CHAPTER 320: MASS DEATH

Seeing Sophie’s slightly flushed cheeks, Cassie leaned closer and whispered in her ear. Whatever she said made the latter’s cheeks redden even further, like ripe tomatoes.

Before the teasing could drag on, Gabriel clapped his hands once, snapping everyone’s attention back to him.

"Rest time is over. Everyone check your HP, Qi, and MP. We are moving in five minutes."

At his words, groans echoed around the chamber, but no one argued. They all knew they couldn’t camp here forever, this was Floor 60 of the Blood Tower, not some safe zone in a starter village.

Lingering here any longer and others would catch up to them.

Liang rolled his shoulder and stepped over the corpses of vampires.

’My side is good,’ he said. "We can move whenever."

Evelyn nodded as she added, "We can still fight. However, some of our members need to be rotated to the back."

"How long are we going to keep the alliance?" Liang suddenly asked, a question that had been on everyone’s mind.

"For as long as necessary," Gabriel replied.

Liang shrugged nonchalantly. "That’s fine by me... but I have a feeling those cocky bastards will mock us for teaming up to overtake them."

Everyone knew who he was referring to, none other than Olympus.

Cultivators prided themselves on their own strength, and they loved boasting. Because they had teamed up to clear the floors, there was no way they could brag to their rivals outside.

Did Gabriel really care about that? The answer was a solid no. His major goal was to ascend and see what was waiting on the 100th floor.

Sophie pulled her hood tighter and adjusted her veil. Even though the vampiric infection had been cured, she still felt strange. It was like her own body had betrayed her once; now she needed to reassure herself that everything was back to normal.

"Can you still move?" Gabriel asked without looking at her.

"I can," Sophie replied. "I’ll stay away from the frontline and focus on support and crowd control."

"You do that then," he said, stepping toward the stairs leading to the next floor—a clear indication that talking was over and now it was action.

Liang walked beside him. "Same formations as before?"

"Three paths, we each take a side?"

"For now," Gabriel said. "We alternate who takes the hardest route each floor. That way both guilds conserve strength."

Evelyn nodded. "We’ll handle the heavy waves every other floor. That’s fair."

Martial Palace gathered around Liang and Evelyn. Broken Dawn clustered around Gabriel, Sophie, Anna, Cassie, Bunny, and Ragnarok, with several extra players acting as support and backup.

A faint double door lay ahead with twin torches at both sides.

They stepped in.

What followed was a blur of floors.

On Floor 61, a blood-soaked hall full of vampire archers and gargoyles perched on pillars appeared before them.

Martial Palace took the main route. Liang dashed ahead, fists blazing with qi, knocking archers from their nests with ruthless precision. Broken Dawn watched their movement patterns, then copied the efficiency in their own lane.

The next floor had shifting wall mechanisms and was filled with ravenous leech-bats.

This time, Gabriel led the charge. Using Perception and the faint sound of stone grinding, he predicted where the walls would move, calling the pattern out while Sophie marked safe zones with glowing vines. They crossed with minimal damage.

Floor 63.

Here, the group encountered three mini-boss Vampire Knights who wielded different elements.

They split roles. Liang took the fire knight head-on. Gabriel took the shadow knight. The combined squad fought the ice knight. The entire floor became a competition over who killed their target first.

Gabriel finished his with a Bull Rush into the wall and a Dark Flame Orb to the face.

Liang shattered the fire knight’s core with a spinning kick surrounded by qi.

The combined squad barely finished theirs before the other two.

"Finish!" Ragnarok shouted.

"Gabriel was first by two seconds," Bunny called out.

Liang snorted. "My knight had higher defense."

"Keep telling yourself that," Gabriel smirked, a faint smile lighting up his face.

Martial Palace disciples stared at the two of them and could only shake their heads in awe and fear. ’These guys are insane.’

Gabriel knew that with their combined force, it would be much easier to clear the floors, but he still believed they might encounter powerful monsters that would slow them down.

Contrary to his expectations, they didn’t encounter even a single enemy that stalled them. They were breezing through the floors at a rapid pace, so fast that both guilds were beginning to feel uneasy.

Right now, they would appreciate even an obstacle to ground them back in reality.

---

Floor 64 to 68 continued the same pattern. And though they had it much easier compared to most other guilds, a few still died along the way.

But the alliance moved like a knife through the Tower.

Every time they paused to recover, Bunny checked the board.

"Update," she called out after Floor 67.

Olympus: Floor 69

Martial Palace + Broken Dawn: Floor 67

Holy Church: Floor 62

Crimson Star: Floor 61

Adventurer Guild: Floor 58

White Flame: Floor 55

ChaosKnight: Floor 51

"Still third," Ragnarok muttered.

"We’re climbing faster than them," Sophie pointed out. "They’re ahead because they started earlier and had a cleaner start. The longer the Tower goes, the more stamina, morale, and resources matter."

Bunny nodded. "And we’re burning less than them."

Gabriel gave a small nod.

"They’re Olympus," Liang scoffed. "Of course they’ll go for perfection, full clears, best routes, safe pulls. It keeps their deaths low... but it also eats time."

Because they didn’t recruit players or otherworlders, their numbers were relatively small. Each member was highly valued, well paid, and lived like a wealthy individual.

"If we keep pushing no-break routes, we’ll catch up in no time," Liang whistled. To him, that was all that mattered.

He wasn’t ready to take an L in this run. This time, he would make sure they were the first to reach Floor 100.

---

Outside, in the real world, Tower coverage dominated every channel.

In Doodle Brambleton’s studio, the main screen showed a live overlay of the Valerian Sector Tower ranking.

[TOWER PROGRESSION (TOP 10)]

Olympus – Floor 72

Holy Church – Floor 64

Martial Palace – Floor 68

Broken Dawn – Floor 68

Crimson Star – Floor 63

Adventurer Guild – Floor 60

White Flame – Floor 57

ChaosKnight – Floor 52

Skyrend Legion – Floor 51

FreeBlade Coalition – Floor 50

Doodle pointed dramatically.

"LOOK at that! Olympus still holding first place, but the real story is right below them. Martial Palace and Broken Dawn just hit Floor 68 together after linking routes and running a shared no-break schedule."

His cohost nodded, amused. "They’ve basically turned this into a co-op ranked climb."

"Yeah," Doodle laughed. "And get this; when you line up their floor clear times, their combined pace in the last ten floors is actually faster than Olympus. They’re catching up."

The cohost flipped to another screen.

"Speaking of Holy Church," he said, "we just got confirmation from internal data. Their total death count has crossed two hundred."

Doodle’s eyes widened. "Two hundred deaths already?!"

"Yes. Their strategy leans heavily into controlled sacrifice and holy formation casting. They’ve been forcing advances instead of retreating. They’re keeping second place... but at a terrifying cost."

Doodle shook his head. "At this rate, they might crash out before the top floors."

"And Crimson Star?" the cohost continued. "Data shows they’ve been stuck at Floor 63 for a while. Heavy enemy adaptation mechanics there. They’ve lost several high-ranking members."

Doodle grinned. "Meanwhile, Broken Dawn and Martial Palace keep pushing. If they link up for a major boss floor, we might see a new record."

A flashing banner appeared at the bottom of the screen.

[SECTOR EVENT: FLOOR 70 – VAMPIRE DUKE CHAMBERS UNLOCKED!]

Doodle leaned forward. "Oh? The Floor 70 mid-boss has appeared. Let’s see how fast Olympus takes to kill it!"

---

Back inside the Tower.

Floor 69 nearly broke some people.

It was a multi-wave endurance floor—no bosses, just endless waves of mid-tier vampires, gargoyles, blood slimes, and knight squads. The longer you stayed, the heavier the waves became.

"Keep rotating!" Sophie yelled, breathless. "Front row, back row, swap every thirty seconds!"

Ragnarok was in his element, carving a path through mobs.

"More! MORE!!" he shouted wildly, a crazed gleam in his eyes.

"Stop shouting like an addict!" Bunny snapped, hurling an ice spike at the enemy.

By the time the final wave ended, everyone’s HP bars were in the red. Several players were on their last death count before hitting penalty thresholds.

As soon as the last monster fell, Gabriel led the front, and the others, panting and sweaty, dragged themselves toward the staircase.

...

Thanks to everyone who has supported Extraction Talent with your valuable Golden Tickets and Power Stones! I really appreciate it! Another Chapter is coming up in a bit... things have been too slow lately, and the arc has been dragging on for a long time. Few Chapters left to round up this arc!