Azaroth knew a distraction when he saw one. He heard it in Crypt Master’s voice before he cut it off. The sword shouldn’t be something a prisoner should have.

That could mean a lot of things, but Azaroth thought it meant there might be a spy in the Crypt training. Indeed, all he knew of the training crypt had changed now.

First, he learned that it was used for prisoners, and now there might be someone sneaking weapons in for the said prisoners. And the belief that Crypt Master was the god of the training crypt had been broken.

Azaroth looked at Crypt Master. He might be powerful, but it seems his power is limited. Azaroth stored all that for later. His only immediate concern was that there shouldn’t be any attack on his training.

"Yes, she’s powerful," Stallus replied. "But she said she was once even more powerful than this."

Crypt Master nodded. "Indeed. She was very powerful. But she got captured and an enchantment was put on her that chained her power to that level."

Azaroth didn’t know there was an enchantment like that. That was something he should be wary of. Something that can lower power seems like something he should keep an eye on. He might need it in the future.

Crypt Master talked more with them and gave them a warning that they should be careful in the training crypt. He said it jokingly, but Azaroth heard the small tension in it and he came to a conclusion of his own: the crypt is not safe.

And then Crypt Master took them away from their current location and dropped them at the beginning of the rolling green hills.

Stallus asked him if they would still be hunting monsters till the rest of their first stage and Crypt Master replied that they would be doing it for all their stages and all the rest of their lives.

They couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but Crypt Master laughed, and soon he was gone. He simply melted with the surroundings.

"Well then, let’s begin," Alex said, and they did begin then. They started from the first portal close to them and hunted it down. It was a weak crypt where the monsters were only big with nothing deadly. They eliminated them quickly and went to the next one.

This region had the weakest crypts they had ever seen; all of them were so easily cleared without them using any apparent strength, unlike the other regions.

Azaroth thought that the strength of each region of the crypt was affected by the environment. For example, the place where the rocky mountains stood, their crypts were strong.

Another month went on like this, which made it a total of four they used in the crypt. This region was for them to relax and practice what they learned while fighting in the crypts.

They relaxed, that was until they reached the end of the rolling hills region and they were to challenge their last crypt of the region. It was five months now.

The portal was like all the others, but they could immediately sense the difference in the way the aura changed around it. They stepped through and immediately found themselves in the sky.

It was not the sky per se but a circular platform hung sharply in the sky. It was translucent and large, and they could see sharp, jagged rocks below them.

"Falling here means instant death," Catena said.

Everyone agreed with him. Even the monster agreed with a chuckle because in front of them was a monster, floating. The monster was like a humanoid metal golem, but this one was white and carried a big hand fan in its hand.

"You don’t need to know my name. But you should know that you have now been summoned before the Game Master," the monster spoke without moving its lips.

They had met this type of monster before; their intelligence is almost on the level of an average human and sometimes, even above that. Mostly because their crypt wasn’t the average crypt either.

"You are standing in the middle of the sky platform. The game is simple. If I can send you out of the platform, then I win and your flesh is mine. But if you can do the same for me, then you can have my flesh." They heard it in the monster’s voice. It didn’t think they could chase it from the platform.

"Do you agree?" the monster asked.

If they ever wished to get out of here, then they better agree. Because they won’t leave until they played the game anyway. "Yes, we do," Azaroth answered.

The monster came down then, it touched the platform and then laughed. "You should have negotiated! Now I’ll just blow you out of this platform as if it is nothing!"

"You can try," Azaroth said simply.

The monster snickered and then raised its big hand fan. When it brought it down, it came with howling, rolling wind that slammed into the team like a storm.

It should have jetted them out of the platform and away, but instead, not a single hair moved on their heads. The monster was surprised and it tried again. And again.

But its attacks didn’t reach them. "What happened?! What are you doing to my attacks!"

Stallus smirked. "Maybe you should calm down and look very closely around us."

It did and moved steps backward from them. Because around the team was a clasped hand. Frozen like ice around them.

"What is that?" the monster asked, then it shook its head. "It matters not!" The monster raised its hand fan high above its head and then brought it down.

Twisting tornadoes, three of them, rose and came at them fast. It slammed into them and the team staggered back, not because the attack reached them but because the shield just took a huge amount of their essence to repair itself.

The monster didn’t know this, of course, or it was too busy thinking about how to kill them to notice.