WolfWrites

The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 4 - Chapter 57 - Gathering (Patreon)

Published:

2022-12-09 03:41:10

Imported:

2023-02

Content

The One Hundredth Floor

A strange silence fills the frozen wasteland that is the remnants of Wolf’s battle with the Centurion Boss as six top ranked Competitors stare at the corpse of the Centurion Boss that is still lying dead and frozen solid. Despite the dungeon’s act of clearing monster corpses soon after death, it didn’t clear this one thanks to the void energy located within the ice. But none of the other Competitors know this and are staring at it with tension clear all over their bodies.

Eventually Crystal breaks the silence by looking up at the other five Competitors, consisting of Adriana, Silver Siren, Nosferatu, Unbreakable, and Crimson Rose, before saying, “Well, I had us all meet here since it was the place farthest away from any of the other Centurion Bosses, but I didn’t expect to find this here.”

Unlike Wolf, these six Competitors know that they are too weak to take on a Centurion Boss on their own. But each of them is running out of time on the clock before the dungeon sends one after them.

Several seconds pass with the silence beginning again, only for Silver Siren to break it by saying, “We don’t have time for this. You propose we work together to defeat the Centurion Boss before moving through to the next floor as a group?”

Each of the Competitors share glances with each other before Nosferatu says, “Count me in. Wolf’s been getting too far ahead these past few days and I want to close the gap as quickly as possible.”

Adriana just nods her head in agreement.

“That’s two,” Crystal says before glancing at the other three and adding, “I doubt any of us can take down one of those golems on our own. Not after rewatching Wolf’s fight.”

Silver Siren frowns for a few seconds at that before answering, “I’m in,” leaving everyone to turn to look at the two remaining Competitors – neither of whom have said anything since arriving.

A few more seconds pass in silence as the two share a glance, then proceed to look around the frozen wasteland before eventually nodding their heads towards Crystal.

“Great! Looks like we’re all in,” she says with a clap of her hands before glancing up at the dark sphere in the sky and saying, “it looks like we’ll only have about five hours to get accustomed to working with each other.”

At those words, all of the Competitors begin to draw their weapons, while some of them also activate skills and their own abilities as well.

“Let’s get to it!” Deadshot shouts, not hesitating to pull an arrow out of her System Item quiver of which takes arrows directly from her inventory before drawing it across her bow string.

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Wolf

“Interesting,” I mutter as I watch the other Competitors all begin sparring with each other, and the occasional scythian golem that wanders into the frozen wasteland that I’d made. “Never expected them all to work together like that.”

“Really?” Mikaela exclaims in surprise next to me as we both float in the middle of the stadium, ignoring the loud screams coming from the bleachers. And – more specifically – the cultists that are literally prostrating themselves towards me in several locations of it.

Which is creepy as hell.

“It’s actually a pretty common occurrence in Administrator Dungeon Runs,” Mikaela says while glancing at Sapphire, who seems to be having fun just floating through the air. “Most Competitors can’t solo a Centurion Boss after all.”

I frown slightly at that, only to stop as I think about the fact that I’m probably not normal. Nor is this dungeon run normal.

Mikaela suddenly raises his voice for all of the audience to hear as he asks me, “So how do you feel about the growing floor gap between you and the other Competitors? You’ve been leaving them in the dust for a while now, and that’s only sped up even more ever since your awakening!”

The floor gap between us?

If I remember correctly, the… actually I don’t need to remember correctly. They’re standing right there in the livestream on the one hundredth floor.

So they’re currently about fifteen floors behind me. Which is a pretty big gap.

“Well, I’m a little too busy worrying about the next floor themes to pay much attention to the other Competitors,” I answer rather honestly. And maybe a little too bluntly as well.

“I see! So what would you do if one of them did manage to catch up to you?” Mikaela proceeds to ask without missing a beat.

I scratch my chin at that before shrugging and answering, “Nothing, really. The same thing I’d have done whenever we met earlier on.”

For some reason the audience goes berserk at my answer, as if every word out of my mouth was something to get excited about. Which makes me feel rather uncomfortable, but when I turn to Sapphire, I surprisingly find her basking in the attention.

What happened to her being shy?

Likely in response to seeing me glance at her, Mikaela actually turns to her and asks, “So Sapphire, how are you doing this fine evening?”

It’s evening? Actually, now that he mentions that, I’ve kind of stopped keeping track of the time, haven’t I?

Sapphire stops floating around at random and flies over to me before stopping herself by grabbing my sleeve. She then focuses on Mikaela and says, “Good!”

The vampire can’t seem to help but smile at how adorable she is, but he opens his mouth to speak again anyways. Only for Sapphire to turn to me and ask, “Papa, can we stay here? I really don’t want to go back to that shadow for so long…”

I blink at her in surprise before mentioning, “You do realize that it was your choice to hide in my shadow during the flights, right? You could’ve just hidden in my jacket pocket.”

She literally balks at that suggestion, showing just how much she likes that idea.

“Looks like that’s a no,” Mikaela says while trying and failing to hide an amused smirk, unlike the brilliant laughter of the audience listening to our conversation as if it were some sort of comedy routine.

We’re interrupted as the notification appears in my vision telling me that the time is about to run out.

“Awww, looks like that’s all for today folks!” Mikaela says, disappointment clear in his voice before he shouts, “Give a round of applause for his highness, the Reaper of the Blue Moon himself, The Winter Wolf!!!”

I can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the dramatics of his last comment, only for a flash of green light to shine around me and Sapphire, following which we find ourselves back on the floating island on the 115th floor.

“Uuugghh, I hate this place!” Sapphire says with a harrumph before turning into her tiny spider form and climbing up to my shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter to her while patting her with my hand and starting towards the center of the island. “I don’t like much either.”

Still better than one of those fire floors though.

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