58 — Chapter 58

Suspicious eyes turned toward him, but Theo kept darting his gaze around, pretending not to notice. He was searching for the members of Party 10. Once the barrier came down, they had to head for the tower.

Moments later, the barrier surrounding the rear garden began to dissolve. An alert popped up—mini-boss cleared.

The players who hadn’t joined in on the mini-boss fight immediately reacted. After hearing where it had spawned and what its identity was, they grumbled about missing out.

Theo exchanged quick glances with the members of Party 10. He wanted to dash toward the tower right away, but rushing there with six or seven people at once would draw suspicion. Others might follow.

So they waited calmly for the right chance—for the crowd to disperse, for the garden to grow quieter. But even then, Theo worried someone else might realize there was treasure hidden in that tower.

A chilling gust swept through the center of the garden. Then, from high above, a faint noise spiraled down like a falling tail.

That sound slowly descended, twisting into something eerie. The malicious tone swirled above their heads, and by the time everyone looked up, it was already too late.

With a piercing screech, the sound slammed into the ground. It spread like a violent gale, filling the space between them.

Players clutched their ears and screamed, collapsing one after another. The sound pooled over their fallen bodies, dealing steady damage.

One by one, those who couldn’t endure dropped into a state of Exhaustion—combat disabled. Most were frail classes like mages or ranged fighters. With the numbers shrinking so quickly, fear spread that they might all be wiped out. But then, just as suddenly, the sound thinned and faded away.

Players who had collapsed used Resurrection Scrolls to revive, while those merely injured downed potions to restore their HP.

Blaine, who’d survived thanks to an Eternal Item and other rare gear despite being a mage, gulped a potion and looked around nervously. Then he asked:

“What was that just now? It’s the second time already… what the hell was it?”

Theo answered calmly.

“Final Boss.”

“What?” Blaine blinked, startled.

This time, Aslan replied instead.

“The Final Boss sometimes fires off a random attack from the Boss Room. But I’ve never seen it happen this often. Usually you’re lucky if it hits once.”

Aslan trailed off, glancing sidelong at Theo. Theo shot him a dirty look that said, What the hell are you staring at?

Feigning innocence, Aslan turned back to Blaine and shrugged, as if to say it was all Theo’s bad luck.

Blaine kept sneaking peeks at Theo, then tried hard to change the subject.

“So… where do we go now?”

The garden was wrecked, the inner fortress reduced to rubble. Theo had told them earlier: once the mini-boss was down, they should sprint to the tower in the corner. But looking around now, that wasn’t possible. Theo himself kept quiet.

“Since the mini-boss spawned in the inner fortress, the other mini-boss will likely appear at the main castle, the chapel, or maybe the greenhouse. But the chapel and greenhouse are past the castle, so our first move is to head back there.”

Aslan shared his reasoning with everyone still in the garden. No one wanted to linger in a cursed place freshly scarred by the Final Boss’s attack, so they quickly began filing out.

Aslan also started walking, gesturing for them to follow. But Theo held Blaine back, deliberately stalling.

“What are you doing? Not coming?”

“…I’ll come. But I need to talk to Blaine first. You go ahead.”

“What’s with the secret scheming now?”

Cutting Theo off, Aslan narrowed his eyes. He glanced around the garden. Not far away, another party was still standing awkwardly, unlike the others who’d all already left.

He strode right up to Theo, pressing him with a gaze stripped of trust.

“What are you scheming?”

“What scheme? I told you, I just need to talk to Blaine.”

“Then why is that other party hanging back over there instead of leaving?”

“Huh? How should I know?”

Theo shrugged innocently. Aslan looked between Theo and Party 10 without saying a word, then crossed his arms and planted himself firmly in place. With Aslan refusing to move, his party stopped as well.

Theo didn’t show it, but inside he was rattled. If Aslan didn’t leave, there was no way to slip away for the treasure. And he definitely didn’t want to increase the number of people any further.

Party 10 looked just as flustered, all eyes darting toward Theo. A standoff like this wasn’t good. Another party might clear the other mini-boss in the meantime.

After some tense thought, Theo exchanged a few words with Party 10. In the end, his own party and Aslan’s—Party 1—decided to climb the tower together.

Theo earned plenty of glares for hiding the treasure, but his steps up the tower were light. If more than thirty players had shared it, there’d be almost nothing left. Narrowing it down to twelve was a victory in itself.

But the tower’s top was nothing but dust and cobwebs. Empty. The beggar had lost both money and trust.

Disappointed, Parties 1 and 10 descended and headed back to the castle. Other parties had already scattered from the lobby, leaving it eerily empty.

“We’ll check the greenhouse.”

Perhaps eager to avoid the awkward alliance, Party 10 volunteered to go toward the greenhouse. They took the right-hand corridor on the second floor, leaving Aslan’s group behind to investigate the castle further.

They swept through the first floor thoroughly, but not a single common mob appeared. Quite a contrast to the wyverns that had poured out earlier. The castle’s silence suggested the other mini-boss might be at the greenhouse or the chapel.

In haste, they went to the right-hand corridor on the second floor. Emerging from the hallway, they saw another rear garden and two buildings: the greenhouse and the chapel. Without hesitation, they chose the chapel. Party 10 had already claimed the greenhouse.

A colonnade curved around the edge of the garden, leading them toward the chapel. The garden itself was barren, but sunlight streamed down, illuminating every corner without exception.

As they neared the chapel, they saw quite a crowd gathered. The players spotted Aslan’s party and immediately waved frantically.

Puzzled, Aslan’s party hurried over. But as they crossed a certain point, the air shifted. The color around them dimmed, as though someone had lowered the saturation on reality.

At the same time, a giant timer appeared above their heads. Noise surged in, like a curtain being drawn back. Just one step behind, it had been silent.

“We were worried time was running out, but it’s such a relief that your party made it, Aslan!”

Someone pushed through the crowd, beaming as they greeted them. It was the party leader of Party 6, the same group that had fought the ancient wyvern in the garden.

“This is the other mini-boss?”

“Yes, most likely.”

At Aslan’s question, the leader of Party 6 nodded and pointed to the timer above their heads.

“When the timer runs out, the chapel doors will open.”

Less than two minutes remained. Aslan’s face twisted with disbelief.

“If you knew this was where the other mini-boss would spawn, you should’ve told the other parties right away.”

“We couldn’t,” the Party 6 leader explained. “Inside here we can talk to each other, but nothing goes out. I tried walking further to send a message, but I couldn’t move past the boundary.”

He gestured behind Aslan. Following his hand, Theo turned and walked back the way they’d come. Sure enough, at a certain point he couldn’t move forward anymore, as if an invisible wall blocked him.

He tried speaking through the party channel, but no text appeared. Switching to voice didn’t work either, and even manual chat inputs failed.

“Looks like only those gathered within the time limit can enter,” Theo muttered.

He roughly counted the groups around them. Including their own, about five parties were present. The recommended number for the other mini-boss was six. Just one more would make the fight manageable.

“Honestly, it was nerve-racking when we thought it was only us here,” Party 6’s leader said with relief. “But seeing your group arrive eased our minds. You’ve got two Eternals with you.”

He looked at Theo and Blaine with open admiration. Blaine ducked his head, embarrassed, while Theo only nodded coolly.

As they spoke, the last of the timer ticked away. It turned blood-red, then vanished. The chapel doors, locked tight until now, began to open slowly.

No creaking, no grinding—just a smooth, soundless movement. Everyone peered inside and sucked in their breath.

Every place in the Final Boss’s castle so far had been full of windows. No matter where they’d gone, there had always been large panes letting in light. But the chapel interior was swallowed in pitch-black darkness, not a speck of light anywhere.

From outside the threshold, faint threads of light flickered inside, like something was shifting and blocking them.

Theo cautiously reached a hand into the air just past the doorway, groping around. Nothing. He waved his arm meaninglessly, then looked at Blaine.

“Blaine, can you light it up?”

Blaine nodded, summoning flame in his palm. He stepped through the doorway, fire held high. Yet even with that blaze, the interior remained utterly dark, as if the air itself was packed with dense shadow.

Theo and the rest followed one by one, creeping into the void. Each swung their arms around, expecting to bump into something, to catch on something. But there was nothing—just walls of black.

Focused so much on what lay ahead, they neglected the rear. That was when a grating hinge creaked, and with a heavy thud, the doors slammed shut behind them.

A chill crept up their spines. Heads creaked as they turned, only to find the doors sealed tight, cutting off even the faintest glimmer of light.

“Eek!”

Someone shrieked, high and sharp. Then came the sounds of panic—thuds, stumbling, hurried footsteps rushing toward the doors. Instinct drove them: flee toward the exit. But the doors wouldn’t open.

Some casters flared their magic, throwing out bursts of fire. But only the spellcasters themselves were visible—the darkness around them refused to yield.

As Theo faced the door, a sudden hot gust swept over his head. He wasn’t the only one who felt it. Silence fell, and goosebumps prickled every nape. Slowly, unwillingly, they all tilted their heads upward, toward the source.

Far above, so high they had to crane their necks back, came the sound of a beast’s low growl. Fear surged—were they truly expected to face an unseen foe in this suffocating dark?

Then, from the chapel’s edges, faint strands of light began to ripple into existence. At first like trickles, then suddenly pouring in, flooding the room.

It was as though a curtain hiding them had been pulled away. One by one, glowing windows emerged, lining the walls in rows.

As the light seeped in and revealed the chamber, the truth of what had been blocking those windows became clear.

They were wings.