I am the Demon King of the Dungeon!

Without wasting words, Arthas took a wooden sword from the weapon rack and weighed it in his hand.

"I'm sorry."

The voice just fell.

He touched the ground with his toes and thrust out with his sword.

This sword strike was exactly the same as the one that stabbed Barrow yesterday. There was no starting stance, no pre-swing, and the transition of the sword tip from stillness to extreme speed was almost seamless.

The wooden sword tore through the air, aiming straight for Marta's right shoulder.

Martha's body tilted slightly to the left just before the sword tip arrived, the angle was so small that the sword tip just grazed past the monk's robe. Her feet did not move, and she did not even pull her hands out from behind her back.

"Not bad speed, but it's a pity that your sword angle is too straight. You're used to your opponents being slower than you, so you never consider the situation where your sword path is blocked."

Arthas sheathed his sword and slashed horizontally.

The wooden sword drew a very small arc in the air, blocking the target's escape routes on both sides.

Martha didn't retreat, but instead took half a step forward, sliding her body along the blade of the sword. She drew her right hand from behind her back, her five fingers joined together, and struck Arthas in the chest with her palm.

The speed of the palm strike was not fast.

But Arthas discovered that the force of this palm strike would block all his escape routes; no matter whether he moved left, right, or backward, the palm strike would land on him in advance.

Arthas conjured an ice wall with his left hand and held it in front of him. The ice wall shattered the moment the palm strike touched it, scattering ice crystals everywhere, but most of the palm strike was also deflected.

Marta withdrew her hand, glanced at the ice shards on the ground, and raised her eyebrows slightly.

"You can simultaneously create ice walls between melee combos; your mana control is indeed excellent. But do you know what your biggest problem is?"

Arthas gripped his wooden sword tightly and did not answer.

"You're too used to fighting alone," Marta said. "Every move you make is the optimal solution, the optimal solution for one person, but you never consider the position of your teammates, your magic doesn't create opportunities for them, and your attack rhythm has absolutely no room for coordination."

She walked to the weapons rack, took down a wooden sword, and weighed it in her hand.

"You're a monster in a one-on-one fight, but if you join a team, you become their biggest weakness."

Arthas thought of Raine and Oris. When he teamed up with them in Graystone, they never really cooperated because he didn't need to; he solved all the problems by himself.

"You're taking the Gold Saint exam just to join the Dawn of Light, aren't you?" Martha pointed her wooden sword at Arthas, the tip of the sword steady without the slightest tremor. "The Dawn of Light doesn't just want the strongest individual adventurer; it wants someone who can seamlessly integrate into a team."

"I've learned something new. Let's try a different approach then."

This time, Arthas did not launch an attack. He stood still, his wooden sword held horizontally in front of him, and a fireball condensed in his left palm. However, he did not launch it but instead let the fireball hover beside him, like a sentinel waiting for orders.

Marta's eyebrows rose again.

"Are you waiting for me to make the first move?"

"right."

"Turning yourself from attacker to receiver, giving your teammates room to make decisions, that's good." Marta clapped her hands. "Alright, that's enough."

"What?"

"You realized the problem faster than most adventurers do after getting a beating." Martha walked to the sidelines, pulled Arthas's assessment sheet from the record board hanging on the wall, and circled the overall score column. "This item is passed."

She turned the assessment form over to the back, where a task sheet was clipped with a paperclip.

The task sheet was yellowed and had folded edges, so it was obviously not prepared today.

Marta took it down and handed it to Alsace.

"Next is the practical mission: soloing the rare dungeon 'Ironjaw Fortress', rescuing three miners, and actually defeating the dungeon's boss."

Arthas accepted the mission order.

Rare.

Above the Excellent grade is the Rare grade, and above the Rare grade is the Epic grade. The seven dungeons he cleared yesterday were all Excellent grade, while the Rare grade dungeons are twice as difficult as the Excellent grade ones.

Martha saw Arthas's expression and gave him a meaningful smile.

"What, you think it's difficult?"

"Not difficult." Arthas folded the quest sheet and put it in his pocket, then looked at Martha's legendary badge and asked a question unrelated to the assessment, "I just want to ask, is there anyone in this world stronger than you?"

Marta paused, she was hanging the scoreboard back on the wall, her right hand hovering in mid-air, her fingertips just an inch away from the hook, and she paused for three seconds at that inch.

She hung up the scoreboard, turned around, put her hands behind her back, and looked at Arthas with her wrinkled eyes.

"Kid, do you know how old I am?"

Arthas shook his head.

"Eighty-seven. I registered as an adventurer at eighteen, and it's been almost seventy years now. In these seventy years, I've seen more powerful people than you've eaten bread. The number of people who can make me admit defeat can be counted on one hand, but..."

She paused.

"If you're asking about someone who's truly 'stronger than me,' and not just someone a few levels higher or with a few more skills, then I've only ever met one like that."

Arthas put the wooden sword back on the weapon rack and turned to face her, a gesture that itself was a silent question.

Marta walked to a bench by the training field, sat down, and patted the spot next to her.

Arthas walked over and sat down.

A closer look.

Marta's wrinkles were deeper than they appeared from a distance, each one looking as if it had been carved into her skin with a knife, but her eyes were still surprisingly bright.

"More than sixty years ago, when I was still a Gold-rank adventurer, I was with a team. It wasn't a warband, just a five-person team that was put together temporarily. We took on a subjugation mission, and the target was a legendary monster that lived in the snowy mountains of the North, the Frostwing Ancient Dragon."

"Five people fighting a legendary monster?" Arthas frowned. Based on his understanding of the power system in this world, a full five-person squad could theoretically only conquer epic-level monsters, while legendary-level monsters would require at least multiple epic-level squads working together.

"Yes, five people. One Gold-rank Monk, that's me. One Platinum-rank Warrior, one Epic-rank Priest, and one..." Martha's gaze passed over the training ground wall and landed on a distant spot, "...a person who doesn't even have an adventurer's badge."

"No badge?"

"No. He joined us halfway through. When we set up camp at the last supply point in the North, he emerged from the snowstorm, wearing a tattered cotton robe and carrying a longsword wrapped tightly in strips of cloth. He asked us if we needed any help. The captain asked him what rank he was, and he said he had no rank. When asked what his profession was, he said swordsman."

As Marta spoke, a faint smile appeared on her lips, a smile tinged with nostalgia.

"At the time, everyone thought he was crazy. A swordsman with no rank or class, going to fight a legendary monster? Wasn't that just courting death? But for some reason, the captain actually agreed. Later, I asked the captain why, and the captain said, 'That person is a "Hero."'"

Arthas did not interrupt her.

"It took us four days to cross the snow-capped mountains. We encountered avalanches, packs of wolves, and blizzards along the way, and that person was always at the forefront. No matter what kind of monster he was facing, he would take it down with a single sword strike."

Marta raised her right hand and made a feinting chop.

"With just one sword strike, without any technique or even magical fluctuations, he seemed to transcend the laws of the world."

Arthas's pupils contracted slightly.

The swordsmanship had no name, and the slashes had no magical fluctuations; the description was unlike any martial art he had ever seen.

"In the end, we successfully defeated the Frostwing Ancient Dragon. After that, all I knew was that the person had created a warband, wiped out the monsters, and signed a treaty. They were revered as heroes."

"He was a true hero, and the last hero I ever saw, because after the treaty was signed, those heroes seemed to have completed some kind of mission and disappeared without a trace..."

"..."

Could the hero also be a time traveler?!

Did they go back?

Arthas wanted to ask more questions, but Marta had already stood up and walked to the center of the training field.

"Alright. Get back to work. The werewolves of Ironjaw Fortress aren't going to cut their own heads off."