Chapter 177: ROAARRR! (That Was a Dragon's Roar)
A portion of the Adventurers were still lingering outside the Magical Creature Rift.
Pia was among them, standing before those tall towers, hesitating.
Most people had taken their gold coins and left this place in good cheer.
But this group had not.
These people all wanted to wait and see—to see just how long the Princess's Demi-human unit could last inside the Magical Creature Rift.
But right at that mont.
A succession of terrifyingly oppressive presences wrapped around their waists.
They spun their heads around sharply.
Over a dozen individuals of varying appearances stood together as one.
Radiating their powerful, crushing presences.
One of them shouldered a great axe, built in a way that seed barely human, his face layered with horizontal slabs of scarred muscle and blade scars, giving him a profoundly fearso look.
"That's... the Rampart Savage—Pal Qiu?"
Another among them appeared to have sothing like a rhinoceros horn growing from the top of their head, their expression ferocious and imposing.
"And the Frenzied Rhino—Bis. Why would they be here at this ti of day?"
They were all top-tier fighters of the Beast Guild—likewise among the most formidable figures in this entire Adventurers' Capital.
The Beast Guild, as its na suggested.
Simply by standing there, the savage, crushing pressure they radiated was like a wild beast holding its fury in check.
It made the hair stand on end and left people's legs feeling numb and beyond their control.
The majority of the 4th-Tier combat power in the Adventurers' Capital had, for all intents and purposes, gathered right here.
At last, all eyes turned to the woman standing at the very front of the group.
Compared to the crowd of hulking figures behind her, her fra was smaller than an ordinary person's.
A wide black dress covered her legs, and in her hand she held a fan.
At the corners of her eyes, 2 narrow black markings curved outward—resembling the trails of tears.
"Oh my, everyone's here."
Her eyes narrowed slightly, gradually emanating a predatory sense of danger that crept up the backs of the surrounding Adventurers to the tops of their heads.
But her words were remarkably polite.
"Though I do apologize—we have so business here today."
"Would you mind letting this place go to us for 1 more day?"
The Wild One—Hera.
The first was her title; the latter, her na.
True to her title, she was the strongest individual in the Beast Guild.
No one knew her origins, and not even her age was known.
In the eyes of the vast majority of Adventurers, she was formidable—formidable to an unfathomable degree.
This Guild Master rarely appeared in anyone's field of view, least of all on a day like today.
After all, today was a freelance Adventurer workday.
Could it be... she had co because of Viktor?
Those freelance Adventurers seed to harbor a faint suspicion forming in their hearts.
Pia voluntarily stepped forward and began to explain to the Beast Guild:
"Um... Guild Master Hera."
The petite Hera slowly raised her head, narrowing her eyes as she looked at him.
rely having her gaze fall on him was enough to make Pia's entire body give a faint tremble.
The Wild One—Hera. Truly terrifying, as expected.
To think—he was a 3rd-Tier warrior on the verge of reaching 4th Tier...
Her eyes bore an extrely eerie pattern of black markings, spreading from the corners of her eyes all the way across toward both temples.
And the black patterns on the inner side seed to bleed into the white of her eyes themselves.
Like a beast that had entered its hunting state.
Utterly, bone-chillingly uncanny.
So much so that beneath those soul-seizing eyes of hers, people would inadvertently overlook her exquisite features.
Suppressing his fear, Pia continued:
"I need to let you know in advance—a group of people have already entered the Magical Creature Rift. They..."
"Mm... no need to say more."
She cut Pia off with total composure, retracted her gaze, and walked forward with graceful steps.
As she walked, her body showed not the slightest rise or fall.
It even made people wonder whether what lay beneath her skirt hem were actually human legs.
Then, suddenly, she ca to a stop.
Because what lay ahead no longer permitted her to continue.
"Magic?"
She raised her head, looking at the violet barrier flowing with a luminous shimr in midair.
That barrier seed to be sprinkled with stardust, carrying a violet hue as it drifted slowly along.
As though possessed of awareness, it gradually began to drift and shift in line with Hera's gaze.
The barrier was not particularly sturdy—only strong enough to stop those 3rd-Tier freelance Adventurers.
But the construction of this barrier was exceptionally ingenious.
Difficult to crack.
"Interesting."
"Whoever entered this place must be a very powerful Mage."
Hera's brow imdiately sank. Her pupils abruptly went vertical.
A bone spear split open the yellow earth and shot straight upward, driving hard into the barrier.
Thrum!
Under this powerful thrust, the barrier shuddered.
Before the trembling had even subsided, a 2nd bone spear erupted from deep beneath the ground.
Aid at the sa point, it struck again.
Once. Twice. 3 tis.
Crack—
The barrier finally buckled under the imnse pressure and shattered completely.
It dissolved into scattered fragnts of white, beginning to crumble and fall apart from the air.
The violet stardust drifted through the air, slowly dissipating.
Every freelance Adventurer, Pia included, stared at the broken barrier and was instantly rooted to the spot in stunned silence.
The barrier that had stopped every single one of them—just like that, broken so easily?
This was... the Guild Master of the most powerful Guild, the Wild One—Hera?
The fan in Hera's hand snapped lightly shut, and several bone spears retracted back into the earth.
She watched the spots where the bone spears had withdrawn, brow lowering, lost in thought.
She hadn't used her full strength—and yet even a standard 4th-Tier attack had required multiple strikes to break it?
Thinking back to what the First Prince had said to her, she was growing more and more curious.
Sothing must have appeared inside the Magical Creature Rift to draw a powerful figure like that here.
Within those eerie eyes of hers, a flicker of excitent seed to erge.
Hera didn't look back, but let her peripheral gaze drift toward those behind her.
"Oh, right, right."
"The barrier's already been opened, but you all need to behave yourselves."
Hera narrowed her eyes again, raising the fan to cover the tip of her nose.
The markings at her eye corners seed to extend faint spines outward, and a chilling sensation erupted from her gaze.
"Very dangerous creatures will appear inside—don't go sneaking in after us."
The burly Adventurers behind her shouldered their great axes, slung their chain hamrs, flexed the masses of muscle across their bodies, and stamped the ground.
They let out a hmph through their nostrils and strode forward with heavy steps into the Magical Creature Rift.
As they passed the gate guards, those guards didn't even try to stop them—they let them through without a word.
Hera politely gave a slight bow toward those guards, and with the Adventurers behind her in tow, walked into the violet void.
Dangerous creatures?
Hearing Hera's final remark, the Adventurers remaining outside the Rift couldn't help but shudder.
"Let's go back, right?"
"Mm..."
It seed this had beco sothing well beyond what freelancers like them could be part of.
Pia had no desire to stay here either, though he still wanted to catch one more glimpse of that cold-proud Knight with the silver hair.
But still...
The Princess's army. And the arrival of the Beast Guild.
Everything was pointing to how unusual today was.
He intended to hurry back to the city and use all of this as talking material to spread far and wide.
But just as everyone was preparing to leave, he suddenly froze in place.
Being nearly at 4th Tier, he was the first to sense the change in his surroundings.
The breeze around them gradually fell still.
The sky, which had been clear and cloudless monts ago, suddenly darkened.
The sun seed to be blotted out by sothing, its dazzling light slowly fading.
The Adventurers sensed sothing strange as well.
The instant the sun vanished, they couldn't help but look up.
Without anyone noticing when, thick black clouds had completely covered the sky.
And none of them had even perceived it happening.
Under normal circumstances, weather like this would typically stir up gusts of cold wind.
But right now, the surroundings were utterly silent.
More and more Adventurers began to notice.
"What's going on—why did the sky go dark?"
"Hss, sothing's off. The sky's this overcast but it doesn't feel cool at all."
"Where's the wind? Where did the wind go?"
They walked and wondered aloud.
But then, all of a sudden.
"ROAARRR—"
A deep, reverberating dragon's roar thundered up from deep within the black clouds, carrying across the open land below.
A crushing presence, far more staggering than anything even those top-tier Adventurers had radiated, hung instantly above every person's head.
Whether it was Pia or any of the other Adventurers—none could keep their bodies from shaking.
With great difficulty, they lifted their heads and looked again at the sky that had now turned pitch black.
It was a body—utterly, impossibly black.
Occupying the entirety of the cloud cover.
As though looking down in contempt at the insects below the clouds, it unveiled 2 eyes.
In this mont...
Every wind seed to exist for no other reason than to hold up its body.
Their minds suddenly went back to what Hera had just said.
Dangerous creatures would appear in the Magical Creature Rift?
What a joke!
Whatever might appear inside the Rift, the way things looked right now...
The thing that could be called terrifying.
Was crouching directly above their heads.
Crouching atop the clouds.
***
Beyond the void, what lay revealed was a wondrous otherworldly space.
This place was completely unlike the 10th layer of the Magical Creature Rift—no writhing flesh, no churning fissures.
All around, everything was a uniform shade of teal stone slabs, filling the entire space in a single layer.
Strange bas-reliefs were carved into the surrounding stone slabs, combining together into a profoundly uncanny composition.
Viktor stood on the open expanse of stone slabs, looking at the Magical Creature corpses that had fallen around him.
All manner of creatures whose nas could not be nad lay here in death, sharp bones piercing through flesh, organs and viscera exposed, toppled every which way across the ground.
The hard great horns on their heads had been snapped off, the fragnts scattered across the floor.
The bodies of those magical beasts burned with relentless, unwavering flas.
Viktor stood in place with composure, without having moved so much as a single step.
This place was the Trial challenge of the Magical Creature Rift's 10th layer.
Within the Magical Creature Abyss, every 10th layer held a hidden challenge.
One only needed to find the concealed "door" to activate the corresponding challenge.
And every layer's challenge carried its own corresponding requirents.
Furthermore, there was no need to worry about leveling up reducing the difficulty.
The higher the Level, the higher the Level of the creatures within the Trial.
The difficulty would not change—the Trial would make the appropriate adjustnts for the player.
The 10th layer Trial was the first Trial of the Magical Creature Abyss.
Its requirent was:
Survive unscathed, and eliminate all creatures in this place.
5 Beast Tides in total.
At this mont, Viktor had already persevered through to the final wave.
Through the first 4 Beast Tides, he had been besieged by countless magical beasts—and yet had not taken so much as a single point of damage.
Not even his Coat had been grazed.
Unhurried. Composed. Elegant.
Again, that familiar feeling—as though I've challenged this a thousand tis before.
Watching Viktor, that thought surfaced in Weija's heart.
The last ti, at the Inheritance Temple in the Extre Northern Ice Plains, she had felt exactly the sa thing.
At that mont, Weija slowly raised her head, as though sensing sothing.
"They ca rather quickly."
Viktor did not respond, but quietly watched as the surrounding walls began to writhe.
From behind the stone slabs, mangled partial forms erged one after another, and countless mismatched limbs began to connect with each other midair—until a complete body had ford.
That creature landed on the floor, worked its assembled body into motion, and let out a howl at Viktor.
Then, in midair, tens of thousands of jumbled limbs, accompanied by flowing blood, continued to connect ceaselessly.
The Beast Tide materialized out of nothing.
This final Beast Tide had reached an unprecedented number.
"Is that so?"
Viktor's voice rang out, unhurried. All at once, his Coat behind him seed to be flooded with Magic Power—it began to whip and billow wildly.
Several fire-red streaks of light blazed to life, blanketing the entire garnt.
The streaks didn't stop at the Coat alone—they even climbed onto Viktor's body.
From the back of the Coat, a pair of blazing red eyes, like those of a monster, lit up.
Almost instantaneously, the surrounding temperature, in tandem with his change, began to climb at a visible rate.
The floor covered in stone slabs seed to be blanketed by waves of red Magic Power.
【Scorched Earth】
The red Magic Power instantly transford into raging flas and surging magma, clinging to those teal stone slabs.
The surrounding creatures were swallowed within the magma, their limbs scorched away entirely, the very ground where they stood consud by lava.
"Then, let make this quick."
He extended one hand. A staff set with a red gemstone was gripped steadily in his palm.
Viktor raised the staff and gave it a light tap.
In an instant, countless fierce pillars of fla erupted from the sea of lava and fire, the flas spiraling continuously as they shot skyward.
The air, under such extre heat, threw off sparks of fire that caught and flickered in the flas.
Like great serpents, stretching their restless forms endlessly outward.
The magma began to surge, eroding and consuming the broken magical beast bodies entirely, swallowing them whole.
The overflowing magma gathered together, taking the shape of an enormous golem.
It stretched out both arms, half its body subrged in the lava, opened a gaping magma maw, exposing a searing crimson hollow within—and swallowed every last one of the overwhelming Magical Creatures whole.
Wave after wave of scorching heat pressed in, the air itself warping slightly from the terrifying temperature.
Crimson blanketed the entire space in an instant—like the unending, boundless fury of the world's hatred and sin.
A soft voice—as though it had beco their final requiem.
"Fall into despair, and then."
"Rest in peace."
【War Magic—Fla Demon's Requiem】
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