Chapter 122: Gravity Room

As they were falling, Kiro could see giant spikes waiting for them at the bottom. He just closed his eyes because his shoulders weren't healing fast enough. The moment they met prickly iron spikes the room changed atmosphere and they were in front of a door.

"F*ck. I thought I was done for!"

Hubris didn't even offer up a comment. They just laid there, taking a breather. Kiro didn't want to stay in there any longer though, so he got up and twisted the doorknob and as the door to the mysterious room creaked open, a rush of anticipation filled the air.

Outside the room were more doors than Kiro could count. As soon as they stepped inside, their bodies were forced on the dirty floor. They tried and failed to get up.

"Must be gravity. Dammit."

The place was unlike any other they've ever been in, a chamber where the laws of physics seemed to bend and twist at will. It was a new experience which Kiro didn't readily accept.

It was painful. It strained his muscles to the maximum, he thought any second his muscles would explode because of the pressure. Just when he was ready to be turned into ground beef, the room would shift.

The walls twisted and turned at odd angles, and the floor seemed to curve away into the distance. Making them nauseated for just looking at it.

Each step they took felt like stepping into another dimension. They could feel the gravitational pull shift at all times, sometimes sideways, sometimes upwards and sometimes even downwards. It was disorienting, to say the least, as the room defied their sense of balance and spatial awareness.

If there was furniture in there they'd use that to clung on to any kind of stability. Kiro didn't like the fact that, up and down didn't seem to exist here. They were floating weightlessly one minute as if gravity had abandoned them and smashing into the walls as if gravity demanded their very being in another.

It was a surreal experience, one that challenged his understanding of the laws of physics. He couldn't believe the devs created something so, evil in his own words.

The room seemed to toy with their perceptions, distorting their sense of direction and orientation. Even Hubris wasn't safe, as he said, this must've been created by a being that was much stronger than he was.

The enchanting crystal was the source of the room's gravity manipulation, the key to unlocking its secrets. Kiro knew they had to retrieve it, despite the risks.

Their journey from the door to the centre, Kiro noticed things. Even though it seemed the gravity shifted at random times, in random places. There was a pattern, though slight. They could with certainty, avoid about 40% of the gravity geysers. The rest laid with lady luck.

With great care and coordination, they worked their way to reach the altar in one piece. Hubris used not just his speed, but also his intangibility skill to avoid getting the full blast of the geysers. With his keen senses, he reached an almost 60% avoidance.

Kiro on the other hand, had blink, it was strange using these skills with another energy that wasn't mana. But it seemed to strengthen them, so he was faster than he would've been if it was mana. He also activated lightning to increase his speed, his lightning came out black and ominous.

It turned his eyes dark blue, it didn't just course all over his body, it put up a thin layer of what looked like shield around his body.

He saw that Hubris was about to be turned into a pancake. He was running straight for the geyser, he must've miscalculated where it'd appear next. Kiro noticed that he was looking at through his vibrational sense.

"Hubris, left, left, turn left!"

Whether it was on purpose or by a lucky mistake. Kiro managed to charge the particles in the room with his lightning skill. That weakened the gravity geyser greatly. Hubris was still blasted to the roof, but it wasn't too bad since Kiro managed to move him slightly without having touched him.

"I could do that? What did I just do?" Without the system to explain everything to him, everything was going at a snail's pace.

They finally made it to the centre of the gravity room. Kiro stood there for a minute, transfixed at what was right in front of him. The crystal gave off a warm and wonderful feeling.

He kneeled on both of his knees, partly because he was tired from carrying the weight of what seemed to be the universe' burdens. He gently picked up the crystal, as if afraid he was going to break.

The moment he picked it up, the room died, it went back to be an ordinary room.