BXBX NOVEL Chapter 611 - The Final Floor
Draco and Eva shared a look, their eyes reflecting their mutual speechlessness. They then faced the messenger who was about to leave, Draco flicking a finger towards him.
The horse that had already begun galloping away suddenly found itself without a rider, the poor man being gripped by the throat as he floated in mid-air.
He was then casually dragged back to the area before Draco and Eva, his eyes bulging with disbelief and fear as he gripped his throat that seemed to be constricted by invisible hands.
Draco and Eva did not pay attention to him though, as they focused on the floor objective that just came up.
｢The Ninteenth Floor – Divine Quest
Description: After escaping the dungeons and tasting your first bit of sunlight in over a week, you are met with a messenger from the human forces requesting assistance. The King has some important information to share concerning the Divines who gave you your power and designated you as the Chosen One.
Help the human army win.
Limitation 1: Enemies are limited to within your Rank.
Limitation 2: You may retreat from the floor at any time, but upon re-entry, you would have to resume from the exact situation you were in at the time.
Provision 1: Every 5% of HP removed from the Sentinels allows you to gain one level regardless of your current Rank or experience requirements.
Provision 2: You have full use of all your powers and abilities in the same way as you would outside.
Rewards: Score Points, 1 Bronze-Tier Reward Selection.｣
Once again, the White-Haired Duo shared a look as they both burst into laughter. It started low and controlled before becoming uproarious and crazy.
Draco and Eva both had extremely pleasing voices for their genders thanks to their Dark Angel and Celestial Maiden Inheritances, so even this creepy action managed to stay quite attractive from an objective point of view.
When they finally cut their laughter, the messenger had already choked to death, his face purple and his eyes swollen as well as bloodshot from lack of oxygen.
Draco folded his arms. "This tower is truly amusing. I didn't expect much from those foundational floors since they were pretty much a tutorial for everyone, yet the plotline for these 'Titan Floors' is even worse."
Eva clasped her hands behind her back imperiously as she smiled. "The entire story we were pretty much just bait to distract the Sentinels so that the human army could launch this coordinated attack. Formerly expendable, yet now desperately needed after realizing that we had gotten captured."
Draco sighed as she shook his head. "To be quite frank, I'm tired of playing this tower's games. Every time we manage to clear the floor to the point of perfection, but instead of relenting and adjusting the plot, the tower simply forces us to continue the story as if we had achieved the bare minimum on the previous floor."
Eva agreed with Draco. "It's more than annoying... It's boring. I wonder how it has not realized that there won't be any challenge unless it starts adjusting the floor's difficulty to match our power and level of ability?"
Eva gently caressed Draco's hair with a look of remorse on her face. "I know how much you enjoy these Unique Quests, but this one is rather bland and generic."
Draco looked down for a bit before returning to a neutral expression. "Well, you can't always win them all. Whatever the case, we'd best get this tower over with and take what we want. Now that we are on the cusp of Rank 4, it's imperative that we make preparations for the next stage of our bloodline integration."
Eva nodded with a smile. "Then, leave this one to me."
Eva casually raised a hand. Draco, Qiong Qi, and Clarent felt a wealth of power emerge from her that spread out over the area, as the ambient energy rumbled like it was scared.
Draco's expression changed slightly as he realized which move Eva was using, surprised that she would go so far for a simple skirmish like this.
Nevertheless, he did not stop her.
From Eva's palm, a burst of white light shot into the air, rising into the sky in a way that illuminated the entire battlefield despite it being daytime. All combatants on the battlefield paused to gaze at this beam of light, wondering what it was.
At the top, the light stop climbing upwards and spread out like it had plateaued. This only occurred for a few seconds before the top of the light pillar exploded, spreading out into hundreds of thousands of light beams that spread out in all directions.
These beams of light rushed towards the ground like rain falling from the sky, each on about as thick as a broomstick. The combatants watched them come and land amongst them with curiosity, wondering what this was about.
Was it a signal? A light show? A party trick even?
However, nothing could have prepared them for the horror they would face next. When the individual beams crashed into the ground, they lanced through the earth like laser beams.
This was fine, but one could imagine that once it hit sentient species, they would all suffer the same effect. Regardless of Sentinels or humans, many were turned into sieves by the light beams that either tore them apart or left gaping holes in their bodies that were charred on all sides.
Most died immediately, even among the Sentinels, as the speed of the light beams were too fast to register. It ravaged the earth and all the bodies locked within, killing indiscriminately.
(Author's Note: It's like a mixture of Super Buu's Human Extinction beam, and SS Blue Gogeta's Stardust Fall.)
When Eva lowered her palm and ended the continuous flow of light energy that made up the light pillar, the raining light beams slowly came to end. All that was left of this once lovely plain was a wasteland that was cratered all over with lava flowing in places.
Everything had been killed, regardless of friend or foe.
Soon, the floor began to decompose as there was nothing left for them to achieve. The battle was over, yea, but they had even killed everyone, so what was the point?
｢Congratulations on completing: Tower of Babylon Nineteenth Floor
Time elapsed: 0:0:21
Objectives complete: 50%
Assessment: SS
Reward:
11,500 Score Points
1 Treasure Selection Reward - High Bronze Grade｣
The White-Haired Duo sneered. It seemed that the tower was trying to penalize them for the reckless slaughter, but how could they care?
Putting aside Draco's already accumulated amount of score points, as well as his plan to clean out all the other trial takers using Legendary Items, they now possessed enmity with it.
As such, there was no need to follow the beaten path.
Just like how the Shameless Trio had planned to rob Norma in case Draco would have lost the competition, so too did they plan to clear the tower in the same manner.
Why save up money like a scrooge if one could just commit a robbery for the items? Made very little sense, and so the White-Haired Duo simply returned to the castle.
Draco noticed he had 252,850 score points on the leaderboard and 637,937 overall.
The White Haired Duo immediately went to the 20th floor, which was the final one in this series. When they appeared, they noticed that they were standing before a huge floating orb that was bigger than anything they've ever seen before.
It was the size of Mount Everest at the least, going from near the ground to so high in the sky you couldn't see its edges. Its width eclipsed any mountain range Draco and Eva had seen, making them solemn.
Before this giant orb was a huge army of humans, led by the King and the nobles who stood beside Draco and Eva. The King then turned to the White-Haired Duo with a solemn expression.
"Noble Chosen Ones, you remember our mission, right? It is imperative that we destroy the Guiding Orb of the Sentinels to cripple their future invasions!"
Draco and Eva shared a look. Since the fellow and his ilk had been lanced to ash on the previous floor, they naturally did not hear whatever message or explanation he had for them nor did they particularly care about what he had to say.
Soon, the floor details came up.
｢The Twentieth Floor – Divine Quest
Description: In the success of destroying the front outpost of the Sentinels in the Red Zone, the human army, backed by the Divines of this world, have continued to charge forth, destroying outposts as they go. Right now, you are faced with the source and timebase of the world's invasion. Sneak into the Guiding orb of the Sentinels and destroy it using any means necessary.
Limitation 1: Enemies are limited to within your Rank.
Limitation 2: You may retreat from the floor at any time, but upon re-entry, you would have to resume from the exact situation you were in at the time.
Provision 1: Every 5% of HP removed from the Sentinels allows you to gain one level regardless of your current Rank or experience requirements.
Provision 2: You have full use of all your powers and abilities in the same way as you would outside.
Rewards: Score Points, 1 Bronze-Tier Reward Selection.｣
Draco and Eva nodded. Ignoring the King who was still going on about something or the other, the duo directly apported into the Guiding Orb. Since the distance was quite great, they had to meld their powers together to stably achieve this.
Even with that, they both rubbed their temples as they felt headaches. They shook it off and gazed around. Shockingly, the interior of the Guiding Orb was super high-tech, with futuristic walls that glowed with a blue light.
This made Draco and Eva suspicious as the AI was very clear with its rules. No high-tech in the Western Fantasy section unless it was usable by players only, like the Rank 7 Guild Hall.
So how had the Sentinels stumbled upon this?
Even if one was to use the excuse of this being a Unique Quest separate from the main world or a single instance world created for floor 20 alone, there was still a basic set of rules to follow.
The duo closed their eyes and scanned the place with their Void of Perfection, Draco taking the left side while Eva took the right. With the mental bridge they possessed, they shared their findings in real-time.
When they both opened their eyes, there was a light of pleasant surprise in them. They had discovered a great many things about this orb and the Sentinels.
Firstly, this thing wasn't owned by the Sentinels!
They only had some rudimentary control over it, and it seemed like they themselves had found it somewhere. That made much more sense than them being the ones who had built it, because that would be outrageous.
Secondly, there were female Sentinels!
Specifically, the Spirit Sentinels who acted as mages as well as healers and had great control of ambient Worldly Energy, were able to act in tandem with Intelligence Sentinels who had immense Psychic power.
There were also the Charisma Sentinels, which were all female. What was special about them was that they were the only ones with genitals that were visible on the outside like breasts and a vagina.
They also looked sleeker and more human-like than the others, embodying the giantess fetish that many had without looking weird like Spirit Sentinels who looked like skinless skeletons.
(Author's Note: Basically, Spirit Sentinels look like Annie from AoT in her Titan form, while Charisma Sentinels look like Mount Lady from MHA.)
Thirdly, and most crucially, the actions of the Sentinels finally made sense. Draco and Eva had wondered why, given the Sentinels' overwhelming superiority over the indigenes of this world, they had not simply destroyed everything yet?
It seemed like they had been rather content with taking a piece of territory - the Red Zone - and having another piece of territory loosely contested to keep the indigenes away - the Yellow Zone - while leaving them alone.
As it turned out, it was because the Sentinels had been hiding a huge secret!
They were currently incubating a special leader for their species, an entity that was in the final stages of its incubation and was already adult-sized. It looked neither male nor female and was surprisingly human-sized, though Sentinel-style skin.
According to what Draco and Eva could tell using their guesses and the information Eva subtly extracted from the minds of the targets within range, that entity was supposed to be the first-ever Luck Sentinel!
With such a unique species leading their race, they were confident they would be able to go further, especially if they could produce more.
The reason they had even bothered to invade worlds like this was to gather the planet's core energy. Apparently, at the place where this giant orb met the earth, it had pierced into the planet below and was draining its energy rapidly.
This was something that could not be interrupted. For this reason, they had scared the local inhabitants and had created a passive war. It worked every time they used this trick, and they would leave behind a dying world every time they were done.
Unfortunately for them, this world was rather tough and had some True Gods here who could not penetrate this orb - from the memories Eva had extracted, they had tried - so they had chosen to empower some humans with the ability to devour the energies of their foes to become stronger, as they saw that the mortals could not match their foe.
The True Gods were unaware of their world dying, but they had been able to tell that letting this orb stay here was bad mojo. Hence, instead of sitting back, they had mounted this plan to resist and infiltrate.
Since force could not work, what about subterfuge?
Draco - or in this case, the trial taker – had proven himself to be the most competent of the Chosen Ones so far, thus he became the linchpin of this entire operation.
Nevertheless, neither Draco's nor Eva's opinion about this storyline had risen after this 'plot twist'. Rather, the two of them were radiating an aura of blackness as their entire souls were filled with endless greed.
They both shared the same thoughts, that those Spirit Sentinels could be refined into useful items that could affect or boost the Spirit stat using Roma's skill, Cauldron of Evil.
As for the Charisma Sentinels, they were a precious reproductive resource, allowing whoever owned them to birth more Sentinels or half-Sentinels depending on who mated with them.
One could build an army of Sentinels that could stomp any Kingdom on the main plane with ease!
Then there was the Luck Sentinel. There were many uses for it. One could let Zaine use her Indenture skill on it to turn it into her willing slave that would benefit her.
Alternatively, they could let Roma break it down and hopefully acquire resources that boosted Luck, things which were so scarce in the game that Draco had never seen any!
Whatever the case, the White-Haired Duo knew they had struck it rich! The only sad thing was that this Guiding Orb absolutely had to be destroyed and could not be taken away.
Draco did not have the means to envelop something this size and pull it into his Inner Universe, nor would it ever fit into his Inventory.
He could try to become the owner of the Guiding Orb by passing whatever requirements it had that the Sentinels had failed to, but the AI would never let him roam around with this thing in the main plane.
Whatever the case, the White-Haired Duo didn't waste time. They had to capture all the Spirit and Charisma Sentinels as well as the Luck one ASAP!
Otherwise, if some of those nasty NPCs made it in and activated some destruction sequence, wouldn't they be depressed for centuries?
Draco and Eva teleported to the infant wing where many Charisma Sentinels were either giving broth to new Sentinels or being taken care of by Spirit Sentinels.
Once here, Draco dragged everyone he could see into his Inner Universe minus the infants which he left behind. He waved his hand and cast a satisfaction spell on them, meaning they would be without the need for food and water for approximately 2 hours.
They then left and appeared in different areas of this large orb, capturing Sentinels all the way. Due to the distance, they didn't dare to apport and rather relied on Eva's Spacetime Regulation.
Draco handled the collecting while Eva handled movement. Like a high-efficiency team, they both cleared out the various Spirit and Charisma Sentinels that fit their criteria of being useful.
The rest were incapacitated and left behind.
When they came upon the incubator machine where the Luck Sentinel was growing, the White-Haired Duo gazed around. They did not have anything to ransack the information database here, which was unfortunate.
If they could find out how the Sentinels managed to build the fellow up, they could learn a lot from it. Since that was out of the question, they could only grab the fellow who looked about fully formed and leave.
However, something interesting occurred. The moment Draco's mental fluctuations covered the entire lab - as he obviously had to carry it all away lest the Luck Sentinel be harmed somehow - the being opened its eyes and gazed at the White-Haired Duo.
It had silvery-blue eyes that showed confusion at first, then fear and distress. It began to thrash about in the incubation pod.
Alas, it was all for naught.