200 kilometers behind Grace, a training team was struggling through the rugged, winding terrain.
"These rocks are as sharp as steel knives, and the slightest carelessness leaves a cut on the body," noted one of the team members, catching his breath during a rest.
"Mr. Fletcher, how much longer till we reach Remarkable Rock Summit? I heard from the group chat that some teams have already made it to the middle layer of the Ferocious Beast Mountain Range," asked a young man eagerly, approaching Fletcher.
Fletcher wasn't sure how to respond; after the mishap with the first group, taking a detour around the gorge was his reluctant decision.
He glanced at the score rankings. His Team 7 was significantly behind, which made it awkward for him in the instructors' chat.
865th Place: Charles [13 points]
Seeing that name, Fletcher thought again of the young man he had high hopes for.
After leaving a message, Charles had lost contact. Fletcher wondered if he was still en route or had dropped out due to fear.
Still, there was a glimmer of hope in his heart that by the time he reached Remarkable Rock Summit, Charles might already be there waiting for him.
...
After diving into the underwater river, Charles and Aria swam silently until the urge to breathe grew overwhelming, and a faint light appeared overhead.
They burst through the surface!
Both gasped for fresh air, their faces reflecting the relief of a narrow escape.
Charles lay exhausted on a rock, breathing heavily.
Aria, completely soaked, sat wringing water from her hair on a nearby stone.
The quiet trickle of water accompanied the girl as she combed her hair, looking so picturesque that Charles hesitated to interrupt. Her translucent, wet clothes left little to the imagination, but his thoughts remained pure despite the scene.
Even though she was still young, her delicate features hinted at a breathtaking beauty.
Noticing Charles's gaze, Aria suddenly turned around, "Why are you staring at me?"
"No, nothing, I was just looking at that painting behind you!" Charles quickly diverted his eyes to a colorful mural painted on the wall behind the girl.
As Aria tied her long hair with a ribbon around her waist and stood up from the rock, she too noticed the astonishing mural in front of her.
The painting depicted the legendary battle that reshaped the Abyssal Depths: the fierce duel between the human war god, Ares, and the serpent queen, Medusa.
Seeing the majestic figure of the serpent queen painted with such vigor, Aria felt a sudden kinship well up within her.
"What do we do now? It looks like we've come to a fork in the road..." Charles approached the end of the stone staircase where two statues stood, one on each side, with partially ajar stone doors next to them.
There seemed to be inscriptions above the doors, and Charles curiously examined them.
Beside the statue of war god Ares on the left—Within five steps, a hundred foes shall fall. Ten years to hone a sword, a solitary path of the hero.
And beside the queen Medusa on the right—Across a thousand miles, wields the spear, all bow down, through the realms and ages, the eternal way of the king.
"King's way, hero's way... What does this mean?" Charles was puzzled, but more than the inscriptions, he was concerned about which door to take.
Just as he was about to step forward, Aria suddenly pulled him back. "Wait, what if we get locked in again once we go through?"
Charles scratched his head and withdrew his foot.
The ordeal of being trapped by Felix in the tomb had almost left them with a psychological scar. This crypt was full of traps, and they had barely escaped the jaws of the man-faced spiders; it would be awful to get locked up again.
Suddenly, they looked at each other and almost simultaneously exclaimed, "How about we each take a different path? If one of us makes it out, we can come back and rescue the other!"
This indeed was a good idea, preventing the scenario where both might be trapped at the same time.
Charles scratched his head again. "Then... I'll go left?"
"I'll take the right then." After giving Charles one last look, seemingly reluctant to let go, the girl walked towards the other stone door.
As the warm, soft touch of her hand faded, Charles stepped into his chosen doorway, feeling a cold draft emanating from the passage.
Just as he turned back, as if struck by a thought, Charles suddenly called out, "Oh, by the way, Aria, Charlie is just an alias of mine. My real name is..."
"My real name is Charles!"
Before he could confirm that Aria had heard his true name, the stone door slammed shut.
"There definitely was a mechanism, it's a good thing Aria and I split up!" Charles felt a wave of relief as he hurried along, searching for an exit.
Walking down the narrow passageway, a faint chill wrapped around him, and the silence was so profound that Charles could only hear his own footsteps.
These past days, he'd grown accustomed to the sound of Aria's laughter, and the sudden silence now felt strange. The murals alongside the passageway narrated the mythological tale of the war god Ares, much like a moving film.
The gist of it was about a young human, Ares, who fell in love with a serpent girl from a rival tribe. Despite their tribes being locked in millennia of warfare, love proved to transcend all barriers.
Years later, the young Ares had become the mighty war god. At this time, Medusa, the newly crowned queen of the serpent people, reignited the flames of war against humans. A tremendous battle erupted across the ferocious beast mountains.
The conflict raged for three days and nights. When both were gravely injured, Medusa used her ultimate ability—petrifying gaze. Ares watched as his body slowly turned to stone, starting from his feet. Before becoming completely petrified, he threw his sword, piercing Medusa's heart.
It was only in his final moments, before life ebbed away, that Ares realized the Medusa he killed was the very woman he had desperately been searching for...
Both the human and serpent champions fell in that battle. Ares's petrified body became what is now known as [remarkable rock summit], while Medusa's last spurt of blood created the pool at the mountain's base, known as [bloody pool].
"This story... It's exactly like the myth Uldir told us the other day," Charles mused, after viewing the last mural in the corridor. "Legends are just that, legends—who can really tell what's true?"
"If it were me on that battlefield, facing my beloved, I'd rather die myself than strike her down," he thought to himself.
Click, click...
Sounds of gears turning came from within the walls as the stone door at the end of the corridor slowly opened, revealing a grand statue of Ares.
Seeing the colossal statue of Ares, dozens of meters high, Charles was awestruck. It was as if nearly half of the remarkable rock summit had been hollowed out to create this crypt, unimaginable what efforts the ancients had made to construct this tomb.
However, the astonishing array of burial treasures in the crypt was a testament to the ancient people's reverence for Ares.
Gazing at the glittering gold, Charles couldn't help but exclaim, "Holy crap! So much gold—if I took it all, I bet the entire currency of Genosha would lose half its value!"
Considering the exhaustive effort it took just to earn a few silver coins from hunting ferocious beasts or auctioning miracle drugs at alchemy auctions, he knew the sum here was beyond fathomable.
One gold coin was worth a thousand silver coins, which equated to a million copper coins!
If he took all this money, Charles figured he could never spend it all in his lifetime.
And with the almost infinite space in his system's [Storage Space], transporting all these coins would take no more than half a day.
"While Ares' love story is tragically beautiful, and he did hold the southernmost borders of the human territories, I truly respect him!" Charles suddenly chuckled, looking towards the statue of Ares ahead. "But so much gold, surely Ares, you wouldn't want it to just lie buried here, right?"
Charles started a stopwatch on his phone: "I'll count to three, and if you have no objections, I'm taking it."
"Three!"
"Two!"
"Hiss, hiss—"
"What's that sound?!"
A familiar, frightening sound seemed to come from below, sending a chill down Charles's spine. "It can't be those creepy creatures following me through the underwater passage, can it?"
After confirming that there were no man-faced spiders around, Charles finally breathed a sigh of relief.
However, he also completely abandoned the idea of taking the gold coins.
Earlier in the crypt, the grave robbers had triggered the man-faced spiders by touching the treasures. It seemed that some mechanism was set to activate if even one coin was moved.
Seeing treasures within reach yet untouchable was maddening, but clearly, his life was more important.
With this realization, Charles no longer lingered. He approached the statue of Ares and noticed an inscription on a stone pedestal:
"The true warrior acts without desire, unmoved by external forces."
"You have passed the trial of Ares."
"Here's a small gift; take it if you need."
Charles looked up to see three glittering treasure chests placed on the pedestal!