Chapter 73: The Wyvern's Wrath Group

'Now... I just need to get to the boss before anyone else...' he grinned, the mountain was now closer than ever before, and he could see the flight of stairs that would lead up to it.

His heart pounded in his chest, adrenaline fueling his every step. He was determined to outrun them and protect his position as the first.

But of course...

~FWISH~

A blue trident crashed in front of him, halting his run.

Instinctively, Stark looked behind him, and there he saw that the seven figures were much muuuchh closer than he expected them to be.

'...' he switched directions to avoid the trident that had stopped him...

But another interrupted him again, the head of the trident hitting the ground.

'FUCK...'

No matter where he would try to go, another trident would be there, slowly but surely blocking all his options.

And after only 30 seconds, he was now surrounded by a circular cage of blue tridents, aura pouring out from them as they encercled Stark like a rat in a testing lab.

~FWISH~

In a flash of light, the tridents disappeared, and instead of the weapons, Stark was now surrounded by the seven classifiers.

[Group: Wyvern's Wrath]

A panel appeared to tell him who he was facing, probably thanks to [Perception].

[Tip: Idk, just don't anger them]

'Nice tip!' Stark nodded.

"What took you so long?" one of the members of this group, a burly man with dark skin and refined muscles laughed.

"Sleeping," Stark replied while smiling.

"HAHAHAHAH~" the man held his forehead, "You were sleeping in this rift?"

"I wouldn't underestimate him..." the nervous woman adjusted her glasses, she seemed to be the smartest of the group.

"I'll repeat, what do you want from me," Everything about Stark's stance and aura indicated he wasn't kidding, yet his face remained calm.

"I'll tell you what we want, then..." Stark's brother took a step forward, putting his hand on his chest before pulling out his 'Wielder Heart' from it, "We just want to be the first to complete this rift."

"Fair enough," Stark nodded, but he obviously wouldn't let them be.

"So I hope..." a small grin began to form on the black-haired leader's face, "You don't hate us for what's about to happen."

Right as he finished his sentence, a blue magic circle appeared around Stark, and blue chains appeared, slowly approaching Stark.

'I can't move,' no matter how hard he tried to fight it, there was no way he could move.

"Should have been smarter than this," the leader winked at Stark, mocking him for just standing there while they restrained him behind the scene.

The owner of that attack was the blue-haired guy with tridents around him, its name was [Timed Chain], and if the opponent stays still for five seconds in the domain of the circle, they would be forcefully paralyzed, then restrained, with no way to escape.

And so this meant...

"It's our victory, bunny masked guy," the dark-skinned man laughed, enjoying the show.

As if to mock him even more, the chains that were supposed to restrain him were moving very slowly toward his body, to make sure that Stark could see them.

'Their victory...?' Stark internally grinned.

On the outside, it seemed like he was perplexed and taken aback, but on the inside... he was laughing.

He had [Perception] and [Focus], how the hell would he have not noticed it?

He had seen the circle since the moment it appeared, but just let it do what it was supposed to do, even going as far as reading the skill's description to make sure that it would work.

The objective of this small plan of his was obvious: take all of them aback to be able to reach the boss area before they did.

And so right as the chains were going to wrap around his limbs...

"INVINCIBLE DODGE," Stark focused all his aura around his legs, all the while summoning [Aura Smash] and [Crimson Spears] around him.

And then... he dodged the chains, essentially getting out of the [Timed Chains] skill's range thanks to the invincibility frames.

And so just like that, Stark began his plan to reach the boss of the Secret Rift before this group of classifiers more powerful than he was.