THE STRONGEST NEXULYTE

An unknown amount of time passed in the dreamscape. In what seemed like an enormous cavern with a blood-red floor that stretched for kilometers, five figures could be seen lying on the floor without moving.

All of them looked badly bruised and messy as if they had suffered for months or even years with blood stains on various parts of their bodies.

After a few seconds, one of the figures with white hair moved. His body trembled slightly before a low groan was heard.

This person was obviously Ivan who had just woken up.

Ivan felt his entire body screaming in exhaustion as he pushed his body from the ground, his eyes looking around the place in confusion as he reorganized his thoughts.

He felt a terrible headache that made him frown his eyebrows and he touched his head with one of his hands.

"What…happened?"

Ivan mumbled as he tried to remember what led to him getting on the ground, he forced his mind to ignore the headache as he dove into his memories.

Soon, Ivan's eyes widened as he began to remember. He remembered encountering a one-eyed girl who claimed to be the priestess of a fallen Angel. He remembered how the girl had fed him till the True Lord rank and then completely overpowered him and knocked him out.

Then, he lived a completely different life from his life here.

In that life, he had a family and lived as a normal person. He had a wife and a daughter after many years, as well as close friends…very close friends.

At the thought of his wife in that life, Ivan's wide eyes flashed with a strange light. This was because he was able to match Kira's face with someone's face after waking up.

It was Elora!

Miss Elora, who was his instructor during training, was the same person as his wife and the mother of his daughter, Kira.

Their looks, personality, and character were the same.

"Was that a dream?" Ivan thought to himself. He guessed that it was a sort of dream or illusion that he was placed under by the priestess.

But even after this thought, Ivan could not help but feel an inexplicable feeling in his heart. This feeling made him feel suffocated and hot at the same time.

Aside from Elora and Kira, no one else whom Ivan had encountered in that life matched with anyone in this life, not even his daughter.

Continuing with the memories, Ivan recalled how Hercules had suddenly appeared and asked for his daughter's eyes. He also remembered how Hercules killed his alien friend and then trashed him terribly after he refused to reveal his daughter's location.

Aside from that…

"Argh!" Ivan suddenly held his head and let out a painful scream.

He screamed for a minute straight, and his screaming woke up Glen and the others, who wore dazed expressions on their faces after waking up; they only came to their senses after a while and realized that Ivan was screaming.

Ralph and Glen quickly rushed to his side, they stared at Ivan without knowing what to do.

Ivan soon stopped and began to breathe heavily; he didn't answer any of the questions thrown at him as his thoughts wandered.

He wasn't able to remember what had happened after Hercules almost killed him or how he came back here, he wasn't able to remember anything.

It was as if that part of his memory was hidden within a thick fog that would bite him if he tried to recall those memories forcefully.

After seeing that Ivan had stopped screaming and was now breathing, they concluded that he was already and would talk when he felt like it.

Glen suddenly fell to the ground on his back, he wasn't unconscious and was just staring at the ceiling of the cavern.

"Damn, my entire body is in pain and my ears as well; I feel like I suffered from a monstrous sonic sound attack," Glen grumbled as his body twitched.

He wasn't the only one, Kira also complained that she felt like he had been beaten up by three hefty men.

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Ralph and Clint were the same as well; they all had similar experiences, and their bodies were screaming in pain.

But no matter how hard they tried, they were unable to recall what had placed them in such states.

"Hold on, I thought we were inside the blood labyrinth, what's this place?" Karin suddenly asked as she tapped her fingers on the ground that was blood red and stinking awfully, but for some reason, they were not too bothered by the stench.

"Now that you mentioned it, it's indeed the case. What's this place and how did we get here?" Glen added as he sat up and looked around.

The space was so huge that they could see it stretching into the distance and everywhere was covered by this stinking red floor that had the same stench as the labyrinth.

"Don't tell me…could it be that the labyrinth moved?" Ralph said after a while. They had also noticed that the red mist that was in the air was not there anymore which meant that this was not just another corner of the labyrinth.

"Shouldn't that only happen if the guardian of the labyrinth was killed? Did anyone kill it?" Ivan muttered.

"That might be related to our missing memories and why we all feel like we've been beaten up, it could be that we had a serious fight with the guardian and won," Ralph said with a thoughtful face.

"Then shouldn't its corpse be here? Or how did our memories vanish if we won?"

Karin asked and Ralph immediately shrugged his shoulders.

" How would I know?" He answered.

While Karin's question made sense, they felt that Ralph's words were the only logical explanation as to why the labyrinth was no longer there; there were strange creatures in the dreamscape, after all, and those who were known to use curses and magic were not rare. Besides, there were still a large number of creatures that were yet to be discovered even after hundreds of years of humans roaming the dreamscape.

Ivan watched them debate in silence, he remembered that the priestess had sent some of her champions to capture Ralph and the others. She had used them to force him to consume the Nexus crystals that he used to reach the True Lord rank.

He felt that Ralph's analysis might not be true, how did they escape the hands of the various champions when some of them were already unconscious before Ivan accepted the girl's demand?

But he didn't say this as it would cause too much confusion, it was best to leave mysterious matters that they didn't know how to resolve alone.

Without realizing it, Ivan was being influenced by the life he had lived after he was knocked unconscious by the priestess. After all, he had lived a normal life and interacted with people during his early years in that life, unlike in this life where he had suffered and was alone for the first half of his life.

After a long time of resting and recovering, the ground resumed scouting the place. They walked the full length of the place and finally burst out at the end of the mountain; they found themselves at the top of a cliff, and before then was a large river that was surrounded by other mountains; a waterfall could be seen on the other side of the river.

"Guess this is the end of Region 17; we finally completed the mission!" Karin could not help but let out a low shout of happiness.

The others were also emotional, they had finally completed the mission after spending weeks in this place.

They returned to the space that used to be the labyrinth to rest for a bit before they returned. They took out some healing gels to relieve their pain and also ate some of their supplies.

The group finally left after three hours of resting.

They followed the route in their memories and finally returned to the space where they had separated from Elliot.

The young man and the land carrier were nowhere to be seen when the group returned.

"The heck? Didn't he say he would wait for a week? Why did he leave without us?" Glen said furiously while stomping his feet.

This place was the last place that the A-22G3 could reach which was why they had left Elliot behind and continued themselves. How could they not be furious to find out that their ride to return to the base had left without them?n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

" What if a week had passed? He was following the agreement." Ralph said with a sigh.

" What rubbish agreement, why didn't he use his consciousness? The only way out of this place is that damned tunnel that's hundreds of meters up the wall, how does he expect us to leave?" Glen asked.

He had always been on the wrong foot with Elliot so he naturally wasn't going to see things from Elliot's pov.

"No need to be so angry, I can take us out of here"