Chapter 119: The Floor is Lava

  One last time, they stood in that town square. After they had removed the crystals, the blobs of lava ceased to move. Moreover, they had rapidly cooled down and solidified. The trap was completely shut down. Now the chamber would no longer repel monsters, but they were not going to stay here any longer.

  “Let’s put these on now,” Parth said as he picked up his new recording device and attached it to his armor.

  Since the organizing committee was having success with the recorders for the first time ever, they wanted everyone to record as much of the dungeon as they could. Parth’s old recorder got shredded in the previous level. Moira’s old one returned with the supplies, and had been turned off during transit. Kwame’s old one was intact, but Parth and team stashed it in his container instead.

  Mainly because they wanted to hand over the recording of Vyasadatta to Lord Kach and Celeste first. The two of them could do whatever they wanted with it. Given the condition of the armors and Parth’s shredded plates still inside storage, nobody would be searching for their old recorders anyway.

  Once Kwame put on his new recorder and Moira put on her old one, they were all ready to depart.

  “All right, let’s do this,” Parth said.

  He created a paper-thin fiery construct, over which all three of them climbed aboard. They rapidly gained altitude. While in transit, they took a look around the dungeon.

  This level was a mixture of barren lands, rocky terrains, mountains, hills, and whatnot. But it hadn’t stayed the same. Now, over in the distance, it looked like a mess.

  Several massive plumes of smoke were rising in the distance, and the skies were clouded with smog. It was still not as bad as it could be. This was just the second day of the trial, after all. But the dungeon had already begun ramping up. That mess would keep getting worse and spread towards the outer edges of the dungeon.

  The platform moved slowly as they tried to find the best alignment. They didn’t want to fly over any volcano that would erupt right onto them. They already had a close call with a waking volcano once. They didn’t want another.

  For a few minutes, Parth kept guiding the platform sideward, sticking to the edges of the dungeon, scoping out the path.

  “This seems good. A direct path,” Kwame said. And indeed, it looked clear. A straight line to the obsidian monolith. Of course, they couldn’t say what exactly was there underneath in the distance, but there were no obvious volcanic activities and the probability thereof in this line. At least right now.

  They couldn’t say what would happen in the future, but that was a non-issue. As Moira had pointed out, optics mattered. And they were going to be making an explosive statement.

  “Yeah. This should be alright, Parth said. The platform began gaining height once more. They didn’t want to go too high up and get entangled with the smog. So he stopped a good distance below the cloud cover.

  Their new temporary armor just provided protection, and did not have the visors paired to their rings, so they stuck to their signet rings instead.

  Parth brought up his holographic screen and locked in his current position. He then pointed the compass towards the monolith and locked it in that direction. His screen then projected a live diagram of a straight line. The line led to the monolith; it had a green dot at one end, signifying their correct position. However, it was not a full-scale map. It was just a simulation based on direction and their relative position. This was so that in case of any changes, they would be able to course-correct in time. This was the same kind of tactic that they had used back at the very beginning of the first trial to regroup.

  All three of them synced their rings to their determined path.

  Once their trajectory was locked, Kwame activated his artifact. The object moved further from them and hovered in place, clearly awaiting something.

  Moira’s secondary artifact jumped into action. Two glowing white lines shot out of the belt buckle. The vectors intertwined, braiding themselves as they revolved around the three of them. The braided vectors began spinning in a spiraling path around them. Within moments, the thick braid of vectors had finished forming a very tight sphere.

  “Is it strong enough, Moira?” Parth asked.

  “That’s why I used a braided pattern. This is an improvement over the simple vector shell we used during the tsunami,” Moira responded.

  And indeed it was true. The solution during the tsunami was haphazard and done on the fly. When Parth’s flaming shell couldn’t hold, Moira’s vectors formed a layer inside, bolstering it. This time around, they were going to properly construct it step by step. They had learned this new tactic thanks to the dungeon’s intervention, and they were going to pay it back by beating it with the very thing it had taught them.

  “The stressors this time are going to be quite different. Be prepared for it,” he instructed. It was a fair concern. Bracing for a tsunami and preparing to fly at breakneck speeds involved different factors. The tactic might be the same, but the approach to it requires flexibility.

  “Noted,” she replied.

  “Kwame, you’re up,” Parth said.

  The Knuckleball slowly floated back towards the shell and lodged itself in the front. As it made contact with the braided rope, it was affected by the vector’s directional force. He loosened his control over it, and it immediately began traveling with the flow. It was like a tiny moon, revolving around the earth, all the while touching the surface.

  The Knuckleball was their artillery. Taking it in and out of a constructed shell would impact structural integrity. Keeping it outside was the correct approach. Not like it would get damaged at all. The artifact already thrived in extreme speeds and friction. It was built for it. So it was a safe bet.

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  “The shell’s ready. I’ve tightened the braids. Removed the feasible gaps. It should hold. And I’ll keep monitoring it and pumping in more mana as required,” Moira declared.

  “Then let’s get the show on the road,” Parth said.

  Flames poured out of his gauntlets into the vectors. The flames flowed into the vectors, traveling inside them like Moira’s cards usually would. Once a sufficient amount of flames had taken root inside the vectors, the remaining began projecting outwards, forming an outer shell. As the outer shell solidified, Kwame’s artifact kept moving with the surface as well. The Knuckleball was always meant to be floating on the outer edge, acting as a missile when required.

  Soon, the outer shell became massive in size as more flames filtered out of the vectors. Their two-shelled approach was sophisticated this time. Since the flames were also flowing inside the vectors, Moira would immediately get a feel of the movement and any possible impacts. She would be able to adjust the shell in real time. Both the shells were in sync and ready to perform.

  Overall, they were inside a spherical body which was about ten meters in radius. The outer shell was quite thick. The inner hollow, the nucleus where they were currently situated, barely had three meters of radius in comparison. The outer flaming shell was purposefully thicker to provide ample buffer.

  “Cycle your mana through your innards. We’ll be moving in ten seconds. Starting countdown,” Parth said. His signet ring picked up his command and automatically began counting down from ten. He closed his eyes, his heatmap unfolding to full range.

  Only the heatmap and the projected diagram would guide their path. Otherwise, they would be flying blind.

  As his focus sharpened, the flames turned blue. Inside, due to Parth’s control, the three of them didn’t feel the heat. But on the outside, the air around the sphere was shimmering. The light radiating out of the sphere was quite bright. The heat in the immediate surroundings was even more intense. They were inside a very miniature star.

  Three. Two. One.

  The moment the counter hit zero, they launched forward like a missile. In fact, that’s what they were inside: a makeshift missile, with three voyagers as the payload.

  Parth could feel the mana drain spike as he kept ramping up the speed. But he kept pushing. He had enough mana to hold steady for a while.

  After a point, they were going so fast that the sphere began to warp, and they both let it. They didn’t fight against the momentum. But they maintained a level of toughness so that they didn’t get flattened. The sphere elongated and stretched until it looked like a grain of rice. Now this was a true missile in action as the afterburners kept pushing it forward.

  To anyone looking from the outside, this would be indistinguishable from a meteor burning a trail through the sky.

  After about a minute of it, Parth could say that he had hit his top speed. It was a little bit slower than when he was flying solo. But he was still hanging very close to Mach 0.5, which was more than enough.

  He felt the air rushing past him in the heatmap. There was nothing in his way, and he kept moving. Due to the extended effort, his mana kept draining steadily. Yet he didn’t let go. Every iota of his mana was being converted efficiently into flames. Flames that kept them moving forward.

  At this speed, there was no true opposition. They were too fast to react for most monsters and voyagers alike. Not that anyone would have been expecting this. This was just the second day of the trial.

  About four minutes in, his heat map pinged with a sudden problem. There was an eruption right up front. He was pretty sure that there were no mountains in their path. So this was just the floors splitting up and the dungeon regurgitating lava to catch them off guard.

  Too bad. It might have predicted them correctly, but it was vastly slower.

  Their missile veered hard towards the left, narrowly avoiding the spout of lava. There was no impact as they didn’t collide with it. But there were a few droplets of lava that made contact with their outer shell.

  Parth could feel it rotating amongst his flames. He smothered the droplets, saturating them completely with his mana and flames. And at that moment, he realized that just by shaping the heat and his mana inside the lava, he could shape the whole thing. But for now, he didn’t need this anymore, so he expelled the tiny pieces of lava.

  Apart from the lava, the sudden jostling had started Moira, but due to the two shells being in sync, their flight system didn’t get destabilized.

  All of that happened in two seconds, after which Parth course-corrected again.

  “Lean twenty degrees to the right,” Kwame said, as his focus was mainly on navigation. Moira and Parth were coordinating the transport, after all.

  “Moira, I’m making the move,” Parth said, giving her a heads-up.

  “Go ahead. The vectors are holding strong.”

  Under Kwame’s guidance, Parth curved his projectile back towards their simulated highway, through gritted teeth.

  “That’s enough. Slowly ease it back in. Ten degrees to the left. Five degrees now. That’s it. Keep it steady, move straight,” Kwame kept the steady stream of instruction going, and Parth followed.

  In a matter of seconds, they were back on track.

  Two more minutes later, Kwame spoke again. “Start the deceleration. We should be close. We don’t want to collide with the monolith.”

  From their previous experience, they knew that their approach could survive some collisions. But at this speed, who could say for sure?

  “Brace yourselves,” Parth said, as he cut off the afterburners. He then began generating force in the opposite direction to rapidly decelerate.

  This entire time, they were circulating mana internally to combat the G-force. The sudden jostling had caught them off guard. But it didn’t have any adverse effects on them. Similarly, they were able to handle the deceleration quite well.

  Finally, the momentum bled off completely, and they came to a halt midair. The outer shell evaporated into nothingness, and the inner shell slowly unraveled. All that remained was the floating platform of solid flames that they stood over.

  The moment their vision cleared, they knew that they had won. The monolith was about a kilometer in front of them.

  They’d manage to travel around sixty kilometers in a little less than seven minutes.

  Parth had a bead of sweat on his forehead, and he was breathing heavily. The constant and rapid drain of mana did sting a bit. But it was all within their calculations. His test flight for the supply run had given them a clear picture of how much mana it took, and it seemed like they were spot on.

  “Are you good?” Moira asked. She was not short of breath, as she just had to maintain the vector and not pump in enormous amounts of mana into it.

  “Yeah. Still got half left in the tank. If we want, we can just speedrun the next trial right now,” he said, his tone full of swagger.

  “Don’t get cocky. We’ll be doing the others a disservice if we encroach upon the dungeon heart too soon. You know that,” she scolded.

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Just let me bask in glory for a second, will you? This is huge.”

  “I agree. I didn’t think that it would be this quick. I thought we would be taking breaks in between, resting for some time, but this is insane,” Kwame said.

  As the platform gradually lowered towards the ground, all three of them looked around. This entire place was swimming in lava. Soon, the floor of the dungeon would be nothing but a roiling mass of lava, smoke, and ash.

  “I didn’t expect the dungeon to predict us like that and take a potshot. This thing really does hate to lose. Let’s quickly go through before it throws something else at us,” Parth said.

  Kwame and Parth had been unconscious when Moira had dragged them inside this floor. So it was only the second time that they were seeing the entrance on one of the monoliths.

  It was similar to the gate that they saw in the first level. The only difference was that instead of marble, this was made entirely out of obsidian, with glowing orange lines inside it.

  If this thing weren’t threatening their lives in such a manner, Parth would appreciate the cool aesthetics. Unfortunately, they were mortal enemies.

  All three of them stood in front of the entrance, and the obsidian doors slid open. Once again, there was a blinding light from the other side, and all three of them stepped through without hesitation.

  On the second day of the trial of fire, the Pygilist, the Arbitrary Dealer, and the Knuckleball had cleared it. If they didn’t have to rest on the first day, they would have cleared it then and there. If that wasn’t a statement, Parth didn’t know what else was.