Chapter 347: Seven Mythic Treasures

The blade split the demonic miasma and struck Vaurak’s neck.

He bellowed in pain. Black blood, thick with power, spurted from the wound.

Then the dark shell began to close again. Before it hid the injury, Cassian saw that the bleeding had already stopped.

"Good!" he shouted. "Again!"

If they could wound him, they could kill him.

Aurelia drank several bottles of Life Water, drew a few deep breaths, and began forming another blade. A skill of that power strained both her body and her Spirit.

Vaurak had finally felt the threat of death.

"Damn you, Angel! Die!"

Ignoring the Demons covering his body, he ordered his surviving troops to come to his aid. At the same time, he swung twelve golden axe shadows at Aurelia.

"For the Lord!"

Crystal Nine never missed a chance to demonstrate her loyalty. She and several companions with Dragon forms flew into the path of the attacks.

Their bodies, each more than a hundred meters long, burst apart. Glittering crystal fragments swept across a kilometer of ground.

"Aurelia! You’ve saved me more than once. This time, I’m paying you back!"

Nine managed to deliver the words before she died.

Cassian stared at the place where she had been. Even now, she had found time to claim a favor.

Anyone who did not know about the Fountain of Life would have thought she meant this as her final farewell. She knew as well as he did that it offered a way back.

A minute later, Skyblade Descent opened the miasma again and struck the same place on Vaurak’s neck.

This wound went deeper.

Celia sent more than a hundred Sword Energy strikes through the opening. Rhea’s Sword of Space followed, drawing another furious howl from the giant.

"Keep going, Aurelia!" Rhea called. "His miasma is thinning. Celia and I couldn’t have reached his body before!"

The change was real.

Vaurak understood the Labyrinth’s rules. He had already tried to kill Cassian and end the fight that way.

Cassian gave him no opportunity. With a detachment of Crystal Maidens guarding him, he used his speed to keep almost a hundred kilometers between himself and the giant.

Fear crept into Vaurak’s eyes.

He might be imprisoned here, but his life was almost endless. He had no wish to lose it.

Twenty minutes passed.

Aurelia sent down ten blades over that span. By the last, she was gasping, her eyes dull with exhaustion.

The vast Demon army was nearly gone as well.

Vaurak’s miasma had become almost transparent. Rhea, Celia, and the Blood Emperors could now force their attacks through it, leaving fresh wounds across his body.

The Dark Prism Towers had not remained idle. Several more dense volleys swept the battlefield, costing Cassian further troops.

A few minutes later, the miasma burst with a sharp crack.

Vaurak’s huge body began to shrink.

The physical Maidens’ blades reached his skin at last. Cuts a foot deep opened under their strikes. Against a body like his, no single wound meant much. Together, they were wearing him down.

"Stop! Mighty Human Lord, I surrender! I will be your slave!"

That caught Cassian’s attention.

"Vaurak. You’re the Lord of the Labyrinth. Can you give me administrative authority over this place?"

He knew what control of the Five Elements Temple had done for him. The Labyrinth was surely of even higher Quality.

Those countless checkpoints would be an inexhaustible supply of Bosses to hunt.

Vaurak looked embarrassed.

"Not now. I cannot even leave the Core."

Cassian’s expression darkened. The giant hurried on.

"But I can serve you here! I can gather troops for you within the Labyrinth. With your foundations, a few thousand years should be enough to kill the Thousandfold King. Free me then, and I will follow you!"

A few thousand years?

And he would have to kill something called the Thousandfold King, which hardly sounded like an easy opponent.

Cassian would rather take the loot now.

At least the offer had told him something useful. The Lord of the Labyrinth was a prisoner too. Apparently, the Thousandfold King was the one keeping him here.

Without his burst state, Vaurak still had over a million Physique. It was no longer enough. He could barely move beneath the bindings.

Wounds kept opening. His struggles weakened.

A minute later, Aurelia gathered everything she had left into another Skyblade Descent.

The blade cut through most of his neck.

"The Thousandfold King will avenge me..."

Vaurak’s final cry faded as his enormous body toppled to the ground.

Cassian checked the blessing. Eleven minutes remained.

"A little risky, but it worked."

The fifty-thousand-strong army had been a greater threat than Vaurak himself. If the giant had not so helpfully arranged his troops into tight formations, the outcome would have been far less certain.

Notices began appearing. Cassian looked at the kill report first.

[Your Hero Aurelia Dawnwing has slain Vaurak, Lord of the Labyrinth — Mythic, One-Star.]

[Battle Essence +190,000,000 | Aether +8,000,000.]

[Minotaur Greataxe — Mythic ×1 | Thousandfold Seal — Mythic ×1.]

[Mythic Troop Soul ×2 | Supreme Physique Book ×2 | Supreme Aether Book ×1.]

"No Domain Advancement Writ. No Hero Soul or Troop Sigil either..."

He could not quite help the disappointment.

It passed quickly. The last Mythic he had killed had dropped five Mythic treasures, an extraordinary haul by any measure. This one had given him seven.

What was there to complain about?

And two were Troop Souls.

He left the items unexamined for the moment and read the next notices.

[Thirty-first checkpoint cleared. Labyrinth Points +10,000,000,000.]

[Lord of the Labyrinth defeated. Labyrinth Points +10,000,000,000.]

Twenty billion points.

Cassian’s smile widened. Exchanged for Battle Essence, that was a trillion. Even after the battle’s losses, he had made a tremendous profit.

Then the next message nearly made him swear.

[The Lord of the Labyrinth has been defeated. Your race, Humanity, receives +1,000,000,000,000 Race Ascendancy Points.]

[The Thousandfold Labyrinth will close. Forced return to the Human Hall in 10 minutes.]

"A trillion?"

Cassian’s voice rang across the plaza.

He scarcely cared about the closure. It was that number that made him jump.

He raised his middle finger toward the sky.

"Really? You give the trillion to Humanity, and I don’t get to spend it?"

With a trillion points of his own, he would not need to worry about Battle Essence for another year.

A series of chimes interrupted him. Golden announcements appeared in the Human Champions Channel.

[The Lord of the Labyrinth has fallen. The Thousandfold Labyrinth will close.]

[Race Ascendancy has ended. All Champions must return to their racial Halls within 10 minutes to await settlement. Those who remain will be forcibly removed at their own risk.]

The announcements threw the Channel into uproar.

In an Elven Domain in the twenty-first stage, Ilyse stopped hunting.

She stared at the messages. It took her a moment to understand.

"The Lord of the Labyrinth is dead?"

Her voice rose to a shriek.

"That must be beyond stage thirty! Who could possibly kill it?"

The words tumbled out.

"What race are they? Is there a way to meet them?"

As she finally calmed, a calculating light entered her eyes.

For a connection to someone that powerful, why should it matter whether they were Human?