And with all of that out of the way, it was time for him to move on to the next phase. He briefly wondered if he should use his luck charm to land in the most profitable area of the third phase.

But in the end, he decided to save it for later. Then, he stepped into the portal and...

A strong smell of sulfur hit him immediately, and the annoying croaking of frogs echoed all around.

"No... it can’t be," Shin murmured to himself in frustration.

The swamp of frogs was the worst possible place he could have been sent to.

"Fuck!" he cursed his luck. "I should have used that fucking charm!"

Still getting used to the suffocating heat and humidity, Shin looked around. All around him stretched a dense, murky forest, with twisted roots forming floating paths over the dark water.

Croak!

A frog the size of a domestic cat leaped from the water, its throat swelling menacingly. Shin didn’t even blink. He casually swung the Obsidian Decapitator, slicing the creature cleanly in half mid-air.

However, as the two halves hit the murky water, the corpse erupted in a cloud of thick, yellowish gas. The stench of concentrated sulfur and rotting meat hit Shin like a physical punch.

Worse than the smell was the reaction it caused. The swamp waters began to bubble, and a dozen more croaks echoed through the damp silence. The disgusting scent of their dead kin acted like a call to battle, drawing even more of the amphibians toward him.

Shin easily killed the next three that jumped at his face, but the resulting gas clouds only thickened the air, attracting an endless wave of creatures.

The problem wasn’t their strength; they were absolute fodder. The issue was their numbers. And more importantly, the real problem was the terrible smell. Shin just wanted a way out of that shithole.

Because Shin currently lacked a wide area-of-effect skill to wipe them all out simultaneously, killing them one by one would only draw more, trapping him in an endless, stinking war of attrition.

Dodging another frog that tried to ignite itself, Shin landed safely on a sturdy tree branch high above the water.

"Lilel, make yourself useful," Shin muttered, wiping a smudge of swamp mud from his cheek. "Fly up and see if there’s a way out of this mess. Or at least find me something worth looking at."

"I am always making myself useful," Lilel complained, crossing her arms, but she complied with the order anyway, zipping up through the dense canopy until she was out of sight.

Escaping the sulfurous stench, Lilel scanned the horizon. About a mile to the east, the murky waters ended abruptly, giving way to a dry, open savanna.

But what caught her attention wasn’t the landscape; it was a commotion not far from the border between the two biomes.

She floated closer, her curiosity piqued by a one-sided fight between participants and examiners. Three attackers were relentlessly ganging up on a pair.

One of the victims was a girl, cowering on the ground and visibly terrified. The other, standing firmly between her and the attackers, was a young man with white hair and wolf ears.

"Is this guy..." she blinked in surprise. "Could he be part of the ice wolf clan?" the little fairy asked herself. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Then she tilted her head, watching intently. The wolf boy wore a fierce expression, but he wasn’t throwing a single punch.

Instead, he maintained a defensive position, trying to hold his ground against the three participants. But this was the strange part: he should have been able to crush them easily.

Lilel could see the aura of everyone’s system, and she knew the girl and the wolf boy were too high-leveled to be participants. They had to be guides.

So why were they being pushed like that?

Finding the anomaly interesting, she turned around and fluttered back down into the stinking swamp. She found Shin just as he kicked another explosive frog away.

Pinching her tiny nose against the gas, she quickly gave her report, detailing the biomes and the strange fight at the border.

Shin fell silent after hearing it, but almost immediately decided to head toward the commotion. There was a high chance he would find something interesting there.

ООО

A few days later, news of a newcomer killing the Statue King began spreading among the important figures inside the Tower.

It had been decades since the last time something like that happened. And the most impressive part was that he had done it alone. Normally, such a feat would require strong leadership to coordinate an entire group and secure victory.

Even so, many argued that he had been reckless to take on such a challenge by himself. Others claimed he had caused the massacre of his "teammates" by pushing the statue into a berserk state.

As a result, his story received mixed reactions. Some saw him as a once-in-a-generation talent, while others viewed him as a dangerous and insatiable newcomer.

And of course, this news eventually reached the headquarters of Heaven, where Lilith was enjoying a bath, her pale body submerged in warm water infused with fragrant perfumes.

The one who brought the news was Seraphina. She was no longer directly observing Shin, especially now that he had entered the test, but she was still responsible for gathering information about him, so it was only natural that this news reached her.

Standing beside her was another figure, known by the codename Blank. Her face was completely covered in bandages, and her body was hidden beneath a large, dirty hoodie, making it impossible to tell anything about her identity.

"How come both of you have come to visit me at this time?" Lilith purred, idly playing with the water in her bathtub. "Did something happen with my cute prospects?"

The witch had personally assigned both agents to watch over Shin and Alan, respectively. She had also given them permission to enter her chambers in case of a special report. Still, this was the first time both of them had appeared together.

"Blank, you can go first," she said in a relaxed tone. "Tell me, what has the fancy boy done this time?"

"Actually..." Blank hesitated. "He is dead."

Lilith’s eyes widened slightly, though she didn’t move. Her finger idly toyed with the soap floating in the bathtub as she considered the information.

"I didn’t expect him to fail the test..." she murmured, her tone laced with faint disappointment. "How disappointing."

"He was killed by the Statue King, him and the entire group that was with him... aside from—" Blank glanced at Seraphina, prompting her to continue the report.

"Shin was the only survivor. He managed to kill the Statue King by himself."

"So he’s the newcomer everyone has been talking about," Lilith commented, her tone laced with interest.

"Yes. I confirmed it was him. Not only that, I managed to access footage from the second test. I believe he deliberately intended to kill Alan. He most likely attacked the Statue King with that purpose in mind."

Seraphina recalled everything she had seen in the footage in precise detail. The most shocking element had been Myha, a mysterious statue that appeared during the test, something that shouldn’t have been there at all.

Even the higher-ups had no idea what it was.

"So that gloomy guy killed the fancy boy...?" Lilith murmured to herself, thoughtfully playing with the water. "Do you have any idea why? Could it be that he knew the fancy boy was my favorite...? Maybe he was trying to take the first step?" Her voice sounded excited, almost horny.

"I don’t think so," Seraphina commented. "I have observed him for a very long time; there was no way he could have gotten his hand on such information."

"There’s no better way to prove your love than by killing the one your beloved cherishes the most... He’s perfect."

Lilith was far from normal. Alan’s power had worked on her completely, making her fall deeply in love with him. But instead of feeling anger at his death, she twisted it into something else, something that fit the narrative she preferred.

To her, Shin’s actions weren’t an insult.

They were a declaration.

And in a rare display of genuine emotion, she smiled softly, her eyes gleaming with anticipation as she murmured,

"I’ll be waiting for you."

"Both. We confirmed he had a problem with his first test; a delay made him join the tower 20 minutes late," Blank commented. "And you know how Alan is. When Shin joined, everyone in the room was already his loyal follower."

"So you are saying he chose a massacre after noticing he wouldn’t get any allies... This is so boring," Lilith pouted like a kid. "Do you think he would have done it?"

"Well, it does sound much more like something he would do than killing someone to get your attention," Seraphina joked.

"I don’t think so; he always knows much more than he should," Lilith argued. Then her lips curled into a big smile. "I’m sure he did it for me... oh! He is so lovely!"

Her hand naturally found its way to her stomach, lowering to her pussy; her eyes trembled with desire.

"Whatever you say, ma’am," Seraphina said. "I’ll be going; I have other missions to attend."

"Of course. You’re both dismissed," Lilith replied with a smile.