331. [Phase 2: Hall of Pandemonium!]
331. [Phase 2: Hall of Pandemonium!]
***
Ding!
*
————
[Phase 2: Hall of Pandemonium!]
Each player's movement is slowed by 50% based on their current stats, and this debuff cannot be removed by any means until you escape the Hall of Pandemonium.
【Survive among the monsters pouring in from all directions!】
15:00.
————
*
Leaving the safe zone, Phase 2. It was the warning notice that appeared the moment they entered the cave.
The 15-minute timer existed, and suddenly her body felt heavy, as if weights had been attached to her arms and legs. Serin let out a hollow laugh.
'If it weren't for Yujeong's buff, this would've been even more suffocating.'
With that thought, she carefully surveyed the cave they had entered.
Just one small lantern. It illuminated part of the cave's interior, but most of the cave was shrouded in deep, deep darkness.
'Every single one of these is nothing but restrictions.'
In Phase 1, there had been thick fog that nearly obscured vision, and now in Phase 2, there was deep darkness along with a slowing effect that even restricted movement.
Still, she thought this was better.
Phase 1: Hall of Illusions hadn't been especially difficult for me, but seeing illusory corpses wearing Sua's and Yujeong's faces had left me uneasy. I thought I'd rather fight monsters instead.
"As I said at the start, it'll be fine as long as we each hold our own area."
At Sua's calm voice, she nodded and checked the current situation.
After I entered the cave, Yujeong stood to my left and Sua to my right, each keeping a set distance from me.
Since I was taking the center of the front line, the other two would hold off monsters on the left and right. With our backs to the entrance, we'd agreed to maintain a defensive formation.
"I'm looking forward to this."
Then, as their eyes briefly met, Yujeong winked and spoke brightly, and I smiled back.
Doing this kind of content with someone else really did feel novel to me.
Cooperation wasn't a word that suited me, so just doing this together felt fascinating.
Then, wondering how Sua looked, she glanced over. Sua was staring straight ahead with a calm expression. That look on Sua seemed different from usual.
'Sua seems the calmest.'
Maybe it was because this raid was a project, but after entering each phase, Sua would speak in a calm tone rather than showing any emotion. If anything, Yujeong's expressions felt more varied.
After watching Sua for a moment, I switched weapons.
A notification appeared saying that the 'Legendary Knight's Fighting Spirit' passive would disappear due to unequipping Durandal, but she paid it no mind.
Slide.
The soft feel of the cord wrapping around her right arm, and the pure white Crescent-Moon Weight settled into her right hand.
Just from equipping the Crescent-Moon Weight, an inexplicable sense of stability and ease brought an unconscious smile to her lips.
In the Hall of Illusions, I'd deliberately used a sword because I thought that if an enemy version of me appeared wielding the Crescent-Moon Weight, I'd endanger the other two. Now there was no need to use a sword.
Moreover, the cave's interior was quite spacious. If countless monsters poured into that space, the Crescent-Moon Weight was the most suitable weapon.
She was confident she could sweep through the space itself and wipe out monsters.
[14:59]
Just as she felt ready, the displayed timer began to tick down.
Slowly gripping the Crescent-Moon Weight's cord, she stared into the darkness within the cave.
......
At first, small red lights seemed to flicker in the darkness.
Then, like countless stars in a clear night sky late in the evening.
————!!
Soon, countless red lights began to fill the darkness of the cave.
Staring at them, I slowly calmed myself.
Red points arrayed like countless stars in the night sky.
Those were absolutely not like stars in the night sky.
'From the very start, there's easily over a hundred.'
Each and every one of those red lights was the eerie glare of a monster.
"...The number of monsters hasn't decreased at all?"
She had no time to register Sua's puzzled voice from not far away. The red lights closed in rapidly all at once, and she deployed a skill.
—Moon Princess.
As the now-familiar white moonlight wrapped around my entire body, my appearance changed, and I swung the Crescent-Moon Weight without thinking.
Since she had said she would hold the center, she was the first to face the countless monsters.
—Moonlit Threads.
Following the motion of my hand as I carved through the space with the intent to sever everything, the brilliant moonlight on the Crescent-Moon Weight swept away the cave's darkness in an instant and burst forth in countless lines of light.
"...!"
And at the sight revealed by the light I'd created, I couldn't help but be shocked.
The scene revealed before her. It was something that had to be called a tidal wave.
Goblins, orcs, ogres, undead, vampires, werewolves... so many different kinds of monsters it was hard to distinguish them. An uncountable number of monsters were pouring in madly from the front.
FWIP-FWIP-FWIP-FWIP-FWIP!
The countless light threads of Moonlit Threads collided with the tidal wave of monsters, causing destruction again and again, but knowing I couldn't block them all, I had to move quickly.
Screeeech!
As strength entered her hand gripping the cord connected to the Crescent-Moon Weight, her posture shifted.
Rustle!
As if a massive surge of energy erupted from the leg she stepped forward with, it wrapped around her body for a moment before she quickly spun and began swinging the Crescent-Moon Weight without pause.
—Full Moon Dance.
Following the wild swings of my hand, countless lines of white light began madly embroidering the space.
Slash-slash-slash-slash-slash!
Even as I watched countless lines of light fire at the monsters in succession, my thoughts sank deeper.
'Too many.'
I hadn't expected it to be easy, but the endless tidal wave of monsters was enough to make me furrow my brow.
[14:51]
I stared at the timer as it slipped past 14 minutes and 50 seconds. And this was only the beginning...
And just as I thought that—
———!!
From left and right, dazzling light erupted, and golden light and even deeper darkness began to surge through the space.
...
—Platina Elish.
As the rapier's blade, dyed in golden light, thrust into the space, a brilliant cluster of light coalesced from the empty air.
Immediately after, as the rapier quickly pierced the golden light in the space, the coalesced golden light burst forth toward the front with its brilliant radiance.
——!!
The dazzling golden light swept through the entire space ahead in an instant, as if showing off its terrifying destructive power, but Sua's mind was not at ease at all.
She had wiped out all the monsters in an instant. But like a massive wave crashing, the emptied space immediately began to fill with other monsters.
A strange sensation, like scooping water from a vast lake with her own hands.
Following the rapier's trajectory as it rapidly pierced through the air, golden lines were drawn, continuing to kill monsters, but she unconsciously let out a word.
"...This is strange."
The current situation was too strange.
So strange that she couldn't understand it at all.
—Phase 2: Hall of Pandemonium.
The content was extremely simple: survive for 15 minutes against countless monsters. But precisely because it was simple, it was absolutely not easy.
But even so, there was a kind of 'limit.'
Raids were fundamentally designed so that difficulty was determined by the number of people entering.
If difficulty was determined by each party member's combat power and the number of people, there had to be a ceiling.
The combat power of the three-person party—Serin, herself, and Bloody Night—was high, but she thought it was combat power that could match a normal raid party of six or more.
So she had planned the 3-person raid believing it was possible.
Even if difficulty didn't drop drastically just because the number of people decreased, she had thought it was sufficiently possible.
But now.
'What on earth is this situation...'
This many monsters shouldn't be appearing.
By feel, monsters that a 10-person party should handle were pouring out, and that far exceeded her expectations.
When my eyes fell on Serin's pure-white figure holding the center, I thought that wasn't it either.
'No, it's at least a 10-person raid or more...'
It had only been four minutes since Phase 2 began.
The reason this absurd front line was being held. It was because Serin was miraculously holding the center, but even that looked quite precarious now.
Every time Serin seemed surrounded by countless monsters, she would unleash massive moonlight and reveal herself again, repeating over and over. But even that was like performing acrobatics on the edge of a cliff.
Bloody Night, at a distance, was also weaving through the monsters without rest as if slaughtering them. But the number of monsters was endless, enough to immediately bring to mind the phrase "outnumbered."
Swish!
Dodging the claws of a werewolf that had closed in before she knew it, she quickly thrust her rapier.
As she swiftly withdrew the rapier that had precisely pierced the werewolf's brow, she bit her lip hard.
Her stamina gauge was constantly hitting bottom, so even using skills left her breathless, but she absolutely couldn't stop using them.
—Star Platina.
A brilliant golden radiance shimmered on the rapier, and immediately began scattering that light onto the countless monsters nearby.
And as if sprinting through the space in an instant, Sua, gripping her rapier, broke through that light in one burst.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-bang!
Just as the monsters touched by the light burst apart all at once, Sua's eyes flew open.
"...!"
In the darkness of the cave. Amid the deep darkness, something red....
A monster emitting an utterly eerie glare came into view.
Ding!