Chapter 198
‘Herald of Blood and Madness?’
A familiar demon’s name burst from the Orc’s mouth.
He moved closer to the Orc and asked again.
“Are you lot connected to the Herald of Blood and Madness’s followers?”
Then the Orc shouted while bleeding.
[Glory to the Herald of Blood and Madness!]
With that cry, the Orc’s breath ceased and he turned to ash and disappeared.
Zeke frowned as he looked at the Orc’s axe left behind where it had turned to ash.
“So Arataso was right about the Orcs worshipping the Herald of Blood and Madness.”
This meant these Orcs were from the Hero King era over two thousand years ago.
He couldn’t understand why this ancient race, whose traces were now hard to find, was inside this labyrinth.
‘Did they bind the Orcs’ spirit bodies in here like the other monsters?’
If Tyr had created this place for training purposes, it made some sense that they would trap the souls of Orcs, their main enemy at the time, for combat training.
‘I guess I’ll have to keep going down for now.’
As Zeke was about to move, he looked around and saw armor and axes left behind where the Orcs had turned to ash.
―Axe Information―
Description: An axe favored by Orcs
Unique Ability: None
Special Features: Heavy and sturdy.
―Armor Information―
Description: Heavy armor favored by Orcs
Unique Ability: None
Special Features: Heavy and sturdy.
Their descriptions were simpler compared to the Elven armor.
Zeke slowly examined the scattered axes and armor.
Though sturdy, they had no magic enchantments and seemed inconvenient to use due to their large size.
‘It’s awkward to put everything in the inventory.’
Then something crossed Zeke’s mind.
“I wonder if I can sell these at the shop?”
Zeke immediately opened the shop and put up the armor and axe.
[Would you like to sell the Orc’s armor and axe?]
Seeing the message, Zeke rejoiced.
“They can be sold, probably because they’re ancient items. Good. I’ll sell them.”
[Sold Orc’s armor and axe.]
[Gained 20 Karma Points.]
“Oh, 20 points! Not bad!”
The armor and axe were worth 10 points each.
Zeke gathered all the scattered armor and axes around and thriftily sold them to the shop.
He earned 1,060 points just from the 31st floor.
“4,834 Karma Points now. If more Orcs appear below, I can collect more Karma Points too.”
It took 3000 Karma Points to unlock Dragon Race skills level 4.
Though he didn’t know what skills would be at level 4, it would take at least tens of thousands of points to unlock those skills.
“I was wondering when I’d collect points, but this worked out well.”
Zeke smiled with satisfaction and was about to head down to the 32nd floor after resting.
But then a message appeared before his eyes.
[The Inverted Tower adjusts the difficulty of trials according to the subject’s abilities.]
[The structure of the trial ground will be modified.]
[Moving to hidden stage corresponding to trials from floors 32 to 50.]
[Due to arbitrary difficulty adjustment, corresponding rewards will be given upon clearing the hidden stage.]
“Stage change? Suddenly?”
In that moment, Zeke’s body was enveloped in bright light.
As if entering a portal, after a moment, when the light faded and he opened his eyes, his surroundings had changed.
‘What is this place.’
Until now it felt like a dungeon with walls on all sides, but this place was like an ancient abandoned city.
It wasn’t an enclosed structure.
The ceiling was built high, and buildings of unfamiliar architecture stood densely packed.
Coming down the stairs and looking around, he almost mistook it for Thebea’s ancient ruins.
A message appeared before his eyes.
[Hidden stage begins.]
[Survive in the stage and reach the designated location.]
[Corresponding rewards will be given upon successful stage completion.]
“This is the hidden stage?”
WOOOONG!
Then, a mass of white light arose from the innermost part of what appeared to be ancient ruins.
It seemed reaching that spot was the quest completion condition.
‘If I just need to get there, it doesn’t seem too difficult, so why is it a hidden stage?’
As he was questioning the seemingly easy difficulty, it happened.
SHIK!
Something was spotted moving between buildings.
Zeke drew his sword and hid himself.
He regulated his breathing while observing the unidentified figures.
‘Enemies? Stealthy and quick movements. Not monster movements.’
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
Suddenly, three arrows struck where Zeke had been.
WHIK!
Zeke showed movements he’d learned as a southern continent hitman, dodging the arrows and quickly moving between buildings.
Zeke immediately chased after the flickering shadows.
WHOONG!
Closing the distance in one go, Zeke swung his sword at the shadow.
CLANG!
The shadow defended against the attack by swinging a deformed sword that was curved like a snake toward Zeke.
‘KUGH!’
Zeke felt the strike contained in the deformed sword was no ordinary attack.
Their movements were those of professionally trained assassins who had trained for many years.
Zeke chased after the shadows into the inner city area.
But the scattered shadows disappeared without a trace, their presence completely vanishing.
Zeke sheathed his sword and clenched his jaw.
‘Quick bastards. They didn’t seem like monsters. Could there be humans in this labyrinth too?’
Since ancient Orcs existed here, humans from that era could exist too.
Zeke looked around and entered a building that seemed advantageous for defense.
He took out scrolls and magic stones from his inventory to create makeshift alarm devices and attached them around.
Maintaining health was most important since the infinite health skill was restricted.
‘If they’re real assassins, this could turn into a long battle.’
Patience is the first quality assassins must have.
Being a former assassin himself, he knew their nature well.
Zeke waited for the shadows to approach after setting traps, avoiding hasty movements.
This space was essentially their home turf, so he needed to move carefully.
Zeke opened the map and focused on understanding all the surrounding space and positions.
Even after considerable time passed, the shadows showed no movement.
Zeke realized they were waiting for him to tire out.
‘A very classical method. They’ll probably come during dawn hours.’
Though time concepts weren’t exact inside the labyrinth, they were waiting for his stamina and concentration to drop.
But Zeke, being familiar with such tactics, was rather at ease.
Even without infinite Stamina, he could go without sleep for about a week.
As Zeke held out like this, the shadows became anxious instead.
After about 48 hours of confrontation, Zeke sensed movements approaching his building.
Zeke drew his dagger, stood up, and assessed the situation.
But what approached the building wasn’t the shadows.
GRRRR!
Over ten Hellhounds were approaching the building, baring their teeth.
The Hellhounds showed organized movement, spreading out in unison as if following someone’s orders.
Zeke was shocked at this sight.
‘Controlling Hellhounds? Those creatures should be impossible to tame.’
Though similar to dogs in appearance, Hellhounds were classified as high-risk monsters.
While one might be manageable, packs of Hellhounds were so dangerous that even Ogres were said to avoid them.
These Hellhounds jumped into the building like well-trained hunting dogs.
Simultaneously, the traps Zeke had set on the first floor activated.
WHOOSH!
Thick poison mist arose. He had created traps that generated poison mist by combining mist-producing scrolls with pre-made Hydra poison potions.
GRRRRRR!
Even Hellhounds couldn’t withstand Hydra’s poison.
As the poison mist spread, the Hellhounds entering the building foamed at the mouth and collapsed.
Soon after, the dead Hellhounds’ bodies turned to ash and disappeared like other monsters.
Though the Hellhounds died, there was no message about gaining experience points like when he killed boss monsters with the Elemental Sword.
‘How strict.’
The rule that rewards were only given for directly engaging enemies was being strictly enforced.
As the Hellhounds that entered the building showed no response, the shadows watching the situation began revealing their presence again.
Zeke waited for them to move while leaning against the wall.
Finally, the shadows moved first toward Zeke’s building.
Zeke tried to track the enemies’ movements through the map, but they weren’t marked on the screen.
RUSTLE! RUSTLE!
Though he couldn’t confirm through the map, Zeke detected the shadows stealthily approaching from the first floor, rooftop, and sides.
Zeke held his breath and waited for them to come further inside.
‘Just a little more.’
And when the shadows dug deeper inside, he activated the traps he had prepared.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The explosive scrolls attached with magic stones all detonated at once.
From the impact, the entire building began collapsing.
The shadows quickly retreated back in surprise from the explosion.
This is exactly what Zeke had aimed for.
WHOOSH!
Zeke’s movements while infiltrating with his dagger were beyond the assassins of Salmak.
STAB!
Zeke’s dagger pierced the masked shadow’s neck.
The shadow collapsed without even a scream.
The shadow turned to ash and scattered, leaving behind a deformed sword, and simultaneously a message appeared before Zeke.
[Ancient Dark Elf warrior’s cursed soul escapes from the realm of combat.]
‘Dark Elf?’
It was a name he’d never heard before.
Then other Dark Elves rushed to where Zeke was.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
An archer positioned on the building shot arrows at Zeke.
When Zeke dodged the arrows, another Dark Elf behind him stretched out his hand.
“?????????????????……”
With strange resonating pronunciations, Zeke suddenly felt his body grow heavy and dizziness overtake him.
‘Damn. A curse.’
He hadn’t expected assassins to use curse magic too.
Since Sturdy Mental Defense and Curse Reflection weren’t working, Zeke quickly rolled back to retreat.
He drank the status recovery potion he had placed in his auto slot.
Soon the curse lifted and his mind cleared.
More arrows flew toward Zeke again.
Using Theia’s Hersion would drain his health too quickly and be disadvantageous in battle.
‘In that case.’
Zeke took out the shield he had made from Black Scorpion shell from his inventory.
He hadn’t known he’d use what he made as a test like this.
Zeke grabbed the Black Scorpion shield and charged toward the Dark Elf warriors.
TING! TING!
The hard Black Scorpion shell deflected the Dark Elves’ arrows.
Zeke struck the elves with his shield.
BANG!
Since the shield also had a health reduction curse effect, the hit Dark Elf staggered and fell.
Zeke immediately activated the shield’s hidden mechanism and stabbed the fallen Dark Elf warrior with a poisoned needle coated in Black Scorpion venom.
STAB!
The Dark Elf warrior struck by the poison needle writhed before dying.
HISS!
The dead Dark Elf warrior disappeared, leaving behind a deformed sword.
Zeke didn’t even glance that way and drew Bahamut while holding his shield.
The Dark Elves were wary of Zeke as he took Agamemnon’s Golden Swordsmanship stance.
As the standoff continued, one Dark Elf warrior stepped forward before Zeke.
“?????????????!!”
Like the Orc language, the Dark Elf language was incomprehensible.
‘System, translate. No, from now on auto-translate any language I can’t understand.’
The system soon translated the Dark Elf’s language to the continental common tongue.
[Hateful human! I don’t know how you got in here, but you won’t leave alive!]
Zeke opened his mouth while looking at the shouting Dark Elf.
“Dark Elf. Were you trapped here for two thousand years like the Orcs?”
When Zeke spoke in their language, the Dark Elves showed signs of confusion.
Meanwhile, the Dark Elf warrior who had shouted at Zeke spoke again.
[What do you mean two thousand years, human?!]
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