His body started falling like a puppet with its strings cut off. He barely turned during the fall with difficulty orienting himself to face the monster. A flame hovered above his palm shooting out as soon as it came into existence. One after another, they kept shooting out, and when he saw the swarm of flames that had illuminated the corridor he felt safe. These flames were powerful, this had been constantly reaffirmed with each time he cast it so he was sure this time would be the same.

A blast of air and every single one of them exploded into a swarm of sparks. The power of the blast was such that most of the sparks exploded leading to a chain reaction. Just a few seconds has passed but he was suddenly plunged in despair as the few remaining sparks rained upon his unmoving body, exploding, lighting his body and clothes on fire. He howled but even that suddenly stopped.

A blast sounded again and this time he could see the sword as it cut toward him. In a blink of an eye, it collided with his shoulder and then continued onwards in a diagonal cut, leaving his body dissected into two parts. He felt nothing for a moment and then his brain went into overdrive.

A flame appeared upon his palm but it diffused. Then another appeared but it fizzled out. Then another appeared but it exploded as soon as it came out.

His mind had gone into a zone, looking for a way to survive. He kept twisting and turning the mechanisms within the spell module when it appeared and with it, his head dropped down. The sudden movement made the sword land on his neck when a massive flame shot out.

Midair, it exploded but this time swarm of sparks was unhindered by the air blast as they converged upon its head and exploded simultaneously. The explosion quickly covered both of them while his head rolled down his neck, his brain etching the scene with the last few seconds it had remaining.

***

He woke up. Again there was no pain but as he looked at his naked body it was now fully covered with scars whether they be cut, stabs, or burns everything was present everywhere. Despite that, he felt better than he had ever before. His energy reserve had improved like on the 5th floor but this time something was different. He clenched his fist and he could feel that it now held power much greater than even a few moments ago. The excitement quickly wore off though as he remembered the boss monster he had just encountered. Boss because it was absurdly more powerful than any other monster that he had come across.

Despite the miraculous recovery, he felt tired, his body by itself laid down, and then his eyes close on their own.

He woke up and a picture was etched within his mind. The massive fire as it flew towards the monster. He closed his eyes diving into the spell module and searching for what he had done to make the normally finger-sized flame into the massive size that had burned the monster to death.

It was to no avail, he kept searching but with no results to show. Taking a break he shifted his focus towards the hologram.

Points: 315

Purchase:

Skills
Elixirs

Skills:

Cloak of Fire
Cost: 135

Elixirs:

Elixir of Body
Cost: 150
Elixir of Soul
Cost: 150

Without any thought, he purchased the spell. 180 points remaining, after much thinking he purchased an Elixir of Body.

The energy was sucked out as a flaming barrier covered him from all sides. Closing his eyes he focused on the connection with the reservoir. For now, he ignored the increased clarity he felt from the connections and instead focused on the energy within. He focused on the reservoir while a flame appeared on his palm. The energy within was sucked and as he compared it to both of the consumptions the barrier seemed to have consumed multiple times more.

His focus shifted towards the red-colored barrier which despite having the color it had, did not impact his vision in any way. He took out a knife and pushed it against the barrier. Slowly the knife became red and then even more quickly it started turning limp, finally unable to bear the heat he let go of the hilt and it fell on the ground, its shape distorting further from the impact. As he looked at it, the barrier’s color felt slightly faded so he again took out another knife this time pushing it even further in. The blade went in and he could see the blade popping out the other side. The blade became crimson, his hands instinctively letting go as the previously gray-colored blade quickly changed the color. This time he sees the difference in the color from the first time he had cast it.

He was going to continue when suddenly a foreign connection snapped into his mind and information was conveyed to his mind.

Thirty minutes until the resting room closes.

And then it was gone. He was going towards the door when a thought suddenly appeared in his mind and he went off to the side and started offering his prayers. This time for even more days as he felt the time he spent this time was much greater than the previous one.

***

Pitch black darkness that would have been even deeper if not for the small, slim, almost invisible beams of lights that fell from the sky. It was like throwing a few buckets of water at a forest fire. It did not accomplish much and the same was the case here. It was difficult for him to even see his own hands let alone his surroundings.

A soft wind blew but it served to only enhance the creepiness of the place. He shivered instinctively both from fear and from the cold. As they looked into the surrounding that was thoroughly hidden behind the darkness the intensity only heightened.

A light appeared above his palm as the darkness was somewhat pushed behind revealing his surroundings. A world of white. In the limited space that was illuminated, he could see white moss covering everything around him. From the ground below his feet to the tower-like things that pierced straight towards the sky, all within proximity to each other. 

His head moved up and up but all he could see was them going into that pitch-black darkness that now seemed even darker in contrast with the light. He shook his head and thanked God for the lights that saved him from living in such darkness in his life outside. He knew that this darkness was present in the outside world just that since the bulbs had been invented the human had gained the power to banish it. Here though he was powerless, surrounded as he was from all sides, trapped within this ink-black darkness.

He started cutting the moss on the towers but as those on the surface were cut off he saw wood underneath. He went into another and cut off the moss, again it was a tree. He repeated the process a few times and then looked up in wonder and awe. Each tower was wide enough that a group of a few people would be needed to circle them.

Coming back to himself he went and cut into the tree. It was much easier than he had assumed. As he pushed, the knife went in easily, not facing much resistance from the wood unlike what he had thought.

Using the flame he lit up the block of wood and started moving. Left, right, front, back, up. Suddenly the directions he had to worry about had multiplied and the darkness made him unable to see anything. It ate him from inside. Constantly his head jerked at the slightest sound as the winds created spooky, distorted sounds while passing through this forest made up of giants.

More the time passed, the greater his paranoia became and as it slowly neared the peak his low mumbles could be heard as he repeated all the dua’s that he could remember. He could not calm down, his footsteps became faster and faster until he started running.

He crashed into the tree at speed but moved only slowing down when he felt the flames flicker too much. His speed slowly picked up and he maneuvered through the complex environment that was created due to the tightly-packed tree, their roots, the moss, and other things that decorate this forest floor. As he ran he felt calm overcoming the anxiety that was bubbling within him, causing him to run even faster.

He jumped across the small barrier of roots and his legs bent in preparation for the landing when he was hit. His heart almost leaped out of his throat and his both hands moved. Then came the pain. His flesh suddenly burned up and he could feel blood dripping across his skin. He screamed. And then tired smashing the scaled head but the creature moved back, its gray eyes looking at him dully. Its pointy teeth were bloody as it chewed on his flesh.

A calmness overcame him. It was not a ghost but just a monster, just like the ones he had been killing since he set foot in this place. He surveyed the surroundings. Nothing appeared to be there, for now. The monster appeared empty-handed, its fingers ending up in long pointed nails. It rushed, just before collision a barrier appeared. Its strike struck and a scream exploded from its mouth. Capitalizing on it, he rushed even nearer. Its arm penetrated the barrier, burning. It tried to retreat but he threw his knife into its screaming mouth. The jaws snapped shut. He grabbed its burning hand and pulled. Instinctively, it tried placing its other hand on the barrier for support but it too went in. Bringing out another knife he stabbed it into its eye socket. It quickly went limp, the body starting to disintegrate.

He let out a sigh. His mouth opened, but then closed without uttering anything. His head jerked around looking at all the possible places that he could be attacked from and then picked a direction. The pain caused him to stumble. Biting upon the hilt of his knife he burned the wound. Tears leaked from his eyes while he bit even harder on the hilt, feeling pain from his teeth. It was indescribably painful, a pain that he would make sure they too felt. He would make sure they too felt the how everything passing moment was filled with nothing but the pain.

All the paranoia from before suddenly vanished as though it was but a dream and its place was now taken by the dark thoughts that kept swirling through the back of his head. Just like on the first floor the fights were slow at the start and utilizing the free time in between the ambushes he started to connect with the spell module of Cloak of Fire.

During his encounters as he kept on using it, he started finding some problems with it, the primary of which being its inefficiency. The first step in making it better was being able to compress it and then moving it wherever it was required.

The barrier unfurled around him, covering him from all sides and making the torch obsolete. He connected with the barrier this time instead of the spell module. Immediately he found a clue on how he should proceed. It was much easier unlike the with the flame where he still had yet to make any progress.

He felt a connection between the barrier and his reservoir. Shifting his focus to the reservoir he found a path there leading to somewhere. As he had not felt this before he pondered and then dismissed the barrier, plunging himself into the darkness. The path within the barrier too had disappeared. Recasting the barrier he tried tracing the path towards the other side but it was difficult. After multiple failures he decided to shelf it for now and moved to his primary objective, shrinking the barrier. The connection with the barrier was much easier to feel but as he tried to perform any tweaks it would immediately collapse.