The enemies were strong. A level forty seven Silver boss was no joke.

If Marcus had not struck first and shattered their formation before it stabilized, the fight could have gone very differently. If the Blue Axe Warrior and Green Shield Knight had reached the front line and all four bosses had fought together as intended, even Marcus might have struggled to survive. And without his pets supporting him, attempting this alone would have been pure suicide. He would have been surrounded and torn apart before he could gain momentum.

But he had taken the initiative, and initiative decided battles.

So now he laughed.

The Red Sorcerer had been forced into melee range, its casting rhythm completely broken. Escape was no longer an option. The moment Marcus closed distance, the fight had already been decided.

At the same time, the Blue Axe Warrior and the Green Shield Knight, who had originally charged toward Marcus, slammed straight into his Sea Demon Soul instead. The taunt ability dragged their attention away instantly. Both warriors locked onto the summon with mechanical stubbornness, hacking and slamming their weapons against it without a trace of tactical awareness.

They ignored Marcus entirely.

Anything below Gold tier really did suffer from terrible combat intelligence.

Marcus glanced back just in time to see the Red Sorcerer’s health drop to five thousand. The creature finally realized the danger and tried to retreat, robes twisting as it turned to flee.

"Oh no you don’t."

Marcus raised his Bat Dragon Cloud Sword, already knowing how this would end.

"Hundred Phantom Strike."

The blade erupted into motion. A thunderous impact echoed through the hall, followed by a shrill scream that cut off halfway. The Red Sorcerer collapsed, its body crumbling into gravel just like the Black Sorcerer before it.

Marcus exhaled lightly. His sword seemed almost eager whenever slaughter was involved.

Now only the two melee fighters remained: the Blue Axe Warrior and the Green Shield Knight.

They were in a miserable state. Still locked onto the Sea Demon Soul, they endured constant bombardment from Lyanna’s spells, Camillo’s attacks, and Goldie’s relentless strikes from behind. Their health bars fell rapidly, chunks of five thousand health vanishing every round like sand slipping through open fingers.

It was almost tragic to watch, and Marcus nearly felt sympathy for them.

Almost.

Then the Green Shield Knight activated a healing skill. Pale light spread outward, restoring fifteen hundred health per second to both itself and the Axe Warrior. Their declining health bars stabilized immediately.

Marcus clicked his tongue.

"Oh, hell no. You don’t get a comeback."

He stepped forward, Pebble moving in perfect sync beside him as both raised their weapons.

"Triple Surge!"

The attacks came in rapid succession. Steel collided with armor again and again, each strike heavier than the last. Marcus and Pebble unleashed a relentless chain of blows against the Green Shield Knight, critical hits flashing one after another as damage numbers surged upward.

The assault resembled a tidal wave crashing endlessly against a shoreline, unstoppable and overwhelming.

No, not a wave; a wave of blood.

Marcus showed no mercy. They had intended to overwhelm him together from the start. He was simply returning the favor.

The Green Shield Knight’s healing ability could not keep pace with the damage pouring in. Its health dropped sharply, the recovery light flickering under the pressure.

Then fate turned against it.

At nine thousand eight hundred health, a stun effect triggered. The knight froze in place, body locked mid motion, unable to defend itself. For three full seconds, it stood before Marcus like a prisoner awaiting execution.

Marcus did not hesitate.

Two Hundred Phantom Strikes landed almost simultaneously. The Green Shield Knight shattered, and the overflowing damage carried through to the Blue Axe Warrior beside it, draining the last of its remaining health. Both enemies collapsed into silent piles of gravel.

The battle was over.

Marcus scanned the hall immediately, excitement replacing combat focus. He expected a hidden doorway, a shifting wall, some dramatic mechanism revealing the path forward. Instead, nothing changed. The chamber remained quiet and unmoving, as if the fight had never happened.

"What the hell?"

He frowned and prepared to search the entire hall manually. Before doing that, however, habit took over. He walked toward the fallen bosses to check their drops.

That was when he noticed something strange.

There was nothing. No equipment, no materials, and no glittering loot. The smooth stone floor held only four corpses and scattered gravel remains.

"Seriously?"

A boss fight without drops felt wrong. Acting on instinct, Marcus activated Gathering on the Blue Axe Warrior’s remains.

A notification sounded.

Ding!

[Congratulations, player Stonehaven. You have obtained Mystic Turtle Blue Key. Gathering skill proficiency increased.]

A stone blue key materialized in his hand.

—

Mystic Turtle Blue Key: special item. One of four keys required to open the entrance to Level Two of Mystic Turtle’s Tomb. Carried by the Blue Axe Warrior. Requires at least Intermediate Gathering to obtain.

—

Marcus blinked, realization dawning.

So this was the real reward system. If his Gathering skill had been lower, he might have cleared the entire hall only to remain trapped on the first level. Tomb raiding clearly demanded more than combat strength alone.

He quickly used Gathering on the remaining bodies and obtained the Mystic Turtle Green Key, Mystic Turtle Red Key, and Mystic Turtle Black Key.

With all four keys collected, Marcus examined the chamber again. The answer revealed itself quickly. Each pedestal where a statue once stood contained a colored keyhole matching one of the bosses.

He inserted the keys one by one.

As the final key turned, a deep grinding sound rolled through the hall. Stone slabs before the pedestals slowly sank into the floor, revealing a concealed passage beneath.

The entrance to Level Two of Mystic Turtle’s Tomb.

"Holy crap..."

Marcus stared for a moment, genuinely impressed. The tomb’s design was absurdly complicated. Without triggering events in exactly the right order and possessing sufficient strength, discovering this entrance would have been nearly impossible.

A trace of unease crept into his thoughts. If Level One had already been this demanding, what horrors waited in Levels Two, Three, and Four?

But retreat was no longer an option.

Even if the path ahead became a mountain of blades or a sea of fire, he had come too far to turn back now.

With a steady breath, Marcus tightened his grip on his sword and descended the staircase carefully, each step carrying him deeper underground.

What Marcus did not know was that much of this difficulty came down to poor luck.

Under normal circumstances, defeating Stone Grunts carried a chance of dropping a blueprint called the Second Level Entrance Map, which clearly explained how to unlock the hidden passage. With even better fortune, players could obtain another blueprint, the Mystic Turtle Level One Map, allowing the entire maze to be cleared in roughly thirty minutes.

Both items, however, had extremely low drop rates.

Marcus simply had not received either of them.

That was why reaching Level Two had felt unnecessarily difficult. Yet despite lacking any guidance, he had escaped the maze within twelve hours and opened the entrance entirely on his own. If Liam Windrunner ever learned about this achievement, he might struggle to decide whether Marcus was extraordinarily lucky or unbelievably unlucky.

Ten years earlier, Liam had relied on the Seven Colored Divine Eagle to fly through the maze effortlessly. Even so, without the Second Level Entrance Map, he had wandered Level One for nearly three full days before finally obtaining the blueprint from a random kill, only to discover that the entrance had been located in a hall he had passed multiple times without noticing.

After descending more than a hundred stone steps, Marcus finally arrived at Level Two of Mystic Turtle’s Tomb.

The environment changed completely.

Instead of carved stone corridors, the new level resembled an enormous natural cavern. Walls and tunnels formed from strange layers of rock and compacted earth stretched into the distance. Crystals embedded throughout the cave emitted soft multicolored light, bathing the space in shifting hues of blue, green, and violet.

Yet despite the illumination, visibility somehow felt worse than before, as if the light itself was being swallowed by the darkness lurking deeper within the cavern.