World Keeper

Chapter 1173: What Lies Beyond

“So, what’s the plan?” Lena asked as they arrived on the Seventy-Fifth layer of Fyor, having been teleported there directly via Dana’s shadows. “Gather up the level orbs as we go again, or?”

Dana shook her head, looking around. The giant beast was still looming over the entry portal, but she didn’t let it bother her. “No. We’ll go back and get them when we’re done, if we can’t make it all the way. According to Aurivy, when she was setting Fyor’s world system up, she made it so that the final floor would completely remove the level cap. I don’t know if that’s something that will automatically happen, or if we’ll need to find an orb on the top floor, but if we can make it that far, the other orbs will become pointless.”

Lena blinked at that, but nodded her head, still in the appearance of Keliope. “In that case, we should get moving.”

Dana nodded her agreement, closing her eyes to briefly focus. “I’m going to take a brief stop on each floor to kill a local monster. If we reach a floor where I struggle to kill anything, that will be evidence that we’ve gone far enough. Also, let me go through each gate first, that way I can wipe out any memetic influences that might be immediately around the gate.”

Lena couldn’t help but chuckle, smirking down at Dana. “Why does it feel like I’m here to be your cheer team, rather than helping you fight?”

Dana rolled her eyes slightly at that, shaking her head. “You’re the only one I know of with nine domains anywhere. If we do get into a situation where I would be in trouble, I’m counting on you for support.”

Lena hesitated for a moment, but nodded her agreement. She wasn’t sure how much support she’d be able to provide, but she would do her best.

Once Dana had located the next gate, she teleported the two of them there via her shadow, and immediately sent an avatar into the gate. Her other body remained behind with Lena, lowering her head in thought. “The next floor is another ice one, like the sixty-second floor.”

When Lena heard that, she almost visibly deflated. “Didn’t that one take you guys years to break through? Do we have to turn back already?”

However, Dana simply smiled. “No, this is fine. I’ll create a timed spell to fuse with the ambient mana, spreading it through the entire floor. That will create a bubble around the other gate, and I can just teleport us there. I’ll make a note to report this back to the others later.”

Lena blinked, but nodded her head. Once Dana gave the signal, she stepped through the gate, the Dana that was with her staying behind. Seeing that, Lena gave a questioning gaze towards Dana when she arrived on the other side, but the elven origin simply smiled.

“I’m going to leave one of my avatars to explore each floor, that way I can find any significant resources.” She explained, and Lena understood.

“Right. Anyways, have you checked the next floor yet?” Lena asked, noticing that she had already been teleported directly to the next gate after arrival.

Dana smiled, nodding in confirmation. “That’s right. Honestly, the next floor is perfect for me. From what I can tell, there is no day and night cycle. It’s a floor of eternal darkness. However, I’m sensing some memetic effects, so for your safety, I’m going to have you skip that floor.”

Lena blinked at that, but accepted. Like this, they continued. Every floor, Dana took a few moments to find out where the next gate was, and then brought Lena over while investigating the next floor’s situation.

Because of this, they were able to find three consecutive floors that seemed to have contained ruined civilizations, memetic effects permeating the very landscape. In these floors, Dana completed her work quickly and had Lena skip them, as there was no telling what would happen if she began absorbing the random memetic properties.

After those three floors, however, were rather normal layers. At least, for a while. The next big change came on the eighty-fifth floor, which actually presented some problems for Dana. Not because of a powerful monster, as she had shown no problems dealing with any monsters thus far. Rather, the problem came from the fact that the entirety of the layer was filled with molten lava burning at an insane temperature, even carrying a faint energy of raw destructive power.

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For this floor, Dana had to do the same thing that she did with the ice floor. However, as there were no shadows on this floor for her to take advantage of, it only made her task harder.

As for the eighty-sixth floor… that was troublesome for a different reason, as the entire floor was composed of superheated plasma, as if they were walking through a massive star. Thankfully, both Dana and Lena were capable of withstanding the cataclysmic temperatures with their own bodies, though Lena was certain that the avatar Dana left behind would not be comfortable.

Dana let out a sigh of relief when they entered the eighty-seventh floor, which did not immediately seem to have any hazardous environmental effects. When Lena looked up, she briefly thought that they had reached the surface, as she could see planets and stars orbiting in the sky above. “Aren’t there… supposed to be two or three layers left?” She asked, and Dana nodded her head.

“That’s right. You can’t easily see it from here, but there’s still a ceiling on this floor, about… maybe fifteen hundred light years away?” She mused, and Lena’s eyes went wide.

“Fifteen… hundred light years? I know that we’re used to talking in big numbers when it comes to Fyor, but that’s… a bit much, just for the ceiling, right?” She vaguely remembered that only twelve floors ago, the distance to the ceiling had only been seven light years.

Dana simply chuckled, shaking her head. “That’s what happens with exponential growth. Back on the first floor, the ceiling is only a hundred meters high. Every floor is approximately fifty-seven and a half percent bigger than the previous floor.”

“That’s… very specific.” Lena said with a shake of her head. “Anyways, have you found the monster you’re going to hunt on this floor yet?” She asked. So far, Dana had been able to effortlessly kill monsters on every floor, as long as there were actually surviving monsters for her to kill.

“Space whale.” Dana explained. “It’s a long way away, so I didn’t bother saying anything, but it is going around and swallowing up these mini-planets. Pretty tough defenses, but nothing I couldn’t break through with a bit of effort.”

Lena chuckled at that. “Well, at least we’re getting to the point where effort is actually required… what’s the next floor like?”

Dana smirked, glancing up at Lena. “I just found the gate. Give me a moment.” She said, her gaze unfocusing. However, a moment later, her entire body shuddered. “Okay, you’re definitely skipping that one!” She said with wide eyes.

Lena looked over at Dana in concern. “Is it really that bad?” She asked, to which Dana quickly nodded.

“Y-Yeah. The entire floor is a twisting, memetic horror. Laughing mountains that will turn you to stone if you hear their cries, trees made of people… There’s somehow a civilization living there, but they must have evolved some natural resistance to memetic effects.” Dana said, and Lena widened her eyes.

“Someone is actually living in a place like that?”

Dana gave a brief nod of confirmation. “Yeah, some kind of elf-like creature with pitch black skin and red hair. Anyways, I’m skipping straight past that floor. The next one… well, that’s just not fair.”

“Why? Is it somehow even worse than Memetic Hell?” Lena asked in concern, but Dana shook her head.

“N-Not quite. It’s… empty. Completely empty. The eighty-ninth floor has nothing to it, other than the mana spire and level orb…” Dana had a look of confusion on her face as she explained. “I’m not picking up a single trace of anything, whether it’s a monster, material, or residual energy.”

Lena paused, giving it a bit of thought. “Maybe there was some ancient event, where something happened on that floor that would have erased this universe, but because of Fyor’s special nature, the only things it could erase were on that floor?”

Dana hesitated to answer, but ultimately nodded her head. “I… guess that’s possible. Either way… it means that we can reach the ninetieth floor now. According to Aurivy’s calculation, that should be the last one, where the ceiling is removed, and the size of the planet itself is comparable to an entire galaxy.”

Lena nodded her head, waiting for Dana to teleport her. However, before she did, Dana’s eyes went wide. “Woah…” She muttered, as if to herself. “I’ve… I’ve cleared out the nearby memetic traces. You’ve got to see this.”

A moment later, darkness wrapped around Lena’s body, and she was transported to the final layer of Fyor.  She looked around, briefly confused by what had Dana so surprised. The entire ground was covered in the same black material as the gates. However, as she lifted her head, her eyes went wide.

In the distance, she could see the mana spire of the final layer lifting into the sky. However, this wasn’t like the spires found on every other floor. This spire had branches spreading out in all directions, releasing continuous streams of visible mana. At the end of the spire, she could see the star that Fyor revolved around.

Though, saying that Fyor revolved around it at all felt a bit wrong. The branches of the spire spread out and formed rings circling the star. It looked less like a celestial body, and more like… “Is it just me, or does that look like a massive staff?” Lena asked, to which Dana nodded her head in agreement.

“A staff so large, that if one were to swing it, they would obliterate a galaxy in any other universe.” Dana said.

After a moment of admiring the giant pillar of mana connecting Fyor with its sun, Lena blinked, looking left and right. “I didn’t get a notification about the level limit being removed. Have you found the orb yet?” She asked, and Dana shook her head.

“Aside from the pillar, there’s nothing here. It’s just like the floor below.”

Hearing that, Lena pursed her lips. “There is the chance that the orb would be lost somewhere in space, but I don’t think the system would be that cruel. Can you take us to the base of the spire?” She asked, and Dana gave a brief nod.

With a small surge of mana, the two disappeared, reappearing before what appeared to be a completely smooth, crystal wall shining with a faint blue light. “If there is no orb, then… maybe we just need to touch it.” She said, walking up and placing her hand against the wall.

Dana hesitated, watching Lena. “What if it is a staff, plunged into the heart of the world, and activating it will cause it to remove itself? The level limit would be gone because there would no longer be anything stopping people from just flying upwards.”

Lena froze, but her hand was already against the wall. “I-I hope that doesn’t happen? I mean, we won’t know either way until we do something, right?”

As she was speaking, a brilliant glow was beginning to appear around her hand, lighting up the entire spire. Now, Lena saw a message appearing in front of herself.

Lena’s eyes were wide as she read through the messages. As she finished, the spire seemed to open up in front of her, allowing her and Dana to enter. The inside of the spire seemed to stretch on forever, though there was a smooth screen next to the entrance, with runic words written on the bottom.

Dana pursed her lips as she read the runes. “Please select your destination.” She said, blinking. “I… think this is an elevator.”

Saying that, she walked up to the screen, and wrote the rune for ‘One’ on it. The rune flashed, before turning red, the runes on the bottom changing. “Invalid destination. Activate support menu for a valid list of destinations.”

Arching her brow, Dana wrote the same ‘Support’ rune that was used in the prompt, and the screen erupted with a long list of locations, all written in runes. Lena stumbled back a step at that. “Okay, that looks like more than eighty-nine options.” She said with a trembling voice, and Dana stared, her jaw going slack.

There were hundreds, possibly even thousands of locations listed. Eventually, she found one that was marked as their current location, and selected it. Once it was selected, she was given the list of floors to choose between, and selected the first floor.

There was a blinding flash, the entrance to the spire closing and opening again. Outside, Dana could see the spire room of the first floor’s adventurer’s guild building. “I… I think we’ve figured out how Fyor’s universe is going to handle interstellar travel, and getting to the inner layers of other worlds.” Dana said, swallowing thickly.

Lena gave a slow nod of her head, before turning to Dana. “Okay… but what just happened?” She asked, her eyes wide in shock.