The mist swirled around Stark’s legs as he stepped carefully along the stone path.
Each footstep echoing against the silence of the cemetery, and the chill in the air wrapping around him like a cold embrace.
“…” Stark didn’t mind though, he wasn’t afraid, and he just followed the stone path, looking around once in a while, just to see hundreds of tombstones from different people, probably classifiers that passed away from monsters?
It did seem like “classifier” was one of those professions where you wouldn’t live long enough to grow old after all.
Stark kept walking for a pretty good amount of time, he didn’t check his phone since no reason to, but it did feel like at least twenty minutes had passed.
This cemetery was so big it was actually scary to think it was abandoned only because of a rift appearing.
And Stark could only wonder just how bad that rift would be.
“Well… as long as I can kill one of those apostles…” he mumbled.
And less than five minutes later… he reached the end of the stone path.
And what was waiting for him at the end, as you might have guessed… was the wooden cabin.
Stark could FEEL the powerful aura emanating from it, and he didn’t even know how the wooden structure didn’t crumble as it was constantly shaking.
Stark reached for the closed door, ready to open it and see what this is all about.
But right as he was about to turn the handle…
[Warning! You will teleport to a dangerous rift if you open this door!]
[It is advised for you to go back!]
[There isn’t just one apostle-]
Some sort of warning came up, but Stark didn’t even bother reading all of it as he swung the door open.
Immediately, he was greeted with a gray portal that was sucking everything outside towards it.
And obviously, Stark was no different.
“W-Wow?” Stark was being sucked by the portal, and even though he tried to resist slightly just to make sure everything was alright, he was still forced to enter the rift.
And then the door closed behind him, meaning no one would come for him.
***
~THUD~
After the weird feeling of being transported through time and space, Stark landed in the rift.
[Welcome to the “Corpse Cemetery”!]
[Difficulty: Nightmare]
[Number of classifiers: 1]
[Oh wow, you’re brave!]
“Appreciate it,” Stark shrugged.
[You are in the first zone: “The Road to Death”!]
[Good Luck!]
As always, the panels that explained everything Stark needed to do appeared, then disappeared just as quickly.
And now… he was truly alone.
First of all, the first thing Stark did was activate the perk of [Domination] he got at level 25, which was [Facial Camouflage], thus hiding his face with his aura, he didn’t know why he did it, but it just felt right.
Then Stark took a minute to observe his surroundings.
And…
“Huh?” he was extremely confused, “Wait a damn minute…”
He turned around and…
“Knew it,” he saw a giant gate, extremely similar to the one he bypassed to enter the cemetery in the real world, and beyond it was nothing but darkness, meaning no way to leave.
Right now, Stark was in an exact replica of the “crosswood cemetery” he had traversed to reach the cabin.
The dark green grass was omnipresent everywhere, the tombstones were placed in the exact same spots, and the stone path led ahead, although it was a bit more difficult to look far because the mist in the rift was much thicker.
Stark scanned the area, a sense of unease creeping in as the white mist curled around his legs, seemingly attached to the ground.
“Alright, Stark, focus,” he muttered to himself, pushing forward along the stone path.
He could hear whispers in his ears as he advanced, but they didn’t bother him that much.
Surprisingly, even after ten minutes, Stark met absolutely no monsters, so he just kept going, hoping to reach the second zone quickly.
“…” but deep inside, he knew this couldn’t be it.
THIS was the rift of the apostle? This was the [Death Rift] card the chairman talked about?
Of course, there was the possibility that this rift was somewhat like the [Domination] trial: making it seem FAIRLY easy, until you reach the first sublevel and realize the monsters are tougher than all others level combined, and then you reach the boss and realize that It’s actually almost impossible to defeat it.
In this case it would be like: very easy first, second, and third zone, but then the fourth is a total nightmare, and the apostle comes to finish the work.
Yet… right as Stark was thinking about that possibility…
~CREAK, CREAK~
He hurt noise behind him, and once he turned… he noticed that all the tombstones that were placed on the sides of the path close to where he was were all shaking like crazy.
Those behind, in front of him, on the side, all of them were shaking.
And then…
~CRACK~
With a simple sound, all the tombstones tore apart.
“…” Stark knew what this meant, and so he positioned himself.
And what came out of them… was one single type of monster.
[It’s the only type in the first zone, but their sheer number is what makes it scary!]
Stark clenched his fists, the chill of the air sharpening his focus.
The monsters crawled from the cracked tombstones, skeletal figures clad in tattered rags, their hollow eyes glowing with a sinister light.
“Perception!” they were pretty slow, so he had the time.
…
[Name: Hollow Skeleton]
[Level: 125]
[HP: 60000]
[Strength: 5127]
[Stamina: 9999]
[Speed: 783]
[Defense: 431]
[Skills: Bone Shatter, Skeletal Barrage, Grave Bind, Wraith’s Embrace, Curse of Decay, Haunting Whispers, Puppet.]
…
Other than the fact their stamina was abnormally high, probably since they cannot get tired, all their other stats except strength were very, very low, and their HP too, it would probably take only one strike from Stark to kill one.
But this was the problem: hundreds of them were coming out of each tombstone, slowly advancing toward the boy.
Some had blades, others scythes, while the majority remained empty-handed, probably since if they ever even got close to Stark and grabbed him, then he would be fucked.
And their number also meant another thing: much like the zombies in the second sublevel of the trial, they wouldn’t be giving out much EXP individually.
But as a group, then it would surely be a lot.
How to kill them all was the problem, though.
But it was a problem Stark didn’t have.
“…” the boy wasn’t bothered, actually, he was waiting for all of them to come out of their spot and get closer to him, “Focus…”
He closed his eyes, and sensed all of their auras as they slowly got closer, wanting to make sure that he didn’t fail whatever he was trying to do.
Stark got the [Exorcist] class, and the entirety of the [Corpse Cemetery] was mostly covered by undead beings, meaning that they were weak not only to his punches since domination’s aura had merged with exorcist, but that he also had two skills specially designed to wipe out both a horde of monsters, but also powerful elites.
And in this case…
“Come on…” sweat poured from Stark’s forehead as he could sense the hundreds of presence around him, “Don’t be scared…”
This was one of the most dangerous things he had done probably, as closing your eyes when surrounded by this many monsters, not even sure you could perceive them all, was basically suicide.
Lana would probably strangle him for doing that.
But now that he was alone…
He waited… and waited… and then, when the monsters were close enough, raising their arms to use their skills…
“I got you all,” he opened one of his eyes as it burned with aura.
And…
“CRIMSON PURIFICATION!”
The crimson/golden aura flared to life around Stark, a brilliant halo that pulsed with energy forming around him.
“Feel the light!” he shouted, thrusting his arms forward.
The moment his voice broke through the air, the wave of holy energy surged outward.
~WHAM~
A shockwave radiated from him, sending some sort of [Holy Slash] from all directions around him.
“Kldklkl~”
“Garhh…”
The range was immense, and so all the horde of [Hollow Skeletons] was hit, the moment they came in contact with the attack being the last as they all crumbled to the ground, unable to withstand the holy power.
[Critical Hit!]
And so…
“Phew…” Stark wiped all that sweat from his forehead, then smiled.
If it wasn’t for [Crimson Purification], he would have surely struggled so much more, if not died, so he could definitely thank everything that he got the [Exorcist] class.
But killing this many monsters could only mean one thing…
[You have slain “Hollow Skeleton lv125”, gaining 28391 EXP!]
[You have slain “Hollow Skeleton lv125”, gaining 28114 EXP!]
.
.
[You have killed 274 ‘Hollow Skeletons’.]
[Due to their number and natures as “puppets of the apostle”, the experience points you will get are gonna be reduced!]
And so that meant…
[+7,703,513 experience!]
“Oh… shit…!” Stark’s eyes widened.
The harder the rifts and enemies, the more exp he was getting, and this was yet another record broken for him, as he had never received so much at once.
And of course, getting this much experience could only mean one thing.
~DING, DING, DING~
The familiar sound of leveling up was heard by the boy.
“Here we go…”
This was only the beginning of the [Corpse Cemetery], but he was already happy that he came alone.
