[ Welcome to the Pagoda of Death ]

[ Difficulty Level: ??? ]

As soon as Daniel entered the pagoda, he was greeted by a notification from the Mother System.

"Pagoda of Death?" He frowned slightly at the name but quickly let it go.

"So, they couldn't get in, huh?" Naturally, he figured that Zargort and Nariok had failed to enter.

He glanced around. There wasn't anything strange in terms of decoration—just a staircase going upward, with a door after every few steps.

Daniel walked toward the stairs and climbed up without hesitation. It didn't take long before he reached the first door.

He tried to keep climbing, but a powerful force stopped him. He had expected this, so he opened the door and went in.

The moment he stepped inside, he found himself in a vast plain. A huge empty field with absolutely nothing. No trees, no rocks, not even a single living creature.

While wondering what he was supposed to do, a floating scroll suddenly appeared in front of him.

"Huh?" Daniel raised an eyebrow as he saw the scroll.

The scroll automatically unrolled, and lines of text began to appear one by one.

[ Welcome to the First Floor of the Pagoda of Death ]

[ Kill all one hundred thousand D-rank beasts in less than one hour ]

[ If successful, you will be granted access to the second floor ]

[ Failure will result in true death ]

After reading it, the scroll suddenly burst into flames and burned to ash.

Daniel ignored it and thought about what he had just read.

Killing one hundred thousand D-rank beasts in under an hour?

Was this a joke? A hundred thousand D-rank beasts? He doubted even B-rank experts or higher could pull that off.

That number was insane. And more than that, it had to be done in under an hour.

Even worse was the punishment. The words "true death" gave him a horrible feeling. His intuition told him that if he died here, it would be for real—his soul and body both would be destroyed.

Before he could think further, a massive army of beasts suddenly appeared in the distance. All of them were big and monstrous.

Daniel tried to contact his Fallen Ones to see if he could get any help from them, but it was a total failure.

He couldn't reach any of them in any way—it was like their connection had been completely cut off.

"No other choice," he sighed and pulled his sword back out from his inventory.

The best he could do now was to use Crimson Judgment and Mana Essence to create a large number of weapons for a full-scale assault.

In front of him was a thin red line—probably the start of the combat zone.

He stepped past it, and yes, the beasts immediately charged at him.

[ Crimson Judgment ]

Thousands of swords made of what looked like blood appeared above his head.

Without wasting time, he commanded them to charge at the beasts. The swords rushed forward and began slicing through the beasts.

Many of them died instantly, unable to resist in the slightest. In fact, their strength wasn't the problem. Power-wise, they had no way of standing up to Daniel.

The problem was their overwhelming number. Even though each blood sword could kill at least one beast, there were still way too many left.

Without delay, Daniel began compressing more mana using Mana Essence to create additional swords.

At the same time, he activated Crimson Judgment multiple times and managed to slaughter many more beasts.

"My mana's running low, and more than half of them are still left," Daniel grumbled to himself.

It should be noted that his mana pool is larger than that of any C-rank in both worlds. He even has the double mana regeneration skill from the Transcendent Scripture.

And even with all that, his mana was nearly empty. His consumption rate was far outpacing his recovery.

Seeing the beasts getting closer, he realized he had no choice but to fight directly.

Until his mana recovered, it would be best to fight personally. With that thought, he rushed forward and charged into the herd.

The beasts came at him from every direction, but he ruthlessly sliced them apart with his sword, cutting them down with speed and precision.

Still, no matter how many he killed, they just didn't stop. It felt like there was an endless supply of them.

"Damn it, what kind of messed-up thing is this?" Daniel was ready to curse out the creator of the pagoda—but suddenly the beasts swarmed over him.

They surrounded him from all sides and even piled on top of him. It looked like he was getting crushed underneath them.

The beasts, thinking they had finally taken down their butcher, began to rejoice, with more and more piling on.

It seemed like Daniel had failed, and it was over.

But suddenly—

[ Eternal Judgment ]

BOOM!

A massive explosion of destruction wiped out more than half of the remaining beasts.

"You bastards... how dare you ruin my clothes," Daniel growled while brushing off his torn outfit.

Using Eternal Judgment had completely emptied his mana, but luckily he had managed to refill about 25% of his Mana Essence storage during that time.

Without hesitation, he began creating mana bombs and launching them toward the beasts.

Boom! Boom!

The beasts were wiped out one after another, their bodies turning to ash.

Daniel continued this process until the very last beast was killed. Thankfully, it didn't take much longer.

With the help of Eternal Judgment, he had eliminated the majority of them, and the rest weren't much trouble.

"You're the last one." He decapitated the final beast with his sword.

Afterward, he let out a long sigh and collapsed to the ground. He had been through a lot of fights, but this was by far the most exhausting one.

Suddenly, another scroll appeared in front of him.

[ You have successfully cleared the First Floor ]

[ You are now eligible to enter the Second Floor ]

[ You may also rest for thirty minutes on this floor ]

After reading it, the scroll automatically caught fire and turned to ashes.

Daniel decided to take the thirty-minute break before heading to the next floor of the pagoda.