Vampire Princess Guide in Progress - Volume 1 Chapter 48

Chapter 48: Sealed Winter Snow Plains (Lv.?)

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“Nolan? Which Nolan, who’s that?”

“You don’t know!? He’s the Dark Night Swordsman Nolan who, in the snowy deep night, traveled alone through the swamp forest, secretly carrying his girlfriend, who got so scared she was asking everyone for help in the middle of the night, and then successfully solo defeated the second floor BOSS!”

“What? Aren’t the pioneers supposed to be anonymous? Wasn’t it supposed to be a small team? He defeated it alone!?”

The tavern immediately erupted in commotion, because ever since the second floor BOSS was conquered, this heroic figure had not appeared, nor had any news about him circulated, except for confirmation from some players who had him as a friend that he was indeed still alive.

The truth about Nolan soloing the BOSS was revealed through Kilo and Karl, who were with Cross’s group that night, and this information had already spread widely, with many well-informed players now aware of this incident.

Some had even started calling him “The Dark Night Swordsman Who Never Bows Out.”

The naming inspiration came from the closed beta “Crimson Moon Princess Who Never Loses.”

As for how he managed to solo the BOSS, according to the Iris Knights’ subsequent analysis, they suspected that Nolan perfectly blocked every single attack from the BOSS and had an intimate understanding of the BOSS mechanics — this was the only possible explanation.

When people heard that he had perfectly blocked every single attack from the BOSS, everyone fell silent.

This was like seeing right through the BOSS’s underwear, with every pre-attack movement and hand raising motion already imprinted in his mind. Otherwise, one mistake would have cost him his life. What kind of madness and confidence would make someone dare to make such a life-gambling bet?

— And he even won! This was simply divine.

After such a long time, this legendary pioneer player who had become the talk of the town finally released his first message, bringing the latest information about the third floor. Just seeing his ID made the credibility undeniable.

Moreover, other players had encountered the same situation, confirming this information.

“It’s really not that simple after all. Even though the closed beta players already revealed the third floor information to everyone, it couldn’t prevent content changes.”

“This is absolutely shameless! How many more people does this game want to kill! Adding things to the public test that weren’t in the closed beta, who could have anticipated this!” Even players who weren’t on the front lines were filled with righteous indignation.

At that moment, someone discovered that the teleportation array to the third floor seemed to have malfunctioned. Normally, when a teleportation array had been activated, one could simply stand at the Pure White Holy City’s teleportation array and directly reach the entrance of the third floor.

But now, the third floor option in the selection menu was showing as red and disabled.

“Hey, what’s going on, why can’t we teleport to the third floor?”

“What? It was working just now, I saw a team go up just a moment ago.”

“Yeah, I was part of their team, why did they get teleported up but it’s showing invalid for me?” The shield-bearing man scratched his head in confusion, frowning, his expression clearly growing anxious. “Without me as the main tank, how are they supposed to fight!?”

The players who had just teleported to the third floor looked back to find that the teleportation array behind them had been sealed by red patterns resembling thorns. They quickly ran back to try to teleport back but were denied.

The next moment, a new message appeared in the game’s announcement board.

【Notice to all players of 《Floating Island: Fragments of the Stars》】

【Regarding the third floor “Winter Snow Plains” progression, due to an unexpected incident, conditions have been changed. Effective immediately, the third floor teleportation array will be sealed. Players on other floors cannot enter, and players already on the third floor cannot leave】

【The conditions to remove the seal are — Complete the third floor BOSS conquest, or all players currently progressing through the “Winter Snow Plains” are eliminated】

【Current number of players on the third floor: 842】

When the announcement appeared, the previously noisy tavern instantly fell silent.

This was no joke — it meant the third floor was completely sealed off, preventing front-line players from returning to the main city for supplies, and preventing lower-floor players from reinforcing the attack force. Everything now depended on the 842 players currently on the third floor.

What did this mean? Only when the third floor was successfully conquered, or all eight hundred plus players had been sacrificed, would it reopen…?

Due to an unexpected incident? What incident?

At this point, how could this game still claim to have bugs? Some even speculated that the server infrastructure might no longer exist in reality! Under such circumstances, what unexpected incident could there be, this was clearly a deliberate trap mechanism designed into the game!

Players were already filled with resentment toward “Star Lord,” the nominal game administrator, and naturally had no trust in their ambiguous wording, but the third floor had indeed been sealed off.

This meant those 842 pioneer players would be cut off from all supplies, forced to survive on that vast cold snow plain and fight against the BOSS.

And there was even an unknown, highly threatening colossus present.

“Damn it, I should have made him take more food and healing potions!”

“Will there be food on the snow plains? Hey, this game requires eating, right? Just like in reality. And if I remember correctly, the cold weather outfit also has durability… Damn it, are they trying to wipe out all our pioneer players in one go!?”

“C-calm down, everyone. The pioneer players are much stronger than we imagine, they must have a way…”

In the main road of the third city district, in front of Xaya’s clothing store.

“How could this happen…”

After learning about the third floor being sealed, the chestnut-haired girl in a light yellow dress raised her head, looking toward the higher sky, her hands clasped tightly to her chest, her expression full of worry as she said to herself: “Cross, and Miss Tilia…”

“Please be safe.”