Death... and me
chapter-2701

With Luan's help and Sansara's issue resolved, the group was able to continue without any impediments. On the second floor, they took a few hours to find the stairs to the next one. After all, there were no directions to follow, and everything was completely empty.

That wasn't all that bad, though. Without a proper path to follow, the twins didn't really have a reason to open holes in the walls for them to pass. Those holes were the reason Sansara found them in the past, so the less there were, the better.

On the third floor, the same thing happened. Empty corridors, empty rooms, a Wonder Beast here and there...

Then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth...

The only thing that changed from one floor to another was the concentration of Chaos Laws and Energy. It always felt more 'behaved' than the previous. Luan's field of view also got easier and easier to discern.

From outside, the tower seemed to have hundreds of floors. Yet, that wasn't a reliable source of information. After all, space was warped inside the tower, so it might as well have thousands more floors or maybe not even a tenth of what could be seen from outside.

"First of all," Rean commented after finishing another Wonder Beast. "We are working with the possibility that the Purple Crystal is on our way up. But... considering this weird, warped space, what guarantees are there that it is not on the way down instead? Or worse, we might actually still be on the very first floor without being able to confirm it."

Kafan ignored the Wonder Beast's body and shook his head. "So far, the Chaos Laws of the floors have been changing, getting more settled. This is not a guarantee, but it is the only clue we have. It might be an effect of the Purple Crystal."

They once again began to run through the tower. And yet, Roan couldn't help but feel that something wasn't right. "It's too easy..."

Kentucky didn't like it when Roan spoke. "Can't you just pretend it is good to be easy? You will cause that Destiny Attraction shit from the system to activate."

Roan ignored the Minokawa as their group continued to make their way up.

Seventh, eighth, ninth...

Twenty-first, thirty-fifth, forty-seventh...

After enough time, equivalent to twenty days, had passed, the twins' group had already gone up over three hundred floors! They weren't even sure about the exact number anymore.

They went so far, and yet... The same corridors, the same Wonder Beasts, the same empty rooms, architecture, space... The only thing that changed was the Chaos Laws and Energy, which always improved slightly, not in concentration, but in their behavior.

"This is getting ridiculous!" Kentucky was finally losing his patience. "We are going absolutely nowhere!"

"That's not all," Rean added. "We used the outside windows to enter the tower. And yet, ever since then, we haven't seen a single other window. Since we always managed to find the stairs connecting to the next floors, that means the space of each floor isn't exactly enormous. I refuse to believe we were so unlucky that we never ended up straying to the windows in these over three hundred floors."

Roan has thought about this issue for a while now. If they were truly making progress, there was supposed to be something different by now other than the Chaos Laws' behavior. If anything, perhaps it was this strange, well-behaved Chaos Laws that was trapping them in his tower somehow.

Celis pointed up and gave the group an idea. "Before, you said that your combined effort would take tens of hours to open a hole in the ceiling, different from the walls that could be opened in minutes. Don't you find it a little weird? Perhaps Rean's words were right. We truly aren't making any progress. Instead, these changes in Chaos Laws are numbing our senses. Do you understand why?"

Kafan was the first one to catch Celis's thoughts. "The Chaos Laws and Energy of the Wonder Beasts caused Sansara to not be able to feel his own comprehension deteriorating. He even thought he was getting stronger instead. Because of that, we refrained from doing the same thing. However... who said the Chaos Laws and Energy of the environment don't have a similar effect that we can't truly feel?"

"That's to say..." Luan understood. "Our senses are being numbed by this tower, so we can't tell if we are truly progressing or not."

"That's correct," Celis nodded as he continued to point to the ceiling. "The fact these ceilings are so much stronger is probably the key. Rean, Roan, it might be tens of hours like Roan mentioned before, but I need you to try to open a hole in the ceiling nonetheless. I believe Rean will find it very interesting."

"I will?" Rean narrowed his eyes when an idea appeared in his mind. "I see... It might be very interesting indeed."

Roan obviously had no problem with that arrangement. They were stuck, and he didn't have any other ideas anyway. "Very well, let's give it a shot."

Roan wasn't kidding in the past. Even after an entire hour of using the twins' Dark and Light Elements, Rean and Roan barely managed to create a small lump on the ceiling. Considering their thickness, tens of hours might have been a very conservative estimation instead.

One hour became two, then five, ten, twenty... The hole in the ceiling increased very slowly, but at least the tower didn't have any self-repairing ability. It wasn't before three days of constant work that the Rean finally found what Celis guessed to be inside the ceiling. "Fuck this shit! It is truly a fucking formation!"

Rean could clearly see the shape of a rune hidden inside the ceiling, and analyzing it momentarily, Rean could tell it was a Spatial Formation, a very high-level one at that. "Sister Orb, check it."

[Yes, there is no doubt, it is a Legendary Formation, and a very high-level one at that. That's why I couldn't feel its presence through the system. It surpasses the system's capabilities.]

Roan snorted. "So we have probably been on the same fucking floor until now, but the Chaos Laws continued to numb our senses, making it impossible for us to feel these changes in this warped space. So much wasted time. But, at the same time, it makes more sense. How could the insides of the tower possibly have no defenses whatsoever? That would be ridiculous."

Kafan checked the formation with Rean... well, that single rune, actually. They couldn't see the rest of the runes unless the twins opened the whole floor's ceiling, which would take forever. Nonetheless, Rean and Kafan reached the same conclusion.

"That's a very delicate rune, don't you think, Rean?" Kafan asked with a cold smile.

"Hahaha!" Rean laughed in response. "Such a powerful formation that can even use Chaos Laws... Of course, it would be very intricate and delicate. That explains why the ceiling is so fucking hard to breakthrough. It is its defense."

Roan glanced at the two. "You mean?"

"We can break it!" Rean and Kafan answered at the same time.