10 Ray and crumble

"Hit it!" Claudia shouted. She then smashed her fist into the side of a massive, wolf-like monster before using the recoil of the attack to jump away.

"Coming!" Tom shouted back, pushing his muscles to their limits. Quite restrictive limits, considering how he invoked his haste with an additional limiting attribute.

"Release," he whispered when his long knife surged forward. In an instant, Tom's attack sped up relative to the speed of everything around him. Neither the fur nor the flesh of the monster could hold Tom's knife back.

"Restrict," Tom whispered after the deed was done. He killed off his own momentum by bending his knees once he landed on the ground.

"Phew!" Claudia sighed, wiping the drops of sweat from her avatar's forehead. Or rather, wiping the clean forehead of hers out of the natural habit. "That was tiring," she added, looking at the corpse of the monster.

"Yeah. But what else did you expect?" Tom asked, while checking on the condition of his knife. "We are already on the sixty-fifth floor. The monsters are bound to be stronger than they were before."

Tom's avatar reached level sixty-seventh. With eight skills to his name, experience, and all the passive abilities that sneakily increased his avatar's strength, Tom knew his limits pretty well.

And a sixty-fifth floor was about as deep as he would usually go during his solo raids. Yet, even during those rare times when he partied up with someone else, he never dared to go beyond the seventieth floor.

"How about we stop for another break?" Claudia suggested, dusting off her clothes. "The floor monsters are no longer small fries. It would be a disaster if we were to run out of energy before the boss fight," she added, looking at the doors to the next floor with hesitation.

"Actually, that might not be a bad idea," Tom replied, nodding his head. 'I'm slightly tired already. Even though it was only fifteen floors since we last took the break,' Tom thought before shaking his head. 'No, I can't think like that. Those fifteen floors were far more taxing than the first fifty.'

"Sure, would you like to go first, then?" Claudia proposed. She didn't even bother to look at Tom as she asked, opting to stretch herself instead.

"Don't mind if I do. I will be back soon," Tom said before moving towards the wall and sitting at its feet.

'Disconnect.' A single thought later, Tom's vision blanked out before the feeling of being surrounded by a warm liquid suddenly swarmed his mind.

Outside of touch, all his senses were muffled. According to the official explanation, it was to prevent the players from sensory overload.

'If I recall correctly, there were hundreds of players affected by it before they implemented this safety measure,' Tom thought as the liquid drained from the capsule. 'Still, it is quite annoying to wait whenever one wants to disconnect...'

Soon, all the liquid in the capsule was sucked away, allowing Tom to open his eyes. He then took off his breathing mask and pulled open the lid of his coffin, only to grab a sizeable blanket and cover himself with it.

'I can't make her wait long.' Tom made this decision even before going for the break. This was the reason why, rather than taking things easy, he rushed to the small cafeteria right outside the playroom.

"Standard bundle, please," Tom ordered as soon as he neared the counter. He pressed his card against a standard terminal embedded into the front side of the counter.

Tom received his order barely a few minutes later. A crunchy, nutritious bar, a bottle of mineral water, and a randomly picked hot snack were all packed into a small paper bag.

Consuming everything took Tom less time than he actually had to wait for the order to be prepared. The worst part was the hot meal. Not because it wasn't tasty. Rice on a tomato sauce with veggies was the staple of Tom's diet. Yet, as delicious as it was, there was a limit to how hot food could be for Tom to quickly consume it.

"Okay, let's go back," Tom said to himself as soon as he finished his meal. Putting all the containers back into the bag, he then stuffed it into one of the many trash bins in the area before making his way back to the playroom.

Tom wasn't the only one to walk around in nothing but his undergarments and a large towel alone. This kind of outfit was pretty popular amongst all the players that went beyond the first twenty floors. As such, no one paid any attention to Tom when he returned to his capsule covered in his blanket.

A few moments later, he opened his avatar's eyes. The first thing he noticed wasn't the sight, though, but the soothing sound of Claudia's humming.

"What's the song?" Tom asked as a small smile appeared on his lips.

"What? You are back?" Claudia jumped up when she heard Tom's voice. Her face turned red. "That was a pretty quick break. Did you even get any rest?" she asked in an attempt to mask her embarrassment.

"I ate something. That's enough for me," Tom replied with a gentle smile before shaking his head. "Don't be pressured by it though, you can take the usual break," Tom said. 'It would be bad if she shortened her rest just because I did it,' he thought with worry.

Ultimately, he was stronger than the girl. Not because of some chauvinistic reasons, like being a man. His avatar simply had a higher level than hers, even if he didn't know by how much.

"Don't worry, I won't work harder than necessary." Claudia grinned in response before scooting over to the wall and logging off.

"Not even see you soon or go fuck yourself." Tom sighed before voicing this ironic remark. Soon, the boredom of waiting took the better of him.

'No!' he shouted in his mind. 'I can't lose focus.' Tom's thoughts all ceased when a sudden rumbling shook the entire room. A rumbling that Tom never experienced in a dungeon before.

"What the hell is going..." he couldn't even finish his sentence. As if an earthquake struck the game servers, everything shook. All of Tom's senses screamed out on an alert.

"Claudia!" he shouted, perfectly aware of how little it would do. Now that she was logged off, her avatar was as mobile as a corpse would be.

Then the shaking stopped. All at once, as if it never happened.

Tom's mind was unsettled. The weird event was over, yet his instincts refused to accept it.

PSST...

Out of nowhere, a flash of bright light blinded Tom's avatar. Everything in front of him evaporated. Everything that stood on the path of this godly light turned into a sizzle. Then it stopped existing altogether.

Yet, even this flash was only momentary.

But the hole that it left on the dungeon's floor... It stayed.

"What the hell is going on..." Tom asked himself as he looked down the hole. His instincts calmed down. He did not know what shot this deadly ray. But his instincts told Tom, no more stuff like that was pointed in his direction.

For a moment, Tom could see something. An ordinary woman and a fancy-dressed warrior. Yet, it was this simple woman that held the warrior by his throat.

Then he came to his senses.

"Claudia," he whispered in panic, frantically looking around.

Only to notice the girl's avatar sliding down the edge.

"FUCK!" Tom cursed, pumping all the strength he had into his muscles.

He jumped forward, right along the edge of the hole in the floor. "Haste!" He invoked his greatest ability, now bothering to put any limiters on it. The rate at which he sped up threatened to tear his avatar in two.

But he managed to catch the girl. His fingers enclosed on Claudia's wrist, filling his soul with a wave of relief. 'I did it,' he thought, allowing a smile to surface on his face. He promised to keep her avatar safe, and he kept his word.

Then, the drawbacks of pushing his avatar beyond its limits struck nearly paralyzing Tom's moves.

Right as he realized that deprived of the support, the floor of the dungeon continued to crumble.

And then, with Claudia's avatar in his tight embrace, he fell down the hole.