Chapter 187: Across A Universe – Part 3

Chapter 187: Across A Universe – Part 3

I send in the Holly, and it suddenly comes out into a wholly different world. The sun shines warmly, pretty white clouds cover half of the vibrant, blue sky, and a carpet of floating islands flanks on both sides of a corridor that continues off into the distance.

We've finally reached the "habitation" level.

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I fly closer to the islands. They seem to have a similar architecture to the Sky Lander fantasy-sci-fi mix of apartment buildings and multiple levels of roads, but with the overly-decorated Gothic style of the Titans, and their designs are so perfectly logical that it's like we're looking at a work of geometric art. It seems that they're better at urban planning than the Sky Landers in every way.

But the islands are all empty. There's absolutely no sign of life on them except for the procession along the corridor. Ghost towns creep me out, but even the girls are curious, wanting to take a look, so I slow down enough that I can release a bird summon to explore one of the islands.

The first thing I notice is a billboard ad about magical perfume, and it gives me strong Earth deja vu vibes. Then I take in the colors of everything else. The city feels vibrant, partially because of the ads, and partially because it really is just pretty. The edgy architecture is still there, but now it's all about celebrating their culture instead of intimidating invaders, which makes the death cult we met before feel so jarring.

This is a happy place, so I wonder how they brainwashed themselves so thoroughly, but then I find the answer in the leaflets scattered across the streets.

"THE GATE TO OBLIVION HAS OPENED! THE END HAS BEGUN! MAY YOUR LAST JOURNEY BE FILLED WITH BLISS!"

And there's a drawing of a happy woman praising the sun under the bold letters.

They turned death into happiness, though this might've also had the side-effect of making them love pain. If death is good, then dying is great!

But I don't care enough about the Titans to think more deeply about it.

The bird spends only a moment staring at the drawing, then moves on.

There doesn't seem to be any trash or dirt staining the perfectly colorful concrete jungle except for these leaflets; the green areas are plentiful and look immaculately cared for; and the brown asphalt roads look used, but the traffic signs are all bright and recently repainted. It doesn't seem like a utopia, but rather, it's the apex of Earthling culture, just repeated infinitely as every island city is similar, which is better than what we Earthlings ever did since there were extremely few places like this.

Then I notice something curious: energy lines. They've never been a thing anywhere else in Rupegia, so it's a new development, but that only means that the Titans have gone even further than humanoids or Earthlings ever did.

It feels... embarrassing to have been surpassed by a race that was born to be a copy of us. They only ever managed to create inferior copies of our culture, so to learn that they are capable of evolving is vexing.

"They have an advantage, though," Ciel retorts through [Bind] as she rests for a moment. "Everything humanoids possess has been earned through hard work and brilliance, while monsters simply received everything we did through no effort of their own."

True. They're upstarts who have "power lines" as their sole achievement.

Then the scouting bird comes across a school, and I realize I've never seen a Titan child before, but that gives me a dreadful feeling, so I unsummon the bird before it can go inside.

Our melee group, which is composed only of the royals and our elite, is fighting outside the fortress, and that attracts a large group of Titans, which are easy targets for our guns. Unfortunately, the group is gradually pushed back as there are just too many enemies around.

This frees up a few bridges for the Titans to cross, who now attempt to climb onto the fortress and pressure it, but then the new soldiers who were (hastily) trained with SMGs arrive, and this helps keep things under control. Still, Sandoro has the men on alert to begin retreat at any moment.

As for the Super-Raki, we pass by four "habitation" levels, then reach a "farm" level, which is multiple layers of endless fields, each with its own little sun for maximum sunlight absorption.

But just as we enter it, we see portals scoop out parts of the procession. Then more bridges suddenly connect to our fortress, and an even larger wave of tin cans appears to immediately make use of the further widened choke point.

Wait, is the dungeon's escalation based on our progress?

The timing is too perfect for us to think otherwise.

"I feel desperation," Aoi cryptically remarks, but it's also rather insightful. The T-posers in the towers showed that they can track my position, so they should know how close we are to the core.

And now our fortress is at risk again. With the Titans slowly covering it in bodies, mages will eventually also reach it, and then they'll be able to covertly open holes.

Just as we think that, a siren followed by a beep resounds throughout the fortress, the sign for everyone to get ready to retreat. Sandoro is taking our directive very seriously.

"Your Highnesses, let's retreat!" a bodyguard for the Hau-Hou pleads to his Prince.

"Not yet!" Hekeman bravely declines as he crushes a Titan with his own edgy sledgehammer.

On our side, things are still stable, and Ciel's [Light Spirit] immediately deals with any wounds, so the only danger is if an elite like the needle-freeze bastards appears.

"The last one to retreat is king!" Urmeie gleefully shouts. That's actually an offensive statement since the Hau-Hous and our family do already have kings, but it quickly gets lost and forgotten in the chaos of battle.

And I also have something more important to worry about.

"We need to go faster," I grimly blurt out.

"I can improve the enchantment!" Lina shouts in my soul space as she's too busy crushing knees to speak normally.

But I decline, for now, "Not yet. We can reduce our weight by taking off our armor... and removing one person from the plane."

Then I reflexively brace for impact, expecting Alissa to complain, but she's very understanding and makes only a single request, "Get one of the doll golems here. You need an extra pair of eyes."

"Sure," I immediately agree.

Chesa creates a donut-shaped... wait, no, it's 4D, so... well, whatever. It's a storm that surrounds the fortress to make it harder for the Titans to approach, so it gives everyone a breather, but we're starting to spend too much effort on maintaining this position, so we still might abandon it today.

There are already a few breaches, though the maze-like interior has prevented it from becoming a true invasion. We're just waiting for the next escalation from the Dungeon Master.

Suddenly, the Dust of Appearance lifts from the ground and sticks to the invisible forms of the approaching not-ninjas.

"Assassins!" a Companion immediately announces, and the others echo her, alerting everyone in our melee group.

"Hah! I love killing assassins!" Urmeie immediately shouts and launches herself at them.

"Be careful!" Ciel tries to warn the adrenaline junkie.

But Urmeie doesn't listen and sends reckless attacks, which are perfectly dodged by using the fourth dimension, as predicted. These assassins have been trained so well in 4D that even we have trouble with them.

Then the Princess hesitates for a second, confused and surprised by the level of skill of her opponents, but then she resumes her attacks, this time with even more savagery. Though they still do miss, the assassins have to jump back and create distance.

Time that I use to continue flying at supersonic speeds towards the core, and I even manage to get to the next "type" of levels before they reach our super-fortress.

The levels of endless, multiple layers of farms finally end, and the next level only has one building in it: a huge, city-sized cathedral that seems to be made of half black stone and half colorful stained glass. But its overall shape is basically one huge ball of spikes.

I decide to pilot the Super-Raki myself, even though there's still a corridor occupied by the Titan procession that the golems can follow. I've already rested enough and have eaten a quick lunch, so I'm ready to fly again. And so, I just get Samkelo to help me pull out my Thread again, and then I take over the plane.

The inside of the cathedral isn't much different from the outside, so it seems more like a work of art than any sort of practical building, and not even five minutes later, I find the portal, so there's no more point in trying to guess what the fuck this level is for.

The next level also feels like an art gallery. It's a bunch of huge, naked statues doing JoJo poses. In the following level, there's a collection of huge 3D paintings made with colored clouds, and they even move very slowly, but the problem is that Titans have a thing for suffering and being edgy, so I don't pay much attention to them.

And so, I quickly fly past a few dozen more art levels, but then I reach a level that only has one large floating city, which still has citizens. It's just that they aren't Titans. It's a city of orcs.

Then the corridors that the Titans are using in their procession suddenly widen to four times their initial size and become so thick that our C4 isn't enough to demolish them.

The dungeon has escalated things again.

A long, wide bridge grows out of the Gothic pillar fortress and towards our super-fortress. The horde is right at its edge, screaming and roaring as they madly rush towards us, their numbers so great now that we even start to hear the rumble of their footsteps.

Then we detonate the pillar fortress, and the bridge collapses along with it, taking the crazed Titans down into the black, endless void. We know that the bottom loops into the sky, so they'll eventually fall onto the dungeon's bridge once it grows again, but until then, they'll just fall endlessly.

That was our last trick, though. Even though we're now finally in 3D again, we know that the Dungeon Master will abuse its powers to drown us in canned Titans, but we can't retreat so easily this time.

As for the city of orcs, I just have another bird briefly scout it, but it seems to be a cheaper copy of the Titan cities, so I put it out of my mind and fly into the next portal. And now it's a floating city of... not-orcs?

They seem thinner and smaller, but not really hobgoblins, and not truly orcs either. Their city is also visibly less vibrant.

I'm tired of watching these weird-ass levels with their experiments and art projects. It's like the Dungeon Master is using the levels to stall.

And to counter that, I need to go even faster.

Announcement

Hall of Fame of Patrons

The patrons who support Rupegia shall have their names sung by the bards for they deserve the glory and honor. Their names are:

Prince PreownedFIN.

Prince Owldente.

Prince S. R.

Lord Andrew Meyers.

Lord Bakerdea.

Lord Maurice.

Lord Mattirro Draca.

Lord Tenebris Lupus.

Lord Paul Daval.

Lord Paul Daval.

Lord CopeyDunt.

Lord BlindTactic.

Lord Philip.

Lord d3235.

Lord SubJef.

Lord School work.

Lord patrick__starz.

Lord Peter Kraushuber

Lord David England.

Lord Marwin33.

Lord modislaszlo.

Lord Tenebris Lupus.

Noble Aclys.

Noble Carl Baxter.

Noble DND.

Noble Anon A Moose.

Noble GalacticTNT.