After the scream - 1 billion universes remaining

Isadora had reconnected. In front of her stood the three men, just as before. The first was staring intensely at a corner of the room while grumbling. The second was sitting cross-legged, seemingly meditating. The last one waited with his arms crossed, leaning against a wall. When she appeared in the middle of the room, they all turned towards her. They had already agreed on the course of action. Jason would be the only one to speak, and they needed her for just one thing: to start the main quest. They weren't players and couldn't initiate it themselves. They could have carved a path through the Monarch's soul, but destroying the project of one of his old friends wasn't something Jason wanted.

"We just want you to complete the main quest," Jason finally told her.

"Even if I could do it, why don't you complete it yourselves?" she asked. She had many questions, but this was one of the most important. Were they players? Inhabitants of this world? But if they were inhabitants of this world, how had they caught her while she was back in the real world? And if they were neither players nor inhabitants of this world, what were they? They seemed to possess extraordinary powers, but why did they need her?

"We don't exist in the eyes of this world," Jason finally replied.

It was the answer Isadora expected, but she couldn't help but be shocked. As she was about to ask for more explanations, she met the gaze of the man sitting on the floor. She could see an indifference in his eyes that chilled her blood. It seemed to say, "Too many questions, and we will choose someone else." She couldn't forget that her life was hanging by a thread.

She resumed a calm facade before announcing, "Follow me."

In every city in Monarchy, the same individual could always be found. Neither his appearance nor his dialogues ever changed. He was an old sage with white, emaciated hair, clad in white satin clothes, and a beard that always seemed just a few centimeters from touching the ground.

He held a staff of immaculate white wood, using it as a cane. No player knew his name. He seemed to have been programmed solely to inform players about the main quest. He also appeared to have the power to magically make players disappear if they showed hostility.

As night began to fall over the world of Monarchy, this old sage could be seen sitting in a tavern. He wasn't drinking but was obstinately scrutinizing a painting on a wall. This painting seemed out of place in the tavern. It depicted the coronation of a humanoid octopus. Surrounding the octopus in ceremonial attire were gelatinous humanoid figures serving as witnesses.

Isadora entered the tavern, flanked by the trio. There were so many people that no one seemed to care about the new arrivals. However, some players recognized the vice-president of the Born of Darkness guild and wondered who was accompanying her.

She walked straight to the sage and announced loudly, "The hunt is on, and I would like to receive my next target." Players had discovered by chance that this phrase triggered the quest. He replied without even taking his eyes off the painting, "Hahahaha, the hunt is on! Very well, very well! Bring me the cores of the two Iron Guardians."

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As soon as he finished speaking, Isadora was teleported. She found herself in the middle of nowhere. A hundred meters away stood a gate. This gate could not have been built for humans as it stretched across the entire mountain. It stood several kilometers high, making its two guardians appear ridiculously small in comparison.

They were still imposing for a human, towering over the surrounding trees at about fifty meters tall. Isadora received the return of her identification spell on the two behemoths.

Name: Iron Guardian

Age: ???

Race: Mechanical Golem

Level: 300

Danger Level: Extreme

With a level gap of over a hundred, it was impossible for Isadora to inflict any damage on them. Monarchy encouraged players to hunt higher-level monsters by giving them experience multipliers. But in exchange, monsters gained a 1% damage reduction per level difference. They became immune to player attacks at 100% damage reduction. Isadora couldn't harm the monsters before her.

The two guardians each wielded a colossal metal weapon and wore armor that seemed utterly impenetrable. The joints between the armor parts were reinforced with powerful alloys, leaving no apparent weak points.

Each guardian held a sword and a lance of their size. They must have been created to defend the gate against enemies of their size or larger, not humans. Despite not being designed to face players, their size and vitality seemed insurmountable to Isadora.

Jason, Orion, and Arden hadn't been teleported with her. They appeared through a blood-red portal that materialized a few steps from her. Once the three men exited the portal, it closed behind them. One of them, upon seeing the two giants, advanced towards them, walking calmly.

Arden moved alone towards the two creatures. Neither Jason nor Orion saw the need to follow. As he walked, he drew his katana. The moment the blade was unsheathed, Jason instantly sensed a change. There was a feeling in the air, a force, something alien to the universe itself. He had only felt this sensation three times before: during Orion's power manifestations. It was the same sensation as when colors disappeared. It was the feeling that the universe itself feared their presence.

Arden gradually began to run, his hair lightly dancing in the wind. When he was about a hundred meters from the gate, the guardians activated with a mechanical rumble.

The first didn't even have time to react. Arden had covered the distance between them at the speed of light. His katana sliced through the immense armor around its neck as if the metal offered no resistance to its edge. In a heartbeat, one of the two Iron Giants was decapitated, its head's fall causing tremors for several kilometers.

The second managed to launch an attack. Isadora couldn't even see its movements. The giant's attack was unrealistically fast, proportional to its size. In a hundredth of a second, the immense sword approached Arden. He was still in the air after jumping to reach his opponent's neck. Though he seemed to be in a dire situation, Isadora could read disdain in his eyes. He decided to meet the immense sword with his slender katana, positioning it horizontally as if to absorb the entirety of the coming devastating attack.

The clash between the two blades resulted in a dull, deafening metal-on-metal sound. A fraction of a second later, one could only hear the sound of the golem crashing against the gate. It didn't even have time to understand what had happened before meeting the same fate as its companion.

In less than a second, the two colossi, so imposing in Isadora's eyes, were both decapitated. They lay on the ground, a gaping hole in their armor from which Arden had extracted the cores.

Once his blade was sheathed, Arden rejoined the group. His face showed no emotion despite the battle he had just fought, and he handed Isadora the two still-warm cores. They must have weighed about fifty kilograms each. Their appearance was that of perfectly smooth metal balls without any imperfections.

With the cores in hand, Isadora was teleported. She was back in the tavern. This teleportation was accompanied by two notifications appearing before every player in Monarchy.

'Congratulations to Isadora, the first player to defeat a level 300 enemy!'

'Congratulations to Isadora for defeating the Iron Guardians! She is the first to gather three of the five keys necessary for the Monarch's return!'