First Move, Checkmate: How Will You Respond?

Scorching lava dripped down from Guldon’s body and splashed into the volcano, sending magma flying several meters high.

Guldon’s appearance shrouded the volcanic sky in burning black clouds, with specks of fiery ash floating in the air.

After being exposed to intense heat for a prolonged time, the hard armor on its body took on a dazzling crimson glow.

Its thousands of fangs seemed ready to devour everything on the volcano.

The beast roared to the heavens, making even Mount Vesuvius itself tremble.

“Veega! Establish a link with me!”

“What? Establish a link? Are you kidding? Don’t tell me you really want to fight it?”

“I don’t want to die!”

Veega flew in the air, shrieking at Victor.

Beyond distraught, if only she had known earlier that Victor was so insane, she would never have made a contract with him even if it killed her.

One of these days, following Victor could very well get her killed for good, and forget about being reborn!

Forget it!

“We’ve already come this far, I guess there’s no other way if I don’t establish contact with you.”

Reluctantly, Veega reached out a wing and touched Victor’s forehead.

Instantly, a clearer connection appeared in Victor’s mind.

【Establishing link with evil god ‘Habbie’, syncing…】

【Sync successful】

Victor saw a raven icon appear under his status bar, immediately realizing the link was successfully established.

“Why don’t you take this chance while we’re linked to enhance your teleportation magic and just get out of here! Don’t blame me for not warning you!”

Veega flew around him, chattering nonstop by his ear.

Victor paid no mind to Veega’s suggestions to flee, feeling excited instead as the scorching heat from the crater washed over him.

“Run?”

Victor’s face revealed an arrogant smile. Veega thought he must have lost his mind.

But Victor wasn’t crazy at all. He had been wanting to challenge this ‘Calamity’ for a while now.

Ever since he heard the name Mount Vesuvius, he knew he had to come here.

It was exactly as he imagined – the Furnace Beast Guldon was sealed at the lowest level of the volcanic crater.

This was a separate dimension. No matter how large-scale a battle they waged here, it would barely affect the outside world.

It was a natural fighting pit.

After Guldon was first defeated, it was re-sealed in this space, becoming something like an instance for players to challenge.

So the Guldon sealed here now was not much stronger than the one in the instance.

Victor looked at the sky-blotting beast before him yet remained very confident.

He didn’t know how many times he had defeated this guy already.

And now, he was using Victor’s even more powerful body, with skills superior by a notch.

Additionally, he had a cheat like Veega.

There was no lie in what he said – Veega was an indispensable powerhouse assisting Victor.

Infinite mana, this cheat was advantageous beyond compare no matter which class used it, even more so for a mage.

Veega’s single eye began glowing with a faint blue light. Victor felt his body filling up with magic power like a vast ocean, watching his mana value in the status bar shoot up crazily.

Ten thousand…twenty thousand…completely exceeding the limit.

Victor knew this was the maximum mana this game could withstand.

【Victor】Lv39

HP: 1000

MP: 999999/999999

With this much magic power, things would go smoothly.

Guldon was still moving its massive body. The thick layer of boulder-like armor covering it from its long slumber restricted its mobility.

It would take quite some time before it could break free of those restraints.

Now was the perfect time for Victor to prepare.

He spread his arms, constructing magic circles in midair.

Circle after circle of intricate arrays filled the space around him.

Veega watched above Victor’s head as endless formulas began spinning and aligning in rows, amazed by Victor’s mastery of the arcane arts.

After setting up everything, Victor’s hands kept moving. He threw several transparent crystals into the six corners of the crater.

“Victor! Are you trying to turn this entire volcano into your spellcasting grounds?”

Victor said nothing. When Veega saw his smile, she knew she had guessed right.

The volcano was covered in obscure runes, with countless magic circles swirling in the sky.

The hexagonal crystals gradually linked up, and runes began to emerge on them, countless veins began to connect, bend, and leap.

The massive magic array was like a lid covering the crater of the volcano.

With a snap of his fingers, magic energies of various colors and shapes circled around Guldon as magic wheels.

Victor glanced at Guldon’s status bar below.

Frozen, poisoned, fragile, irritable…..

Numerous negative status effects began to attach themselves to the monster’s body.

With a light stomp of his foot, several dozen rays of light burst out from the magic array and injected themselves into Victor’s body.

Attack increase, water attack enhancement level 7, fire resistance…..

Victor could feel various powers flowing throughout his entire body.

“So this is what buff effects feel like…”

He could feel his muscles grow noticeably stronger, and his reactions became more agile.

He could even clearly see the molten lava dripping down its body.

After doing all this, Victor looked up.

At this moment, an enormously long health bar appeared above the already sky-high Guldon.

It was despairingly long, easily over a hundred meters.

Thanks to the enhanced perception from the buffs, Victor could see the end of the health bar.

Lv50!

In the gaming world, there was a common saying used to praise top tier players.

As long as you dared to show your health bar, even if you were a god, I could still kill you.

A crimson glow flashed in Guldon’s eyes, illuminating the horizon.

It had activated.

Everything around grew even more dangerous, with the heat rising dramatically. The flames could even spontaneously combust in midair, and hot winds swept across everything on the volcano.

“This is the natural disaster Guldon has triggered! Scorching Earth!”

The raven on Victor’s shoulder reminded him.

Victor naturally knew what was happening, but he still nodded ceremonially at Veega.

Ten identical blue magic arrays appeared on his fingertips, and with a slight movement—

A bright blue castle slowly flickered into existence in midair, and waves began erupting from the center of the castle, sweeping across heaven and earth!

“【3rd Order Magic: Tidal Sanctuary!】”

…

Gwen led her knight regiment up the mountain road, casually cutting down a monster.

Gwen looked at the fallen monster corpse. It looked like a crab, carrying a blistering hot rocky shell on its back.

Even after its death, its pincers still snapped at the air.

Soon after, the shell suddenly shattered, and a glowing red crystal tumbled out.

Gwen quickly snatched up the faintly shining red crystal and examined it closely.

She immediately recalled that Victor had said he needed these crystals to craft magic items, and became a bit concerned.

“Everyone, remember to collect these crystals whenever you encounter monsters like this!”

She held up the red crystal to let the knights memorize its appearance.

“Yes!”

The knights responded in unison.

After all, Victor had helped her a lot last night, so she didn’t want to owe him and thought to help collect some materials for him.

Rumbling sounds came from the mountain peak, travelling to every knight’s ears.

Gwen suddenly looked up towards the crater, and saw a trail of black smoke slowly rising from the peak.

An astonishing roar suddenly rang out from the summit, shaking heaven and earth.

She looked seriously towards the peak and asked:

“Did you all…..hear that? That titanic roar?”

Gwen couldn’t be certain herself, it just sounded like a massive roar.

The knights looked at each other and mutually shook their heads.

“Knight Commander, you must have misheard. It was probably just the noise of ash erupting from the volcano.”

Hearing his words, Gwen shook her head, disagreeing. In her heart she thought:

“Could it be that only I can hear it?”

“Just what is that thing?”

As Gwen was pondering, a flash of insight suddenly came to her mind.

Victor had said he was going to the crater.

Could he have discovered something over there?

“All knights! Hurry to the volcanic crater! Search for Victor!”

Receiving the order, the knights quickly organized themselves and uniformly marched towards the crater.

But after circling the crater, the knights didn’t find anything.

They told Gwen that the surroundings were becoming hotter and hotter, with the temperature already abnormally high.

“Spread out and search!”

Seeing this, Gwen immediately ordered them to split into five teams to look for Victor.

After a long time, the knights gradually returned, each one tired and out of breath, drenched in sweat.

“Knight Commander! The five teams didn’t see a single person! The horses can’t take the heat anymore and are resting halfway up the mountain.”

Sweat covering her forehead, Gwen was also feeling somewhat dizzy. Why had this volcano suddenly become so scorching?

“Could this damned volcano really erupt?”

She shook her head, lacking the extra strength to think further.

Whether it was the horses or the knights, they had all gradually become unable to withstand the rising temperature, and could only descend the mountain to rest.

Even with the special fire-resistant enchantment on her armor, she still found the heat extremely hard to endure.

Gwen had just been about to lead the knights away when she saw a pillar of fire suddenly spray towards her from the crater.

“Everybody get down!”

Hearing the order, the knights didn’t understand why but nimbly dropped to the ground, with even the horses obediently kneeling at the mountain’s waist.

Gwen turned her head. The fire pillar gradually dissipated into specks of sparks that fell to the earth. The astonishing heat made everyone feel stifled beyond compare, even making it feel like their airways were burning when breathing, not very smooth.

The crater? How could it erupt something like this?

The more Gwen thought about it, the more puzzled she became. But there was no time for her to ponder any further right now.

“The volcano is extremely likely to erupt, hurry and evacuate the townspeople below the mountain!”

She waved her hand to issue the order, and the knights hurriedly descended the mountain towards the town.

Watching the increasingly restless volcano, Gwen’s heart was filled with worry:

“Victor……just where did you go!?”