[Issuing special mission]
[Special mission: The apocalypse from upper worlds]
[Mission description: Survive the threat of World destruction by destroying the intruder from an upper world. All the stats of the intruder will be halved for the duration of the mission.]
[Time limit: 5 minutes]
[Rewards: ???]
'Why is it this mission? Why was he so unlucky?' Kyle wanted to curse his luck when he read the mission description.
This mission was one of the special cases that was even included in the study materials of the students back on Earth.
This mission had appeared twice before in the one century since the appearance of the Ascension Temple, but had never once been completed.
First time, it appeared on the fifth floor nearly seven decades ago and ten different worlds on this floor were eventually destroyed and crumbled to dust. Later, whenever the ascenders of these worlds tried to teleport back to these worlds, they were struck in empty space and burst to death within seconds.
The second case was just a few months after the first one when four worlds were destroyed on the sixth floor of the Ascension Temple.
But this time, the mission was a bit different. Previous times, the ascenders were given more than a day to search and destroy the cause of the apocalypse and also the mission was assigned to every ascender who was present in the world.
Kyle could only hope that although the time limit was greatly reduced, at least all the ascenders had received this same mission. The incident of the meteorite had drawn quite some attention, so most people would check this place first if they receive this special mission.
Kyle thought of leaving the Ascension Temple in order to alert the people and invite someone from higher floors to help them, but the new notification that appeared before his eyes rendered him helpless.
[The surrounding space has been sealed for the duration of the Special mission ]
While reading this new notification, Kyle had already untied the man he was carrying and released the girl he was carrying.
Since he could not ask for external help, all he could do was to fight. He was the person nearest to the mission target. Although he wished the ascenders nearby to find this place and come to help him, he didn't pin his hopes on them.
Thinking as much, Kyle who was running out of time every passing second looked towards the silhouette.
The smog in the surrounding area was getting thinner ever since the appearance of this silhouette.
Suddenly, Kyle felt a sense of imminent danger.
Kyle immediately leapt towards his right side.
[Wink leap]
'Boooommmmm!'
Kyle heard a loud booming sound towards his right just after he leapt. When he turned around to look at his previous location, Kyle broke into cold sweat.
A tens of metres deep conical ravine had appeared on the ground which extended for as far as he could see in this smog and beyond.
'How is this half it's all stats?'
Kyle was baffled. How high exactly were the stats of that thing? He couldn't think of any way in which he or anybody else from the first floor could fight against that thing.
This was also the first time that Kyle had a clear view of his adversary.
[Karcellen corpse]
[HP: ???/???]
[Debuff: Mana corruption]
[-40 HP/sec]
[Stats:]
[Strength: ?? (???)] [Agility: ?? (???)]
[Stamina: ?? (???)] [Endurance: ?? (???)]
[Intelligence: 0] [Energy affinity: 0]
Kyle could only smile wryly after seeing the red coloured interface hovering above the corpse. There was no doubt that it was already dead because it's intelligence was 0, didn't this mean that it was only doing everything based on the instincts left in the dead body. Also, zero energy affinity meant that it couldn't use mana or its equivalents.
These two facts should have been a great relief, but Kyle couldn't bring himself to smile seeing that even half of the stats of this corpse were shown as ??. Didn't this mean that even half of its stats were higher than the maximum stats of any 10th level ascender.
Kyle could also see some reddish, rust like powder forming on the entire corpse. This was a sign of mana corruption . Mana corruption was the reason that prevented the creatures of higher floors of the Ascension Temple from descending and creating disasters on the lower levels.
Once a person fused with an Ascendance fragment, the mana on the same floor of the Ascension Temple would become poison for them if absorbed in a large quantity. So everyone avoided coming back to lower floors unless it was absolutely necessary and even if they descended, they would make sure that they never ran out of mana or absorbed mana of the lower floors.
Kyle looked at the corpse which was still struggling to get up from the ground with a complicated expression. The corpse had bent at an extreme angle when it hit Kyle's previous position. As a result, it was now lying on the ground while flailing its hands and legs in the attempt to get up. Its movements were very slow and erratic.
"Wh-what is tha-t the- creature?" Kyle heard a girl's voice by his side.
"Let's run away. I feel very uneasy looking at it." Keiler said as she held a dagger in her shaking hands and pointed towards the corpse.
Kyle looked at the little girl beside him. Her entire body was shivering in fright, but she still was thinking about confronting the corpse. Kyle gave her a light smile.
"If running away was an option, I would have done so long a....." While he was saying this,Kyle spotted an opening and immediately dashed towards the corpse while wielding his sword.
'Clangg!'
"Huh! What happened?" Kyle, who had turned illusionary, looked at his semi-transparent hands in shock. The last thing he remembered was hearing the sound of his sword hitting something hard. He also remembered feeling as if he had hit a metal rod on a rock with so much strength that his hands bled and his bones cracked under the impact.
And within a millisecond of that, he found himself in this semi transparent state.
[Used life token × 1]
[Choose the site of revival..]
[Revival on site/ Revival at the Cathedral of Asle(Aseles city)]
Only when Kyle saw this notification that appeared before him was he able to deduce that he had died.
Kyle didn't immediately choose to resurrect, instead looked around at the scene before him.
The corpse which was flailing on the ground previously had twisted itself in such a manner that its head which was facing the sky previously now faced towards the ground with one of its hands struck in the ground. Another long and deep conical ravine had formed with one end at the point where the fist of the corpse was struck. Now that the smog had cleared a bit more, Kyle could see that the ravine was much longer than he had previously imagined. Even when the visibility doubled, he could still not see the other end of the ravine.
Looking at the destruction caused by just the physical attack which was delivered purely out of instincts by the corpse, Kyle felt despair.
'How was he supposed to fight that thing? Wasn't he just wasting his efforts and the priceless life tokens? Could he even leave a scratch on the corpse even after using all his strength, which he already put in his first strike?'
'Wasn't it better just to revive back in the Cathedral and then teleport to Earth and never return? Anyway, this world will be destroyed in a few minutes. After that even if he tried to teleport into the AscensionTemple, he would be teleported into empty space and only ascenders who had reached the twenty-fifth floor or above could survive in the vacuum.'
As soon as this thought appeared in his mind, it spread throughout his thoughts such that he couldn't think of anything else.
[Choose an item to drop for the Revival.]
Another notification appeared before Kyle. Kyle didn't think much. Wasn't the meat and the body parts of the beasts that he had killed useless to him, it could only be sold for some silver.
While Kyle was thinking about returning back, Reiler who had witnessed everything had frozen in fear. She saw Kyle charging at the corpse in the midst of talking with her, she saw Kyle slashing at the corpse with his sword and heard the sound of sword hitting something very hard. What she witnessed after that was something that she would never forget.
As soon as Kyle's sword touched it, the corpse which had been flailing like a fish tossed out of water immediately straightened up, did a sideward flip at an impossible speed and hit Kyle on his head.
Kyle's body wasn't pushed back in the slightest as it immediately turned into blood-mist as soon as his head was hit by the punch. Later the blood mist turned into particles of light and disappeared.
Her father had once told her that upon death, an ascender could choose to resurrect either in the same location where they had died or resurrect at the Cathedral of gods within a second.
Nearly a minute had already passed, but there were no signs of Kyle's visage appearing.
She was a bit disappointed, but then she thought something....
'I am such a hypocrite!' She knew that she would have chosen to run away the first instant if she had the chance, but now she was blaming Kyle, an ascender even though he escaped only after he died. He had also tried his best earlier, but the strength shown by the corpse wasn't something she could ever imagine.
Two thin streams of tears escaped her eyes as she braced herself for her death.
'Didn't I tell you that running away isn't an option for me?'