The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 6 - Chapter 45 - Oddities

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't mind this fluff. It's so that free readers can't read half the chapter.

This is Tuesday's chapter. I'm writing it tonight because I have some business to take care of tomorrow.

Click the following link if you want to read this chapter on a googledoc with formatting:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YaRQhWryC5JT3DEzRvM5k-VMG3tQ9ydOkr1XGRVqYHY/edit?usp=sharing

Or just keep scrolling down to find the chapter further down this Patreon post without formatting.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

Discord Invite

Table of Contents

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wolf

It feels a little weird not having the commentator explaining anything anymore, what with Mikaela not actually knowing any more about what is going on than I know. But at least I don’t have to listen to that rather annoying chittering noise that the creatures from Beelzebub’s universe were making. Because translated or not, it was very annoying to hear. The noise itself just grated on my ears.

The notifications for the System Centurion Quinzel are also done very differently. Something I realize even more as I read this one.

Beta Administrator Dungeon Notification

As the last surviving contestant of the System Centurion Quinzel, you will soon know hell. One of curses and insects. But before that, you must pass through the second third of the System Centurion Quinzel.

And this third will not be as easy as the first one was, for mortals or otherwise.

Because within the second third of the System Centurion Quinzel, you must travel through the Cursed Temple of the Insect God and find the Cursed Scepter within the Grand Ceremonial Chamber.

Be prepared for anything, and do not let your guard down, Winter Wolf.

For the final third of the System Centurion Quinzel will begin the moment you make physical contact with the scepter.

My eyes narrow at the notification. Or more specifically, at how personalized the notification was.

At how it is clearly talking about and to me. Even directly stating my title as it does.

And the fact that I’m not technically a mortal, seeing as I’m a pseudo progenitor.

Soon I find myself being teleported into a rather disturbing looking location away from the audience and Mikaela. The place is filled with curse elemental energy and looks like some sort of haunted world. And despite the mention of some Cursed Temple, I don’t see any temples anywhere near me.

In fact, the only thing I can see around me is forest.

Lots, and lots, of forest.

Some sort of haunted forest at that, considering the black and purple curse energy floating everywhere and coating the trees in places. Not to mention the energy in the form of fog in the sky, and the purple moon high above the forest shining down through the night.

I continue looking around for a few seconds before my eyes lock onto some bugs crawling around on the trees and the bushes. Some of which are tiny to the point of being around as big as a finger, whereas others are over an entire meter long.

But that’s not all though. Because when I really focus on the distance, I can see some bugs that are much larger than the trees. And after lowering the soundproofing on my headphones, I hear incredibly loud footsteps coming from the South and the North.

Some sort of cursed forest filled with curse energy and bugs then. Makes sense.

And that Cursed Temple is probably hidden somewhere within the forest.

As for the other things that were said in the notification… I’m not liking what it was implying. Because it sounded like I’ll be fighting something related to the Progenitor of Curses and Insects. Although the idea that I would be fighting him directly is incredibly unlikely if not impossible entirely. But what I’m guessing from what I’ve heard and past floors of the System is that I’ll need to use that scepter to fight against whatever the Centurion Boss of the three hundredth floor is.

So either way, this is going to be annoying to deal with.

“I smell something good…” I hear Sapphire mutter as she leaves my shadow, making me glance down to surprisingly find her in spider form. A form she doesn’t take very often anymore despite technically being a spider.

Wait… she smells something…

My eyes widen a bit.

Oh.

My nose wrinkles a little as she goes into the bushes and begins eating some of the bugs.

Right. I forgot.

Images of the time she was eating massive cockroach corpses without batting an eye and calling them delicious.

To each their own, but I would still rather not see it.

“We should split up on this part to find the temple,” I tell Sapphire, both because it is actually a good idea and what I planned to do, and to get her away from me while she’s eating. “Tell me if you find the temple, and I’ll teleport you back if I find it.”

“Gotcha!” Sapphire says through our bond as I hear crunching sounds from her eating bugs.

I can’t help but wrinkle my nose a little at the smell of the bugs while quickly running through the forest in the opposite direction of her. And I make sure to go ahead and absorb and devour curse energy with my new ring along the way. Because this is probably one of my only chances to do that, considering how rare it turns out curse energy is according to the time since I got it and the System Forums.

Come to think of it, I wonder if this ring will come in handy when I fight whatever the Centurion Boss is? Because I’m sure at this point that the Centurion Boss will use curse energy, regardless of what it is.

This environment, the creator of the Centurion Quinzel, the name of the temple and scepter, there is no way that with all of that the Centurion Boss won’t use curse energy. So I can at least use the ring for the rest of the floor as a weapon against the Centurion Boss.

And considering what the previous notifications said, I’m guessing I’ll be teleported to the Sponsor Hall the moment I touch the scepter. So I can at least look forward to that tiny break.

Or at least several seconds after touching it. Since I wasn’t always teleported the moment I enter the floor on previous sponsorship floors.

Well, anyways, for now I’ll just focus on finding the temple. Maybe I’ll find more hints about what the Centurion Boss is there.

So I continue charging through the forest while absorbing the curse energy and slaughtering bugs.