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Opening them up, the first thing he saw was that they had apparently gotten another bonus objective without him even noticing.

Bonus Objective Gained: Find a way to unlock the seal obscuring your path into the Dark Descent created by the Dark Witch leading toward the core of the planet.

Current Progress: Dark Descent unlocked (0/1)

So this one confirmed the theory that the Dark Witch had indeed gone toward the core and even created a way to get down there. Of course, they likely had to also get rid of all three Living Seals before-

Bonus Objective Completed: Destroy all three Living Seals. 1000 Nevermore Points earned.

Right, they had also gotten that done, but hopefully, Jake could at least help with that seal on the-

Bonus Objective Completed: Dark Descent unlocked. 500 Nevermore Points earned.

Okay, Jake was beginning to realize he had indeed taken a bit longer than he probably should have, but it seemed like things were going well!

Though there was still much to be done if one looked at the remaining bonus objectives they had gained during Jake’s minor mental absence.

Bonus Objective Gained: Discover the fate of the Dark Witch.

Current Progress: Dark Witch’s fate discovered (0/1)

Along with:

Bonus Objective Gained: Assist the New Beast Alliance in taking over the faction formerly known as the Beastfolk Alliance by helping to eliminate all enlightened beings remaining in their territory.

Current Progress: Enlightened Beings Remaining (2.093.778/9.421.400)

His party had clearly been up to quite a lot, with the Fallen King seemingly mid-genocide in the area formerly controlled by the Beastfolk Alliance.

“So… I apologize? Anyway, where are we? What is the status of things?” Jake questioned. “I am especially interested in what is up with this New Beast Alliance.”

“The two other factions are entirely destroyed. Well, mostly destroyed. We found out that beasts are actually entirely unaffected by the Karmic Plague. It only works on those considered enlightened, so the Fallen King formed an alliance with the beasts there to wipe out all the enlightened, especially the Otherworlders,”Dina explained.

“Are you sure they are unaffected? The Fallen King and Sylphie were both affected when we first got here, as far as I could feel,” Jake asked, a bit confused.

“Only in its inactive form. The Karmic Plague cannot properly affect anyone not considered enlightened, so once it exits hibernation, it will just fizzle out. The Fallen King already confirmed the beasts that were part of the Beast Alliance were not affected,” Dina continued explaining as the Fallen King jumped into the conversation.

“Beasts that were all suppressed by the beastkin otherworlders summoned here. They did manage to reach some level of balance with the otherworlders but never liked them. My arrival became their impetus to claim power and wipe out the enlightened. To reject such a purely beneficial objective seemed foolish, so we naturally accepted it. Should we fail, it is doubtful the Wyrmgod would penalize us, and should we succeed, it is merely bonus points,” the Fallen King explained.

“And the Risen Kingdom?”Jake questioned.

“They had an unexpected case of heavy downpour. Sadly, the maniacs there who sought to find a way to corrupt the Karmic Plague into something that would effectively mind control every enlightened being into desiring to be Risen did not survive such unfortunate weather,” the Sword Saint answered. “As for a status on current events, the Fallen King and I are both on our way to Dina and Sylphie right now.”

“Got it,” Jake sighed. Seemed like he had missed a lot. “How long was I unreachable?”

“Seven weeks and three days,” the Fallen King answered.

“See, honestly, from my point of view, this is as much on you as me for flying so slow you didn’t need me during all this time for anything,” Jake argued.

“That isn’t how things work,” the Sword Saint just stated.

“Fair enough, I zoned out a bit too hard… so, Sylphie, how are things?”

“Ree, ree, ree,” Sylphie explained, making Jake nod. Seems like they had done quite well too. Found the old faction the Dark Witch had created and killed a bunch of beasts that had taken over the area, including a mini-boss monster that guarded the former capital. From there, they gathered a bunch of intel, discovering a bit about the Dark Witch’s plan, including the location of the dig site she had created to reach the core.

From there, they found the Dark Descent and discovered it had been sealed off by someone – likely the Dark Witch herself. They had then spent some time finding a way to unseal the barrier by researching what the Dark Witch had left behind and were now making their way down the long winding tunnels leading into the core of Tri-World. A task made quite a bit harder by the hordes of monsters in the way they had to fight through, but Dina had at least left clues along the way, so once the Fallen King and Sword Saint arrived, they should be able to follow quite easily.

“So, considering even I can see the finale of this floor will play out down at or around the core, I guess you all figured it out too?” Jake surmised.

“Naturally,” the Fallen King stated. ”And based on our estimates, I shall arrive at the entrance to the caverns in roughly a week, while the Sword Saint will be four days.”

“Aight,” Jake nodded to himself. “Want me to join Sylphie and Dina as soon as possible?”

“Was that not your original intentions?” the Sword Saint asked. “Or do you need some more time to practice? Perhaps familiarize yourself with your new skill? I wouldn’t want to rush you.”

“No, I am fine with testing it out properly in real combat, so I will make my way to Sylphie,”

Jake answered, not responding to the slight tone of sass in the old man’s voice.

“Ree?” Sylphie asked, just wanting to make sure.

“Yep, it shouldn’t take that long… but can you find a kind of open area? I get you are underground, but if there are any big caverns or anything, it would be great. Not entirely sure how accurate I will be,” Jake said with a light smile.

“Ree.”

Jake nodded as he began to prepare himself, waiting for Sylphie to give the signal.

Now, one of the reasons his party had been fine with leaving Jake behind was because of what he was about to do.

When it came to long-distance travel, the best in their party was, surprisingly, the Sword Saint. Well, he was the best circumstantially. Through his profession, he could paint an area and “save” a moment in space that he could then travel to. This meant he was the fastest at returning somewhere he had been before as long as you gave him a dozen or so hours to create a painting first.

Second-best was Jake. However, his means of travel were not as restricted as the Sword Saint’s, though his means also came with downsides. Accuracy was one of those downsides, especially considering Jake didn’t have a lot of practice with this method of travel, and the method wasn’t really designed as a long-distance travel skill anyway. Instead, it focused on distance, speed, and ability to just get the hell away from where he currently was.

He was naturally talking about the special ability of his Wings of the Malefic Viper. An often-ignored aspect of the skill but one incredibly useful. Usually, Jake wouldn’t use it as a means of travel, but the circumstances of floor forty-one made it seems like a good idea. Plus, he could reduce many of the skill’s downsides by using a certain little hawk as a direction marker.

Jake and Sylphie still had a powerful connection through their Union Oath, allowing Jake to easily zone in on her. Over long distances, things like the Golden Mark or even his Hunter’s Mark sometimes got a bit fuzzy, but the Oath had no such problems – something that shouldn’t be surprising considering its Primordial origin.

After a while, Jake got the signal from Sylphie and a slightly worried comment from Dina if he was sure things would work out as he planned.

“Relax, even if things go slightly sideways, what’s the worst thing that can happen? That I get stuck in a wall or something? I’ll be fine,” Jake said, trying to calm her down as he got to work.

Wings sprung from his back as he also summoned scales all over his body. Taking a deep breath, he began to charge them with energy as he activated the escape method of Wings of the Malefic Viper. Mist poured out and began to stick to his body as his entire form turned greenish.

The entire world seemed to distort as Jake flapped his wings once. Everything warped as Jake allowed his instinct to guide him. Sylphie’s location felt so close, yet so far away, as Jake flapped his wings several more times as he went through a distorted world where even the concept of space was subverted and eroded.

Jake’s mana dropped by just over ten thousand points every single time he flapped his wings, his two-hundred and thirty-thousand large mana pool rapidly depleting. Luckily, it took less than ten seconds before Jake stopped the skill at the behest of his gut, telling him now was the time.

Unluckily, he had waited a fraction of a second too long to disengage the skill. The entire world turned dark as Jake felt a deep pressure all over his body the second he faded back into reality. Jake kept his cool, having expected this to potentially happen.

Didn’t miss by too much, Jake sighed in relief. Sylphie was only about a kilometer above him, and from a quick Pulse, he saw that there was even a small cave on his path upwards.

“Ree?” Sylphie asked, having felt Jake nearby.

“Yeah, just a little stuck. Gotta take a second to-“

Before he was even done talking, he felt a thick vine wrap around his body as he was dragged upward through the path it had created. He did still have to deal with rock and soil scraping him all the way up, but such was a minor sacrifice for quick travel.

“How did you miss and end up within the earth like that?” Dina asked the moment she dragged him out of the ground. “It was like you just appeared, yet I feel a distorted path…”

“I flew there, duh,” Jake smiled, having not really gone into detail about how Wings worked.

She just looked at him for a moment before looking back at the vine she had dragged him up with and the signs of it rotting from the remnant poison left after the use of Wings. “Fine, a Legacy skill from the Malefic One. Are you ready to go, or did the skill take a lot out of you?”

Jake was down to just a bit above a quarter, but after popping a potion, he was all good to go. He wouldn’t be able to summon his Wings of the Malefic Viper for a few days, but that should be fine, considering he was underground. The slight feeling of weakness after using such an escape skill also wasn’t that big of a deal either, as Jake had joined them more as a guide than a fighter, Sylphie and Dina more than capable of defeating all the beasts on the way down.

From there, the trek towards the center of Tri-World continued. Sylphie and Dina had already gotten pretty damn deep by the time Jake arrived, nearly thirty percent of the way already, but that still meant there was a lot to go. Luckily for them, Jake was a good guide when leading them through the elaborate tunnel system created by the Dark Witch.

Rather than natural tunnels, it was clear these ones had been dug. Magical reinforcements could be found here and there, and waymarkers were placed at certain intervals, with there even being a few sealed-off rooms hidden away off to the side of the cavern at times.

However, it was also clear the tunnel was heavily neglected. No one had been there for a few hundred years, so the beasts had taken over again. Most of them were worm-like beasts called Tunnelers – the same creatures the Caravan Guard Captain they met upon first arriving on Tri-World had warned them about. These Tunnelers came in many variants and sizes, and they could be threats if one was taken by surprise or got swarmed, especially in an environment that was so beneficial to them. Being stuck in a cavern surrounded by earth while fighting creatures using earth magic was always problematic.

Ultimately, these damn Tunnelers did little more than slow down their descent, especially when they decided that trying to collapse a part of the tunnel on them was a good idea. Even when mini-boss versions appeared, the three of them easily handled it. It was kind of monotonous, but at least the beasts they met got stronger the deeper they got.

They even began encountering other things deeper down. Elementals of the earth and lava variety, some insectoid monsters, and even a few fucking mushroom bastards that Jake called dibs on as he utterly annihilated them. The only bad thing during all this was that using his new and improved Protean Arrow wasn’t ever necessary.

Days turned to weeks as they kept getting deeper and deeper, and Jake hoped that they would soon face enemies worth fighting.

Sadly, before that could happen, the Sword Saint joined them, having been able to reach them a lot faster by following the path they created. With him there, the fights naturally only got easier. A few weeks later, the Fallen King also rejoined the party proper, as the entire gang was back together for what would hopefully be the final trek of floor forty-one.

Picking up their pace now that they didn’t fear getting surrounded by the constantly lurking monsters, they rapidly made progress, and only about a month later, they finally reached their destination. Through a Pulse of Perception, Jake saw a trapdoor of sorts leading into a giant expansive space. Rushing down, they soon made it to the trap door. He had kept the huge space below scouted with Pulse all throughout, but only after they dismantled the pretty simplistic seal on the trap door and opened it could he truly appreciate the sight.

This was the first time for them all – even Dina – to see the core of a planet. Jake stared as he saw a giant red molten orb floating in the middle of the chamber, more than five kilometers across, absolutely pulsing with power and pure energy. Surprisingly, it only gave off a little bit of heat, despite looking like a miniature sun.

The cavern that housed this massive core was even more enormous. It was nearly entirely spherical and about five hundred kilometers in diameter, no matter where one decided to measure it.

Jake and the others stared for a while… but Jake also felt like something was wrong as he looked at the orb floating there right in the middle. Looking closely, he saw what looked like small runes flashing on the orb for a few seconds at a time, and from within it, he got an incredibly intense response from some of his skills.

Sense of the Malefic Viper, along with Palate, were both practically going insane. Something was hidden within the core… no, it was merged with the core. It had become one with it. For a moment, Jake had hoped that maybe the core was just corrupted by some item… but no.

Tri-World was fucked; no two ways about it. The core itself was completely filled to the brim with the Karmic Plague of such intensity that Jake didn’t doubt that the people involved in infecting the planet had been at least A-grade.

As Jake and the others stared at the core, there was movement somewhere down below. There, Jake saw a creature wandering. A hunched-over hooded being walked, seemingly without any aim, as it mulled about, something staring up at the core. Jake used Identify while still at an angle where she seemingly hadn’t spotted them.

[Dark Witch – lvl 300]

“Level 300, I think the theory of her being the strongest on the planet is entirely correct,” Jake communicated to his party.

“So what is the plan?” the Sword Saint asked.

Before anyone could respond, a system message popped up in front of them.

Bonus Objective Completed: Dark Witch’s fate discovered. 500 Nevermore Points earned.

“I… I see a path…” the Dark Witch muttered. “Heart unsealed… there is… a path…”

“My gut is telling me a fight is unavoidable here,” Jake spoke through the mark.

“You can’t know that…” Dina said, unsure. Right then, another message popped up.

Bonus Objective Gained: The Dark Witch has been corrupted by the Karmic Plague, and her mind is lost, yet a part of her seems to still hold onto her sanity and original goal. Now choose her final fate and, through that choice, the fate of Tri-World.

Current Progress: Dark Witch killed (0/1) OR Dark Witch defeated (0/1)

A dark pulse of energy suddenly went through the entire massive cavern sealing in the core. The moment it passed through him, Jake felt the attention of the Dark Witch below lock onto him. Him and the four others with him.

“NO! More plague bearers! No!” the Dark Witch’s screeching voice rang throughout the massive core room. “Infected… but, monster not… also… human not? He… no, no, risky, risky. Only one choice acceptable…”

Behind them, the trap door leading into the core room slammed shut as a massive dark seal appeared on it. At the same time, the color scheme of the entire core room turned a shade darker as tens of thousands of black runes lit up over the walls. The only area not covered in darkness was the red core at the center.

Jake threw Dina a look. “Told you.”

“I will save you! I will cure you! I will kill you!” a mad screech came, the Dark Witch’s body erupting with energy down below.

Dina just sighed. “Restrain, not kill.”

“Sure thing,” Jake nodded, pulling out his bow. He had to admit, he was a bit excited about this opponent.

This was his first time fighting a witch, after all. Could be fun.