Chapter 135

Tenth Floor, Hidden Room

'What should I do?'

The two strands of blood embroidered the air.

'It's boldly trying to lure me!'

What created that phenomenon was a divine being which was not the Igras-Sho. Or, at least, it was above the level of a sacred beast.

"Oh, my days."

Euclid murmured while looking at the guiding pointer made out of my blood.

"The gods really love you, don't they? Well, it was suspicious since a holy item came out as a dungeon reward."

Then, she continued in a low voice.

"I've never seen a good ending for them in history."

The message was clear and loud enough that it became meaningless to change the tone of the voice. The devil's sword talked to me in pure desperation.

'I no longer know how many times this has happened. Leave me alone this time, whether you're going to be connecting with the god or be possessed by it.'

I shook my head.

"No, would I really have to go just because it's inviting me to do so?" '...?!' "Let's change the plan."

We were going to take a break on the 10th floor and move, but...

"We'll just proceed to the 11th floor. Let's move on to the next floor. The Tower is like a separate dungeon on each floor, so maybe..."

The devil's sword cut me off.

'That is the most reckless gamble I've ever heard in my entire existence.' "What do you mean?"

I wondered about it for a moment, but I soon found out why. And about what the devil's sword was afraid of.

"Do you think there's going to be a problem?"

It's an indication that I shouldn't ignore it, but rather I should proceed as whatever entity instructed me to.

'That god has already got its eyes on you. It would be good for your safety to, at the very least, pay respect and show your face when it's calling.'

It was strange to hear the sword talking like that.

"Isn't it good for you if I ignored it and proceeded to the 11th floor?"

It was strange that it tried to stop me at that moment. Why was the devil even worrying about me at that point? It was not like the devil's sword that always waited for the day I would die. Then it shouted as if it was dumbfounded.

'It's because I'm afraid I'll be included and end up having a horrible fate! No matter how much they may seem to have been exiled, deities are still deities. It's no sweat for them to destroy a cognitive entity!'

Indeed, that was its intention. Clicking my tongue bitterly, I talked to the party.

"I can't take you all with me and then let you all be noticed by it as well. I'll go alone."

I must prevent another colleague from becoming as troublesome as I was.

"Are you going to be okay?"

Hibiki asked me in a worried voice.

"There's no other way, is there?"

After unpacking and putting down the devil's sword, I followed the bloodstream flowing out of my fingers.

*

The waypoint guided my footsteps to a path that I didn't reach during the tenth floor Clear in my past life.

'Our party didn't go around scanning the entire castle at the time. We haven't been to many routes because we had to go straight to the boss room to finish climbing the Tower as soon as possible.'

Unlike a typical dungeon, there was a less likely chance to get an acquisition during the Clear in the Tower. Furthermore, considering the situation, we were aiming to Clear floors within the shortest time. Things such as routing were not possible, but we wouldn't have dreamed of it even if we had a chance.

[Penetration]!

Just in case, I proceeded while looking ahead to see what was beyond the wall, but I didn't see anything unusual for quite some time. The blood arrows led me further down toward the basement of the grounded air citadel. I followed down the endless stairs, going through the darkness.

Click-clack.

Only the sounds of my feet sharply hitting the floor could be heard in the dark and damp atmosphere. The stone stairs were half-collapsed in some parts of it. I wasn't sure if it must have been traces of siege warfare, but at least no paths were cut off. And the deeper I went, the fewer signs of destruction were present.

'What's this? The deeper I head underground, the more extraordinary the flooring and the materials on the walls are?'

As I moved forward, the surrounding structures became more solid. Even brick-like materials were replaced with those that could be cut and made into weapons. It was strange that they had placed that much of an effort to a place that didn't need to be visited for the Clear of the tenth floor. Considering many things, maybe the one at the end of the pathway was kind of a...

'Hidden Piece.'

If it was a hidden piece, what was the condition for it to be revealed? I made a mixed face while looking at the sacred wound on my finger. Later, even the lights disappeared, and I walked onwards while only relying on the luminous magic I created. It felt like I was stepping my feet into the opened mouth of a monster in the deep ocean, but there was no other choice but to go through with it.

"...!"

After going down for a long time, I finally stopped walking.

'Finally, something new; a door.'

The stairs were cut off, and a heavy-looking iron door waited in front of me.

'Keup! Damn it.'

Pain permeated through me, making me feel like my finger was about to snap off. That was enough proof that the massive sacred power flowed from beyond the entrance. [Penetration] no longer worked. I didn't know what's behind the door, but there was a powerful god's blessing that invalidated even SSS-Class skills.

'I should proceed to the main quest as soon as possible and erase this or something!'

I slowly opened the door, solidifying my determination. And I saw the thing inside the room...

'Idol!'

A dungeon was a representative place of missionary work. It was a place where gods who did not have a proper influence on the tutorial world used to 'preempt' the cream of the species that would proceed to the main quest. It was speculated that that was the case because the dungeon was located on a non-normal dimension and that its power to repel and reject gods was weak. Just as there was a statue after the magical god in the Shepherd 2 Dungeon last time, there was a statue of another entity in there as well.

'Aah!'

The first thing that caught my eye was the head that looked like that of a mountain sheep. But it was not the creature that inhabited the Earth's mountainous regions. The mountain goats in our world weren't covered in scales like what the statue depicted. Meanwhile, there was nothing that could be expected for an ordinary mammal to have below its neck. Instead, eight lumps, both breast-like and abscess-like, were stuck together in a mess. It's a much more bizarre and unpleasant appearance, but something kept reminding me of that idol.

'Looking at it, it's similar to the Mother Goddess of the Lands that the Botarchs serve!'

It was the goddess that symbolized the ever-spreading vitality through endless prosperity. But the Botarch's religion served a deity that did not exist. Perhaps what truly happened was that the religion of worshipping the owner of that statue was distorted and tampered with. Maybe it was only then was it passed on to Botarch. Of course, their prayers and dedications were not directed toward the proper divine entity, so a handful of divine power couldn't be gained by any god.

'However, the idol that is present here is real.'

I knew the identity of that god. It was the one in charge of all life. The name was 'Rom.'

Rumbleee!

When I opened the door, there was nothing in the room except for the idol. However, when my glance met with its two stone-carved eyes, a weak vibration covered the entire room. In an instant, flesh and blood vessels sprang up through the cracks in the bricks, creating a heart shape. There were more than one or two.

Rumble! Rumblee! Crunch!

Small flesh stuck out as it pushed bricks away and swelled like balloons. It took the shape of a heart, and like a hydra that reproduced through childbirth, another heart bloomed from the outer layer. After that, the same thing was repeated countless times. Hundreds of hearts were intertwined with blood vessels, covering the floor and ceiling like dizzying gourd vines. My finger was already hurting like it was going to explode at any second.

Drip!

The bloodstream that guided me whirled into a strange dance in the air. Then they made beautiful text strings in front of my eyes.

'Archid text.'

I read the contents.

-Thee, tell me the being that you want to kill.

"..."

As I kept my mouth shut, the blood-knitted text string scattered once in the air and gathered again. It became a new sentence.

-Or, put it on your tongue, the being that you want to let it live.

The authority of the god of life was more like a terrible fear for the living. Naturally, the one who could give life also had the power to take it away again. Its area of manipulation ranged from the moment life was born up to the last moment when it would ultimately fade. Whether that was a real deity or a sacred beast that was controlled by it... It would never propose something to anyone if it couldn't do just that. Nevertheless-

'... I shouldn't carelessly use my tongue here!'

I was in a similar situation to Igras-Sho's behavior, in which it left three holy wounds on my finger without asking. The god of life was an aristocrat by comparison. It didn't engrave a gift on my body and wouldn't allow itself to be held back or rejected regardless of what my answer was going to be.

'That saying just now is recommending me to make a wish!'

The behaviors of such gods were like a vicious loan recommendation. Regardless of whether one needed it or not, it meant to give them a credit line first so that they could use it as much as they wanted. Of course, if they fell for their words and used them carelessly, the terrible doom that was suspended would come for them.

'But honestly, it's a problem that it is desirable.'

Just as I had contemplated with Igras-Sho, an idea indeed came up in my mind as I heard the suggestion.

'If Mercadius could be finished for good with this...!'

If I could borrow a god's power to blow away its existence without a trace...

'But it's a no-no.'

A trap would always accompany such an easy method that had reached a point where it would even twist any existing principles. I lowered my impulse and talked to it carefully.

"I'm sorry, but I don't need it right now."

Then, without even waiting for a moment, blood droplets formed the next sentence.

-However, I can see traces on thy body of many gods already passing by.

The only thing that possessed my body was Igras-Sho... What did it mean by a lot of deities? Did it consider me touching the sacred items as an act of being in contact with gods as well? Blood droplets spoke as if to answer my question.

-The most concentrated one is 'magic,' and the next is 'luck.'

The god of magic, Igras-Sho. The god of luck, Ramang-Schurt.

"... For the one that oversees luck, I had only touched its sacred item." - It isn't so, mortal. There will be no trace left like this just by contacting the object. The god of luck has given you an eye even for a moment.

The god looked at me in person?

- He would have intervened directly in you by touching the odds.

I understood what it meant. Perhaps that was the reason why the sacred item came out of all the rewards I chose. The god must have touched the case of [Random Card of Fate] coming out among many SSS-Class items, beating the rare probability.

- And, there is another deity.

Right before my thoughts were about to get complicated- Bloodstreams continued to assemble the texts.

- It's so faint that it took me time to notice, but what must this be? The breath of a deity is embedded deep in your soul. The identity is...

For a while, a smooth drawing of an Earth-equivalent punctuation mark ('······') was embroidered in the air.

- Ah yes, I have identified it. it is 'Time.'

God of time?! The moment I heard the keyword...

'Ah!'

The knowledge I already knew overlapped with the existence mentioned by blood droplets. At that moment, my head cleared up, and I came up with one hypothesis. A piece of thought passed by as quickly as light. I remembered her words that told me the true meaning of the successor.

'The successor has experienced an average of 3,000 regressions per cycle so far.'

Repeated regression. The countless reversal of time. What would be the driving force that made it possible to repeat it thousands, tens of thousands of times? In addition to that...

'The Emperor managed to evacuate only the spirit of the successor to the far past.'

Starting from the distant future, when the empire was being destroyed, they returned the soul to an ancient time where the existence of Mana was not yet known to anyone but the successor itself. How long of an interval of time did the soul leap through? What was the reason why such an ambitious thing was possible?

'The Empire had borrowed a god's power!'

While I was lost in thought, the blood droplets made a few more sentences.

- It is very faint, but it's a trace all too familiar to us. - The time that makes all the changes is an essential factor for any deity. - As I did, other gods would have had no choice but to be attracted to your soul.

Then it continued to tell me something that felt inevitable.

- But others wouldn't have noticed it except me. This is because there is no other deity that cares as much about the mortals as I do. - That's inevitable. I tell you, all life deserves to be respected!

It was a famous epigraph from the scriptures of those who served 'Rom.'

'Every life deserves to be respected.'

However, that blood drop omitted the sentence that followed it.

'And only the scheduled, inevitable death guarantees its respect.'

The blood droplets, as if to entice me, created new sentences once more.

- You shall climb to the top of this Tower and move on to the next level. - From then on, many gods can watch you from closer and give you more. - Won't you serve me before that happens?

It was an outright temptation.

-You may forget the god of time for a moment. I don't get involved after death. In this life, why don't you serve me only while your flame of life is still lit? - The most powerful weapon for a living being is life, and the most vulnerable vital point is life as well. If you're a mortal, choosing me is the wisest path to take.

I spoke politely but clearly without room for any misinterpretation.

"I'm sorry, but I have no intention of entrusting my existence to a great deity."

The blood droplets didn't give up.

- Look. -' Magic' lost its most potent leg. - 'Luck' was banished from the valley of convergence. - 'Time' was nailed to a repeated loop. - The sword of 'Battle' is rusty and broken. - 'Mind' has lost the foundation to prove itself. - 'Space' has split into numerous debris and scattered.

Currently, the god of life was talking about the disastrous fall of the exiled gods. They had been swept away with the end of an era. It all happened in the distant past before the material world even began. Nevertheless, they were immortals who are still called great beings.

'But anyway, being exiled goes for the god of life as well.'

I gathered my strength and said it once again.

"I'm sorry, but I..."

At that moment-

Boosh!

The heart vines laid on the floor and ceiling began to burn at once.

'What the hell is this?!'

The scar on my finger opened as if it were tearing apart, and more blood gushed out. A much thicker and more turbulent text than before asked me in the air.

- Would thee, indeed, refuse even my last offer?