The first floor of this labyrinth was a vast dimension that regularly shifted its geography and locations of areas physically.

Once the Adventurers completed 5 challenges out of 10 total available, everyone would get a magic compass leading to the Floor Boss's location on this ever-shifting floor.

The water and its nearby area suddenly shifted as Ainen and others appeared at another place on the floor, with a snowy mountain and a snowfall region right next to them.

The group began moving since the Labyrinth reset.

Ainen wanted to cook an ultimate power from his SSS-rank Fire and Water, but for now, it was time to complete the challenges, hunt monsters, and acquire all kinds of resources.

Ainen, Saffa, Clovelle, Fraise, and Ruoin hunted monsters while moving, cooking them, and eating them for five hours before they finally encountered a challenge.

It was a time-limited kill count challenge that up to ten people could participate in at a time.

Within five minutes, a total of one thousand monsters of level 350, the peak of Ascendent-rank, had to be slain.

Ainen and the others killed 1,000 monsters within thirty seconds.

The group got 5x Tier-5 Resource Chests and 5x Random Item Chests.

Ainen got more resources, and he even got one Tier-5 Legendary resource.

He needed more of them in great variety to cook a Tier-5 Catalyst and significantly boost his power.

After completing the challenge, the group continued and encountered two people.

Both of them were at the peak of the Lord-rank, and the moment they saw Ainen and the others, they flinched.

'What do we do?'

'Four peak Ascendent-rank and one Lord-rank who is our target.'

Ainen knew there could be people entering inside to hunt him, but he had no way of knowing who was the enemy and who wasn't.

But he was confident in his abilities — no attack could harm anyone if it was aimed at him or anyone around him within one kilometer of himself.

Ainen's group flew past the two men. He glanced at them, but they were no threat to him.

However, he soon saw both of them following his group while moving underground.

'Idiots. They thought they could escape my detection if they were underground?'

Ainen's eyes coldly glinted.

"There are monsters there, Master. Let's hunt."

"Alright." Ainen nodded. He could clearly feel the heat signatures of those two underground, following him.

Once Ainen and the group stopped to hunt the monsters, those two also stopped and began preparing to ambush Ainen, aiming to kill him in one shot without any risk or mistake.

People outside were watching the screen of one of those two that expanded since they finally discovered Ainen.

The devices had a feedback system that was in control of a person, and he could decide which person's camera screen to show on the four big screens outside.

"That guy has no idea he's going to get attacked. Did he really kill Crown Prince Voren?"

But just as this Ascendent-rank young man finished speaking, the screens flared up in flames for less than a second before turning blank.

"What happened?!"

"Did they just die?"

"They were killed instantly — or rather, obliterated completely alongside the camera."

An hour later, everyone saw the screens shift as they displayed Ainen again.

Ainen, Ruoin, Saffa, Clovelle, and Fraise were sitting near a firecamp, eating food.

The trees around them trembled as black fireballs shot out from the fog — dozens of them, glowing with runes of heat and curse both. The air burned red for an instant, then turned pitch black.

Ainen raised his hand. The black flames shattered like glass before reaching him. A moment later, his Fire and Water merged, forming a translucent wave that rippled outward.

The fog thinned instantly. Those hiding within it — a group of twelve Lord-rank powerhouses — barely saw the wave before it passed through them. Their bodies froze and then evaporated instantly, vanishing before they could scream.

Ainen and the others continued eating while the screens went blank again outside and showed random feeds of other people who were roaming around, searching for Ainen.

Two hours later, Ainen and his group reached another stretch of the labyrinth — a barren wasteland of molten fissures and floating stones. The sky was a dull, bruised crimson, and every few seconds, the land groaned as if something enormous moved beneath it.

They encountered their third challenge — and overall fifth challenge of the Labyrinth. Once they completed it, the magic compass would appear.

But a small group saw Ainen and the others entering and went to gather more people quickly.

Each of them had a device that could sense the cameras of others if they were within 10 kilometers.

So the moment Ainen and the others emerged after winning the challenge, forty powerhouses surrounded them while keeping a distance of two hundred meters and launched a bombardment of long-range skills.

Spells, arrows, and light-blades howled toward Ainen — hundreds of techniques colliding midair, forming a storm that would've crushed mountains. But before a single one could reach him, space folded.

The moment the attacks entered the range of his domain, they burned.

Ainen's flames cooked all attacks, bringing out reactions and forming colorful fireworks as all attacks just became food for the flame.

Everyone watching outside was dumbfounded.

By now, Ainen had already reached the peak of Lord-rank in terms of stats by eating food made from Lord-rank monsters and Tier-5 resources.

He was simply too overpowered for any Lord-rank.

"You all… why are you coming to your deaths?" Ainen frowned. "There's no way I can die in this Labyrinth. There's no power here that can do that. And I highly doubt there's anyone like me outside. I'm not bragging. It's just a fact that I've come to understand."

Ainen's eyes narrowed. "So don't send people to their deaths."

As soon as he finished speaking, his eyes flickered with embers.

All forty powerhouses were instantly enveloped in a furious vortex that was already spinning at a crazy rotation speed, and everything within the vortex ceased to exist in a second.

Erased.

Outside, the top powerhouses who were leaders of their organizations frowned.

Some of their people had already died.

The disparity was simply too big.

The price they got from the Styxian Dynasty was good, but it wasn't worth enough for the lives of Lord-rank powerhouses.

Most of them had only agreed to the request because a lot of them were going in — and how hard could it be to kill one Lord-rank Adventurer?

Well, they found out it wasn't hard. It was simply impossible.

"There's no way he can be killed inside!"

"If they knew he was this powerful, why didn't they tell us?!"

"But what the fuck is wrong with him? Why is he that powerful?!"

"That was my nephew there! He had a Legendary gear set of Tier-5 on him, and a Tier-6 protective talisman! But he died instantly!"

The noise around the Labyrinth was increasing as they continued seeing Ainen deal with the people sent inside.

"Do you think he can finally break into the eternal top 3 of this Labyrinth's cross-labyrinth leaderboard?"

"I think so. Like, are you seeing him? What kind of monster is he?"

Ever since this Labyrinth had appeared and someone made it permanent by entering the cross-labyrinth leaderboard's ranking, the top three spots had never changed.

It was rumored that around a thousand years ago, someone from their world reached rank 4, but the top three had still remained unchanged for over a thousand years.

…

An hour later, Ainen defeated the floor boss and went to the second floor.

The second floor was a world of floating rivers connecting various islands that had a terrible and supernatural atmosphere with dangerous weather.

And the only way to travel to another island was by river, as stepping off an island — unless it was onto the river — would instantly plunge someone downward and kill them. This was the rule of the second floor.

Ainen was speedrunning the Labyrinth because he wanted to clear everything and gain as many resources and rewards as possible before leisurely staying inside and cooking his powers to further heights.

He was ready to spend a month or two inside because he knew that strong powerhouses would be stationed outside.

Even if it wasn't possible for him to attack Emperor-rank powerhouses or defend against their attacks — as the difference in stats was simply too big — he wanted to at least come up with a way to escape and leave them eating his dust.

…

After six hours, Ainen cleared the second floor and went to the third and last floor of the Labyrinth.

This Labyrinth was a 10-day activation one, so it wasn't that big and didn't have as many challenges or as high a difficulty according to rank.

For Ainen, this Labyrinth was like a walk in the park.

The third floor had some big challenges that needed to be completed in order to get to the floor boss, but Ainen finished them and took the highest cores before defeating the floor boss in two hours.

The Labyrinth was cleared.

Ainen camped right there and then, and started cooking and resting.

Lord-rank powerhouses eventually arrived, only to die.

But Ainen was tired of them coming constantly, so after he killed three hundred of them, he created a giant dragon and a large python made of the five elements he had, which acted as guardians while Ainen and the others trained and rested in the camp.

The powerhouses arrived and had to fight against the dragon and python, but none of their attacks could stop them, and none of their defenses could block their attacks.

So in every battle, some of them would die, and the rest would escape using the bangles on their wrists.

In the end, all Lord-rank powerhouses that went to attack Ainen failed.

187 of them escaped, and the rest died.

Half of the Emperor-rank powerhouses left, no longer interested in aiding the Styxian Dynasty's hunt.

The other half were on a tether.

And Mistbound Magic Tower started its work, contacting those that left to convince them to join them in the plan to help Ainen.

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