A "tower" rose before them. It looked nothing like Babel. Instead, it was built from tier upon tier of steps clinging to the gray-white rock walls at the far end, each level impossibly vast, narrowing as it climbed. At the very top waited a door assembled from countless corpses.
At the very bottom, after Isagi and the girls entered the tower's "base," they found themselves in what looked like a wine cellar. Rotting oak barrels were piled everywhere, along with sweet, sticky purple liquid pooling between them.
A small, hunched figure sat there. It wore a bone mask and ragged, aged robes, sitting silently in a corner of the cellar. Beside it, a tiny candle flickered — the only light source in the pitch-black room.
"Ah... adventurers."
Behind the pure white bone mask, two tiny black dots, no bigger than beans, seemed to be its eyes.
"It's been a long time since adventurers came through here. Are you looking for His Majesty's treasure? A pity — you're too late. His Majesty has already become a true [god]..."
"His Majesty," as the monsters called it. Isagi and the girls knew exactly who that meant — the [Monster Rex: Udaeus] who should have ruled this floor. But had this thing actually become a [god]? What was going on?
The old crone before them was also the only NPC anyone had encountered since entering the [White Blood Cathedral]. She began speaking without pause. For a moment, Isagi almost felt as if a little cutscene should have played out in front of him as he listened.
First came what they already knew. The "Emperor" from the 37th floor had launched an expedition to the floors above — more than once. It had fought against the monsters of the mid and lower floors, even conquered them at one point, until even the [Miracles] above had been forced to submit.
At the same time, though, the "Emperor" had also discovered something [even further below]. And there, the same predicament that had plagued the mid and lower floor monsters before now took hold here as well.
The "Emperor" had to defend against the contamination rising from below while continuing its expedition upward. And in the process, from that force below — the one that twisted soldiers and knights into something maddened and bloodthirsty, wrapped in a color of almost unbearable beauty — Emperor discovered a certain power.
And so, in the end the "Emperor" accepted that power, and began constructing the very tower now standing before them, with a single goal: to become what it called a [god].
According to the old crone's account, the "Emperor" had clearly succeeded — and not alone, but together with a great many of its subjects. Every monster who had witnessed the process had followed the newly-divine Emperor down to somewhere deeper still. Exactly where, the old crone did not know.
"Besides this old wreck, I doubt anyone else is left here... the others have probably all been contaminated by now."
With those final words, she explained what came next. To keep moving forward, they would need "quest items" to unlock the floors above. The tower had nine levels in total, each sealed behind a magic barrier that only the old crone could unravel.
As for the "quest items" themselves — those, naturally, were the drops from the various bosses scattered throughout the [White Blood Cathedral].
Isagi had already collected quite a few of them, including the ones dropped by bosses that Loki and Freya Familia had defeated earlier — all those mysterious quest items whose purpose no one had understood, he'd kept stashed on himself just in case. So, he unlocked all nine barriers at once, letting the group climb straight to the top of the tower in a single push.
Which meant... there were no more bosses left outside now?
With that thought in mind, Isagi and the girls pressed onward, and it took a considerable amount of time. Parts of the tower had collapsed, forcing them to climb along crumbling slopes on the outer edge, or squeeze through caves formed by cave-ins deeper inside. It was a slow, troublesome climb. Still, compared to the tangled mess of terrain outside, this was practically pleasant.
The monsters they encountered along the way grew steadily stronger. Most were armored soldiers and knights of various kinds — creatures twisted by the "color," and absurdly tough. Ryuu, not yet Lv.8, could barely land a hit on them without Haruhime's level-boosting magic to raise her stats. Fortunately, the party wasn't relying on her to lead the offense, so it didn't matter much. The march onward stayed largely smooth.
At last, they reached the "door."
From below, that gray-white door built from countless corpses and flesh hadn't looked especially large. But standing before it now, it felt like a colossal, monstrous thing — at least fifty or sixty meters tall. Perhaps because it stood so close to the ceiling, the space behind the door was pitch black, sloping steadily downward. That, presumably, was the path to the next floor.
Except... Isagi had assumed there wouldn't be a boss here. After all, based on what the old crone NPC had told them, Udaeus Emperor, after becoming a [god], had already taken every surviving subordinate down to the deeper layers. So this place should have been completely empty. And yet...
The moment he and the girls stepped onto the gray-white altar built from countless corpses, the black slope visible through the massive flesh-and-blood door in the distance was suddenly sealed off by a wall of gray-white mist. And right in front of that door, in what could be called the "plaza" before the altar, a small golden blessing point appeared.
Isagi was currently using the orange shell — the [Golden Age], naturally, since it let him fly whenever he needed. So, that had to be the resurrection point in front of a boss's door — no mistake about it. Walking any closer would trigger the boss fight.
The mood turned heavy all at once. Isagi exchanged a glance with the girls beside him, and after a moment's thought, decided to notify Loki and the rest of Freya Familia, who were currently elsewhere.
Whatever boss waited ahead was almost certainly powerful. He guessed it was probably the first true "main storyline boss" he'd faced since arriving in the deeper layers. And besides — aside from Ryuu and Hedin on his own side, everyone else still needed to level up to Lv.8's [Excelia], so he figured they might as well share the encounter.
With that thought in mind, Isagi had the girls go contact Loki and Freya Familia's people, while he himself decided to use today's resurrection chance to trigger the boss alone first, just to see what they were up against.
So, once the girls had left the flesh-and-blood altar, Isagi walked forward by himself. Not long after, once he'd confirmed everyone else had cleared out, he finally stepped up to the golden blessing point — and triggered the battle.
____
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