The large creature didn’t seem to mind the Fire Keeper’s excitement. It lowly growled as she rubbed its fur, tried to hug it, and called names like “Big girl!”, “Cutie”, “Molly” and so much more.

  The Keeper's personality had transformed to that of a child once she saw Darkness’s soul beast. It was both magnificent and terrifying to look at. Its dark eyes were filled with calm malice. This was the reason why both Luna and Len kept away.

  When Storm Rider was done ogling over the beast and regained her composure, Darkness explained why they needed her summon to enter the kingdom.

  “If none of you haven’t noticed it yet. This isn’t a normal ice wall. It's faint…but I can feel its energy. If we are to go through it, we need to manipulate the structure itself. That’s where my friend and I here come in.”

  Luna’s eyes shone when her mind sparked. “Mass manipulation!” she snapped her fingers in realization. “The bear can manipulate the mass of most bodies.”

  “Bingo! And by manipulating the structural mass on an atomic level, we won’t trigger any enchantments if it has any. I can make a way through altering the structure. My second gate is still not stable but with her help, I can do it.”

  Luna exchanged confused looks with her sister.

  Storm Rider was staring at the wall. Her face was as calm as always.

  The two sisters sighed at the same time then nodded. “Let’s do it,” Lena spoke first. “But we need to be very careful. If anything happens as we cross I will do my best to hold it back as we retreat.”

  Darkness joined her hands with a clap. Then rubbed them together. "Trust me, I am very familiar with architecture."

  The large bear growled and turned away from them slowly. Its large feet left large prints in the snow as it followed Darkness to the wall. However, its body didn’t cast a shadow under the faint light of its world.

  Shockingly, despite its size, the creature was about the size of a rat compared to the Ice. Darkness was even smaller--almost the size of an ant in comparison.

  When they were close enough to the wall. The beast lowered its head and she climbed atop the soul beast.

  ‘Let’s do this.’ Darkness commanded it by heart. She opened her second gate and she was welcomed by a wave of pain that forced her to grit her teeth. She battled the pain by relaxing her mind. Then drew out more of her power. The zenshi in her body was still too pure and difficult to control but she getting a hang of it.

  She channeled that pure zenshi into the summon and its power instantly activated. She commanded it to move forward until it was only a few meters away from the wall.

  Darkness drew a sharp breath and shot it another mental command. The bear let out a low growl and charged straight into the ice wall with its head first.

  Boom!

  Both the earth and wall shook once the creature’s head smashed into its surface.

  A second energy followed after the shockwave, sending several vibrations throw the awesome structure as though resonating with the bear’s strike.

  The vibrations stopped after two minutes. Darkness then lifted her arm and put out her hand. She wore a concentrated look as she focused all the power from all her gates.

  “Urgh…”

  By merging her ability with the Summon’s. Darkness’s power started to affect the density of the ice. Her Level of Mastery up so Darkness was more confident in her abilities to manipulate gravity.

  By focusing and visualizing the parts she wanted to affect, her gravity ability kept the wall stable while the mass manipulation weakened the ice by reducing the overall molecular density of the structure.

  This continued for a few more minutes before her eyes snapped open and a command left her mouth:

  “Again!”

  Immediately, the bear slammed its head into the wall once again. This time, the ice cracked and shattered into smaller particles.

  When that happened, a sequence started and all the thick ice making the affected wall poured down like expensive glass and snow to create a tunnel large enough for the bear itself.

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  “Good girl,” she smiled, patting its head. She studied its interior for a moment. This was by far the most thought she has ever put while using her powers. The only thing keeping the tunnel from collapsing was the reverse gravity trick she had pulled off, diverting the pressure for a few minutes.

  ‘I didn’t even know I could do such a thing.’

  She turned to the group behind her. “The gravitational force inside is a bit weird. You may experience some g-forces….or whatever!”

  With that, she commanded the bear and it entered into the tower. The rest followed behind.

  Luna was hesitant about following. But after calming down, she trailed behind her sister. ‘At least I have some interesting stories for my class when I go back.’ She almost chuckled at the thought of explaining everything to her class.

  Also, on the side of good news, this was a confirmed promotion at the academy. A dungeon was a worthy high-level threat, right?

  The interior of the tunnel was something beautiful. The walls were white and the coldness in here was something that even the cloak she was wearing could fully push back.

  Lena was also shivering from the intense cold inside the tunnel.

  And if that wasn’t enough, the gravitational forces keeping it stable were something Luna wasn’t supposed to be walking through.

  After four minutes of walking, blood was already trickling down her nose. Her mundane body was already having trouble adjusting to the gravity.

  ‘Ah…the pain of being inferior among your fellow race.’ She cleaned the blood and continued moving.

  More minutes passed and Luna was already slowing down. To her, the world was spinning. She felt sick. Her breath was shallow, her heartbeat sluggish. Each step felt like sinking into quicksand. Black spots danced in her vision.

  Six minutes elapsed and Luna was finding it hard to her composure.

  Just how thick was this wall?

  Ten minutes elapsed. The end of the tunnel could be seen but it still appeared so far. It made Luna wonder if they were in some magical trap that messes with space.

  But then, after two more minutes, the group made it to the end of the tunnel. Sadly for Luna, the gravitational forces overwhelmed her and forced her into a state of absolute surrender.

  So for the rest of the journey, she was lying in Lena’s arms like a princess.

  “You can put me down now!” Her face was all red.

  “Sure.”

  Lena shot her a mischievous grin and dropped her on the snow surface.

  “Ouch.”

  “That’s payback from earlier.”

  “Rude.” Luna hissed. She lifted herself off the ground. Her body was quick to adjust back to the normal gravity. “This is so much better.”

  “You might be different now but it seems your body is still normal.”

  “Well…Cough!.” Her response was cut off by a horrible cough. It was followed by the taste of blood. She ignored it and cleared her throat. “Well, I’m not an ascender. I have a great level of endurance. But it's not the ‘hit me with a metal pipe and it will bend type’. It's just better than my previous level.”

  “I see.” Lena then turned her powerful gaze to what was left of the kingdom walled inside the ice walls.

  “This place is much worse than Verge,” Luna remarked as she also stared at the remains of the kingdom.

  “I agree.”

  Everything here was in ruins. The white corral buildings had been reduced to nothing. Some of them were in bits with black parts to show signs of fire while others were just scattered rubble.

  From where they stood, the kingdom looked more like a battlefield than a place that used to house thousands of people. There were no standing buildings aside from the tower and pristine white statues of five humans scattered across the small kingdom. Each statue was adorned in armor with a trident carved in the chest. And strangely, each one of them was looking up at the black hole looming over the kingdom.

  ‘I wonder what happened to this world’s people. Did they succumb to corruption too or die fighting cursed creatures?’

  She noticed the frozen corpses of monsters scattered everywhere. There were also a few human corpses scattered around but each carcass now looked like a grey skeleton after being in the coldness for too long.

  She already knew that humans roamed the divine realm. However, these humans leaned more toward the divine and mystical side of things. They had magical abilities like ascenders. But when the end came, it wiped out all of them.

  “Now only such places exist. Everything else about them was erased. How unfortunate. I would’ve liked to learn the secrets of our worlds with their help.”

  Surrounded by the chaos, the Ivory Tower felt like a living thing. On top of it was the source of the light—a single beautiful golden flame born from the purest life essence.

  Whenever the energies from the vortex tried to descend, they would be swallowed up by the flames. It's like the single flame is what was holding back the black hole.

  The longer she stared at the flame, the more Luna felt a faint connection to it. One hand moved up to the runes on her forearm. She felt them itch.

  ‘The Sun God’s power.’ Luna gulped.

  Darkness dismissed her summon and manifested a silver spear for herself.

  Lena called for her transparent blade. This time it didn’t manifest like did before. This time, the forged weapon’s energy hummed as pristine white flames grew out of her hand to create a sword that looked like pure glass with runes on the surface.

  The sword’s entire presence had changed. It had evolved with its user!

  Storm Rider noticed the change on the sword. She stared at it for a while. Her gaze turned slightly familiar before she moved them away from the beautiful long sword.

  No one had seen this except Lena herself.

  The small group walked into the ruined kingdom with braced expressions. Nothing attacked them while on the way. This would’ve been a good thing if Storm hadn’t mentioned that this place was a red zone, meaning it was infested with cursed creatures of all kinds.

  This forced them to become even more alert as they walked through the ruins.

  The snow and rock crunched under Luna’s feet. While she trailed behind, she bothered extending her senses, in hopes of locating Snow and Gail or Valentine. But nothing worked.

  They were either not in her range or something was messing with her senses because she received nothing no matter how far she tried.

  It was similar to standing in the abyss. The only difference was that she could see this time around.

  After walking for almost twenty minutes, Storm Rider halted sharply and said in an urgent tone. “This place wasn’t like this before. Something killed every monster I left here. There is too much death in the air. Its presence…”

  Suddenly, a shadow streaked across the sky. Darkness narrowed her eyes, her instincts screaming danger. Before she could think, she was already in motion. The ground shattered when she shot off into the sky.

  “Ahh!”

  The figure in the sky stopped flying when it noticed her.

  At the same time, Darkness stopped mid-air and charged her spear with her Aura. There was a spark in her sapphire eyes as she launched the spear with a force that broke the sound barrier.

  “Darkness wa…!”

  Her spiteful grin disappeared when a familiar voice hit her ears. Her eyes widened once she realized she had acted too fast.

  Luckily, the flying man stopped her spear when it was inches away from his chest. His breath trembled when he saw just how close he was to death if he hadn’t stopped the weapon.

  Gail’s hand was left trembling even after the spear disappeared. That’s how powerful the gravity aura was.

  The woman who had just thrown the spear flew to him and stopped once she saw his face. Her sapphire eyes were a bit dull from the last time he saw them.

  “For the Ares’s sake Gail. Why didn’t you say something?” Darkness yelled at him.

  “I had to make sure—”

  “I’m glad to see you too, golden boy.” Darkness cut him off.

  A weak smile formed on his lips. He looked down and sighed, relieved to see everyone. “You guys made it…I’m glad.”

  “And you?”

  “We’re all here, including Valentine. He helped us kill every cursed creature apart from one in these walls. Also, we need to leave before it notices us.”

  After the short reunion, Gail led everyone and Storm Rider to the shelter they had been living in for the past weeks.

  On the other hand, Luna was more relieved to hear that Valentine had also made it through the wasteland.

  She was glad they hadn’t lost anyone to this floor.