Free Web NovelChapter 30: Labyrinth: Vorkapar’s Tomb
"Solenne, I’ll be gone for a while. This place is safe, but if you want to return, use this." Aidan gave her his mask.
"Where are you going?" Solenne asked.
"Curious?" Aidan chuckled. "I’m going to a special place."
He snapped his finger.
In the next moment, a refined chaotic crack spread slowly and steadily, with a golden border blanketed by blue neon wisps. freēwebnovel.com
The space inside this crack was blue-ish black with crimson lava-like vein patterns.
Solenne was shocked. "W-What is that?"
Aidan whistled and raised his eyebrows. "That’s quite a portal. I guess it will be dangerous."
The aura coming from it was giving him goosebumps.
[The chance of death for you inside is 50%. Even if you die once, you can give up, so it’s safe for you to enter inside.]
Aidan wryly smiled and waved at Solenne. "I’ll be back."
’The fuck, you are saying as if I’ll die for sure.’ Aidan internally cursed the system as he moved in.
The portal vanished, leaving Solenne wondering just what kind of place he went to.
...
Labyrinth, Vorkapar’s Tomb.
Aidan’s boots touched down on soft blue grass.
The world assembled around him in slow strokes. A vast forest under a starless black sky. Trees of glowing blue sakura, their light falling like cold moonlight on everything below.
A soft chime greeted him, and a wall of text unfolded across his vision.
[Welcome to the Labyrinth: Vorkapar’s Tomb.]
[Every Transcendent Player begins in a Tier-1 Zone. Each zone has a clear condition. Meet it, and you advance to the next tier.]
[There are five zones, Tier-1 through Tier-5. Two of the five, chosen at random, are Shared Zones. In a Shared Zone another player enters with you, and only one of you may advance.]
Aidan read it slowly, arms folded.
[Clear all five zones to earn the right to challenge Vorkapar, the Specter Dragon King. Defeat him, and the raid ends.]
[Total Attempts on Vorkapar: 138.]
’A hundred and thirty-eight.’ Aidan’s brow rose. ’That many made it all the way to the boss.’ freёweɓnovel.com
And the raid was still open. Still live. Still hungry.
Which meant a hundred and thirty-eight players had clawed through all five zones, stood in front of the Specter Dragon King, and none of them had walked back out victorious.
’Zero for one thirty-eight.’ A slow, interested cold settled in his chest. ’Vorkapar’s undefeated.’
The text kept scrolling.
[Every player is granted one revival. Your first entry is free.]
[You may leave at any time by choosing to give up. However, if you leave before attempting the fight with the Specter Dragon King, your next entry into this raid will cost 100 Transcendent Points.]
’So the door swings both ways.’ Aidan nodded. ’Quit early and it stings to come back. Push to the boss and at least the second try’s free.’
He wasn’t planning on quitting.
The text faded, and the last line hung alone for a moment before it dissolved.
[Tier-1 Zone: The Whispering Maze. Condition to clear, listed below. Good luck.]
The maze made itself known all at once.
Walls of blue sakura rose up around him, hedges twenty feet tall, their glowing petals drifting down in a slow endless snow. Paths branched away in every direction, curling into a labyrinth with no visible end.
[Clear Condition: Exit the maze. OR: Survive all ten monster waves.]
[A monster will appear every ten seconds. Each is stronger than the last. Survive, or escape. Ten waves total.]
Aidan looked at the branching paths. Then he looked at the drifting petals.
Then he sat down on the grass.
’Run around a glowing hedge maze like a maniac to exit in just one minute and forty seconds, or sit here and let the food come to me.’ He stretched his legs out and leaned back on his hands. ’Yeah. No.’
He’d spent enough of his existence walking through mazes with no exits. He wasn’t about to jog through one for fun.
The first ten seconds ticked down.
A shape peeled out of the petals, low and fast, a wolf-thing woven from blue light and shadow.
Aidan flicked two fingers without getting up.
A single Magic Bullet crossed the clearing and punched through its skull, and it burst back into petals before it finished its lunge.
’One.’
Ten more seconds. A bigger beast this time, armored, six-legged. It charged.
Aidan pointed. A lance of Netherbind Rot met it head-on, ate through its plating, and unmade it mid-stride. It scattered into light.
’Two.’
He didn’t even stand.
The waves kept coming, one every ten seconds, each one heavier than the last. A serpent of blue flame. A hulking thing of stone and petal. A swarm that moved like one animal.
He took them apart from where he sat, lazy and precise, cycling through his arsenal because it was more interesting than repeating himself.
Bleed for the fast ones. Wind blades for the swarms. A compressed Air Pressure Blast that flattened the stone brute into drifting sparks.
’Five. Six. Seven.’
By the eighth wave the monsters were genuinely strong, Tier-9 by his rough read, the kind of thing that would have flattened his old self.
They still couldn’t reach him. He rotted the eighth, bled the ninth, and barely shifted his weight doing it.
’Nine.’ He glanced at the drifting petals. ’One more. Easy.’
Then the tenth wave arrived, and the air changed.
The petals stopped falling.
A tall shape stepped out of the blue glow at the far end of the clearing, and this one didn’t lunge. It walked. Humanoid, armored in petal-forged plate, a long curved blade of solid light held loose in one hand.
Aidan inspected it, and his lazy grin flickered.
[Maze Warden.]
[Rank: Special]
—Attributes—
[Attack = Epic-10]
[Speed = Epic-10]
[Defense = Epic-10]
[Health = Epic-10]
[Control = Epic-10]
—Talent—
[Time Bomb]: Every second, the stats increase by 10%. After ten seconds, it self-destructs.
’What the... so this darn labyrinth set up such a bastard at last?’ Aidan sat up straight.
Aidan was feeling speechless and worried both.
Time was ticking, and his brain had gone full throttle. After all, he only had ten seconds before this blasted into power that would definitely kill him.
He didn’t have Arthur with him right now to protect him or help him kill this monster, even though it would be perfectly fair since this was a raid, and all the powers and arsenal players had was allowed.
But now was not the time to wait for Arthur.
He must kill this monster, now, in ten seconds.
And one second had just passed as the monster stopping moving and simply looked at Aidan, blade raising.
Swoosh!
