Chapter 175: The Blood Midnight

[The Blood Midnight begins]

[All candidates have five minutes to find a hiding spot before the hidden boss appears.]

[The hidden boss can sense movements, has ultra hearing abilities, and can see in the dark. It will roam the night till daybreak.]

[The hidden door will disappear at daybreak.]

"What the hell?" Kaelen blurted after seeing the notification.

A growl suddenly came from behind him, but he sidestepped right on time to flash his blades across its neck, severing its head as the body fell limp into the pile of other countless bodies from his new hunting ground.

The other beasts surrounding him glared at him for a long moment before they turned tail and disappeared into the forest.

"I’m guessing that’s the last one for tonight... but not the least," he mumbled to himself and shifted his attention back to the notification.

The fact that the notification had instructed them to hide could only mean the hidden boss was on another level the dungeon master didn’t think they could handle.

Then again, if the hidden boss was to roam all night long and they were to stay hidden for that duration, that would only mean they’d lose their one and only opportunity to escape the first floor.

Kaelen scoffed coldly.

It’s barely been an hour since his encounter with Elyndra, and the dungeon masters were already trying to bury them inside all because of the Fate-Rewriting Pill.

Earlier, when he suddenly dismissed Elyndra, it wasn’t entirely because he didn’t trust her. He didn’t, but still thought it was worth the shot. Except, he suddenly remembered this was a death show.

There was literally no privacy, and whatever he was discussing with her was being live-streamed to not just the dungeon masters, but a universal audience, and also fellow candidates who had made it out safely and might probably be watching from the safety of their lobbies.

If he displayed any weaknesses here, it’d definitely be used against him in the future, and this is the main reason he dismissed her and acted nonchalant about it.

The series of notifications on his vision just proved he was right. Except, he wasn’t the main target here. It was Elyndra who casually carried with her an item that could solve one of the biggest problems in the first ten floors.

If everyone got their hands on the Fate-Rewriting Pill and had the ability to choose the ability of their choice, the survival rate would be much higher compared to the candidates entering dangerous floors with an advanced massage ability.

The fact she gave out one so easily either meant there was more where that came from, or she could easily recreate them—hopefully not with the garbage she collected from beast corpses, or Kaelen would rather throw the pill away than risk diarrhea in the middle of a boss fight.

If the candidates wanted to make it out with minimum casualties, then they’d have to work together to find the hidden exit.

[The hidden door has been discovered by Candidates Felix and Lucy!]

As the notification flashed across Kaelen’s vision, a pillar of light shot into the sky from the distance.

At the same time, a guttural roar reverberated across the wilderness, making the air vibrate fiercely.

Kaelen didn’t need to ask to know who Felix and Lucy were. The fact that the names had showed up together could only mean it was the short guy and ice-blonde girl pair who had been searching right from the start.

But instead of the dungeon letting them leave quietly, it not only announced its appearance to the other candidates but to the hidden boss as well.

One might think it was an assist from the dungeon masters, but Kaelen knew better.

As daylight approached, the candidates would be pressed to make a run for it. And by doing so, they’d be marked by the hidden boss, which already knew their destination.

But here’s the catch; while the hidden boss was locked onto the candidate who moved first, the rest could move at that time and make a run for the exit, hoping the hidden boss doesn’t change its mind to chase after them instead.

There had to be a scapegoat, so that even when the candidates who discovered it tried to escape, they became the target if they weren’t fast enough.

The two candidates seemed to have realized this as well and stayed put, because from the looks of it, they had discovered it from a slight distance, and before they could verify it, the dungeon announced it instead.

At that moment, there were certainly no signs of moving life. Not the beasts, not the candidates who had already found a strategic hiding spot, leaving Kaelen standing in the open like a dummy.

Even a single step would give his location away, and standing around would make him the first target. So he calmly lowered himself to the floor and lay flat on the ground while using his mana perception to scout the area.

He wanted to get a closer look at what they were dealing with, but the moment he focused his mana perception on the hidden boss resembling a lycan, it snapped its head straight in his direction and bolted towards him at a speed that nearly stunned him.

He immediately deactivated the Infinite Mana, rolled to the side where a beast corpse lay, and made a swift incision in its belly. He had only a second to pull out its guts before squeezing himself inside the large beast.

At that moment, the lycan was already in the hunt, its bloodshot eyes scanning the field for what it had sensed earlier.

Kaelen held his breath, not out of fear, but at the stench of death Elyndra probably enjoyed.

The lycan might possess an advanced sense of smell, but thanks to the blood field, it’d be difficult to smell him out. All he had to do was play the waiting game till it lost interest and moved on.

That was what Kaelen thought, till he heard rapid footsteps and the sounds of flesh being ripped apart continuously, and realized the lycan was more petty than he imagined.

Like it had read Kaelen’s mind, it was turning the beast corpses inside out, searching for the sign of life it had detected earlier.

It was incredibly fast that before Kaelen could figure something out, the lycan arrived before him and grabbed the beast he was hiding inside, lifting it and about to rip it apart.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.