The Devil’s Cage

When Kieran thought about Great Swamp who was labeled as a God, his heart turned heavier.

He knew the gap of strength between him and Great Swamp, fortunately, what he should be facing right now wasn’t Great Swamp but a similar existence.

It was a good news for Kieran as long he didn’t need to face a single person that felt like he was facing a whole city itself. Otherwise, he would have to come up with a worst case scenario.

”It is a parasite? Holy being? Or the projection of divine beings?”

As Kieran pondered the identity of the Prairies King, he hastened his steps.

It was almost dawn.

The Mystic Soul Realm did consume of his time but it much less compared to the time within the dungeon. Still, it was miles away from the game system itself which only consumed an hour in reality regardless of how long the player spent in the dungeon world. The consistency of the system was shocking.

Minutes later, Kieran went back to the campsite. He sighed when he once again saw Mary in front of his tent.

”What’s wrong?” Mary’s sharp senses picked up the unusuality from Kieran’s expression.

”Nothing… You’ve prepared food for me?”

Kieran couldn’t tell Mary what happened in Mystical Soul Realm, especially the later part where he saw himself getting married to the girl and having their own child.

He couldn’t have said it, it felt so real that to the point he felt a little awkward when he saw Mary before him now.

”Um… I’ve made some milk.” Mary was curious about Kieran’s condition but she didn’t press the question.

Kieran was relieved. The thing that he worried about most didn’t happen.

”Is there sugar?” Kieran asked.

When Mary brought out the sugar, Kieran started to tell her what happened after he was gone with extreme details.

Kieran’s voice sounded rhythmically inside the tent as Mary was listening with her full attention. She would voice her opinion out from time to time but when the story was over, the girl was sleeping soundly on the beside mattress after pulling an all-nighter.

Kieran moved her on top of the mattress and covered her with the blanket.

He had experienced it more than once while spending his time in Mystic Soul Realm which allowed him to handle the job with ease.

Just as he wanted to lower his head to kiss the girl, he abruptly stopped his reckless action with a hard shiver. He quickly stood up stiffly looking awkward by himself, he knew he had escaped the Mystic Soul Realm but it seemed like he was still affected somehow.

”I’m affected even with my SSS+ Spirit… If my Spirit is any lower than that, I could never have found out the flaws and might have fallen into the trap for the rest of my life right? Other than that, inside the deepest part of this dungeon world, the Godly figure was getting clearer as it was being explored.”

When the thought came into his mind, he realized that he was very eager to limit break his Character Model Template Limit.

After all, since the current dungeon difficulty had introduced Hector and the other presence that was similar to Great Swamp, it would be natural, in the future dungeons, more and more powerful existences would cross his path.

”Guess I’ll have to up the schedule.”

Originally, Kieran has planned to accumulate more within the dungeon world but now he altered his plans slightly.

Kieran left the tent after he saw that Mary was sleeping soundly.

Even if he altered his plans, it wouldn’t affect the situation at hand, such as increasing his helpers with [Mesly Ring].

Truth be told, when Kieran realized he was in need of extra pairs of hand, [Mesly Ring] had been categorized as the tool that could ”create” more helpers.

However, with the cooldown time, reactions from other natives plus the possibility of triggering a special event was taken into consideration, the [Mesly Ring] had too much of a limitation, which was slightly lackluster compared to a real-life helper than Kieran could bring everywhere. Still, the [Mesly Ring]’s strangeness and power were undoubted.

When the last captive, the sword wielder that Kieran captured before Bosco, had fallen under the [Mesly Ring]’s light and kneeled before Kieran, the rest of the Viper Sect captives were even more scared, especially Torstar.

The moment Jyaichi appeared before him, Torstar knew he was in danger.

Jyaichi’s position in the Viper Sect traitors was much higher than him and he definitely knew more, once Kieran had gotten what he wanted from Jyaichi, Torstar would have no more value.

What would become of a captive if there wasn’t any value left?

Once the thought struck Torstar, he quickly said out loud, ”I am willing to pledge my allegiance to you, great sir! Please…”

Pak!

Before he could finish, Fanner, the first captive who Kieran controlled, slapped the hell out of Torstar. Fanner didn’t hold back at all, his strong slap even smacked a couple of teeth out of Torstar’s mouth, causing blood to gush.

Kieran wasn’t concerned at all. Since the captives were once enemies, Kieran felt he was merciful and generous enough when he didn’t kill them on the spot.

Kieran brought Jyaichi to the tent next door.

”Tell me everything you know, including the Viper Sect’s legacy. Everything!” Kieran said.

”Yes, master!”

Jyaichi didn’t even resist for a bit after being controlled.

Since it was related to the Viper Sect’s legacy, Kieran repeatedly asked a lot of questions, and so it took quite a long time for him to get all the information from Jyaichi.

Kieran started from early in the morning and all the way until afternoon. After he was done, he ordered Jyaichi to return to the captive tent and help Fanner in guarding the captives and he started to mumble by himself inside the tent.

”The techniques of swords, fist, kicks, and darts that were named after viper were all the basic skills within the sect. Most of the members treated them as core skills to master. The next was the Thousand Viper prefixes which were the advance versions of the skills, Myriad Viper prefix was the highest rank in terms of skills and could be even considered the ultimates. Though Jyaichi didn’t know about the true ultimate skills of the Viper Sect, he might not have even heard of it before. Seems like there are many rules restricting them to be disclosed only to the leader of the Viper Sect. Among all the techniques in the Viper Sect, Viper Steps and Dormant Viper was the special and independent ones.”

Kieran rearranged his thoughts about what Jyaichi revealed to him. He was more interested in the Viper Sect’s legacy after the revelation, not because of the technique’s effect but more about the overall techniques and the combat system.

Lineal inheritance!

It was what Kieran felt about the Viper Sect techniques after he heard what Jyaichi said.

”This kind of techniques are concluded by countless generations of members, it had far exceeded what players could explore and match. Both of them were not even the same concept, to begin with. Natives could learn what players knew but if players had to learn what natives knew without the assistance from the system, I’m afraid that none of us could have achieved anything!”

Players and natives were different.

Points and Skill Points has allowed players to reach what natives called as a peerless genius from a certain aspect.

Whenever Points and Skill Points were sufficient, the players could have easily ridden the waves and dashed full speed ahead but when Points and Skill Points were in shortage…

Players would be stepping on the spot and eventually lead to their own death.

”If I risk my life, there will be corresponding rewards!”

Kieran concluded what the other players portrayed and also what he himself had portrayed.

His relentless effort in searching with maximum effort for sub-missions and completing them, to raise his dungeon ratings, wasn’t all that just to earn him more Points and Skill Points?

Given other common players, when they entered [The Queen’s Shield II], they would have abandoned Lightning Fortress long ago and focused their attention into defending Riverdale.

There wasn’t much to do in Riverdale either, all the player need was to defend a couple waves of attack from the Prairie invaders and they would eventually give up Riverdale and head south instead.

It wasn’t hard to defend against the Prairie invaders who lacked siege weapons and only relied on riders. Even more so, if the players would be crueler and used the refugees as bait, the Prairie invaders would have skipped Riverdale and directly went after the refugees instead.

Wasn’t the Prairie invaders’ goal to find wealth traveling to the south?

If that was the case, the main mission [Prevent Warren capital, Riverdale from falling] would be easily completed but the final dungeon ending would be obvious enough as well.

That was the reason why Kieran went after the decision to stay passive and defensive to guard Lightning Fortress in such harsh conditions.

However, as time went by, the pros of his decision had appeared slowly.

When the soldiers brought a message for him, Kieran walked out of the tent slowly.