Shikemichi

"Κρυφή πόλη, ανοιχτή." Kaiser recites.

Zion, Talia, and Kaiser traverse to the exit, which is the crack. Once they stepped outside of the town, they were greeted by the familiar scenery of Aeturnus.

Talia notices that Kaiser was bringing something that looked off, so she asked a question about it.

"Hey Kai, what's that thing you're carrying?"

Zion looks at him, which Kaiser smiled.

"It's something we need for the 98th floor. You'll find out what it is very soon."

Confused, Zion and Talia laughed it off, and they walked inside the forest without much thought.

As they were walking, Zion thinks about how the floors work, due to the fact that he was confused by how a simple gate could switch a scenery from a barren wasteland, to a thriving forest, all in an instant.

"Hey, there's a gate we need to find so we could reach the 98th floor, right?" Zion asks.

Kaiser sweats as he attempts to reply.

"The gate in Aeturnus spawns randomly every week, so I'm afraid that it will take a very long time."

What..?? It's going to take a long time?! What about the eaglemen...

"Look closely in the distance. There's a temple over there."

Me and Talia closely observed the mossy temple in the distance, and Kaiser suddenly jumps off the cliff and uses flying magic.

"See you kids in the temple!" Kaiser shouts playfully.

This guy..!

After a few minutes, Kaiser reaches the mossy temple and turns back to see if the kids were able to catch up. He figured there was no monsters as he didn't run into one, but in reality, he wasn't able to encounter one as his flying speed was too fast for the naked eye.

"Huh? How did they not catch up, there shouldn't be any monsters.. right?"

Meanwhile...

"AAAAAGHHH!!!!!" Zion and Talia screams.

Me and Talia sprints away from a huge white grizzly bear as fast as they could.

"What's this marshmallow looking thing!! A White Scargiver Bear?!!!" I yell while Talia sweats profusely.

"Hey, hey! Why is it chasing us?!!" Talia asks as she yells in exhaustion.

Damn.. at this rate, our energy is going to get depleted!

I stop running and face the bear, settling into a defensive stance as I took one of the grappling hooks I had inside my bag. Talia, not backing down, grabs a grappling hook as well.

We both nodded our head as we had the same plan in mind, and our eyes started to glow in a colored flame.

I feel like.. I could do anything. We both thought at the same time.

I grappled onto the bear's thick skin as a distraction while Talia runs to the back to land a fatal blow.

Successfully, it dealt damage, but not enough to kill it. As a result, I ended up wounded by getting slashed on my left leg, but I wasn't out of the fight yet. We backed up to create some distance, which the bear released a menacing growl to deliver us fear.

I broaden my eyes with a renewed will and yelled as I charged towards the bear, and I dodged as the bear continued to throw frenzied slashes. I run towards the bear's face successfully, and used the tip of my grappling hook to stab the bear's eyeball.

Blood began to splash in my face, blinding my view. I continue to stab its eye, and Talia dealt the finishing blow. She aimed the grapple onto the bear's hole. It puckered its insides and resulted on it's death.

Black smoke started to emerge from the corpse and was headed to my wrist. This delivered shock to me, and it formed a black symbol that had 3 triangles formed like a valknut.

I felt a surge of power in me as smoke gathered around my wrist. Meanwhile, the corpse got caught in turquoise colored flames, and dropped a blue crystal.

Talia picks up the crystal and it immediately turned into a pastel yellow aura and formed around her.

"Woah!! Hey, I feel like I have so much power!" Talia exclaims.

Kaiser spots us right after and leads us to the temple.

We ran to the temple as we lacked time, while we were at it we had a little chit-chat.

"What were you guys doing?" He asks.

"We both encountered some white bear thing. We killed it though!" Talia exclaims proudly and blows her trumpet.

After running, we finally reached our destination. The Stygian Temple, Shikemichi.

I notice a wooden sign at the left side of the temple. Me and Talia inspect it's writings and it said:

"Spirits ahead, beware!"

Baffled, me and Talia look at Kaiser in utter confusion.

"Uhm.. So, this is where we're going to stay???" Talia asks in disbelief.

"Surely it couldn't be that.. right??" Continued by me. Scared, I laugh.

"Yeah." says Kaiser.

Me and Talia were flabbergasted by this. The fact that this old, mossy, scary temple was going to be our shelter until we get to the next floor.

We traverse through the eerie rooms inside the temple, and Talia hugging my left arm as she is scared out of her wits. 

"Hey, what's wrong? Why're you scared? I think ghosts don't exist-"

"They do exist." Kaiser interrupts which caught me off guard and made me flinch.

"You scared me!! Don't butt in conversations like that!"

We walked inside and find stairs that led to the 2nd floor of the temple, which made our eyes peeled.

There was a treasure at the end of the corridor, but it had various bugs and mold all around as obstacles. There were also pillars that blocked our line of sight, so it was very difficult to get through.

But it doesn't mean I give up here, I'm taking the risk.

Before I step inside the room filled with lethal amounts of bugs, Kaiser stopped me in time, and explained that we shouldn't go for it.

"Huh? Why?" I ask.

"These bugs... Can kill you if you even touch it, it is extremely fast as well. Those things are called Phammaxias." He responds with a serious tone.

We transferred to an open room of the temple, one that had openings so that fresh air could come in, no traps, and no pesky bugs and mold.

We all sat down in front of the openings to get wind, and as we unpacked our stuff, I looked at the view, which I was then distracted by a something that looked like a small looking egg.

It was about to get eaten by a bunch of lizardmen, and I had no choice but jump off the opening to try and steal it, as the egg looked like it had galaxies in it.

I jump off the opening, and used my grappler and aimed on one of the lizardmen's eye, which I hit successfully. Black smoke and blue flames began to emerge as it died in an instant when I pierced its heart.

The second lizardmen caught off guard, it tried to attack me. I backed off a little, but my hand started to hurt a little and the symbol on my wrist began to glow.

Instinctively, I knew what I had to do.

"Stygian Magic, Desuboru."

A black ball started to form on my palm. But while chanting, the lizardman tried to run away and retreat, but after charging it up, I throw the ball with all my might, which managed to hit the lizardman and died. It also left a hole in the tree nearby.

I collected the egg and kept it in my palm, which Talia and Kaiser realized I had jumped down.

"Hey Zion, why are you down there?" Talia asks in confusion.

Kaiser notices he held an egg on his palm that looked oddly peculiar, and asked him about it.

"Zion, what are you holding?" He asks.

"I'm not really sure, I saw this egg thing about to get eaten by a lizardman but I managed to save it in time."

After we took the egg back to the room inside the temple. Kaiser examined the egg carefully, and to our surprise, the egg could incubate. Meaning it could hatch sooner or later.

"Hmm.. well this could hatch, but were not sure what egg it is. I have my fair share of knowledge about these kind of things, but I have never seen this egg before." Kaiser states.

What could this egg hatch into?

"Things are going a bit too smoothly today."