The High Temple's doors opened.
High Priest and High Priestess stopped in the doorway while wearing their ritual robes. They were slightly surprised at the number of players but quickly regained their composure.
Then, they saw the white-haired man arriving on the front steps, only five meters from them.
"Player Wraith, I assume?" High Priestess said with her soothing tone. A fancy necklace hung from her swan-like neck.
"Correct," Isaac replied and received a nod from the High Priest and Priestess. Then, they allowed him to enter and closed the door afterward.
The quiet yard instantly exploded into heated chatter. The females screamed while the male players whispered with admiration. They felt their blood pumping with excitement.
A short distance away, a dark-haired man lifted his cloak, revealing his tanned face.
"So… this was Lord Wraith… Hmm…" He rubbed his chin, then pulled out a tiny shard from his pocket. It looked like a miniature diamond.
The shard showed an image of a golden sword with an M-lettered hilt!
"Connect." He said, and soon the shard showed an image of a person.
"Mister X, why did you call me?" The man's raspy voice came from the shard. The mouth moved up and down while the facial expressions stayed the same.
"Master Zero, I am in Priesthood, like you suggested, and I saw Mister W entering the dungeon. It is his turn." The tanned man, Mister X, said with his deep voice.
The shard became silent.
But then, Master Zero opened his mouth, "I see… Prepare yourself. The dungeon will be cleared today, and make sure you are prepared to enter Autumn Realm!"
"Yes, Master." Mister X bowed, and the shard turned dark before cracking apart. He then pocketed the broken pieces and muttered, "Master sure has a lot of faith in him…
"I still don't understand why Sword of Myth needs him…"
…
"This is it." High Priest Robert Highsoul stopped next to a dark and shadowy door. A cold feeling spread across the door as if the dungeon was hiding something incredibly evil.
"As far as I recall, this isn't your first turn, so you know what to do if you want to give up." High Priestess Matilda said. She, of course, remembered Isaac visiting several times but had to act ignorant and act like she didn't remember him.
"Yes, thank you." Isaac turned toward the door and said, "Open."
High Priest Robert nodded and took a dark brass key from his pouch. Then, he inserted it into the dark door and twisted it with a strong push.
Creak!
The door opened wide, and long stairs shrouded in the darkness appeared.
The stairs looked endless like they could lead to the ends of the world.
Whoosh…
After a cold breeze drifted out from the dungeon, the floor became slightly frosted.
"Good luck." High Priest Robert said, which was also a signal for Isaac to enter.
Isaac nodded and briskly stepped down the stairs.
Immediately, the door closed behind him, and endless darkness engulfed him. A spine-numbing chill attacked his body, forcing him to his knees.
However, Isaac flicked his sleeves, and the cold was immediately gone.
"Cold won't affect me…" Tiny snowflake patterns flickered in his eyes before disappearing.
Isaac then briskly began running down the stairs. He knew that time was the key. The shadowy creatures would smell his scent within minutes. Thus, he had to leave the first pathway as quickly as possible!
Isaac's body moved like a flash of lightning as he zoomed down the enormously long stairs. After only a short time, the stairs' end was visible in the distance!
Isaac didn't slow down, instead accelerated and soon left the stairs. However, as soon as his feet landed on the grainy floor, he burst into a magnificent feat of speed, and like a bolt of lightning, he was already on the other side of the long pathway and entered the second pathway!
The second pathway was also dark, with only tiny seeps of light coming from the cracks in the ceiling.
Whoosh!
With his excellent eyesight, Isaac could see everything perfectly, like standing in the middle of a grassland with a blue sky above and shining sun. It didn't matter to him whether it was dark or bright.
As Isaac rapidly ran in the second pathway, he suddenly frowned and could see tiny movements in the shadows. A normal person wouldn't be able to notice it because the path was already dark enough.
To see even one shadow would be a miracle, let alone a tiny movement in the shadows!
However, Isaac managed to do that and immediately reacted by jumping toward the ceiling. He smashed his hand into the rock ceiling and hung from there.
As his legs dangled below him, he looked towards the distance, and then three four-limbed creatures with shadowy fur ran past him with blinding speed. They were as fast as Isaac and almost impossible while they ran in the dark pathways!
Isaac removed his hand from the ceiling and landed on the floor. He immediately launched into motion and zoomed through the second path.
Then, he arrived in a large dome-like room with a ceiling filled with yellow crystals, which lit up the room entirely. There were thousands of paths, each pathway engulfed in darkness.
Growls of beasts resonated from the pathways, and the whole room were suddenly shrouded in endless coldness. A normal person would have frozen already, but Isaac didn't seem to care as he flipped through his notebook.
He quickly checked Karuza's notes and turned towards the 496th path.
"That path is the correct one…" Isaac threw the notebook into his inventory and ran into the pathway. Then, his speed increased even more as the ground started shaking under his heavy steps. Currently, he was two times faster than the shadowy beasts!
"GROWL!" Isaac immediately came to a stop and narrowed his eyes. The following pathway was wider, but there were close to a hundred shadowy beasts sleeping on the floor, but most of them were slowly waking up!
"Amazing that I got this far without being swarmed by thousands of these monsters… Only a hundred, doable." Isaac extended his hand and grinned.
His sniper rifle with a silver-inlaid blade appeared from thin air.
Isaac held it firmly and took one short step forward.
That one short step sent a spike of aura toward the shadowy monsters.
"GROWL!" All of the shadowy monsters woke up with loud and deadly growls. They turned to look at Isaac with their dark eyes turning redder!
They sprung to their feet and crossed hundreds of meters with one leap!
They were rapidly closing in on Isaac!
"Hehe…" Isaac spun the gun around and then aimed with his finger on the trigger, "Pulverizer!"
[Pulverizer Used!]
