Chapter 686 Cherry Blossom Mercenaries Lay Their Trap

The Spider Stone Carving in Marcus’s hand was instantly sucked into the groove on the forehead of the Centennial Spider Maiden statue. A flicker of light flashed across the stone, followed by a sudden eruption of black flames that engulfed the bull-sized statue.

"Hell yes! Something’s happening!"

Marcus grinned. After all that searching, he was finally getting somewhere. Without wasting any time, he took out the second Spider Stone Carving and placed it into the corresponding groove on the other statue.

The result was exactly the same. Black flames surged around the second Centennial Spider Maiden, and the light emanating from the two statues began to intensify. As though responding to each other, the two streams of black light converged from opposite sides, merging into a single, concentrated beam that shot toward the base of the main hall’s wall.

A blinding flash followed.

Rrrrrr...

A deep mechanical rumble echoed through the ruined temple as the ground trembled beneath Marcus’s feet. Slowly, a section of the wall at the base of the main hall began to shift, revealing a pitch-black doorway. Beyond it, a long flight of stone steps descended into the darkness, their lower reaches hidden from view.

The entrance to the underground structure of the Shrine of the Spider Demoness had finally opened!

Marcus glanced at the two statues. The Spider Stone Carvings had fused completely with the grooves, leaving no trace of their original shapes. He couldn’t retrieve them now, but that hardly mattered. He had already accomplished what he came here to do, and the discovery of the hidden passage was worth far more than two pieces of whatever those things were.

Patting Blackie, he motioned for his pets to follow and headed toward the entrance. The staircase stretched deep beneath the shrine, disappearing into an impenetrable darkness that made it impossible to tell how far down it went.

"Go!"

At his command, the two Sea Demon Souls and Pebble took the lead, carefully descending the steps while Marcus and his remaining pets followed behind. They advanced at a measured pace, maintaining their formation as they entered the underground passage.

Marcus had no intention of letting his excitement cloud his judgment. Lady Silvia was an expert in her own right, yet she had somehow ended up trapped in this place. Whatever awaited them below, he needed to be prepared for it.

The staircase seemed to go on forever. Nearly thirty minutes passed before the narrow, pitch-black corridor finally opened into a broad passage illuminated by an unknown source of light.

The sudden brightness revealed numerous monsters wandering through the area.

There were two distinct types.

The first were Soulless Spider Maidens, the same creatures Marcus had encountered in the courtyard above. However, these underground variants were noticeably stronger, standing at Level 65 with 53,000 HP.

The second type was an enormous black spider roughly the size of a dog. Its body was covered in pitch-black bristles, a pair of sharp tusks protruded from its mouth, and its face bore a strange flower-like pattern that made it look even more unsettling.

These spiders were Level 68, each possessing 60,000 HP.

Marcus examined the monsters briefly before relaxing. ’Nothing too troublesome.’ With his current lineup, he could handle these creatures without much difficulty.

The two Sea Demon Souls immediately rushed forward to draw the monsters’ attention, while Marcus and his other pets followed up with coordinated attacks from behind. They began clearing a path through the underground passage, gradually advancing deeper into the shrine.

However, just as Marcus stepped out of the staircase and entered the brightly lit passage, a mechanical rumble sounded behind him.

Rrrrrr...

He turned around. The black doorway at the top of the stairs was slowly closing.

Marcus raised an eyebrow but didn’t pay it much attention. The entrance had probably been designed to seal itself after someone entered, a security mechanism intended to protect whatever lay beneath the shrine. Besides, he had already come inside. There was no reason to waste time worrying about the door when he had more important things to do.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one who had been looking for a way into the underground structure.

At almost the exact moment the doorway began to close, twelve players from a mercenary group entered the ruined temple through its main gate.

"Boss, look! There’s a hidden entrance over there, and it’s closing!"

The assassin at the front of the group spotted the black doorway and immediately shouted a warning.

"Move!"

The moment the order came, the assassin activated two skills in rapid succession. The first pushed his movement speed to its limit, while the second plunged him into Stealth, concealing his presence from the Level 60 Soulless Spider Maidens wandering around the entrance. He shot forward like an arrow, racing toward the narrowing gap.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

At the same time, another member of the group sprang into action. This player was a thief whose face was concealed beneath a cloak, and unlike the assassin, he possessed a teleportation skill that allowed him to blink roughly twenty meters at a time. With each activation, he vanished and reappeared farther ahead, quickly overtaking the assassin as he raced toward the entrance.

"Move it! Don’t let that door close!"

The remaining ten players immediately sprang into action. The knights and warriors charged forward to draw the monsters’ attention, while the archers and mages attacked from behind, clearing the path as quickly as possible. Every member of the group understood what was at stake. If they lost their chance to enter the hidden passage, finding another way in might prove far more difficult.

Unfortunately, they were already too late.

The teleporting thief blinked forward three times, covering a distance of roughly seventy meters, but the doorway was still another fifty meters away when it finally slammed shut. The entrance disappeared into the wall with a heavy rumble, leaving no visible gap or indication that it had ever existed.

"Damn it!"

The players nearly exploded with frustration. Several cursed aloud, their expressions darkening as they stared at the now-sealed entrance. They had been so close!

However, neither the thief nor the assassin gave up. Both continued racing toward the wall, hoping to discover some way to reopen the entrance, while the remaining ten members intensified their attacks and hurried to clear the monsters blocking their path. If the hidden passage had been discovered by another player, then that player must have found some way to activate it. As long as they could figure out the mechanism, there was still a chance to get inside.

The question was whether they could find it before their opportunity slipped away completely.

The ten players quickly demonstrated why they had dared to charge through a temple filled with high-level monsters. The knights and warriors could withstand attacks from the Level 60 Soulless Spider Maidens with relative ease, losing only eight or nine hundred HP per hit. With two clerics providing healing support, their health remained stable even under sustained attacks.

The archers and mages were equally impressive. Their attacks dealt around 4,000 damage per hit on average, allowing them to eliminate the monsters at a respectable pace. Their overall combat strength was comparable to that of some of the Soulfire Elites.

Marcus would have recognized their equipment immediately if he had been there to see it. Nearly every member of the group wore golden equipment adorned with two yellow halos, indicating that their gear had been enhanced to +7. Their equipment was dazzling, and their combat performance reflected the considerable resources that had gone into acquiring it.

Aside from lacking the Mythic Artifacts carried by SoulfireBlade and SoulSync, their equipment was not far behind that of Soulfire’s eight elites.

This was no ordinary mercenary group.

After searching the wall and its surroundings for a while, the thief and assassin finally returned to their leader, their expressions grim. The other ten had also finished clearing the immediate area and gathered behind the knight who commanded the group.

"Boss, there’s nothing here. No mechanisms, no traps, not even a trace of how that black door opened."

The thief shook his head helplessly, while the assassin gave a frustrated nod in agreement. They had examined the wall from every possible angle, but there was nothing to indicate that it concealed an entrance. As far as they could tell, it was just an ordinary system wall.

"Damn it! How the hell are we supposed to get in now?"

"Whoever opened that door must have found something we missed!"

The assassin clenched his teeth, then drew his dagger and slashed at the wall in frustration.

Clang!

The blade struck the stone with a metallic ring, but the wall remained completely unchanged. There was no hidden mechanism, no secret panel, and certainly no response from whatever lay on the other side.

The knight standing nearby frowned, though he managed to keep his temper under control. Unlike his companions, he understood that getting angry wouldn’t solve anything.

"The Roaring Tiger Squad is a hidden quest, not a unique hidden quest," he said after a moment’s thought. "That means we’re not the only ones who can trigger it. Someone else must have met the conditions and discovered the hidden passage before us."

He glanced at the sealed entrance, his expression growing increasingly displeased. "Whoever it was got lucky. They found the entrance and managed to get inside before we arrived."

Although he spoke calmly, the irritation in his voice was unmistakable. His group had spent a considerable amount of time searching for Lady Silvia, only to have someone else reach the hidden passage first. He wasn’t about to accept that without a fight.

Turning toward the ruined temple, he began issuing orders.

"Sakura Thief, Sakura Assassin, continue searching the ruins for clues. The rest of you, follow me and clear out these Spider Maidens. If we’re lucky, we might find something useful among the drops."

"Understood!"

The group immediately got back to work.

Sakura Thief. Sakura Assassin. Those names revealed their identities. These twelve players belonged to the Cherry Blossom Mercenary Group, the personal force of Blaze Phoenix’s Twelve Cherry Blossom Envoys. Like Marcus, they had also accepted the quest involving the Roaring Tiger Squad.

And they had already visited the shrine three times.

Each time, they had searched the ruins thoroughly, hoping to find some clue that would lead them to Lady Silvia. Each time, they had come away empty-handed. Now, after all that effort, someone had managed to discover the hidden passage right in front of them.

The mere thought was enough to make their blood boil.

An hour passed. Despite their continued efforts, the Cherry Blossom Mercenaries found nothing. They had searched the shrine three times before, and their previous visits had yielded no useful information. This time, however, the situation was different.

They had seen the black doorway with their own eyes. Someone was definitely inside. The knowledge gnawed at them, turning their frustration into barely restrained fury. If another player had been standing nearby when the entrance closed, they would have had little hesitation about killing them and searching their body for clues.

Unfortunately, there was no one else in sight. They didn’t even know who had beaten them to the passage, let alone how that person had managed to open it. More than anything, they wanted to find the culprit and make them pay.

Two hours passed, and the group still had nothing to show for their efforts.

Eventually, the Level 50 Sakura Assassin and Sakura Thief returned their attention to the two enormous spider statues flanking the main hall’s entrance. The statues had stood there throughout every visit, and although the mercenaries had already examined them repeatedly, the assassin couldn’t shake the feeling that they were somehow connected to the hidden passage.

"Boss, I still think these two statues are the problem," Sakura Assassin said, pointing toward the guardians. "Look around. The rest of the temple is practically falling apart. Everything’s collapsed or been reduced to rubble, and we can’t even make out what the statue in the shrine used to look like. But these two spider statues are completely intact. Not a single scratch on either of them."

He narrowed his eyes at the statues. "Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you?"

The knight leader, Sakura Knight, gave a helpless sigh. Of course it seemed suspicious. They had noticed the same thing during their very first visit, which was why they had spent so much time examining the statues in the first place. They had checked every inch of the stone spiders, searching for concealed switches, hidden compartments, or anything else that might reveal their purpose. Yet despite all their efforts, they hadn’t found a single mechanism.

Still, Sakura Knight wasn’t ready to abandon the idea.

"Keep searching. Take your time and examine them again if you have to. If we still can’t find anything, it doesn’t matter."

He paused, then added with a confident smile, "I’ve already notified our master. He’s sending more than two hundred men here. Once they arrive, we’ll have enough people to deal with whatever comes out of that passage."

The knight glanced toward the wall where the hidden entrance had disappeared. "According to the quest, all we need to do is capture Lady Silvia and deliver her to Beastmaster Manor. As long as we accomplish that, we win. We don’t necessarily have to be the ones who open the door."

"Got it!"

The Cherry Blossom Mercenaries nodded, their determination returning. They couldn’t afford to abandon this quest. The rewards were simply too good, and they had already invested far too much time and effort into tracking down Lady Silvia.

There was also another reason they refused to back down. The Twelve Cherry Blossom Envoys had never been the sort to let others steal what they considered theirs. They were accustomed to killing other players, taking their equipment, and claiming whatever rewards they could get their hands on. As far as they were concerned, no one had the right to take something from them and walk away unpunished.

With their equipment and combat strength, they had little reason to doubt their ability to enforce that belief. They especially enjoyed killing players from the US Region. If their master hadn’t ordered them to keep a low profile, they would have already killed plenty of players simply for crossing their path. But this time, there were no restrictions holding them back.

They could finally have some fun.

Several more hours passed. The two hundred players Blaze Phoenix had dispatched eventually arrived at the shrine, turning the previously quiet ruins into a gathering point for a sizeable force. They were all members of the Blaze Phoenix Guild, one of the tenth-ranked guilds in Dominion.

A knight stepped forward and handed command of the incoming group to Sakura Knight.

"Sakura Knight, I’ve brought everyone you requested. No one followed us here, and there haven’t been any leaks."

"Good."

Sakura Knight nodded in satisfaction and began organizing the newcomers.

In large-scale operations like this, their master, Blaze Phoenix, rarely appeared in person. Neither did the twins, Raven and Skye. Instead, such matters were usually entrusted to Sakura Knight, the man Blaze Phoenix trusted more than almost anyone else. With him in charge, the guild members had little reason to worry about who would be giving orders.

Naturally, the gathering included female players. Unfortunately for them, the two Centennial Spider Maidens Marcus had killed would not respawn for another five days. Until then, the conditions necessary to detect suitable female players and reopen the black doorway could not be fulfilled.

Five days was a long time to wait. Sakura Knight might not even be the one who eventually opened the passage, but that possibility didn’t bother him in the slightest. He had no intention of wasting the opportunity simply because the entrance couldn’t be opened immediately.

"Heh."

Looking at the two hundred guild members assembled before him, Sakura Knight couldn’t suppress a smug grin. All they had to do now was wait for the hidden entrance to reopen. Whoever had beaten them to the passage would eventually have to come back out, and when that happened, the Cherry Blossom Mercenaries would be waiting.

He was confident that the outcome would be the same regardless of who emerged. If the other party surrendered Lady Silvia peacefully, he could take her to Beastmaster Manor and claim the quest reward. If they refused, he would simply kill them and take her by force.

Either way, he intended to be the one who walked away with the prize.

There was a good reason for his confidence.

A mercenary group’s maximum size was determined by its leader’s Reputation, with every 100 Reputation allowing one additional member. Even the player at the top of the Reputation Leaderboard had only around 13,000 Reputation, which meant a theoretical maximum of 130 members.

And that was the limit under the system’s rules.

In practice, the largest mercenary group belonged to Hexium, the master of the Violet Thunder Guild. Despite ranking third on the Reputation Leaderboard with 5,300 Reputation, Hexium’s Violet Thunder Mercenary Group had only fifty members.

Guilds and mercenary groups operated under different systems. A guild could contain mercenary groups that functioned like specialized squads, but those groups remained under the guild’s control.

That distinction gave Sakura Knight a considerable advantage. He had two hundred Blaze Phoenix Guild members at his disposal, far more than any ordinary mercenary group could field under its own name. Even if the player hiding inside the underground passage belonged to Hexium’s Violet Thunder Mercenary Group, Sakura Knight was confident he could overwhelm them with sheer numbers.

After all, what could fifty mercenaries do against two hundred well-equipped guild members?

In his mind, the outcome was already decided. He could practically picture the scene: the rival mercenary group emerging from the hidden passage, only to be surrounded and wiped out by his forces. Then, with the troublesome competition eliminated, he would personally deliver Lady Silvia to Beastmaster Manor and collect the reward.

The thought alone brought a satisfied smile to his face.

There was, however, one concern he couldn’t entirely dismiss. If other players discovered that a large force was gathering at the shrine, they might summon reinforcements of their own. A prolonged confrontation could become troublesome, particularly if word spread to powerful guilds that had an interest in the quest.

For now, he could only hope that no one had noticed their arrival and that the shrine’s remote location would keep the gathering hidden from prying eyes. More importantly, he hoped the person inside would find Lady Silvia and bring her out soon.

The sooner that happened, the sooner he could finish the quest.

Deep beneath the shrine, Marcus was already making plans of his own.

Looking at the Level 60 to Level 70 monsters wandering through the underground passage, he quickly reached a decision.

"All right. We’ll level up here first."

There was no reason to rush blindly into the deeper sections of the shrine. The monsters here provided an excellent opportunity to gain experience, and his pets could handle them without much difficulty. Rather than risk encountering an enemy too powerful to deal with, he would make the most of the area while he had the chance.

His immediate goal was to raise the Yin-Yang Giant Panda to Level 50 and trigger it’s next evolution. Once it evolved, it’s strength would increase considerably, giving him a much better chance of dealing with whatever threats awaited farther below.

Only after the panda reached Level 50 and completed its evolution would he venture deeper into the shrine to look for Lady Silvia.

Marcus wasn’t about to let impatience jeopardize the entire operation. If preparing a little longer meant improving his chances of rescuing her safely, then the extra time was well worth it.