The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 6 - Chapter 21 - The Second Fifth

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

I'm gonna start doing the same thing I do with my Reaper chapters for Winter Wolf. So you can either read the chapters on Patreon or on a Google Doc.

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

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Table of Contents

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Wolf

Seriously? Why on Earth would I need a shell fragment that’s immune to my own element? There’s literally no reason for it…

I’m immune to my own element. I have absolutely no need for something immune to it even if I can craft armor from this shell.

Whoever decides these rewards should be fired.

I don’t care if it’s the System doing it or not, it should be fired.

Despite all my inner complaints about the shell though I toss it in with my other garbage for storage before moving on through the tunnels. And along the way I end up finding several more caverns full of bugs, each with mini bosses in them. But one by one I defeat them all. Just slaughtering my way through the bugs in search of my crystal.

Unfortunately for me, my luck seems to have just about run out since no matter how hard I search, I just can’t seem to find the damn thing.

Eventually almost the entire seventy-two hour period passes, making me hurry up and begin rushing straight through while ignoring the mini bosses and bugs. Just to search for the damn crystal.

Because there is no fucking way I’m going to be killed just because I couldn’t find some stupid crystal in time.

Time feels like it begins to move at a crawl as I hurriedly search everywhere I can find. All the way until the countdown reaches just five seconds remaining.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Any of the panic I’m feeling right now suddenly vanishes when I find myself teleported back to the main stadium as the audience’s cheers fill it to the brim and a notification appears in my vision. With confusion immediately replacing the panic.

Beta Administrator Dungeon Notification

Congratulations on completing the first fifth of the Second Centurion Quinzel!

You have found your linked crystal and are ready to move on to the Third Centurion Quinzel!

“Aaaaannnnd that’s it for the first fifth of the Second Centurion Quinzel!!! Give our winners a round of applause before they dive head-first into the second fifth!!!” the commentator shouts, his voice echoing across the entire stadium.

I blink before glancing to the side to find Sapphire yawning next to me in her human form.

With a certain crystal sticking out of her pocket.

She looks at me before closing her eyes as she yawns. So I reach out and pat her head with a smile.

“Good job,” I tell her, surprising her, only for a wide smile to stretch across her face.

She hums in response before another Beta Dungeon Notification appears in my vision.

Beta Administrator Dungeon Notification

Welcome to the second fifth of the Second Centurion Quinzel!

Now that you have all collected your linked crystals, you will be using them for the second fifth!

The second fifth will take place within a grand palace filled with monsters. All of the competitors will be placed within the palace and must locate their personal exit to escape. These exits will be linked to your linked crystal and may only be opened by said crystal, so make sure you do not lose your crystal.

 

Rewards will be given out according to the following actions within the grand palace:

Killing mini bosses

Killing other competitors

Stealing other competitor’s crystals

 

The rewards for the above actions will be determined upon completion of the second fifth of the Second Centurion Quinzel.

 

Good luck, and watch out for invisible bugs.

“Now it’s time to start off in the next fifth!” the commentator shouts before everything around us warps and I find Sapphire and I appearing within a rather large palace. One seemingly made out of a type of blue stone. Meanwhile water slowly drips down from said stone.

Oddly enough though I don’t see any cracks for the water to come from. It’s almost as if the water is being made by the stones themselves.

Interesting…

“When I looked at the other competitors in the room, it seemed as if at least two thirds of the remaining twenty or so thousand competitors were lunar winter beasts,” I point out to Sapphire who had her eyes almost closed the entire time we were there and most likely missed it.

She yawns and rubs her eyes as she hums in understanding.

A faint smile stretches across my face as I pat her once more and say, “You can take a break this time around. Let me handle this fifth.”

Sapphire nods before handing me the linked crystal and turning into her tiny spider form and climbing up to my jacket’s hood to sleep.

I’m honestly a little curious how large that first fifth was, seeing as I never ran into Sapphire again throughout the entire thing. But she seems tired.

I sometimes forget that she can actually get tired, seeing as she’s not a pseudo progenitor like me. Someone who can literally just restore his health and stamina using energy in my surroundings.

And that’s not even considering the bugs, since she’s not as strong as I am. So she probably struggled a good bit against them.

All in all, she deserves this rest.

I focus on the halls of the grand palace around me. But I can’t help but feel like something’s wrong as I do so.

After a second I go back and pull up the notification from my notification history before rereading through it. And as I do that, I quickly realize what feels wrong about it.

There’s no time limit for the second fifth.

That just feels wrong for some reason. Off.

And that last warning about invisible bugs… for some reason I feel like that is a lot more important than it sounds.

Hmm. I should…

My thoughts halt when I notice some life sources leaving the walls somehow. Not many of them, but some. But when I look at them I don’t see anything with my eyes.

So I do the logical thing and freeze everything in this hallway, making a bunch of frozen lumps fall down to the ground in the process.

Guess those are the invisible bugs.