Special delivery
Sky continued running upwards as fast as he could. He used telekinesis or his naginata to cut his way upwards.
"System, why didn't the card sealing technique work? I even used mana grace to increase my mana!"
{The amount of mana you have is too low for someone of his strength to work then again that was to be expected. Your stats are within 200-300 while his stats are within the hundreds of thousands. You would have required a minimum of two million mana for it to work}
"Was there something I missed? Was there another way for me to beat him?"
{It was clever to use the merchant but that was the only way Lucious would be hurt by you. As you are now you cannot even touch him, the merchant was the only way to hurt him. Poison eye does damage him but with his high vigor stat he can regenerate health faster than you can damage him. But the sloth curse will help you, somewhat}
"Okay but that does not answer my question, was there a way I could beat him?"
{Player, I cannot answer the question. Sometimes there is no way to defeat an opponent no matter how much you want to. Sometimes you cannot win}
"I thought this system was supposed to help me, especially in dangerous times like right now? You can increase my stats!"
{The player system is designed to help out the player, to adapt, there is no doubt about that. I will say this, there have been hundreds of millions of players before you and I have seen millions of different worlds. This is one of those few rare worlds where the player doesn't have much of an advantage and that's why you're having trouble growing stronger}
"How come?"
{Most worlds I've been in the player will always be one of the strongest within a few months. They can usually overpower powerful enemies by simply training a few days under the system's influence. But your world is different, people easily grow stronger by the minute like a player, they regenerate mana as fast as the player, they can learn abilities like the player, and their health also regenerates fast like the player. It is like fighting more players but you still have some advantages over others}
"Damn…"
{Another thing, player. There have been hundreds of millions of players before you, and every single player has been in your situation, and not once has the system ever helped out the player by giving a random power boost. You are no exception either to the hundreds of millions before you}
"..." Sky.
Floor 790, 800, 810…
Lucious continued to sit down and waited for his mana and health to regenerate.
Something that is common knowledge in this world is that once your vigor is high enough it can regenerate wounds without the need of potions. In fact when your vigor stat is high enough no healing spell or healing potions can help anymore.
Lucious can recover his wounds in ten minutes as long as he is out of combat and is able to focus, it gives his body a chance to relax and heal.
'Just a few minutes until I recover my health and mana. Thank god he went up else I would have been in trouble. The last person I want to find out about this is Xero. Still… This Sky is strange. And I'm a little terrified by what else he can pull off. Is it possible he's from the Land of the Gods? It only makes sense. It could explain why I cannot get rid of this powerful curse and why he had that black scroll.'
This was the closest he has been to dying in such a long time still it would not let him be affected by it.
The thought of Sky being from the Land of the Gods made him feel the need to capture him. His greed exceeded his fear of dying. No one has been to Land of the Gods except the first Fallen God family. And now he found a living being from that place.
He wanted to wait until he recovered and composed himself before he decided to find a way to capture Sky and make him spill his secrets.
After a few minutes Lucious got up feeling better.
'Now, to find him. But first…'
Lucious teleported to where he the Merchant had been spawned in, but found nothing.
The Merchant had disappeared after a while since Sky wasn't using the shop.
'Crap… so only Sky can summon this person.'
Lucious teleported upwards of hundreds of floors searching for Sky. With his teleportation technique he could teleport as far as 500 floors at once.
Meanwhile…
Floor 970, 980, 990, 999…
Sky reached the very top of the building. The roof of the building was somehow durable and Sky could not penetrate it despite it being made of the same material as every other floor. The further he went up the harder it was to breathe, and the colder it became.
{Skill level up}
{Cold resistance: lvl 2 → lvl 3: 30% resistant to cold climates}
{Skill level up}
{Freezing resistance: lvl 1 → 2: 10% resistance to freezing attacks}
'It's somehow colder than the mountains.' Sky thought.
He looked around, thinking of something. Looking out at one of the windows he could see the entire planet. It was beautiful and mostly blue.
'If I jump from here I will die. Crap, I should have gone down instead. Is there really nothing I can do?'
Sky looked around. For some reason every single floor has walls made of glass, there were no bathrooms, broom closets, offices, it was clear that the one who designed this tower was incompetent but no one has ever done anything to change it. As if the one who designed the entire tower was obsessed with glass walls, it was only the roofs/floors that weren't made of glass..
Looking around the first thing that caught his eye was a heavy, large bronze door installed in a silver wall.
Attached to the door was the carved insignia of the Fallen God family, a gold heart with two bones sticking out forming an 'X' symbol.
'Who the hell designed this place?'
Having no other option, Sky ran up to the door in an attempt to open it. Instead he got a system notification.
{Choose one of two options to enter}
{Hall of the Fallen God Family: LOCKED}
{999 floors to hell: Unlocked}
{999 floors to hell: Purple dungeon++}
{Enemies: ???}
{Rewards: ???}
{Boss: ???}
{Objective: You have to clear the next 999 floors each filled with traps, monsters, bosses, and trials each more difficult than the last}
{Would you like to enter 999 floors to hell?}
{Yes} {No}
"Hm, you think you can open that door?"
Sky's eyes widened. Lucious was right behind him but kept his distance.
Lucious was cautious but was also curious.
"Go ahead. Only the Fallen God family can open the door. Go ahead, do it." Lucious folded his arms expecting Sky to fail.
Sky tapped the screen.
{Warning: Player is too weak. There is a high chance you will die upon entering}
'It's risky but I have a plan.' Sky clicked the screen again and the bronze door opened revealing nothing but pitch black behind the door.
"Hoooolyyyyyy shiiiiiiit." Lucious was beyond shocked. To think Sky had actually opened a door he had been wanting to open for decades.
Sky teleported to the dungeon afraid that if he ran Lucious would be able to grab him.
"Oh no you don't!" Lucious ran inside the dungeon with the bronze door closing on its own.
Inside the dungeon Sky felt extremely hot, it was so hot to the point each breath he took burned him, and his feet were burning.
The entire dungeon was covered in lava. The walls were covered in waterfalls made of lava. The floor he stood on was made of stone but even so it was so hot to the point one could drop an egg on the floor and it would cook by itself.
Further ahead there was a path leading to buildings made of magma. It was unknown if there was anybody there.
{New skill learned}
{Heat resistance: lvl 1: 10% resistant to hot climates}
{Skill level up}
{Fire resistance: lvl 1 → 2: 10% resistant to fire damage}
{Taking 50 continuous damage per second from fire damage. Go to a safer place to stop taking damage}
{Received 50 damage: 40% negated → 30 damage received} (30% negated from damage negation skill + 10% negated from fire resistance skill}
"After all these years… this is what was inside? This?!" Lucious was beyond disappointed.
For years he had always wanted to see the inside of the Hall of the Gods. Many have said a mountain of gold shells can be found, purple scrolls, black scrolls, and even items from the Land of the Gods could be found.
But there was nothing but ash, brimstone, and lava.
Sky was quickly about to leave but before he knew it Lucious had his hand around Sky's throat.
"How is it that you were able to open the door? And why does it look like this? Where is the money? Where are the powerful weapons? The scrolls?" Lucious said in a demanding tone.
Lucious was placing so much pressure on Sky's throat that he couldn't breathe and felt as if his neck would break.
Realizing how close Lucious was to killing him he let him go. Sky could feel his entire body burning when touching the ground.
{Skill level up}
{Skill level up}
{Heat resistance: lvl 1 → lvl 2: 20% resistant to hot climates}
{Fire resistance: lvl 2 → lvl 3: 15% resistant to fire damage}
Despite his resistance skills leveling up they barely helped.
Sky, however, laughed while turning his back on Lucious. He slowly reached for his inventory to take out an item that will help him.
"Hahaha… I'm more worried about how you're gonna get out of this place. Haven't you realized the exit is nowhere to be found?"
"What?" Lucious looked behind him. As Sky said there was no exit.
While he was looking, Sky took out the dungeon escape stone and crushed it.
{Dungeon escape stone}
{Crush it to escape from the dungeon along with other party members without completing it first}
"Where is the exit?" When Lucious looked back at Sky that was the moment he saw Sky disappear from his very eyes.
"What…? Wait, what?!" Lucious looked everywhere wondering where Sky went but was nowhere to be found.
He teleported everywhere even beneath the lava which he barely felt. The only living beings he found were monsters, miniature monsters made of brimstone and fire.
"SKY?! SKY! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!"
Hours went by and only then did Lucious stop looking for Sky. Now he was tracing his steps.
"Where could he have gone? Where? He was right here!"
Two more hours went by and Lucious was becoming increasingly worried.
"No sign of him anywhere. The exit is nowhere to be seen. But there has to be a way out of here, right?" Lucious thought of exploring this place in the hopes of finding an exit.
This place reminded him of one purple portal he cleared many years ago. There were monsters to be slain and he killed all of them with ease, there were even some types of huge lava worms residing in the lava that spit fire.
By the end Lucious realized this was not like a portal, but something else entirely.
There was no boss at the end of the road. There was only a weird altar.
The altar was made out of marble with engravings he did not recognize. It had the shape of an hourglass that was ten feet tall.
He studied the altar thinking it was some kind of device that could help him, but no matter what he did he could not find the exit.
He tried to destroy the altar even going as far as using all of his mana in one attack, but he couldn't even leave a scratch on the altar.
"HOW? HOW? HOW?" Lucious kept repeating that same word while punching anything in sight. It did not help that he is significantly slower thanks to the sloth curse placed on him.
By the end he destroyed everything until it was all covered in lava, except the altar that was floating in midair.
Meanwhile…
The moment Sky crushed the dungeon escape stone he found himself being flung off the entrance of the tower building. Sky was surprised he appeared at the very bottom of the tower instead of the top.
The people stared at Sky thinking he was a weirdo. No one saw or noticed he appeared out of nowhere, they just thought he was a drunk who tripped.
'Did I actually survive that? Heal.' Sky checked his body for wounds.
{Health has been completely restored}
{HP: 12,850/12,850}
'Hehe… I actually survived that encounter?' Sky continued lying on the ground happily.
It wasn't every day one was able to successfully escape with their life from someone who was thousands of times stronger than they were.
'System, did you know I could survive like that?'
{Of course, player. There were a number of ways you could escape from Lucious, but no way to defeat him}
'Yeah… Why was the dungeon all the way to the top of the tower? I thought it would be in another crack or something.'
{Dungeons created by the system can be found anywhere not just in cracks. The system has concluded that the top of the tower was the best place to put the dungeon, as it was far, and heavily guarded. I just did not think that it would benefit you this way}
'Either way I'm glad. What would have happened if I went down instead of up?'
{Lucious would have exposed much about you and the Caribbean would have sided with him due to his reputation and that he is a high ranking Caribbean officer. You would have been safe from Lucious without a doubt, but at the cost of revealing your secrets and much more}
'Is there a way for Lucious to escape? It's a dungeon and I know people can't leave dungeons unless they clear first. But it's a purple dungeon with 999 floors.'
{I cannot say}
'Very well.'
Sky saw a familiar figure hover above him blocking the sun from hitting his face.
"What do you think you're doing on the ground? You're disturbing the people on the road."
"Hey… officer Luciel." Sky smiled to see a familiar face.
"Answer my question."
"I'm just… drunk, I think." Sky lied.
"That actually makes sense, I never took you for a drinker. Get up before you get in trouble."
"Carry me?" Sky raised his hands pretending to be a funny drunk committing to the act.
With a sigh, Luciel bent down and carried Sky princess style.
"Let's get you back to your apartment."
"I know I said to carry me but not like this!"
"Shut up before I start dragging you by your hairs. Why are you hot?"
"Hot? Oh, because I was born this way and I also like to keep my body in shape." Sky smiled while stroking his chin fully knowing what Luciel really meant.
"No, I meant your clothes are literally burning. And you're covered in… what is this, ash?" Luciel asked, worried. Touching his clothes it felt like touching a furnace.
"Thank you. You look hot as well with those clothes." Sky was purposefully dodging the joke.
'Please don't ask more questions. Please don't ask more questions. Please don't ask more questions.'
"That's not what… nevermind."
Meanwhile…
Jay and Jericho were getting worried that something happened to Sky. They were trying to keep themselves occupied but nothing worked.
They knew Lucious is a high ranking officer and could be trusted… but what if he can't be trusted?
*Knock* *Knock*
"Special delivery!"
They heard knocking and a familiar voice from behind the door. They quickly opened it and saw Luciel carrying Sky.
"SKY!" Jericho and Jay cried out.
"He's drunk so keep him away from alcohol, and make sure to help him. Here ya go." Luciel gave Sky to Jericho and left. She wiped the ash from her arms and clothes.
"Drunk?" Jay found that weird.
"Sky, what happened?" Jericho asked worriedly.
"And… Why is your hair covered in ash? And your clothes as well."
"It's… nothing. I just entered a dungeon."
"Without us? And why right after Lucious took you?"
"I was bored. And trust me you don't have to know anything else. I'm gonna shower, I feel dirty."
"Captain, you don't drink alcohol, do you?" Jay asked.
"No, I never really liked the taste among other things."
"We'll… clean off the ash from your clothes and items." Jericho said.
"Thanks guys."
While Sky took a shower Jericho and Jay wiped clean the items Sky was wearing.
"You think he went into a purple dungeon? One that has ash?" Jay said.
"I don't think so. We're not allowed to leave the island, and what are the chances a purple portal would appear close to this island? There is just no way he entered a purple dungeon or portal or whatever he calls it." Jericho said.
"Our Captain is weird, isn't he?"
"More like 'mysterious' but I see your point."
Later Sky would exit the shower feeling refreshed and went back to reading his book as if nothing had happened. It was better if nobody knew what happened to him.
Once people realize Lucious is gone, what would they think? Sky doesn't know but he was sure that nobody would think he is involved, after all what can a weakling like him do to someone like Lucious?