Infinite Realm

"Almost there." 

After glancing at the piece of paper held with both hands, Sato folded the thin piece of paper and kept it safely within his space bag before resuming his journey.

After he had defeated the Blood king and retrieved the map, Sato's progress in the labyrinth could be described as traveling 10 miles with a step[1]. 

When Sato began the challenge, he had started from the first sector. After the defeat of the Blood king, a door, different from the one he went through before, had appeared beside the throne of the Blood king. The door lead him towards the second sector, which was the next zone for Sato as well as the only place the map was useful.

With the aid of the map, not only was he able to avoid a majority of the traps in the labyrinths, but he was also able to avoid the hideouts of certain monsters and also hunt for treasures.

The [Labyrinth of Helios] was originally supposed to be a trial of luck but after the modifications made on it by the ancestor-level figure of the Caventry, some additional features were applied to it but they didn't change the fundamentals of the trials. In a specific location within the labyrinth, treasures and items were hidden all around and unless one had great sense, unimaginable luck, or a map of the place, they wouldn't be able to discover these treasures. Luckily for Sato, he had one of the 3.

The entire challenge was to go on for 36 hours and with the aid of the map, Sato was no longer like a headless fly as he now had a clear path in front of him. As a result of that, he decided to spend some of that time scavenging for treasures in the labyrinth. 

The reason he did so was that he felt that the next boss, the guardian of the second sector, would be a whole lot more difficult to handle. If that wasn't bad enough, apart from one other array left, Sato was out of a table-turning item and his ultimate trump card skill, the [Gratitude of Races], was on cool-down. Since the chances of him losing to the second sector's guardian were quite high, Sato decided to spend his time looking for treasures. At the very least, he wanted to make a killing from the labyrinth just before he left.

Some of the items in here ranged from low-level rare herbs and materials to forging blueprints, manuals, and array blueprints, special runes, damaged but still usable equipment and weapons, precious gems, and magic crystals. There were even a few intact weapons that he had recovered. Even while doing all these, Sato made sure to leave behind enough time left to reach the guardian of the second sector and possibly defeat it, if that was even possible. 

After having gotten enough profits from the labyrinth, Sato organized his earnings before setting his sights back on his original goal and making his way over to the second sector's boss room. 

"There it is."

Unlike in the first sector, it didn't take him that long to reach the boss room since he already had a map that lead exactly towards here.

Starting from the time Sato had entered the [Labyrinth of Helios] to when he exited the game and took a break and finally, reaching here, it had taken him a total of 29 and a half hours. Out of that 29 and a half hours, it had taken him 20 hours to reach the first sector's boss room but 7 and a half hours to do so here; the remaining 2 hours were spent outside the game, during the time Sato had exited the game. Sato would have taken less than 4 hours to make it over to the boss room but because he spent most of his time looting the labyrinth, Sato had taken much longer than normal. Even so, the time he took was still less than a half of the time he had taken in the first sector. All this was thanks to the incomplete map in his hands.

"Impressive."

Standing before the entrance that leads to the boss room, Sato couldn't resist commenting on the structure of the gate.

Unlike the first sector's gate which stood at a height of 12 metres and width of 5 metres, the second sector's gate was at a height of 24 metres and a width of 10 metres; twice the size of the first sector's. Where the first sector's gate was made out of black jadeite or so, the second sector's boss room gate was made out of what looked to be a pristine white moonstone kind of rock. Even the aura the gate exuded was different from that of the black jade gate. 

Unlike the black jade gate's evil aura that automatically alerted Sato's senses with a horrific sensation, the white moonstone gate brought with it n overbearing pressure that seemed to crush both body and soul. Just standing before the gate was difficult for Sato as felt a daunting pressure fall on him and his breathing slowly became ragged.

'Damn.'

After adjusting himself to the pressure, Sato continued his scrutiny of the gate.

Just as with the black jade gate on the first sector, the white moonstone gate also had a bunch of carvings on its surface. Similar to the former, the left side of the gate depicted those exact gods that Sato had seen back at the first sector. Because he had stared closely at them back then, Sato had a good impression of the carvings and he was able to confirm that the two were quite similar but not the same.

On the right side of the gate, however, there was no carving of the familiar demons that were on the black jade gate. Instead, there was a carving of giant-like creatures. The smallest of these creatures stood at a height of 10 metres while the tallest of them approached 20 metres. Most of them were burly and they all held in their arms weapons of war. Some held a staff that suited that height while others held spears, poles, javelins, and hammers. A very few even wielded swords and sabers which obviously wasn't at the same length as the ones used by humans.

In terms of looks, these giants weren't much different from humans; having 2 legs and 2 arms and even looking just like an average human, if one were to exclude their height. However, Sato felt that there weren't humans and this wasn't just because they were taller than regular humans. 

The reason Sato identified them as 'creatures' despite their extreme resemblance to humans was because of his gut feeling. No matter how similar the two races looked, Sato felt that they weren't the same. It was the same feeling he got when he stared at the image of the celestial gods. The celestial gods also looked like humans but the feeling they gave off did not suit a human.

Despite the circumstances surrounding the gate, Sato didn't hurry to open it up but further inspected it. He guessed that the identity of the monster behind this gate was related to the aura and carvings on the gate. After all, the aura of the first sector's gate was an evil one and the carvings were that of a legion of demons going to war. The monster behind that gate ended up being a bloodthirsty demon. From this, one could understand why Sato thought the same would be true here.

"Battling a giant huh? This should be interesting."

After having his fill of the view, Sato placed both hands on the gate and pushed it open. The weight of the gate was heavier than the first sector's so it required much more strength to open it wide open. Luckily for him, Sato could still manage to do this, however, he was only able to create a slit for one person to pass.

'This is my limit.'

Sighing at his weakness, Sato didn't continue to open the gate but stopped. He had already made enough space for himself so it was pointless to do more. He didn't hurry to enter the gate though but sat down before it and recuperated a bit. The foe behind the gate would most likely be the greatest opponent he had ever faced so Sato wanted to be at his best before encountering it.

5 minutes went by before Sato stood up and walked through the 'entrance'. Once he got past it, the gate shut itself close.

On the other side, Sato stood in a hall a bit similar to the previous one, only much bigger. The entire place was lit with a bright white light that was at the right intensity to not affect one's eyes. The setup of the hall was a lot similar to the other one but with a few differences; having a giant white luminous crystal at the centre of the ceiling with dozens of pillars that held small luminescent white crystals. 

However, Sato didn't have time to pay attention to any of this because of the notification that greeted him right after he got past the gate.

[[ System notification :

You have encountered the guardian of the second sector; Blessed son of heaven's might, Child of the Titan race, [Atrit].

]]

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