Whoosh!
A man's figure agilely flipped backward through the darkness, avoiding the blade that slashed toward his feet without suffering so much as a scratch.
His right hand was empty, yet it was wrapped in a red halo.
Magic surged within the glow of the runes, forming a magic circle that summoned him upward into the sky.
A crimson fire magic circle floated in the air. Its patterns began to merge and intertwine, forming a blazing phoenix that swung nine tails.
Heavy magic power gathered in the sky, with crimson runes carved along the edge of the formation.
The phoenix totem in the center was surrounded by obscure, ancient words, gradually blooming with an even more dazzling light.
[Fourth-Tier Magic: Falling Flames]
Viktor stood beneath the formation, cursed under his breath, and flames flashed in his eyes.
A huge fireball, blazing like a miniature sun, slowly emerged from the sky.
As the first fireball appeared, the remaining eight balls of light emerged one after another. Under Viktor's deliberate control, they likewise fell toward the ground.
The scorching flames tore through the heated air, falling one after another onto the Judge's body.
In an instant, the fireballs exploded. Intense, scorching flames rose up, completely surrounding the skeleton in the red cloak.
Amid the explosions and spreading smoke, Viktor narrowed his eyes slightly.
He could clearly sense that the enemy before him had not been injured.
It had only trembled slightly several times under the powerful impact.
Sure enough, after falling silent in the flames for several seconds, the skeletal Judge once again swung its ferocious scythe.
It suddenly shook the flames off its body while dispersing the smoke lingering in the air.
The Judge's upper body began to blur like a ghost.
A light breeze passed by, and a trace of coolness brushed against the short hair and neat collar on Viktor's face.
In the next instant, the Judge and its crimson, withered cloak appeared in front of Viktor.
The raised bone scythe suddenly fell, tearing through space and leaving behind a sharp rift in the void.
Seeing the incoming attack, Viktor remained calm and casually raised the dark round shield in his left hand.
Crack!
A crisp collision rang through the silent air, and a crimson spark froze in midair for an instant.
A crisp sound spread throughout the empty prison, while a bright crimson spark hung motionless in the air.
In the game, every shield had a blocking effect.
Players could use precise control and quick reactions to block many attacks.
But if their defense was too low, they might fail to defend successfully, and the shield could even be completely destroyed.
However, the Evil Knight in Viktor's left hand was not subject to this condition.
The blocking effect of this shield was part of its own mechanism. Even an attack as powerful as this one had difficulty breaking it.
After every successful block, the shield could inflict a brief stun effect on the enemy, while ignoring the limitations of defensive attributes.
Therefore, as long as his control was skilled and precise enough, he could cleverly block almost every attack.
Through the scattering sparks, Viktor saw the Judge whose attack had been successfully blocked.
Its movements paused slightly, and even its pair of scarlet skeletal eyes seemed to have temporarily lost their light.
But this stun effect lasted only for a brief breath.
As the sparks gradually faded, the Judge quickly recovered its ability to move and once again raised its sharp scythe, bringing down a fierce strike at Viktor.
The scythe's speed was astonishingly fast, and Viktor could not retract the round shield in time.
He could only quickly lean backward, keeping his body close to the ground to dodge the attack as it swept over his head.
At the same time, he rolled quickly, widening the distance between himself and the enemy.
Viktor took a short rest where he stood and drew several deep breaths. His gaze remained on the Judge, yet there was a slight daze in his eyes.
And this was the dizziness brought on by his own mind.
Its source was exhaustion.
It had been a long time. It had been a very long time since Viktor had felt tired.
This place, far removed from the world, had disabled all of his special abilities, including the power of Calamity.
Only some basic magic he had learned remained usable.
In addition, lacking Vega's support meant Viktor had to use his mana reserves even more sparingly.
He used to be able to cast war magic at will, but now even using fourth-tier magic required careful consideration.
Within this Judgment Prison, the player's basic abilities had become the focus of the trial.
Only by relying on these basic abilities to continuously withstand the Judge's attacks and counterattack could a player pass the test.
And now...
Viktor shifted sideways. The long scythe swept past him, leaving a slender rift in the void in the air.
After rolling, he steadied himself and looked up at the empty sky in the darkness.
Within that deep darkness floated a line of crimson text, [Judgment passed. You may exit immediately.]
This meant that Viktor's abilities had already gained the Judge's recognition.
However, as long as he did not take the initiative to leave, the battle was far from over.
Several incoming slashes tore through space, extending forward and charging straight toward Viktor.
At that moment, several fierce slashes ripped through space and charged straight toward Viktor.
Relying on his agile movements, Viktor flipped backward into the air as the cold blades swept past him.
He cleverly avoided the distorted traces and landed safely on the ground behind him.
The Judge slowly withdrew its slender scythe, waiting for the empty rifts in space to gradually heal.
At this moment, Viktor straightened his body and turned toward the skeleton wearing a long skeletal robe.
More precisely, his gaze fell upon the pitch-black birdcage wrapped between the skeleton's ribs.
The one-eyed crow inside the cage lay there quietly, sunk in deep sleep.
No one knew what would happen to this crow once Viktor left.
"I won't lose."
Viktor raised those deep eyes of his. Burning stars seemed to flicker within his pitch-black pupils.
In an instant, his figure became blurred.
He slid and circled around the Judge across the ground, constantly releasing various small elemental magic projectiles from his hands.
Those magical elements gathered around the Judge's body. Through the interactions between the elements, they erupted with magical fluctuations stronger than those of any single element.
The magic missiles, pouring down like a sudden rainstorm, converged upon the Judge's thin body, erupting into interwoven elemental light and clouds of dust.
Under the frequent attacks, the Judge's body would occasionally pause for a moment.
But whenever it caught the timing between spells, it would swing its scythe at Viktor again, cutting through space.
However, this sluggish movement in front of Viktor, who slid and circled around, flashing and shifting constantly, was like a puppet whose movements had become completely stiff, utterly meaningless.
The scythe swept through the void, exposing countless rifts in space.
Viktor's figure flashed as he continuously dragged out the passage of time.
The spatial rifts that had been cut open gradually healed as time passed.
The magic missiles scattered throughout the sky and then converged upon the Judge's body were always continuous.
Although the Judge did not have a health bar, it still suffered all of the player's attacks.
As the target being struck, the Judge had its own unique damage detection system.
It was precisely this system that could determine whether a player was qualified and whether they could leave the Judgment Prison.
At this moment, Viktor's continuous attacks were calculating the frequency of the Judge's stiffness.
When the Judge was hit, it would enter a brief state of stiffness.
Although this stiffness was very short, it could still give Viktor a good opportunity.
Countless magic missile elements interacted with one another, erupting into a chaotic storm of interwoven lightning and flames.
When Viktor saw the Judge's scythe stop in midair, he seized the opportunity precisely.
He stepped onto the ground beneath his feet and lowered his body, shooting toward the Judge like an arrow released from a bowstring.
At that moment, the Judge's movements recovered once again, and its ferocious scythe swung downward.
Viktor reacted quickly and raised the round shield on his arm.
The scythe struck the round shield, sending a shower of crimson sparks flying.
Taking advantage of the moment when the Judge's body stiffened slightly and its eyes dimmed, Viktor quickly reached beneath it and reached out to snatch the birdcage from its chest.
With a roll, he nimbly left the Judge's range of threat and landed safely to the side.
At the same time, the Judge, whose birdcage had been taken away, suddenly became completely still like a statue, as if it had lost all signs of life.
The elemental missiles that had originally been flying through the air also gradually came to a stop, leaving the scene quiet for a moment.
Viktor slowly stood up in the safe area.
He lowered his head and looked at the birdcage made of a unique material in his hand, and Vega inside the cage.
Only then did he raise his head again and look up at the deep and mysterious night sky.
The red text that had once floated in the sky had already disappeared.
This meant that Viktor could no longer leave.
After realizing this, Viktor, who had raised his head, felt an incomparably immense wave of air coming from ahead.
The scarlet light illuminated half of his face red.
Viktor turned his head back toward the Judge.
At this moment, the red cloak on the scythe-wielding Judge seemed to have come alive.
The living cloak, made of flesh and gelatinous matter, began to struggle and twist.
And the aura erupting from the depths of the Judge's skeletal eye sockets had become fanatical to the extreme.
Within the hollows that radiated deep darkness, incomparably bright crimson starlight flickered.
"Looks like I made you angry?"
Seeing this, Viktor mocked softly.
The next second, the Judge's skeletal head actually tore open by force, its upper and lower jaws opening to an extremely unnatural degree.
Scarlet light burst from its open jaws, while the ribs beneath the fleshly cloak twisted like teeth, crossing over one another in a ferocious manner.
A deep growl emerged from the Judge's seemingly nonexistent throat, shaking the entire space.
In an instant, crimson light covered the entire prison, dyeing the deep sky red as well.
Yet above Viktor's head, a line of scarlet text appeared once again.
[Attempting to challenge the rules themselves.]
[Do you also want to become a "virus"?]
Looking at the text above his head, Viktor extended the arm holding the birdcage and gave it a slight, forceful squeeze.
The pitch-black, deep birdcage became covered in cracks, as if it were made of crystal.
The next second, it shattered with a bang.
At the same time, a blazing, fierce flame ignited around the scarlet prison.
Viktor was all too familiar with this element.
Outside this space, someone had forcibly activated the source of Calamity within his body.
Thus, Viktor could now use this power.
Feeling the flames above his head, the corners of Viktor's mouth lifted slightly.
At this moment, he lowered his head again and stared at the Judge before him, which had become incomparably twisted.
"I see. So this is the definition of a 'virus'?"
"In that case..."
He reached out. The instant his fingertips touched the flames, the scorching fire seemed to come alive.
In an instant, it transformed into distorted ripples, winding around and wrapping his entire body.
The flames rolled upward from below, enveloping him completely in crimson light.
In an instant, Viktor seemed to have become a god wrapped in blazing flames.
Like a sun suspended high in the sky, he radiated an incomparably dazzling light.
And the unconscious black one-eyed crow was tightly wrapped in flames before Viktor's transparent, ethereal chest.
At this moment, Viktor floated into the air, burning with flames.
Within the crimson space, an incomparably confident voice echoed, "I think I've already been the 'virus' you're talking about for a long time."
Hearing this, the Judge's body seemed to have been split apart. Its skeletal head nearly divided in two, its upper and lower jaws opening excessively wide.
The exposed teeth rose and fell with every syllable, like a pulsing musical spectrum.
The scarlet words slowly floated out from its mouth, forming several sentences, [Despicable cheater.]
[There will be no place for you in the new era.]
[You, take care of yourself!]
BOOM!
A terrifying roar rang out from every direction of this space. Terrifying flames ignited everything around them and rapidly surged upward with a roar.
Countless scorching pillars of fire suddenly erupted from around the prison, shooting straight into the crimson sky.
This land seemed to have become an astonishing arena of death.
Amid the chaotic roar of the flames, several lines of faint text appeared around the Judge's body.
[Detecting challenger's maximum HP: HP, 30,000]
[Challenge Mode Activated: Deathmatch]
[Adjusting spatial vessel: No Upper Limit]
[Adjusting time flow: 20:1]
At this moment, the scorching firelight illuminated the ferocious Judge, and likewise illuminated the terrifying health bar that surrounded the entire enormous prison, its boundaries nowhere to be seen.
The starting point of the health bar extended from above the skeletal head, rising layer after layer like a spiraling staircase.
It went straight into the crimson sky, extending into the distance beyond the reach of the naked eye.
[Judge: Chaos]
[LV: ???]
[HP: 65535×30000]