Legacy of the Betelgeuse

Ivonna and the others entered the castle area after I logged out from the game, they looked around while they were killing the monsters they found. The castle looked normal and it was well maintained for some reason even though it has been buried deep down for centuries, they walked around the castle and they didn't find any other way around it and the only way to go was to enter the castle. They entered the castle and were immediately welcomed by the sound of bells that came from nowhere, they all got a notification in front of their screens.

[The Keeper of Time is amazed that you managed to survive the first stage, The Keeper of Time acknowledges your ability and will, but it does not end here, instead of punishing you for entering his place, The Keeper of Time has prepared another challenge for you to overcome. Will you be able to survive the challenge?]

[You have 3 chances to clear the Second Stage]

[The chances you have left from the First Stage will be added]

[You now have 6 chances!]

[You have entered the Second Stage: A hundred doors to the Underworld!]

[There are 20 doors in front of you, find the correct door that will lead you downstairs to the second level. There are 15 doors that will lead you to a death trap, 4 doors that will lead you back to the random levels of previous levels that you have been through. You have 15 minutes to reach level 10 of the Second Stage, for every 1 minute, the walls will be shrinking and will destroy the doors and when the right door is destroyed, it will be randomly moved to the remaining doors on each level! Those who are left behind when the timers run out will be immediately teleported to the outside of the dungeon]

[You have 10 minutes of preparation before the Second Stage started]

[May the Betelgeuse Bless you!]

There were all looking at the huge hall and 20 doors in front of them, the walls were quite far from the door so they should have at least 5 minutes before the 2 doors on each side got destroyed by the walls. They were all walking toward the doors and looked at each one of them, but they were all identical and there was no way for them to tell or to compare it with the others.

Kingstar sighed and leaned on the wall while he looked at Diamond.

"This is going to be a pain, but at least we don't have to fight monsters this time."

Diamond nodded in agreement, then he looked at the others.

"So, what is the plan for this one?"

Leo looked at the doors and hummed.

"20 doors, 15 will lead us to death, 4 will lead us back, and the last one will send us to the next level. So we have to sacrifice a few lives to get to the 2nd level and if we are doing it the right way, we only need at least 4 or 5 lives on each level, if we are lucky, we only waste our lives less than that."

Everyone looked at him and Ivonna raised her eyebrows.

"Do you think we all can make it to the 10th level?"

Leo nodded confidently.

"Yeah, it won't be a problem. We need 20 people to stand in front of the doors, and we don't want to waste our lives by going in at the same time, we just need to get one person to enter and wait until the person either comes back, dies, or goes to the 2nd level. That way, we can save a few lives."

Cho Ahn hummed with understanding.

"Okay, then what we are going to do on the 2nd level?"

Leo hummed and nodded.

"We are going to keep doing that until we reach the 10th level, some of us might have only lost 1 live will the rest will still have 6 lives."

Leo put down an enchantment stone on the floor but then it disappeared, he tilted his head.

"Huh? I knew it, they won't make it that easy for us to leave a trace and will make it disappear as soon as we make a tiny change in this room."

Ken looked at Leo with confusion.

"Hold on, we can all can survive this one and we only lose 1 life? How is that possible?"

Leo nodded.

"Yeah, there are 63 of us, and let say that 5 of them lost a single life on this level, then on the next level, we will lose another 5. If we time it by 10, we will only lose 50 lives and 13 of them are still having 6 lives while the rest only lose a single life."

Ken was still confused.

"I know that I do the math, but we don't know if we entered the fake doors and we will be sent to the previous levels that we have no idea which level is that since you said it earlier that we can't leave a trace behind."

Leo smiled and shook his head.

"No, that won't be a problem because we all are going to enter the 2nd level, but from the 2nd level onwards, we are going to leave a person behind so when a person got teleported back, they can tell which level they're in, and if there's nobody around them, that means they're in the first level. The problem is the timer here, we only have 5 minutes to reach the 10th level before the 2 doors get destroyed by the walls, and I'm going to be honest with you all that we need at least 6 to 8 minutes to reach the 10th level if we do it carefully, but if we are rushing it, we might be able to reach the 10th level in 4 minutes. The person who's on the 2nd level will have to hurry and go through 9 doors as fast as possible because there's a big chance that on one of those levels that the correct door is on the first or last door."

Everyone hummed with understanding, but then Leo looked around.

"So, who wants to stay on the 2nd level?"

Ivonna without hesitation walked in and raises her hand.

"Let me do it."

Leo nodded.

"Okay, now let's bring 20 people in front of the doors."

Everyone nodded and the first 20 people were Ivonna with her friends, Black Shadow Clan, Diamond Clan, and Sunheung Clan. The 2nd stage just started, and the first one to open the door was Diamond, he entered the door and immediately reappeared at the entrance, he yelled that he died, and then the next one is Jessen, she died as well. They were at the 9th door and Ivonna opened the door, she didn't reappear so that means she managed to go on the 2nd level.

Everyone entered the same door and Leo reminded everyone that the code for the first level is 1-14, everyone wrote it down in their note. As expected, the room looked identical, the next 20 people were from Valkyrie's Wings Clan, Cloud Veil Clan, Uninvited Clan, Palacetasia Clan, and half of Infernal Chaos Clan. They were unlucky because 12 of them lost their lives and finally on the 16th door, they managed to enter the third level. Ivonna was left behind and started writing on her note.

On the 7th level, they were lucky because the first door was the correct door, but at the same time, they didn't want that to happen because they are now rushing it since Ivonna has to be on the sixth floor before the wall destroys it, and so they all immediately entered the seventh level. They had 2 minutes left before the walls start to destroy the doors and they had to hurry.

On the 9th level, they lost 7th people and on the 10th door, they reached the 10th level, but then they realized that on the 10th level, there were 50 doors in front of them, and they only have 45 seconds before the wall crush the 2 doors. Without hesitation, they have all entered the doors and Queenstar was in the right door, and as soon as Ivonna got all the correct codes, she immediately run.

Ivonna looked at the note on her screen while she entered the 16th door.

"3-7..."

Ivonna entered the 3rd level.

"4-11..."

Ivonna counted the door carefully and then entered the 11th door.

"5-9..."

She only had 10 seconds left, and she was still on the 5th level.

"6-15..."

Her heart was racing and she could feel it while even though she was running so fast.

"7-7..."

She entered the 7th floor and she only had 2 seconds left, she ran so fast and the wall made a cracking sound and the door was about to get crushed. The door was slightly opened, and so she decided to slide and kicked the door open. She barely made it, but she immediately got up and kept running.

"9-8..."

The sound of walls crushing the doors made her nervous but she was safe and the was no need for her to be worried about it. She entered opened the last door on the 10-31, and everyone looked at her and cheered for her. Ivonna was catching her breath and fell on her knees while Francesca and Chelsea ran toward her and hugged her so tightly.

Kingstar and the others were looking at her while they were clapping their hands.

Ivonna stood up and sighed with relief, then she looked at the black stone door in front of her.

"Now is the third stage...."