CHAPTER 51: THE PLOT

It was pissing me off. Someone had made a fool out of me. I was in a game orchestrated by someone else. If I find out who—

I had noticed some irregularities since coming to this world, but for the life of me, I couldn’t piece it together. It felt like I was missing an important part of the puzzle, but what was it?

Our mission here was simple: we were to close all the labyrinths that popped up during a five-month-long period in this world. But we arrived one month late, so we would only spend four months here.

What happened during the one month we weren’t here while labyrinths were popping up?

That was the only anomaly in this whole situation, the only thing I didn’t have information on. Everything seemed too convenient—a labyrinth being outside the kingdom but only opening up when the heroes who could close it arrived.

And the harpies that attacked the city—what did a harpy have to do with a labyrinth of a sea god? So far in the labyrinths we’ve encountered, the Thalassian Wraith—a creature that can only fight if it makes contact with water; otherwise, it turns to stone.

We’ve also met the Blood Moth, a creature that drinks from a river of blood and gains strength from it. Both of these creatures have some connection with the sea or some body of liquid.

But the harpy doesn’t fit into any of this. The only explanation was that the harpies didn’t come from this labyrinth—meaning there was never a labyrinth break.

The school didn’t finish the test they were running on the labyrinth to determine its rank. They assumed it was a C-ranked labyrinth the moment they saw the harpies. But if the harpies didn’t come from this labyrinth, then that assumption is false.

So what rank is this labyrinth?

Someone planned all of this; every detail was too intricate for it all to be coincidental. Someone was spinning a web, and I was getting caught up in it.

CRACK!

I broke the rock I was dangling from and slipped off. As I fell to the ground, I activated my skill, Tempered Heat, and used it to suture my wounds. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t have the luxury of complaining about the pain—one of the creatures was staring directly at me as I landed.

I hastily dipped my hand into the river of blood and activated my system.

[CONGRATULATIONS! 10,000 GALLONS OF BLOOD HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY REGISTERED AND STORED IN YOUR INVENTORY.]

The creature stretched out its hand, aimed toward me, and immediately a swirling mass of blood formed at its fingertips.

BOOM!!

An explosion sounded, creating a sonic blast as an arrow made of blood flashed toward me at an incomprehensible speed. Without skipping a beat, I immediately activated my skills—Godly Craft and Tempered Heat—at the same time.

CLANG!

Immediately, a giant iron dome formed in front of me, blocking the attack. There was a giant dent in the iron dome, but luckily the creature’s attack didn’t manage to penetrate it.

The iron dome I created was only possible because of the blood I collected from the river. Each milliliter of blood contains about 0.5 mg of iron. I used my skill, Godly Craft, to extract the element I needed, which was iron, and then used Tempered Heat to create the dome.

I didn’t waste any time after their attack; I dashed out from behind the dome and charged at them.

One of the creatures let out a loud noise and flew to meet me head-on. Its wings created loud beats as it flew. I activated Godly Craft and Tempered Heat once again, but this time to create a spear made of iron.

I hurled the iron spear at the creature at an angle that would hit it in its right shoulder. It had no choice but to dodge to the left, into the path of the Clade of Calamity, which had the invisibility attribute activated.

It struck the creature in its left eye, causing a purple liquid to squirt out. The impact caused the creature to lose momentum and ragdoll to the ground in a spectacular fashion.

The other one, seeing what had happened, dropped the girl whose heart it was just about to rip out—Kiki—and shifted its attention to me. In that moment, I noticed something—a wavering. A sign of weakness I could capitalize on.

For just a fraction of a second, its gaze turned to the other humanoid Blood Moth I had injured. That single glance told me all I needed to know.

It must have realized my intention because it immediately took to flight but It was too little, too late, because in a second, I already had the beast’s life in my hands. I swung at the beast—nothing fancy, just a slow, monotonous blow that it could easily dodge without getting fatally injured. Killing it too quickly would do me a disservice right now.

With a burst of power, it leaped several meters into the air to get away from me, cradling its stomach where I had wounded it.

The other Blood Moth didn’t even spare me a glance; it went to check on the one I had injured. It cradled the other one in it’s arm, with a worried expression on its face.

Just as I thought, these monsters had strong feelings for each other. That’s why I didn’t kill it before; I gave it a wound just enough to distract the other.

Just enough for me to make my escape. The only person that seemed semi-functional was Kiki; she was slouched over on the ground, her hands on her head, tears streaming down her face.

Luna was unconscious on the ground, blood gushing from her head. As for Natasha... she had a gaping hole in her chest. Her moth hung open and her face paled.

I felt a chill crawl up my skin just looking at her. It was strange; a couple of hours ago, I was contemplating letting her die, and now...

Now I felt robbed...

Why was that?

In that moment, I realized I didn’t like being toyed with. I will figure out who was behind this.

I picked up Luna and Kiki and climbed up the stairs, leaving Natasha behind.