MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

(Three Hours Before Halagax Informed Alex and the Team of the Quest)

'What is the deal with this bastard,' Halagax thought as he looked at the man before him.

"My name is Klaed, and I mean you no harm," The man said, taking his hands out of his pocket to calm the tense situation.

"What do you want?" Halagax questioned, killing intent pulsing from his cold eyes, with his curved daggers ready to defend, as he could sense the man was a threat.

"Your unique shapeshifting ability is perfect for what I require for a particular task, so I need your help, for which I will pay you very handsomely," Klaed said, a smile spreading on his face as he sensed the diminishing killing intent.

"I am listening," Halagax said, knowing he most likely had stumbled on a quest.

"I want you to get prisoned in the Dungeon on the Main Island, reach the Fifth underground floor, and after escaping the cell, shapeshift yourself into a woman,"

"You then need to reach the end of the floor and place a key that I will give you on the end wall, which will shift aside, revealing a hidden floor with a small number of prison cells, and in one of them, you will find a dying man, who is your target,"

"The success of my plan depends on several tasks that must be executed with precision and punctuality, and if you adhere strictly to my instructions, we should encounter no issues," Klaed stated, offering only vague outlines of his plan.

'10 Million points as the reward,' Halagax thought, his heart rate raising as he looked at the quest.

'This quest surely involves bringing the city down,' Halagax thought as he shifted his eyes back to the man before him, contemplating what he should do.

'The task will not be as simple as he presents it as the dungeon will have guards and taking a prisoner out who is prisoned in the special area would be anything but easy and would be impossible without outside help, and creating a ruckus,'

'As I can't hide my location from my team, so even if I hide that I went to the dungeon because of the quest, they are bound to suspect when the ruckus is created, and with that bastard in my team, I can't be certain if he wouldn't come to soil my work,' Halagax thought, his mind calculating the risk involved in the plan.

"Does your plan involve creating a ruckus to divert guards' attention to extract the prisoner? You also said I would meet that man as a woman, so am I correct to assume that the man knows this woman and I will be working toward extracting some information from him," Halagax questioned and received a head nod confirming his points.

'The group will need to earn fifty million points for me to get the ten million, which is possible if the four teams can save the city, and even then, I will only earn it if there is a reward for saving the city," Halagax thought, reaching a decision.

"I can do what you want, but you will need to work with me to take care of a man who can track my location, as he could be a problem for this plan," Halagax said, knowing with Alex roaming free, things could go wrong on many levels.

"I am strong and have strong people working for me, so you don't need to worry about even the Seraphian clan, let alone a hired outsider," Klaed said as he let a portion of mana pressure loose to back his claim.

"Can you deal with a semi-immortal man who can kill a Beast King without much difficulty?" Halagax said, making Klaed raise his eyebrows in surprise.

"Tell me more about this man," Klaed said, no longer looking as carefree as before.

------------------- 

'He called the Seraphian patriarch an old eunuch counting his day and then called his daughter nothing but cheap whores, and he wants us to believe he didn't do it to throw us under the bus,' Alex thought as the memory of the last few minutes revolved in his mind.

After the team arrived on the main island, they made their way to the biggest restaurant and began making comments on the incompetence of the Seraphian clan for letting the three smaller islands fall to the beast tide.

While their remarks held validity, they were nevertheless disrespectful, but as they were outsiders, they would receive an initial warning, and failure to heed it would result in confinement in the dungeon as a form of punishment, which was exactly what they wanted.

When the city guards arrive and warn them of their comments, Halagax curses the patriarch and then even calls his daughters the pride of the Seraphina clan, cheap whores.

Alex wanted to behead the funking snake, but whether it was luck or planned, a Seraphian Elder was present in the hotel whose aura came crashing down when the first sentence was finished.

Alex was forced to shift his focus on preparing to defend his life because surviving was more important than dealing with what had already been done.

The man conjured chains of light, ensnaring the group of five, and without uttering a single word, he took them to the dungeon and threw them into cells located on the fifth floor.

The cells were designed to confine individuals with strength up to the Sixth rank, with chains that bound the inmate continuously, devouring their mana and vitality, which acted as torture for the prisoners.

In the dark confines of the prison cell, Alex sat with his right arm extended above his head, chained to the wall, with his feet likewise bound to the ground, leaving him with minimal mobility.

'At this rate, it will take me at least ten more hours before I can break free of these chains,' Alex mused as he sensed the dense darkness eroding away at the chains, keeping his arms and legs in place.

Alex had tried using brute force on the chains, but the more pressure he placed on the chains, the stronger their suction of his vitality and mana became, which was used to, in turn, strengthen them, making his attempts a failure.

Alex had only used the Ruler Pride skill to push his stats above 200K when trying to break free with brute strength instead of going all out because he didn't desire to have the Dragon Might skill on the cooldown in a critical situation.

Alex was using the Nihility Purge skill to slowly erode away the magic runes, keeping the restraints active, and he was comfortable wasting time because even with chains keeping him bound in place, his senses were free to roam not only his level but even two of the floor above him and he could sense most of every ongoing thing.

Alex could sense his four crew members, all of them using their own means to break free but making no progress, and seeing Halagax make an effort to break free, it seemed he made an honest mistake in a hurry to make sure they ended up in the dungeon.

Alex could sense that besides the protectors standing at the entrance of each floor, no individual was free, and from what he could sense, not a single inmate was trying to break free on both the third and fourth floor, which was unusual if Klaed and his group had hired multiple individuals.

Alex knew the quest they received from Klaed was not a fake because Zero recognized it as a quest with clear instructions, and the first objective was to search the cell numbered twenty-

ninth on the fourth level of the dungeon.

So, at least the story of the clan weapon and its core was true, and there was something to be found in the cell on the fourth floor, but Alex couldn't help but sense that something was off, and Halagax knew more than he was letting them know.

Alex scanned his surroundings every few minutes to not fatigue his mind with keeping the mana sense active, but even as minutes turned to hours, he found no abnormality.

After more than ten gruelling hours, Alex successfully disabled the restraints on his arms and legs, crushed them with brute force and did the same with the steel bars, finally being free to leave the cell.