Lord Of The Lost

The Lost Maze was ruthless, any unexpected disturbance could be life-threatening.

Clearly, they had been through a lot.

But as soon as they recognized William, they relaxed.

> "Come with me."

William's gaze swept over the group.

They had upgraded their gear.

Each of them now carried at least one advanced item, which meant they had successfully hunted Sequence 9 creatures.

Not surprising.

Every ruin held hidden treasures, those who survived would always gain something valuable.

Mao Che: The Team's Lifeline

Mao Che was the captain, not because he was the strongest, but because his resurrection talent was too valuable.

It made him the natural core of the team.

But William could see the toll it had taken on him.

> The young man with golden hair looked utterly drained.

He had been pushing his ability to the limit, reviving fallen teammates again and again.

> Recover slightly. Burn it all up again.

Recover again. Burn it all up again.

Over and over until he had nothing left to give.

Sometimes, he was so drained that he couldn't even force out one last resurrection.

A Silent Journey & A Hidden Talent

William activated his invisibility cloak, covering the group.

Without wasting time, they rushed back toward the ruins.

Throughout the maze, other high-level player teams were still moving, but Mao Che's team was different.

> They had already met the basic conditions for opening a path.

That's why William had come to collect them.

As they moved, he noticed something—

Yaoyao seemed like she wanted to say something.

But she hesitated.

> Maybe it was social anxiety. Maybe she just didn't know how to start.

In the forum, she had once mentioned her talent—[Purification]—after it had fully awakened.

At first, everyone dismissed it as useless.

> It didn't heal wounds.

It didn't cure diseases.

It didn't provide any direct combat advantage.

But now?

> It seemed to be affecting something much deeper.

So far, she had successfully purified some of the low-level corrupted creatures in the maze, restoring their intelligence.

That was unheard of.

> If contamination of the supernatural could be reversed… what did that mean for everything they knew?

Returning to the Ruins of Changhu Town

William pushed the thought aside.

> Now wasn't the time to unravel mysteries.

First, they had to open the path.

Soon, they arrived at the ruins of Changhu Town.

> This was the place where William had once killed a fallen vampire—an act that had triggered the entrance to the dream world.

Now, it was up to fate.

Whether or not Mao Che's team could enter the dream world was entirely based on luck.

With that, William bid them farewell—

And left them to their destiny.

William and Sophia, one tall, one small, walked out of the ruins in silence.

As they stepped forward, William noticed that Sophia had stopped, her gaze locked onto a distant hilly landscape, barely more than a series of gentle rises and dips in the earth.

William raised an eyebrow.

He followed her line of sight and quickly realized where she was looking, Lonely Mountain.

He had seen its majestic silhouette before in the dream world, back when Changhu Town still stood in its former glory.

> A mountain so grand that from its peak, one could overlook all others.

But now?

> That once-great mountain had been reduced to nothing more than flat, unremarkable terrain.

A mere shadow of its past self.

> "What are you looking at?" William asked.

Even with his Demonic Wolf perception, his field of vision was limited.

The Lost Maze distorted space, making distant locations difficult to perceive and Lonely Mountain was dozens of kilometers away.

Sophia finally turned back to him.

> "My sister said that if we find the ruins of Lonely Mountain, we might get a surprise."

William's expression shifted immediately.

> Black Swan said that?

That witch never spoke without a reason.

He had learned long ago that anything she hinted at was worth investigating.

> "What kind of surprise?"

> "I don't know," Sophia admitted, shaking her head. "But she said that after the legendary dragons destroyed Lonely Mountain, the dwarves built a new structure on the ruins—to honor the hero who slayed the dragon."

This was something William had never seen in the dream world.

But he did know the legend of the great dragon slayer.

A legendary dragon had once terrorized the land, a being that should have been invincible.

But it had one fatal flaw—

> A single, cursed gap in its chest.

A weakness no dragon should have.

But this was the power of a curse—a wound that could neither heal nor be ignored.

> Like a thorn embedded deep in flesh, forever festering.

The dragon, realizing its vulnerability, went on a rampage, ensuring that every being who knew of its weakness was wiped from existence.

But then—

It overheard a rumor.

> The Crown Prince of Lonely Mountain had declared that a certain legendary dragon had a fatal flaw… and that he would find it and slay the beast.

Furious, the legendary dragon clan descended in vengeance.

And that was how it met its doom.

> Under a barrage of heavy artillery, it fell.

A spear-shaped arrow, fired from a massive dwarven wind crossbow, struck true, piercing its heart.

One shot. Instant death.

Perhaps it was destiny.

Or perhaps it was simply the invisible hand of fate, guiding it toward its inevitable end, one stroke of a white feather pen at a time.

But one thing was certain.

> Its death was not unjust.

William had once assumed there were no ruins left on Lonely Mountain.

But Sophia's words suggested otherwise.

And if the dwarves had built something there—

> Then it was worth exploring.

The dwarves were obsessed with construction.

> They had built so many Sun Temples that it was said a 'second sun' rose over the earth.

If they had built a palace to honor a dragon slayer, then the value of those ruins could not be underestimated.

Both warriors and dragons were considered advanced paths, but the two were fundamentally different.

For dragons, promotion was a natural process of growth.

A dragon was born at Sequence 9.

By adulthood, it had already reached Sequence 7.

The only problem?

> Dragons matured slowly.

Their lifespan stretched across centuries, and their growth was not something that could be rushed.

Humans and dwarves, on the other hand, were the opposite.

They only had the chance to become Sequence 9 after reaching adulthood.

From there, they had to climb the ranks, pushing forward through training, battle, and accumulation.

Of course, there were exceptions.

> The children of High-Sequence individuals were another matter entirely.

But for most, advancement was a struggle—not a birthright.

And that was what separated humans from dragons.

One grew because they had to fight for it.

The other grew because it was inevitable.

The Lost Labyrinth wasn't always a maze.

Once, it had been a continent, a land that stretched far and wide.

If anything, calling it the Lost Continent would be more accurate.

Yet, despite its warped space and treacherous passages, the maze's core geography hadn't changed much.

> The land was still there.

It was reality itself that had become distorted.

This meant that even though navigating it was difficult, its landmarks still existed—just hidden, buried, or misplaced.

William had seen Lonely Mountain before—from the dream world's version of Changhu Town.

Using that memory as a guide, finding its ruins in the real world shouldn't be impossible.

The trip wasn't short, tens of kilometers through treacherous terrain; but it was well within the abilities of extraordinary beings like William and Sophia.

> A horse might collapse from exhaustion, but a superhuman would endure.

Eventually, they reached their destination.

Or at least, where Lonely Mountain should have been.

What they found was... nothing.

The land was barren, stretching out in lifeless waves of dirt and stone.

Not a single trace of the once-majestic peak remained.

It was as if Lonely Mountain had never existed.

Sophia narrowed her eyes.

> "Did we come to the wrong place?"

William wondered the same thing.

Had Lonely Mountain's ruins been destroyed, erased by the War of the Gods?

Had they been relocated during the Great Collapse?

> The world had changed.

People had changed.

It was natural for even mountains to disappear.

If Forum Master were here, he could likely figure it out immediately.

But without him, William and Sophia had no choice but to search blindly.

Uncovering the Hidden Ruins

After some time, their search yielded nothing.

Then—a voice in their minds.

Black Swan.

Despite her weakened soul, the witch still possessed uncanny insight into the world around her.

> "You're standing right on top of it."

William and Sophia exchanged glances.

If the ruins were truly beneath them, they had likely been buried by the cataclysmic events of the past.

Without hesitation, they began digging.

Using combat skills and magic, they cleared away meters of dirt.

Then, they reached the rock layer beneath.

And after breaking through the stone, they finally found it—

> A gaping abyss.

William had expected pitch-black emptiness, an airless tomb sealed away for a thousand years.

Instead—

A soft glow emanated from deep within.

No signs of danger.

Without hesitation, William leapt down.

Sophia followed right after him.

What they found was breathtaking—

> A grand, forgotten palace.

The structure had survived the ages, relatively intact, its architecture glowing faintly, illuminating the underground cavern.

As they stepped inside, their eyes drifted to the murals on the walls.