CHAPTER 44: TOP 100 GUILD RANKING

After leaving the [Second Layer], Sam returned straight to his hotel apartment without wasting a second.

Since Chloe had entered the layer from a different portal, they were each teleported back to their own original entry points.

Naturally, they didn’t meet again afterward. Not that Sam had expected to.

The moment he stepped back into his apartment, he let out a tired breath and headed to the bed.

Though he knew it wouldn’t last long, he had a brief window of peace before the world began to shake again.

He was expecting the news about the corrupted second layer to spread soon.

Something like that couldn’t be hidden for long. But until it did, he could afford to rest.

’I should focus on getting to level 10 first... can’t risk staying too low.’

Normally, Sam would’ve brushed off the danger and rushed ahead.

But after the clash with the [Black Sun Vessel], even he understood that charging into unknown battles without preparation would eventually get him killed.

The vessel was strong, far too strong for something that wasn’t even the [Black Sun] itself.

That meant the sun had likely seen the fight, observed him, and made its own judgment.

That the "Primordial" was still vulnerable.

Sam sat down and opened his system panel, flipping through his skills and stats.

All his current abilities were maxed out, and his overall stats were decent enough.

His real path forward wasn’t more flashy skills, it was refining his control, his timing, his technique.

In pure numbers, he might already be able to defeat early Adept rank awakeners. But against monsters like the [Black Sun] or its kind... he still had a long way to go.

He sighed, leaning back and staring at the ceiling.

Then he pulled open the interface for his guild.

---

[Primordial Guild]

[Position: Leader]

[Members: 1]

[Status: Registered]

[Guild Ranking: 100]

---

Rank 100. Dead last among the top-tier guilds.

Sam narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t feel discouraged. In fact, he felt the opposite. It was good to be underestimated.

He knew that clearing the [Second Layer] had already pushed him into the top 100, and if he managed to complete the [Second Sub-Layer] or even the [Third Layer], he could probably shoot straight into the top 25.

After all, the fourth layer remained unconquered.

Even the strongest guilds hadn’t cleared it yet. But if Sam somehow managed to beat it, even alone, that would cement him at the top.

The strongest guild in the world.

He couldn’t help but smirk at the thought. It felt far off, but not impossible.

The steps were there, he just had to keep walking forward.

And at that exact moment—

Ding!

A new notification appeared, but it wasn’t from his phone.

Not the system. Not even [Hell-Mode Analysis].

It was something else entirely.

---

[Awakener Association Announcement]

[A meeting will be held between the top 100 guilds to address recent anomalies. All guild leaders must attend. Each may bring one or two guests.]

[Further details on how to access the meeting will be delivered shortly. The event will take place in three days.]

---

Sam blinked, then sat up straight in bed, reading the message twice to be sure.

’A top 100 guild meeting?’

He had barely made the cut. If he’d cleared the layer just a few hours later, he might’ve missed it entirely.

Still, the message confirmed that the corrupted version of the second layer had likely gone public, or at least to the higher-ups.

He knew how the system worked.

Once your guild was officially registered with the Awakener Association, you gained access to their resources, events, and internal communications.

But to get something this big, so soon, was unexpected.

He could choose to skip the meeting. After all, he was still only rank 100. It’s not like anyone was watching him closely.

Not to mention that nobody even knew his true identity.

But...

’I should go,’ Sam thought.

Not just to make his presence known.

But to hear what the others had to say. If the meeting was really about the corruption, or the growing instability of the layers, then the information might prove critical.

And there was something else too.

[You need to meet the other leaders.]

Sam nodded. That was the main reason.

He needed to know who they were.

Who his real competition would be.

With that, Sam let out a breath and closed his eyes, letting his mind drift. But every time he shut his eyes...

He saw it. That massive, dark silhouette in the sky.

The black sun, and the way its eye stared down at him like he was prey.

’Don’t haunt me,’ Sam muttered to himself. ’I’m going to kill you.’

And with that, he finally fell asleep.

...

The next day, sometime around noon, Sam received a message.

It was from David.

---

[David Union]: So you cleared the second layer, huh? Interesting. Just a heads-up: I’d recommend being at least Adept, if not Expert, before going into the third. It’s not easy.

---

Sam raised an eyebrow at the message. He knew David was no joke. Even though the man was now level 1 of the Ascendant Rank, his guild was still struggling with the [Fourth Layer].

It made Sam wonder.

If the fourth layer needed Ascendant rank... would the fifth require a full team of peak Ascendants? Would the sixth, the final one, require full Forsaken Rank teams?

Possibly. But Sam wasn’t too concerned about the normal layers.

No, his problems were with the world itself trying to stop him with the corrupted layers and the sub-layers.

Those were where the true danger lay.

Later that day, both Lily and Alicia reached out as well.

They let him know they’d be running the second layer together soon.

Sam simply encouraged them. It would be good experience for them both.

Still, even as the day dragged on, he couldn’t shake the boredom.

The forums had no new leaks. No real updates. Nothing useful.

And rift exploration didn’t seem like it would help much at this stage either.

That’s when a random thought struck him.

He sat up from the couch in his apartment and tilted his head.

’What if I tried to speedrun the second layer?’

He opened the web browser and looked it up.

Sure enough, the Awakener Association kept records of something called [Clear Time], the total time taken by a team to go from the start of a layer to the end.

The current record for the second layer was held by the [Union Guild], David’s team.

Their time? 38 minutes and 57 seconds.

That was with over twenty trained awakeners, specifically optimized for speed-clearing that layer.

Sam had done it solo. In a corrupted version.

[We’re not going to let that slide. Are we?]

Sam chuckled, shaking his head.

"Guess not. Time to see if I can beat that record."

There were real benefits to doing this.

If he broke the record, it would raise his guild’s visibility and potentially boost his ranking.

And most importantly, it sounded like fun.

He was getting bored waiting for the guild meeting, and this was a perfect way to sharpen his skills and train his timing.

With that grin still on his face, Sam stood up, stretched, and pulled up his status window one more time.

---

[Name: Sam Walker]

[Class: Primordial]

[Rank: Apprentice]

[Level: 1 → 5]

[Strength: 14 → 18]

[Agility: 13 → 17]

[Constitution: 14 → 18]

[Soul: 26 → 34]

[Affinities: Shadow, Chaos]

[Class Skills: Spatial Inventory, Primordial Evolution, Hell-Mode Analysis, Chaotic Fate]

[Skills: Primordial Sword Technique (Forsaken), Abyssal Obliteration (Forsaken), Eternal Barrier (Forsaken), Tendrils of Oblivion (Forsaken), Sovereign Inferno (Forsaken), Void Rush (Forsaken)]

---

Then he headed to the door. Time to speedrun a layer.