Chapter 172: The Silent Night Descends

While Lysandra was arguing with the woman that had stolen Kaelen’s spot, Kaelen was already scouting for the nearest safe zone and calculating the distance.

The plan was simple. If he couldn’t find any suitable safe zone, he was going to jump into that one and kick the woman out.

This was a survival game, and there was no place for empathy when your life was on the line.

That was when he noticed something unusual.

While everyone was racing to claim a spot inside the last safe zones left, there were some who didn’t bother to even look the way of the safe zones and focused on either slaying beasts or simply slacking off by moving around with no destination in mind.

He would’ve thought these people didn’t know any better, until he realized each and every one of them were outstanding candidates he recognized from either the introduction or the earlier battle.

There was the woman with messy ox-blood hair, wearing a pair of wide-framed glasses, carrying a heavy backpack twice her size, and wearing oversized clothing that covered every inch of her skin, making it hard to figure out her actual size.

There was a short guy with slightly long dark hair and a rough mustache sprout whose hands remained in his pockets as he hit a light jog across the field while casually sidestepping each time a beast lunged for him.

There was a slender lady with him who had ice-blonde hair neatly packed behind. She wore combat pants and boots with a pair of daggers strapped to each, but only wore a sports bra on the top.

These three people Kaelen had recognized from the introduction. And the last person, who was a heavily built man with a buzz cut, who charged into beasts like a ram in heat, Kaelen had recognized from the battle earlier.

The moment he spotted them and deduced they showed no interest in the safe zones, he lost interest himself and decided to stay behind but send Lysandra off.

Kelsey had stated the party selection would be random, but taking everything that had happened so far into account, he could confidently say what she meant by random was exactly what was happening.

Each safe zone was probably connected to a Herald and a lobby, and the candidates randomly grouped themselves to make up the number required by the safe zones.

That was probably what she meant by ’randomly’.

He would’ve chosen to be in the same party with Lysandra, but after seeing the outstanding candidates left behind, he decided to postpone that idea for the 9th floor. Not because he wanted to party with these candidates—the odds of that were low because they didn’t make up the required number of a party, not to mention some may die in the next turn of events—but because he wanted to have whatever these people were aiming for by staying behind.

Whatever it was, it had to be good.

[The First Floor mission has been cleared successfully]

[Survivors detected on the First Floor...]

[Initiating rescue mission...]

[Hidden mission triggered!]

[Survive the wasteland, defeat the beast horde, and find the hidden exit in the wilderness]

[Difficulty: Hell’s Mode | Duration: ∞]

[Reward: Basic Tower Starter Pack]

’Well, well, well... what do we have here?’ Kaelen mused to himself in satisfaction.

Though the reward was self-explanatory and basic, he was still happy he trusted his judgment.

Whatever came from it should be sufficient to make up for risking their lives and put them above all other candidates who made it out safely.

He had also noticed that though there was still an alarming number of beasts swarming the wasteland, they had stopped spawning endlessly.

With their combined strength, killing off the rest shouldn’t pose much of a threat. Then they could focus on finding the exit without any lingering danger.

What could possibly go wrong?

[The Silent Night Descends]

The sun disappeared all of a sudden, replaced by twin red moons in the sky, which threw the wilderness into darkness and decreased visibility to only a few feet before Kaelen. ℴℴ𝘮

At the same time, multiple red eyes began popping out in the shadows, and the tremors beneath his feet became constant, like the number of sandworms had multiplied.

Kaelen didn’t need it to be spelled out for him before realizing the beasts’ strength had increased.

He could feel multiple predatory eyes from now, and from his position, he had lost track of the other candidates and where they might be, leaving everyone isolated in their own world.

Kaelen felt his mind go numb for a moment.

He understood the concept and danger, but didn’t increased difficulty come with increased rewards?

If he made 300 billion evolution points on average before now, shouldn’t he make twice that much now that the difficulty level had been cranked up?

The mission was probably designed to torture players who were left behind, except it turned out to be outstanding candidates who intentionally stayed behind and didn’t need to work together to increase their chances of survival.

Kaelen might’ve lost most of his abilities, but that didn’t make him any weaker. He had chosen Infinite Mana for a reason, and though he hadn’t thought about this earlier, he just came to realize he didn’t need Sharp Senses to know what was happening beyond his eyesight.

He could detect movements inside a domain of his own mana, and should be able to see beyond what the eyes could naturally see.

It didn’t matter how vast the wilderness was, the Infinite in the ability’s name wasn’t decoration. It could cover this entire plain if he wanted, and tell the position of every single person and beast, and detect their movements even before they made them, through the mana fluctuation in their limbs.

The hidden exit might prove difficult to find with mana alone, but the one thing that couldn’t hide or pose a threat to him were the beasts roaming the night on or underground.

He hadn’t made the wrong choice when choosing Infinite Mana for his first skill. Because in a universe where mana existed long before the first sign of life, Infinite Mana was supreme.

Infinite Mana!