The Devil’s Cage

”Strength, Agility, Constitution, Spirit, Intuition… All of them are just the basics!”

Kieran glanced over the five stone doors that represented his own attributes. The simple and unadorned manner of the doors distinguished them from the other four.

At that very moment, he started to understand why the Witch was so powerful.

While all the other players were still tangling with how many attributes they should limit break, the Witch had not only chosen all five common attributes but she also limit broke her skills and bloodline together.

Other than the Witch, there was Broker!

With the resources he owned, he must have noticed the secret.

At the same time, with that mountain of resources, he would surely create more players that were different from all five attribute limit breaks.

It wasn’t an easy task, even for Broker but if one in a hundred succeeded or even one in a thousand succeeded, it would be worth his while and effort.

All Broker needed to do was to control the cost.

Kieran believed that it was one of Broker’s expertise, so he would carry it out with perfection.

As for the rest, all Broker needed to do was to ensure loyalty to himself.

It was too easy for Broker to control the players with contracts.

”No wonder after founding the secret bazaar and owning a huge robot army, he still keeps on recruiting players under his wing!” Kieran mumbled.

It was one of the questions that had baffled Kieran for a long time and now it was solved with the sudden realization.

Even with the existence of contracts, there surely be some who dared to violate it despite facing death.

Especially with the robot army guarding Broker’s side, the other players would be nothing but an excessive thing to deal with, same goes for the party dungeon since summons were much more loyal than party members.

As for Broker’s strength, it would be too easy for him to summon powerful companions with his resources.

”I wonder how many players of such caliber Broker has hidden under his wings?” Kieran questioned himself.

The answer was less than pleasant.

Judging from the difficulty, the players that limit broke all five attributes plus skills and bloodline might not be much but those players that differ from the five attributes limit break would be quite a lot and all those players will be his enemy!

Fuu!

Kieran took in a deep breath again.

Obviously, the situation was much harsher than he thought but it wasn’t without a solution.

[Detected Devil Force has reached Character Model Template Limit, do you want to set it as Origin Force?]

[Detected Original Sins has reached Character Model Template Limit, do you want to set it as Origin Force?]

[Detected Saint Thorn has reached Character Model Template Limit, do you want to set it as Origin Force?]

[Detected Dawn Force has reached Character Model Template Limit, do you want to set it as Origin Force?]

...

The notifications came together with the stone doors.

The mentioning of Origin Force had a more directive sense right now.

He remembered the that Prairie King said that he himself had the Origin Force but it was too thin and weak.

Now, the opportunity has presented itself!

To strengthen his Origin Force!

”Yes!”

Kieran answered yes to all four without any hesitation again.

[Player has chosen 4 Origin Forces!]

[Player has chosen 5 Basic Attributes!]

[Authentication starts…]

[Player will receive authentication results when player enters the dungeon world!]

...

Notifications popped up one after another, the 9 stone doors then started to move.

All the stone doors overlaid on each other, starting from the five basic attributes’ stone doors piling over each other like water droplets into a cup, followed by the devil and cardinal sins behind them which looked like the cup was dropped into a water tank.

When Saint Thorn and Dawn Force’s doors piled over the bulk, it was as though a small stream merged itself into a river and the river continued on to the sea.

After every door merged together, a new big door made of half stone and half iron appeared before Kieran.

The stone part of the door felt like jade, gentle and gladdening but inside the stones was blood brewing strongly. Before Kieran even went near to the door, he felt like he saw seas and mountains of corpses.

The iron part was gloomy, coldly rejecting any visitors.

Kieran reached out his hand to the part that mixed the iron and the stone, he felt nothing unusual but his instinct told him the iron part was more crucial.

Kieran memorized the feeling on the iron part in his brain and pushed the door open with his hands.

Tsssk Gak!

The door opened.

Kieran stepped in.

Tssk Gak!

The door then closed up, vanishing into nodes of lights and spreading over the sea of stars in the sky.

The huge stone platform then disappeared.

Moments later, another stone platform appeared but it was much smaller than the previous one.

The size could only allow one person to stand on it and if it wasn’t for the special energy around that space that held that unconscious player up, he might have lost himself in the sea of stars.

A while later, the player woke up and was scared by the stone door that appeared before him. After another while, he clenched his teeth and entered the door.

When the door closed, it turned into ashes without a speckle of light, followed by the small stone platform.

Then, another player appeared again having a bigger platform than the last one that allowed him to properly sit on top and two stone doors appeared before him.

Though, similar to the previous player, after the player who had chosen to limit break two attributes had entered the door, it turned into ash without any nodes of light.

...

It felt like Kieran was entering any other dungeon world with the familiar blinding light and dizziness.

Though when Kieran got up on his feet, his face turned sour immediately.

[Player’s Character Model Template Limit authentication as follows…]

[A. Player’s special organ Fusion Heart is sealed]

[B. All equipment have been temporarily returned to player’s room, unable to bring any pieces of equipment into dungeon world.]

[C. Player’s contract companion, Fire Raven has been temporarily returned to player’s room, unable to bring into dungeon world.]

[D. All player’s attributes decreased by 3 and all skills decreased by 1 (Attached attributes will remain), return to normal when player leaves dungeon world.]

[E. Player needs to search for the main mission within 10 days, player will be killed if failed within the given period.]

[F. Player will not be rewarded with extra dungeon ratings by completing sub-missions or special events but will increase the time available to search for the main mission.]

[Note 1: Player can acquire items similar to other dungeon worlds]

[Note 2: Player acquired temporary language, outfits of dungeon world, return to normal when player leaves the dungeon.]

[Note 3: The difficulty of sub-missions, special events will determine how much time is rewarded in search of the main mission.]

...

After going through then notifications on his vision, Kieran quickly returned to his normal self.

The situation was much worse than he had imagined but wasn’t entirely out of his expectation.

After all, Coll had one of two attributes limited, let alone Kieran who was limit breaking 9 in total.

However…

Kieran reached out to his chest where his heart was. He felt a vigorous beat but the feeling of weakness rose up relentlessly in his mind.

The twisted feeling of indifference made him quickly shake his head before he sized up his surroundings.

It was a dark and narrow alley.

From the trash in the trashcan to walls of the alley plus the moving cars outside the alley, this dungeon world should have quite the civilized technology.

Kieran then checked the black wind coat that he was wearing.

Even after suffering a -3 debuff on his entire attribute list, he still had S+ intuition and such level of Intuition allowed him to notice there was something placed inside his black wind coat.

Though nothing he found could prove who he was, all he had was some small change currency notes and a key with a rubber deco.

He had a total of $41 after adding up the currency notes he had.

One $20, two $10s and a $1 note.

The figures printed on the currency notes were people that Kieran had never seen before.

After he placed the money inside his pocket, he checked the key with the rubber deco.

”The House of Winchester welcomes you!”

It was written on the slightly aged rubber deco.

The whole piece of rubber had a heavy rubbery stench, the words were carved in but black filth had almost filled the seams. When Kieran smeared his finger over, he felt an oily and sticky sensation on his finger, it almost made him threw the rubber piece away.

Kieran frowned and held back his disgust and flipped it over.

”303”

Kieran saw the number of a room.