Chapter 274: The Hundredth Gate
Morning found another B-Rank Gate already secured by Association personnel. Kai, Sera, Raze, Lily, Mira, and Elden stood before it together, and nobody joked much this time.
Everyone understood. Only three remained.
Kai looked toward the Gate. "...Let’s finish this."
The Gate opened into a shattered volcanic canyon, rivers of magma cutting through cracked black stone while ash drifted constantly through the burning air. Before the six of them had fully stepped inside, dozens of Flame Beasts burst from the lava, roaring as they charged.
Kai disappeared first.
Air Step.
His Fractured Blade flashed through the first monster’s neck before it even landed. Tempest Fang shot overhead, exploding into crackling lightning that chained through an entire pack.
"Left side," Kai called.
He didn’t need to say anything else.
Sera was already there.
Golden light erupted beneath her boots as she slammed her shield into a charging Lava Brute, throwing the massive creature back into three more monsters. Floating swords filled the sky before raining downward, each one finding a different target.
Lily’s relay relic activated.
Silver runes spread beneath her feet.
Twelve Spirit Archers appeared across the canyon cliffs.
The battlefield instantly became a web of arrows.
One monster dodged.
Straight into another shot.
Another tried hiding behind a boulder.
An arrow curved around it.
Three elite monsters fell before reaching the front line.
Raze laughed.
"Too slow!"
Battle Roar erupted.
Blood Armor spread over his shoulders as he crashed into the largest monster in sight.
BOOOOOOOM!!
His greatsword split both the monster and the stone beneath it, Blood Waves racing through the canyon and tearing apart everything behind it.
Mira calmly walked into the remaining horde.
Every claw and fang struck Iron Fortress instead of flesh.
Her armor absorbed every impact.
"...Finished?"
Blast Maul slammed downward.
Iron Pulse exploded outward.
The entire front line disappeared beneath the shockwave.
Behind them, Elden quietly planted another chain of runes.
Gravity suddenly multiplied beneath dozens of surviving monsters.
They collapsed to one knee.
Stone pillars erupted beneath them.
Arc Lances descended from above.
Kai blurred through the opening.
Three clean strikes.
The elite commander fell.
The volcanic cavern shook violently.
The boss—a colossal Magma Tyrant—rose from the lava lake with a roar.
It managed exactly one attack.
Kai severed one arm.
Sera blinded it with a wave of golden swords.
Raze cut through its chest.
Mira crushed its leg.
Elden pinned it in place.
Kai finished it.
Everything happened in less than thirty seconds.
The System appeared.
[Dungeon Cleared.]
[Boss Defeated.]
...
The next dungeon resembled an endless frozen wasteland.
Snowstorms reduced visibility to only a few meters.
Ice Wraiths drifted silently between ruined towers while Frost Giants marched through the blizzard.
Kai smiled.
"...Visibility’s terrible."
Lily answered immediately.
"Not for me."
Spirit Archers appeared above the clouds themselves.
Silver arrows punched through the snowstorm before the monsters even realized they’d been discovered.
The first Frost Giant lost its head before completing its first step.
Kai sprinted forward.
Mirror-like ice erupted beneath him.
He switched to Rootbreaker.
One swing shattered the frozen ground.
Entire sections of the battlefield collapsed beneath the advancing monsters.
Sera Position Swapped into the center of a Wraith formation.
Golden Light Wave expanded in every direction.
The spirits vanished instantly.
Raze became a crimson blur.
Warstep carried him straight into the Giant formation.
Blood Spears filled the sky.
Hundreds of crimson lances crashed downward.
The snowstorm disappeared beneath explosions.
Mira intercepted a charging Ice Colossus.
It swung a fist the size of a wagon.
She caught it.
The impact echoed across the frozen valley.
"...Heavy."
She smiled.
"I’ve handled worse."
Blast Maul answered.
The Colossus exploded into shards of crystal.
Meanwhile Elden quietly watched the storm.
"...Interesting."
Runes spread beneath the snow.
The blizzard itself changed direction.
Visibility returned only for the six of them.
The monsters remained completely blind.
Kai laughed.
"...You weaponized the weather."
"...It was available."
The Frost King emerged from beneath an ancient glacier.
Level 63.
It raised an entire mountain of ice.
Kai never stopped moving.
Tempest Fang.
Bloodthorn.
Null Fang.
Four weapons struck from different angles simultaneously.
The glacier shattered.
Sera’s radiant swords pierced straight through its exposed core.
The Frost King collapsed.
The blizzard disappeared.
Blue windows appeared again.
[Dungeon Cleared.]
[Boss Defeated.]
[Distortion Applied.]
[Reward Quality: Optimized.]
Another gate shattered behind them.
Silence.
Sera said quietly, "...One more."
Kai nodded. "...Let’s finish what we started."
...
The final gate opened into ancient ruins beneath a crimson sunset, and everyone immediately felt something different. The monsters were stronger, faster, like the dungeon itself knew this was the last one.
Kai slowly drew the Fractured Blade. "...Let’s end it."
The ruins exploded as Stone Titans climbed from beneath broken temples, Flying Wyverns descended from above, and Shadow Assassins burst from shattered walls, three directions, all at once.
Kai smiled. "...Perfect."
The team separated naturally. Sera intercepted the Wyverns before they reached Lily, golden swords filling the sky, and one Wyvern exploded, then another, then another. Lily’s relay network expanded farther than ever before, twenty Spirit Archers spread across every rooftop, every broken pillar, every tower, until the battlefield became hers and no monster could move without entering someone’s line of fire.
Raze charged directly into two Stone Titans, Blood Tyrant surging, one swing splitting the first Titan while the backswing destroyed the second, and he laughed louder with every kill. "This is what I’m talking about!"
Mira anchored the center as Shadow Assassins crashed into Iron Fortress from every direction, none of them breaking through, Iron Pulse erupting repeatedly, every shockwave clearing another section of the battlefield.
Elden reshaped the ruins, collapsed bridges becoming walls, walls becoming ramps, entire buildings rotating under gravity manipulation until the monsters suddenly found themselves trapped inside their own city.
Kai became the executioner. Ashen Seal activated, and five weapons orbited him simultaneously, Tempest Fang, Rootbreaker, Bloodthorn, Verdant Fang, Null Fang, every step another monster falling, every swing another elite disappearing, until within minutes only the boss remained.
The Guardian Emperor. A gigantic armored king wielding a blade taller than most buildings. It roared, and Kai answered by charging.
The emperor’s sword descended. Sera redirected the strike, Mira stopped its advance, Raze broke its balance, and Elden sealed its feet, and Kai leaped, Null Fang forming in his hand. One black slash.
Silence. The Emperor split cleanly down the middle.
The dungeon froze. Then everything shattered into blue light.
[Dungeon Cleared.] [Boss Defeated.]
The six of them stood silently as the dungeon collapsed around them, and without needing to say anything, they turned together and sprinted toward the exit. Moments later, they burst through the gate just as the entire dungeon imploded behind them.
Outside, the B-Rank Gate shattered into countless fragments of light, and an Association worker stared at the tablet in his trembling hands. "...One hundred."
Nobody spoke.
Over a month of preparation.
Thousands of monsters fallen along the way.
They’d actually done it.
The city waited for something to happen. Normally a notification would have appeared by now, confirming the milestone the way it always did.
Nothing came.
Silence stretched on, seconds ticking past with no confirmation at all.
Then the air changed.
The wind stopped entirely, mid-gust, like something had simply switched it off. Leaves froze in place on their branches. Conversations across the plaza died out one at a time as people noticed the stillness settling in around them.
Kai looked upward slowly. "...It’s starting."
Nobody around him fully understood what they were feeling, but everyone felt it at the same moment, an overwhelming pressure pressing down from somewhere beyond the sky itself.
...
Far outside the city birds took flight all at once, entire flocks abandoning the surrounding forest in a single panicked wave. Deer bolted through the underbrush. Wolves ran alongside them instead of hunting them. Even monsters that should have attacked anything moving that fast simply fled in the same direction as everything else.
Flowers wilted where they stood. Green grass darkened to something closer to ash. Trees swayed violently despite the complete absence of wind.
The entire region reacted at once, every living thing moving away from a single point on the horizon.
Several hunters posted at the outer watch stepped back instinctively. "...What’s happening?"
Kai didn’t answer. He already knew.
The Candidate had shown him exactly this, weeks ago, in a memory that no longer felt like someone else’s history.
Far outside the city, one ordinary B-Rank gate stood exactly where it always had. Blue. Calm. Nothing about it distinguishing it from a hundred others they’d already cleared.
Then its light flickered.
Blue to white.
Silence held for a long moment as the white deepened, brightening past anything natural.
Then it turned red.
The color darkened steadily, thick crimson mana beginning to pour from the gate’s surface in slow, heavy waves. The ground beneath it started dying on contact, flowers wilting instantly, grass blackening in a widening ring. Insects fled the area entirely. Birds scattered from the treeline overhead. The surrounding forest fell completely silent, no wind, no birdsong, nothing.
Cracks spread through the earth radiating outward from the gate’s base.
Hunters stationed at the nearby Association outpost backed away slowly, weapons half-raised despite nobody giving an order to draw them.
One whispered, barely audible, "...What—"
The gate pulsed once, hard enough that the ground itself shuddered.
Then its color settled into a deep, blood-dark crimson.
Exactly as the Candidate had shown them.
System windows opened in front of every awakened person in Mythal at the exact same moment. Not just Kai. Everyone.
The familiar blue interface had changed entirely, text bleeding in one slow line at a time.
[Condition Met.]
[100 B-Rank Dungeons Cleared.]
[First Disaster Initializing...]
Silence held over the entire city. Nobody breathed.
Then one final line appeared.
[Disaster Target: Mythal.]
Kai stood perfectly still, staring out at the crimson gate glowing faintly on the horizon.
Behind him stretched an empty city, streets cleared, homes locked and waiting.
Ahead of him waited the beginning of humanity’s first true trial, exactly the one he’d spent months preparing for, and exactly the one no civilization before his had ever survived.