"With the food, you all got substantial buffs. But if you still can't kill them or they surrender, or you surrender, it's fine. Just save yourself. I'll stop them from escaping anyway, and once the countdown is over, I'll challenge them and kill them."

"I see..." Sofia nodded, her fist clenched. "That's the best way to kill them without letting them escape."

"They deserve to die." Viena coldly snorted.

"Andras?" Ainen looked at Viena. Andras was a good mate. Even though he had only known Andras for a few hours, he found Andras to be an upright guy.

Viena sighed. "That Elber bastard killed him."

"He's dead." Ainen nodded, his face cold. "And none of the rest will escape."

After a minute, Tumalik and the other three appeared back from their duelling grounds.

Right as they appeared, Dylan, Sofia, and Viena challenged three of them.

Two had won, so they could accept duels from others. The other two losers could stay alive for five minutes.

Sofia and Viena vanished alongside Tumalik and the girl from Cradle.

"W-What do you mean by this? Didn't you say you would let us go?"

The remaining two Cradle guys were shocked and terrified.

Ainen smiled as he cracked his knuckles. "I lied."

"You have five minutes of life left." Dylan coldly grinned. "Did you really think we would let you go after you killed our party members and so many other people?"

Swoosh!

One of the guys burst with powerful gales and escaped by going all out.

Alas…

Smack!

Ainen appeared right in front of him in the next second and slammed him down with a kick.

"There is no escaping death today. You should have expected it when you gave death to others."

In the end, all four of them died one by one, though it took some time since they got protection for five minutes after losing in a duel.

Only Ainen could kill them within thirty seconds, while the enemies could survive for that long and surrender to gain protection for five minutes.

As such, Ainen had to finish them off one by one.

"There are still more of these spawns at different step-pathways. They are waiting for anyone who comes up and kills them," Viena said, frustration clear in her voice as she added. "I wish we could help you, but we are just wasting your time if we come with you. If you go alone, you can kill them one by one quickly."

Indeed. They fail to kill, and the enemy gets five minutes of protection, so Ainen would waste more time that way when he could just instantly kill enemies within a literal couple of seconds once a duel begins.

"According to the guy I captured previously, there are a total of twenty of them here." Ainen rubbed his chin. "We killed six so far, and I have one captured at camp to get as much information as possible, so there are still thirteen of them out there."

"They will escape," Ainen said as he floated up. "If I kill one of them, the others would get on the steps and gain protection, so I can only duel them on the steps."

"I'll follow one group after chasing others. You three should also start climbing and occupy or try to kill the enemy once they arrive there, since some of them will escape."

"Alright."

"Let's make sure they don't escape this labyrinth alive."

…

While Ainen and others started climbing and hunting down the people of Cradle, Prisha was already on the 5th layer's 49th step.

She had been winning duels in all steps in seconds and climbing very fast, focusing on the objective to invert the Labyrinth while leaving other members of Cradle to kill Adventurers.

Outside, the dark circle woman was watching the leaderboard and the spotlights that came.

As time passed, all names belonging to Cradle were disappearing. In the end, only Prisha remained.

[ Labyrinth Leaderboard]

Prisha | Level 200 | Points: 343,290

Ainen | Level 200 | Points: 269,692

Viena | Level 200 | Points: 101,388

The only reason Prisha didn't have any spotlights was that she was not allowing it.

Ainen also stopped allowing his spotlights to appear outside when the notification appeared, asking him whether he wanted to share it or not.

The situation outside was unknown with the enemies, so he didn't want to bother sharing anything.

"There's still one more. How far is she?" Ainen muttered as he arrived on the 6th layer. He wasn't stopping on the islands to search for hidden treasures because the priority was to kill that last and most dangerous member of Cradle, according to information he extracted.

However, the other party was also climbing very fast.

Ainen was also searching each island for her, so he was wasting time, though he also luckily encountered three hidden rewards so far on his way to the 6th layer.

After searching the 6th layer's island as well, Ainen continued climbing the steps.

Time passed, and soon Ainen arrived on the 9th layer.

From here to the final 10th layer's converging island, there were 100 steps.

'All enemies already had 500 in all stats and had far higher control in Mana, better combat arsenal, and skills than average Adept-rank in the last 90 steps from 8th to 9th layer.' Ainen felt that even Viena, Dylan, and Sofia would have to improve if they wanted to reach the final 10th layer.

That, or they somehow acquire S-rank elemental manipulation of their main elements, which would allow them to significantly upgrade their skills.

Ainen could give them that chance if he gave them his remaining three burgers.

But he wasn't going to give such a level of dish for free or even at a cheap price.

He had also saved the two Cocktails.

Those three burgers and two cocktails were limited assets. They provided a massive boost, on top of giving a chance to awaken an elemental manipulation and even gain insight into skills.

Trigging that could certainly increase one's understanding of an element, pushing them closer to S-rank.

But this Labyrinth had a 30-day activation, and this second floor was never a race. It was a marathon for the majority of people, a massive opportunity to get strong.

It was for people to arrive on each island, search for hidden rewards, train, duel against each other, and get stronger so they could climb further.

But there were always exceptions like Ainen and Prisha who could cut through the difficulty like a knife through butter.

…

99th step.

Ainen finished the duel and stepped on the 100th step, the last one.

"Last one. She must be up there." Ainen didn't even take a break. The mana grounds emptied as he refilled himself and started the last duel on his way towards the final island, the floor boss area.

'She must win this final island, or if she defeated the floor boss, she would be on the third floor,' Lord Black said.

'I wonder if she can kill it alone?' Ainen was slightly doubtful.

[ Duel — Ainen vs Elf Champion Archmage Veringana ]

'All stats at 700, eh? The class is also S-rank. The names of Innate Talents sounds good, too. This one must have quite a good arsenal of skills as well.' Ainen wryly smiled as he inspected the enemy with his Mystic Chef's Eyes. 'This enemy is something Dylan and others can beat.'

This 100th step's enemy was quite powerful.

'Yeah. This Labyrinth's design is for the super elite, given its difficulty. Without people at your level in Adept rank, passing this floor would be impossible due to the duel format.'

'Yeah. Viena and others will have to take their time getting stronger for days by focusing and working hard if they want to reach the third floor.'

After all, people had no chance to work together to progress on this floor. Only the super elite Adept-rank like Ainen, Elber, and Prisha could reach the third floor, the last floor, without hiccups.

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