They descended into total darkness, but fortunately the slight glow from Adam's barriers caused by the fire effect from the crown was lighting up a tiny bit of the walls around them.

"I've never heard of this place before," Emelia whispered, her voice echoing down the walls of the well.

"Hidden in plain sight," Adam muttered. "I wonder if the eels were all created by Alepheria to hide this place. Making the eels capable of corrupting the slugs no doubt also helps to keep people away."

"Not to mention that getting a ship that can even go this deep is impossible," Emelia added.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yeah, even with an Anchor Shot, you can't go below the cloud layer, because there are no islands floating below it to grapple to. I think the floating effect is also tied to the clouds, so even if you could get close, your ship would be freefalling from the clouds to the bottom."

Adam frowned. "So it's meant to basically be suicide to go here?"

"If not for your barriers, then yeah. Although I guess there are some Relics later that can make you fly, but that means that only loopers could come here, since you'd have to pass those back to the start with the Relic Slot upgrade."

"Should we turn back?" he wondered.

"If we do find Alepheria, let's at least make sure we don't overcommit to a fight with her," Emelia cautioned.

"At least my barriers make it easy enough for us to escape."

"Alepheria has wings, right?" Emelia asked.

"Her avatar did," he replied.

"That may be an issue if we have to run."

Suddenly the glow from his barriers illuminated the bottom of the well. There was a round opening in the wall that led into more darkness.

They both looked back up to where they'd come from, seeing a small bright dot. They had to be a kilometre or deeper within the bedrock of the Floating Sea. No mortal hands could've created something like this, but if Alepheria had indeed painted the world into existence, then she could've easily made this impossible well.

Adam sent one of his barriers ahead of them, shaping it into a ball to maximise its glow.

As though triggered by a proximity sensor, sun gems in the ceiling came to life and lit up the interior.

Like Adam had expected, the light revealed a laboratorium. Large slabs serving as operating tables, spider-like apparatuses in the ceiling armed with saws and other tools, dried out vats that might once have fostered new life, sealed vivariums with the skeletal remains of their former inhabitants, and a library filled with books and scrolls. Basically, it was Alepheria's Tower rebuilt in miniature, though it was missing a ritual chamber.

"It looks abandoned," Emelia remarked.

They remained outside on Adam's barrier while he moved his ball-shaped spell around, trying to trigger any traps that might lie in wait for them the moment they entered. He even transformed it into a hand and started disturbing the things inside, but nothing came of it.

At the back of the lab was a rounded archway that led to a tunnel snaking deeper into Alepheria's secret hideout.

"It would be a good idea to turn around and head back, right?" Adam asked.

"If you don't do the quest, you'll get a punishment," Emelia said.

He frowned. "I definitely don't want that, but there's no way this isn't a trap."

"We'll just be careful," she replied.

"Wait, I have an idea," he said.

Adam stepped off the barrier and started tapping his obsidian hand against the ground, walls, and the equipment inside the lab as he proceeded slowly, flashing images through his mind from its special power. Perhaps thanks to the gift from the Tome Keeper, he was able to quickly sort through the flashes without leaving his conscious mind behind.

Although he saw a lot of grim experimentation through the flashes, there were no signs of traps, and as he advanced, with Emelia by his side for support, Adam started picking up clues as to what might've happened.

"Alepheria was building something," he said.

The glimpses of the past showed her wicked form hunched over workbenches and surgery slabs, transforming her victims into something that was to be part of a new greater whole.

"It's like she came here to build her magnum opus," he continued.

Emelia followed him as he went around, keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings.

He went through the vivariums, but they turned out to be unrelated to her grand work, and more of a side project for the mad fleshcrafter, since she had a deep passion for making chimaera.

Eventually he reached the library. The benefit of the Legendary Hand was most prominent when it came to books, since with a single touch he could absorb all the knowledge.

A lot of what he gleaned from the tomes and scrolls that Alepheria kept was esoteric knowledge of ritual magic that he doubted he'd be able to put to much use, since most of the ingredients were impossible for him to obtain. Although it did teach him how to summon six new bosses into the ritual chamber of Stage Six, not that it would do him any good now.

When he reached the end of the library, he found a large metallic scroll. Emelia tried to lift it so she could unfurl its contents, but she struggled to even get it off the ground.

"What the hell is this thing made out of?" she sputtered indignantly.

Adam touched his hand to it.

"Tungsten," he said.

Then the rest of the knowledge within was absorbed and he felt his entire being quake, along with a cold spike lancing into his mind.

"Argh!" he exclaimed and dropped to his knees, clutching the side of his head.

"Are you okay!?"

"Don't try to read that scroll," he told her. "It's not meant to be understood by humans."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's some kind of…" Adam grimaced as the very act of recalling its contents made the spike in his brain hurt even more. "It's a ritual. A powerful one. It's what Alepheria was trying to accomplish."

"What does it do?"

"It creates a new G—," he said, gasping as the pain intensified.

Emelia pulled the rosary from her belt and touched it against his head.

A warm feeling flowed through him easing the pain and clearing his mind.

"Thank you," he said.

"It's been a while since I've had to use this," she said.

Adam looked at the Relic in her hand.

< < Relic > >

< Rosary (Rare) — Store a mote of holy energy within this Relic with every kill you perform | When the Relic is touched against yourself or someone else, discharge the holy energy within, healing 1 point of Health for every mote of holy energy >

"That doesn't seem like it's a very effective healing item," Adam remarked.

"It isn't," she replied. "But it has a lot of unlisted uses, like the ability to heal emotions and cure headaches, even if you're at full Health. It can also deal damage to undead or anything else that's weak to holy magic. I usually wrap it around my gauntlet when I fight the final bosses in Stage Eight and Nine, since it works against them both."

Heal emotions? That sounds convenient, although troubling. Like, can she just heal away her guilt?

Adam was reminded that Mórrígan had used the Priest weapon too.

"What were you about to say?" she then asked. "Alepheria was trying to create what?"

He gritted his teeth, preparing for another jab of pain. "A God," he then said, but the spike of ice never came.

Adam let out a sigh of relief.

"She was making all the parts for it from pirates she captured, Slugwhales, Slug Dragons, and even from things she summoned, like Demons. And she was bringing them to the ritual chamber."

Emelia followed his gaze to the archway into the tunnel.

"Do you think she failed?" she asked. "This place is abandoned, after all."

"She might've summoned something that killed her," Adam said. "I didn't see her finish the creation in any of the visions, so I don't think she was able to. Some of the requirements for the ritual were very obscure. Like 'the hope of salvation crushed' and 'the essence of childhood bliss'."

"There are a few rituals like that later on," Emelia commented. "A lot of the Absolutes love esoteric bullshit."

Adam grinned. "Should we make ourselves a God then?"

"I'm good," she replied with a chuckle.

"I think we should go deeper," Adam then said decisively. "I saw something in one of the visions that looked like a magical weapon."

"Is it a staff?" Emelia asked.

Adam nodded. "How did you know?"

"Arturo said he was never able to find Alepheria's staff."

"I guess he didn't utilise his barriers to the fullest then," Adam remarked.

He brought his barriers out in front of him and split two in half with his trinket. The one he didn't split he kept closest to him, since that would be their getaway 'vehicle' if shit hit the fan. The rest he moved out in front of them as they went down the tunnel.

Like with the rest of the hidden facility, the tunnel was carved out of the bedrock, which was surely a feat impossible to replicate with any tool. It was doubtful even his barriers could do much to break the dark rock.

At least we don't have to worry about the tunnels collapsing, sturdy as they are.

Being underground in tight spaces was not something Adam was a huge fan of, despite the many times the Trials had already subjected him to this exact scenario, so he was glad when the tunnel opened up into a large domed chamber.

At the other end was another tunnel opening, but this was clearly the ritual chamber.

Adam repeated the step with his barriers, sweeping for hidden trap triggers, but once again finding nothing.

I should've been using them like this from the start, though sweeping every chamber would probably slow down progress a lot.

Perhaps I can just command the barriers through Alepheria's Mandate to do it automatically when I enter a new room.

They walked across the chamber, finding it entirely barren. Adam touched his hand around at various spots, but all he got out of it were a few glimpses of past summonings, but none of them had led to Alepheria's death.

"I guess we just keep going," he said after looking up at the domed ceiling. A large sun gem was placed at the top, illuminating the entire chamber.

They went through the next tunnel and reached a smaller room that was like a study. There was a bed and some old rations. But most interestingly was the staff leaned against a mirror.

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Adam swept the room just to be sure, and then they went up to the staff.

"Holy shit," Emelia said.

< < Secret Weapon Obtained > >

< Alepheria's Paintbrush (Legendary) — The magical staff used by Alepheria to paint the Floating Sea of Gold >

A Legendary weapon??

Emelia ran her hand along it. "Should I take it?" she wondered out loud.

I was thinking the same thing…

But my combo right now is really good, and I have no idea how this thing would work.

But maybe…

Adam touched his obsidian hand to the staff, trying to understand it.

Knowledge shot up through his arm to his brain.

"It can create things by literally drawing them," he realised, "a bit like how the wand works, except the creations come to life. But they're not considered summons, which is a shame."

"Legendary weapons are extremely powerful," Emelia said. "To the point that it may be worth it to abandon your entire setup just to use one. The one from Stage Eighteen is literally the only reason I could go to the Singing City."

She mentioned that place before. I wonder what Stage that is. Maybe it's the place she found the Self-devouring Eye?

"If you're not taking it, then I will," Adam said. "I'll swap my wand for it."

She nodded. "I think that might be a good idea. I don't want to mess with the path I'm already on, since I know it works."

Adam was about to take it when he stopped mid-motion.

He'd been so absorbed by the weapon that he'd forgotten why they'd even come here.

He looked around.

"Alepheria isn't here."

"Maybe she left," Emelia argued.

Then a loud crunchy thud echoed up through the tunnel from the ritual chamber.

Adam frowned.

"Shit."

"Don't grab the staff yet," Emelia told him.

"We definitely walked into a trap…" he said.

Emelia poked him in the cheek. "Stop being so pessimistic. Let's go check."

They slowly left the study and legendary weapon behind as they retraced their steps to the domed chamber.

Unlike before, there was now something on the floor in the middle.

It was the corpse of a person with four arms, two tails, and two wings.

It's Alepheria!

"How did…?" Emelia started to ask while looking up at the ceiling, but she never finished her sentence as she quickly took up a fighting stance, moving in front of Adam.

He saw the same thing she'd seen.

Up there on the ceiling, almost directly above where they'd entered, clung a humanoid figure. Except it was a giant, and its body was obsidian with golden veins throughout. Its hands had seven fingers, two of which were thumbs, and its body was bulky like that of a golem. Unlike a normal head, it had the beginnings of a neck, which then transitioned into a vertical ring.

"What is that?" Adam said with a frown. His wandering eye was locked firmly onto it.

The entity dropped from the ceiling to the floor, landing on its feet with an impact so powerful it made Adam stumble.

Emelia didn't flinch in the slightest.

< < Secret Optional Stage Objective > >

< Defeat Alepheria's Masterpiece >

The sound of collapsing rocks made Adam realise that his thought that the tunnel out of the chamber was safe had been a misjudgement.

Emelia was already on the move, and Adam contemplated using Necromancy on Alepheria's dead body. But then he remembered how it'd gone when he'd tried to resurrect the mad captain.

Instead he brought out his wand and started to summon a fourth barrier.

He quickly went through the steps to obtain a quadruple-fused barrier, and then he Mana Infused it.

Emelia had already managed to create massive cracks in the reflective surface of the obsidian statue. It swung wildly to try and catch her, but she was way too fast for it.

"Watch out!" Adam yelled as he spun up his barrier, the powerful thrum making his body vibrate from the proximity.

Emelia jumped over the statue's arm as it swung for her again, and then a click from her stilts preceded an explosive crunch as she kicked off from the upper torso of the boss and flew through the air, sailing over Adam's head. She activated Drake Wing and quickly landed behind Adam.

Then he fired his projectile.

In the confined space of the domed chamber, the sound of the impact was like a lightning strike hitting right next to them, blowing out their hearing and replacing it with a loud whine.

Dust from shattered obsidian glass filled the back of the chamber where the statue had been, obscuring it from sight.

Emelia touched her rosary to Adam's head after doing it to herself, and his hearing returned.

"That's a useful Relic," he said.

Then something shot out of the dust cloud, a dark shape snaking through the air so fast that Adam barely had time to react, only managing to summon his barriers to defend himself.

The shape pierced right through all three of them.

Adam coughed, tasting iron on his tongue.

The air in his lungs was gone, and he was unable to draw in a breath to refill it.

Behind him, Emelia screamed.

His vision narrowed until it went completely black.

Adam gasped, waking up on something soft.

No! he screamed internally, but then he realised it wasn't grass that was under him, but instead the blanket on the bed in Alepheria's study.

I'm alive! The Cheat Death saved me!

Emelia sat on the edge next to him. She smiled weakly as he sat up.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Have your cube replay the most recent announcement."

Adam passed the command to the Eye floating next to him.

< < Secret Optional Stage Objective > >

< Survive the encounter with the Voidspawn >

"The boss had a second stage?" he asked with a frown.

"It's nothing so simple," Emelia told him.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Our run is over, Adam," she said.

A look of utter defeat settled onto her face. "We're going to die here."

Adam swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

He went over to the mirror and grabbed the Legendary staff. His wand disappeared as it was swapped out, turning to dust and fading away, along with all his upgrades for it.

"We're gonna get out of here," he said. "Give me Fallow's Treasure."

< < Second Sheath Activated > >

< Would you like to swap to the Paint Magician Weapon Type? >

"Show me its stats compared to the base ones for Warder," he told his cube.

< Paint Magician compared to Warder >

< Level 0 >

< Stats >

< Health — 50 >

< Stamina — 50 (-25) >

< Mana — 100 (-100) >

< Damage — 100% (+50%) >

< Defence — 0% (-100%) >

< Speed — 150% (+75%) >

< Luck — 10 (+5) >

More Luck, Damage, and Speed, but way worse in all the others.

"I'll keep what I have," he said.

[Understood.]

"Alright, I'm ready," he told Emelia. "Give me the Relic. I'll put it on the staff so it can cast its unique magic to back us up. I'll be a bit less powerful without all my wand upgrades, but that's fine."

"Adam, sit down," she told him.

He remained standing.

"I fucked up," she said.

"If it's about Ruimin and the others, then now's not the time to worry about that. The boss is trapped in the ritual chamber, right? We won't get out without travelling through there, I'm guessing."

"It's not about that," she said. "What I mean is: I already died once."

Adam blinked, surprised. "How? When?"

"In Stage Four. I turned the great tree into a Rotmaker, thinking it was the trick for getting the last secret, but it was much stronger than I expected. It hit me into a building, killing me and triggering my Cheat Death Sigil. You saw it yesterday. You must've noticed that mine was different from yours."

Adam had seen the tattoo in the middle of her torso and wondered why it wasn't moving like his, but at the time he had been too focused on what they'd been doing to question it deeply.

He lifted up his jacket and the shirt beneath, finding that his tattoo had also stopped spinning.

"But so what?" he asked.

"You need the ability to cheat death in order to get the Self-devouring Eye. After I died, I gave up on trying to go for it myself. I was thinking of looking for someone else to do it. Then we did this Stage together and I thought you could take over."

"But then I died just now."

"And we're trapped, so the point is moot."

"I'll dig us out of here then," he said.

"Even if you could break the rock, we're under kilometres of the stuff. You wouldn't make it out before the Stage ends."

"Then help me!" he yelled. "Stop sitting there all defeated!"

"Adam!" she said forcefully, stopping him before he could truly get started. "It's a Voidspawn that's out there. And not a small one. They're not supposed to show up until Stage Fifteen. It takes a group of extremely competent Players to kill one, or a Divine consumable we don't have. Even the strongest Players avoid them if they can. The only person I've ever seen defeat one by themselves was Arturo, and that's only because he had mastered his weapon and could deliver enough damage to kill one before it noticed him."

"What makes them so difficult?" he asked, frowning at the description.

"They adapt to everything you throw at them. You and I basically only have a handful of moves, and it will have memorised them all before we could deal enough damage to kill it."

"You won't know that until we try."

"The only way we'd get out of here would be to run past it. For some reason, it can't leave the ritual chamber."

"So why don't we?" he asked, frustrated.

"It's not just rocks blocking the tunnel," she said. "The statue shell it was wearing crashed into the opening, blocking it too. It would take a lot of time to shift it out of the way and allow us to leave. Time that the Voidspawn won't give us."

I did that… I pushed it into the tunnel with my attack…

Adam frowned. "So, what are we gonna do? We can't just sit here and wait for the Stage timeout to kill us."

"You're gonna sit your ass down on this bed next to me," Emelia said. "And then I will tell you everything I know about the Trials of Defiance."

"You're certain we'll die if we take it on?"

"I've seen these things kill a lot of Players more prepared than you and me," she replied. "I don't think our chances are great."

I should've kept the wand and used the Necromancy to make Alepheria's corpse into a distraction…

But I guess that the Paintbrush staff can create distractions too.

"So, you want to tell me everything you know, to prepare me for my next loop?" he asked, frustrated.

"Yes. I want you to find me again and remind me of all the ways I feel about you now, by giving me the Scale of Remembrance."

Adam frowned.

"You won't return."

"I know. My Adam didn't return either. But I still love this version of you, even if it's not quite the same."

"It might not even work."

"It will work," she said. "I believe it will."

"That's nonsense."

"Well. You have a choice to make then," she said with a wistful smile. "You can listen to what I have to tell you, or you can run out there and die."

Adam ground his teeth in frustration, but eventually he sat down on the bed next to her.

Then Emelia started to talk.

She talked for hours, going over things in as much detail as she could, but still lacking descriptions for a lot of things, forcing Adam to interrupt and ask her to elaborate more than once.

By the end, when surely they were deep into the third and final day, neither of them sleeping or taking much of a rest, Emelia reached the part about the Self-devouring Eye. She carefully explained the steps to obtain it. The most important one was the Cheat Death requirement, since it was possible to lock yourself out of it. In her first run, when Arturo had been the time-looper, he had gifted her a Relic that had this ability tied to it, and she had used it to reach the Divine power that let her go back to the beginning, bringing her knowledge back with her.

She also went over the builds she thought were worth seeking, and she described her own setup in meticulous detail.

It was a lot to remember, but Adam didn't question his ability to retain it all. The gravity of the situation, and the weight of the burden and knowledge that Emelia passed on to him made it too important to forget.

They both got up from the bed, and Emelia hugged Adam tightly.

"This is not goodbye," she said.

"We'll survive this," Adam told her stubbornly, kissing her on the lips.

Emelia quickly pulled away, saying nothing in return.

Despite her defeated attitude, she didn't walk through the tunnel to the ritual chamber looking like she was ready to die. Instead she strode like a gladiator of yore, even though she believed that certain death awaited in the arena.

Adam had already prepared a double-fused barrier and infused it with Mana, meditating before they left to ensure he came at this with a full tank. He also had the Fetish of Sloth in his hand, and he had tested out the Cloud Skimmer Jacket's dash ability, feeling confident he could use it to avoid attacks.

Emelia launched from the mouth of the tunnel, the click of her Spring-Loaded Stilts like the hammer of a gun being fired. Her gauntleted fist struck the boss and sent it flying into the back wall, but then she immediately started back-pedalling as cosmic-black tentacles shot out like lightning strikes, impossible for Adam to predict. Emelia made it look like she had the ability to see the future as she jumped and dodged the attacks.

But then suddenly she missed, or rather, the Voidspawn learnt her pattern and changed its attack to catch her. She was slapped into the floor, but quickly pushed herself back and away as two tentacles struck where she'd been, creating large holes in the floor.

Adam fired his barrier projectile at the monster as it pushed forward, revealing its body to just be a knot of cosmic-black hair-like tentacles. Like a bundle of snakes plucked from the night sky.

The concussive boom made his ears ring, but it was nowhere near as powerful as before, and the Voidspawn recovered almost in an instant, forcing him to resummon his two barriers and command them to intercept the attacks it suddenly sent his way.

He double-dashed to get far enough away from it, then activated his Fetish of Sloth, bringing out two Slothling Dervishes, which immediately flew at the boss. The Voidspawn killed one of the Slothlings the moment it got close, though the Last Stand's Fervour kept it standing.

Behind him, near the mouth of the tunnel, floated the golden paintbrush staff. It finally finished the spell it had been making, and a painted bear in bright child-like colours bounded towards the boss with a mind of its own. Fallow's Treasure was a lot slower at using weapons than if they were wielded by Players, but the ability to multi-task was extremely efficient, not to mention the fact that it didn't need any of his Mana to cast spells.

Adam used a barrier to send himself flying towards the blocked tunnel to freedom. Emelia launched up into the air with her stilts and landed next to him a moment later. Together they put all their strength into shifting the hollow obsidian statue, with his barriers pushing as hard as they could.

They both kept an eye on the Voidspawn, which quickly killed the painted bear and knocked aside the other summons harassing it. Then one of its tentacles glowed the same colour as the Fervour effect, before it jabbed right into a Slothling, disabling its life-prolonging effect and making it disappear. Another strike and the other Slothling was gone too. The Paintbrush created two small rabbits that hopped towards the boss, but they were immediately killed as well.

The Voidspawn noticed the staff in the mouth of the tunnel, and with a terrifyingly-fast blur of limbs, it crossed the chamber to it and broke the weapon in half. The Paintbrush reappeared on Adam's back while the golden glob of Fallow's Treasure dropped to the ground.

Shit!

They managed to move the statue enough that they could get past, but there were a lot of collapsed rocks behind it, and shifting those would be a lot harder.

Adam was forced to double-dash to launch himself to the other side of the chamber, while Emelia did her best to avoid getting hit, using punches and kicks to deflect the tentacles.

But then the Voidspawn adapted to that too, and, in a single sudden stab, it drove a tentacle all the way into her head and down through her body, withdrawing it and dripping her blood all over the floor.

Emelia collapsed where she stood, a pool of crimson quickly forming around her.

"NO!!" Adam screamed, flinging his barriers at the boss, shaping one into a lance and the other into a clawed hand.

The Voidspawn flung out a tentacle that pulsed the same midnight-blue colour as his barriers. Then his spells just evaporated.

Adam resummoned the barriers and commanded them to block incoming attacks, but the knot of cosmic-black just sent its limbs right through the spells. He had no choice but to dash out of the way, but when he went to dash a second time to get even more distance, he stumbled over his own feet and felt the air burn in his lungs.

He had used up all his Stamina by spamming his jacket's ability.

A tentacle shot right for his head.

Before everything went black, he had an unsettling thought.

The Voidspawn makes no sound when it moves.

Then he felt darkness enter his head.

Adam gasped, finding soft green grass under his knees.

Unlike the three resets before, this time he didn't violently vomit onto the ground.

Instead hot stinging tears ran down his face.

Adam screamed.

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