So we can surrender, but have to listen, eh? That's nasty.'
"Oh, lucky. We encountered the redhead."
"If only it was a redhead woman, heh."
Ainen blinked as he saw three black-robbed people on a tree's branch.
"He is handsome. Better than you two uglies." One of them was a female. She licked her lips as she jumped off the tree branch.
Ainen was confused. "Who are you all?"
"Let's have some fun, handsome."
[You have been challenged to a duel. Get ready.]
"Don't underestimate him, Brila. He is the one with that S-rank Fire Manipulation."
Ainen was startled. Challenging him to a duel of life and death? What the fuck?