"Do you know what is inside?"

Sam asked the noble kid who followed him. But the latter only shook his head. Sam thought for a second and activated fire elemental fusion to a complete state and walked into the flames.

The flames toned down a bit compared to the first time they are here.

But still, they are extremely intense and it is still trying to devour Sam. He felt like some foreign body like a parasite is trying to infect him and eat him up from inside and there is a prickling sensation in his body.

He walked to the center of the flaming inferno to see what the person who is responsible for this is burning.

He found out that there are two corpses inside and he brought them out.

By now the corpses are completely unrecognizable. It is impossible to recognize who it is just from looking. The bodies are that damaged and there is barely any flesh left on those withered bones.

But they managed to find out something that could give them some clues. The spatial rings.

Even though it is damaged a lot and space inside was almost collapsed because of the damage, it is still accessible.

When they took the belongings of both the victims from inside, Sam was surprised. There are two very familiar tokens inside the spatial rings.

The access tokens for the Palace of inheritance.

The Palace of inheritance this time also turned out to be an open one and in fact, there are a lot more people entering than the previous open ones.

At first, Sam just suspected the motives of the attacker when she attacked Arkiv, but now that he saw these two people, he is sure that whoever it is that made the attack is trying to thin the numbers that enter the Palace of inheritance.

If Sam didn't retrieve the corpses, the tokens would have been destroyed along with the spatial rings and the number of tokens is limited. It would have been perfect.

He looked at the corpses and the forest fire intently, before he took a deep breath and said to the noble kid.

"Tell, the king about this news one way or the other. The people who are going to enter the Palace of inheritance are being attacked by someone. Tell him to do as he sees fit."

He doesn't know who the other party is nor the clear motives on why that person is killing the candidates for Palace of inheritance.

Maybe that person is also someone who managed to qualify for the Palace of inheritance and wanted to reduce her competition, but as far as Sam knew there is no one with black flames in the candidates selected by the winged race.

He was there for the tournament and he is sure of it. This reminded him of another possibility, the mysterious hidden player.

The hidden player that didn't show their face until now.

Maybe that player is responsible for this. After all, this Palace of inheritance is that player's and it would be advantageous for that person to thin down the numbers properly.

But still, he cannot be sure until he confirmed it by himself.

After the forest patch completely burned down and making sure it didn't spread everywhere randomly, Sam returned to the city with the rest of the people following him.

While they are moving in the city all of a sudden, they heard an explosion nearby and a faint trace of the black flames could be seen.

Sam immediately made his move, the area is where most inns are present and that is also where some players are living. When he reached the place, he could see Donner fighting with a woman who is covered completely in black.

If not for her chest, it would have been impossible to find out her gender.

Donner is clearly on losing side and she is dancing around daggers as he dealt with him easily.

There are already several scars on his body with the black flame burning on them.

Sam quickly made his way towards her to get a look at her. He couldn't care less about the life and death of Donner, after all, if the situation arises, he might kill that guy himself, but he has to see who she is so that he could be prepared. Two of the players are his friends or companions after all. He couldn't let them be killed by someone like this.

But as soon as he neared the area, she looked at him and left the place in a pull of black smoke as she turned into a shadow and merged into the darkness.

Sam activated his energy vision to take a look at the surroundings and tried to find her, but to his surprise, he couldn't see a single trace of her energy. She really disappeared into thin air. Even the ghosts are visible under the energy vision as long as they have a trace of spiritual energy on them.

But she managed to disappear into thin air.

Sam felt really frustrated for a second. For the first time in a while, he felt that situation is completely out of his control.

He returned to his residence and Arkiv is still resting, the whole residence is guarded by his subordinates. She would have to create a large commotion if she really attacked this area and they are extremely close to the noble households.

For the next few days, the cases of the black flame lady's appearance increased rapidly, many people that are selected for the Palace of inheritance died and the king didn't take any action. In fact, he even ordered the city guards to not meddle if the battle is between the candidates of the Palace of inheritance.

Sam is not completely surprised by this attitude.

The attitude for the first and second Palace of inheritances is similar, the thunder god temple and other major powers are not allowed to attack the candidates with the Palace of inheritance token on them as long as they are within their grounds.

Only if the fight is fair, they would be exempted, but if it is not, then they would face the wrath of the Avatar from the Palace of inheritance.

He just wanted to see if the person who attacked is also considered the candidate by asking the king to take action and it is confirmed now.

Sam tried his best to track and follow this woman, but he couldn't.

Every time the people that are attacked are random and no one could guess who the next target is.

All the players except for Sam and Arman were attacked at least once in the first week and there is only a week left for the day of the Palace opening.

And the attacks increased. By now almost all the candidates with the tokens other than the players are all gone.

The situation is completely chaotic. Even though some tokens are saved, nobody dared to hold them. They are all sent back to the king. Only one candidate was left and he is a prince and he didn't dare leave the side of his father.

When the day of the opening is nearing, Sam was called to the Palace by the king.

"Do you know who is doing this?"

"Not really, she didn't show her face once"

"Is it okay for my son to go inside with you guys?"

"Actually, the returns will be great, if he manages to survive, but it would be difficult. The survival rate inside the Palace is high, but not for the outsiders. There is a ninety percent chance that your son would die, even if he didn't die because of that woman, there is a chance he would die just from the tests inside.

If you ask me, I would tell you to not send him in."

The brief meeting really changed the King's mind. He really didn't send his son, rather he decided to give this chance to his son's study attendant. Even though it could be seen as cruel, the study attendant volunteered himself to do so, so that they wouldn't miss what is truly happening inside.

As the days passed, the day finally came.

All the players and the study attendant of the prince came towards the imperial palace of grounds.

When they arrived, they finally saw the woman in black.

All the players are looking at her with resentment. Players didn't die in her hands, but they sure as hell are injured. Except for Arman and Sam whom she didn't attack, Noah and Akhil are the only ones completely unscathed even after she attacked them.

They managed to defend themselves and even push her back.

But the rest of the players are severely injured, at least Arkiv was ambushed, so it is reasonable to say he is not that weak, but Donner, Kumar, and Dayus are all attacked straightforwardly without any hesitation, but they are still injured.

But none of them are ready to admit that they are weaker, everyone is trying to get the chance to fight her once again inside the Palace of inheritance.