Capítulo 213: 213. Grand Entrance (II)
Zane smashed. And this time the tunnel shook.
Cracks rushed up the wall, spread partway up the ceiling, shaking loose big gouts of dust.
It was so simple. So nice. That feeling of his fist breaking stone, of all that dense matter shivering, then cracking, then giving way all at once…
He wound back again, and this time he put some Stormfire into it. Then unleashed.
It was like setting off several tons of TNT underground. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
Voids opened up in the minimap. Massive chunks of rock got blasted to smithereens, rushing deeper and deeper, smashing open a crude route.
The whole cavern shook, started groaning ominously. Fountains of dust spewed out the crevices—
It all came tumbling down. Right on his head. A big fat slab dropped on his skull.
The slab shattered. His skull did not.
It did hurt though. He groaned. It was actually quite heavy, to his surprise. He was used to eating Earth-slabs to the head and barely feeling it.
He grabbed some chunks and tossed aside the debris, coughing a little. Raina rushed over to check, but he showed her he was fine. Just a little bonked. He felt good.
He saw the end of the dust-ridden tunnel. A promising glint—something shiny. He stepped closer. Whatever it was, it had stopped Stormfire in its tracks. The treasure on the minimap.
𝕀𝕞𝕡𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕄𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕝 [𝔼𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕙 (𝔼)]
𝕄𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕝 𝕚𝕤 𝕒 𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕞 𝕠𝕗 𝔾𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕣𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕣. 𝕋𝕙𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙 𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕥, 𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕥, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕚𝕡𝕡𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕒𝕣𝕞𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕤, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕧𝕖𝕤 𝕂𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕕𝕠𝕞 𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕨 𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕙 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕡𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕦𝕝—𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕡𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕥 𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔽𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕥𝕠𝕠𝕜 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕖.
𝕄𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕧𝕖𝕟 𝕂𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕕𝕠𝕞'𝕤 𝕔𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕓𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕥 𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 𝕕𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕕𝕖𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕄𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕝. 𝕀𝕞𝕡𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕄𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕝 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕤𝕥 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕖.
It was a good three or four chunks, each as big as his head. It had a silvery sheen but lighter. It glowed softly, mysteriously, in the dark.
But they blazed in the Astral Plane. It was like Zane had hit on some essence geyser—the aura pouring out of this stuff… it took the breath away. Zane picked up a chunk. Surprisingly light. He blinked at it for a moment.
Then he stuffed it in his mouth.
He was not prepared for how dense it was—the lightness was a ruse. His eyes widened. It took some serious Stormfire smelting to get it all liquid, and then a lot of swallowing to get it down.
Then each bead dropped like a stone. Down his throat. Deep into his gut. They could track that scalding-hot one of it all the way until it hit his stomach. And erupted.
He groaned.
"Are you alright?" gasped Reina, rushing up. He nodded, his face a little red. It took a little for the steel to settle, to trickle through the rest of his body—down the muscles, the tendons, out to bone—but when it did his Bloodline seized on it instantly. And sank that goodness deep into his body.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕤𝕒𝕝 𝕋𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔹𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕀𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕍
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔹𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕀𝕍 -> 𝕍
He blinked. That much from just a little chunk?
Maybe that was just Earth – E.
There was more where that came from—he grabbed another and scarfed it down, then another, melted it, drank. One by one.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕤𝕒𝕝 𝕋𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀𝕀
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕤𝕒𝕝. 𝕋𝕖𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕀𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕍
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔹𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕍 -> 𝕍𝕀
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕏
They all sat around waiting for him to stop being red. He just kept shoveling in mithril. His body really did feel like some powerful machine then. Reina and Avery looked a little amused. Evan looked a little bemused. Eventually he finished, gave a little burp.
His aura felt denser somehow now. He felt… good. Strong. Tingly all over and in the places that just took in mithril.
"This place," said Zane. "Has good treasure." He licked his lips and nodded, pleased.
They kept going.
***
If the commotion woke up any Monsters—which Reina was a little nervous about—there was no sign of it. They kept plodding along. And soon the tunnel opened out. And they were in the floor proper.
They emerged at an Entrance Hall so big it had to be meant for giants. Or gods. Columns thick as towers sprouted high, arched for shadowed ceilings. The floor was a warm polished brown, studded with crystals here and there.
There were cracks everywhere—running through the floors, the columns… the whole place looked like it had been through a terrible earthquake. Most of it was sunken in shadow. The ceilings went so high you couldn't even see them, and huge chunks had caved in all the way. Debris, rubble, chunks of shattered column were strewn about—a few columns toppled on their sides. They made barriers so thick they could've been castle walls. They were ribbed with golden fluting.
It looked like they had been fighting here, but all the dust had settled a long time ago.
They saw all this in snippets. The only light came from torches—the few that were left on the columns. They offered little pools of flickering light, but most of the place was lost to darkness. Absolute darkness—great seas of it stretching between little islands of light…
Even the minimap had trouble peering through it. It was so thick the minimap treated it like a physical thing, like terrain, and it did feel like wading through something heavier than air.
Avery could use some sensing tricks to get a lay of the land around though. "No Monsters," she whispered. "I'll keep my eyes peeled though."
She made a face. "No jump-scares on my watch!"
Zane looked around too, did his own survey of the place. Some chunks of wall showed cracked friezes. Dwarf armies at war, fighting dragons, or hammering important-looking fancy swords. That kind of thing. It had clearly been a while but they still looked pristine, untouched—other than the marks of battle, that was. They looked like fine craftsmanship.
The only sound was the soft crackling of the torches.
Together they went on through. It was impossible to be quiet here—even the little crunches of their footsteps bounced all over the place, raced out ahead of them, echoing over and over. You could hear your breaths in your ears, reverberating miles and back. His friends were feeling quite small in the middle of all this vastness.
Zane went on, head high.
"Stay with me," he said. And they did—they kept close. Evan held his sword up as a glowstick, which lit a little warm sphere around them. They ambled toward the torchlight.
They had to wade through the ruins—around jagged fallen columns, over mounds of cracked rubble, crushed steel. Their footsteps kept echoing. Zane kept his guard up as he went, frowning at every patch of dark. So far, so good.
They reached the first island of torchlight. It was a little like hopping between lily pads, Zane thought. They kept going.
The second torch was where they found their first few X's.
Marked out on the mini map ahead, a little cluster. It must've been a party. Cautiously they approached, and Zane saw it must've been a group of knights. Their bodies were gone but they left suits of armor behind.
𝔼𝕞𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕕 𝕊𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕕𝕡𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖 [𝔼𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕙 – 𝔽]
It looked like a pretty strong treasure, Reina thought, probably snagged from one of the lower floors. And it was caved all the way in… by one fierce strike, she suspected, by the look of the blow.
He and Reina exchanged a glance.
Zane shrugged. He made his face unbothered. "I am stronger than that steel," he told her. And he moved on.
Now—he was not sure he was that much stronger. If he got hit by whatever caved in that steel… he would probably feel it pretty deep. But he was confident he could handle anything that came for them. Confident he could protect them, and that was what was important.
They kept maneuvering through the rubble. They rounded another bend—and came across their next few corpses. This one a duo. A broken staff with a long-faded crystal at the end. And an enormous armor set, again crushed in—alongside a big fat Earth-rank Spirit Steel shield. Which had been crushed like a soda can. It looked like it had belonged to a berserker.
Zane frowned at it.
Reina had said as they were coming here that they'd been dropped on Floor 62—that was much deeper than any starting floor she had come across. Deeper than even most Ur-Planet folk got dropped. But they had expected that. So she tried not to let it rattle her. The only trouble was none of them knew just how much harder it meant.
Zane didn't like all this darkness around him.
He kept looking behind him, frowning at it.
He just didn't want to be surrounded and having his friends get jumped from behind—he wasn't sure he could be everywhere at once.
It was simple being alone. He felt invincible then.
But when his friends were here… he sometimes felt an odd sense of vulnerability. They broke a lot easier than him—and he cared about their breaking a lot more than his own. It made him a little antsy.
Especially since he knew what was coming for him. Reina was convinced they would be throwing the kitchen sink at him.
He shook his head.
He, of all people, would not get in his own head. That was that. He knew if he did that they were all done. They were relying on him—it was especially important now to show who he was. He had to be strong.
He could do that.
So he just kept going.
***
It turned out to be the right call. There were tons of noises. Mostly from them. Ghosts in the darkness. But nothing jumped them out of the dark. They got all the way up to the end of the Hall—to the grand entrance proper.
Up ahead lay ten islands of torchlight, all strung together. The entrance was two massive stone doors, so big they could've been made to admit crowds or armies—sealed off, laden with thick runes. Bold blocky inscriptions fringed them, written in some long-lost language.
A dozen giant statues—smiling faces, enormous teeth, apelike fists—sat set into the walls all around. They were colored a little different from the rest of the place. Not stone. A kind of metal verging on black that looked incredibly dense.
As they came up to the entrance they saw a sea of X's. X's upon X's. All bunched together.
Everyone tensed up.
Zane clenched his fists. Narrowed his eyes.
Reina got in a battle stance, gave him a nod. Avery and Evan were up and ready too. They came in with him at the tip of the spear.
They stepped over crushed bones, which Zane had thought was just more rubble at first. Between them and the entrance lay a vast array of crushed plate and crushed helms and crushed greaves—lots of crushing here. Mostly S-grade and Earth-rank treasures, some smashed so bad you couldn't even tell what they were.
Reina commented, nibbling her lip, about how closely they were arranged, almost in little piles. Like parties that got surrounded, and crushed together, and went out in a tightening circle. She felt they had to be at least Core judging by their gear.
"Still don't see any Monsters," said Avery doubtfully. She had already checked the ceiling—and spread her senses as far as she could into the dark, trying to sniff out any tricksters trying to sneak attack them. Nothing. It was all exactly as it looked like.
"Maybe they all left already?" said Evan hopefully.
They all thought about that for a moment. Reina felt it was pretty clear the only way forward was through that gate. They would have to keep vigilant, though. She narrowed her eyes at the darkness, then the door. Then those statues. She lingered there.
Slowly, they drew closer….
***
And sure enough. As soon as they stepped fully into the light—
A deep groaning echoed through the Grand Hall. It was like an earthquake deep underground—but nothing was moving.
The torches all flared doubly bright. Everywhere. And for a moment the Hall was half lit—
And then all the torches behind them, tracing their paths, blacked out.
The ones in front blazed to infernos.
"It's coming," said Reina, voice tight. "Get ready!"
Her eyes were squarely on those statues.
Their strange smiling tombstone-teeth faces… their eyes flared red.
And dormant runes all over their bodies flared to life. Bands of brilliant blue stark against vast chunks of black steel.
"Get back," grunted Zane, narrowing his eyes at them. He tried to keep them in his field of vision as they activated, one by one.
Those giant rune markings just kept ratcheting up—turning to higher gears. Blazing with monstrous life. Auras exploded out of them, choking the air… The only time Zane had felt something even close was with the Monster Knight.
Their dots finally popped up red on the minimap.
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝔾𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕣𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕣 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣)
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟝𝟘
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝔾𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕣𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕣 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣)
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟝𝟘
𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕟 𝕠𝕗 𝔾𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕣𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕣 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣)
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟝𝟘
On and on…
Ten of them in full.
It wasn't just great treasures here. The Monsters were made to match.
They smashed their fists together, one by one, like they were clashing cymbals. And shockwaves roared out, so powerful, so violent they shattered stones where they lay. He felt it in his belly, but he was fine. He heard Evan and Avery and Reina gasp, and for a moment his heart sank—but they felt fine. Lightly hurt.
It still enraged him though.
White noise sparked in his ears.
Then their heads all swiveled to look at him. Their bodies didn't turn, but it was like they locked onto him. Zane felt inside of them cores—cores churning essence like enormous batteries powering the beasts. And he felt tiny souls inside of them, Monstrous souls. Something between mechanical and living. Their strange dome heads locked in that weird ear-to-ear grin, teeth bared…
All those souls felt just one thing. Like they'd been programmed for just one purpose.
𝕂𝕀𝕃𝕃 ℤ𝔸ℕ𝔼 𝕎𝔸𝕃𝕂𝔼ℝ.
Status de energia semanal
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