After A Billion-Year Torture, I Returned As A Transcendent Player

Chapter 63: Entering the Raid Again

"Urgh, I didn’t think it would be that annoying to purify the dimension’s Eidos."

Aidan returned after two hours.

He made significant progress still, but he didn’t want to fully purify the eidos just yet.

Because if he did, and the dimension didn’t turn permanent, it would disappear.

The chances to make it permanent increased, but it was still not 100%, so he wanted to fully extract all resources from this place.

’Now, let’s have a go at the raid again.’

Aidan checked Terror Raids tab.

[Terror Raids]

—Labyrinth: Vorkapar’s Tomb (2 days left).]

—Endless Dungeon: Terrorizing Terrors (9 days left).]

’2 Days left. Is it so difficult that no Transcendent Player managed to defeat the boss?’ Aidan wondered.

[By that, if you mean there are no Transcendent Players strong enough to clear it, then you are wrong. Contents of Terror Raids are shared regionally. You are currently in Misra Sola Realm, which is one of the 3184 small realms anchored to Yvenzol Major Realm, one of the nine main branches of Nine Realms Tree. Each main branches as few thousand small realms. Since the war began, we have lost 4849 small realms, and one entire Major Realm.]

[The Terror Raids you are only shared between players of this small realm. Single-mode Terror Raids are rare but will also appear, either from slot-machine or from quest rewards.]

’Interesting. I like it.’

Aidan grinned. ’Then I must really clear this raid.’

[You surely can, just like many other in this small realm. The problem is, you all just haven’t realized and made use of all your potential, and that’s perfectly fine. That takes time and experience. This world has much more to explore and offer. The power you have seen so far is merely tip of the iceberg that you can’t imagine just yet. The only thing you need to worry about is not getting distracted. Your ultimate goal is to continously get stronger by using opportunities.]

’Thanks for the pep talk.’ Aidan chuckled. ’I’ll be on my way then.’

’Are y’all ready?’

[Arthur: I can’t wait! I just hope there are some interesting humanoids for me to eat.]

[Jovac: I have a feeling this dragon might eat me once he gets stronger than me.]

[Arthur: Tempting, but I can’t.]

[Tom: So that thought has crossed your mind, tsk.]

’We are entering.’

Aidan disappeared and arrived in a new world.

[Clear all five zones to earn the right to challenge Vorkapar, the Specter Dragon King. Defeat him, and the raid ends.]

[Total Attempts on Vorkapar: 376.]

The snow came up past his ankles, and the pond stretched out below the peak like a sheet of dark glass, koi of every color drifting beneath its surface in slow, lazy circles.

A chime sounded, and text unfolded across his vision.

[Tier-1 Zone: The Frozen Hearth. Condition to clear, listed below. Good luck.]

[Clear Condition: Reach the shrine at the summit before the pond fully freezes. Every fish you disturb becomes a Guardian. Guardians do not despawn.]

Aidan looked at the shrine, a small dark silhouette at the peak, then down at the pond full of colorful fish drifting peacefully under the ice.

’So the trick is, don’t touch the water.’ He rubbed his jaw. ’Cute. Except I’ve got three friends who’ve never once heard the word subtle.’

[Arthur: I would like to note that I am extremely subtle.]

[Tom: You once introduced yourself to a mountain by breathing fire at it.]

[Arthur: That mountain was rude first.]

’Just stay close and stay dry,’ Aidan thought, already climbing. ’We move fast, we move clean.’

The slope was steep and the wind bit hard, and for the first stretch it looked like an easy climb. Then the pond’s edge crept up alongside the trail, thin fingers of frozen water weaving between the rocks, and the koi followed beneath the ice like they were pacing him.

He kept his boots on stone. He kept Arthur’s wingtips tucked in. He watched every shimmer of color under the surface and gave it room.

Halfway up, a gust of wind staggered Jovan sideways, and his trailing sleeve dragged across a thin skin of ice at the trail’s edge.

The water beneath it rippled.

A koi the size of a wolf surged up through the ice without breaking it, its colors bleeding into a hard, armored blue, fins sharpening into blades.

[A Guardian has awakened.]

"My bad," Jovan said, entirely unbothered, as the thing lunged for his throat.

Aidan was already moving.

He caught the Guardian mid-air with a thread of electromagnetism, wrenched it sideways before its blades found Jovan, and drove a compressed bolt of lightning through its skull. It burst into a spray of frozen scales and settled back into the pond, still.

"One less mistake for you to make," Aidan said.

"No promises." Jovan didn’t sound sorry at all. "I am the Star of Miss Fortune."

They pushed on faster after that, more careful, the wind screaming harder the higher they climbed. Twice more a stray gust or a loose stone nudged the ice, and twice more a Guardian rose, and both times Aidan cut it down before it reached anyone.

The shrine grew closer, its outline sharpening against the grey sky, and the pond behind them had gone from a scatter of drifting color to a solid, unbroken white.

Then Arthur, wings tucked tight and trying so hard to be careful, clipped a low branch with his tail.

It shook loose an entire drift of snow, and the snow came down across a wide stretch of open water in one avalanche.

Every koi beneath it woke at once.

[Multiple Guardians have awakened.]

Aidan turned and looked at a rippling, cracking sheet of ice with a dozen armored shapes surging beneath it, all of them converging on the four of them at once.

"Arthur."

"I know! I know! I’m sorry!"

"No time for sorry. Burn it."

Arthur reared back and loosed a column of crimson-gold fire straight down the slope, and Aidan layered a spinning wall of wind-blade behind it, catching every Guardian that broke the surface and turning the whole avalanche of fish into a shower of frozen, cindered scales before a single one closed the distance.

The last one, biggest of the pack, exploded up right at Aidan’s feet, jaws wide.

He didn’t dodge. He caught it by the fin, spun once, and used its own momentum to slam it into the frozen ground hard enough to crack the ice beneath it clean through. It didn’t get back up.

Silence fell over the slope, broken only by the wind and Arthur’s guilty little cough.

"That’s a nine," Aidan said, deadpan. "Lost a point for the branch."

[Arthur: I’ll take it.]

They reached the shrine with the pond fully white behind them, every Guardian either dead or asleep in the ice, and the moment Aidan’s boot touched the summit stone, the wind fell still.

[Tier-1 Zone: The Frozen Hearth. Cleared.]

[Advancing to Tier-2 Zone.]

...

The shrine dissolved into grey mist, and when it cleared, they stood in a vast, silent cavern.

Crystal formations rose from the floor in jagged spires, catching a light that had no obvious source, and the air hummed with a low, constant note that Aidan felt more than heard.

[Tier-2 Zone: The Hollow Choir.]

[Clear Condition: Ten Discordant Wraiths haunt this cavern. Kill them all without letting them scream. A scream summons every remaining Wraith at once.]

Aidan tilted his head, listening to that faint, droning hum.

’A stealth clear. Interesting.’ He glanced sideways at his crew. ’This one’s mine alone. You three are a lot of things, but quiet isn’t one of them.’

[Jovan: Fair.]

[Arthur: I resent that, but also, fair.]

[Tom: I am extremely quiet, actually.]

’You float. You still complain the whole time.’

[Tom: That’s not the same as loud.]

He left them tucked against a crystal spire and moved into the cavern alone, boots silent on the cold stone, aspects folded down tight so nothing leaked.

The first Wraith hung near a spire ahead, a thin, twisting shape of grey smoke with a mouth stretched too wide, humming that same droning note under its breath.

Aidan didn’t rush it.

He wove a thread of wind into a silencer, a dead pocket of still air, and slid it over the Wraith like a glove before it ever sensed him behind it. Then a single point of burst, contained entirely inside the silence, ended it without a sound.

[Discordant Wraith slain. 1/10.]

The second and third hung close together near a fork in the crystal spires, humming in a slow, off-key harmony.

He caught them both in the same silencer, using electromagnetism to pin them in place first so neither could bolt for open air and drag out a scream. Two clean, quiet ends, one after the other.

[Discordant Wraiths slain. 3/10.]

He moved deeper, patient in a way that surprised even him, threading between spires, reading the hum for every new voice that joined the choir.

The seventh nearly caught him.

It hung directly above a narrow passage, and he almost walked beneath it before he caught the shift in pitch, one note rising sharp out of the drone. He froze mid-step, then eased back and came at it from above instead, dropping his silencer over its head before it ever opened its mouth.

[Discordant Wraiths slain. 7/10.]

The last three clustered together near the cavern’s heart, circling a tall crystal spire that pulsed faintly in time with their hum, and this time there was no room to isolate them one at a time.

’Fine.’ Aidan flexed his fingers. ’All three, one silence, zero mistakes.’

He built the widest silencer he’d ever made, a whole dome of dead air stretched thin over the three of them, and stepped inside it with them before it sealed. Then he ended all three inside the same held breath, one heartbeat apart, each kill landing before the last one’s death rattle could escape the dome.

[Discordant Wraiths slain. 10/10.]

[Tier-2 Zone: The Hollow Choir. Cleared.]

The hum died out entirely, and for the first time since he’d entered, the cavern was truly silent.

Aidan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and walked back to where his crew waited.

"Ten for ten," he said. "Not one scream."

[Arthur: Show off.]

[Jovan: Fortune says you are enjoying this raid a little too much.]

’Maybe a little.’

[Advancing to Tier-3 Zone.]

The cavern dissolved into grey mist, same as before, and the mist held a beat longer this time, thicker, before it finally began to clear.

[Tier-3 Zone: loading...]

Then the text solidified, and the four of them went very still.

[Status: Shared Zone.]

’Finally.’ Aidan grinned. ’The first real challenge is here.’

He lost in the first shared zone in his previous tries.

Although he had 400 Transcendent Points still left for four more tries, he didn’t want to go half-heartedly.

He was dead serious about clearing this raid in this try as he was fully locked in to unearth his potential and surpass himself.