Ch. 213

## Chapter 213: Like Lovers Do (2)

As they traversed the 16th tier, crossed into the 17th, and finally descended to the 18th floor, Ain clearly picked up on the fact that Hyun was deliberately reining in their pace.

「Hyun-nim, that’s surprisingly unlike you.」

「What is?」

「You’re actively dragging your feet, aren’t you? So those two can manage to keep up with us.」

「…I am not?」

Ain’s light laughter grew distinctly richer through their link.

「*Heheh*, I’ll grant you a second chance to reframe that answer. You know as well as I do that we physically can’t drop false statements while maintaining this neural state.」

「I mean, it’s true I dialed back our speed… but it’s completely detached from whatever charitable reason you’re calculating in your head.」

「Oh, really? Then what’s the actual logic behind it?」

「It’s simple… I figured keeping them within tracking range might yield some practical tactical utility downstream. That’s all.」

「Is that so~?」

The corners of Ain’s mouth curled upward once more, but Hyun refrained from tacking on any further explanations. After all, the premise he had just stated was the absolute truth.

“*Haah*… *gasp*… we finally caught up…!”

“We actually dropped down a floor! How on earth did she navigate us out of that geometric trap…?”

A moment later, Drawer and Reward panted heavily as they caught up to their position.

The intricate **XVIII** symbols densely carved into the masonry of the descending stairwell served as definitive system proof that they had successfully breached the absolute hell-tier.

“The 18th floor…”

Within the active user base, virtually no one possessed verified data regarding the tiers below the 17th floor. Average players simply had zero operational reason to venture down this far, nor did they possess the raw stat thresholds required to force a descent.

Having blindly mirrored Ain’s movement path down the stairwell, Drawer and Reward were the literal definition of average users, causing them to scan their immediate surroundings in high-strung, visible anxiety.

*‘How much further down does this layout stretch…?’*

No matter how many minutes they spent descending, the stone stairwell felt like a bottomless vector, giving them the haunting sensation that they were being systematically sucked down an irreversible abyss.

*‘Ah, finally reached the floor layout.’*

The exact second their boots cleared the final step…

*Flash! Flash! Flash!*

Arrayed magical lanterns emitting geometric mana signatures ignited in rapid succession, illuminating the structural layout of the surrounding area.

It was a maiden entry into the 18th floor for any active player.

“Is this still part of the Labyrinth structure? I had zero clue a subterranean layout like this existed…”

“It feels like we stepped into an entirely separate world instance.”

Drawer and Reward stood completely frozen, jaws slackened as they scanned the ceiling architecture. Looking up at the incomprehensibly vast ceiling matrix gave them the jarring spatial illusion that their avatars had been scaled down to miniature proportions.

If the preceding tiers were defined as hyper-compressed, interconnected structural mazes, this floor evoked the atmospheric scale of a legendary ancient ruin. It almost mirrored a historical domain specifically built to accommodate an ancient race of giants.

As the couple stood completely paralyzed by the sheer visual grandeur, the girl’s sharp voice echoed across the massive cavern.

“You don’t need to walk around with your stat guards raised like that.”

“Pardon?”

“This specific floor tier is totally devoid of mechanical traps.”

*‘Who on earth is she really…?’*

At this point, it was mathematically impossible for them not to question her true player profile. A user who could phase through the 16th and 17th floors like a stroll through a safe zone—and who simultaneously possessed verified internal data on the 18th tier—could not possibly belong to the average player base.

*‘Her hood is pulled down too low to catch her eye vector.’*

Reward subtly tried to peek beneath the girl’s cowl. However, the dim ambient lighting and the thick cast shadows from the magical lanterns made visual verification almost impossible.

*‘She has to be a top-tier Ranker, right?’*

Within Reward’s mental database of high-profile Rankers, there were only two female users who matched that specific petite frame. And one of those two was…

“Did you venture into the Labyrinth because you were hunting for one of these?”

A casual voice cut through her train of thought.

Drawer and Reward’s eyes naturally tracked toward the gem the girl was nonchalantly tossing up and down in her palm.

A Mana Stone! Judging by the hyper-dense aura radiating from its facets, registering that its drop tier cleared Grade-10 minimum required zero effort.

Wasn’t harvesting a stone like this the exact motivation that had spurred Drawer to queue for the Labyrinth in the first place?

However…

“No… having stepped foot in here myself, I’ve completely realized just how reckless it was for players of our tier to enter the Labyrinth…”

“You absolute idiot, did it seriously take you getting marooned down here to figure that out?!”

“Hey, I honestly had zero clue the instance difficulty scaled to this level…”

Right as their banter subsided, the girl’s cool voice cut through the cavern once more.

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind handing this over to you guys.”

“…!”

“Though obviously, it’s not going to be a free handout.”

In an instant, an absolute silence settled over the cavern.

Drawer’s eyes remained completely locked onto the blue crystal cycling through the air in her grip. A single high-grade crystal like that carried an immediate market value clearing tens of thousands of dollars minimum on global exchanges. There wasn’t an active user on the server who wouldn’t be tempted by an offer like that.

Yet, despite their average combat specs, they still belonged to the top 0.1% upper echelon of the active player base. Having traversed countless system instances, their survival instincts immediately raised red flags against unprompted, high-value generosity.

“You’re saying… you’re willing to hand that Mana Stone over to us…?”

“Assuming you complete a few specific operational tasks for me.”

“Operational tasks…?”

“Nothing high-risk.”

Drawer pressed further, his eyes narrowing in clear suspicion. “How are we supposed to take that premise at face value? We’re fully aware of the astronomical valuation a Mana Stone carries.”

“He’s right. Handing an item of that caliber over to complete strangers just doesn’t…”

*Clatter, clatter, clack!*

The exact moment a continuous cascade of blue crystals rained down around the girl’s boots, Drawer and Reward’s jaws dropped in sheer, unadulterated shock.

“It’s not like I’m running short on inventory supply anyway.”

“…”

Luminous blue gems lay casually scattered across the stone floor around her boots… For all intents and purposes, the girl looked as though she were casually standing in a field of raw diamonds.

Even though it represented a tiny fraction of the total Mana Stone reserve stored in Hyun’s inventory, displaying it visually was more than enough to completely shatter their internal skepticism.

“W-Wait, please give us a brief moment to process this…!”

“You’ve got 1 minute. If you don’t lock in your decision fast, I’m resuming my pathing.”

Hyun was a player who strictly prioritized optimal efficiency.

The sole reason he was willing to dangle a Grade-10 Mana Stone as tactical bait was because he had mathematically calculated that utilizing these two players to streamline an upcoming floor objective yielded a net positive return.

“Understood! We’ll execute whatever tasks you assign!”

From Drawer and Reward’s tactical perspective, having already descended all the way to the 18th floor, they effectively had zero alternative options anyway. If they were left stranded by themselves, roaming the giant cavern until their characters eventually died was a mathematical certainty.

The moment their mutual interests neatly aligned, a distinct smile surfaced on the girl’s face.

However, that enigmatic smirk didn’t originate from Hyun’s conscious input; it was a spontaneous smile leaking out from Ain, who had been quietly observing Hyun’s tactical maneuvering from behind the scenes.

—

**Drawer (Lv. 153)**

**Reward (Lv. 151)**

Extracting their detailed status menus required virtually zero effort.

Unless a user was a high-tier Ranker harboring sensitive skill builds or strategic item sets, average players rarely bothered to toggle off public view for their status windows. In fact, among the casual user demographic, leaving public visibility enabled was the default standard.

*‘Are both of their base races listed as Celestials? Though I can’t verify if they’re pure-bloods…’*

Hyun thoroughly scanned their data profiles in a matter of seconds.

There were no extraordinary variables to note. The male user held a standard Warrior branch class, while the female user operated on a Rogue derivative path. Neither possessed high-tier, game-changing skill assets.

*‘Their Agility stats clear the necessary threshold. With those numbers, they won’t get instant-deleted during standard mechanics.’*

Hyun dialed Ain’s movement speed to a steady jog, ensuring the couple could easily mirror her pathing. Since there was zero need to rush, he took his time taking in the visual landscape of the 18th floor.

Having also stepped into this specific map instance for the first time, Ain marvelled at her surroundings right alongside him.

「This layout is colossally wide! Are you sure we’re still inside a Labyrinth grid?!」

「Yeah. The 18th tier is designed as a highly specialized instance zone.」

「This doesn’t feel like a dungeon layout at all—it looks like an open plain!」

The architecture completely subverted every preceding floor layout. It was entirely devoid of the standard tight corridors, visual obstacles, or mechanical traps.

In a space like this, getting lost was a mathematical impossibility. The only ambient objects dotting the terrain were massive magical arrays, titanic stone pillars, and enigmatic ancient ruin structures.

After tracking along the vector for a considerable distance, the party halted their march at a specific set of coordinates.

To an unmapped eye, the location appeared completely vacant, but it held supreme tactical significance. It served as the precise coordinate center of a colossal magic array spanning several kilometers across—and the exclusive dimensional entry point leading down to the 19th floor.

“What specific operational task do you need us to execute?” Drawer asked, his voice laced with clear tension.

Up until this point, the girl had sprinted straight toward these coordinates without offering a single line of strategic briefing. Knowing nothing about her true motives or the nature of the task she mentioned, Drawer and Reward simply couldn’t shake off their mounting anxiety.

“As for your objective…”

Standing directly in the center of the magic array, Hyun initiated the tactical breakdown.

“You two just need to agro the nearby Golems and herd them straight to the center coordinates where I’m standing.”

“Agro the Golems nearby…?”

“Correct. If you possessed wide-area agro skills, this would go faster, but since neither of you has those assets logged, just use basic physical strikes to draw their threat tables.”

Drawer and Reward scanned the completely empty, cavernous plain around them, visible question marks practically floating above their heads.

“But… there isn’t a single monster mob spawned anywhere in our radius…?”

“They’ll materialize any second now.”

*Click.*

Hyun pressed Ain’s boot directly onto a small structural depression in the center of the magic array.

The indented groove instantly detonated with a blinding, brilliant radiance.

*Whosh!*

Simultaneously, twin cascades of silver light surged outward in all directions. Pure mana began racing through the complex circuit channels carved across the entire floor geometry of the 18th tier.

[Initiating the Gate Opening Ceremony for the Lower Tiers!]

[Scanning the alignment of the initiating entity…]

[Your alignment is registered as: ‘Abyss’!]

*RUMBLE!*

The initial shockwave expanded into a roaring torrent, completely flooding the etched floor patterns. Following the final system prompt, the energy coursing along the magic array rapidly transformed into brilliant, pure white **Divine Power**.

“Ugh…!”

“What is with this sudden seismic feedback…?”

Because the ground was vibrating violently, the couple—whose base Agility stats were relatively modest—had to fight for control just to keep their balance. While Drawer and Reward were initially startled by the sudden earthquake, they quickly realized that a minor seismic shift was the least of their concerns.

They were utterly paralyzed by the staggering spectacle unfolding right before their eyes.

*Rumble! Rumble!*

*‘W-What on earth… is this layout?!’*

Thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of colossal stone statues were rising directly out of the bedrock.

*‘This can’t be a visual glitch, right…?’*

In a matter of heartbeats, the vast cavern of the 18th floor was completely densely packed with three-meter-tall stone sentinels emerging from the ground. Arrayed in a rigid hexagonal grid formation, this army of the Heavens stood in precise military alignment, spears pointed straight at the central coordinate point.

The structural distance between each individual statue was roughly 20 meters, but owing to their titanic physical volume, that 20-meter gap felt virtually non-existent. If anything, Drawer and Reward felt a suffocating pressure, as though they were being tightly encircled by an impenetrable legion.

“Relax. They won’t initiate combat routines until someone triggers their aggro hitboxes,” Hyun added casually, aiming to lower the anxiety of the two frozen players.

*Ping!*

< Gate Opening Ceremony >

* To secure passage to the lower tiers, you must defeat the opposing faction’s army!

* Defeat the required target quota within the 5-minute time limit!

[Enemies Defeated: 0/500]

The identical system quest prompt popped up simultaneously for everyone present on the 18th floor.

The infamous Gate Opening Quest.

Under standard system parameters, this was by no means a quest intended to be cleared by a four-man party of players under Level 200. In fact, even for a solo Level 400 player, clearing this instance within the strict time parameters was notoriously difficult. No matter how high a player’s raw stat scaling was, if their skill kit lacked wide-area clearing assets, they would inevitably waste precious time sprinting between hitboxes until the 5-minute timer expired.

*‘With this setup, failure is a non-factor.’*

The explicit tactical reason Hyun had guided these two down to the 18th floor was to clear this gate quest in a single, smooth attempt. Attempting to clear the 500-mob quota with just him and Ain within the strict time limit would have been slightly tight on mobility vectors.

However, with a four-man roster, unlocking the portal to the 19th floor was guaranteed.

The actual combat specs of Drawer and Reward were completely irrelevant to his calculations. After all, their designated strategic role had zero to do with DPS output.

“Each of you just needs to pull a reasonable cluster of mobs back to my position.”

Hyun paused for a beat, casually adding a quick safety disclaimer he had almost forgotten.

“If you feel like your HP bars are about to enter the red, just shout.”

—

“AAARGH—!”

A short while after the quest timer initiated…

Drawer was currently exhibiting a level of micro-control and spatial focus that completely shattered any benchmark he had ever achieved in prior battles. It was his absolute first time realizing his own mechanical inputs were capable of such precise execution.

*‘I knew it! That girl is definitely a high-tier Member of a Couple-Slaughter Squad!’*

He didn’t even have the visual bandwidth to check on Reward’s spatial position. However, predicting her current state required zero effort—she was undoubtedly fighting for her life in an identical high-stress loop!

“Ugh…!”

Sensing a sudden, lethal spike of aggro closing in from behind, Drawer frantically popped a defensive buff. It was a movement-speed buff skill designed to grant an instantaneous burst of mobility.

*CRASH!*

A titanic stone spear impaled the bedrock right where his avatar had been standing a microsecond prior.

“Damn it! Oh, sheet!”

Having dodged lethal hitboxes multiple times in a row, profanities he would never dream of using in polite company were spilling out of his mouth on reflex. Yet, halting his movement vector was out of the question.

Behind his back, several dozen stone sentinels were pursuing him with rigid, emotionless lethal intent.

*‘Kuh… I can’t stretch this kite any further…!’*

Yet, a deeply uncanny pattern kept repeating itself.

Every single time he reached what he mathematically calculated to be the absolute terminal limit of his survival kite, that exact same cool voice would echo directly over his audio channel.

“Duck.”

“Y-Yes ma’am…!”

And every single time he complied, an incomprehensible tactical phenomenon unfolded.

It was completely natural that Drawer couldn’t process the underlying mechanics. Not only was he entirely consumed by the frantic sprint to maintain distance, but what unfolded behind him was a visual spectacle that defied standard system logic.

*‘Darkness Sword.’*

Hyun executed a slight hop to calibrate the precise horizontal axis height.

Approximately 1.5 meters off the stone floor. At the exact height required to cleanly bisect the torso hitboxes of the sentinels, he oriented the *Darkness Sword* onto a flat horizontal plane.

The absolute next heartbeat…

*‘Steps of the Incarnation!’*

He blitzed forward directly through the air.

A blade length of 10 meters combined with a burst dash distance of 30 meters!

In the briefest fraction of an eye-blink, a massive spatial volume sweeping 300 square meters was cleanly bisected along a single horizontal plane.

*Slash!*

The instant the lethal horizontal axis swept through the space, several dozen heavily armored stone sentinels charging in a dense cluster ground to an abrupt, simultaneous halt.

A fraction of a second later, their upper torsos slid off their lower halves, and the bisected stone constructs rained heavily down onto the cavern floor like falling timber.

*‘Clean.’*

The combo technique combining *Darkness Sword* with high-speed spatial displacement skills was a core tactical synergy Hyun frequently deployed whenever he lacked access to Louise’s wind control assets.

While it possessed a critical mechanical weakness—where failing to trigger an instant structural dismemberment on the hitboxes would abruptly cancel the dash momentum—the Labyrinth was a specialized domain where those target-durability parameters were completely rendered void.