The mont Rita stepped through the fog at the end of the bridge and her vision cleared, she discovered a pair of black iron handcuffs around her wrists.
The chain connecting them was at least half a ter long. It didn’t interfere much with movent.
What troubled her was the lock.
Embedded between the cuffs was a tiny crimson five-layer Rubik’s Cube.
She could feel it imdiately.
This was the source of the suppression affecting her abilities.
The Vine around her body and the lightning sword at her waist were noticeably less active than before.
The instant Nivalis erged, she shrank her body and settled onto Rita’s shoulder as usual.
Behind them, the fog slowly folded inward like a closing door before finally dissipating.
Rita looked up.
That strange feeling of having returned to Divine Ga surfaced once again.
She was standing inside a transparent room with equal length, width, and height.
The walls carried a faint crimson tint, but they remained transparent enough for her to see the occupants of neighboring rooms.
It looked remarkably similar to the waiting chambers before entering Divine Ga.
Identical rooms existed above, below, left, and right.
Yet there was a crucial difference.
Unlike Divine Ga, where each room was separated by empty space, the rooms here were directly connected.
There were rooms pressed against hers in front and behind as well.
She gazed through layer after layer of transparent walls.
No matter which direction she looked, she could not find an end.
Was this a prison cell?
If so, then the structure of this so-called prison looked...
Like...
Her gaze fell upon the tiny cube embedded in her cuffs.
Like scattered pieces of a Rubik’s Cube assembled into a complete form.
Divine Ga, by comparison, had rely laid the broken pieces out in neat rows.
The realization sent a chill through her.
Yet oddly enough, it also eased so of her anxiety.
When she had looked toward the future from the starting point, what she saw was a scattered but orderly version of this cube prison.
That wasn’t necessarily bad news.
In several more distant rooms, she spotted beings who clearly did not belong to the Tenth Epoch.
After casting her a cold, lifeless glance, they simply returned to whatever they had been doing.
So were crafting gemstones.
Others were brewing potions.
So were eating.
Everyone seed strangely busy, as though ti was running out.
Just as she was thinking about it, movent sounded behind her.
Soone had arrived in the neighboring cell.
The fog parted.
Cinders stepped through carrying her greatsword.
The mont she crossed the threshold, an identical pair of shackles appeared around her wrists.
Without hesitation, Cinders dismissed both her greatsword and light armor, returning them to their bracer forms.
The two exchanged greetings before resuming their inspection of the prison.
At the sa ti, they checked nearby cells for other players or unfamiliar prisoners.
Not long after Cinders arrived, the occupants of the two cells in front of Rita appeared as well.
Their relationship clearly wasn’t friendly.
Still, neither seed childish enough to start arguing.
Who were they?
Veterans capable of reaching a place like this.
Starting a fight now would be ridiculous.
Deceitful Bloom and Lightchaser stood in their respective cells.
After quickly surveying their surroundings and gathering information, both of them turned their eyes toward Rita.
Rita: "..."
At a mont like this, calling anyone "Teacher" was absolutely forbidden.
She had learned that lesson more than enough tis during the past hundred years.
Lightchaser possessed a fascinating trait.
Ever since Cicada had mocked her for being underage a century ago, the elf had developed a habit.
Whenever she got angry, she forcibly suppressed it.
The sight of soone practically exploding with rage while stubbornly holding her chin high and pretending to be calm made her look like a child trying to act like an adult.
It was incredibly amusing.
As a result, Rita, Cinders, and others...
Well, perhaps not everyone.
But Deceitful Bloom certainly enjoyed provoking Lightchaser.
The thought had barely crossed Rita’s mind when Cinders spoke from behind her in a tone laced with faint amusent.
"May I ask which one of you is Adjudicator’s teacher?"
Deceitful Bloom and Lightchaser imdiately turned their heads toward each other.
Then they both turned back toward Rita.
Perfect synchronization.
One hundred percent.
Their expressions carried exactly the sa aning.
You tell us.
Ah.
That black-hearted teacher had actually called for a parent on the spot.
Rita instantly lowered her head and pretended to focus on investigating clues.
The mont she looked down, however, her eyes t Foolishness’s.
The woman was looking upward from the cell below.
Did these people possess so kind of Teacher Trait?
To avoid prolonged eye contact, Rita rubbed the back of her neck and looked up.
Then she imdiately locked eyes with Quiet Mountain Rita in the cell above.
Though the lower half of her face was hidden, the mockery in her eyes was unmistakable.
As if worried BS Rita might miss the ssage, Quiet Mountain Rita even folded her arms and let out a cold snort.
"Hmph."
Rita: "..."
She just loved learning.
What was wrong with that?
Fortunately, more and more players began arriving, rescuing her from the suffocating atmosphere.
Rita wasn’t the only one who had realized the prison resembled a gigantic Rubik’s Cube.
Discussion quickly erupted in the Adjudicator Chat Channel.
As information poured in, everyone noticed sothing peculiar.
Gas like mahjong and poker existed across many worlds.
Yet the rules often differed slightly from world to world.
Rubik’s Cubes, however, were different.
Perhaps because their purpose was so obvious.
Every world that possessed a Rubik’s Cube toy used it the exact sa way.
Scramble it.
Restore it.
And the definition of restoration was identical.
Each face had to beco uniform.
Once that critical clue erged, players throughout the cells began sharing their locations.
Rita had originally created the location-sharing rule to prevent people from getting separated.
Now it had beco a vital tool.
Everyone hoped she could use the data to map the prison’s structure.
Unfortunately, what reached her consciousness was complete chaos.
A sea of scattered blue lights.
Opening World Sigh, Rita swept her hand across the pages.
Countless blue points of light piled atop one another above the book.
[BS Rita]: Can’t see anything. The structure is chaotic. Before we began the invasion and deployed the anchor points, I noticed signs of disorder here. I assud it was caused by differences in arrival tis.
No one wasted ti discussing the problem.
Every player here was highly experienced.
They imdiately adjusted their strategy.
Instead of relying on Rita’s map, they began using nearby players as anchor points.
Everyone reported positions and observations through the chat.
They attempted to calculate the total number of rooms.
To determine how many blocks this giant cube contained.
anwhile, another group of players began speaking with the unfamiliar prisoners in neighboring cells.
No matter what language they used, the response was always the sa.
Silence.
The prisoners continued their work.
At most, they cast curious glances toward the players’ equipnt and items.
Were they envious?
Regretful?
Pitying?
The emotions were too complicated to decipher.
There was one thing they all shared, however.
Every one of them belonged to races that existed in Starsea and Quiet Mountain.
Their ntal states appeared stable.
No obvious disabilities.
No untreated wounds.
Their clothes often fit poorly, as if taken from soone else.
But most of them were relatively clean.
Whether they used skills to clean themselves was impossible to know.
Still, their faces and fur were well kept.
Did that an conditions here weren’t desperate enough to crush hope?
Or were these prisoners simply possessed of extraordinary willpower?
As more players reported their locations, the process resembled a dark map gradually illuminated by torches.
Each new light revealed more territory.
Yet instead of exposing the prison’s boundaries, the growing illumination only uncovered additional cells.
More prisoners.
An even larger cube world.
Not a single player had discovered an edge.
Not one had reached the outermost layer.
It was as though everyone had been buried deep within the center of the cube.
Locked inside blocks that could never move.
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