The magic cards I made are absolutely flawless!

Clay's tone softened considerably.

He roughly understood that the jailer in front of him was the only "special challenger," while the other prisoners were regular challengers like himself.

Clay had previously tried to go to the eighth floor, but found that he did not have permission to go there.

It seemed that only the jailer could take him down.

So he's been waiting for a challenger from a higher level to arrive.

"Will you help us?"

Clay's reaction surprised Dekan slightly.

Dekan had originally planned to subdue Clay.

Or they could trick Clay into a bet, making him their top henchman if he was willing to accept defeat.

I didn't expect Clay to be so cooperative.

Clay shook his head and smiled helplessly, seemingly unsurprised that his identity had been recognized.

“Although I, Clay, am the Mad Bishop of the Church of Resurrection, all of you, whether you are from the Kingdom Federation or the Empire, should have heard of me as a high-ranking Shadowworld Challenger. I have never been negative towards the Shadowworld. I only have a personal grudge against the Kingdom Federation and do not want to harm the innocent.”

"Clay said proudly."

It seemed to be proclaiming his disdain for the other bishops and making no attempt to hide the depth of his resentment towards the Kingdom Federation.

Dekan had indeed heard about Clay's challenging attitude toward the Shadow World.

He was the only bishop in the eighth-tier Shadow World who never did anything wrong and diligently pursued his goal of conquering the Shadow World.

The Church of Resurrection tacitly approved of this, since what they valued was Clay's combat strength; as long as he was a mortal enemy of the Kingdom Alliance, that was enough.

But the problem isn't with Clay's approach to the strategy.

What Dekan has always wondered is, does Clay really not realize that he is an enemy?

"Then are you willing to swear that you will do your utmost to cooperate with us in clearing the Shadow World and will not cause any trouble because of any personal grudges?"

Dekan decided to make Clay swear an oath before testing him.

“Yes, I, Clay, swear that I will wholeheartedly cooperate with you in your challenge of this Shadow World, and I will never interfere with or harm you because of any issues of stance or personal grudges.”

Clay swore without hesitation.

Dekan nodded.

Hearing Clay say that, Dekan was probably relieved.

He believed that this man was a man of his word.

However, Dekan felt an even stronger sense of unease about "Clay not recognizing him".

Even if he takes a step back...

Even if Clay were an idiot, he wouldn't be so oblivious as to not realize that his appearance was unrelated to Dekan.

These are clearly twin siblings.

Unless Clay is blind or pretending to be stupid.

So Dekan tentatively reached out and waved his hand in front of Clay's eyes.

After a while.

Clay did not respond.

Dekan then raised his middle finger in front of Clay and asked, "How many is this?"

Clay: "...I can't see it."

Clay couldn't answer.

Dekan was finally convinced.

Clay is truly blind.

Clay was able to detect their movements just now purely by relying on his perception as an eighth-level martial artist and by distinguishing them by sound and aura.

What's wrong with your eyes?

Dekan asked, puzzled.

One of Clay's greatest strengths is his superhuman dynamic vision; no con artist can escape Clay's eyes.

The warden's cheating was precisely due to Clay's keen eye.

This means that Clay's eyes had only recently gone blind.

"Hmph, the warden on this floor is quite similar to that bastard, the Silent Bishop, with all sorts of annoying sealing spells. Fortunately, this warden can't use magic cards, and his overall combat strength and versatility are much worse than the Silent Bishop's, which is why I was able to defeat him so quickly."

Clay explained.

Even Clay was unaware that after killing the warden, he triggered the warden's death passive, which forcibly sealed one of the killer's five senses, making it impossible to purify or dispel.

The warden, filled with resentment, naturally sealed away his vision, which had the greatest impact on Clay's combat power.

He must have been furious with Clay for his ability to spot the cheater's movements.

This state, which cannot be purified by any level of purification magic or dispelled, is equivalent to a god-level blindness curse.

Even if Kree has super-fast regeneration, or even if Kreix can heal Kree now, it's still useless.

Fortunately, the exit mechanism of the Shadow World is similar to that of the artificial Shadow World; all buffs will be automatically cleared when leaving the Shadow World.

So Clay wasn't too upset about going blind.

"Uh......"

Dekan rested his chin on his hand and pondered for a moment.

It seems that Clay inadvertently revealed the secrets of the Silent Bishop once again.

After all, the prison warden in this shadow world always seems to have a strange connection with the powerful figures in the real world.

Dekan had never heard of the Silent Bishop having a deathrattle effect.

Of course, this information could not be investigated.

But now, through some inexplicable coincidence, Dekan can't help but boldly speculate that killing the Silent Bishop might also result in a severe deathrattle curse.

It seems that in the future, when dealing with the Silent Bishop, I'll have to find a sucker to finish him off first.

And we need to find ways to extract the remaining value after the death of the Silent Bishop.

So Dekan began to explain some information that he could share with Clay.

Being able to make Clay a temporary teammate directly is much better than Dekan had expected.

Because it saved us a big trouble—

The issue of personal grudges.

Clay truly has no idea, nor can he possibly realize, that they are the Beautiful Minds quartet.

Dekan was still annoyed by Clay's terrible teammate behavior.

But let's look on the bright side.

At least it saved time.

And now we'll begin reviewing what happened on the seventh floor.

Dekan fell into deep thought.

If Clay hadn't killed the warden, he wouldn't have gone blind, and if he hadn't gone blind, he wouldn't have been able to avoid so much trouble.

It also felt like a lucky accident.

So far, Clay's motives have all been quite reasonable, even to the point of being unreasonable.

But every move Clay made ended up inadvertently helping Dekan.

Dekan was truly unsure whether this was luck, causality, or some hidden mastermind orchestrating everything...

Surely everything couldn't have been planned by Zhuge Clay...

Dekan couldn't help but start speculating again.

After thinking about it, forget it.

Dekan felt a bit stupid for trying to seduce Clay.

......

Having accepted the fact that the seventh floor had been swiftly cleared, the group wasted no time and set off for the eighth floor after a short preparation.

After meeting Clay in a different way, the Beautiful Minds team found Clay surprisingly easy to talk to.

However, perhaps due to differences in team philosophy and corporate culture between Clay and the Beautiful Minds team, there was a strange sense of incompatibility between them.

After entering the portal, their vision went dark, and then they began to accelerate uncontrollably, like an elevator in freefall.

Not only was the speed terrifying, but the chilling and dark aura surrounding them made it difficult to even breathe normally.

"Are the portals on the first few floors like this too?!"

"Clay shouted and asked."

Even Clay felt that this portal was very strange!

"No! The portal ahead is peaceful! Something's wrong on the eighth floor! Be careful!"

With Dekan's shout, they finally reached the finish line amidst the suffocatingly fast-moving undercurrents.

[Deception Prison]

This level of the prison is a squalid zone, where guards and wardens can fight each other.

The warden will strictly enforce the rules and will not attack the guards without authorization.

Only demons can move freely on this level; non-demon races will be sealed by the magic power gathered from the past demon kings.

This is the Demon King's Tomb; no lies or deception are permitted here.

[No Demon Points are required to proceed to the ninth floor.]

【warning】