– Ah, what has happened Hines?

– Please wait for a moment. To know what has just happened, the employees of the YTBC have entered there.

– What was the purple portal that Ian had summoned?

– I’m not very sure about it, but I guess it was a brilliant strategy of Ian to use ‘portal overlapping’.

– Portal overlapping…?

– Yes. By placing the portal over the top of the gate from which the asmodians would enter, they will send them directly to another place.

– Ah, that can’t…!

– We still need to check who has come from the Devildom and where they were sent over to, but the ability of Ian God is surely outstanding.

– Completely. All thanks to you, Hines, that I know what is going on. Hines, your understanding of the game is amazing.

– Ha ha, words of praise?

– But Hines.

– Go on, Lucia.

– Then, how did the asmodians avoid the portal overlapping that Ian made?

– That is plain luck.

– Yeah?

– It is all because of luck, it is because the portal is a bit small.

– Aha-!

– However, when I think about it, rather than calling them lucky, they are in a much worse situation.

– Why?

– The other asmodian users moved to another place through the portal, maybe they survived? But for the asmodians who are left on the battlefield won’t be able to avoid the death penalty.

– Oh ho, that too. Now that you say it, aren’t you curious to see what is on the other side of the portal?

– Hahaha, me too, Lucia. We will find out soon.

Bang-!

Crumble-

The large TV screen that filled the whole living room had suddenly burst with a loud explosion.

It was because the man who was watching the TV, threw the remote control onto the Tv, not being able to control his anger.

“Ian, this guy…!”

And that man was Irahan.

Being dead not knowing, he called over to the headquarters of the Kailan after immediately logging out.

Thinking he died of a bug, he called in for penalty recovery.

He had work to do after getting reconnected, he had recovered his character as soon as possible.

And thinking that his death was purely because of a bug, however, Irahan’s voice was soon stopped by the voice over the call.

[Customer, this is a game over that has occurred during the normal gameplay. Sorry for not being able to help you.]

It was an answer that Ian could hardly believe.

The next thing Irahan did was to switch on the TV with overwhelming anger.

To what happened, he turned on the YTBC broadcast.

And right then, what he confirmed through the broadcast was truly shocking.

Irahan realized that he had died because of the cowardly and despicable trick of Ian.

“Uaahh, Ian, this is so not cool!!!”

Irritated and angry, he screamed!

However, nothing could be done.

All he could do was just wait for the penalty.

And as he looked over, one thing came to his mind.

“This time, I’ll smash you in the right way, Ian.”

“Ho, you’re sure about that?”

“Obviously. If I won’t be able to catch that guy in such a favoring situation for me, won’t it be right for me to just delete my character and leave Kailan?”

“Well, aren’t you supposed to make promises that you can actually keep?”

He remembered the conversation he had with Samuel Jin, the one who always rubbed his face in Irahan’s.

“Dammit!”

And losing the strength to get any angrier, Irahan just slouched back into the couch.

If he couldn’t catch Ian again, he rants about deleting the character and quitting Kailan came to his head.

Samuel Jin, who was very sly and cunning, there was no way that he wouldn’t remember it.

“No way, this wasn’t a legitimate showdown. I have no reason to delete the character.”

As if thinking something, he was shaking his head and mumbling stuff.

Irahan did his best to rationalize.

“Yeah well, I didn’t cross my sword with Ian even once… I don’t need to keep my word as anything I’ve said even happened.”

Irahan was trying to rationalize his thoughts with the most nonsensical words.

Whatever was the case, Irahan did say ‘that he would quit the game and delete his character if he didn’t catch Ian’.

But his instincts, however, decided to deny it.

“Yeah, after the death penalty, I need to go to that guy and kill him somehow. Then Samuel Jin, that frustrating jerk will definitely say something.”

Irahan had already lost his reasoning, he forgot that the Chaos gate was long destroyed and his way to the human dimension was long lost.

* * *

‘To stop the explosion of the secret passage… huh?’

Ian read the contents of the quest and felt an alarm bell ring in his head.

‘This, this is really dangerous. How am I supposed to stop it?!’

The dungeon currently had users overflowing in it for the process of breaking through the secret passage.

If the very dungeon collapsed, there was no way to survive.

‘Even if it does, the time won’t be enough, getting a 24-hour death penalty is a bit too hard.’

Ian quickly climbed on top of Halli and began to give out orders.

“Guys, we don’t have time! We have to move in as soon as possible!”

And with that from Ian, the rankers who grabbed the situation began to rush immediately.

They may not be as good as Ian, but they were still the top rankers of Kailan.

Just checking the quest window was enough to realize the situation they were in.

“Magicians, Haste!”

“Assassins, run ahead!”

While using the unique ability of Halli, Ian began to breakthrough the dungeon.

Several undead monsters were blocking the way, however, Ian just ignored the monsters and moved further in.

There was no time to attack them.

‘I thought I could’ve killed them…’

The asmodians who were left remaining in the dungeon didn’t hold long as they were hunted by the hands of the expedition users.

And Ian didn’t even think that there were any surviving asmodian users.

‘I was a bit too happy. I should have been a bit more precise…’

Ian was blaming himself, but it was safe to say that he had no hand in what was happening.

The dungeon explosion quests weren’t the once that usually generated in advance, there was no reason to even care about the surviving asmodians users.

And Ian and the ranker users, using all their power, they began to move over the undead.

Was it 20 minutes?

Tring-!

The familiar sound of the system messages appeared in front of the users.

[The ‘Dark Crystal’ has responded to the magic.]

[The power of the sleeping darkness has awakened.]

[In a while, the Dark Crystals will begin to explode.]

[Time left until the explosion: 00: 04: 59]

“Haa…!”

As soon as he saw those short messages, a short sigh had left the mouth of Ian.

At that moment, thousands of thoughts passed through the mind of Ian.

‘Sh*t, only if I knew this… we wouldn’t have broken the Chaos Gate, we too would have gone through the dimensional door.’

The portal that Ian summoned would’ve closed in after a certain time.

And the time duration wasn’t so long.

In other words, the moment when the dungeon would explode, the opening of the portal was long gone.

I tried using the return stone in his mind, but the message that came in front of him gave him the answer.

“You, can’t you the item ‘Return Stone’.”

“The dungeon needs to be cleared to return to the save point.”

What a desperate situation.

The expedition users were almost experiencing the feeling of anxiety in the atmosphere, and time was moving forward.

However, Ian had no intention of giving up.

‘If I can think with a clear mind, some other way might come up. The previous situation was miserable too, but we overcame it, didn’t we?’

Ian picked up the Judgment of Spirit King and gave out orders in a loud voice to all the expedition users.

“Let’s move further inside.”

At the word from Ian, the users asked in an eager voice,

“Ian, is there another way?”

“No. We’ll have to find it.”

“Keu…”

“Are you hoping for the dungeon like this?”

When Ian was finished, he turned his head towards the further inside of the dungeon.

“Yes, that is right. Get up all of you! We aren’t stupid to just give up like this!”

Shakran walked along Ian.

And to their behind, all the other users of the expedition group began to stand.

* * *

“Huhu, uah!”

Three dark spheres roaring around.

Limlong who was watching them was smiling.

“Humans, have you finally decided to give up?”

Right behind the three crystals, a dark portal opened.

The portal was an escape that the Lich King opened to allow Limlong to exit the dungeon.

As soon as Limlong entered it, the portal would disappear and the human users would get trapped in the explosive dungeon.

There wasn’t even a single way out of there.

‘Well, if it had been 30 minutes, they could’ve destroyed the iron gate of the secret passage.’

If he went deeper into the dungeon past the section, an iron gate to the castle would’ve appeared.

But in the current situation, finding the iron gate in just 5 minutes and then to destroy it was really impossible.

“Ian, that guy won’t ever give up… I want you to come till here so I can see your frustrated expression.”

Limlong was waiting in the dungeon without passing through the portal and was waiting for Ian and the human user.

He wanted to enjoy the fact that the human users were in despair when they were going to win.

Limlong’s eye moved towards the system message that was present in the corner of the field view.

[Time left for Explosion: 00: 00: 47]

‘Huhu, 47 seconds… now even if the luck is on your side, there is no way for you to survive this.’

Limlong’s mouth curled up into a nasty smile.

The appearance of Ian and Shakran running in the dungeon was in his sight.

“Keuk, the protagonist is finally coming!”

Suddenly, the time left for the explosion went to 20 seconds.

Limlong laughed at Ian and Shakran who were gasping for breath after arriving at the Dark Crystal.

“Ian, your strategy was brilliant enough. Good enough that I almost died.”

At those words of Limlong, Ian responded with a frown.

“I was wondering who was alive to do such a thing… Limlong, it was you, huh.”

“Huhu, I had a very hard time coming till here. Now get ready to log out.”

The dungeon would collapse, and it was definite.

Even if they use something invincible or a resurrection item, it was a situation where death was inevitable.

And it wasn’t because of the damage caused by the explosion, but because the dungeon itself would be the reason of death.

Limlong turned his face to see the frowning expression of Ian.

However, Limlong’s expression was the one that changed.

Ian’s facial expression was completely different from what Limlong had expected him to be.

“Well, don’t you want to run away leaving everything behind?”

“…?”

“Aren’t you going to run through the hole?”

Rather, Ian was looking at Limlong with a ridiculous expression.

Limlong had a lot he wanted to ask Ian, how he had to hurry into the portal.

Because he had less than 10 seconds before the dungeon exploded.

“I don’t know what is a bluff or what is the truth, either one is great.”

“Won’t we know in a moment?”

Limlong looked over at Ian again.

The expression and the eyes of Ian didn’t seem to be lying.

‘This guy, is there really a way to survive this?’

In the end, Limlong not knowing the answer just entered the dungeon.

It wasn’t willing to risk his eyes to see what Ian’s next actions were.

After a while, the Dark Crystals which were only about the size of a fist, began to swell.