Chapter 64 - Fateful Mission
The next morning, everyone met up at the dungeon entrance. Wiene transformed and they were off to the 99th floor to save the gods. The team was flying and used vertical holes the entire way to speed up travel while avoiding monsters. Ahti and Vellamo were enjoying the flight but Mikoto did not like the flying so much. Encountered monsters in the early floors avoided them until the Goliath on the 17th floor. Bell and Ais quickly dealt with the goliath with a 30 second Ariel/firebolt attack. Bell and Ais went ahead to Rivira to touch base with the Xenos, while Wiene collected the magic stone. By the time Wiene arrived to Rivira, Bell and Ais already finished their short meeting and basically there was nothing new.
After another couple hours, they already passed Udaeus' floor and fortunately, it was too early for a respawn. The only encounters were with some insects that were repelled with firebolt and aerial. With the colosseums on the 45th, 47th and 48th floors, they were able to simply blast away at the entrance and at the exit without wasting much fire power. By lunch time, they were on the 50th floor. It was a short stop for lunch and time to put on Wiene's armor for the labyrinth floors. The most important issue was that Ahti and Vellamo have not thus far triggered any reaction from the dungeon. One of biggest concerns would be for monsters to be spawned everywhere if they are 'noticed'...
The flight through the labyrinth floors encountered 3 dragons. Saving Wiene's lightning edges, Bell and Ais relied on Ariel/crystal attacks with 30 second argonaut charging and then a couple follow-up Aerial/crystal attacks with no argonaut. They did stop to collect the magic stones, but they got through the labyrinth floors in one hour. The next challenge was the 60th floor where they had to slow down due to the abyss like darkness. Fortunately, there were no encounters on the floor, and the team quickly moved on. They have gotten really good at avoiding encounters, so the next problematic floor would be the 68th floor where they met the regenerating goliath on the last trip. However, it had not yet respawned so they were able to keep moving forward.
After another 2 hours, they reached the 85th floor which still resembled the 18th floor. They took a short break to rest as the frozen 86th floor would be next. After preparing everyone for the frigid floor, they headed down again. Fortunately, the white goliath had not respawned, and they were able to get past the floor without a major encounter. The next issue would be whether the red dragon respawned on the 88th floor. Luckily, the monster had not yet respawned. They kept going and got to the dark 91st floor where they had to slow down again. Like last time, there were several encounters but with scorpions and black rhinos that were defeated with Ariel/firebolt attacks. When they got to the 94th floor, everything was the same with many vertical holes that were brightly lit from the min-sun below. Before entering the 95th floor they called to let Hestia, Finn and Riveria know what they were about to do. They then went down one of the vertical holes and reached the 95th floor with the large cavern in the middle that led to the mini-sun.
Everything seemed to be undisturbed since their last trip with the glass tanks filled with baby virgas. They decided that destroying the incubation facilities would be left until they have looked into the mini-sun. They then went to look at the baby violas and those appear the same also. So they went below to the 97th floor with the strange metallic objects and containers.
Ahti and Vellamo looked through the various objects and containers, as well as the mini-sun. Unfortunately, they could not figure out what was going on either, and thus they would have to use their divine powers. The problem is how would the dungeon react to their divine presence, and so deep inside the dungeon. Would monsters start appearing in an insane rate? Would some new type of monster spawn with god-like powers? The goal of the trip was to rescue the gods, and they had no choice but live with the consequences...
Ahti suggested that he alone would use his powers and the rest should move up 1 floor in case the effects are disastrous. Once alone, Ahti activated his powers, causing a loud shock wave in the dungeon that the entire group felt. Ahti probed the mini-sun/white sphere and immediately understood that the white sphere and the black sphere were actually connected. Furthermore, the timeless dimension was actually within the black sphere so he would need to reach inside the black sphere to save the gods. As he probed the mini-sun, the entire dungeon underwent a few earthquakes. Nevertheless, Ahti continued to probe the mini-sun and realized that he could swap the white sphere with the black sphere with his powers, but then everything would be sucked inside.
Meanwhile in Orario, the various familias were gathering to discuss the team's progress when the earthquakes hit. With the earthquakes emanating from the dungeon, they suspected that was the dungeon's reaction to the use of divine powers...
Back on the 97th floor, the rest of the team rejoined Ahti and asked what was going on. Ahti explained what he had learned but the problem is if he swap the white sphere with the black sphere, then everything would be sucked inside just like the gods. Thus they must also be able to open up the black sphere to free the gods. Ais asked what about all those metallic containers and equipment. Ahti said that they only support the operation by keeping the sphere from moving. At that point, Vellamo suggested that she also use her divine powers to help. With no other choice, everyone agreed amidst the periodic earthquakes that seemed to be the dungeon's reactions to the divine presence.
Vellamo activated her divine powers, which immediately increased the severity of the earthquakes. With their combined powers, they learned that they could open up the black sphere temporarily before it would become unstable. Unfortunately they were not sure what would happen after the black sphere became unstable. Would it freeze time in the entire area? Would it then pull everything back in? Bell asked if the others got free, would they be able to control the black sphere better? Vellamo indicated she thought so, but the other gods would have no time to prepare nor react so it would not be realistic for them to lend assistance. Mikoto then asked if it was possible to restart time within the black sphere by using the white sphere in some way. Ahti and Vellamo probed some more and discovered that they could not restart time, but they could possibly merge the white sphere and the black sphere to cancel other out and freeing everyone inside. However, there was a risk of a massive explosion that would wipe out everything within a certain distance from the spheres. With the increasing severity of the earthquakes, they realized that they were running out of time. Thus, the decision was made to merge the white sphere with the black sphere but only the gods would stay on the 97th floor. With that decided, Bell, Ais, Mikoto and Wiene had 1 hour to fly away.
Thus the team headed up the dungeon levels while Ahti and Vellamo prepared to merge the white sphere with the black sphere. As the four adventurers left the cavern and into the 94th floor, they encountered a massive number of monsters. All they could do was to avoid as many as they could and kept flying up the dungeon. They discovered that monsters were spawning everywhere and the situation was completely out of control. However, all they could do was to use attack spells to open a path to keep flying up the dungeon floors.
For 1 hour, the team struggled with the thousands of spawning monsters, but then Ahti and Vellamo activated their magic. The black sphere materialized and slammed into the white sphere, causing a massive explosion...