Chapter 178: Love Your Work, Love Your Life!
The Beast Guild Adventurers shouldered their great blades and axes, treading across the writhing purple flesh, advancing toward the depths.
At this mont, they were within the Pain Demon Darkfield.
Hera walked at the very front of the group, fan in hand, humming a little tune, looking thoroughly relaxed.
For top-tier Adventurers like them, the first 10 layers of the Magical Creature Rift were no different from strolling around a pasture back ho.
Not the slightest threat.
As the group moved on, Hera at the front suddenly ca to a stop.
Her eyes swept the surroundings, as though she had sensed sothing.
The Adventurers behind her—so gripping longswords, so clutching staves, so drawing bows with arrows nocked—likewise went on alert.
The warrior's silver longsword flickered with a faint light, a radiant halo shimred around the Mage, and the archer placed 3 arrows against the bowstring, ready to loose at any mont.
The hulking man shouldering a great axe, built like a mass of muscle, pushed out from the group and asked Hera in a deep, reverberating voice:
"Boss, why'd we stop?"
"Shh."
Hera's fan slowly folded shut. She raised it vertically to her lips, making a gesture for silence.
Her gaze slid sideways, and behind the fan, her mouth curved into a strangely excited smile.
"I caught a scent—the scent of a person."
"Mm, mm, quite a clean sll."
The fan in her hand gave a gentle sweep in one direction.
"Over there."
Hera walked off on her own toward the direction her fan had indicated, but the Adventurers behind her were a little confused.
The hulking man scratched his head, said nothing more, and simply waved to the group to follow.
***
In that otherworldly space, the scene before them had changed completely compared to before.
The stone walls of the entire space were split and shattered in all directions, and a good many teal stone slabs had peeled away from the walls and ceiling in sheets.
Churning grey dust rose up from the ground, leaving the entire space hazy and dim.
Black-violet blood flowed between the stone slabs, forming an eerie pattern.
Countless severed magical beast limbs were piled atop the fractured stone, making it nearly impossible to tell which creature each piece had co from.
Though the beast bodies were heaped in one place, the flesh itself seed to be ceaselessly fragnting in the air, turning to ash and drifting slowly aloft.
Under the sweeping wide-area magic Viktor had unleashed, the so-called Beast Tide had long since been reduced to nothing.
Viktor stood quietly in place, the Coat on his body coming to rest as well.
The red streaks retreated from his neck, until they had faded entirely.
His palm relaxed—the staff vanished from his hand in an instant.
Among War Magic, there were likewise distinctions of grade.
A large-area one-ti sweep magic of this kind needed no assistance from Weija—with the Staff: Ulruste's support alone, releasing it was entirely sufficient.
Equally, releasing such a fearso War Magic entirely on his own still placed an imnse burden on him.
Fortunately, the power of Calamity was enough to sustain the release of Magic like this.
Viktor stood calmly in place, sensing the surrounding temperature gradually cooling, while the space he occupied began to slowly warp and tear apart.
Before long, that enormous chamber shed its shape, and the space dissolved into a void of nothingness.
Viktor stood within this expanse of pitch-black void, and a vast, echoing voice gradually rose from within the churning emptiness.
【Challenger—Viktor Clavena】
【Ti elapsed: 1:11:11】
【Challenge successful—Distributing rewards】
The voice faded. Before him, a radiance began to flicker.
That golden light pulsed like breathing, flickering in steady rhythm as it drifted slowly toward Viktor.
Then, it ca to rest before him.
A warmth spread through his palm. The golden light gradually faded, and the wondrous object, crown-like in form, revealed its true appearance.
2 golden branches wound endlessly around each other, forming an enormously imposing crown.
At the crown's center, an uncanny gemstone—resembling a magical beast's heart—trembled without cease.
At the heart of that gem, a tiny eye surveyed the void around it.
A thread of violet and 2 rings of gold coiled together—profoundly unsettling to behold.
【Imperial Relic: The Ruined Beast That Abhors Pain】
【Skill: Piercing Shriek From the Void—Once the user enters combat, if they take no damage from any source within a certain ti, this item's restrictions will be lifted.】
【5 seconds after restrictions are lifted, a void rift will be created through which countless powerful void creatures will descend upon the world, tearing and consuming everything they encounter.】
【While the void creatures are descending, if the user takes damage, the summoning will imdiately be terminated and the void creatures will be pulled back into the void by a mysterious force.】
Imperial Relics were equipnt with no attribute requirents.
Furthermore, equipping them did not occupy any other equipnt slot.
Each Imperial Relic's Skill was connected to its corresponding challenge mission.
Imperial Relics were exceedingly powerful in their effects—but equally, their restrictions were staggering.
How to make the most of one was a serious question requiring careful study.
Viktor, now in possession of an Imperial Relic, showed little change in his expression.
His palm relaxed—the crown automatically entered his inventory.
He raised his head, looking toward the great gate that had regenerated before him.
"Let's go."
***
The band of Adventurers walked through the purple, writhing flesh cave, groping their way through the surrounding darkness.
The paths were extraordinarily complex. Even a full group venturing in had a difficult ti finding the right route.
Hera narrowed her eyes slightly, staring carefully at the several branching paths ahead.
She said nothing.
She was lost.
This cave was frankly a bit strange—she had never co across a place this peculiar and complex before.
The space within the Magical Creature Rift had the potential to change at any mont.
Perhaps today's path had 2 forks; the next day, those sa forks might appear in entirely different places.
And within the Magical Creature Rift—
No one had ever been able to reach its end.
There had once been a 4th-Tier Adventurer who attempted to find the end of this world within the safest zone, the Pain Demon Darkfield of layers 1 through 10.
But the paths seed to generate endlessly, leaving him unable to find any boundary no matter how far he went.
Not a single person could guarantee 100% exploration coverage here.
Fortunately, Hera had been following the residual scent that person had left behind in the first place.
The branching paths ahead had disrupted her route.
But even being lost posed no real problem.
The terrain within the Abyss could be broken through.
Even if the terrain was broken, it would automatically restore itself the next day.
It was just that the ever-extending path before her kept giving her the feeling that so secret might be lurking deeper within.
But...she couldn't see through it.
And had no desire to explore it.
That sort of thing could simply be left to the lower-tier Adventurers.
Hera was only here to find soone—nothing more.
Then, from the darkness deeper within, a faint sound reached her.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
She raised her head, unable to help but look toward the front.
Listening carefully to the echoing footsteps, 1 step at a ti—and finally, she identified them clearly.
Those were human footsteps.
The Adventurers behind her went back on alert.
Longswords raised, arrows nocked, great axes hoisted onto shoulders.
Hera opened her fan, holding it up to cover her mouth.
Every gaze converged on the depths of the cave from which the footsteps sounded.
At last, a figure slowly appeared.
The person wore a jet-black Coat, the collar of which appeared to have several Runes carved into it.
On his shoulder stood a crow.
The man's eyes were icy and cold—in the darkness, those 2 eyes stabbed toward them like a pair of blades.
The crow's solitary eye—jet-black and unfathomable—flickered with an intermittent gleam.
A heavy, oppressive presence slowly bore down on the Adventurers.
They held their ground on high alert, but their muscles had gone stiff.
He was clearly just a human, yet the sensation he gave everyone was exactly like facing a monster too formidable to overco.
The man's voice rang out, detached and cold.
"I believe I made it clear—this place has been reserved for today."
Looking at these people, Viktor's gaze was as cold as frost, and his tone carried not a trace of courtesy.
"You all have a particular fondness for showing up uninvited?"
The tension was razor-sharp and could have snapped at any mont. The Adventurers tightened their grip on their weapons.
Hera, however, raised one hand behind her, signaling the Adventurers to stand down.
Those eerie eyes of hers blood open like flowers, and she regarded Viktor quietly with a strangely delighted smile.
The markings at the corners of her eyes gradually extended, spines pushing outward in all directions.
"Allow to introduce myself—I'm the Guild Master of the Beast Guild, Hera."
"Though I've never seen you before—you must not be from the south?"
Viktor had not yet replied, but Hera laughed and imdiately continued:
"Listen to asking such things. You probably don't want to answer."
"But I do find myself very interested in you~"
Hera raised her fan to cover her face, then—as though unable to help herself—let her tongue slip out and lick her lips.
The surrounding air fell suddenly silent, leaving only 1 sound, like a recording resuming after a pause.
"Pardon ."
An explosive crack of air detonated, and Hera's figure vanished from where she had stood.
The next instant, she appeared directly in front of Viktor.
Her palms were like claws, and from behind her, 5 bone spears erupted in a sudden thrust.
Following the motion of her hands, they drove toward Viktor at blinding speed.
A profoundly terrifying chill and razor-sharp killing intent swept straight at Viktor head-on.
The Adventurers behind her instantly broke out in cold sweat.
Her speed was so extre there was simply no ti to react.
But at the most critical instant, Viktor raised his right arm.
A round shield—emanating a malevolent aura—instantly blocked every single one of those bone spears.
Hera's eyes snapped wide open in an instant, and the markings at her eye corners trembled in kind, curling inward on themselves.
A sudden dizziness flooded her mind, making her instinctively retract the bone spears and throw herself backward more than 10 ters.
A sense of danger...
That reaction speed just now—was sothing a human could actually do?
And that round shield...
Had actually managed to give her an inexplicable feeling of vertigo.
What in the world was that thing.
Perhaps the man standing before her was not the Mage she had been looking for.
A Knight? Or... a Warrior.
But if the man before her was what she suspected—a very powerful powerhouse—
In that extrely brief window of dizziness just now, he would absolutely have been able to strike back at her.
And yet he hadn't...
Hera simply raised her head. The markings at her eye corners slowly eased back out, moving like 2 vines twisting and curling.
The gaze she turned on Viktor carried a few more shades of excitent.
"Are you showing rcy to ?"
And then Viktor's voice rang out, unhurried.
"Simply no need to take advantage of soone off-guard."
Hera blinked slightly at that answer.
A profoundly dangerous light began to flicker in her eyes.
The vine-like markings began to lash without cease, and from their tips, black flower buds exploded open.
Sharp bone spears erupted one by one from behind her in rapid succession.
"Oh~"
Hera reached out a hand and stroked her own cheek, her gaze alight with excitent and sothing feverish.
"I simply cannot wait to have you for myself."
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