Chapter 683 – 676 The Dungeon Labyrinth
After lunch and resting for 30 minutes, the group started moving forward again.
Immediately after leaving, Hwanin opens his mouth.
“This is a labyrinth formed close to a spiral-shaped single road, so unless you are in a hurry, expect it to take about a day.”
=Did the battle and eating time all included?=
“It’s a story of a day when I just walked at the current speed. If you eat, rest, and fight, you’d better think it would take two days.”
At the conversation between Hwanin and Anne, Ayeong cupped her cheek and let out a pained sound.
Baek Ryogang asked, placing his hand on her arm at the sound that made her feel uncomfortable inside.
= Are you okay? It looked uncomfortable somewhere before.=
=… Huh. Ok.=
You have to control your mind so that it is okay even if it is not okay.
Now that she’s claustrophobic, how could she reveal it in front of her brother?
She was also quite embarrassed.
She is the next fang, and with the fighting skills of an assassin, she has been through the labyrinth quite a bit until she becomes a 7th class sex mage.
I’ve been to places that are darker than here and narrower than this place, and I’ve also experienced fighting a heterogeneous species that is more terrible than the disgusting locust heterogeneity that was smashed by Anne’s sister in front of me.
At this level, she thought that there would be no problem in clearing the labyrinth.
‘I can show my flaws to my brother.’
Ah-yeong held her heart and clenched her fists tightly.
You can’t do anything to diminish her self-worth. A woman will be able to endure it if she holds on tight to her guts and spirit.
In fact, Ayoung’s current condition was the result of a mixture of complex factors.
The stuffy, stuffy air. A small space that takes your breath away. It is a heterogeneous species that naturally draws people’s hatred with the colors that look all black and gray in the dark without a single light.
On top of that, there is even mental infringement that relentlessly digs into people’s weak parts.
No matter how much she is a 7th-level sexual magician, if she starts to be discouraged by her mental infringement, she will be devastated in no time.
Baek Ryogang knows that fact better than anyone here. It is because she suffered the fear of mental invasion in a labyrinth where light does not reach.
Because of this, her Aying did not miss the change in her condition, and realizing that she was suffering from mental disorders, Bai Lijiang immediately grabbed her and took her to her Hwanin to consult her.
= No, I’m really fine… !=
= That’s not good. The body and mind send signals that they are not okay, but if the head ignores them, it becomes a bigger problem later. I know because I’ve been through it.=
It’s a serious condition because I’ve been through it, but what can I say.
Ayeong, who was caught by Baek Ryogang and forcibly taken by her Hwanin, expressed 70% crying, 25% resentment, and 5% resentment.
But she had no choice but to open her mouth again at Hwanin’s question.
“Tell me openly and honestly how you feel, the changes in her body condition, and how she is currently feeling.”
=That’s…=
Anne is also watching from Hwanin’s back. Even if that wasn’t the case, it was impossible for her to hide her true feelings from Hwanin’s keen gaze.
Ah-yeong, with her half-resigned face, revealed her own change of heart and her condition from the beginning.
“…”
Hwanin, who received her counseling, first praised her by reading her hair as she looked at Ayeong anxiously.
“Looked good. It’s as if you saved Ahyeong. And Ayoung.”
=Ng…=
“She must have had the experience of neglecting a minor problem and then returning it to a bigger one.”
=…=
“It’s only for two days. If you endure for two days, the labyrinth attack will be over. … Later, when the time comes to attack a labyrinth worse than this, do you think you will be able to hold on with that thought?”
= No…=
As the size of the labyrinth increases, it will take time to capture it.
The structure of the dungeon labyrinth here is monotonous, so the scheduled attack time was set at 2 days. If it is a labyrinth where the inside is not known at all, it is usually a level 5 labyrinth, from mental invasion and environmental adaptation to map and heterogeneous item creation, preparation for attack, and customized response training. It should take more than a month.
If this continues for a month…
Ahyoung lowered her head.
I prefer a colleague with lesser abilities but no flaws than a colleague who has excellent skills in attacking the labyrinth but has flaws.
‘Me… Will it be released?’
It can’t be. If it’s her brother’s rational thinking, I’ll send her as an escort or to the rear.
But I don’t like that. I want to contribute to the party as a healer in the field, but I don’t want to get out of her brother’s eyes even thinking of the white wolves’ family…
Then, on top of Ayeong’s head, her phantom’s large hand went up to her chin.
A soft off-white light then ran down her purple hair.
= Ah…=
Every time the light flows down the body, the anxiety and worry gradually disappear. It feels like washing your body clean in clear and cold holy water.
Wouldn’t it be like this if you were baptized by the holy light?
Ah-young closes her eyes as if praying and lets out a small sigh while holding her hands together.
Hwanin carefully examined her reaction and began to open her mouth just in time for her mind to relax.
“The human mind seems very resilient, but in reality it is no different than ignoring the problem and focusing on something else.”
If you look at the reality, it’s like burying the problem and covering it with soil, leaving only the surface intact.
Even psychiatric treatment is just covering the soil a little thicker so that it doesn’t show, and it’s a wound in the mind and heart that recurs whenever an opportunity is given.
Lying down to sleep and remembering the dark history of a dozen years ago and kicking the blanket is also a kind of mental wound.
“If you have recognized the problem, the smaller the level, the easier it is to respond or treat it. If you change a situation that is a problem into a situation that is nothing and change your perception, the mental pain will disappear.”
=Master, is a person taking revenge for a grudge an extension of that?=
Hwanin nodded slightly at Isilite’s question as he carefully watched the waves of tranquility flowing from his hand.
The saying that the perpetrator cannot sleep with his feet stretched out, but the victim sleeps comfortably with his feet stretched out, is half true.
Victims are mentally tormented by memories that come to mind at any time.
The wound split open and bleeds, the blood hardens and a scab sits on it, then it breaks open again and bleeds and the scab hardens and heals. Over and over again, until the wound is covered with thick calluses and scars and no longer bleeds.
It would take a really long time for the physical wounds to become like that, but how long would it take for the mind that is more delicate than that?
That’s why people unconsciously think of retaliation.
Just as we instinctively know that it is beneficial to the mind to heal the wounds inflicted on the body and mind by giving back what was received from the person who caused the pain.
Private retaliation may add to the guilt, but at least there will be no more bleeding from opening one’s own wounds.
Hwan-in, who had stopped the wave of tranquility, asked A-young, who had become calm.
“How are you feeling?”
=Oh, it’s very comfortable and light…=
“A small, dark, gloomy and eerie space would feel like nothing.”
= け. I don’t understand why I was afraid of something like this.=
“That is the importance of quick action. If the feeling of slight discomfort is neglected and worsens to a state of slowness of movement to the point of shortness of breath, the wave of tranquility cannot be helped. It is only a temporary treatment.”
Ahyeong noticed why Hwanin was explaining this and bent her waist at a 90 degree angle.
=Sorry! If I get sick in the future, I won’t hide it!=
“Okay. That was it.”
When Hwan-in, who stroked her hair once more, starts walking again, her party also starts moving.
A-Young exhaled a small breath at her relief, and then Baek Ryo-gang, who was smiling warmly next to her, was somehow nasty and pretty, so she poked her side with her elbow.
Hwan-yeon looked at her A-yeong from his shoulder for a moment, then tilted her head and asked him.
「Hwanin, the reason why you didn’t use the waves of tranquility widely is because of the labyrinth, right? I’m afraid he’ll absorb your aura and build up his strength.”
“Okay.”
The core of the Labyrinth of the Old Forgotten City. It had caused the change by absorbing the energy from the waves of serenity she had spread. There is no guarantee that the core here will not do the same thing.
“Then, what will happen to the labyrinth that you passed through while using the waves of tranquility?”
“I don’t know…”
At that moment, one thing that came to mind made Hwanin stop and stop her steps.
= Huh? Doryeong, why?=
“No… For a moment.”
Come to think of it, when I calmed down the heart core that was about to run away at that time, the nature of the aura that resonated with the heart core and the heart core force changed slightly as I swallowed the phase power that I had dealt with after gaining the power of Grimoam.
‘The changed nature… Is it similar to a fragmented person?’
The change was insignificant, and I completely forgot about it because of what happened on the day of the Ascension Day…
If you think about it, the Labyrinth Core, which swallowed the wave energy of serenity that he sowed in the labyrinth of the forgotten old city, mixed it with other phase powers and tried to create a strong power.
If Labyrinth did it, he could do it too.
‘Why didn’t I think of this.’
Changes in the eyes of Heaven and Heaven seen in resonance with the core of the labyrinth in the forgotten old city.
After that, the shape of the cloud similar to the snow that appeared in the sky during the Seungryeongcheonje.
The phenomenon of fragmented people. And the meaning of the trials that the apostle madman said.
The existence of divine beasts such as Ninsil and Adnevila.
The rights and duties of the Shinsoo told by the crazy woman.
The presence of an apostle like a crazy woman.
The entire thing starts to move due to the addition of a cogwheel of pieces of information.
Conclusions that resulted from it.
‘There are beings like administrators besides Shinsoo in Heaven.’
If you think about it, even when the spirit qi ran riotously and expanded the veins of the spirit qi in the village of Linden, and even when I first saw Cheonwon, I had deep core power.
At that time, those eyes, the huge iris like a black hole in a black space with white stars spread like the Milky Way… The eye bigger than the blue planet is the eye of God.
—¹®ÀÚ ±úÁü Å×½ºÆ®.
—L̴̰̻̘̪̻̻̼͎͖͈͇̯̐́͆͂̀̈̇̽̆̿̑́̕̕ͅe̷̾̔́͂̇́͌͌́͘t̸̰́̄ ̴̵̵̪̝̓̓̀͌̏̅̃͗̾̓̂̅̑̂̅̑̂̅̑ ̧͙̳̰̿́̂́̍̑̀̑̏͌́a̴̢̖͕͉̹̠͓͖̫͙̰͖͕͙̠͂̓́̏̅͒͑̎́̈͋͘g̵͎̻̳͍̙͙͚̪̞̰̩͑a̵͛̋̿̎ ͇͕̹̗̗͉͚̥̩̥̜̬̹́̑͂͒̃̽̓̏̕
If what he said then meant that he was looking at himself.
Hwanin’s eyes grew cold and his fists clenched.
‘There is no time.’
It would be a big deal if the existence of God marked himself as a substitute for something.
If the reason why he doesn’t get angry or send messengers to punish visits without permission is because he’s waiting for him by appointing himself as the manager of something, it’s a perfect fit.
‘Crazy.’
People in this Nionebres world would regard the divine divination as an eternal and infinite glory, but for a Hwanin who has no choice but to return to Earth, it is a shocking nuisance to the point where it hurts.
= Why are you suddenly like that? It looks very serious…=
=It’s the first time I’ve seen the owner look so serious.=
= I don’t think it’s a simple problem if Lee Sil-unni says that. Could something serious have happened?=
= It’s scary to imagine what kind of matter it is that makes her brother so serious… Hwanyeon, can you guess anything?=
“Why are you asking me?”
=Here, you are the closest and smartest brother.=
“… It’s an undeniable fact that I’m pretty and smart and hang out with Hwanin most often, but I don’t mean to see Hwanin’s true intentions.”
= You don’t know either…=
“I didn’t say I didn’t know. Earlier, I mentioned the labyrinth core and reiki. … Didn’t you notice a serious problem or error in something related to the labyrinth core?”
=What error?=
Ah-young opened her eyes and asked, and Hwan-yeon scolded her with a face saying, ‘Are you stupid?’
“If I knew that, I would have passed away.”
“… Sorry to keep you waiting.”
=Doryeong!=
=Master.=
Hwan-yeon unintentionally frightens them, and women approach Hwan-in with hard faces.
Hwanin listened to all of their conversations while organizing her thoughts, but he couldn’t open his mouth because he wondered if it was okay to let them know the conclusion he had come up with.
Fanyan, Norn, and Yurpa have the belief that their hearts will not be shaken and will follow them no matter what they do or how bad they show themselves.
But not the rest.
This is not to say that Isilite, Anne, Baek Ryogang, and Ah Young betrayed him.
They are pure Nionebres. If they rush the schedule to deny that they have a connection with God, their emotions will undoubtedly be confused.
‘That’s why I can’t keep it a secret.’
Hwanin, who made the decision, told them.
“Let’s go out and talk about the details. For now, focus on attacking the labyrinth. Anne, double the speed. Quickly clear the labyrinth and leave.”
=Yes.=
The women began to advance down the aisle at a speed close to warning without saying anything in their faith in Hwanin.
Because of that, I encountered heterogeneous species more frequently, but in the first place, they were about 4th or 5th grade heterogeneous species. Not the enemy of the current party.
Before the pouring enemies had time to show off their abilities and skills, they fell like fallen leaves from Hwanyeon, Isilite, and Baeknyeogang’s ranged attacks, and took only the phase stones as quickly as possible and moved forward.
There is no open labyrinth, no traps, and the level and type of enemies that appear, the road, the map, and the location of the deep core chamber are all known.
By doubling the movement speed, dealing with the enemy at once, and moving forward as if rushing, the attack speed doubled.
=By the way, Dolyeong! Doesn’t the pattern on the wall seem to repeat somehow?!=
Anne, who was running in front of her under Hwanin’s control of speed, pointed it out, and Hwanin replied in a cold, emotionless voice.
“It must be a trace of the core. It’s probably a long, huge guy like a centipede. Enough to fill the aisle.”
= Hehe! That must be awful!=
“Don’t be nervous because we might see you soon.”
As if Hwanin’s words were a prophecy, not long after the words came out, really ominous signs began to appear.
There was an unpleasant smell, like a rotting corpse, and an irritating sound that was so annoying that even the noisy footsteps of the party couldn’t cover it up.
On the left and right walls, the traces that Anne thought were patterns became clearer, and as if reflecting them, the floor below the walls was filled with dirt dust, making the floor look like an oval.
At that moment, Hwanyeon shouted.
“Hey! Something is coming very fast… !”
… The earth spirit alerted them with a vibration, and before they could finish their words, something struck the party with a terrifying roar at breakneck speed.
Kwagwagwagwak—!
=Huap!=
=Light Protection!!=
Approaching from the ceiling in the blink of an eye, it collided with the shield that Anne had deployed with her phasic power. With a roar and a flash of light, Ayeong scratched the shield she had reflexively spread out and bounced off the party behind her.
“Oh, you’re really a centipede!”
=Cryptic Horror Centipede! It’s 7th grade!=
Feeling a slight tingle in her arm held by her shield, Anne saw through the monster’s identity as it receded and screamed.
Hundreds of appendages, like spears, with innumerable fangs. A double box sternite that looks like a ghost’s face is drawn on each one. It is long enough to reach 70m and has a body that is 4m wide.
The tegite is coated with a mysterious liquid and gleams with spear-like spines that can pierce the enemy trying to mount it.
= That must be the core! Poison breath and poison attack, so be careful… Coming!=
… Kwagwagwagwagwak—!!
Like a sports car, the core of a giant centipede climbs a wall at a speed of nearly 200 km/h and jumps again.
It took only 5 seconds to get away and come back, but in the meantime, the party was perfectly prepared for battle.
Hwanin’s mid-level spirit code was put on the party, and Ayeong’s 7th-level blessing was given to everyone, so their minds are clearer than ever.
=Suck!=
From Isilite’s knight’s sword, which seemed to have changed the direction of the attack and became the leader, her special move, Sword Sword Strike, was unleashed alone toward the head of the approaching core centipede.
Shhhhh—
The cold blue and piercingly vivid half-moon sword energy left the tip of her sword as she clenched her teeth, cutting vertically through a passage 4m wide.
A blow that seemed like it would never be avoided by a core that almost filled the aisle.
Surprisingly, the core centipede slammed her back against the wall to her left and tried to dodge Isilite’s swordsman by scratching and moving…
「Norn, wind!」
“Huh.”
Quaaaaagh—
Norn’s ignorant storm of wind seized the core centipede’s body and shook it, and the higher level spirits of the earth summoned by Hwanyeon also violently beat and twisted the core centipede.
I’m going to go to the middle of the day!
The result is catastrophic damage, with the edges and appendages of her innumerable segments being slashed and severed, spraying her with a seemingly poisonous green liquid at random.
=Everyone bow down!=
A huge body weighing dozens of tons, estimated to have lost body control, rushes at the party like a missile spraying toxic bodily fluids, but Anne, who is wrapped in fog-like light all over her body, holds out the shield of the castle wall that shines blue, flies over the heads of the party, and rushes towards the giant body. Crashed
Aaaaa… !!!
It was a roaring sound that could make your eardrums explode just by being close to it, but it was filtered out by Ayeong’s light protection and was downgraded to a mere loud sound.
= Aaaaa!!=
Anne, who had her Lumo descended on her body and raised her adult art to the limit, blocked her poisonous claws with the shield of the castle wall that covered most of her body and blocked the rush of her core centipede.
“Yah! Don’t let go, hold tight!”
At the urgency of fantasy, a giant golem-like rock arm protrudes from the wall and binds the body parts of the core centipede.
Kirik, Kirik, Kirik, Kirik, Kirik, Kirik!
“Will that be delicious?”
Chojwajwa—
Dozens of Norn’s green knives, which seemed to have compressed the wind to the limit, were pierced toward the segmental gap of the core centipede that was being forcibly stopped, and Isilite’s three-point multiple swordsmanship, which was made as thin as glass, was also fired like a swordsmanship, and was cut off by swordsmanship. It dug into the cross-section of the segment.
Aaaaah
=Watch your ears!=
Baek Ryeo-gang, who received Ah-yeong’s personal protective shield, jumped slightly to create an attack trajectory, and at the same time warned, and immediately afterward, it was over-excited—!! An extra-large thunderbolt arrow with phase power compressed for several seconds was fired toward the gap in the core.
Its power is that of a small missile.
As soon as it disappears like a thunderbolt arrow being sucked into the cut surface of the core, Booooo!! It creates an incomprehensible explosion and blows off three segments of the carapace.
Quii Yiyi —— !!!
=This is real, stay still!!=
The fatal attack was poured out in just a few seconds, so the core tried to go crazy, but even that, Anne grabbed the shield of the castle wall with her two hands and woah!! It was impossible because I was holding my head down.
The innate power of a giant, the strengthening of a professional, plus Hwanin’s Notebook -〉 Yurpa -〉 Improved Eucharistic Art leading to Anne, and finally Rumo, her strength is comparable to that of a giant.
The core shakes the body like crazy due to the pressure on the head.
=I’ll step on your shoulder.=
= Huh? Wow!=
Then, spinning her phasic power inside her body at terrifying speed, Isilite, shining as if she was self-luminous, stepped on her Anne’s shoulder and jumped close to her ceiling.
In her two hands, she held a multi-sword weapon, but as each sword of phase power, reprocessed with destructive light, was swung, the white light streak bent like a whip and touched the body of the core centipede.
Kwakwagwagwang—!!!
Explosive noise and explosions, like a micro-missile exploded, filled the 4m-wide passage to the far end and swallowed the core centipede.
Rumble…
A shaking that seemed like the hallway would collapse continued for several seconds, and lumps of earth fell from the ceiling onto the heads of the group, but the light shield that blocked the physical force blocked them.
Looking at all of this with her eyes wide open, Ah-young closed her eyes tightly while sweating.
If it’s a cryptic horror centipede, it’s a monster she knows to some extent.
The venom is strong enough to poison even high-ranking workers with excellent disease and poison resistance and make them die after suffering for several days, so it is traded at a high price in occupations that use poison.
The chitinous shell, which divides the segments, is the preferred material for the finest plate armor due to its unique brilliance and strength, and the highest grade as a material for ballista arrowheads for attachments.
Even a typical cryptic horror centipede is an expensive monster, costing 5 gold coins per meter. But isn’t that the core? 10 gold coins per meter if you sell by-products properly… Maybe 15 gold coins would be expensive enough to come out.
Ah-young opened her eyes, looked briefly at the passageway filled with thick dust, then looked back at Hwan-in, who stood quietly behind her, and said,
=… I don’t think the core didn’t even leave a corpse?=
“I can’t help it.”
It was a terrain that was not suitable for battle in the first place. On top of that, if he was level 7, he would be only one level lower than Yamioko, whom he fought against (the difference between Jinsu and Heterogeneity is not taken into account).
Hwanin, satisfied with the fact that he had organized the 7th grade core without having to step out and there was no damage, ordered Norn to blow away the dust.
According to the feeling, there are some left over, so I’ll have to pack something and look for the special item that the core drops.
