61 The Mysterious Crater

"Heh, so this is the secret passage that they entered just now huh? Interesting, I never thought something like this could exist here all this time and I don't even know," Asuna was quite surprised at what she discovered.

After making sure that there's no one around her, she then proceeded to enter the stone wall quietly. And not long after that, she arrived at the exact same place where Prime and Aelena's party was on earlier.

Looking at her surroundings, she discovered that she's on the edges of the island, which is on the beach area. Then looking ahead of her, she found some footprints on the sand, which she believed that it has got to be Aelena's party footprint.

"Hehe, looks like they haven't gone far yet. Alright, I'll have to be careful for now as this type of opportunity is rare, so I must not screw up no matter what," said Asuna determinedly.

Meanwhile, Aelena's party was still on their way to the center part of the island, because that's where the gateway to the 51st floor is located.

At the moment, they are already halfway toward their destination and just another two more hours, and they will arrive there.

Although this island may look very beautiful and a paradise for everyone, but surprisingly, the monsters here are even more deadly than what they expected. Because unlike the monsters they have met so far, most of them can only use an ability or two when they fight.

However, the monsters here are different because they can use up to 3 abilities at once and as a result, Aelena's party ended up having a difficult time defeating it. Nevertheless, Aelena's party didn't complain at all and instead, they use this opportunity to gain experience and become stronger.

Of course, if anything happens to them, then Prime will be their backup and protect them. But so far, they seem to be doing pretty well on their own and didn't even need Prime's help.

Then two hours later, they finally arrived at the center part of the island.

"Eh? What is this place? It doesn't look like an island at all," said one of the elf girls curiously.

What appeared in front of them right now is a massive crater, and in the middle of the crater, it's where the gateway to the 51st floor is.

The size of this crater is about 150 KM in diameter, and has a height of 2000 feet at the edges and also at the center.

Despite being called a crater, but this crater is not what you normally see on Earth because this crater is filled with super short green grasses and beautiful flowers. Basically, it looks like a grassland crater.

"Look! The gateway is over there! Let's go! Woohoo!" said an elf man excitingly.

"Wait! Don't go yet!" yelled Dior.

"Huh? Why not?" replied that elf man confusingly.

"Hmm, don't you think something it's strange here?"

"W-What do you mean?"

"Hmm, now that you mention it, you're right there's no guardian beast at all," said the elf man.

It was at this time, Cyrena interrupted their conversation, and said:

"Don't let your guard down just yet, because the guardian beast only appears the moment you guys step foot into the crater. So as long as you guys don't enter the crater, then the guardian beast won't appear,"

"I see, so that's how it is," said Dior.

At the moment, the time on this island is about 4.30 PM, which means night time is about to arrive soon in just a few more hours. So knowing that, Aelena suggested everyone to take a break for today and continue again tomorrow.

Since they had been fighting with monsters all day long earlier, so naturally, they're all pretty tired and won't be able to fight at their full power again. Of course, Prime didn't care either, and just follow along and rest with them.

Then a few hours later, finally nighttime has arrived.

At the moment, everyone is sitting near the campfire while waiting for the two elf girls to serve them some food. The food they are cooking today is Minotaur King's soup that they collected during the time when they were fighting on the 47th floor.

"Here this is for you, Sir Prime," said one of the elf girl while handling a large bowl of Minotaur King's soup to Prime.

"Oh! Thank you very much," said Prime as he accepted it gratefully.

Once everyone had a bowl of Minotaur King's soup on their hands, that's when they say "Thanks for the food," and began feasting it. Luckily, Aelena's party even brought wines with them, so right after they finished eating their main meal, they immediately started celebrating the rest of the night by drinking wines together.

As for Prime, he doesn't like wines at all, but since he was offered to drink it, so he just accepted it out of courtesy.

Since everyone is at least S-Class, so even though they drank so much wine, but they didn't get drunk at all and was still able to sleep peacefully for the night without any problem.

Then the next day, finally everyone's energies are recharged again and ready to get going.

"Alright guys, are you ready?" said Dior.

When Dior said that, everyone in Aelena's party began gulping in fear because they know how dangerous it is to enter the crater. However, for Prime and Cyrena, they didn't have fear at all because to them is just another normal day, so it's not a big deal.

With that being said, they then started walking forward and eventually a few minutes later, they finally arrived at the edges of the crater at the top.

From their current location at the top to the bottom of the crater is about 2000 feet tall. If normal people were to jump from such height, then they would die without a doubt.

However, what terrifies them is not the height at all, but rather it's the guardian beast that will appear the moment their feet landed at the bottom.

"Shit! Are we really going to do this?" said an elf man in fear.

"Well we have already come this far, so there's no turning back now," said Dior as he too was also terrified, but as the leader, he had to stay strong for the party.

Even Aelena and the other two elf girls were shaking as well, but because they desperately need the Heavenly Light Sword, so they don't plan to retreat at all.

Also, it's much better to die here than to let the demon race win and rule over them. Because if the demon race were to rule this world, then many people would suffer even more, so even if they had to risk their lives, they will still do it for the greater good.

At first, Cyrena only cared about everyone in Aelena's party, but since Prime is her savior now, so she can't help but worried about his life too.

Deep down in Cyrena's heart, she really wanted to help them, but unfortunately, there's not much she can do because she herself is weak too.

Seeing everyone has a negative look on their face, that's when Prime step in and said:

"Don't worry, as long I'm here, you guys don't have to risk your life at all. So just stay here for now, and leave everything to me," said Prime as he didn't even wait for them to reply, and already jump down.

"Ah! Wait for us! That's dangerous!" said one of the elf girl worriedly.

Not long after, Prime finally landed at the bottom and "BOOM!!" the ground cracks a little due to the impact of him falling from such height.

After that, Prime turned around and looked at Aelena's party and gave them a big thumb up, as if he's saying that "Don't worry, I got this,"

As much as everyone is concerned about Prime's life, but there's nothing they could do at the moment, so they can only pray and hope that he will be okay.

Soon after Prime landed at the bottom, about 10 seconds later, suddenly up high at the beautiful blue sky, a massive blue portal appeared and what came out from the portal was a massive unknown creature.

The creature came out head first, then later the rest of its body follows. Upon looking at the creature, Prime was shocked, but not because of its scary appearance, but rather its level was 1100, which is way above Peak S-Class.

'What?! Didn't Cyrena say that the guardian beast should be around Peak S-Class? So how come it's way higher than that?'

Although Cyrena and everyone in Aelena's party can't see what is the creature's level is, but just the creature's aura alone is more than enough to terrify them immensely.

"What?! That's not Peak S-Class, that's definitely at least God-Class Level!" said Dior in shock.

In this world, anything above level 1000 is considered the beginning of a mortal slowly reaching Godhood.

"Dammit! What's going on here?" said the elf man shockingly. Even the two elf girls behind him were extremely shocked as well.

It was at this time, Aelena looks at Cyrena and said:

"Cyrena, didn't you say that the guardian beast is at most Peak S-Rank? So how come it's way more than that?"

"Well..... I don't really know either..... maybe something must have changed during these past ten thousand years or something," said Cyrena, as she too wasn't sure what's happening either.