Prime Originator

"An ice coffin, bones, and no further passages…" Leon narrowed his eyes and knitted his brows into a frown before he muttered, "Seems like this final trial will be quite dangerous."

He had an ominous feeling about the ice coffin. 

"Why do I get the feeling that we will have to face the Arch Demon himself if we were to lift his ice coffin?" Darlene questioned with doubt while feeling apprehensive and some dread towards the ice coffin.

"I am also getting that feeling," Aria added and mentioning a possibility, "What if the Arch Demon is not dead but build this tomb to lure people inside?" 

"What purpose would the Arch Demon achieve by luring people inside his tomb?" Darlene asked with surprise. 

"I don't know," Aria shook her head before she glanced at the bones and said with a frown, "Maybe to eat them or something?" 

"Oh, that seems probable…" Darlene thought before Darlene and Aria turned to Leon for his opinion, "What do you think, Leon?"

"I think you two may be right," Leon agreed with them.

"Think about it. People have made it to the second trial and this supposed third trial before, yet the entrance to the tomb still required us to solve a riddle to enter. This means that someone has to be responsible for resetting the riddle for the next tomb raider to solve and enter."

"Now that you mentioned it, I didn't notice this detail," Aria said with surprise before she quickly frowned, "But if the Arch Demon was responsible for resetting the riddle, he must have another way of getting in and out of this tomb."

"Or… someone else is responsible for resetting the riddle and that we are just overthinking this entire matter…" Leon said with a shake of his head before saying, "All these what-ifs are getting us nowhere."

"Time is of the essence. We don't know how close our location is to the secret realm's official entering location. Thus, we shouldn't be wasting too much time here, lest we suddenly get surrounded by demons."

"Then what is our plan? Just lift the ice coffin lid? Or should we leave?" Aria asked. 

Leon was silent for a moment as he weighed his choices. 

He had to be careful in consideration of Aria and Darlene's safety, but at the same time, they did not have the luxury of time to linger in one place for so long. 

Leon shortly pondered with knitted brows and began thinking back on their previous two trials for some time when he suddenly thought of something and smiled.

"Yeah, we already came this far to be turning back now." 

As Leon said that, he strolled right up to the ice coffin and began pushing the lid open bravely, causing Aria and Darlene to be startled. 

"Wait, shouldn't we prepare in the likelihood of facing a Paragon and—" 

Before Aria could finish speaking, the ice coffin lid was fully opened before the eyes of Arch Demon resting inside suddenly snapped open, locking gaze with Leon before the Arch Demon shot a dagger at Leon's throat. 

However, Leon did not bother dodging, nor did Aria and Darlene even have the time to warn him before the dagger stopped at the tips of his throat. 

A few moments later, the Arch Demon's eyes snapped shut and laid back down inside the ice coffin, returning to its eternal rest. 

The Arch Demon's body was filled with runic engravings, and not a trace of life could be sensed. 

Aria and Darlene quickly rushed over to Leon's side before Aria asked with surprise, "Is the Arch Demon dead? How did you know that the Arch Demon wasn't going to stab your throat with the dagger?"

"If I had moved the slightest inch, the poison-tipped danger would have definitely gone for my throat without stopping," Leon smiled wryly with a trace of sweat on his forehead. 

The runic arrays within the eyes of the Arch Demon were used to monitor his movements.

"The Arch Demon has been dead many years. It is only relying on the ice coffin to preserve its body while the power of runes is used to automate it upon certain conditions."

"But how did you know that the Arch Demon wasn't going to pierce your throat with its dagger?" Aria asked again.

"I didn't," Leon answered honestly before saying, "However, I've noticed that through the past two trials and the words spoken by the Arch Demon in the recorded projections, this entire tomb had been a test of courage." 

"So I decided to take a gamble. And as it turned out, I won."

Smack!

Aria immediately slapped Leon on the chest angrily before she cried, "Are you crazy?! How can you gamble your life like that! You could have died, you know?!"

She continued to smack Leon's chest a few more times as she complained before her wrist was grabbed by Leon while he looked back at her warmly with a wry smile.

"Our lives were already at stake when we decided to challenge this Arch Demon-level Tomb. And if I am not wrong, we couldn't have left this room without triggering a death trap. So if we wanted to leave, we should have done so before entering the coffin room."

"The third trial had already commenced the moment we decided to step inside. The owners of those bones must have triggered a different death trap after being drawn over by the older bones."

"I wish you could have at least informed me before you decided to take on such a gamble," Aria said with a soft sigh before pouting, "You nearly had me worried to death."

"Me too," Darlene added softly.

Leon smiled lightly and casually asked, "If I had told the two of you, would either of you had let me do what I just did?"

Aria and Darlene fell silent. 

Evidently, they would have tried to persuade him against such a rash and risky choice instead.

"Never mind," Leon shook his head and said while gazing at the number of treasures found within the ice coffin, "Let us take a look at our rewards."

Leon's eyes quickly sparkled in the next moment.

The poison-tipped dagger held in the slumbering Arch Demon's hand, alone, was already a Tier-6 treasure.