Afterlife Dream

My knees went weak and I fell to my knees.

"HELLWITCH!!!"

As the corpses of the deceased players disappeared one by one, a booming sound was heard across the sky.

"Dear Adventurers, the Dark Fairy has sent Princess Shi Ran's soul back to the time of her death to relive the tragedy at the Cursed Temple again and again for all eternity. Save her and you will be able to meet the Dark Fairy and complete the raid."

It was like having a precursor mission on top of a precursor raid before starting the level 90 raid. The worst thing of all was that the two-hour countdown before the raid map closed down and kicked us out already started as soon as the first player entered the map. Just how much time would we need in order to complete this extra mission? It would be great if we could lament about that, but we could not. Before we even thought about finding Princess Shi Ran, we must first get all the squad members in one place. That was not an easy challenge to tackle.

Although everyone entered through the same entry point, all the players did not land at the same spot but instead scattered all around the huge map. Some were able to survive the enemy attacks and slowly made it to the center of the map while the others perished on the way.

Ten players stayed surrounding the wounded players in the middle while the others scattered around the map to guide the others to the center of the map. Without Cecilia to reorganize the squad for us, we had to leave the squad and remake the parties so that I could heal the wounded players. There was a pang of regret bubbling up inside me when I thought about HellWitch who died in front of me. Why did I not heal her in time?

After I was done healing the wounded players, I refused to stay put and be protected by others. Instead, I joined the others in guiding the remaining but surviving players into the center of the map.

To add salt to the wound, the enemies were undefeatable while they were more than capable of killing us.

"Antares! Does Purification not work??" DragonTalon turned to me.

"Nope," I said with a grim expression. "These are no ghosts but vivid reflections of the past."

I knew that because I tried already. The so-called vivid reflections passed through the Purification dome as if it were nothing.

The war was between two parties. One party represented the Emperor and the other party the Emperor's brother, the rebelling Second Prince. We, the raid participants, were thrown into the war as part of the rebelling party. I noticed that the Emperor's troops who all bore the yellow chrysanthemum insignia attacked us while the Second Prince's soldiers who were clothed in black and bore the silver crane insignia fought with us.

Cecilia and the others finally made it to the center. After Cecilia was done reorganizing the squad, she gave her instructions.

"EVERYONE! LET'S MOVE TO THE CURSED TEMPLE AND FIND PRINCESS SHI RAN! LEAVE THE BATTLEFIELD!"

We slowly retreated from the ongoing battle and moved to the Cursed Temple. All the way there we found some fighting soldiers but the amount was a lot less than on the battlefield itself. More than that, all soldiers seemed to be busy with their own opponents and practically ignored us.

Seven players altogether died from entering the raid map, leaving 23 players to continue with the raid. We rushed to the Cursed Tower and found the Second Prince's family huddled together at the back of the hall, with a disheveled middle-aged man standing before them, his sword sheathed and his expression a mask of anger and distress. Despite his disadvantageous situation, the hands that held the sword were not trembling at all. It was the traitorous Second Prince.

"Elder Brother, you have some guts," said the man in front of him who was leaning against his chair with a lazy air surrounding him. He wore a resplendent yellow robe with embroideries made of golden threads. On top of his head perched a crown. It was the emperor himself. A group of elite soldiers surrounded him with their spears directed at the Second Prince.

"No," the Second Prince said with a smirk. Although there was a thin trail of blood running down the corner of his mouth, he was still in the mood to talk back at the emperor. "I should be the one saying that. Little Brother has a lot of guts. You even dare to commit patricide."

"Outrageous!"

"How dare you!"

"Kneel, you traitor!"

The family members of the Second Prince were softly weeping behind him in the face of the accusations, but the Second Prince merely broke into laughter.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!! ARE YOU NOT EVEN GOING TO DENY YOUR SINS???"

The emperor smiled, a picture of endless benevolence. "Why should I respond to the words of a traitor? Who in their right mind will spare a thought for your empty words?"

"You...!!!"

The Second Prince roared and lunged forward with his sword to attack. At the same time, all the melees from our squad launched themselves at both parties to prevent the elite soldiers from spearing the Second Prince into mincemeat.

It was rather remarkable that neither party questioned our presence. Until a shivering young woman who was huddling with her family at the back of the hall noticed us. It was Princess Shi Ran. She rose from her seat and approached us.

"Please help," she begged, tears falling like two tiny streams from her eyes to her clothes. "Royal Uncle is going to kill all of us. Please help."

We would like to help, but we were still unable to kill even a single soldier. All we could do was kick and shove them away.

"We can't keep doing this!" ZhaoYun shouted. "At this rate, they will kill us as soon as we get tired and stop attacking!"

I turned to Princess Shi Ran. She was just an NPC but maybe she could provide us with some answers.

"Princess, where is the Dark Fairy?"

The answer came pretty straightforward. "The Dark Fairy is on the topmost floor of the Cursed Tower."

I heard that before. We completed the level 80 raid, going through four levels, and then enter through the double door that led us to the map outside of the Cursed Tower, only to be told to go up to the topmost floor again. It was an endless cycle that would only cause us to enter the battlefield map again and again only to get killed when we were careless.

"So... do we go up?" some players asked after they pushed a group of soldiers away from them. They were already preparing to go up but then I shouted for them to stop.

"WAIT! SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE!"

I explained my theory while fending off enemy soldiers. After everyone heard what I had to say, they all turned gloomy.

"But then there is no way to win the raid..."

"The Dimensional Master is too vicious."

"Might as well deactivate the raid now, why bother tormenting us?"

"Don't give up!" I shouted exasperatedly. "There has to be a way out. Just not by going up."

I stole a glance at Princess Shi Ran. I believed that the NPC was the key, but what could I do with her?

"Hey, people..." Cecilia suddenly got a brilliant idea. "If we cannot kill them, why don't we try to immobilize them?"

We all exchanged looks and recalled the cages that we built to trap the Mini-bosses on the maps.

"Brilliant!" Livina shouted. "Shall we???"

Everyone quickly agreed. The melees continued fighting the soldiers while the other classes spread around the temple to search for useable items.

The good thing about the temple was that we could find a lot of things in the storage room. This included a lot of ropes and knives. We ended up stripping the enemies of their weapons and tying them up, including the emperor, together back-to-back. We then tied the ends of the ropes at the temple pillars, thus effectively immobilizing them within the room. It was a lot easier to do when the opponents did not have sets of sharp teeth or claws they could use to free themselves with.

After the last soldier was tied up to a pillar, the melees were so dead-beat that they immediately dropped to the ground and groaned loudly. Without letting the players rest, Princess Shi Ran spoke again. Her tone changed into a mellow one.

"Dear Adventurers, thank you very much for saving my family. The truth is that my family died a long time ago. The Dark Fairy made use of my grief to torment me. Now that I have awakened, I will lead you to her lair. Please help vanquish her once and for all so that my family and I could finally leave this place and go to the Underworld."