Chapter 430 - Crushing the Third Floor

With all his weapons at the ready, Cecil charged forward and conjured a thick barrier in front of him. Using the barrier, he smashed head-on with the Sea Behemoth and the force of the impact was able to push the monster down under the ice.

This scene was witnessed by nearly everyone close by and they all gawked at the absurdness of it.

After pushing the Behemoth under the ice, Cecil wielded his weapons and began cutting apart the monster. He didn't want to show his potential enemies the full extent of his power so he moved the battle underwater and instead of using a one-shot-one-kill technique, he decided to just stack up the monster's injuries by using multiple attacks that struck its vital parts.

Above the ice, everyone in the vicinity who had been observing or running away stopped and tried to observe what was happening under the ice. There were no visible movements but they could occasionally see the brief flash of golden light from under the dark waters but that was all.

No one could see what was actually happening under the water and this continued for quite a long time. The only thing they could be sure of was that the battle was still on-going because they could still sense the Sea Behemoth's energy signature.

Soon the light from Cecil's attacks faded, but the Sea Behemoth's energy signature was still there but it was slowly fading. They all sensed that the fight was probably over and it had ended in Cecil's defeat since they could no longer sense his mana signature.

The only way anyone could monitor the situation was by sensing the two sides' energy signatures but it had been a few minutes since they could no longer sense Cecil's so they deduced that he had fled or had been killed while the Sea Behemoth had been injured.

"How reckless, even if he didn't want us to interfere and take advantage of the situation, there was no need for him to risk his life like that..."

"Hehehe, at least one of our competitors are gone. Let's move. We should go gather more crystals."

Some groups began moving away to continue gathering or steal more crystals since there was now a time limit, but others stayed since they wondered why the Sea Behemoth didn't reemerge to rampage about again.

They also wanted to try and take advantage of the injured monster and try to see if they could kill it after it was exhausted from its battle with Cecil, however, after sensing that the Sea Behemoth's energy signature remain stationary but slowly fade away, they all felt something was wrong with the situation and they couldn't be more right about that.

*****

Back to where Ren and everyone else was at, the group had been able to reach the transfer gate that the Regulus and Revertia Holy Kingdom's groups had occupied.

As they were all getting ready to settle down after taking care of some monsters that burst out of the ice, they once more became alert as the ice once more burst apart and a shadow jumped out from the water.

"Everyone get ready!"

The 3 groups quickly got into battle formations and were about to attack the shadow that just landed on the ice. Cecilia was the first to notice and immediately spoke up, "W-wait! That's—"

"Master!"

"Brother-in-law!"

Cecil walked over to them and quickly dried himself using his aura.

"Did anything happen?"

"Nothing, we had only arrived a few hours ago...what happened to the monster and how did you get here so fast?" Celestina asked after reporting to Cecil.

Cecil pulled out a handful of crystal fragments from his spatial ring and handed them over to Celestina, "This should be more than enough to get us through the gate. The Megadolon-shaped monster was kind enough to drop quite a bunch."

"Th-this...no way did you actually kill that thing?!" Celestina exclaimed in shock.

Cecil shrugged and replied, "It's not that hard."

"..."

"Give it here, sister Celestina, I'll go fuse the crystals. I think this should be enough to cover the missing crystals that our entire group needs, right?" Ren said as he turned to ask Karen and Cecilia who were nearby.

"Yes, this should be enough."

"As expected of Lord Cecil, I thank you on behalf of my kingdom for your generosity."

Cecilia and Karen respectively said in reply.

Cecil only nodded towards the two, but it wasn't like he purposefully gathered an excess amount for all 3 of their groups. It was only a coincidence that the Sea Behemoth dropped a large number of crystals after it was killed.

Cecil had harvested its monster core and a few other useable materials and left it under the ice. The Sea Behemoth was such a powerful creature that even after it died, its body was still full of life and its energy didn't scatter which led to the opportunists' misconception that it was only injured while Cecil, who had already finished it off and went away, had died.

"Let's get going then. Staying here any longer will only make us potential prey for those that are still looking for crystal fragments," Cecil said as he urged everyone to quickly make their way towards the gate.

After assembling the crystal fragments, they were able to create 20 crystals with a few fragments left over. These crystals were handed over to the people who needed them and after the distribution, they still had 2 crystals in excess.

Cecil kept these crystals on him. Once everyone was prepared to move, they moved towards the gate and one by one the group moved through the gate and onto the next stage.

******

"Tch, that little mortal was able to easily destroy the Deep-Abyss Megadolon... such power...it surely is him..."

The wisp of light that was monitoring the trial participants in the tower's subspace grew worried and convinced about something when he saw Cecil's strength and face.

"He is the one that the ancient leader divined... I have to get rid of him. With him out of the picture, I'm sure we'll be able to prevent that from happening..."

******

When everyone got to the next floor, it was like they had stepped out of a frozen tundra and straight into a fiery hell.

Everything was blazing hot and the heat that assaulted their bodies was nearly as unbearable as the wintry cold that they had to endure just a moment ago.

"Now it's a flaming hell..." Cecil mumbled.

Everyone who had just passed through the transfer gate quickly began taking off the winter clothes that they were wearing and some of the mages with a water element attribute began casting spells to regulate the group's body temperatures.

This floor was going to be much more grueling than the previous one. If it was the cold, they could at least stay warm by wearing clothes and such, but with the high temperatures of the current floor, it wasn't only the heat and monsters that they had to look out for, they had to worry about dehydration, delirium caused by the high temperatures and some other things.

Cecil didn't need to worry about this floor since he could block the heat with his aura, but that wasn't plausible for the other people. It hadn't been long since they stepped onto this floor but Cecil could already see some of the people from his group struggling just to cope with the high heat.

As he was looking around, Cecil couldn't help but notice the remnants of a campsite not far away from the transfer gate. Next to the campsite was a small pond that was radiating with an icy coldness.

"Hey, over here! For the ones who can't cope with the heat drink some of this water!" Cecil called out.

Cecilia, Karen, and Ren led everyone over to the campsite and they began collecting some of the water from the icy cold pond. Cecil looked at the pond and noticed that no matter how much water they took, the water level didn't lower one bit.

Cecilia also noticed this and said, "It's a magical pond. Everyone! Take as much water as you can, we'll need it to clear this stage of the trials!"

While Karen and Cecilia got busy, Ren walked over to Cecil and showed his master something.

"Master, take a look at this..."

Cecil grabbed the item that Ren presented to him and looked back at his apprentice questioningly.

"What's this? Is it some kind of bracelet?"

"...It's something I crafted for Angelia's pet, Mao..."

Cecil narrowed his eyes and wrapped the bracelet with his mana. He picked up the slight trace of mana that was unique to Mao and quickly activated his Mana Eyes and took a look at his surroundings.

With his Mana vision, Cecil could see the thick blanket of red mana particles that indicated the dense amount of fire-attributed mana in the surroundings. He strained his eyes and soon enough, he was able to see the faint trace of mana that came from the broken bracelet that his disciple had handed to him.

"It's faint, but I can see it. Tell everyone to hurry up. We'll blast our way through this stage!"

"Yes!"

*****

In the administrative subspace of the Myriad Tower of Strife, the small wisp of light was screaming and panicking at the incredulous scene he was witnessing through the monitoring screen.

It showed a large group of humans moving through—no, it was more like they were flying through the third floor of the tower's trials. The human in the lead was crushing and destroying everything and every monster in his path, making a beeline towards the next floor's transfer gate.

"W-what?! What is this?! This monster! How could—"

The wisp's ramblings were cut short after a large explosion ensued in the screen that shocked the wisp out of its mind.

"No no no no NO!!! How, how could he have grown so strong?! This, this wasn't what the old one had envisioned! He should still be a pipsqueak at this point!"

The person the wisp was referring to was without a doubt Cecil, the figure on the monitoring screen that was destroying everything in his path.

After everyone had finished gathering some water, Cecil decided to take charge of the entire group and told them that they would rush through this stage. It wasn't that he was babying them, but Cecil was impatient to get to the next floor.

He had found traces of his family and not only that, he finally found out that his brother, Gabriel, had finally joined up with his sister and disciple. The three were together and it was likely that they had already passed through this stage.

Cecil wanted to hurry up and catch up with them before any more variables show up that could endanger their lives. He had noticed traces of some large-scale fights while pushing through the third stage, but he noticed that his brother, sister, and disciple had struggled through this stage.

It was most likely because of the elemental disadvantage that Angelia's strongest monster, Nessie, had to deal with while on this floor.

Because of his impatience, the administrator of the trials that was cooking up some sort of scheme had to shockingly witness the absurdness of his power.

"This human...he's close to transcendence... I can't let him stay here! If he gets stronger like what the old one had envisioned...it'll only hasten the eventuality of him destroying the seal that's keeping the universe's plague in check!"

On the monitor, the wisp could see that Cecil and his group had already arrived at the next floor's transfer gate. It hadn't even been a day since they had arrived at the third stage. In fact, it hadn't even been 6 hours yet!

Cecil had plowed through the entire third stage in less than 4 hours and it was likely that the time needed for him to pass through this stage would have been lower if he had been moving alone. The only reason it took him so 'long' was because he had to wait and let everyone rest while they were moving through the stage.

"...I can only use the fifth stage's equipment...Ah, it's perfect! Those 3 are already down there and they've been meddling with the equipment there. I should issue another quest for those 3..."

*****

At the fifth stage's underground city which was located below the endless piles of sand, Angelia, Gabriel, and Kira had just received an update on the requirements to complete the fifth stage's trial.

"...We have to activate the underground city's power source and ignite the city's holy flame to activate the next stage's transfer gate?" Kira said thoughtfully after listening to the new objectives that were delivered to them through the guide that was floating above their heads.

"We should hurry then. The faster we clear this, the quicker we can go home!" Angelia said as she quickly called out Mao and mounted him.

Gabriel was a little skeptical of this development. Normally, any notifications of the stage's objectives would be delivered through the guide the moment they stepped foot onto the trial floor.

It had been a few days since they arrived on this stage's floor, but it was only now that they received their quest objective.

"Big bro, let's go!"

"Alright, but we should keep a lookout. I have a bad feeling about all of this..."

"Don't worry so much big bro! The quicker we finish this, the sooner we can get out! I don't want to keep mum, dad, Ren, and everyone else in distress! Let's go, let's go~"

Gabriel only nodded slightly and followed after Angelia and Kira who were both sitting on top of the large Mao. He felt a foreboding feeling, like this wasn't the actual mission of the current stage they were in, but something else.

There wasn't much he could deliberate about this since he didn't know too much about the current situation they were in other than the fact that they had been forcibly pulled into this place to undergo some kind of trial to inherit something.