As she ran…
Two enormous walls appeared on either side of the path ahead, stretching forward for such a great distance that their ends were nowhere to be seen.
From a distance, Hikari noticed that Ares—the one who had taken the lead—stopped running as soon as he reached the two walls.
He raised his head and watched the tops of the walls for several seconds, until Hikari drew closer and was already less than fifty meters away from him!
In a strange movement, Ares pulled a rope from his pocket and threw it toward the top of the wall, catching it around a protruding rock.
He tugged on the rope, but it did not fall.
Once he confirmed that it was secure, he began climbing the wall!
Hikari’s eyes widened in shock.
“What the hell is he doing?!”
“I know these walls are suspicious in some way, but this is Ares Shuan! A genius among the elite!”
“There is no way he would give up the lead over a few suspicions that haven’t even been proven yet!”
“He must have noticed a dangerous trap…”
She tried to focus and moved closer…
A few seconds later, she was less than ten meters away from the beginning of the two walls, and thought:
“The ground is made of stone, which means there are no trees, and therefore no traps from above. There isn’t even any grass, which means there are no ground traps either—at least, not like the previous ones. Even the two walls are extremely high, perhaps more than twenty meters each, which means no rocks will fall from the cliff, but…”
“The closer I get, the more suspicious something feels…”
“As though the path is becoming narrower… or, more accurately, as though the two walls are gradually leaning inward…”
“Wait!”
“That’s exactly what worried him!”
“The trap here is specifically that the path will gradually become narrower until it reaches a dead end!”
“And because the path is originally sloped, our vision is limited until we get extremely close to the dead end. And since these walls are smooth, it will be impossible to climb them by then, especially since these protruding rocks only exist at the beginning of the walls!”
Hikari reached the beginning of the walls and stopped.
And immediately, within a fraction of a second, two people passed her!
Hikari quickly headed toward the rope. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
Another person passed beside her and laughed mockingly.
“You crazy people!”
Hikari ignored him and began climbing, while Ares had already reached the top of the wall…
Ares looked down at her and smiled faintly, then continued running along the wall.
A few seconds later, Hikari finally reached the top of the wall.
She looked to her right and found that dozens of contestants had already passed her.
She looked to the left and found a forest of enormous, densely packed trees, so tall that their height exceeded the wall by several meters.
She looked ahead and saw that Ares had not gone very far.
And suddenly…
Ares slammed his foot into the wall, shattering one of the stone tiles.
He pulled a stone slab free and leapt toward the trees, carrying the stone slab in his hand!
Before she could even comprehend what was happening…
Her pupils contracted to their utmost, and she quickly tilted her body.
An arrow shot past her head so quickly that it cut some of her flying hair!
Not even a moment passed before a barrage of arrows rained down upon her!
Hikari quickly leapt from the wall toward the right and clung to it with only her fingertips, her body hanging in midair…
The arrows rained down onto the stone path, leaving many of the contestants either wounded or dead!
Hikari looked at the corpses and blood.
The screams and pleas pierced her ears, and her expression tightened as she murmured:
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry for your deaths… but… I cannot help…”
“In their eyes, we are lower than insects…”
The arrows subsided slightly.
Hikari raised her head slightly, and her eyes widened in shock!
But the strangest part…
Ares was smashing the stone slab over the head of one of the monkeys !
Then drawing his sword and severing its neck with a single strike !
The remaining monkeys panicked at the death of one of their own and turned their arrows toward Ares !
Ares used the monkey’s corpse as a shield, carried it, and leapt toward the nearest monkey, throwing it at him.
The monkey faltered for a moment and dodged the corpse, while Ares landed on top of it and, with brute force, drove his sword into its head !
He quickly pulled it free and severed the neck of another monkey beside it !
Then, with terrifying precision, threw two daggers that struck two monkeys directly in the head !
With five monkeys falling within seconds, the remaining monkeys were overcome by terror and fled.
Ares leapt back toward the wall and continued running along it.
Finally, Hikari came to her senses, pulled herself up, stood, and continued running after him.
“By the heavens and the earth, how and when did he notice their presence?!”
“All he did was throw a few glances upward. Was that really enough for him?!”
“Is this even possible in the first place?!”
“Wait…”
“Could it have been a coincidence?”
“Could it be that he climbed the wall out of caution over the possibility of a dead end, and then immediately noticed them when he looked toward the trees?”
“That also explains why he didn’t climb back down to the path after reaching the top, but instead continued running along the wall despite how difficult it was to maintain his balance.”
She stared intensely at him…
“This level…”
“Is terrifying…”