Blood-Red Commander Igris (1)
[You have entered the "Trial Tower"]
Kouro closed his eyes, letting his body be sucked in by the pull of the portal before opening his eyes again.
[You have been given "Quest: Reach the 100th floor"]
He first glanced at the system interface in front of his eyes before raising his head.
"Where is this place?"
Kouro looked up at the dark starless sky with the moon being the light that illuminated the world, then he looked around where there were only ruins of buildings with no life at all.
He didn't even find any insects, animals, or anything, even plants.
There was only an empty silence and an arid land with fragile ruins that had been swallowed by age.
Kouro looked at all this with a serious gaze, he felt familiar with the layout of the buildings that had become ruins.
He thought and searched his memory before his eyes widened slightly.
"I remember... The layout of the ruins here... Similar to a Far East city!"
His expression became complex as he realized this, he didn't know if the 'Sanctuary Key' created the Dungeon's terrain according to the city he was in... Or perhaps... This dungeon was a Bubble Universe that had been destroyed?
Kouro didn't know.
At the thought of this, his expression changed slightly and he turned his head to look back.
From the shadows of the ruins appeared some uninvited guests.
They were Humanoid creatures that were not too different from humans except that their skin was very pale and they carried various weapons.
He could see dozens of them carrying scythes, a bow and even... A pair of katanas?
Kouro's eyebrows raised slightly at the sight of them, "These creatures... Aren't they the zombies from the game?"
He could see their names appearing overhead.
[Vigiles]
[Archer]
[Joyo-ninja]
The names had a pure white color indicating that they were not a threat to Kouro, well... This was not surprising since he was currently still on the 1st floor.
Kouro put his hands in his pockets and with a calm expression he said.
"I will give you your first mission."
The shadows under his feet widened to reveal Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan who had set up a fighting stance facing the zombies.
"Defeat them."
"As you wish... My lord." Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan said respectfully.
The two of them instantly raised the Xuanyuan Sword in their respective hands and enveloped it with the power of fire before slashing it out.
*Swoosh!*
…
2 hours later.
24th floor.
With his current level getting through these low floors was too easy for him, he hadn't moved at all and let Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan do the fighting.
After all the 'exp' he got from defeating the zombies was too little so it was better to let the two of them level up.
Each floor had the same terrain which was Far East city. The difference was that each floor took different places and prefectures from Far East city.
He had explored each floor and found that this dungeon had an area of about 500 square kilometers, as for the sky, he could not fly too high as he would encounter invisible walls that he could not break.
Currently Kouro was staring at the moon with a pensive expression, he was sitting on top of the ruins with a shadowy chair and a small round table beside him that he made.
"Your tea my lord." Hei Xuan put down a steaming hot cup of tea in a typical Maid outfit before respectfully walking backwards.
"Thank you." Kouro smelled the aroma of the tea which had the fragrance of jasmine flowers before drinking it slowly.
"Good tea..."
As Kouro said that, the sound of battle could be heard nearby but he didn't pay much attention to it.
After reaching the 24th floor in 2 hours, Kouro only raised 3 levels, but the biggest advantage he got was that the enemies that Bai Xuan and Hei Xuan fought became his shadow army.
[Extractable shadows: 3,556/∞]
In just a moment Kouro already had thousands of immortal shadow troops that could grow stronger.
They cannot die, can hide in the shadows of objects or living beings, are absolutely obedient to Kouro and can become stronger by gaining 'exp' like Kouro.
Moreover, the most surprising thing that Kouro discovered was that they could activate the main ability of Herrscher of Salvation, [Savior of Light] which is an ability where when someone gives hope to Kouro then all his status will increase according to the number of people who gave the hope.
That means Kouro has now eliminated the weakness of the [Savior of Light] ability which requires many people to maximize the performance of the ability.
Just imagine, Kouro may now only have thousands of shadow troops, but sooner or later his shadow army will continue to grow, initially thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, billions to... Infinite.
The [Savior of Light] ability will continue to accumulate until Kouro does not need to level up anymore in order to gain status points. No, maybe he wouldn't even need the system anymore after achieving that...
The abilities of the Herrscher of Shadows and the Herrscher of Salvation complement each other, giving Kouro the potential to become the strongest.
Well... Even so, unfortunately most of the shadow troops he got only had a 'Normal' Rank and even the highest was only 'Elite' in contrast to Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan who had a 'Knight' Rank.
*Ding! *
[You have completed the 24th floor]
When the notification arrived, Kouro blinked and muttered.
"That was fast... It only took 10 minutes. Well... Considering Bai Xuan is leading thousands of shadow soldiers, it doesn't seem surprising."
Kouro then placed the teacup on the table before turning to look at Hei Xuan on the side.
"Hei Xuan, I'll be leaving for a while."
Hei Xuan bowed her head slightly with a slight smile.
Kouro then stood up and levitated before leaving towards Bai Xuan's location.
He quickly arrived and then landed near Bai Xuan who had thousands of shadow army lined up neatly carrying different types of weapons under her command.
Kouro replaced some of the Archer's weapons with advanced rifles that he created from blueprints he got from the treasury of World Serpent in another world.
One shot of the rifle was enough to perforate the body of a Chariot-type Honkai Beast.
Kouro also replaced all the weapons used by his shadow army with more advanced weapons making them equivalent to A-rank Valkyries in terms of fighting power.
The shadow army and Bai Xuan immediately saluted when they saw Kouro.
Kouro raised his hand signaling them to stop before turning to stare at the hundreds of zombie corpses on the ground with system notifications over their bodies.
[Shadow Extraction can be used on this target]
His eyes then shone brightly before saying.
"Arise."
Simultaneously the hundreds of corpses were enveloped by a shadow before a pair of hands appeared and touched the ground before coming out from within the shadow.
[Extractable shadows: 3,700/∞]
Kouro stared at this with an interested gaze, no matter how many times he saw this, the effect of this ability was really cool!
The newly summoned shadow army immediately kneeled before Kouro with respectful expressions.
"You can stand up. "
Kouro sighed helplessly at this, every time he created a new shadow army, they always knelt like that even Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan were no exception.
He then put his hands in his pockets before ordering them all to enter into his shadow.
They quickly entered Kouro's shadow without saying anything.
Kouro then turned to look at the iron gate that appeared not far from him, he approached the gate and just as he was about to enter the gate. Kouro raised his head to look at the moon one last time before opening the gate and going inside.
…
25th floor.
Kouro opened his eyes and looked around, he was currently in a vast Colosseum, probably 4 times larger than a soccer field.
"Has the terrain changed from a Far East city to another city like Rome?"
As he muttered like that, Kouro turned his head to stare at the humanoid creature at the end of the Colosseum.
The creature was about two meters tall and had the appearance of a medieval knight with a large sword, he was also wearing blood-red full armor with a tattered cloak and a long red hair-like ornament that stuck out from the back of his helmet.
Kouro raised his head to stare at the knight's head before raising his eyebrows as the creature's name was yellow, indicating that this knight was a powerful enemy.
[Blood-Red Commander Igris]
"A commander? Does this knight exist in the history of Rome?" Kouro muttered while rubbing his chin.
He looked around again and found no other enemies besides the Knight before him.
"Strange... No matter what, a 'Boss' would at least have a subordinate as an enemy who annoys challengers."
As Kouro muttered that, he saw that Igris had drawn his long greatsword, longer than his body and was holding the sword with one hand while setting up an attack stance.
Kouro pulled his hands in his pockets and with his thoughts the shadow under his feet instantly widened to reveal thousands of shadow soldiers including Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan.
"I don't want to do something boring like bombarding an enemy with only numbers... But unfortunately I don't have much time right now... So I hope you can forgive me, Mr. Knight." Kouro said.
Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan held the Xuanyuan sword while setting up a fighting stance followed by all the shadow troops behind them.
"..."
Igris didn't say anything, the blood knight just raised his sword high before slashing horizontally.
Suddenly the knight's sword glowed blue creating a huge thunderstorm that struck, no, Igris slashed his sword several times and each time the sword was swung it would create a huge thunderstorm.
"What?!" Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan were shocked but with the amount of battle experience they had, they instinctively raised their greatswords as protection.
*Clang!*
The two of them were able to withstand the thunderstorm but the shadow army behind them was unfortunately swept away by the thunderstorm and did not survive.
But it wasn't long before they appeared once again without any significant injuries. Fortunately as long as Kouro's SP wasn't depleted, the shadow army was able to revive easily.
[SP: 220,231/236,800]
Kouro who saw this immediately gave orders to all his shadow troops to return to his shadow.
"Go back. You all can't defeat that knight."
The shadow troops were biting their lips before returning to Kouro's shadow.
Kouro then stretched a bit before saying, "Alright... Let me defeat him…"
"You don't need to intervene my lord, let us settle this... After all, as a knight it is a very shameful thing to allow the lord they follow to fight." said Hei Xuan while patting her chest with a confident expression.
Bai Xuan also nodded her head in agreement with Hei Xuan's words.
Kouro glanced at them before looking back at the blood knight.
"Since you guys have said that... Then I will watch from afar." Kouro then levitated and sat on one of the spectator seats above the Colosseum, he even took out his shadow army as an audience.
"Thank you for your trust, my lord!" Hei Xuan said with a joyful smile.
Kouro shook his head secretly at her joyful expression, somehow, but ever since he did 'that' with Mei, Hei Xuan had become more proactive towards him.
He had previously forgotten to close his shadow so that Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan could see his brutal segs with Mei like watching a 4K movie.
Who knows what emotions they showed when they saw that.
He didn't actively ask about this and the two of them didn't say anything about it either so they each had a tacit understanding not to talk about the topic.
Kouro took out a jumbo-sized caramel-flavored popcorn to watch their fight before suddenly stopping and thinking of something.
"Bai Xuan, Hey Xuan, if you can defeat that knight I will grant you one wish! Whatever it is!"
He wanted to give the two of them some motivation, moreover they had also worked very hard to complete his order, he wanted to give them a reward.
Kouro nodded his own head with a smile as he thought this without noticing Hei Xuan and Bai Xuan's reactions.
"Anything?" muttered Hei Xuan with her head bowed.
The vibe she gave off suddenly felt different, Hei Xuan raised her head revealing her brightly shining eyes while grinning strangely.
"Oh, no..." said Bai Xuan seeing this reaction of her Alter.
Hei Xuan's grin grew wider and wider before giving rise to a super saiyan-like high-pressure dark aura that had a supersonic impact on their surroundings.
"Anything... I can ask Kouro to do anything…" Hei Xuan muttered this over and over again like a broken music box.
Kouro did not realize that his words had a very effective impact on Hei Xuan.
Knight Igris, who was facing the two of them, looked confused by Hei Xuan's sudden change in aura; this could be seen from how he tilted his head looking at Hei Xuan.
"Let's fight now, Blood Knight!" shouted Hei Xuan while grinning widely.
For the first time, the thought that fighting a woman being the wrong decision crossed Igris' mind.