Chapter 952: The Hidden Level Reveals Itself

The scenery twisted and reshaped around them.

When the light faded, the party found themselves inside a dim stone chamber lit by rows of torches fixed to the walls. Their flames crackled weakly, throwing long shadows across the floor and bathing the room in a dull orange glow.

Near the entrance stood an NPC merchant selling potions and emergency supplies. The prices, as always, were outrageous, more than double what they cost outside. Compared to player-run shops, it was robbery.

Almost nobody bought anything here unless they were desperate, trapped mid-run with empty bags and no way out.

As soon as they entered, harsh battle music thundered through the chamber.

Ethan frowned and muted it immediately.

"Get ready. Same setup as always."

The leader barked the order without even glancing Ethan’s way. He clearly hadn’t planned to assign him any meaningful role.

Other than Ethan, the squad had five members: a shield tank, a priest, a mage, a marksman, and a rogue.

The leader himself was the marksman.

The moment he spoke, the tank moved first. He pulled a massive tower shield from his inventory, something he hadn’t been carrying moments ago. It was broad across the top, tapered at the bottom, with a sharpened edge along the base.

He drove it into the ground and braced behind it.

The position he chose was the only exit from the safe zone, a narrow bridge stretching over darkness toward the far gate. The shield covered more than two-thirds of the bridge’s width. By angling his body just right, he left only a slim opening on the left side.

The rogue vanished into stealth and took position beside the tank, eyes fixed on the gap.

Ethan stood in the rear and gave a faint nod. Their formation was efficient.

The Trial Grounds spawned enemies in waves, and the first would always come across that bridge. This setup was close to ideal. The tank held the choke point, the rogue controlled leaks, and the mage, priest, and marksman remained safely behind them.

Then the gate on the far side burst open with a metallic crash. Skeleton soldiers marched out in formation, four columns wide, moving in eerie synchronization.

Their bones scraped and knocked together with every step.

Creak. Click. Scratch.

The sound was enough to make anyone grit their teeth. They moved quickly, but the bridge forced them into a bottleneck.

CRASH.

The first three columns slammed straight into the tank’s shield wall. His arms flexed under the impact, muscles tightening as the shield trembled once before holding firm.

Only the leftmost column had room to pass. And the moment the lead skeleton reached the opening, the rogue struck.

He flicked his hand through the air, scattering a gray powder across the monster.

"Blind."

Ethan nodded again.

’Perfect timing.’

The front skeleton immediately began stumbling in circles, unable to see or advance. The skeletons behind it piled up, trapped by their own ally.

Blind lasted sixty seconds, and its cooldown was also sixty seconds. Unless the target took damage, it would remain helpless the entire duration.

The rogue was using it to plug the lane.

With the path blocked, the marksman and mage unleashed their attacks. Arrows rained in bursts and flames exploded through the clustered ranks.

Both of them targeted the rear of the formation, carefully avoiding the blinded skeleton in front. The trapped monsters had no ranged attacks and nowhere to go.

So they stood there and died. Or at least, they should have.

The mage frowned first.

"What is this? I’m down a third of my mana already, and this wave still isn’t dead."

The skeletons inside their area attacks had less than twenty percent health remaining.

The leader’s expression changed, that wasn’t normal. The rogue spoke next.

"I’ve used Blind six times already."

One use per minute. That meant six full minutes had passed.

Normally, they would have cleared the wave in four and moved on. By the time they finished the bridge, the mage usually only needed one mana potion.

Marksmen and rogues used energy, which naturally regenerated, so the leader hadn’t noticed anything wrong at first.

But mages noticed mana loss immediately. Mana was everything to them. A mage with mana was living artillery, and a mage without mana was dead weight.

"Did monster health get buffed?" the mage muttered. "Was there some stealth patch? There wasn’t an update notice."

Everyone looked uneasy. Even the priest had used nearly a fifth of her mana just healing chip damage.

The tank wasn’t taking much, but shield block wasn’t perfect. Some strikes slipped through and dealt small amounts of damage.

Then the tank finally spoke.

"They’re hitting harder too. On Normal mode, chip damage never used to break triple digits. Now I’m getting hit for one-ten, one-twenty, and way more often."

That settled it. Something was wrong.

Ethan still said nothing. Then the marksman’s attacks paused for half a second.

Ethan noticed instantly.

’Analyze.’

The most common detection skill in the game. By now, anyone serious would have trained it to Expert rank. At that level, it could inspect enemies within thirty levels of your own.

The leader had checked the skeletons, and when the results came back, his eyes twitched.

His party averaged around level ninety-seven or ninety-eight. With Ethan supposedly being low-level, the dungeon should have spawned monsters several levels below them. Instead, the result read:

[Skeleton Soldier - Level 101]

There was only one explanation. Someone in the party was drastically raising the average. And the only unknown variable was Ethan.

The leader slowly turned toward him. "Hey... man..."

His voice came out strangely stiff. Until now, he’d thought Ethan was some sheltered rookie with connections.

Instead, they were the fools. And worse, he couldn’t understand it.

’You’re this high-level... and dressed like that?’

What kind of lunatic hides behind trash gear?

"Don’t look at me like that," Ethan said dryly. "My gear really is trash."

He had read the man’s thoughts from his face alone. The rogue tossed another Blind, stepped back, and grinned.

"Dude... what level are you?"

He had the easiest task in the party. Blind once a minute and keep the lane clogged.

Ethan’s expression turned faintly awkward. "One twenty-four."

The instant the words left his mouth—

CRASH.

The tank was shoved backward a full step. The formation broke and three skeleton columns surged through the opening at once. The tank tried to reset his shield wall, but he was already late.

Still, he was no amateur.

Ethereal had been running for two years. Anyone still playing a frontline tank at this stage had real skill.

He pivoted fast, turning the tower shield sideways. Now horizontal, it spanned nearly the entire bridge.

All four columns slammed into it and stopped, but the damage had already been done. A dozen skeletons had slipped through.

Aside from the tank, the rogue was the only melee fighter. The skeletons charged into the backline with rusted swords raised high.

The rogue reacted instantly, gouging one in the eye socket and stunning it. Then he chained into a seamless lock sequence.

Crowd-control diminishing returns existed in PvP. Against normal monsters, they didn’t. A skilled rogue could keep one enemy permanently disabled if his mechanics were clean enough.

The cost was energy. That meant fewer finishing moves and slower kills, but it was safe.

But against bosses, of course, none of that mattered. Bosses ignored control effects.

While the rogue handled one target, the marksman fired a wide AoE shot, grabbing several enemies and immediately beginning to kite them in circles.

The mage cast Blizzard.

Ice spread across the ground, slowing movement while dealing damage. It drew aggro from several more monsters.

Unfortunately, he was a fire mage. His frost spells were secondary tools, not his specialty. He was built to stand behind a tank and bombard enemies, not dance around with aggro on him.

Which left only the priest and Ethan untouched.

Five skeletons still had no target, they charged directly for the priest. She had been healing the tank all fight, building threat naturally.

And priests were not built for surviving melee pressure. The moment five skeletons rushed her at once, panic flashed across her face.

She was a girl, and unlike someone like Victor, she didn’t have monster mechanics under pressure.

Everyone shouted at her to run, but no one could spare a hand to help. Priests had the slowest movement speed in the game, and there was no chance she could outrun skeleton soldiers.

Then suddenly... a white blur flashed past and a charging sound tore through the room.

SHING.

It slammed straight into all five skeletons at once.