...
Meanwhile, somewhere located between the middle and the end section of Amaharpe's walls, the guild Blue Oasis were sweeping away the monsters in their area. However, they did not manage to rack up as many points as the other guilds due to unexpected guests in their section.
But, since it was the first wave, the leader of the guild Asgard did not pay it much attention. On the other hand, Niflheim relied much more on his natural instincts to perceive things. Right now, there was something wrong with this picture to him.
"The random parties in our section seem to possess above average gear and are not as chaotic in their movements as the other sections, according to scout reports." Niflheim furrowed his brows.
Each guild had a few members posing as a "random party" in order to monitor the movements and progress of the other guilds.
"It may just be that we are unlucky." Niflheim released a small sigh. He tried to convince himself, but he was unable to shake this foreboding feeling.
"Is something wrong Captain Niflheim?" Vanter asked.
"No, nothing at all. Prepare for the next wave. Also, tell everyone to stay on their toes. Just because the first wave was easy, does not mean that the next wave will be the same." Niflheim said.
"Yes, Captain!" Vanter immediately left to carry out Niflheim's orders.
The first wave had ended successfully with no casualties on their side. However, this was only the beginning.
...
Standing on the air above the clouds far above the capital city of Amaharpe were five individuals. They were the same five who had just sent off the different groups into the Chaotic Dogma Realm.
Grrrrrrrrrrooooowwwllll...
The sound a low growl echoed throughout the skies. Although the players could not see the individuals in the sky, that low growl resembled a thunderous noise.
"Your protective barrier has fallen at last. You shall return to me what is rightfully mine!" The voice which spoke sounded deep and had a constant ringing noise lingering just after each word was spoken.
"Little bird, have you come to play again?" Zendai had a small smile on his face as he addressed the entity as little bird.
When it heard that name, the clouds in the skies above Amaharpe started to darken and the clouds turned gray. It was as though a thunderstorm was getting ready to descend down upon the city.
"Still up to your light shows I see. Come, I'll entertain you, little bird." Zendai held the palm of his hand up. However, just as he was about to take action, someone next to him grabbed his wrist and stopped him from doing so.
"We still need you at full strength. You've already used up a large portion of your mana while opening the portal much earlier than it was originally intended to be. Although your mana pool is nearly boundless, it was still no small amount. Let me handle this." The person who spoke was a woman.
She had long flowing pink hair that fell down to her ankles, sparkling eyes that had no irises in them, but rather looking into her eyes was like staring directly into space and seeing the countless stars engulfed in darkness. Her ears were slightly pointed which indicated that she was a part of the Trephasia race.
She was extremely beautiful, however, she was not as pure and dazzling as Tererestiaa. But, there was an aura of charming maturity that Tererestiaa did not possess.
She removed the cloak she was wearing and underneath was a pure black skintight battle suit. The instant she removed her cloak, bright pink magic symbols began to form all over it. Her head was then covered by a dark visor which left only the bottom part of her face visible. Her hair wrapped itself neatly into a long ponytail.
"It's you! Hateful!" The moment the woman donned that appearance, the "little bird" seemed to grow even angrier and more furious. The lightning bolts became more intense. However, whenever it was about to strike any of the individuals that stood in the air, it was blocked by an invisible barrier.
"Be careful, Nova." Zendai cautioned her. Although he was confident in her strength, that "little bird" was still a legendary existence. Dealing with it alone would not be easy, but they could not afford to divert their power away from their main task.
"Don't worry, I'll be fine!" Pink glowing patterns began to appear behind Nova. She kicked off the air and shot further into the skies. There, she saw a huge bird that resembled a roc. The size of the bird made Nova look like a mere insect by comparison.
"I'm flattered that you remembered me. But, it seems as though I did not properly teach you a lesson last time if you're back for more, Kinljrin." Nova vanished from the spot she was in.
The huge bird who was known by the name Kinljrin felt an overwhelming force slam into its large body. Luckily, its defenses were sturdy and it was not gravely injured, however, the space behind it ripped open forming a spatial rift as a result of the blow.
Kinljrin was sucked into the spatial rift as Nova followed after it. Once Nova entered the spatial rift, it closed behind her. The moment it closed, a loud sound that resembled an explosion followed by a thunderclap rang throughout the skies.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The sound was finally able to catch up to Nova's movements and it caused the clouds in the sky to swirl and form a large wind vortex. It disappeared a few seconds later.
"Will she be alright?" Terminus had a worried look on his face. He knew how powerful Nova was, but Kinljrin was nothing to scoff at.
"She will have to be. We cannot afford to lose anyone else if we want to stand a chance. Let's continue on our way. Gear should have reached "that" place by now. We must not be late at arriving at our own location." Zendai said as he continued on his way.
"Besides, she is the most fierce Trephasia I've ever met." Zendai said in a voice full of confidence.
Nova was unlike most Trephasia who pursued magic or archery. She liked to fight using her fist, which was considered a very barbaric action by the Trephasia race.
The other four, including Terminus, followed next to Zendai.
...
〈System Alert: You have entered the «Chaotic Dogma Realm»!〉
〈System Alert: Warning! Time Remaining: 23 hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds until realm closure!〉
The moment Izroth was transported out of the room, he felt as though his body was floating throughout a plane where matter did not exist, only energy. The feeling resembled being shackled and bound for countless years and then suddenly being released of those bindings.
Although it only lasted a few seconds, it felt as if it lasted for minutes.
When Izroth and his party rematerialized, they found themselves in a dark and damp cave. There were small cracks within the cave itself that light peeked in through. Thanks to the Five Cycles Pill, everyone had a much easier time adapting to their new environment.
'Quite a strange place to start.'
Izroth sensed that everyone had made it through successfully and there were no issues in sight.
"So this is the Chaotic Dogma Realm... It certainly lives up to its name." Halls moved closer to the front of the group. It was dark, damp, creepy, and there was this strange chilly wind that blew by every few moments.
"We are in the Chaotic Dogma Realm, but my guess is that we transported somewhere into an underground cave. The question is, how far are we from the surface?" The first thing that Zi Yi did when she finished rematerializing was to examine their current location.
Due to the fact that they were receiving a source of what appeared to be sunlight, she speculated that they should not be located too far underground. However, they were in an unknown realm and so that source of light could be from anything.
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssh!
Out of nowhere, the ground within the cave began to spew out hot steam. It was followed by a sudden tremor that made it feel as if the entire cave was going to collapse on top of the party. A few seconds later, the tremors stopped and the steam subsided.
"I recommend we find the exit before we're crushed to death." Zi Yi suggested. How unlucky would they be if they were all crushed to death before the quest had even begun? The would probably set a world record for fastest failed SS-ranked quest!
Izroth nodded his head in agreement. "Halls and I will take the lead and Guan Yu will guard the rear. As for you three, you can stay in between us." Izroth believed that this was the best formation available given their current situation.
Everyone moved into place, except for Luna. She stood still with her brows furrowed as if she was troubled by something.
"Big sis Luna, is something wrong?" Guan Yu asked when he noticed Luna's facial expression and that she did not move.
Izroth was also curious as Luna was usually the first one to react when he spoke.
"Our message system is blocked. We can't make contact with anyone through it." Luna frowned. All of the other functions were working properly. Every time she tried to access the message system, she received a "Restricted" system alert.
Out of curiosity, Luna tapped the logout button. She was not worried that it would actually log her out since it always asked for confirmation before doing so.
〈System Alert: Warning! You are attempting to logout while within the «Chaotic Dogma Realm»! Doing so will result in an immediate wipe of your character. Do you still wish to continue?〉
"It appears that if we attempt to logout while inside of the Chaotic Dogma Realm, the system will consider it a forfeit of the quest and immediately proceed with an existence wipe." Luna explained.
Luna obviously declined before she moved to her position near the center of the group.
Once everyone heard what Luna had to say, they opened up their own character interface. It turned out that it was the same for every last one of them.
"Tch... So this is a one-way trip all the way huh?" Guan Yu said in a displeased tone.
"Brother, I'm just glad I went before I logged on today." Halls said as a sense of relief could be heard within the tone of his voice.
'It must be a way to prevent us from communicating anything outside of this realm unless we are willing to lose all of our progress to do so. However, would anyone be willing to make that sacrifice willingly?'
"Since it's already like this then we can only keep moving forward and locate the exit to this cave. Let's move." Izroth and Halls started to move towards a large crack on the side of the cave walls. It seemed to be the only way in and out of their current location.
The rest of the party followed behind Izroth and Halls. As they were walking, Valentine's eyes were constantly shifting from one place to another.
When Zi Yi noticed his Valentine's stranger than usual behavior, she asked, "Do you see something?"
Valentine rested his index finger and thumb on his chin as he observed the cave as he and the party were walking.
"It's... I could be wrong, but these rocks appeared to have been formed by magic. It was very faint, but I could have sworn I saw a few magic sequences form when we experienced the tremors. Of course, I don't have any absolute proof so..." Valentine was intrigued by the ghost-like magic sequence.
"Maybe I should go back and check it out." Valentine began to drool from his mouth as a large grin appeared on his face.
"Don't even think about it, magic freak!" Zi Yi instantly voiced her objection. This guy was really ready to risk his character's permanent wipe just for a peek at some magic sequences.
Valentine pouted and whined, "But-" Before he could even complain, the tremors began once again. This time, however, it was much more intense and felt closer than before.
"?!" Izroth did not realize it at first due to how chaotic the vibrations in this place was. He believed that it was just another small tremor, but it turned out that they were actually being followed by something.
'It's blending in almost perfectly with the earth.'
Izroth unsheathed his Blade of Lightning. "Prepare." After Izroth said that single word, everyone put their guards up. However, Valentine was a little late in doing so since he did not participate in the dungeon runs with them.
Izroth knew that they were getting ready to see exactly how dangerous the creatures within the Chaotic Dogma Realm could be.
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Izroth concentrated on separating the noise of the tremors from the creature itself in order to lock onto its location. It was much more difficult to detect compared to those bugs that moved around underground back in the mountain region.
"What's going on?" Halls asked as he kept his shield raised and his guard up. He did not know that there was a monster nearby, as his senses were nowhere close to Izroth's. Halls acted purely on instinct when he heard Izroth call out.
In fact, it was the same for everyone else there. But, they all understood that if Izroth unsheathed his sword then there was trouble nearby, even if they currently were unable to see it.
"Is it a monster or another team?" Zi Yi inquired. However, she already had a good idea of what it could be. After all, what were the chances of them running into another team as soon as they were transported? Could the Chaotic Dogma Realm truly be that small? If that were the case then reaching the end would not be a problem at all.
"One monster. It's most likely the cause of the tremors we've experienced while within this cave. The tremors are growing stronger the closer it moves in our direction." Izroth explained as he kept track of the creature movements.
"It will not be safe if we fight on a narrow passageway. We should retreat back to the room with open space to confront it." Luna suggested.
"Agreed." Zi Yi seconded Luna's suggestion.
While the passageway they were currently moving deeper into was not incredibly narrow, it was only as spacious as two people standing side by side with their arms spread out. It would be difficult to maneuver under such circumstances.
Also, ignoring the fact that the passageway may collapse on them given the intensity of the tremors, if the monster possessed any type of AOE attack, then it would be impossible to even consider avoiding it.
Izroth also believed that to be the best course of action. The passageway was filled with some twist and turns. For all they knew, the passageway could become smaller the further they traveled down. Why would they purposely set themselves at a potential disadvantage?
"We will turn around and face it back at the location we were transported to." Izroth said as Guan Yu moved over to their position and Halls, as well as, Izroth shifted over to Guan Yu's old position.
Now, Izroth and Halls were leading the way back to where they came from and Guan Yu was still tasked with protecting their rear.
Just as the party was getting ready to leave, Valentine raised his hand to stop them from doing so immediately.
"Ah, wait a second." Valentine removed a small rock looking object with various magic symbols inscribed into it. He tossed the item onto the ground and pointed his index finger towards it. He muttered a few words as the rock began to glow.
"Seek." Valentine finished chanting and soon after the rock cracked open and a teal colored orb the size of a fist formed in its place. The orb instantly shot through the passageway and disappeared from the group's field of vision in a matter of seconds.
"What did you just do?" Zi Yi narrowed her eyes as she looked at Valentine wondering what that magic freak was up to.
"Just think of it as an extra set of eyes, don't worry." Valentine smiled in an innocent manner.
'A bit interesting.'
Izroth maintained his carefree expression as he and his party continued to move.
Since Izroth and his party did not travel far, it only took them a few moments to arrive back at the open room. On their way, the group felt the tremors intensify and sharp shards of rocks fell from the ceiling.
One of the rocks almost landed directly on top of Halls and crushed him into meat paste. However, it missed him by a few centimeters and so he could be considered lucky.
Halls face was extremely gloomy. All of the sharp rock shards that fell from the ceiling only went for him as if it were intentionally picking on him! He had to constantly dance around in a humiliating way to evade them.
The entire time, Guan Yu was laughing without holding back in even the slightest manner, and Zi Yi had a smug expression on her face that pretty much said, "serves you right for teasing me".
Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrck!
The ground beneath and all around Izroth and his party began to crack as a hot wave of steam rushed out from within cracks.
Wooooooooo!
When everyone heard that disturbing sound, they shifted their attention to a large crater that was formed by the ground sinking inward. The sight resembled a beast devouring the earth.
Something slowly started to climb out of the ground. The first thing the group saw were two massive curved horns with small lines running across them. That strange noise definitely came from this monstrosity before them.
It had the face of a vicious bull and when it rose out of the ground it stood 3 meters tall. It was extremely muscular to the point where it was a little disturbing and had razor sharp claws on its hands.
Its skin was maroon in color and had numerous glowing red cracks that covered its entire body. It bore a resemblance to a rock that was about to shatter into countless fragments.
Its tail swung freely back and forth, but it appeared to possess a mind of its own. The monster released a strong burst of bloodthirst towards the players before it.
"So ugly...!" Halls couldn't help but say those words when he observed the monster's appearance and how bloodthirsty the monster seemed to be. Its pure black eyes were similar to looking into nothingness, which would frighten most people.
Name: Earth Devouring Groundbull(Elite)
Level: 25
HP: 70,000 (100%)
70,000 HP! What a tanky monster! Not even the boss monsters within the Sea Palace Graveyard had such a large amount of HP.
The Earth Devouring Groundbull roared angrily as if responding to it being called ugly, as it charged over towards Halls.
"Brother, it seems that your new taunt skill was effective!" Guan Yu joked as he took an offensive stance with his guandao.
Halls shield lit up with a bright red color as a wave of aura sped outward from his shield and encompassed the entire body of the Earth Devouring Groundbull for a few seconds before vanishing. Halls had used the skill Taunting Aura to set the monster's focus onto him.
The Earth Devouring Groundbull was not that agile, however, it was not by any means slow with its charge as it leaned its shoulder downward to ram into Halls. It wanted to completely run through him.
Halls stood perfectly still as he held his shield out in front of him steadily. Just as the Earth Devouring Groundbull was about to make contact with him, a transparent glass-like barrier formed on Halls's shield.
CRASH!
The body of the Earth Devouring Groundbull flew backward when it crashed into Halls's shield. Its own momentum was used against it thanks to a skill Halls had acquired. The skill was called Rebound and it was one of the core skills of Halls new second tier class, the Rebound Champion.
Skill Name: Rebound
Skill Level: 2/4
Skill Rank: B
Requirements: Level 20 Rebound Champion, Shield Equipped
Mana Cost: 50
Active: Forms a transparent rebound barrier in front of the user's shield for 0.5 seconds which causes any enemies it comes in contact with to be knocked back. The more momentum an enemy has when striking the rebound barrier, the more powerful the knockback effect. This skill negates 50% of the damage for any attacks that strike the rebound barrier and counts as a successful block. The cooldown time for this skill is reduced by 10 seconds when an attack is successfully "Rebounded".
Cooldown: 15 seconds
The Rebound Champion was one of the more difficult classes to obtain, as the class quest required endless endurance and perseverance. It was definitely not a class that anyone could acquire.
The Rebound skill made the class incredibly tanky and hard to deal with in a battle. However, it was not an easy class to use. If a player miss timed a Rebound, then they would pay the heavy price of having to wait for its full 15 second cooldown time. In a close battle, that could mean the difference between life and death.
«Blocked»
-676
5,974/6,650 HP Remaining! (Halls)
"What powerful attacking strength...!" Halls was shocked by the amount of damage he received even after successfully blocking the attack by using Rebound. Its base attack was at least 1,000 and that was a very conservative guess.
Izroth kicked off his back foot and shot towards the flying body of the Earth Devouring Groundbull. Trailing behind Izroth was Guan Yu who also pressed forward to join the assault.
An arrow soared through the air aimed at Guan Yu's back. However, the arrow's target was not Guan Yu himself. Zi Yi was using Guan Yu's body to hide the arrow she just released. The arrow vanished just as it was about to pierce through Guan Yu.
Zi Yi quickly released another arrow, but this was one aimed directly towards the Earth Devouring Groundbull.
The Earth Devouring Groundbull could not react to the arrows as they arrived in the blink of an eye. The first arrow, which had disappeared just moments before, had managed to reappear above the monster's head. It was able to penetrate the defenses of the Earth Devouring Groundbull with ease and shot into its skull.
The second arrow soon arrived as its speed was faster than both Izroth and Guan Yu, but it did not disappear as the other arrow did. Instead, it continued forward normally and struck the monster in the middle of its torso area.
«Critical Hit»
-1,180
-220
Zi Yi had used the same skill during her fight against those players who ambushed her. The skill was called Void Jump.
Skill Name: Void Jump
Skill Level: 2/4
Skill Rank: A
Requirements: Level 20 Void Seeker
Cost: 2 Void Essence
Active: Creates a small hole that leads to the void which causes the user arrows to enter the void and disappear from sight. The arrow will reappear at least 65 centimeters away from the target at the point of the user's choosing. Attacks that jumps through the void has its power increased by 100%.
The Void Seeker class did not use mana or energy, but rather a substance called Void Essence. In a way it was similar to energy, however, it was more unforgiving and not as flexible or expendable as mana and energy. It also came with a built-in regeneration feature, just as energy did.
Just as Zi Yi's second arrow struck the Earth Devouring Groundbull, Izroth's Blade of Lightning slashed outward with two phantom shadows following closely behind it. The first hit of his Phantom strike connected with the Earth Devouring Groundbull's head. The next two strikes that followed struck the monster's neck twice in succession.
«Critical Hit»
-244
«Critical Hit»
-588
«Critical Hit»
-932
With just a few attacks, the Earth Devouring Groundbull's HP dropped by nearly 5%. Its defenses were incredibly tough, however, Izroth and Zi Yi attack powers were nothing to scoff at.
When Izroth's Phantom Strike hit he was getting ready to follow up, but the Earth Devouring Groundbull finally regained its balance after being knocked back and sent flying. As it did, it swiftly slammed its large fist into the ground which caused tremors to shake the entire cave.
Sharp fragments of rocks ruptured out from the ground and rushed towards Izroth and his party.
Izroth reacted the fastest and jumped into the air when he felt and heard the noises of something getting ready to erupt from underground.
Halls did not bother trying to avoid the attack and simply braced himself for impact. It was the same for Guan Yu as he halted his charge and took on a defensive stance.
Zi Yi was agile and had no trouble jumping up and out off the way of the incoming attack.
A small thin string of mana flowed from Valentine's fingertip and slowly made its way towards the Earth Devouring Groundbull. He had already raised up a mana barrier and so was not worried about the damage he would receive from the attack. He was more focused on the current spell he was casting.
As for Luna, her mobility was lacking and the attack did not leave her any room for escape. However, Luna did not panic and instead, she simply took two steps to the left just as the attack was about to strike her.
At that moment, something astonishing happened.
1 chapter away from 100! Woo!
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