The Golden Maze has two stages in total, which Chloe knew while playing the game.

The first stage, the Phantom Ghost that targets your vulnerabilities.

The second stage, the Heroic Illusion with power equal to yours.

Defeating the Heroic Illusion of equal strength allows you to step into the depths of the maze and see the Chosen Sword.

Though this premise is difficult, it is not entirely impossible to outsmart it.

The simplest method is to approach Sequence advancement and then challenge the Heroic Illusion.

This way, as long as you make another breakthrough in battle, you can suppress the Heroic Illusion that replicates your previous stage of power.

Therefore, throughout history, though few, there have been some.

The legend that pulling out the Chosen Sword makes you the next Hero comes from this.

But after ages, the Chosen Sword remains planted in the stone, unable to be drawn.

Sometimes people even doubt.

Is the Chosen Sword even possible to be extracted?

Moreover, according to records from some major powers, before the Dawn Era, the weapon symbolizing heroes was always the Heroic Greatsword.

Chosen Sword?

Never heard of it.

So, the legend remains just a legend.

According to the original plot, when Rephya first entered the Golden Maze, she achieved Extreme Ascension and completed a personal breakthrough.

She defeated the Spear Hero and reached the Chosen Sword.

However, she could not draw out the Chosen Sword.

She could only leave with regret.

This situation persisted until a year later.

After the chaos of the Three Kings of the Underdark, Rephya prepared to form an Association aimed at Racers with her companions, and she returned here.

Originally, the main goal was to train the combat skills of her new companions.

After all, fighting the Heroic Illusion is a way to organize and summarize one's own system.

If not for this, there wouldn't be so many challengers from all over the world coming to the Golden Maze.

They all came as Racers, aiming to surpass themselves.

However, after successfully challenging the Heroic Illusion for the second time, she discovered a third challenge that had not been triggered by anyone for over ten thousand years.

She was swept into the historical shadows of the Golden Maze and became like the Hero Squad of countless years ago, retracing the journey of heroes~

Spit, retracing the hero's path.

Thus, Rephya completely transformed and advanced to Sequence Seven in her second year.

It must be said.

Chloe was quite envious of Rephya's good fortune.

"What a pity, passing through the Golden Maze has a six-month cooldown, otherwise I'd love to see the greatness of the Heroic Squad."

Rephya only triggered the side quest of [Retracing the Hero's Path] on her second try.

So he must...

Chloe, who was about to step forward, stood frozen.

He did not see the Chosen Sword in the depths of the maze.

The moment he stepped deeper, the world seemed to spin.

When he regained his senses, he appeared on a bustling street.

The bustling crowds made him feel as if in another world.

At this moment, he suddenly realized he had stepped into a historical shadow.

Historical shadows are a quite special type of maze.

They are few in number and lower in danger, but successfully passing them is not easy.

The reason lies in the uniqueness of the historical shadow type mazes.

They replicate the most difficult moments in the histories of various races.

In his past life playing the game, players jokingly called historical shadows [Playing the Game within the Game].

The cause being, unlike a normal monster-fighting maze, historical shadows force adventurers to replace someone from history and participate in a particularly brutal adventure.

Just think...

They make you the commander of a battle at Chishui.

They make you a soldier in Pavlov's Building.

They make you a soldier crossing the Yalu River, ultimately freezing to death that winter.

What's more terrifying is that inside historical shadows, you do not have your real-world abilities.

You only possess the power of the NPC you become.

You must use your own wisdom to create military strategic miracles.

You will charge through rain of bullets and hail of gunfire with your flesh and blood.

You will feel your body heat gradually fade away, then wipe away tears, saying "even tears would freeze".

As such, almost every strategy for a historical shadow could practically break the mentality of the elites of various Mysterious Associations.

The only relief is that because it's not your true self, failing the strategy just means exiting the maze.

Thus, historical shadow type mazes are also known as echoes of history.

Even in any country, they are considered relics of high archaeological value.

Only before Rephya, no one knew the Golden Maze was also a historical shadow type maze.

But...

"Could it be that the historical shadow of the Golden Maze is not triggered by defeating the heroes twice in a row?"

Chloe was utterly confused.

This involved a knowledge gap he had never been aware of.

Much of his understanding of Extraordinary Power came from the game.

But now, the knowledge from the game was being challenged.

No...

Perhaps he was wrong from the beginning.

Maybe it wasn't the game's knowledge being challenged, but that he had never understood the game mechanics from the start.

The third simulation with Aisha was just so.

In the first playthrough, the lively Pure Enchanting Demon Aisha was once the clown in Rephya's team.

They were known together as the great harmonious duo.

But in Chloe's timeline, it was the second playthrough.

In the second playthrough, Aisha's brother's troubles left a huge gap in her spirit.

It was only after marrying her that he realized Aisha almost fell into the abyss.

At the time, he thought this damn second playthrough had even made the character Out Of Character (OOC).

But later, he figured it out.

Aisha surely was not OOC.

It could only be said that the Pure Enchanting Demon talent is inherently prone to lead the Extraordinary into the abyss.

It was just that in the first playthrough, Aisha didn't meet the triggering condition.

A happy life embraced by family and friends, how could one willingly step into the abyss?

Same here.

He always thought that triggering a historical shadow in the Golden Maze required defeating the Heroic Illusion twice in a row.

But this guess was actually Rephya's conjecture based on her own experience.

Being able to defeat the Heroic Illusion once was already a commendable feat.

Under the strategies of countless adventurers, most people couldn't even pass the first level.

Only a very few people stepped into the second level.

However, facing a Heroic Illusion with strength equal to yours, even defeating it once was immensely challenging.

Winning twice in a row...

Chloe could win because he had an advantage.

Rephya won twice in a row, indeed, she's a genius.

—But she had an advantage too.

In the game, she was the only person to clear the Golden Maze twice in a row.

It was precisely because of this that she naturally assumed that triggering the historical shadow required continuous victories twice.

But in fact…

She might have met another condition to trigger the historical shadow.

She just never knew what condition she had met.

And now…

This condition has been triggered by him.

...

He looked somewhat bewildered at those small and dirty hands.

"No, where did this historical shadow take me?"

A childish voice that shouldn't belong to his age came out of his throat.

This situation left him completely baffled.

Yes.

He, who was swept into the historical shadow, had successfully turned into a little boy.

Impossible to bear.

Not the kind of little boy from a second origin.

The kind that the priest might actually target.

No way, dude, is your historical shadow this useless?

Where has it taken me?

He looked around.

He could confirm he was in a medieval street.

Different from the era he was from.

In Rephya's time, although it was still a Western fantasy worldview, much of the technology had reached or even surpassed modern times.

All sorts of communication devices, magic energy vehicles, floating cities, and even Star Realm spaceships were already present.

—Even the food service industry used pre-prepared dishes!

Darn.

How come these people learned nothing good but only the bad?

But now he was in a different place.

Piles of excrement visible at the street corners, skinny vagrants, an unplanned medieval town.

Basically, any descriptor of a backward medieval place could be applied to this town.

"It seems the rumors are true… The Hero of the Golden Maze is from an era earlier than the Dawn Era."

The maze that could trigger a historical shadow, the maze monsters inside it, from species to attire, would be consistent with a certain historical period.

In other words, since he defeated the Sword Hero to get here, the era he is in now must be the era of the Sword Hero.

In the Dawn Era, the worldview of "Simulated Hero" had already progressed to the steam era.

Thousands of years later, in his era, there was no obvious difference from modern times.

"Also… This historical shadow didn't give me any tasks!"

He was a bit helpless.

Rephya's historical shadow directly had her take on the identity of the Sword Hero, teaming up with six partners to besiege the Abyssal Demon God [Ultimate Fear].

One could say that as soon as she entered the maze, the main storyline was set.

But what about him?

Looking at his dirty hands, he first confirmed he had become a beggar boy.

This is bad.

Finally out of poverty and into prosperity, but now back to pre-liberation times.

Who am I? Where am I? What should I do?

As he grappled with the three fundamental existential questions, a voice suddenly came from behind:

"Hey, Chloe, give me the money you begged for today."

A slightly chubby and robust little beggar blocked his way, with a fierce expression on his face.

Behind him were three little beggars, glaring at him.

Chloe fell silent for a moment, then suddenly asked:

"Have you eaten?"

"If you give me the money, then you can eat."

"So you haven't eaten? Then eat my fist!"

For specific content, please refer to the game "Beating Up Little Friends".

The two little beggars had an intense fight, battling until the very road seemed to vanish.

Emperor Chloe fought and won, obtaining endless treasures.

—Which meant a small bag of copper coins.

It made him laugh.

The weak wielding the knife against the weaker.

Seeing the slightly chubby little beggar with a hint of baby fat, he knew this kid had been squeezing other little beggars quite a bit.

Yet he didn't expect it would add up to so much.

Is this what medieval little beggars are like?

Greedy, really damn greedy!

But still, I've got to say.

It did feel quite satisfying to fight.

However, just then, from a corner, a figure cautiously poked their head out, speaking timidly:

"Bro, weren't we supposed to join them?"

Chloe froze in place, his hand that was swinging the money bag stopped.

He stiffly turned his head to look at the hiding little girl.

Her dirty golden long hair hanging to her knees, and clothes like a little beggar, could not cover her adorable face.

"Abigail?"

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