Void Crowne - Book 1 - Chapter 67 and Poll (Patreon)

For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

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Table of Contents

How do you feel about seeing so many scenes from the other planets Aidan is at war with regarding his dungeons? Do you like it? Or do you want to see more scenes from Aidan's point of view rather than theirs?

I put a poll at the end of the chapter about this if you want to vote.

Click on the following link for the 1357 word Chapter 67:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mXwViwi8BXusST1yne9S-L9R_j84KDtJqj13j-Ccip4/edit?usp=sharing

Or read the following unformatted chapter on Patreon:

Aidan

Seraphyne said that the Labyrinth Leaderboards will give out its first round of weekly rewards tomorrow. Officially starting its rankings the day the Multiversal Wars began, and giving its rewards one week after it began.

And yet, I can’t help but frown when I enter the stadium and look at the leaderboards.

Because it’s not very pretty.

◊◊◊

Labyrinth Leaderboards

1. Snapjaw the First – Floor 71

2. Zryss the Fangsplitter – Floor 70

3. Rictar’lavi – Floor 68

4. Andrew Stone – Floor 66

5. Serina Duskbane – Floor 62

6. R’th’rexithal – Floor 60

7. Redneck the Thirty-First – Floor 58

8. Akira Fuji – Floor 55

9. Aidan Vale – Floor 51

10. Vex'thara – Floor 50

◊ Rewards for Labyrinth Leaderboards placement will be handed out in 31 hours, 20 minutes, and 14 seconds. ◊

◊◊◊

Even though I went back into the dungeon once over the past week when there weren’t any dungeons around my city, I still ended up leaving early when I heard news from Rex about some dungeons from stronger users popping up. So my ranking on the Labyrinth Leaderboards has… fallen.

A lot.

Far more than I care for.

I take a deep breath before letting it out. Then I rush into the Labyrinth with my voidlings as quickly as possible. Skipping straight to the Bronze Tier portion of it, where I push through the floors one after another with an army of a few hundred voidlings. Along with my voidling general.

All of the voidlings quickly clear out the floors one after another thanks to their significant lead in levels on the level 26 or higher monsters of these lower floors. Letting me practically fly through the floors all the way up to the fifties. At which point I begin to pass the other users on the leaderboards.

Please let me be the first to break into the Silver Tier floors…

I don’t know if the Orc King or Snapjaw are currently in their Labyrinths or not, but they’re uncomfortably close to clearing the Bronze Tier. Which will give them a Cluster-Wide Achievement from what Seraphyne told me.

This whole Multiversal War thing completely distracted me from that.

Of course, the Cluster-Wide Achievement reward for being the first to clear the Bronze Tier section of the Labyrinth isn’t all that incredible. It is just the Bronze Tier, after all.

Seraphyne said that the rewards get significantly better the higher the Tier of the Labyrinth that’s cleared.

But that doesn’t change the fact that it irks my pride to be so far down on the leaderboard, and to not get the first clear achievement. So I push through the floors as fast as I can, gathering up a decent chunk of War Points in the process.

Practically turning it into a race to see if I can clear the Bronze Tier section before the week is over.

Somewhere within Rhetfel’s System City, The Iron Forge

Rhetfel feels shocked the moment he receives word that another dungeon sent by the First Ranked has appeared already. Even more shocked than how they all felt at the fact that he was sending more than one at once.

They all know the Event Point price to unlock a second Assault, and most users, much less City Lords, have no interest in purchasing a second Assault slot this early on. It is far too costly, and they don’t have the War Points to keep up with sending two Assaults simultaneously.

Most users don’t even have the War Points to send their own Assault and have to send joint Assaults including monsters from numerous user’s Assaults.

And yet, the First Ranked is sending one deadly Assault after another, with two of them ongoing at a time.

Is this what First Ranked does to a user? Or does a user have to be this wealthy to be First Ranked?

Rhetfel isn’t certain either way. But what he is certain about is that the threat of the First Ranked’s Assaults is growing by the hour.

Unlike with dwarves and shadow hunters, the elves, who were nearest this dungeon, decided to send in multiple parties to scout out the dungeon one after another. Clearly not wanting to have anywhere near as many losses amongst their System Cities’ elites as they had.

The teams who entered the dungeon were ordered to push as far as they felt comfortable doing before retreating to give a report.

And yet, over the course of the twenty-four hours he’s been forced to wait for the dungeon to allow him in again, several groups have attempted the other dungeon that has appeared. And only one of them made it out alive to report what was inside.

As for the one group that did make it out?

They reported two elite monsters hunting them down the entire time they tried to flee the dungeon.

Rhetfel was pretty surprised to hear about it. Since there weren’t any elite monsters hunting them down like that from the shadows in the dungeon he attempted.

Yet here he was, hearing about two large spiders with bipedal torsos attached at the hip to spider bodies. Both of which were wearing thick carapace armor, with eight glowing eyes on both of their spider and bipedal heads each. They were armed with scimitars and daggers, and were hunting down any user who attempted to leave the dungeon.

Like assassins stalking their targets. Or predators hunting their prey from the dark.

The elite monsters, labeled by the System as Elite Arachnid Guards, would pick them off one at a time while their dungeon assault team was fleeing from the boss and its monsters to find the exit. Leaving just three of their members left alive by the time they reached the exit.

And Rhetfel doesn’t doubt that the previous teams who entered the dungeon were all wiped out in similar manners.

Does the dungeon here not have these elite arachnid guards? Or are they just lying in wait somewhere for us?

The mere existence of these elite arachnid guards – a second type of elite monster on top of the powerful elite void golems and the powerful boss monster – makes Rhetfel feel far more cautious about his next dive into the dungeon. But he’s also overjoyed that he was forced to wait for the twenty-four hour cooldown to enter the dungeon. Otherwise he would’ve entered without any knowledge of these elite monsters.

Now that he knows about the elites, he immediately sets out to change the composition of the team he was going to bring into the dungeon. Adding in numerous scouts and other users with high perception that might be able to spot the arachnids before they can attack.

The dungeon has already been cleared out of mimics, making it a little less dangerous than before. But, at the same time, he knows that the number of blightlings should have significantly increased by now.

From previous reports about the broodmother in the other dungeons and from various users’ mentors, it is capable of birthing three blightlings every hour. Which means there will be seventy-two more blightlings in the dungeon now than his previous attempt. Making it significantly more dangerous overall.

Another matter he learned from the dungeon in the elves’ territory is that the mimics will leave their room if you ignore them. They will remove their disguise and wander the dungeon before attacking from the dark as well.

Rhetfel is at least glad that he doesn’t have to worry about that.

He takes a deep breath before waiting the last bit of time for the cooldown to end. Then he proceeds to enter the dungeon once more with his team of forty-nine other dwarves.

Bringing significantly more forces with him this time than his previous attempt.

After all, he’s not stupid enough to still cling onto his pride after having had it shoved down his throat the last time.

Of course, he’ll still be getting revenge on the First Ranked for that. But that will be a future matter.

With that thought firmly in his mind, he proceeds to move through the mineshafts with his team once again.