Being a hunter that took Predator’s Tactics, Tier was often on the side that toyed around with his opponents using tricks and venomous attacks. This time, he was the one on the receiving end of such attacks.

Mal’esh toyed with Tier’s attempt to escape while Slicer just tortured him maniacally. Though Tier now had reached level 71, the equipment difference between him and his adversaries was also too great. Further, the damage reduction from level difference was now severely reduced. Thus he accepted his death without much of a struggle. He knew it would be futile.

However, the two disgusting level 80 players didn’t let him die easily. They kept toying with Tier, as if forcing him to break and went on a blind rampage. The hunter had his share of such rampage earlier, he wouldn’t be drawn to follow what his adversaries wanted.

Knowing that Tier also had some poison resistance due to his path, both Mal’esh and Slicer barely dealt direct damage. Both seemed to purposely rely on their venoms to slowly murder the rakhs,

The recently diminished rage inside him started to swell up again. But he kept his mouth shut and countered with halfhearted attacks. He tried to run earlier, but Slicer just knocked him back with a bare hand just to minimise the direct damage impact.

Their mockery had driven Tier’s mind to its edges. His vision blurred between what he saw and his recent memories. His mind somehow started to twist their laugher and cynical smile to be similar to those of Manna’s.

Thus, though his HP reached zero, there was something else flared bright in his heart. His anger and distrust.

“What a shame, my friend….”

The spirit guide greeted as Tier appeared in Gray Lands. He was standing beside a giant boulder near the western peaks of the mountain surrounding Nefelein Valley.

“... for such a worthy soul,” the spirit guide continued with a chuckle.

“Worthy for what?” Tier grumbled at the NPC, but no answer was given. The spirit guide was just grinning mischievously at him. Then, he heard lowly whispers coming from behind.

Tier turned around and saw the majestic northern pillar of lights he had previously seen. Up above, he saw the silhouette of a feline like spirit swirling around the pillar, ever shifting in how vivid its form was. For a second it was there in its full majesty, then it quickly faded away.

However, Tier couldn’t actually guess what kind of feline creature it was. Perhaps due to its sheer size or perhaps due to its rather fluid form. Was that the snow jaguar?

His disturbed heart had triggered the impatience in Tier. There might be a key to the secret about this snow jaguar that he had. Something that made Steven kind of guide him to pick this creature. He turned at the spirit guide and asked again, “Worthy for what?”

The spirit guide remained calm. He didn’t answer what Tier had asked. Instead, he offered Tier to resurrect on the spot.

“What do you guys want from me!”

Tier screamed at the top of his lungs. He stepped back and kept yelling at the NPC, “Screw you all! You, Steven, Manna, all of you! What do you want from me?! What are the plans you all have? Sure, just keep toying with me like what Slicer and Vertoc had tone!”

Though there was no answer from the spirit guide, there was an eerie calmness in its expression. Tier knew it was just the standard NPCs’ procedure to not heed ramblings from the players. However, the spirit guide’s hand suddenly moved. Accompanied by a wide sly grin, he pointed down below the valley.

It was a vague gesture. Down there, half of the valley’s slope was covered by the giant pillar of light. Down there was also where his corpse was supposed to be since the silhouette of animal spirits were prancing around the same direction.

“So you’re telling me to go to my body then only to get smacked again by Slicer? Wasting another death quota for Clashing Realms? As if my current condition is not bad enough for….”

Tier stopped his rant. There was a sharp stinging feeling in his heart when he remembered clearly his own words. Time and time again he said that he had no interest in Clashing Realms, that he was just there to help his friends achieve their goal. But, what he had done so far was far from it. He had done thorough research on every class and race, thought carefully on his character’s build, and fought his best to survive.

Was that really the characteristic of someone who took this lightly?

“Screw it!”

Tier shouted to no one but himself. He turned around and walked down the slope towards the giant light pillar and where his body was. His anger had blinded him enough to not care of the blinding radiance from the light pillar. He stopped as soon as he entered the pillar.

A worthy soul…. Those who do not fear death shall truly survive….

The words rang sofly in Tier’s head. He had been expecting some constant bright light inside the pillar. Yet, inside it was a different version of the Nefelein Valley he recently visited.

He could clearly see the lower part of the slope and the entire Nefelein Valley. The light pillar appeared to be some sort of circular border to the entire area. Here, inside the pillar, was dimly lit despite how bright the pillar was from outside.

However, there was something clearly different here than the physical world. The rock formation in the valley had revealed something strange. There was a soft light connecting each rock in the formation, creating some sort of labyrinth. There seemed to be one entry for each cardinal direction and each led to a path towards the centre of the valley where a massive rock arch stood still.

The arch was not apparent in the physical world. Amusingly enough, it had a light vortex swirling inside it akin to those of that of a portal made by mages. However, instead of images of the target location, this vortex was pure bright white light.

Curious, Tier looked upward above the arch. Surprisingly, there was no massive vortex swirling towards an unending void in this place. There were stars twinkling up above, so bright and many like those of the Milky Way seen from the darkest side of the earth. Strands of auroras waved around making an octagonal shape to frame the view above.

“What kind of place is this?” Tier mumbled.

Then, he realised the sign of a sacrifice counter, which now he has two of, had glowed dimly. Was this where he was supposed to use the counter? For what? Resurrect himself without resurrection sickness?

Incoming whisper from Arkengrad, [If you are planning to resurrect and get out from there, you better do it now. Slicer just moved away towards Silveraxe.]

Tier groaned in protest as the whisper had startled him. He replied, “[Command on: reply], How did you even….”

[Girl’s instinct. Saw Slicer’s location there, saw your location there but dead. I could pretty much guess what happened.]

“Definitely not the whole story.”

[I don’t care about the whole story. Slicer was there for the snow jaguar, something must have happened and he just vented his rage on you.]

“Yeah, Mal’esh was also going for that thing, both of them ganged up on me after Mal’esh slandered me for killing the jaguar.”

[That jerk? Colour me surprised. Anyway, you better move now before Slicer changes his mind and decides to kill you again.”

Tier sighed. He just found something interesting here and another problem already started. Straight up logging out would make his corpse disappear, thus he would need to be resurrected at the spirit guide which resurrection sickness would throw himself to a further danger. Thus, he needed to heed Arkengrad’s warning. “Noted, thanks for the heads up.”

[Sure, if you survive, I need to report this achievement for the good person thingy.”

“You are a good person,” Tier chuckled only to hear an annoyed hissing from Arkengrad.

Tier looked again at the arch and the labyrinth. He wondered if there are more secrets being kept hidden there. Thus he took a snapshot using an ingame command to at least figure outside the game before someday deciding to explore this place. Perhaps after reaching level 80 and deemed unworthy to enter Clashing Realms.

The hunter then ran the direction shown by the animal silhouettes. There might be some who had betrayed and hurt him lately. However, no matter how heated his heart was, he knew he shouldn’t waste other people’s effort in helping him. At least, that’s what he can do to repay their kindness.