Legend of the Heroes of Another World's Divine Tower

"Hurry up! Follow closely behind! If you get hallucinated later, no one will collect your corpses; those bodies over there will be your fate!"

Under the blazing sun, golden spots of light peeked out from the thin mist, lazily resting on the orange-red leaves. The tree trunk was so white it was dazzling, swaying and reflecting the sunlight.

This sunlight seems to possess a power to inspire fantasy. Hallucinogenic sunlight can lead people into the deepest dreams of everyone's desires. Since the forty-fourth floor was discovered, no one has ever escaped this dream.

This is the daytime trap of the forty-fourth level mechanism: after spending enough time under this seemingly comfortable sunlight, one becomes confused.

Although the time it takes for each person to endure varies, with some lasting longer and others collapsing quickly, it generally lasts around two hours. However, if there is direct sunlight, the time will be even shorter.

The leader of this group was holding up a small red flag, playing his favorite role as a "tour guide," and warning the "payers" following behind him.

He kept talking the whole way.

"We chained you up for your safety. After all, some people ignored our warnings and tried to escape to the teleportation array on their own, and you can imagine what happened! They definitely hallucinated!"

The team leader grinned with a particularly "sincere" smile, and casually pointed to the woods by the roadside—there lay scattered white skeletons, as if he were genuinely trying to warn them out of kindness.

The people chained together were cursing under their breath. Although they were angry, there was nothing they could do; there really was no better way.

After all, these people—or rather, bandits—have long since monopolized the task of finding their way around this level, thanks to its treacherous terrain and tricky mechanics.

Without any map clues, no one could find the portal in just a few days, since there are only two hours of safe time during the day, and the night is the most terrifying time in this layer.

During the day, at least the sunlight is enticing and makes you dream, and you can still take advantage of the time to look around and explore.

As night fell, the fog in the woods became so thick that it was impossible to distinguish between people and animals five steps away, and one could hear rustling whispers in one's ears.

Then darkness descended, enveloping everything. No one knows what happened next, because none of the tower climbers who experienced this survived.

That invisible and intangible "thing" is far more terrifying than any boss we've encountered before.

So everyone could only grit their teeth and bear it, thinking that once they reached the teleportation array, they would be free.

"Young Master, where are we now?" The leader, with a sly grin, looked at the angry yet helpless expressions on the faces of the people behind him, and then shouted forward.

A boy suddenly darted out of the bushes ahead, and the bushes parted abruptly—

The boy leaped out with a clean, decisive motion, without the slightest unnecessary sway. The grass slowly closed behind him, as if he had never disturbed that deep green.

He stopped two steps away from the leader, and only after he was steady did he slowly raise his eyes to look at him, his movements showing a restraint that was beyond his years and showed that he had thought things through.

All that could be seen was a face that had not yet lost its childlike roundness, with two or three very faint freckles on the tip of its nose, like a few drops of light ink that had been accidentally splashed on.

But his features already revealed his future potential—his brow bone had a clear angle, his nose was so straight it looked like it had been measured with a ruler, and although his jawline was still somewhat soft, the tightening curve already showed the beginnings of angularity.

He didn't show the shyness or evasiveness common in twelve-year-olds; his gaze was calmly fixed on the line, as if he were reading a book he had already read many times.

His bangs were ruffled by the grass, with a strand lying diagonally on his brow bone, but he didn't brush it away—as if that slight irregularity was also calculated, a privilege belonging to a child that didn't need to be cared about.

The wind came at just the right time, lifting the collar of his cotton-linen shirt, which his mother had washed until it was faded.

He tilted his head slightly, letting the wind flow past his ear, a gesture that fully revealed the slender line of his neck.

"We're almost halfway there, but the teleportation array is farther than before. Let's use some wind magic, Uncle Ming."

He spoke, his voice clear and bright like it was before puberty, but his tone was steady.

After the boy finished speaking, he looked at Uncle Ming, who was holding a magic wand.

Uncle Ming was slightly hunched over, wiping his old, worn-out staff with his rough, tree-bark-like fingers, one stroke at a time.

The warm sunlight shone on his black cloak and black mask, making him impossible to see through.

He smiled憨厚ly, as if responding warmly to the boy's eager gaze.

"Hmm, okay, okay..." His voice was hoarse, with a hint of a chronic cough at the end, making it unclear.

But no one noticed his action of wiping the staff. It wasn't a gentle caress; his fingertips were pressing down hard and slowly across the staff, as if he were suppressing something unseen.

"Alright everyone, since that's the case, there's nothing we can do. As you've all heard, we now need to use wind magic to boost your speed, so please pay the wind magic usage fee again!"

After the leader finished speaking, he looked excitedly at the "little sheep" behind him, and the subsequent commotion of the crowd was exactly what he had expected, just like the process he had gone through countless times before.

"What do you mean! We already paid you protection money last night, why are you asking for some kind of 'wind magic fee' now?!"

"Yes! Why should I! I can do wind magic myself; I can cast spells on myself!"

"If it weren't for the iron chains that bind me, you bunch of weaklings wouldn't even be enough to fill my teeth!"

Of course, some people resisted and complained, while others recognized the current situation and wisely handed the last experience bottle in their backpack to the leader. Even more clever ones pretended that the experience bottle they took out was their last possession.

The leader collected the experience bottles with a sly grin.

"I've been reminding you and telling you things to be careful about the whole way. I haven't even asked for a guide fee. Now I just want a final fee for the wind magic. I've been so considerate, and you still have to talk bad about me!"

After saying that, the leader revealed his true level. He suddenly ripped open his dirty collar and let out a low growl like sandpaper scraping.

The accompanying underlings also revealed their levels, most of them around level 30.

The leader is the highest-ranking person.

"I'm level 49! You dare act like a big shot in front of me?! I think you have a death wish! Now! Right now! Hand over all your experience potions, and those who didn't hand them all over earlier! Open your inventory! And! Call me Crazy Master!"

The air seemed to freeze. The dozen or so people who were chained up, who had just been wearing expressions of disdain or wariness, instantly froze on their faces.

The sunlight was particularly blinding at that moment. Level 49? In this godforsaken place? A leader who looks like a fugitive? And there are only 44 floors; there's no way there could be a level-breaking stone here. How could this be!

The burly man closest to him, who had resisted the most fiercely earlier, now had his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets.

"No...impossible! How could such a rare resource as a Level Breakthrough Stone be obtained by a bunch of thugs..."

The madman grinned, but there was no warmth in his smile.

He didn't refute, but slowly turned around, facing away from the sun in the sky, and lowered his head slightly.

He roughly parted his dirty, tangled hair with his fingers, revealing the back of his neck.

That small patch of skin was exposed...

There, the energy mark that a proper tower climber should have was not there. It was like a dark pattern drawn repeatedly with the worst ink, or rather, it was more like a thick, twisted, dark purple centipede.

The color was dark and almost black, but the edges were blurred with an ominous, spiderweb-like gray-black fine line that was deeply embedded in the flesh, and you could even see the subtle, pulsating undulations under the skin.

It didn't look like it was painted on; rather, it seemed like a living thing that had crawled out of his bones and was parasitizing there.

"Ho—"

Some people gasped in shock; that wasn't something that could be produced through legitimate means.

A chilling scent, more unsettling than rotting wet wood, filled the forest.

Madman turned around, looked at the bloodless faces, and after enjoying the deathly silence, he finally managed to squeeze out a word through gritted teeth.

"Level restrictions? Limits?" He spat. "The rules of the Divine Tower are those who can survive and crush others."

The sun in the sky seemed to burst forth with light, making his eyes gleam with a wild, beast-like light.

No one dared to speak again. Only the dark line on the back of his neck seemed to be slowly writhing in the frightened glances of the crowd.

That was a unique product of the Black Tide, a drop from the front lines of the Thirty-One Layer—the Soul Devouring Crystal. What was even more shocking was that the person in front of him did not lose control after absorbing this contaminated soul energy.

"Hey! Time to wake up! So, stop thinking about resisting, quickly untie the restrictions on your backpacks and hand over all your valuables! Hahaha!"

Just then, a child's innocent voice stopped the madman from going berserk.