“Is that so?” one of the nameless characters spicily responded upon hearing Almond’s words.
Lily stepped forward, her stance poised and her dagger glinting, “We’re not interested in petty fights or dragging this out. Hand over the items.”
‘Darling, do we want to present some benefits to them to make them give up the items, like your spirit items?’
‘Yeah, it’s a slight effort on my part anyway. If they give up easily, then fine. If not-‘ Almond’s smile turned chilling. ‘We can grab the items from them forcefully.’
A whisper ran through the gathered groups. Some members of the three parties seemed tense, as though ready to vanish into the woodlands at a moment’s notice, while others looked curious or calculating.
“Don’t think about escaping with the items out of spite,” Lily coldly said. “You’ll lose your limbs for nothing.”
“You all are onto something crazy here. You somehow have legendary and Epic items in bulk, so why don’t we just fight the floor boss together?”
The three parties were feeling waves of shock as they could see the items’ ranks, and that shock was naturally accompanied by a hint of greed.
“Not possible,” Almond flatly said. “We are going to do something different called Heroic Challenge. It’s a significantly stronger version of Floor Boss, and a party must reach some qualification to trigger it.”
“How about we join you then?” Lyndia, the dark blue-haired woman who was the leader of the Azure Veil guild, asked, her eyes filled with doubt and caution.
“Do you see our items?” Natalia snorted. “Even with that, the chance of dying in Heroic Challenge is higher than regular floor boss.”
“I won’t stop you from participating,” Almond calmly said, “but our party will not support you, and know that there’s a 99% chance that most of you will die.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah, who are you fooling?”
Almond narrowed his eyes. “Give us the special items, and I’ll show you. Instead of the floor boss spawning here, a portal door will spawn, leading to the Heroic Challenge mode.”
The three parties seemed to converse with each other.
They were vastly outnumbered, so fighting against Almond’s group was definitely not a wise move.
The leaders of the three parties reached a consensus quickly as all three special items flew toward Almond.
“Fine, do it. Let’s see if a special portal really opens. If you spawn the regular floor boss, we’ll attack it because we want the rewards, and it’ll be based on contribution,” Brynjar said, the leader of the Proximax guild’s party.
“And if you open the portal of the so-called Heroic Challenge…we’ll decide whether we enter or not at that time,” Yuxin Zhou said flatly, still feeling doubt.
Almond waved his hand as all four keys flew toward the floor boss summoning platform with eccentric ancient carvings.
[Your party is qualified for the Heroic Challenge Mode. All party members must agree to accept the challenge.]
“Did you all get any notification?” Noah asked as he looked at the three parties.
The leaders appeared confused.
“Notification just now? Nope.”
“We didn’t get any notification.”
Almond told everyone to agree and said, “Let’s just show them the portal. We will enter later anyway.”
Everyone nodded and responded to the notification.
[All party members have accepted the challenge.]
The platform slightly shook before mystical stairs of ten steps appeared in its center with a magical fancy blue and pink door at the last step.
“Holy…it’s true.”
“How come none of the people triggered something like this before?”
The three parties were shocked, while Almond and others got one more notification.
[From hereon, your party is prohibited from leaving this floor until the Heroic Challenge Boss is defeated. All the best.]
Almond directly shared the notification with the three parties. “As you can see, this is how it works.”
“Now, you may try to enter that door and court death. I will not stop you. But it’s my sincere suggestion that you don’t do that,” he added.
The leaders of the three parties looked at each other.
Yuxin Zhou said, “Brynjar, why don’t you send one of your puppets inside and check it out for us?”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, leader Brynjar.”
“Alright,” Brynjar nodded as his eyes glinted dark pink before a joker-like puppet manifested, holding two shivs in its hands—his physique reaching a bit over a meter, his face painting a full sad expression.
This was Brynjar’s S-rank specialized class—Puppeteer Stringweaver.
The joker puppet climbed the stairs as per Brynjar’s command and entered through the door-like portal.
Brynjar could see everything that his puppet saw as he found himself in a small meadow with a magical pond in the center.
“The whole area is barely 300 meters in diameter. There’s a pond in the center, but I don’t see the bo-“
Brynjar suddenly paused before his eyes flickered. “I got a notification. A countdown of one minute before the boss appears.”
Almond raised his eyebrows, ‘A pond? The previous heroic challenge areas were relatively simple, but this one seems different.’
“What kind of area is it?” Lily asked. She also knew it was better to get early information about the area.
“It’s an uneven meadow of short grass and some glowing plants, but despite being green, they have magical dark pink patterns and give off a dark pink glow,” Brynjar answered as he curiously looked around the area through his puppet’s eyes.
“Geez, that already sounds troublesome,” Natalia wryly smiled.
“Yeah, the last boss was a pain in the ass, but we shouldn’t expect less from this bastard,” Marcus nodded, his eyes fired up as he grinned, “But no matter who he is, I’ve got you all protected!”
“A meadow and magical flowers…” Kayla muttered. “They could be a part of the boss’s strength.”
“True,” Kira nodded thoughtfully. “We should destroy them just in case.”
“Nah, we should observe first and then act accordingly. Who knows what kind of mechanism and role they play?” Xavier rubbed his chin.
Eliara didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, “This already sounds troublesome even though we haven’t entered inside. Frankly, I’m a bit scared, given the previous experience.”
“We all are,” Talia weakly smiled but clenched her fist, “But I want to fight.”
“It appeared. The Heroic Spirit boss…w-what the fuck with its stats?!” Brynjal exclaimed, shocked.
Brynjar’s eyes suddenly flickered unevenly before he shut his eyes tightly, “My puppet is dead.”
“What kind of boss was it? How strong?” Lyndia asked.
“How did it look?” Yuxin followed up with another question.
Brynjar opened his eyes, and they showed a clear dread. “As you both know, my puppet of sadness is pretty sturdy and also takes 50% reduced damage of all kinds as long as he holds both of its shiv daggers…but I couldn’t even see the boss’ attack properly before it died.”
Taking a deep breath, Brynjar’s expression was somber as he added, “I inspected it and saw its status for a brief moment, but I remember the numbers. Its strength was at 2000, and other stats were also very high, its Mana was 7000. This boss is crazy!”
“And it was a humanoid boss that wasn’t that tall, just a bit taller than a regular human!”
The members of three parties and the other two leaders were dumbfounded, even feeling disbelief.
“A humanoid boss of that size with those stats?!”
“Holy crap, what’s with this Heroic Boss?!”
“Nah, I am not fighting it, brother Yuxin. We should back out on this one.”
“Yeah, let’s just do the floor advancement trial instead and go to the next floor.”
“Ahem,” Almond coughed as the sound drowned other voices, getting everyone’s attention, “Now that you know what you’re dealing with, the choice is yours.”
“I don’t have a choice anymore,” Brynjar frowned. “I just got a notification that I can’t leave the floor before the Heroic Challenge Boss is defeated. I tried to activate the trial, but it was rejected. Do you all have the same condition?”
“Of course,” Jemma wryly smiled.
“Yeah, it’s either we die or we kill the Heroic Boss. We can’t exit,” Xavier nodded.
“Now that we’ve satisfied your curiosity, you must excuse us,” Almond calmly said. “We have to do some sparring and practice before we enter that door after two hours. You all stay at the corner and make your decision.”
Pausing briefly, Almond added, “Frankly, It’d leave a bad taste in my mouth if you all enter and die, but I don’t mind if we have some meatshields that can attract the Heroic Boss’ attention if you ignore the warning and still enter.”
Turning around, he swept his glance at others, “Now, let’s start our sparring session. It’s you all versus my spirit wraiths and I. Let’s familiarize ourselves with items’ effects and our usual strategy that emphasizes control and disability. Give your all.”
“Yes!”
“Aye, aye, captain!”
“Roger!”