CHAPTER 5: Arch-Conqueror
Time remaining: 31 minutes and 55 seconds.
That was all the life he had left. In less than thirty-two minutes, he would reach the afterlife. With his heart hardened by the urgency of his situation, Edard stepped into the cave without a trace of fear.
One might say that Edard had never been a cowardly man, but this new power had given him a backbone of steel. It is like the difference between a man with a full bank account and a man with empty pockets. The man who knows he has wealth walks with a strength and a confidence that the man who finds nothing but lint in his pockets can never feel.
Edard was now like a man who had suddenly discovered millions in his account in the middle of a barren day. With this newfound "wealth" of power, his courage surged. He marched into the darkness of the cavern.
However, something was wrong. As he moved deeper, he used his Spiritual Sense to gauge the location of the serpents he had been following. Just a moment ago, he could feel their presence ahead of him. But the moment his feet crossed the threshold into the inner cave, the connection snapped. The serpents vanished from his senses—completely and utterly gone.
He could no longer hear them; he could no longer feel them. Quickly, he summoned a flicker of Dragon Essence into his left hand. He realized that this blue fire was like any other flame; it could serve as a torch to light his way.
But as the blue glow pushed back the shadows of that black cave, Edard's heart gave a violent thud, feeling as though it might burst right out of his chest at what stood before him.
There, in the center of a massive cavern, were the two enormous serpents. They were coiled tightly, sitting so perfectly that it seemed they had known he was following them all along. It was as if they had been waiting for him.
But the terror didn't stop with the snakes. Sitting near them was a small fox, a beautiful creature with fur as white as snow. At first glance, you would think the snakes were waiting to devour it, but the reality was a miracle: not a single snake moved to harm the fox. They sat together like a family—parents and a child—with no sign of aggression or hunger in the air.
On the other side stood a lion. This lion was taller than any lion should be; if you measured its length while lying down, it would surely equal the length of the black serpent. The lion, too, was coiled and calm, paying no mind to the fox and no mind to the snakes.
In all of Edard's knowledge, such creatures of the wild never sat together in peace. Were they having a conversation? Or were they performing a ritual? Back on Earth, anyone who could control such beasts would keep them locked in iron cages, knowing the evil and danger within them. Edard was filled with a profound wonder to see these predators sitting quietly, as if they were guests at a meeting.
Then he noticed it: every one of these animals had their heads bowed low toward the ground. They were bowing—prostrating—to something. They were all staring at a single spot in the cave.
Edard shook his head to clear his confusion and turned his gaze to follow their eyes. His heart whispered a warning: he had walked into a trap, and the only way out was to bring forth every ounce of his strength and fight to the bitter end.
At that moment, he seriously considered choosing the Intimidation skill over Mind Reading. He felt that only Intimidation, combined with his Dragon fire, could help him survive the trial he had stumbled into.
But then, his eyes finally landed on where the animals gazed. It was an old man.
The Arch-Conqueror
The man was ancient, with a mountain of white hair. He sat with his legs crossed and his eyes closed in deep meditation.
Edard remembered the stories the snakes had whispered earlier—the tale of the legendary figure known as the Legendary Conqueror. This was the man who had lived for over a thousand years, the one who had shaped the world and set it in order.
Was this the man? Every nerve, every vein, and every drop of blood in Edard's body screamed at him to turn around. His instincts told him to stop looking, to run and keep running until his very life ran out. The mere sight of this man was enough to make his body tremble.
It was as if this old man was composed of a mountain of malice and an ocean of power—a force so great that Edard's heart and soul could not even comprehend it. A unique kind of terror rose from the base of Edard's spine, climbing up to his neck until it began to choke him. At that moment, the thought of fighting vanished. The only thing left in Edard's mind was the desperate need to flee.
He had completely abandoned the thought of fighting. Earlier, when it was just the beasts, he believed he had a chance to struggle for his life. But now, in the presence of this ancient man, every fiber of his being told him that combat was an impossibility. He needed to turn and run immediately.
So, he turned. But the moment he spun around, he saw a sight that defied all logic. The entrance he had just walked through—the hole he had meticulously carved out of the mountain with his Dimensional Annihilation—was gone. There wasn't even a mark on the wall to show it had ever existed.
Just moments ago, he had used his powers to shatter the stone and create a path. Now, the wall was solid, as if no hand had ever touched it. He was trapped. Locked in a dark cavern with five of the most terrifying predators he had ever seen, and an old man who was at the very doorstep of death. Yet, strangely, the malice Edard felt radiating from the dying old man was far more terrifying than the danger of the beasts. It was like a tiny cat standing before a massive lion.
As Edard stood paralyzed, a small, glowing box appeared floating near the old man's face. Since there was no way left to run, Edard squinted, trying to read what was written in the box. But before he could focus, a different message appeared directly under his own eyes.
He realized now that this entity calling itself the Immortal Dais was the source of these messages. It was sending him an update. The box informed him that he had been granted a new skill.
The Immortal Dais asked:
It reminded him that he had only one slot left for a "learned" skill. Edard hesitated. From what he understood, his Classification skills were part of his bloodline and didn't take up these slots. But "learned" skills—like Spiritual Sense—needed a place to stay.
He gritted his teeth and selected the skill.
Now that the skill was active, Edard looked back at the box near the old man's face. Before, it had been a blur of light he couldn't understand. Now, the words were clear.
Edard didn't even know his own name in the rankings of this world, let alone the gap between him and this man. He knew that the beasts called him a "Legendary Conqueror," and that in the eyes of the Immortals, a "Conqueror" was a high rank. But this man was an Arch-Conqueror.
He couldn't even see the man's level. Where there should have been a number—like 100 or 200—there were only question marks and dots. This meant the old man's power was so far beyond Edard's current level that the Immortal Dais and his Status Key couldn't even calculate the difference. The Arch-Conqueror existed in a realm of strength that defied Edard's imagination.
"Come." the old man spoke.
His voice was not the voice of a frail, dying person. It was a voice of absolute authority, though it sounded rough—like the sound of dry, parched skin being rubbed against a stone wall. It was a sound that made the hair on Edard's arms stand up. It was the kind of voice that plants seeds of pure terror in the heart of anyone who hears it.
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