Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons-Chapter 250: Flame Orb
Arthur collected the item that had been dropped by the Hyena before continuing onward.
As he navigated deeper into the labyrinth, dispatching three more guardians with similar efficiency, Arthur began to notice a pattern in the maze's design. The walls weren't shifting randomly—they were responding to his choices, creating different challenges based on the paths he selected.
It was almost like the labyrinth was studying him while he studied it.
After nearly an hour of navigation, Arthur found himself standing before what appeared to be the final challenge.
Stepping inside the corridor, Arthur felt the gravity change immediately. His body became weightless, lifting off the obsidian floor as if invisible strings were pulling him upward.
His hair floated around his face, and the contents of his pockets strained against their confines. The sensation was disorienting—his mind still expected weight and resistance where there was none, making each movement uncoordinated and imprecise.
In front of him, another beast waited.
Like the previous one, it resembled a hyena, but this one was clearly stronger—its crimson fur darker, almost black at the edges.
Its eyes burned like twin suns, and when it opened its massive jaws, the heat of its breath distorted the air.
[Crimson Hyena (Epic-Boss)]
Unlike Arthur, the hyena moved with perfect control, unaffected by the altered gravity. Its paws gripped the floor normally as it stalked forward, muscles bunching in preparation to spring.
'It seems like the challenge is to fight it whilst being affected by gravity,' Arthur thought, before scoffing. A clever trap for ordinary challengers, perhaps, but for someone with his talents...
"Too easy,"
The hyena lunged, its body cutting through the zero-gravity environment with ease. Its trajectory was perfect.
A lethal arc aimed directly at Arthur's floating, vulnerable body.
Arthur didn't try to dodge.
Instead, he activated his Space talent, focusing on the area immediately surrounding his body.
"If gravity was simply the curvature of space-time, then controlling space meant controlling gravity's effect.
The space around Arthur's body immediately became denser, more defined.
He created a localized pocket of normal space-time, essentially carving out an exception to the chamber's altered physics. Within this bubble, normal rules applied—including Earth-standard gravity.
Arthur's feet settled firmly back onto the floor. His movements, previously hampered by weightlessness, returned to normal.
The hyena's eyes widened in surprise as its prey suddenly dropped from its projected intercept path. The beast twisted in mid-air, trying to adjust, but its momentum carried it over Arthur's head.
"Surprised?" Arthur smiled, drawing his blade in one fluid motion. "Let's even the playing field further."
He expanded his control, focusing now on the hyena itself. As the beast landed and prepared for another attack, Arthur inverted the spatial properties around it.
He expanded his control, focusing now on the hyena itself. As the beast landed and prepared for another attack, Arthur inverted the spatial properties around it.
The hyena yelped in confusion as its world turned upside down.
What had been floor became ceiling for the creature, and it found itself suddenly pulled upward with crushing force. Its claws scrabbled uselessly against air as it was yanked toward the ceiling.
CRASH!
The beast slammed into the obsidian ceiling, the impact sending cracks spiderwebbing across the smooth surface. Before it could recover, Arthur manipulated space again.
The area around the hyena began to contract, space itself folding inward. The beast howled as its body was squeezed from all directions, its crimson fur bulging unnaturally as pressure increased. Blood vessels burst beneath its skin, creating a macabre pattern of darker crimson against the already blood-red fur.
Unlike its predecessor, this hyena was stronger—an Epic-Boss rather than merely Elite. It's level was also higher, reaching level 20. Which meant it was much stronger than the beasts at level 19.
Its eyes blazed with intelligence as it thrashed against the invisible force crushing it. For a moment, its muscles strained against Arthur's spatial manipulation.
"Impressive resistance," Arthur noted.
"But futile."
He closed his fist tighter, doubling the power behind his spatial manipulation. The very fabric of reality groaned in protest as he forced an area that should contain several cubic meters to collapse into the space of a basketball.
The hyena's howl turned to a strangled whimper, then silence.
With a final surge of power, Arthur completed the compression. There was no dramatic explosion or implosion—simply a sudden absence where the massive beast had been, leaving behind only a small, dense sphere of compressed matter hovering in the air. The sphere glowed with unnatural heat, the creature's essence condensed into a space a thousand times smaller than its original form.
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Arthur released his hold on the spatial anomaly, allowing the sphere to drop to the ground with a heavy thud. It rolled a few inches before coming to rest, still radiating heat.
[You have slain a level 20, Crimson Hyena (Epic-Boss)]
[You have dropped Flame Orb (Epic)]
"Oh?" Arthur let out a sound of interest, his eyebrows rising.
It was the first time he had killed a level 20 beast, and the rewards were nothing short of amazing. An epic item from a single kill—the kind of drop most players would never see in their entire lives.
Where the compressed remains had settled, a glowing orb materialized—the Flame Orb. It lay a few centimeters away from the remains of the Hyena, pulsing with an internal rhythm that reminded Arthur of a heartbeat. The surface swirled with patterns resembling solar flares, miniature eruptions dancing beneath a translucent shell.
Arthur approached, kneeling to examine the item that had dropped. Heat radiated from the orb, warming his face as he leaned closer. Within its depths, he could see what looked like a perpetual inferno, flames folding in on themselves in endless, hypnotic patterns.
"Now that," he said with satisfaction, "is more like it."
He muttered as he glanced at the orb's description that appeared in his vision.
[Flame Orb]
[Rank: Epic]
[Description: A crystallized essence of primal fire magic, harvested from the heart of a powerful fire beast. When integrated with a weapon or armor, it enhances all fire-based attacks by 15%, extending their range and penetration power. The orb resonates with the wielder's magical signature, growing stronger with continued use.]
