Chapter 451 (Side Story): Time Attack (1)

“Th-there’s nothing here!”

“It’s clear! No traces of broken walls or any magic scroll usage.”

The dark priest frowned at the consecutive reports from his subordinates.

Then where could he have gone?

The wall was sealed perfectly, without a single visible seam. The target had definitely come down to this floor using the staircase generated here, but since staircases never spawned in the same place twice in a row, there was no way one appeared at this location again.

There’s no way to go up or down without stairs.

Because of the dark shroud the Betix order had spread throughout the entire labyrinth, all movement-related spells, including teleport scrolls, were completely disabled. In other words, clearing or escaping the dungeon was absolutely impossible without the stairs.

“What if he’s hiding somewhere?”

“We’ve already run several detection scans but found nothing.”

It was enough to make a ghost wail.

Forcibly suppressing his unease, the dark priest turned around. “Well, if he’s vanished on his own, that’s not our problem. Move out.”

He gave the order and began slowly walking down the corridor, when suddenly, a dull thud echoed from behind.

“Go check what that sound was...”

The dark priest gestured with his chin to his subordinates and stared down the dark corridor. It was the very place he had been just moments ago. He had personally confirmed that there had been nothing and no one there.

“

Kugh...!

”

At the strange noise from the end of the hall, the dark priest raised his hand. “Prepare for battle.”

Tension filled the air as the subordinate priests swallowed hard and readied their dark spells. After a brief moment, as everyone’s gaze fixed on the end of the corridor, someone staggered out.

“P-please... help...”

A priest emerged staggered forward, his robe soaked in blood. He managed only a few steps before collapsing, never to rise again.

Following behind him came a familiar face, the very man they had been chasing.

“I don’t get it,” the dark priest muttered.

It was hard to believe, but that man had really been hiding there just moments ago.

“Where exactly were you hiding?”

In response to the pure, curious question, Kai briefly replied, “God protected me. I was just on my way back from meeting her.”

“

Ha

, I’m sure you were.” Disregarding those words, the dark priest said, “I don’t know where you found the courage to show yourself again, but we’ll capture you and make you tell us how.”

“Capture me,

huh

.”

Sorry, but he didn’t have time to be captured by anyone. Every single second mattered right now.

“I’ll make sure you spill everything, even what you ate for dinner a month ag—”

The dark priest’s words were cut short as his throat split open.

Kai had instantly closed the distance, and before anyone realized it, their leader’s head was severed. The subordinate dark priests standing behind him reacted a second too late.

“

Huh...?

”

A dumb, involuntary sound escaped from their mouths, which became their final words.

[Level increased.]

[Level increased.]

[Level increased.]

.

.

.

“Disable system voice,” Kai mumbled as the noisy system prompts rang. The relentless continuous notifications vanished like a lie, and silence filled the space. The reason he disabled the system voice was simple. It was already this noisy now, so he couldn’t stand listening to it for twelve hours straight.

***

Kai began running without hesitation.

The High Priest's location is on the fifth basement floor.

The Betix resurrection ritual was likely being conducted there as well. Time was running out for Kai.

The Sanctuary of the Ancient expands exponentially the deeper you go,

For an experienced party, it only took about an hour to fully explore all areas on the first basement floor. But the moment they descended to the second floor, that time jumped to three hours.

The third floor takes twelve hours, and from the fourth floor onward, exploration is measured in days, not hours.

In other words, twelve hours was nowhere near enough to clear the labyrinth and defeat the High Priest, but there was no alternative. If he hadn’t accepted these restrictions, he wouldn’t have received this massive boost to his Benevolence stat in the first place.

It’s still manageable.

Kai had received countless reports about the Sanctuary of the Ancient, and also gathered a substantial amount of additional data himself since he was always interested in the frequent incidents occurring here. Among that information were several pieces he could put to immediate use.

First, the details about the stairs on the second floor.

It was commonly believed that the locations and sequence of stair generation were random. After all, no one had discovered any definitive patterns despite years of research by countless players. But as with most games, there was always a hidden method.

The problem is, the method is crazy.

Kai sprinted down the corridor, scanning his surroundings, as if searching for something specific.

“Found it.”

What he had been looking for were monsters on the second basement floor, the Ancient Skeleton Knights. As their name suggested, these monsters wore proper armor unlike the basic soldiers on the first floor.

Their physical defense is high, making them tough to deal with without a wizard...

But with his current stats, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Kai instantly closed the distance and drove his fist charged with holy power into its abdomen. The armor caved inward, and the skeleton shot upward before dissolving into particles and disappearing.

“There it is.”

The items it dropped were a small amount of gold and an old bone.

Players usually call these junk items and don’t even bother picking them up.

The old bone wasn’t sturdy enough to craft equipment, and since shops didn’t buy them either, they were nothing but a waste of inventory space.

But there’s no such thing as a meaningless item in this game.

The old bone was no exception. Kai carefully stored it in his inventory and continued hunting monsters busily. After hunting over fifty skeletons in just thirteen minutes, Kai nodded.

Perfect.

He then entered the corridor connected to the potential staircase spawn point.

“

Hm?

”

Kai was briefly caught off guard. He hadn’t expected there to be a staircase here, yet there it was.

There are thirty possible staircase points on the second floor...

Among them, only four ever actually spawned staircases. That was just a 13% chance. But Kai didn’t immediately use the staircase.

This is an unexpected variable.

He hadn’t imagined his luck would turn out this poorly. It would take at least five minutes just to sprint to the next closest staircase point.

“F-found it! There’s a staircase here!”

“Really? That was quick today.”

“Don’t waste time, let’s hurry and go dow—

huh?

”

A party that had belatedly entered the corridor celebrated after seeing the staircase, but their joy vanished the moment they spotted Kai standing nearby.

“Oh no, our apologies.”

“You should’ve checked first before getting excited...”

“I-I didn’t see him...”

Since finding staircases was difficult, the unspoken rule of the labyrinth was that whoever found one first had priority to use it.

However, Kai stopped them as they turned to leave. “Wait a moment!”

“Yes?”

“It seems like there’s an issue with my party, so I need to leave. Please, go ahead and use it first.”

“Are you sure...?”

Because staircases were so rare, it wasn’t common for someone to give one up voluntarily. Some even sold access to them for money.

“Sorry, but we’re not really in such a rush that we need to buy access to a staircase.”

“

Oh,

I’m not selling it. I’m just giving it up.”

After a brief moment of hesitation, the group nodded at Kai’s offer.

“If you say so, we’ll gladly take it.”

“Thank you for letting us use it. Good luck with your hunt.”

As the unfamiliar party descended via the staircase, the ground shook for a moment and the staircase disappeared like it was never there.

“That worked out.”

If they hadn’t been there, he would have wasted five pointless minutes. Kai stood before the now-smooth wall where the staircase had vanished.

“Inventory.”

He pulled out the old bones and spent a moment crafting something carefully.

“The shape looks about right...”

The moment he placed the final bone and completed the form, a message popped up before him.

Ding!

[You have used old bones to create a Metaphysical Gate.]

[An unknown gate has been activated.]

“This is it.”

If one collected forty-four of the old bones dropped by monsters on the second basement floor and crafted them into a door, they actually worked as a functioning portal.

And this isn’t even the best part.

Without wasting any time, Kai stepped into the crude gate. He felt an unpleasant pull sucking his body forward for a brief moment before he was suddenly pushed back out.

[You have entered the Sanctuary of the Ancient B4.]

The gate created from forty-four bones allowed him to skip the third basement floor and go straight down to the fourth. This was the biggest reason he felt confident despite placing himself under the twelve-hour restriction.

With this, I’ve saved the time I would’ve wasted wandering the third floor.

But the real problem lay with the fourth floor. The average time required to clear this floor and locate the next staircase was forty-five hours—almost two full days.

And unlike the second floor, I can’t create an artificial door,

However, there was one exception. There was a guaranteed method to open a portal leading directly to the lower floor, and since this wasn’t exactly a secret, most players already knew about it.

“The Ancient Gatekeeper.”

The moment he defeated that monster wandering the fourth-floor, a portal leading to the lower floor would be generated.

The problem is the difficulty.

The average level of the monsters appearing on the fourth basement floor was 110. However, the Ancient Gatekeeper was a named monster at level 130, strong enough to naturally belong among the monsters of the fifth floor.

That’s why it’s only ever been defeated through guild-scale raids.

Taking it down with just a five-man party was extremely difficult. Above all, the unique nature of the Sanctuary of the Ancient itself came into play.

This place is swarming with chaotic players who make their living off looting.

Hunting an elite monster in such an environment while leaving your back completely exposed? No one but a fool would ever choose that option. But right now, Kai had no choice.

‘At my current level, it would take about nine hours if I tried clearing this place normally.

Of course, that calculation was based on the assumption that he wouldn’t make a single mistake during the entire process. Naturally, that wasn’t an option he could afford.

Spend nine hours here and then somehow defeat the High Priest in just three hours afterward?

That was absurd. More importantly, Rashya had said there were thousands of Betix followers inside this labyrinth.

Even if skipping the third floor reduced their numbers significantly...

The High Priest would still be surrounded by dark priests, dark knights, and even ranker members of the Carmelo Family. Their numbers together would easily exceed several hundred.

Just fighting them alone would take at least six to seven hours.

In other words, of the eleven hours and forty-eight minutes remaining, it was more accurate to assume he only had about four hours to work with.

“Four hours.”

He had to defeat the Ancient Gatekeeper and activate the portal leading to the lower floor within that time. That was his plan.