Chapter 158: Whatever, I Don't Even Want the Title Anymore
Passing through an extrely dark and winding tunnel, Elsa saw the end of it.
A staircase opening appeared before the 2 of them, light streaming through from beyond.
Below the stairs, everything was pitch black—nothing was visible at all.
Yet Elsa had an incredibly powerful premonition.
The person she had been thinking of night and day was right at the bottom of those stairs.
Shortly after, Viktor's voice reached her ears:
"Go in. He's in there."
"Rember—don't forget what you promised ."
Elsa's heart pounded furiously. She dragged her heavy feet up the stairs.
1 step. 2 steps.
She had no idea how long she walked. She hadn't even noticed herself.
All around her, nothing but darkness.
She kept walking. Kept going.
Before the darkness, a beam of light appeared.
Elsa stepped into that light, and at once, a powerful radiance surged upward.
She raised a hand to shield her eyes, barely managing to adjust to the brightness.
At last, a howling gust of wind swept past her ears.
She squinted, and gradually forced her eyes open.
Around her, it was as if she had arrived in an entirely different world.
This was a vast plain—wide open in every direction.
The sky was blanketed in dark, brooding stormclouds that pressed down heavily on everything beneath.
Several towering mountain peaks lood in the distance, though under this curtain of dark clouds, she couldn't make them out clearly.
The staircase behind her had vanished without a trace. She turned to look—only an endless expanse of plain stretched out behind her.
Elsa clearly rembered walking downward along the stairs, descending straight into the earth.
So why had she arrived at this wide-open plain?
Suddenly, Elsa's body gave a faint shudder.
It felt as though a deep, penetrating gaze was trained on her at all tis.
Wait.
Elsa snapped to attention. A chill ran through her entire body.
This place was a spatial magic—the kind only a Mage could construct.
That gaze was Viktor.
He had been watching her all along.
But before Elsa could even begin to adjust to her surroundings—suddenly:
A familiar voice rang out from behind her.
"Is that… Elsa?"
Elsa froze, then spun around sharply.
In that instant, joy and excitent welled up inside her all at once.
It was the person she had been longing for.
And now, he had appeared at her side.
Seeing Elsa turn around, Cindy was equally overco—euphoric with excitent.
He hadn't mistaken her. It really was his Elsa.
"Elsa, you ca to rescue !"
"If you can appear here, then you must know the way out!"
"Quick! Let's get out together! Leave this place!"
Perhaps overwheld by the surge of emotion, his body trembled uncontrollably.
He stumbled forward, running toward Elsa.
But just as he was about to reach her—
A crimson flash of blade light surged, and blazing flas erupted violently at Cindy's feet.
Cindy recoiled in shock, stumbling backward, staring in disbelief at Elsa—who had just swung her weapon at him.
"Elsa… why…"
I'm sorry, Cindy.
Elsa closed her eyes. She didn't want Cindy to see the complicated expression on her face right now.
Here, within this space, she felt Viktor's surveillance pressing against her every mont.
She understood—if she didn't do as Viktor had instructed:
Neither she nor Cindy would leave this place alive. They would perish together.
So that you can walk out of here breathing.
Forgive , Cindy.
My love.
Elsa opened her eyes again. In that mont, her gaze was cold beyond asure.
Her voice, stripped of warmth, fell upon Cindy's ears.
"I'm sorry."
"I have pledged my loyalty to Lord Viktor."
In Cindy's eyes, an unacceptable shock took hold.
He stared blankly at the Elsa before him—a woman who seed to have beco an entirely different person.
"Elsa, you…"
"How could this be…"
But Elsa's gaze was utterly cold, as if she were looking at a stranger—so unfamiliar prey she had locked onto.
"These are the orders given to by Lord Viktor. My master."
"…Master?"
Cindy's composure began to fracture.
He stared at Elsa with wide eyes and scread at the top of his lungs.
"Tell , Elsa!"
"None of this is real! Tell !"
Swish!
A blade of fla cut a burning streak through the air, igniting the space between them completely.
Cindy could no longer see Elsa's expression—only her voice reached him, detached and remote.
"This is the truth, Cindy."
"Draw your weapon."
She raised the weapon in her hand, the blade's cold gleam aid squarely at Cindy.
In that mont, sothing inside Cindy's chest was struck as if by a fist—a sharp, wrenching pain.
He could not accept what was unfolding before him. His body swayed as he stumbled back 2 steps.
"No… Elsa."
"This isn't real… this isn't real…"
He grew more and more frantic as he spoke, as if falling into madness—eyes wide, both hands thrashing wildly in the air before him.
"You're not Elsa—you can't possibly be her!"
But the mont his frenzied cry fell—in an instant:
Elsa's figure was already before him.
The blade, glinting with cold light, tore through the air in a flash, carrying a razor-sharp gust of wind, and bore down on Cindy's body.
Clang!
At the very last mont, Cindy swiftly drew the greatsword from his back and blocked the blindingly fast blade.
The force was enormous—it sent him skidding back several steps.
Once he steadied himself, he stared in stunned disbelief at the weapon in his hands.
His prized greatsword had just been cleaved open, a crack splitting the blade where her strike had landed.
This… was impossible!?
The Rether Family had spared no expense acquiring this greatsword as a gift for him.
Cindy had even used this very blade to cleave through half a mountainside without so much as a single chip in the edge.
But even more impossible for him to accept—was Elsa.
Beneath that terrifying force, Cindy felt it clearly.
Elsa was serious.
One strike delivered, the woman before him was already in motion again—her body flickering at high speed, her figure dissolving into a blur of afterimages.
The mont she vanished from sight, Cindy felt every hair on his body stand on end.
He and Elsa had fought as comrades for more ti than he could count.
He knew all too well just how devastating her attacks could be.
And likewise—Elsa knew him.
Instinct told him: the threat was already closing in.
Cindy raised his great blade and slamd it backward in a block.
Bang!
Even as a 4th-Tier warrior, Cindy's powerful body could barely withstand that savage, overbearing force.
Dust and debris erupted from beneath his feet as the ground cracked apart in a wide, jagged web.
An enormous gust of wind surged across the earth. The high-velocity windstorm battered against Elsa's armor with rapid bang-bang-bang impacts.
"Impossible!"
Elsa was an Assassin!
An Assassin—who had nearly crushed him, a warrior, in pure raw strength?
"Nothing's impossible."
Elsa's figure reappeared, her tone composed and level.
She could feel the lightness the armor on her body gave her, and the strength that the blade granted her.
The sensation was extraordinary beyond anything she could have imagined.
But this was not the mont to let her guard down.
She raised her head. A cold glint flashed in her eyes, and she pressed the attack toward Cindy once more.
She could not allow herself even a shred of pity—nor a single trace of personal feeling.
If she did, Cindy would never leave this place alive.
She had to use every ounce of her strength, with this formidable equipnt behind her, to beat Cindy within an inch of his life.
Even if all that remained was his last breath—that would be enough to achieve the outco she wanted most.
To survive. To leave this place.
With that thought, Elsa's assault grew several degrees more ferocious.
Phantom images multiplied across the sky—more and more of them—until Cindy could no longer tell from which direction the danger would strike.
All he could do was fight to block the relentless barrage coming from Elsa.
But every block only left his palms trembling a little more than before.
The battle raged—fierce and desperate.
Yet no one noticed—high above, where the stormclouds gathered thick and dark:
A figure slowly appeared.
Viktor looked down with his head lowered, watching the fight below with complete indifference.
He had not the slightest interest in either of their struggles.
"No technical skill worth speaking of."
Both were at around Level 40—yet there was simply no comparing an NPC to a top-tier Player.
Players had superior equipnt, more ticulous planning.
And far more refined execution.
In Viktor's eyes, Cindy and Elsa were nothing more than 2 ordinary NPCs who had barely scraped past Level 40.
This fight had no entertainnt value whatsoever.
If forced to draw a comparison:
It was like watching 2 Silver-ranked players grinding it out in a sloppy back-and-forth.
Viktor watched from above with cold, detached eyes.
"How dull."
Both 4th-Tier.
And yet, in terms of both power and technique, neither of them ca close to Angus Delin—a Boss unit of the sa Tier.
After all, even among 4th-Tier, a Boss and an ordinary 4th-Tier NPC were simply not in the sa league to begin with.
"Really? I think it's rather entertaining."
Weija, perched on Viktor's shoulder, craned its neck and peered down below.
It had always had a particular fondness for this kind of cricket-fight spectacle.
"Though—that man is about to lose."
"Naturally."
Viktor said plainly, not a trace of emotion in his voice.
When the strength and technique of 2 sides were roughly matched:
The quality of equipnt beca a factor capable of tipping the entire balance of battle.
Elsa wore the armor and weapon Viktor had enhanced 5 consecutive tis—her base attributes had received a trendous boost across the board.
Cindy, sitting at only Level 40, was already 1 level below Elsa.
With the gap in equipnt on top of that, resisting her was all but impossible.
"Still—this test has run its course."
A thread of cold intent radiated from Viktor's body.
"A person with no further utility."
"May as well die."
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