Chapter 293 293: The 5th Floor Welcome

[Welcome To The 5th Floor: Theme: The Crystal Seas]

[Welcome To Seperia, A Planet 98% Covered In Water, With Small Pockets Of Land That Are Worth Their Weight In Gold. But Once, This World Had An Equal Ratio Between Water And Land, With Much Of It Now Buried Under The Seven Crystal Seas.

Within Their Depths Lies The Secrets And Treasures Of The Old World, Before It Was All Swallowed By The Great Flood. None More Greater Than The Trident Poseidon, A Treasure That Would Give One Power Over The Seas Of This World, And As Such, Power Over The World Itself. Sail On Aspirants And Be Careful For The Sea Is Filled With Secrets And Dangers In Equal Measure…..Beware The Kraken! Time Until Floor Collapse: 1 Real World Week, Time Dilation On This Floor Is A 1:1 Ratio]

That was all Cole could see before he landed in the water with a big splash. Salt water stung his eyes, as he was disoriented not able to tell which way was up or which way was down. But at his level of strength, holding his breath for a while was definitely something he could do, So Cole calmed himself down long enough to get his bearings.

The ocean he was in, or rather the body of water was weirdly blue, or to be more specific sapphire. But he could still see easily as he swam upwards and his head broke out of the ocean. He took a deep breath of air, as he looked around. There was nothing in sight, no ships, no islands, no nothing. Just an endless horizon of water as far as his very advanced eyes could see.

"Well this is fucked up." Cole said to himself, as he looked at his logs, noticing that he had a couple more notifications waiting for him.

[5th Floor Main Quest: Seek The Path Of the Sixth Floor, Buried Deep Under The Sea In High Temple Of The Sapphire Sea. But beware, the path there is rife with danger and borrow the likes of which you have never seen, and you are running out of time./ Rewards: 1 Gold Rank Prisms Of The Sapphire Sea, 10Million Gold]

[5th Floor Side Quest I: Within The Sapphire Seas Are Horrors Of Gold Rank I To X! Slay Ten Of These Monsters To Prove Your Mettle! Reward: 1 Million Gold Per Kill, Gold Rank Alchemical Evolution Stone]

[5th Floor Side Quest II: Seek Out Peronico Porins And Deliver Him And His Family Safely To The Isle Of Meros./Rewards: ??????]

At the very least he did not have to go find someone to accept these quests like he did in the first and second floor. But ultimately this was bullshit. How in the hell is he supposed to find the temple, or this Peronico person when he had no idea where he was, or which direction he had to be moving in. This was as crazy as it was unfair, never the less the entire floor promises to give a different experience than what he has faced in the other ones.

*Splash!*

Something wrapped around Cole's foot and yanked him down into the sea. Water splashes and ripples were the only thing that showed that Cole had been present here before. Coles screamed, bubbles escaping from his mouth as he was dragged down, and whatever it was, it was a lot stronger than he was, as even with his superior strength, Cole could not pull himself free.

He looked down, his eyes working well even in the murky waters to see that he was being dragged along by a giant Octopus. Of course it was a giant octopus, there has never been a more cliché sea monster and now he was about to get easing by one. The inertia from being dragged, did not even allow Cole bend to attack the beast, it was hard to even bring his arms down to do so.

But physical attacks were not the only thing that Cole had access to, and frankly speaking it was time to stop playing around. [Gravity] the entire motion came to a halt as Cole wrapped both himself and the giant octopus in a sphere of gravity that quickly expelled all of the water that was within it. The octopus landed with a wet splat, but that did not stop it from attacking as it sent two of it's massive arms in Cole's direction.

He jumped up, the sphere he had created was massive, enough to cover both him and the octopus with more than enough space to spare so that they could both do battle. Cole created a spinning disk of Chaos and chunked it in the octopus's direction, and that was when he got the first shock of his life about this floor. The creature wrapped it's eight massive arms around itself and created an inky black dome around it's form.

Cole's shock was palpable as the octopus had been able to do it a lot faster than he had expected, creating the defended by retracting its arms or legs and moving it in tandem with the others to wrap around itself to create a dome around it's body. Cole's disk of chaos bounced off it's shell like he had thrown a rock against a metal frame.

There was loud ding as the attack was blasted back and the octopus responded with one of it's own. The ink that surrounded it's body blasted off, turning into multiple spikes that slammed against the gravity barrier that Cole had around them. But the barrier bounced them backwards as Cole evaded, but ever bounce was a change in trajectory for the octopus as soon enough the entre barrier was filled with a web of inky spikes.

Cole growled out in annoyance. Amongst all of his skills, only his chaos Blast skill was a direct attacking skill. It was not a problem he thought of before, but now that he has realized it, he knew he had limited himself. The [Gravity] skill was versatile and could serve as an attack, but what he mainly were skills with effects. His [Sin Eater] was not a direct skill and more often than not required him to be in physical contact with his enemies to work, Cole needed attacks skills, and as soon as he was done filleting this giant sushi, he would handle that.

[Vertigo]

The octopus, heck not just the entire octopus. Space itself within the [Gravity] barrier seemed to spin into itself. Even Cole felt extreme nausea from using the skill, he was shocked by just how effective the skill was now. If he who owned the skill could feel so nauseous from it's usage, then it was hard to explain just what the octopus was filling.

In response the creature seemed to explode with ink, coating the entire barrier in the cloudy and somewhat viscous substance. Cole had no choice but to dissolve the [Gravity] barrier as the ocean rushed in, and swept everything away. But through the cloud of ink in the sea Cole could see that the Octopus was trying to run away. It was strong and it was fast, but it seemed the [Vertigo] skill was too much for it to handle, but there was no way in hell Cole was letting it get away.

He shot towards it, his body cutting through the water as he grabbed one of the legs of the octopus and use one of his many Auxiliaries [Telekinesis] to help with the massive girth of the creature as he spun around and flung it out of the ocean. Considering how deep they were, and the resistance the water had that was so much more than the wind, this was an impressive feat of strength and skill.

The octopus burst out of the ocean in a spray or foam and ink as it let out a struggle screech. Cole followed right behind it, Chaos energy suffusing his entire body as he cocked his hand backwards, letting it build as he used [Gravity] to propel himself even faster as he chased after the creature. Even startled the octopus was not willing to go down without a fight.

It sent all of it's arms stabbing down towards Cole, all of them covered by hardened ink to give them more force. That did not stop Cole though as he wrapped himself with [Gravity] and then began to spin it around himself as he made a big drill out of it. The legs of the octopus was shredded to pieces the moment they made contact as it let out an ungodly screech in the process.

Cole canceled the [Gravity] drill as he got close enough to the body of the Octopus and smashed his fist into its skull. There was a loud boom, as a powerful shockwave was spread across the horizon. It was so powerful that it created ripples that spread out form the epicenter of their clash for kilometers on end.

As for the octopus, it landed onto the surface of the sea with a massive splash, the back of it's skull blasted open with it's inmates obliterated and turned to mush.

[You Have Slain Gold Rank II Ancient Beast Of The Deep! +1 Gold Rank Core Of The Deep]

"Now that's what I Call a Welcoming ceremony!"