The Demon King is unfathomable

Chapter 404 The Beginning of Chaos

Behind the labyrinth's stone wall, two prospective students from the Protection School stood back to back, breathing heavily with tension. Their magic was nearly depleted, and one of them had a tear in his mage robe, corroded by acid.

“We…we’re lost, Martin,” one of the thin apprentices said, his voice trembling. “The map is fake; we’ve been tricked by those undead!”

The apprentice, Martin, was pale, his wand clutched tightly, the tip of which glowed as faintly as a candle flickering in the wind.

"We were so naive... to actually believe that Mentor Merck would be so kind as to prepare a supply point for us!"

"I knew it! That 'official supply point' wasn't a real supply point at all; it was a trap deliberately set by Mentor Merck!"

The two poor children only guessed the first level.

The so-called official supply points are obviously fake, but you can't really blame the maze-designing mentor, Merck, for this.

Just as they were sinking into despair, a sound of footsteps accompanied by the grinding of bones came from around the corner of the corridor.

The two immediately tensed up, gathering their remaining magic power and focusing it on the tip of their staffs. A lone skeleton soldier appeared before them.

Unlike other undead, it didn't scream and rush forward; it simply tilted its head, its eyes, burning with soul fire, quietly "watching" them.

Martin immediately raised his wand, but the skeleton soldier slowly raised his bone hand, waved it, and then pointed to another fork in the road behind them, making a "follow" gesture.

"What...what does it want to do?" the skinny apprentice asked, puzzled.

“It’s a trap, definitely!” Martin said warily. “Don’t believe it!”

The skeleton soldiers seemed to see through their hesitation.

It ignored the two and walked toward the fork in the road. Just after it turned a corner, a muffled roar that did not belong to the dead rang out, followed by the clanging of metal.

A moment later, the skeleton soldier returned, dragging half of the cave spider's corpse in its hand. It threw the corpse in front of the two men and pointed to the fork in the road again.

That seemed to be saying—

I can take you out.

The two, at their wits' end, exchanged a glance, their eyes filled with shock. There were monsters beyond that path, and this skeleton soldier… was it drawing danger away from them?

After much hesitation, they finally decided to follow.

The skeleton soldier walked ahead at a moderate pace. When they encountered a fork in the road, he would stop and use his bones to draw a simple map on the ground, indicating the location of the traps.

Many traps in the maze are pressure-sensitive and triggered by vital signs, and the mirror images of ordinary monsters or skeleton soldiers can easily detect and avoid these dangers.

This action gradually dispelled the two apprentices' doubts.

They even thought that this undead might be a hidden "Easter egg" set up by their mentor, Merck, specifically to help those unlucky souls who stumbled at the so-called "official supply points."

“By Saint Sith… I knew Instructor Merck wouldn’t design a challenge that we couldn’t possibly overcome!” The thin apprentice said excitedly, his face flushed.

Martin didn't speak, but he couldn't help but mutter to himself—

Did I misunderstand my supervisor?

Soon, the skeleton soldier led them to a secluded dead end.

Just as the two were about to become alert, they saw a clump of grass at the end of the alley, emitting a faint white light, the soft glow like the silvery light of the moon!
"It's moonflower!" the skinny apprentice exclaimed in surprise, and immediately ran forward to pick it.

That's an extremely rare alchemical material!
While there may be no shortage of mentors, for the average magic apprentice, it would take at least several months of saving up to acquire just one plant.

However, the moment his fingers touched the blades of grass, a large net fell from above, instantly suspending him upside down.

Martin was horrified. Just as he was about to cast a spell, he discovered that the skeleton soldier had somehow circled behind him. A thick leg bone struck his wrist with a "crack," and the wand fell to the ground.

"Ouch—!" Martin cried out in pain, clutching his almost broken hand and stumbling back two steps, tripping over a pebble on the ground.

The skeleton soldier, toying with the leg bone, did not continue its attack.

It simply bent down, picked up the wand from the ground, pointed to the money pouch at the waist of its panicked companion hanging in mid-air, then pointed to itself, repeating this action several times.

Martin instantly understood what it meant.

This undead doesn't want their lives; it just wants to rob them.

He swallowed.

"I... I'll give you everything, can you please let me go?"

Without his wand, his fighting ability was not much stronger than that of an old imperial farmer, and even weaker than the latter who had been trained for a long time.

Looking at the nodding skeleton, Martin, with trembling hands, untied the cloth bag hanging from his waist, which contained some loose change and the magic crystals he had collected in the maze.

The skeleton snatched it away and then ransacked the guy who was hanging in mid-air.

Just as Martin was hesitating about whether to negotiate with the skeleton to return his wand, the skeleton suddenly crushed the distress rune that it had looted from them.

Martin's expression suddenly changed.

"Do not--!"

He lunged forward, trying to snatch the rune back, but it was too late.

As the skeleton scattered fragments of runes at him, it dodged his attack with incredible agility and vanished before the patrolling assistant instructor could arrive...

……

Whether the magic apprentices of the Academy had a good time or not, the players who participated in the All Souls' Day event certainly had a blast.

In just two hours, more than 300 magic apprentices have been sent away, and the teaching assistants responsible for patrolling the area are practically exhausted!

This rate of elimination is unprecedented!

In the past, large-scale eliminations would not begin until at least the third level of the maze. In previous years, the elimination of 100 people on the first level was already considered to be beyond the difficulty limit.

Inside the duty room outside the maze, Instructor Merck stared intently at the magic crystal in front of him with a furrowed brow, while the teaching assistants beside him dared not even breathe loudly.

Kemidil was so angry he wanted to drag out Osa's ancestors for eighteen generations and curse them all. Where did this guy get these undead that were so difficult to deal with?

He swore that once this was over, he would make that damned adventurer pay! He would use the most vicious curse to turn that fool into a toad!

However, what Camedil didn't know was that the adventurer he was working with had already boarded a ship bound for the New World at the port of the North Sea, ready to begin a new adventure.

As for the dividends from the magic crystal mine...

The only way to cash it in is to go to Baron Guts.

It wasn't just Kemidil who couldn't understand; even his mentor, Merck, with a furrowed brow, was equally puzzled as to why.

Within the crystal, white dots representing distress signals lit up intermittently in the first level of the maze, at a frequency far exceeding his expectations.

"What's going on?" he muttered to himself, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the table. "Are this year's apprentices really that weak?"

The maze he designed was challenging, but it was certainly not so difficult that so many apprentices would be completely defeated on the first level...

Just as he was racking his brains trying to figure it out, a teaching assistant in charge of coordination rushed in, looking tired and anxious.

"Mentor Merck! The number of SOS runes activated in the first layer far exceeds our expectations, and the teaching assistants patrolling the field are not enough! They are requesting reinforcements!"

Merck looked up, his expression displeased, and said, "Then draw manpower from the second and third floors, prioritizing the safety of the apprentices!"

“We’ve already done that,” the teaching assistant said, his voice growing more serious, “but… a new problem has arisen, an even more serious one.”

"explain."

"The evacuation teleportation array inside the core of the maze... has failed," the teaching assistant said with difficulty. "We can't send those disqualified apprentices out through the magic array. Some teaching assistants are still trying to take them to other areas to activate the teleportation gates... Now many areas on the first floor of the maze are in complete chaos."

His statement was already quite conservative.

A more accurate description would be that the teaching assistants patrolling the maze had to avoid interfering with the other apprentices' trials while leading the eliminated ones back and forth.

They didn't know why the teleportation array wasn't working, and could only hope that things would be better in the next area...

Merck suddenly stood up, a look of shock flashing in his eyes.

To prevent cheating, the entire trial maze was physically isolated from the outside world from the very beginning of its construction, with the only entrance and exit being the starting portal.

Apart from that, there are only some ventilation ducts!

Once the internal evacuation array fails, it means that the eliminated apprentices will be completely trapped and die in the maze.

As his expression changed drastically, Merck gradually realized that this was no longer an ordinary trial accident, but a serious crisis...

A bead of cold sweat rolled down his forehead, across the wrinkles at the corner of his eye, and dripped onto the ground.

Damn demon god—

He messed it up!

The atmosphere in the duty room was as suffocating as sticky slime.

There was no time to hesitate; he had to act immediately to get the runaway maze back on track!

After a moment's thought, Merck no longer hesitated and gave the order in a decisive tone.

"Notify all patrolling instructors to gather all disqualified apprentices and take them to the temporary refuge in the eastern section of the first floor."

"A refuge area?" The teaching assistant was taken aback. It was a backup area set up to deal with extreme situations, and it was usually only used in the most critical circumstances.

“Yes,” Merck’s voice left no room for argument, “have our teaching assistants wait there and calm the apprentices down. I’ll personally lead a team to create a physical passage for them from above the shelter—”

Before Merck could finish speaking, a deafening roar suddenly came from below the duty room.

The solid stone floor and walls trembled violently, and the ink bottle on the table was knocked over, staining the map with a blot of dirt.

A young teaching assistant lost his footing and stumbled before managing to grab the wall for support, his face filled with shock and astonishment.

"what happened?"

"This commotion must be at least a silver-level spell—"

"Maybe it's gold-grade..."

"Which idiot smuggled in a gold-grade magic scroll?!"

Before everyone could recover from the earth-shaking tremors, a piercing alarm suddenly came from the magic crystal.

A scarlet crack suddenly appeared on the surface of the crystal, a reminder that the labyrinth's structure was damaged!
Merck's pupils contracted sharply. He rushed to the crystal, and when he saw the feedback from the magic circle, he couldn't help but blurt out a curse.

"Damn it—" The alarm didn't come from the chaotic first floor, but from the third floor!
A large area there had completely collapsed!

……

Let's rewind to an hour earlier—

The third level of the maze.

The cold, damp air clung to the narrow corridor, as if solidified into a physical form. Five young female apprentices moved forward cautiously, each breath carrying a murky mist.

Although the vast majority of apprentices were held back by the undead on the first level, quite a few managed to break through the undead's blockade and reach deeper into the labyrinth.

To the surprise of many magic apprentices, the difficulty of the maze trial suddenly decreased from the second level onwards.

There were no uncanny ghosts roaming here, and the traps finally looked exactly like the ones they had seen in their textbooks...

"Finally, I'm rid of those damn skeletons..."

"That Merck guy is really crazy. Where did he get all those troublesome guys from?"

"Could someone be controlling them from behind? Their actions don't seem like those of ordinary undead at all; it's more like they're being manipulated by a necromancer..."

"Don't talk nonsense. Where would Xuebang get a necromancer? And how many mages would it take to control so many undead?"

"Could this be hell...?"

"Ha, unless those demons have gone mad. Why would they go to all that trouble just to cause trouble for us apprentices in the labyrinth trials?"

“Anjie, I’m telling you… your brain is getting worse and worse.”

"I'm really worried about whether you can graduate. We can't possibly trouble Miss Rastina with such a small thing, can we?"

"Yes, I'm sorry..." Angela trembled and shrank back in the face of the "closeness" of Rastina's two good friends.

Seeing Ange seemingly being bullied, Ilana frowned slightly, wanting to say something, but unsure if it was just a joke between friends.

Ange had said more than once that she and these three senior students were very good friends, although Ilana always felt that this one-sided tolerance and flattery was abnormal.

I'll ask her after the trial is over...

Just as Ilana was looking at Angela, the gaze of a certain "captain" also fell on her almost imperceptibly.

Rastina's fingers traced the storage pouch at her waist; through the leather, she could clearly feel the hard outline of the square box.

She bought it a few days ago from a shop recommended by a senior student.

The box was entirely black, wrapped in a black cloth with runes. It was said that opening it in the maze would cause a huge upheaval.

Do you want to use it now?
Rastina was still hesitant.

The old witch who sold her the "box" exuded an ominous aura that still sends shivers down her spine. She has no doubt about the box's power, but she still hesitates a little about whether to go that far.

She just wanted to teach that shameless slut a lesson and didn't want things to get out of control... although that was actually the safest option for her.

Lastina took a deep breath, temporarily banishing the chaotic thoughts from her mind.

She decided to look for other opportunities first, and only use the box as a last resort...

It would be great if I happened to run into a few acid slimes.

Just then, a commotion came from around the corner of the passage ahead. Several enormous figures wriggled and completely blocked the group's path.

They were three slime monsters, each about two meters tall, with translucent, grayish-green bodies that resembled giant jelly and emitted a faint sour smell.

They have no facial features; only the occasional bubbles rising on their surface prove that they are alive.

The records in the Monster Compendium flashed through Ilana's mind instantly—

Slime!
The attack method is to swallow the prey whole!
Its slashing, piercing, and magic resistance are all quite good. The best way to deal with it is to freeze it with ice magic and then destroy it with wind or earth magic!
Although the slime monsters in the Trial Maze no longer swallow and digest people, they can still swallow their prey alive, causing them to suffocate and faint, making them quite dangerous!

Just as Ilana was quickly analyzing the weaknesses of the monster in front of her, a perfect idea also exploded in Rastina's mind at the same time.

This is a godsend!

Her sharp gaze swept quickly over her two henchmen, and Anjie and the others immediately understood, their faces revealing wicked, eager smiles.

"Don't worry! Ilana, this little guy is nothing! I'll take care of him right away!" Ange raised her voice, as if to encourage herself, or perhaps to deliberately say it to Ilana.

"Pyroblast!"

"Haha, watch my fireball barrage! Go, my little darlings!"

The two mage apprentices standing next to Ange raised their wands almost simultaneously, and amidst chanting, scorching fireballs and bursting flames roared and slammed into the slime monster's body.

"Wait! They're not—" Ilana was startled by what she saw, but her warning was drowned out by a loud hiss.

The flames struck the slime, but instead of causing effective damage, they were like pouring boiling water into a pot of boiling oil!
In an instant, an incredibly thick white steam burst open, instantly engulfing the entire passage with an all-consuming force!

This is a mistake that almost all self-taught mages make: fire magic, which seems to counter slimes, is actually a trap!

A slime containing a lot of water is not a slime after all, and it is not so easy to evaporate unless the caster has enough magic power to crush it!
It's understandable for an adventurer to make this mistake, but it's something a "professionally trained" mage should never do.

After all, on the mage exam paper, figuring out how to deal with slimes was practically a free point...

But it's too late to say anything now.

The world before my eyes instantly turned into a white expanse, so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face!
The light of the spells, the figures of companions, the walls of the labyrinth—everything was swallowed up by the sudden steam storm.

At this moment, Anjie, feeling guilty, made a dramatic shout.

"Oh no! I remember the monster encyclopedia said that fire magic can't be used—"

"Stop talking nonsense and get out of here!" Before she could finish her sentence, a hand reached out from the side and grabbed her away.

Rastina and her entourage quickly made their escape.

They were prepared, having already released the wind spirits that guided them, so they were naturally not trapped by a mere bit of white mist.

Coughing, Ilana tried to shake off the steam surrounding her as she backed away, attempting to regain her sense of direction.

However, at that moment, an angry roar suddenly came from the depths of the white mist. It was the sound of the slime monster being provoked!

Feeling the tremors creeping up the floor, Ilana's heart sank.

We can't just sit there and wait for death!
In a panic, she forced herself to calm down and, relying on her memory of the monster's location, she condensed a somewhat clumsy ice arrow at the tip of her wand and swung it fiercely into the mist in front of her!

"clang--!"

The sound of something hitting a hard object plunged Ilana's spirits into despair once again.

The ice arrow she hurled with all her might missed its target, instead crashing futilely into the hard maze wall and shattering into ice crystals!
It's going to happen—

Ilana acted swiftly, reaching for the distress rune, only to find it gone; the rune that had been tied to her waist was nowhere to be seen.

At that moment, a huge shadow rapidly approached from within the white mist, and a slime monster, wriggling rapidly, pounced on her!
Ilana was utterly desperate.

Just at this critical moment, a gust of wind suddenly rushed in from the other end of the corridor!
The powerful airflow, like an invisible hand, instantly dispersed the pervasive white mist and halted the slime monster's forward momentum.

"Frost Impact!"

"Go! Stone projectile! Crush my enemies in the shape of arrows!"

At the same time, the sound of chanting came, and a sharp icy impact and several sharp stone projectiles whistled through the air, accurately hitting the chests of the three slime monsters!

With a few muffled explosions, the three monsters that had left Ilana helpless were instantly shattered, turning into a pile of broken ice crystals!

As her vision cleared, Ilana quickly looked up and saw Ophia standing proudly at the other end of the corridor, hands on her hips, with a panting Had and Bane by her side.

"Where light shines, darkness has nowhere to hide! Ilana, I'm late, but I hope I'm not too late." She had read this line in a chivalric novel, and she had wanted to say it herself for a long time, but unfortunately she never had the chance when she was in the Holy City.

Ilana, who had survived the ordeal, was both surprised and delighted. She hadn't expected that Ilana would also participate in the labyrinth trial, and she certainly hadn't expected to meet her here.

"Ophelia?! What are you doing here?"

"Well, that's a long story." Ophia coughed lightly, twirled a strand of hair at her temple with her index finger a few times, and looked away shyly. "To tell you the truth... I came here after chasing a very beautiful butterfly."

She would never admit that she was actually following her, and that she had embarrassingly lost track of her.

Fortunately, Saint Sis was on the side of justice. While she was lost, she encountered a brightly colored butterfly and followed it until she arrived here.

We didn't encounter a single trap along the way.

Bain and Harder were also amazed by Miss Ophia's luck, never expecting that they could reach the third floor so easily.

Perhaps those with noble souls are truly blessed by the gods.

Ilana looked at Ophia with disbelief and said suspiciously.

"Really?"

"Really!" Ophia said anxiously, gesturing with her index finger when she saw Ophia's disbelief. "What a beautiful butterfly! Its wings are all rainbow-colored! It's a pity those two idiots behind me were too slow, otherwise... otherwise I would definitely have caught it for you to see!"

Hard and Bain, standing behind her, exchanged glances, unsure whether they should interrupt, but they couldn't just stand there forever.

As we all know, slimes appear in groups; if you encounter three, you might encounter thirty, or even three hundred...

At Hader's urging, Bain stepped forward and whispered to Ophelia, "Miss Castellion, shall we... still test the 'Explosive Thermobaric Bomb' now?"

Unexpectedly, they ran into the students from the Magic Science Laboratory here, and their original plans seemed to have been disrupted by this little incident.

Of course, Ophia wouldn't admit that her real purpose was to "save the damsel in distress," so she coughed again and forcibly brought the topic back.

"Of course, we'll continue...our plan! By the way, Ilana, where are your teammates? You couldn't have gotten here all by yourself, could you?"

Ilana looked around and said worriedly, "It was so chaotic here just now, we got separated, and I was just about to go find them—"

"keep the change."

Ophia smiled slightly, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.

Those golden pupils gazed coldly into the depths of the maze corridor, like a spear piercing the night, gleaming with the sharp edge of justice.

“Ilana, my friend, you are too naive.”

"Those guys did it on purpose!"

(End of this chapter)