This time, I won't be the devil.

The palm holding the sword felt numb and tingling, and the iron sword in Noelle's hand quickly bent and broke.

After losing the obstruction, the heavy sword was about to hit her.

At this moment, a cold light wrapped in sword energy pierced through the darkness.

The sword flashed at an extremely fast speed, turning into a thin line that passed through the field of vision and blocked Van Dam's heavy sword.

Immediately afterwards, the sword light flashed three times in succession, and with a heavy muffled sound, Van Dam was picked up and the domain was lifted.

When the darkness dissipated, Noelle could clearly see the face of the owner of the voice.

She was a woman with an extraordinary temperament. She had long hair like snow and her eyes were covered by a layer of black veil.

She was wearing clothes with oriental characteristics. The whole dress was made up of sky blue and smoky blue pieces and edges, and the surface was decorated with cloud patterns. The back was a combination of a leafed cloak and a ribbon tie, giving people a light and elegant feeling. The whole person exuded a powerful and mysterious aura.

Although Noelle did not have a deep understanding of the level of combat power, she knew that Van Dam, who could use the domain expansion, was undoubtedly a top-level strongman.

But the woman in front of him not only moved freely in Van Dam's territory, but also easily blocked his attack and ended the battle with only three moves.

The only thing Noelle saw clearly was her final upward thrust.

There was nothing fancy about her movements; she simply swung the sword upwards, but Noelle could clearly feel that her swing was very different from her own.

If there is any difference, it is that there is no superfluous element in her movements. Whether it is the way of exerting force, the movement of the center of gravity, or the angle of the sword, they are all extremely precise.

"Xiao Fan, you have improved a lot since you were able to take three of my swords," the woman said.

"However, I don't think it's appropriate to suppress a newcomer in this way."

After being thrown to the ground, Van Dam quickly bowed deeply to the woman.

"Master, I was rude just now."

"Didn't I tell you not to use that title? I haven't taught you anything, and I don't intend to call myself a teacher."

"I haven't seen you for so many years, and you're still the same..."

Noelle looked back and forth at the two of them. From the conversation they had just exchanged, it was obvious that they knew each other.

Seeing Noelle's puzzled expression, Van Dam explained:

"Noelle, please introduce me, this is..."

Van Dam was halfway through his words when the woman stopped him.

"I'm just a traveler passing through."

Seeing that the woman was unwilling to reveal her identity, Van Dam was at a loss for a moment, while Noelle asked:

"What should I call you?"

Noelle realized that it was thanks to this woman's guidance that she was able to successfully break through to swordsmanship level 1.

Facing Noelle's eager gaze, the woman thought for a moment before speaking.

"You can call me... Qinghe."

"Qinghe...Miss, thank you for your guidance."

Although the black veil over Qinghe's eyes obscured her face to a certain extent, she looked very young.

"No need to be so polite. I just heard that an old acquaintance was sparring with someone here, so I came to take a look. I just did something I wanted to do on a whim."

"What's the matter that brought you to the maze city suddenly?" Van Dam asked from the side.

"I was originally going to the Kingdom of Kahn in the north, but I received a letter from Gwangju halfway, so I changed my route slightly."

"I'm passing through the Labyrinth City to repay a favor from many years ago."

"So what exactly are you going to do? Is there anything I can help you with?"

Qinghe frowned slightly, as if it was inconvenient to directly explain his purpose.

"At the moment, I have nothing to do." As she said this, she looked in the direction of the maze.

"I hope there won't be any more..."

However, Qinghe's expectations did not come true.

Not long after this training session ended, the tragic news that the spiral passage had been destroyed spread throughout the entire maze city.

……

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

After saying this, Frey arrived above the group of adventurers who were surrounded by monsters.

Frey's appearance gave the adventurers hope again. He was willing to take action at this time. He must be a hero who is both powerful and kind.

"You, are you here to save us?" The adventurers asked expectantly, as if they had grabbed a life-saving straw.

But Frey did not respond to their expectations.

"I won't save you. The only ones who can save you are you."

Afterwards, Frey used the same method that he had used to get Wright to sign the contract to make these more than 40 adventurers sign the contract.

After the signing, Wright and Palu also emerged.

After a battle, the three successfully led the group of adventurers out of the encirclement.

According to the contract, this group of adventurers must then participate in Frey's battle against the sandworms.

But they had signed the contract in order to survive the siege of monsters. Now that they learned that they had to go to fight sandworms, they fell into despair again.

The coercive force of a contract is ultimately limited, and their voluntary cooperation is necessary to further increase the success rate of the plan.

"You are adventurers after all. Instead of waiting here to die, don't you want to take up arms and fight?"

Frey's provocative words prompted the few adventurers who still had some self-respect to explain.

"Now that the gold-ranked adventurers are gone, how can we, the silver and copper-ranked ones, possibly defeat that sandworm?"

"Who said there's no gold level? Captain Wright, isn't he a gold level?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the adventurers all looked at Light.

After some communication, they recognized Wright's strength. After all, they all saw the scene of Wright knocking the monster away.

Frey knew very well that compared to himself who was at the silver level, Wright, who was at the gold level, was obviously more convincing.

Therefore, during the breakout just now, he had been sticking to Light and releasing air waves, making the adventurers mistake this magic for Light's ability.

To pull off his plan, Frey needed them to believe it, too.

And unlike Frey, who forced them to sign the contract and now blames them, Wright's righteousness allows him to gain the trust of strangers in times of crisis.

"With Captain Wright's strength, he can definitely protect himself. Do you know why he took the risk to save you?"

"Because he found a way to break through the blockade. As long as we unite, take up arms and follow the leader, we can be saved!"

Afterwards, Frey did some ideological work on this group of adventurers, and under his persuasion, the adventurers rekindled their will to survive.

Adventurers who can come to explore the 20th floor must have some courage and ability. No one is willing to wait for death.

After all the conditions were met, the operation code-named "Sword of Damocles" officially began.

Chapter 89 The Knight Rushing to the Windmill

On February 2, the elite monster wind-eroded sandworm born on the 10th floor destroyed the spiral passages leading to the ground on the fourth, third, and second levels.

Looking at the collapsed road and the fleeing adventurers, "it" hiding in the sandworm felt very satisfied.

Next, we just need to continue controlling the sandworms and let them destroy the passage on the 5th level, so that the space below the 11th level of the maze can be completely isolated from the ground.

The reason for choosing the current route is that it is very clear about the locations of these channels.

Even more clear than ordinary adventurers.

It is precisely because it is familiar with the maze that it was able to block the maze in such a short time and cut off all retreat routes.

The only regret is that the main road on the first level can lead directly to the ground. Although it has used the ability of coordinates (commanding monsters) to let the monsters block the main road, there will inevitably be some adventurers who escape death in the first few levels.

However, those low-level guys are no longer a big deal. It is more important to reach the fifth level as soon as possible.

The wind-eroded sandworm turned its body and moved downwards along the paths it had previously drilled.

This time, since there was no need to drill through the rock again, the sandworm was much faster.

But just as it was going down and about to return to the 21st floor, it discovered something abnormal below from afar.

At the collapsed spiral passage, a black-haired man used the grappling hook in his hand to stick to the rock wall.

That was the black-haired man who was good at magic and had fought against it once before.

He mobilized his magic power to create a rock platform on the rock wall. After gaining a foothold on the rock platform, he cast out the grappling hook again and climbed up.

It soon realized that the man was trying to rise back to the ground by creating steps one by one.

And it is precisely to avoid this situation that it summons the flying monsters in the maze to the top of the passage.

Flying monsters represented by the Cockatrice and Desert Eagle kept attacking the man, but he blocked them all with his air waves.

But if he wants to continuously release the energy waves, he will inevitably consume a lot of magic power. It won’t be long before this man’s magic power will be exhausted.

Theoretically, it would be impossible for this man to create steps leading to the ground in an environment surrounded by monsters.

But it still didn't dare to be careless. After all, this man could use the legendary chantless magic, so he might also possess other magical abilities that were different from ordinary people.

After circling in the air and observing for a while, it made a judgment.

In order to eliminate hidden dangers, it decided to kill the man before going to the fifth level.

With the help of the wind element, the sandworm swooped down from the air at an extremely fast speed and attacked the man.

However, the man seemed to have predicted this long ago. He jumped off the rock platform he had just created and returned to the main road on the 21st floor.

At this moment, there were hundreds of monsters waiting for him on the road.

While jumping, the man raised the big sword on his back.

The greatsword was deep red in hue, its surface covered with flowing flame patterns, and an emerald green gem inlaid in the center.

As the man poured his magic power into it, flames erupted from the greatsword.

He swung his sword with all his might, and the monsters blocking his way were instantly engulfed in flames.