Maria continued to hold her ground inside of the tower for another 3 hours and unlike before, she didn’t try to draw out the time since she wanted all of the milestone rewards from Paimon. However, despite bulldozing through the waves, there were 2 hours left until her quest was completed but she was still only at the 74th wave.
She had already received her 60th and 70th wave milestone rewards and they were for her [Blizzard] and [Terra] spells. The sub spells were respectively [Frost Nova] and [Earth Cannon], each of them being AOE spells just like [Hellflare]. The AOE attack spell trend was something Maria noticed so she was expecting her second [Aero] sub spell to be another AOE spell.
Maria wasn’t hoping for an auxiliary or defensive-type spell or something like that so this was fine since she mostly used attack-type skills and spells anyway. There was hardly ever a time when she used any of her skills or spells that didn’t deal any damage. With the way her character had developed, Maria had become more of a damage dealer than a healer or a buffer like her class would suggest her to be. She thought that it was great that she received more spells that could deal damage since this meant that she’d be able to kill monsters even quicker now.
However, even with the 3 new AOE spells that she obtained, Maria expected to at least be on wave 100 or something but the reality wasn’t like that and that was because the difficulty of the waves had jumped after she reached a certain point.
Earlier, the levels of the soldiers on the 50th wave had spiked since they had a leader, Volvoss the Undefeated, so it was considered a boss wave hence the difficulty had increased several folds but once the 51st wave came and the boss wave ended, the soldiers’ levels were reduced back to the normal numbers that Maria expected them to be following the steady 1 level increment after every wave clear.
Since it was like this, things were quite easy so she bulldozed her way through each wave while only thinking about getting the rewards though it did take her some time since she noticed that the number of soldiers fluctuated between 75 to 100. The soldiers’ numbers were what made her progress rather slow but that became even worse once she hit the 70th wave.
Upon hitting wave 70, things became a little bit harder as the quantity of the soldiers had experienced a massive influx. In the previous waves, Maria had to deal with around 75 to 100 soldiers per wave but that number had instantly jumped to 200 on the 70th wave, and each wave after that, the number of soldiers increased by 10. The soldiers of the 70th wave were only around level 120 to 130 so the quest was still hardly a challenge for her but there were 240 of them which made clearing each wave much longer than before.
Thankfully, the soldiers couldn’t enter the mage tower all at once and swarm her due to the limited space so she was able to easily deal with them a few at a time. The only problem was that it felt like an endless cycle and Maria had to take breaks in between killing each batch of soldiers or else she would have gone crazy from the monotonous work. She did have her puppets and golems to help her out, but thanks to the numerous amount of soldiers she had to deal with that whose levels were already past the level that her current floor’s defense mechanisms could deal with, Maria was forced to move up a few floors so that the defenses could keep up with the soldiers’ levels. It was such a long grind but in the end, Maria was able to reach the 80th wave and clear it. She received the spell [Windstorm] as her [Aero]’s sub spell.
Maria didn’t plan on trying to push her luck and make it to the 90th and 100th waves. The next boss wave was likely on the 100th wave and she would probably be overwhelmed by their numbers and levels at that point. Not only that, but even if she did try to reach those waves, she no longer had the time since only a few minutes remained before her quest ended. However, it was right when the quest’s countdown had reached zero that something strange happened. The mage tower began quaking and it felt like somebody was punching the side and trying to topple it over.
[Maria, quickly come to the top!]
“Huh?”
When she received the message from Paimon, a large number of soldiers suddenly surged onto the floor that she was on, catching her off guard.
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“What the hell?!”
Maria quickly summoned her 4 elemental golems to stave off the soldiers but she noticed that all of the soldiers were level 200. This surprised her since this meant that all of these soldiers had experienced their second-class advancement which wasn’t supposed to be available for anyone, including the NPCs, on planet Eur.
“Second-class advancement?! You’ve got to be kidding me!”
She could only watch as her golems and puppets were easily taken down without being able to put up much resistance. They tried attacking and using their spells against them but the soldiers only shrugged them off as if it was nothing before they slashed down with their swords and took away a large chunk of her minions’ HP bar.
A few more attacks quickly killed off her [Fire Golem] and [Terra Golem] who had the most amount of HP amongst her 4 elemental golems. Her puppets only lasted a little bit longer since they had a larger HP pool and could regenerate almost instantaneously but Maria quickly recalled them back to her shadow space because once her puppets were destroyed, they wouldn’t be able to respawn and their regeneration constantly depleted her mana pool.
“Why did the difficulty just jump so abruptly?!”
[Enough talk! Hurry up and get up here before that bastard arrives!]
“Huh?”
[These soldiers belong to the Undefeated’s Rank 1, Hero Mobius! He’s extremely powerful that even I would have a difficult time facing him!]
Paimon didn’t need to say anything more as Maria silently acknowledge his words and quickly began storing her puppets before turning around and rushing up to the tower’s top floor. Just as she reached the top floor, the tower’s walls suddenly burst open and a man with wings of light on his back calmly walked in.
“Paimon, cease this madness and turn over the heretic. She may be your prized disciple but after the unforgivable sin, she has committed, you should know better than to shelter her.”
“Hmph, like you would know anything. I don’t expect god’s puppet to understand any emotions!”
“I’ll be forced to take you down if you continue with this madness.”
Maria was tossed to the side due to the shockwave that resulted from the entrance of the man whom she assumed to be the Hero, Mobius. Just the shockwave from his entrance was enough to push her back so she could tell that this NPC was strong.
His level was marked with a [??] that she couldn’t see even with her high-level [Inspect]. Her [Inspect] skill was already S-ranked so she could see the levels of players, NPCs, and monsters that were 100 levels above her but since she couldn’t see Mobius’s level, this meant that he was above level 201.
Maria should’ve already leveled up a few times after having defeated so many high-level soldiers during this quest of hers but a notification window showed her that all of her EXP was being accumulated and would be rewarded all at once after she left planet Eur. Her quest was finished so she should be able to escape already but this ‘End-Game’ boss had just appeared out of nowhere and was practically dooming her quest completion.
“Was this quest doomed to fail from the beginning?”
Maria gritted her teeth in anger and hit her head a few times, “I shouldn’t have returned to this stupid planet. The game said that the level limit was 100 but what’s this? A level 200 plus NPC is standing right in front of me!”
While Maria was having a monologue with herself, Paimon and Mobius were sizing each other up with neither side moving after they said their initial piece. Mobius’s soldiers had broken through the floors and were slowly pouring into the top floor of Paimon’s Mage Tower. Paimon snapped his fingers and before the soldiers could surround Maria, she was forcefully teleported behind him.
“Paimon, are you planning to aid and assist this criminal until the very end?”
“She’s not a criminal. She’s my disciple.”
“A criminal is still a criminal.”
“Bah, enough talk! If you want her, then come at me!”
[Maria, once the battle starts, I want you to immediately run towards the Daemon Heart.]
“Hm?”
Maria turned to Paimon who didn’t turn his head to look at her and instead communicated their plan through [Telepathy]. Paimon’s voice sounded urgent so Maria quickly replied, [Yes.]
Paimon immediately began multi-casting and parallel-casting spells that buffed and shielded both him and Maria. He then raised his hand and a magic staff suddenly blinked into existence.
“The Tal’un Gedon Veh...I haven’t seen you use that staff in a long time,” Mobius said after he saw Paimon’s staff.
“I never needed to use it, but with this staff. You should know that my powers will be able to rival even you who is blessed by this planet’s god.”
“I didn’t want it to come to this been since you are so adamant in harboring that criminal...then so be it.”
Mobius stretched his hand out and a sword of light appeared in his hand. When Maria saw that sword, the center of her chest, her abdomen, her forehead, and the back of her right hand suddenly started to burn.
“A-Ahh…”
The marks of the 4 Sins that Maria had devoured suddenly appeared and Mobius quickly saw them. His eyes widened with a little bit of terror flashing in them before he frowned and said, “She’s devoured 4 of the 7 Sins? This creature can’t be left alive!”