After entering the transfer maze, the adventurer team reached the third level they had reached before in one go.
Compared to last time, this time was very easy.
Not only was Roxy back in the team, giving them a king-level magician again, but also because of Alexander, the current North God.
Even though Alexander never drew the great sword on his back, only using the sheath to attack and fight, he still showed amazing power, sweeping away almost all the monsters that appeared.
During the exploration, Shirou and Paul, the Swordsmen in charge of clearing out monsters, often didn't even have a chance to act. They just watched as Alexander swept the battlefield with overwhelming force.
Of course, since they already knew that he was the current North God, the team wasn't too surprised.
After reaching the third level, the number and quality of the monsters that attacked increased further.
The enemies were no longer just ordinary giant spiders and steel worms, but also many powerful monsters, such as skeletons and mud giants.
These huge monsters had extremely strong defense.
Even upper-level magic attacks could hardly affect them.
If Shirou swung the Longsword of Light, he could tear the monsters apart, but with so many monsters, he couldn't leave the group to hunt them alone. He had to stay and protect the others, especially Rudeus and Roxy, who lacked close combat ability.
Moreover, leader-level monsters appeared on the third level. These leader monsters had higher intelligence than ordinary monsters and could even command weaker monsters to fight.
Therefore, the monsters' actions were no longer instinctive fighting, but became an orderly state, attacking in groups.
When Paul and the others had previously tried to clear the third level on their own, it was because there were too many monsters, and the number kept increasing. Roxy, whose main attack method was magic, couldn't end the battles alone, and her magic power and stamina were constantly drained. Eventually, she made a fatal mistake and stepped on a transfer trap.
This time, coming to the third level again, Roxy had made full preparations and vowed not to make any mistakes again.
But she never expected that when the battle started, the actual situation would be completely different from what she had imagined.
"Boom!"
After reaching the third level, Alexander suddenly laughed and charged straight into the horde of monsters as the vanguard.
Because his actions were too sudden, the others didn't even have time to stop him and could only watch as Alexander was swallowed by the tide of monsters.
"This…"
Paul, as the leader, opened his mouth in shock and didn't know what to say for a moment. It took him a while to remember to save him.
But before he could speak, an incredible scene suddenly occurred.
"Boom!"
An exaggerated sword attack, impossible to describe in words, suddenly erupted from the tide of monsters. The sword attack, dozens of meters in size, swept across the ground and all the way to the ceiling of the maze, tearing a crack in the ceiling before finally stopping.
Wherever the sword attack passed, all the monsters were destroyed as if they had been erased from existence.
The monsters' hard shells couldn't withstand the sword attack at all. Before they could even scream, they were completely wiped out.
When everything was over, the figure of the black-haired boy holding the giant sheath appeared before everyone.
Alexander still looked the same, without even drawing his sword. He calmly put the sheath back on his back and walked towards the others, with hardly any monster blood on him.
"What's wrong?"
Seeing Paul and the others staring in amazement, Alexander didn't seem to understand their shock.
He just smiled and said to Shirou, "Well, this is my first time teaming up with others to enter a maze. It feels different from being alone."
What's different?
For a moment, everyone couldn't help but complain in their hearts, and they were also completely impressed by Alexander's exaggerated strength.
…
With Alexander, this powerful warrior, leading the way, the difficult maze exploration unknowingly became as easy as a picnic.
No matter what monsters they encountered, Alexander could tear them apart with just one sword attack.
His extremely exaggerated sword attack was enough to prove his identity as the current North God, with the powerful strength to rank seventh among the Seven Great Powers.
However, compared to the others, Shirou didn't show too much surprise at Alexander's strength.
Because over the years, he had already met several of the Seven Great Powers, and had even fought against the Dragon God Orsted, who ranked second.
Shirou no longer had much awe for the existence of the Seven Great Powers.
Therefore, when facing Alexander, Shirou certainly acknowledged his strength and had no doubt that he was the North God. However, after watching Alexander's battles, Shirou quickly discovered Alexander's weakness, or rather, his relatively weak point.
That was that his fighting spirit was indeed very strong, and the exaggerated sword attack was comparable to the power of the Holy Sword. However, Alexander was clearly too dependent on his strong fighting spirit, so his swordsmanship skills were somewhat lacking.
At least, compared to the North God the Second he had seen, Alexander's swordsmanship seemed too immature, even green.
If it weren't for the King Dragon Sword on his back, Shirou suspected that Alexander's strength was far inferior to the North God the Second, not as good as the leader of the Water God Style, the current Water God Reida Reia, let alone being compared to the Sword God.
But since Alexander was recognized by the Seven Great Powers stone tablet and ranked seventh in the world, it meant that his strength could be even higher if he drew the King Dragon Sword.
But could just a weapon achieve such an effect?
Shirou instinctively felt confused and became even more curious about what the true form of the so-called King Dragon Sword was.
…
After destroying another wave of enemies, the adventurer team broke through the third level.
Thanks to Alexander's excellent performance, the team completed a level of the maze so easily for the first time, or rather, it was a bit too easy.
Not to mention Swordsmen like Shirou and Paul, even magicians like Rudeus and Roxy had few chances to act.
All the dangers in the maze were dealt with.
So the team smoothly reached the fourth level of the maze.
As soon as they stepped into the magic circle leading to the fourth level, the surrounding environment changed completely. Not only did the colors become deeper, but the magic power emitted was also more terrifying.
"I heard that mazes were created by the demons a long time ago."
Roxy, who was bored during the process, simply shared her knowledge of mazes. "It is said that at first, a certain demon king thousands of years ago built the first generation of mazes in order to create a paradise for demons to live in, and established the essence that the maze itself has a thinking core. Because of this self-operating mechanism, later mazes didn't need any management and would operate on their own, but they would also devour innocent people around them to maintain the endless magic power inside."
"So that's how it is."
Shirou listened very carefully. "Then why did the demons stop managing the mazes later?"
"Because of the Human-Demon War."
Being stared at so seriously by Shirou, Roxy blushed inexplicably. "Because of the Human-Demon War, the demons suffered heavy casualties and were forced to move from various continents and retreat to the Demon Continent. Therefore, the mazes built on other continents were abandoned."
Hearing these stories, Shirou found it very interesting and couldn't help but praise, "Roxy teacher is really knowledgeable."
"No, not really, just lived a little longer."
Roxy instinctively lowered her head, seemingly shy from Shirou's praise.
She then suddenly looked up and said to Shirou, "Hey, Shirou…"
"What's wrong?"
"If we can successfully rescue Zenith and don't have anything else to do in the future, would you like to explore mazes with me? Although it's not very convincing for me to say this directly, exploring mazes is actually very fun. Would you be interested in forming a team with me to challenge simpler mazes together?"
"Explore mazes?"
Hearing Roxy's invitation, Shirou was a little tempted.
He used to be a person who loved adventure. Although his memories were very vague, before the fire, he had various ideals and goals.
However, his fate was changed by the fire.
The obsession with becoming an ally of justice completely bound his fate.
Then, when the Miyu incident happened, he abandoned the justice he had once believed in and became the empty shell he was now, with only the sole purpose of protecting his family.
If, if he could really break free from all the fates, maybe he could indeed abandon those meaningless worries and live more freely.
Shirou's thoughts wandered.
He was about to respond to Roxy when he suddenly saw Alexander cut in from the side.
"What are you talking about? Shirou is going to become a hero with me in the future! I've taken a liking to him and decided to make him my partner!"
Alexander declared to Roxy without hesitation.
This really made Shirou helpless, because he had never agreed to Alexander's conditions.
Faced with Alexander's snatching, Roxy also showed considerable surprise.
But she did not back down when facing a North God, and instead said seriously, "The world doesn't need so many heroes. Everyone just needs to do their job well."
"You underestimate Shirou too much."
Alexander had an expression that said, "You really don't understand." "As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. He is someone I value, and what awaits him is not an ordinary adventurer's life, but a path as dazzling as light, where he challenges the Demon King and defeats the gods with me."
"That's just your own idea. Shirou doesn't necessarily want to do such a thing? Or rather, is there any point in challenging the Demon King and the gods?"
"The point is to be able to become famous for generations, like the North God the First and the North God the Second, leaving the legend of yourself and your partners on paper to be passed down by later generations!"
"That kind of thing is meaningless, too. People will die in the end."
"It's precisely in order to make death no longer the end, in order to pass on life and will, that we need to become heroes!"
"…"
Alexander and Roxy engaged in a tit-for-tat debate.
Neither of them would give way to the other, and they had a fight that made everyone present helpless.
In the end, they decided to let Shirou give the answer, to see which side he would choose.
"Shirou, what should we do?"
Rudeus looked over awkwardly.
"Ignore them."
Shirou really didn't know what to say about this. After all, he didn't even know what kind of path he wanted to take, so how could he answer these two people's questions?
So he went directly to the front of the team and cleared the way with Paul.
During the process, he found that the weapon Paul used was quite unique. Although it was a magic sword he had seen since he was a child, he had never understood the effect of this magic sword.
Paul then proudly explained that his magic sword was a magic item he had accidentally bought a long time ago, with the [Armor Piercing] ability that made the blade sharper the tougher the opponent was.
Because its effect was too special, it could only work when facing tough objects. Otherwise, it couldn't even cut jerky, so the shopkeeper sold it as scrap metal at a low price.
Paul claimed that he saw the ability of this sword with his own keen eye, but Shirou thought it was probably luck, or that he had just seen a similar story.
In short, the effect of the magic sword he possessed was quite considerable. Even the monsters on the fourth level could be easily cut through. Or rather, the deeper they went and the stronger the monsters were, the higher the effect of the magic sword was.
Finally, the team successfully broke through the fourth level and arrived at the fifth level.
The difficulty of the maze increased level by level. The threat of the monsters on the fifth level was even more exaggerated. Even the lowest level monsters were A-level, and S-level monsters were everywhere.
But these still couldn't pose a threat to the adventurer team.
After all, the existence of the current North God was too much of a cheat. Alexander alone could solve all the opponents, and with Shirou's Clairvoyance, he could see through the traps in the maze. The team was like playing a game with a cheat, just pushing straight through.
In this way, the fifth level was quickly broken through, and the team arrived at the sixth level.
The end of the maze was almost within reach!
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