‘Now… I just need to get to the boss before anyone else…’ he grinned, the mountain was now closer than ever before, and he could see the flight of stairs that would lead up to it.
His heart pounded in his chest, adrenaline fueling his every step. He was determined to outrun them and protect his position as the first.
But of course…
~FWISH~
A blue trident crashed in front of him, halting his run.
Instinctively, Stark looked behind him, and there he saw that the seven figures were much muuuchh closer than he expected them to be.
‘…’ he switched directions to avoid the trident that had stopped him…
But another interrupted him again, the head of the trident hitting the ground.
‘FUCK…’
No matter where he would try to go, another trident would be there, slowly but surely blocking all his options.
And after only 30 seconds, he was now surrounded by a circular cage of blue tridents, aura pouring out from them as they encercled Stark like a rat in a testing lab.
~FWISH~
In a flash of light, the tridents disappeared, and instead of the weapons, Stark was now surrounded by the seven classifiers.
[Group: Wyvern’s Wrath]
A panel appeared to tell him who he was facing, probably thanks to [Perception].
[Tip: Idk, just don’t anger them]
‘Nice tip!’ Stark nodded.
“What took you so long?” one of the members of this group, a burly man with dark skin and refined muscles laughed.
“Sleeping,” Stark replied while smiling.
“HAHAHAHAH~” the man held his forehead, “You were sleeping in this rift?”
“How is that even possible?” a woman with short pink hair in a bob cut scratched her chin, she was holding a scepter with a heart on it, and even her eyes had hearts in them, Stark thought that she could either be a succubus (he read too many cultural books) or a magus.
“Secret technique,” Stark shrugged, “Why did you guys interrupt me?”
There was absolutely no reason for them to go as far as to throw weapons at him to make him stop.
Except if… they wanted to kill him.
“Just for your information, I have no items on me, you can check my body,” it was the complete truth, and he wanted to get the ‘trying to steal from me’ theory out of the lot as it would hopefully dissuade them from doing anything.
“Of course there is no items on you if you used that weird void thingy to put them inside…” a black-haired woman with glasses nervously said.
“…” Stark didn’t expect them to catch on so quick, but it meant he couldn’t outsmart them.
A blue-haired guy with tridents floating around him, probably the guy that sent them to capture Stark, was just staring at the conversation, not saying anything.
Stark lowered his gaze, feeling a mixture of irritation and respect for the Wyvern’s Wrath group’s cleverness.
Then he looked back up, staring at the leader’s eyes with his most calm eyes, ones filled with aura, enough for none of those present to not notice that he was serious.
“Ok, and so what do you want me with me,” he looked at his brother, he had the same black hair and red eyes he did.
But of course, he had no plans to reveal that since he was currently wearing the bunny mask, which perfectly hid his identity to anyone who didn’t know who he was.
“Nothing much,” Stark’s brother grinned, “Just wanted to see why you were still there after so long, plus are we not allowed to talk?”
“I would rather not talk with you all,” Stark smiled and lifted his arms.
Even to those that were stronger then he was, they could sense that his aura was weird.
They knew he was weaker, and yet they felt like there was a risk in approaching him.
“Funny guy,” two red-haired boys that looked exactly the same, apparent twins, spoke at the same time, “Don’t think you can get away with that.”
And with that, Stark saw all the members of this weird group.
After one minute of silence, Stark knew they couldn’t let him off the hook.
‘…’ he sighed, then out of nowhere… took a fighting stance, putting his aura-filled fists in front of his face.
“Oy~~ is this guy insane?” the dark-skinned man was bewildered.
“I wouldn’t underestimate him…” the nervous woman adjusted her glasses, she seemed to be the smartest of the group.
“I’ll repeat, what do you want from me,” Everything about Stark’s stance and aura indicated he wasn’t kidding, yet his face remained calm.
“I’ll tell you what we want, then…” Stark’s brother took a step forward, putting his hand on his chest before pulling out his ‘Wielder Heart’ from it, “We just want to be the first to complete this rift.”
“Fair enough,” Stark nodded, but he obviously wouldn’t let them be.
“So I hope…” a small grin began to form on the black-haired leader’s face, “You don’t hate us for what’s about to happen.”
Right as he finished his sentence, a blue magic circle appeared around Stark, and blue chains appeared, slowly approaching Stark.
‘I can’t move,’ no matter how hard he tried to fight it, there was no way he could move.
“Should have been smarter than this,” the leader winked at Stark, mocking him for just standing there while they restrained him behind the scene.
The owner of that attack was the blue-haired guy with tridents around him, its name was [Timed Chain], and if the opponent stays still for five seconds in the domain of the circle, they would be forcefully paralyzed, then restrained, with no way to escape.
And so this meant…
“It’s our victory, bunny masked guy,” the dark-skinned man laughed, enjoying the show.
As if to mock him even more, the chains that were supposed to restrain him were moving very slowly toward his body, to make sure that Stark could see them.
‘Their victory…?’ Stark internally grinned.
On the outside, it seemed like he was perplexed and taken aback, but on the inside… he was laughing.
He had [Perception] and [Focus], how the hell would he have not noticed it?
He had seen the circle since the moment it appeared, but just let it do what it was supposed to do, even going as far as reading the skill’s description to make sure that it would work.
The objective of this small plan of his was obvious: take all of them aback to be able to reach the boss area before they did.
And so right as the chains were going to wrap around his limbs…
“INVINCIBLE DODGE,” Stark focused all his aura around his legs, all the while summoning [Aura Smash] and [Crimson Spears] around him.
And then… he dodged the chains, essentially getting out of the [Timed Chains] skill’s range thanks to the invincibility frames.
And so just like that, Stark began his plan to reach the boss of the Secret Rift before this group of classifiers more powerful than he was.
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