After getting through the fifth level of the transfer maze, the next one is the sixth level.
The sixth level of the transfer maze is full of monsters called Gluttony Demons. They look like demons and can move freely on all the walls, making them very dangerous.
Just one of these is enough for an A-level adventurer request.
And the sixth level is completely filled with these monsters.
The only way to deal with them is to have strong warriors in the front to block the enemy's attacks, while the mages in the back use all their power to blast them.
Even then, the front-line warriors might not be able to hold out. They would be hit by endless waves of monsters. If there's any opening, the Gluttony Demons will use their fast movement to break through and threaten the mages in the back, possibly wiping out the entire adventurer team.
Of course, all of this describes what usually happens when ordinary adventurer teams take on requests.
After Shirou and his team got to the sixth level, their way of handling things was pretty much the same as the previous levels.
Alexander, the North God, just attacked mindlessly in the front, tearing apart the monsters like they were waves. The others could only watch as he swept away all the monsters. At most, Rudeus and Roxy would cast a few spells as a show.
After sweeping away the monsters, the Gluttony Demons' nest appeared in front of them.
The room was filled with a large number of Gluttony Demons, and there were countless eggs in the corners.
Just looking at it made them shiver.
However, after getting here, Shirou and the others didn't just kill monsters anymore. They started looking for Zenith.
After all, the information they had was that Zenith was likely trapped in the deepest part of the transfer maze.
This was already the sixth level, and unless there was a hidden room, it was basically the deepest part.
But in the end, they searched everywhere and couldn't find any trace of Zenith.
With no other choice, they had to search every inch of the place.
During the search, Rudeus was curious about the ecology of the monsters and asked Roxy, "Roxy, what do monsters eat to survive?"
"Well...there are different theories, but the most common one is that they feed on magical power."
"Magical power?"
"Yes, because according to the theories of the magic university, magical power might be the foundation of everything in this world. After their bodies are specially changed, some creatures can use magical power as their food, and even exist forever by relying on it."
Roxy slowly explained, "Based on my own guess, that's how it is. Because there's more and more evidence that the maze itself is a kind of monster. And if the maze is a monster, its existence can only be based on magical power. Since the maze has existed for thousands of years and can survive for so long by relying on magical power, then some special creatures can naturally do something similar."
"I see."
Rudeus looked like he understood and showed respect to Roxy.
Roxy enjoyed this.
After all, being respected by Rudeus, who she thought was a genius, made Roxy feel very proud and happy.
She then said to Paul and the others, "No matter what monsters eat, the fact that they will attack humans doesn't change. So, we should destroy all the monster eggs we see, otherwise the monsters that are born here in the future will still attack humans."
Paul and the others thought Roxy's words made sense.
Even Alexander changed his earlier attitude and nodded in agreement, "I didn't expect you to be so knowledgeable at such a young age. I underestimated you, little one."
"Who are you calling little one! And I might be older than you!"
"Haha, are you sure?"
Alexander looked at Roxy like she was a kid.
Roxy was unconvinced, but she couldn't say anything.
Because Alexander was an undead, no one knew how old he really was. Judging from the fact that North God the Second was famous hundreds of years ago, he was at least a hundred years old.
Roxy herself was already in her forties, but she couldn't compare to Alexander.
Shirou, who was watching this, really didn't know what to say.
Both Roxy and Alexander were so old, but they were acting like children.
He had heard there was a study that said the physical body affects the mind, and the age of the body is more easily reflected in the spirit. Perhaps that was the reason.
Next, they quickly destroyed all the monster eggs.
Alexander was very serious when doing this meaningless repetitive work. He was clearly trying to play the role of a hero, destroying every monster egg that might threaten ordinary people in order to prevent more people from being in danger.
This made Shirou realize even more that although Alexander was flashy and sought fame, his sense of justice wasn't fake.
Compared to Shirou himself now, Alexander was clearly more like a true ally of justice...
"Shirou, what are you thinking about? Come and help."
"Okay."
Hearing Paul's words, Shirou also started to destroy the demon eggs.
...
After completely destroying the demon nest, Shirou and the others arrived at the deepest part of the transfer maze.
It was a wide, stone room.
It was square in shape, with a magic circle near each wall opposite the entrance.
It didn't seem special.
But the fact that it wasn't special was what made this place strange. After all, this was the deepest part of the maze, but there weren't any monsters. It was eerily quiet.
It could only be described as abnormal.
"Based on experience, one of these two magic circles will lead to the true depths of the maze, which will be the core of the maze and will have a guardian."
Paul said quietly, showing his rich experience in maze exploration.
The others present looked nervous and gripped their weapons tightly, except for Alexander, who still had a smile on his face and showed no signs of nervousness.
"The next thing is to figure out which of these two magic circles is the right one."
Geese said quietly and went forward to observe, but he couldn't figure it out for a long time.
Roxy and Rudeus, the two mages, also came to study the magic circles, but they also couldn't see anything special about them for a long time.
"Choosing between two is too bad."
Geese finally sighed, "Choosing between two is really bad. It would be better to have three choices."
"Why?"
After hearing this, Rudeus couldn't help but ask, confused, not understanding why he cared about the two choices so much.
"Because if we have to choose between two, we'll definitely choose the wrong one. It's a rule."
Geese shook his head, "In the past, in Black Wolf's Fang, this kind of choice could only be made by Ghislaine, otherwise it would definitely fail."
Hearing this, Paul and the others nodded in agreement, acknowledging this.
"The Ghislaine you're talking about, is it the Black Wolf Sword King Ghislaine?"
Alexander suddenly said from the side.
"Yes, she was our former teammate."
"Oh, that Sword King Ghislaine actually...your team is really interesting."
Alexander seemed to highly respect Ghislaine, and he looked at Paul and the others in a better light because of it.
"So what should we do next?"
Elinalise's words brought everyone back to the main topic.
There were two magic circles, which one should they choose?
"Let me take a look."
Seeing that everyone was struggling, Shirou quietly came to the magic circles. He activated his Clairvoyance and observed the patterns of the two magic circles one by one, but he couldn't see any obvious differences.
Just then, he suddenly noticed that the structure of the room itself looked quite unique. Even though it was the deepest part of the maze, it had a narrow and deep structure.
Usually, this kind of structure would have a hidden layer.
But ordinary people wouldn't be able to tell even if they guessed there was a hidden layer. But Shirou was different. He could see through the hidden parts with his Clairvoyance.
So, in front of everyone, he went around the two magic circles and gently kicked the ground a few times, confirming the empty structure below.
"The core is here."
Shirou said quietly.
Everyone was surprised.
Alexander even walked up and slashed with his sword, instantly tearing the ground open.
After confirming that there really was a hidden room underground, everyone looked happy and praised Shirou.
But Shirou himself wasn't too happy about this. His expression became serious as they got closer to finishing the maze.
Things were going too smoothly, which made him uneasy. He felt like he had missed something.
This wasn't just Shirou's own intuition, it was also Mind's Eye warning him.
Usually, in this kind of situation, Shirou would trust the judgment of Mind's Eye one hundred percent. Even if he didn't feel like there were any mistakes, he would follow the judgment and take the most cautious approach.
But now, he was just one step away from the end.
And they had Alexander, a top-level fighter, with them.
There was no reason to back down now.
While Shirou was thinking, everyone had already come to the magic circle and found that it was a red color, like the color of blood.
"Let's move forward."
Paul said without hesitation, making the decision to move forward.
He was clearly the most anxious person present, eager to rescue Zenith from the depths of the maze.
Since Alexander was there, the others didn't think they would have any problems with the enemy in the deepest part of the transfer maze, so they all nodded in agreement.
So, Shirou couldn't make a decision to refuse.
Before entering the maze, Paul seemed like he wanted to say something, but Rudeus strongly suggested that he not say anything unnecessary.
Because in Rudeus's opinion, any words at this crucial moment would create a flag, and this kind of thing should never be raised carelessly.
Paul was frustrated by this, but he didn't force anything. He quickly cheered up and stepped onto the magic circle with everyone.
After passing through the magic circle, they arrived at an extremely wide space.
It was a rectangular hall about the size of a baseball field, looking like a palace. There were several thick pillars standing in the corners, and the ceiling was so high that they had to tilt their heads back to see it. The ground was covered with something like tiles, each engraved with complex patterns.
"Roar!"
Before everyone could react, the guardian of the palace roared.
It was a huge monster, about twice the size of the Red Dragon. Even from a distance, they could see its bright green scales. Most importantly, it had nine heads.
"This is a Hydra? It's the first time I've seen one of these..."
Geese was knowledgeable and recognized it right away.
He then explained to everyone that Hydras were one of the rarest monsters on the Demon Continent, a sub-species of dragons. Their strength was no less than ordinary dragons.
Ordinary adventurer teams naturally wouldn't dare to fight this kind of creature.
But for Shirou's team, this wasn't a problem.
Both Shirou and Alexander had the strength to defeat dragons.
So, everyone moved forward right away and quickly found a magic crystal at the deepest part of the room, and found Zenith trapped inside the magic crystal, looking like a princess waiting for a hero to rescue her!
"Zenith!"
Paul lost control of his emotions and rushed up, alerting the Hydra.
The others in the team looked panicked, but they couldn't stop Paul.
"I'll help!"
Seeing this, Roxy cast a spell towards the Hydra right away.
Rudeus also started to cast a spell.
However, their spells didn't hurt it at all. Both Roxy's and Rudeus' spells bounced off the Hydra's scales.
The Hydra had extremely high magic resistance!
"I'll do it!"
Seeing this, Shirou decisively drew the Dragon Sword of Beauty and Grace from his waist and rushed to help Paul.
His Longsword of Light was so fast that it passed Paul and reached the Hydra—
"Thump!"
Shirou swung his sword, and one of the Hydra's heads flew into the air.
Paul was just as strong, swinging a slash almost as fast as the Longsword of Light and cutting off the Hydra's second head.
Just when everyone thought that the Hydra was just big and not a big deal, Roxy suddenly noticed that the heads that had been cut off were regenerating very quickly.
"Be careful!"
She shouted a warning, but she realized that Alexander had already rushed past her at an extremely fast speed.
The aura unleashed by the current North God scattered everyone, and he put his hand on the long sword behind his back for the first time, laughing and shouting:
"This is the opponent that my heroic tale needs! You all step back!"
Before Shirou and Paul could react, a terrifying and indescribable phantom appeared from reality, tearing the space apart in one go, turning everything it saw into nothingness!
"Crack!"
The first thing they heard was a sound like glass breaking.
What followed was the sound of explosions in the air.
Every bit of air in the empty room was affected by some terrifying power at this moment, gradually forming exaggerated turbulence, concentrating on one point.
That was the middle point between the Hydra and Alexander.
"Boom!"
Finally, in the moment when everyone's hearts almost stopped beating, a slash that split the space appeared, clearly appearing in reality.
By the time everything was over.
The Hydra's movements had completely stopped.
This terrifying monster, which would take ordinary adventurers days to defeat, was almost killed by Alexander in just one attack.
Blood was flowing from all parts of its body, and it was starting to show obvious signs of sluggishness and death.
But the Hydra hadn't completely died yet.
It struggled desperately in its death throes, and turned its head to surround the huge magic crystal behind it in one go, directly merging it into its body.
With the help of the magical power provided by the magic crystal, it successfully maintained its life.
"Heh, clinging to life, quickly die, hateful beast!"
Alexander laughed and rushed towards the Hydra, his greatsword already sheathed, because the dying Hydra was no longer worthy of bearing the power of the King Dragon Sword.
Alexander could kill the Hydra completely with just one casual attack.
However, Alexander's final attack didn't land.
Or rather, he had already swung it, but Shirou stopped him at the last moment with an attack that was faster than the eye could see.
"What are you doing?"
Alexander looked at Shirou confused.
And Shirou looked at him with an uncontrollable gaze and said, "I want to ask you...what are you doing? If you kill the Hydra now, you'll kill Zenith in the magic crystal too!"
"What's the problem with that?"
Alexander asked casually, "She's already been merged with the magic crystal, so she's basically one with this maze. If you want to destroy this maze and completely solve the problem, it's impossible to let her live. Do you want to save her or something?"
"What?"
Shirou's eyes widened, hearing this for the first time.
Now, he finally realized where the sense of wrongness he had been feeling all along came from.
During the time he had been with Alexander, it seemed like his only goal was to conquer the transfer maze and destroy the maze to make a name for himself.
On the other hand, Shirou and the others' goal was to save Zenith.
At first, Shirou didn't think there was any conflict between these two goals. After conquering the transfer maze, they would naturally be able to save Zenith.
But at this final moment, he finally realized that there was a fatal flaw in his thinking.
Zenith had been merged with the transfer maze. If they wanted to save Zenith, they couldn't completely destroy the transfer maze.
And Alexander's goal was to completely destroy the transfer maze.
This was a decisive contradiction!
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