Slave's breath began to grow ragged, and his vision started to blur… Anyway, with the mana circulation disorder, his health was far from normal like everyone else. Especially, When he was running with a speed like that.
He could no longer breathe properly. At this moment, to maintain the oxygen in his lungs, he could only open his mouth instead of using his nose.
"F-Fuck! The final gate is dissipating!"
He gritted his teeth.
"Curse these chains."
Slave gritted his teeth in anger at the chains that restrained his movements and speed. He glanced behind again.
This was bad—the grey wolf was closing in, but he needed time to reach the gate. He managed to control his panic as he took the next step, and as the grey wolf lunged, nearly reaching him, Slave instantly summoned a massive stone egg to block its momentum and kept moving toward the gate.
Hearing the impacting between the wolf and massive stone egg echoed, he guessed his plan had succeeded.
"Damn! I didn't think I could use my summon like that."
Finally, he was just 2 meters away from the Gate of the Nameless God… But unlucky, this time the grey wolf reached him before he could step through.
The grey wolf strongly slashed its claws across Slave's back, leaving a deep, bleeding wound.
Slave fell and yelled in pain, but he managed to struggle back up and keep running, ignoring the burning agony on his back.
However, he was nearing his limits. He stumbled again, stood up, and then fell once more.
"HAHAHAHAHA! GOOD JOB, MY PET! TEAR HIM INTO HUNDRED PIECES!"
Slave gritted his teeth and stared at the dissipating gate… It was almost within reach, just a few more steps. He resumed struggling, ignoring both the wolf and the mocking shouts from behind.
The grey wolf licked its lips and slowly approached its prey. It seemed intent on toying with Slave before feasting. That was true to the nature of a wild beast.
But before the grey wolf could finish its little performance, it suddenly collapsed, as if sick or something else. It couldn't move, no matter how its master shouted or tried to command it.
"Your struggle has already convinced me. It would be a disgrace for a teacher like me if I just stood by and watched."
"Best of luck, kid."
The slave glanced behind for a second, barely seeing a vague old-looking figure. But at this moment, he had no time to thank anyone; he would do that after passing the challenge… if he survived.
With that, he stepped forward hastily and vanished just before the gate dissipated.
***
Ting!
[You have chosen the Nameless God's Challenge]
[You have completed the Life-or-Death Mission]
[Reward: 250 Chaos Points]
[Candidate #34 has participated in the challenge]
[Assessment]
Morris Rhodes/Candidate #01 – Chance: 42%
Curry Leonard/ Candidate #02 – Chance: 40%
....
Franklin Watkins/ Candidate #19 – Chance: 34%
....
Harper Freeman/ Candidate #22 – Chance: 25%
....
Ulva Schwartz/ Candidate #33 – Chance: 10%
Alaric Jenkins/ Candidate #34 – Chance: 0.00000000000000000001%
[You will be sent to Hell in 10 seconds]
10...6...3...1
Sent.
[Nameless God's Note]: Look for a sly demon humanoid. He is the arbiter of my challenge… You can trust him, but don't trust blindly.
"A slave?" a confused voice rang out.
"Screw him… he's got a pretty bad wound on his back. With that, he'll be dead soon anyway. More importantly, do you see runes floating in front of me? I think my eyes have a little problem."
"No, I see it too."
Dizzy and disoriented, the slave slowly stood up and looked around. Even though everything he saw was just a blurry mess, he could still tell this place didn't belong to the world of humanity.
A few seconds later, he lifted his eyes upward.
The sky was completely blanketed in blood-red colors. Not only that, but at the center of the sky was the sun—hidden behind the moon.
An annular solar eclipse?
Oh… that explained why everything looked drenched in scarlet. But more than that, it was terrifying. Combined with the dull, suffocating atmosphere, this place looked more like hell than Earth.
Still… he liked it.
Not because he enjoyed the horror here, but because the air was fresh and comfortable—nothing like the heavily polluted air from his world. If he could live here, maybe his illness would actually be cured.
"I feel alive again…"
But that didn't change the fact that he was badly wounded. The slave quickly tore his thin, ragged clothes and wrapped them around his back like a makeshift bandage. With that, at least he would survive for a few more days and die from infection instead of dying from bleeding out in a few hours.
After roughly settling everything, he looked around, assessing the other candidates. To his surprise, he rubbed his chin as he spotted a few familiar faces among the twenty or so people here.
Morris Rhodes and Curry Leonard… children of legendary clans, both possessing Ascendant Potential Creatures.
Eventually, he summoned his screen system.
—
[Use 250 chaos points to open a normal box]: 🎁
[Use 2000 chaos points to open an epic box]: 🎁
[Current Points]: 250
—
The slave rubbed his chin lightly and observed the screen system carefully. That was the only thing he had not yet researched.
There were two boxes. From what he saw, if he used the epic box, something great would happen; the rest, he had no idea. But he was certain that the normal box was not common.
By using the chaos points, he could open that box… yeah, he didn't know whether the points' function was only that or not. Anyway, he would figure it out later.
Without hesitation, he thought inwardly about using 250 points to open the normal box.
[Do you wish to open the box? Please confirm]
''Yes! Do it.''
["Do you want to open the box? Are you sure?"]
''Come on, I said do it.''
—
[Normal box opened. 🎁💥]
—
[You have received a white-tier item: a rust sword.]
[Description]: A rusty sword that had bathed in countless battles against the fiends of hell… Unfortunately, its user had died and been torn to pieces by a horde of them, so the sword was never preserved. After rusting for many centuries in the depths of hell, it could break at any moment… However, with its fate as a fiend-slaying blade, it should at least be able to handle one or two more fiends.
''G-Great!… Guess my eyes are already blurred after a hard day.''
There were five tiered items in the world. Actually, there were six tiers, but the white-tier item was just too worthless—so no one bothered to include it on the list.
Green-tier item.
Blue-tier item.
Purple-tier item.
Red-tier item.
Black-tier item.
All of them were named like dungeon levels. The black-tier item was priceless above all. Of course, he hadn't expected to be that unlucky. Alaric had anticipated that he would at least receive a green-tier item, but… he finally had to accept the fact that his luck was always bad.
"C–curse my luck."
However, this place didn't allow him to keep his tiredness and boredom for long.