At this moment, within the central control room managing the test instances at the Adventurers' Association…
A middle-aged man with a receding hairline, clad in the official indigo uniform symbolizing the Republic, barged in, his urgency palpable.
Following closely behind him was a petite girl silently sucking on a lollipop.
The girl's figure was delicate, yet her curves were strikingly prominent, creating a stark contrast. Her loose, pale-pink tunic struggled to hide her voluptuous form.
Though the girl said nothing, the guards stationed nearby cast wary glances in her direction, their expressions a mix of fear and reverence.
After all…
A player from the Heaven-Hunting Team, regardless of level, symbolized terrifying potential, immense backing, and an unpredictable temperament!
The middle-aged man, now red-faced and visibly agitated, stormed deeper into the room while shouting,
"What's going on? What's the situation?"
"Have those goblins been dealt with?"
"Has the eldest young master of the Lancelot family been rescued?"
His fury was like a tangible force, suffocating everyone in the room.
"Which mirrored instance did that group of level 10 Enhanced Goblins go to first?"
Finally, his frustration boiled over. He grabbed one of the hapless staff members by the shoulders, shaking him violently.
A barrage of questions flew from his mouth, leaving the Adventurers' Association staff utterly flustered.
"Lord Hammill, um… this…"
"We're still investigating…"
"We've only been able to confirm that the young master from the Lancelot family entered Mirror Instance Six."
Upon hearing this, Hammill's composure completely unraveled.
"Damn it! Still investigating?!"
SLAP!
The crisp sound of a slap echoed through the room, and the unfortunate staff member now bore a bright red handprint on his cheek.
"If anything happens to a member of the Lancelot family, all of us here will pay the price!"
Hammill pulled out an embroidered handkerchief, frantically wiping the sweat pouring from his brow. His nerves were shot.
Who could've predicted that the Heaven-Hunting Team's most promising players would stumble upon a Calamity-Class Boss's offspring near Keller City?
And who could've foreseen that instead of promptly killing the Boss, they'd try to milk it for greater rewards?
Their greed led to the Boss unleashing its unique Calamity-Class ability
Scarlet Tide.
This ability caused a massive frenzy among nearby monsters, a signature move of Calamity-Class Bosses used to trigger large-scale monster sieges.
Of course, Scarlet Tide had its perks too.
The drop rates of items and the quality of loot increased significantly.
The Heaven-Hunting Team was banking on this effect, planning to eliminate the Calamity-Class Boss's offspring and then clean up the frenzied monsters for an even bigger haul of rare rewards.
The plan was only half-successful.
While Scarlet Tide was successfully triggered, the Boss managed to escape. To make matters worse, the range of this Calamity-Class Boss's Scarlet Tide was abnormally large. According to the Heaven-Hunting Team's post-operation report, the effects of this particular Tide seemed markedly different from the usual versions unleashed by similar bosses.
The outcome?
Keller City was caught within the Tide's range, and the test instance began to mutate.
In the fifth layer of the instance, which was originally designed to house only a single Enhanced Goblin, dozens had inexplicably appeared instead. These goblins were not only wildly berserk but also highly coordinated in their attacks!
Even more terrifying was the fact that the instance's mechanics had also undergone a mutation.
Originally, the test instance operated with 16 separate entry points, each leading to an independent mirrored instance that would not interfere with the others.
However, the area where these Enhanced Goblins had gathered now seemed to connect to all the mirrored spaces simultaneously.
In simpler terms, as long as these goblins had enough time, they could traverse across all sixteen mirrored instances and slaughter every single player who had reached the fifth layer.
To make matters worse, the mutation had removed the revival mechanic from the instance. If you died inside, you were dead for real.
Under normal circumstances, this might not have been a major issue. The test instance had restrictions: players above level 10 couldn't enter.
And in Keller City, low-level players were plentiful. A few deaths here and there wouldn't bother the city lord too much.
But fate had other plans.
As it turned out, the young master of the Lancelot family, the ruling power of Republic's Kassad State, had passed through Keller City and decided to test his luck in the instance.
When Hammill, the city lord, heard the news, his heart nearly stopped. Without a moment's hesitation, he rushed to the control room, only to find…
The staff there merely informed him that they were "working on it."
In other words, they were still trying to locate the young master and had made no progress on rescuing him.
This was a disaster!
Given the berserk goblins' sheer strength, it was highly likely that the young master…
Had already been clubbed to death.
"We're all screwed!" Hammill roared in fury.
"Correction you're screwed. I'm not included in that equation."
The girl licking her lollipop spoke up suddenly, her tone calm yet dripping with sarcasm.
Her expression was unbothered as she continued,
"But there's no need for you to panic."
"Because panicking won't change a thing. If you want to break through the level restrictions of the instance, you'd need at least a Legendary-Level artifact."
"Do you have one?"
Her words hit Hammill like a hammer.
"Currently," she continued, "the most any nation or faction can do is observe what's happening inside the instance."
"For instance, in this test instance, we can monitor whether the goblins are still alive and check the status of the players within."
"Yelling at these staff members won't accomplish anything."
"In simple terms, you're doomed."
The girl with the sweet, innocent appearance delivered the cruelest of verdicts.
Hammill, the city lord, went pale. Cold sweat poured down his face, and he nearly collapsed on the spot.
But then, someone suddenly shouted in shock,
"Holy crap!"
"All the Goblins… their life signs disappeared at the same time!"
"Our monitoring shows that they were hit by a single, insanely powerful attack. They were all wiped out in an instant!"
"What??"
"What did you just say??"
The chaotic buzz of the staff's earlier chatter had only added to Hammill's frustration.
But when he heard those last two sentences, his mind went blank.
"What did you just say?"
"The Enhanced Goblins… they're dead??"
And then the kicker:
"All those monsters were instantly killed? Do you even realize how absurd you sound?"
Wasn't this instance supposed to have a level cap of 10?
A level 10 player fighting Enhanced Goblins? Forget wiping them out; they'd be lucky if a single attack could chip away a fifth of a Goblin's health!
The staff looked just as dumbfounded as Hammill, but they stepped aside to reveal a monitor.
The screen displayed the playback of the earlier events in the instance.
Initially, dozens of green dots representing the Enhanced Goblins were scattered across the map, moving in real-time.
Suddenly, the area around them erupted in flashing red lights, indicating an incoming attack.
In the blink of an eye, every single green dot vanished from the screen.
This signified the complete annihilation of the Goblins.
"They're… really dead?"
"Could it be a glitch in the monitoring system?"
Hammill, though overtaken by joy, retained a shred of caution.
Just then, a player dressed in leather armor burst through the door, practically shouting with excitement.
"Lord Hammill!"
"Master Lancelot has returned safely!"
"I entered the instance and found the Goblins in the eighth mirrored instance. They were all burnt to death by some kind of fire."
"I don't know which powerhouse did it, but Master Lancelot never even encountered the Goblins. He made it out without a scratch!"
What the hell?!
The Goblins really were dealt with??
The player who had burst in was the same one who had witnessed Raziel's overwhelming attack that wiped out the entire group of Goblins.
"Tell me everything you know about what happened in detail."
Before Hammill could respond, the girl who had been casually licking her lollipop suddenly crunched down on it with a loud crack and stepped forward.
Her previously indifferent expression now gleamed with interest.
The leather-armored player, not daring to slack off, recounted everything he had witnessed in meticulous detail.
Including the detail that none of the Goblins' bodies were left behind, and the terrifying flames had blasted a crater into the ground, charring the surrounding area beyond recognition.
"It really feels like a powerful individual stepped in!"
"Could it be that someone has been secretly protecting Master Lancelot, following him into the test instance?"
"The foundations of these great families truly are something else."
…
As the leather-armored player recounted the events, the crowd gradually began to accept this narrative.
The Enhanced Goblins were annihilated in one fell swoop.
The monitoring data and the testimony from Hammill's trusted subordinate left no room for doubt.
They all began mentally piecing together a plausible explanation for what had happened.
However, the girl suddenly interjected.
"Are you all brain-dead?"
Calmly, she retrieved another lollipop from her bag and popped it into her mouth.
"The instance's level cap is impossible to bypass."
The moment those words left her mouth, the celebratory expressions in the room froze.
"Then how did the Enhanced Goblins die?"
One of the staff members voiced his confusion.
To his surprise, the girl actually responded with an explanation.
"For players under level 10, soloing an Enhanced Goblin isn't impossible. Quite a few rookies in our Heaven - Hunting Team could manage it."
"But wiping out more than ten of them in an instant? That's completely out of the question."
"It doesn't matter what kind of equipment or skills they have. The upper limits of Gray-Quality items are fixed."
"But there is one scenario that could explain such devastating damage…"
There's an explanation??
The people around her were stunned again.
Wasn't everything she just said meant to illustrate how unreasonable it was for the Enhanced Goblins to be instantly killed?
And now she's saying it's explainable?
What nonsense is this? How could she possibly explain it?
"An S-tier offensive Talent could achieve that level of damage!"
Her tone was calm, but the atmosphere in the control room turned to ice in an instant.