Varian wanted to train in the safe zone to push his strength until it couldn't rise anymore. It was an excellent plan considering the sheer size of warriors available. Unfortunately, the rules of Safezone rendered his dream futile.
With a slightly disappointed mood, Varian followed Maria to a large black Steele which they touched and jumped onto the 31st floor.
The planet they landed on was normal.
A bunch of rank 4, rank 5, and rank 6s dinosaur-like creatures were roaming around, fighting, mating, and hunting.
The planet was exceptionally resilient and even the fights of rank 6s only caused its continental plates to shake.
Amidst the continuous explosions, Varian followed behind Maria who rushed into a volcano.
Alright, it wasn't a volcano but the nose of a very, very large creature. But for the sake of his own sanity, Varian decided to treat it as a real volcano.
"Where are we going?" Varian asked, his voice restless and his lips twitching. 'What if this thing sneezes? I don't wanna die in a sneeze! That'd be the most embarra.s.sing way to die!'
"Why? Worried I'll kill you now that I recovered my strength?" Maria smirked.
"With the treasures I got, you should be the one to worry."
"…"????????.???
Maria gnashed her teeth but acknowledged the harsh reality. She had a treasure to counter him but it was something for her mission.
"I won't hide it from you anymore. We're not climbing the floor." The tree lady confessed as they jumped into the volcano.
Pools of green liquid boiled at the bottom at temperatures enough to melt iron and steel. Patches of green and pink growing on the interior sides of the volcano were inhaling the heat and vapor of the green liquid.
The pool had ripples everywhere as ten-meter fishes jumped in and out of the green liquid.
'How's that even possible?' Varian had no idea how these creatures could survive that high temperature. But he had seen enough weird s.h.i.t to not be bewildered by it.
What worried him were Maria's words.
"Not climbing the floor? Our agreement is you help me climb the floors faster and I a.s.sist you."
"Yes. I worded it wrong. What I meant is that we won't be climbing them in the conventional way." Maria rubbed her cheek in embarra.s.sment and pointed a finger towards the pool.
A vine grew out of her finger and shot into the pool. The fish didn't like the intruder and tried to swallow it whole. But the vine suddenly grew a mouth and devoured the giant fishes like they were some evening chips.
A moment later, the vine brought back a fist-sized green sphere.
'If this is the creature's neck, then this…' Varian took a step back instinctively.
"We'll have to grow a tree to get into the unconventional path to climb the tower." Maria pointed to the sphere. "This is the seed of that tree."
"Oh? Oh! Ok." Varian experienced many emotions in that one moment.
"Alright, the teleportation circle is nearby, we can quickly lea—"
The volcano shook and a huge eyeball covered the volcano's opening, staring down at them.
"F-f.u.c.k!" Varian cursed by habit.
The creature was a peak rank 5.
Seeing him panic, Maria smirked and stepped forward. "Don't worry, I'll handl—"
The eye withdrew and a larger eye gazed into the volcano.
This one was…mid rank 6.
"f.u.c.k!" Maria swore this time.
Then three more eyeb.a.l.l.s eyed them. They were all peak rank 5s, so Maria wasn't panicking as much.
But Varian—
"What the h.e.l.l did you do to provoke these big baddies? Aren't they resting ten thousand miles away? They are very peaceful in general and won't attack unless provoked!" Varian did his research and showed it off without humility.
"Provoke my a.s.s! Run!" The elegant princess swore like a pirate and ran for it.
But before they even jumped out of the volcano, a thunderous roar nearly ruptured their eardrums.
The next thing they knew, the large, warm, and protective volcano around them was ripped off the ground and tossed into the sky like it was a fricking baseball.
"Holy s.h.i.t!" Varian's heart stopped beating for a moment as the implications of plucking a monster's nose flooded his mind.
An earth-shattering roar overwhelmed a million miles as a heavenly beast slowly rose to its feet. It towered everyone and everything, reaching the sky in a single step.
"S-Sorry about your nose, it wasn't us." Maria apologized but the creature's huge eyes, each of which was as big as a town, didn't show any decrease in fury.
The beast—whose nose—the volcano—was violently ripped off, looked down at the perpetrators.
"Uh?"
"Oh?"
"Eh?"
"Ih?"I think you should take a look at
The rank 6 dinosaur as well as the rank 5s all flinched and stepped back under that overwhelming gaze.
But it didn't stop there. Its killing intent also locked onto Varian and Maria, who were quietly trying to sneak away.
"Eep!"
"f.u.c.k!"
Varian and Maria looked at the four dinosaurs. The former enemies reached a tactical understanding and began running at the same time.
The heavenly beast followed in leisurely steps.
But to the ones being chased, it was the start of an apocalypse.
The ground crumbled and the sky shook.
Mountains, forests, rivers—everything in the way of the enormous beast was destroyed irreversibly.
"Euk!"
A huge mouth opened behind them and sucked in.
The peak rank 5 dinosaur struggled violently but couldn't escape the fate of being devoured.
"Euk!"
Another peak rank 5 dinosaur was met with the same fate.
The leader of the pack, the rank 6, could no longer stay still.
The horns on its head shone with a brilliant light and it roared at the moons in the sky.
"Huh?"
The heavenly beast didn't understand why it did what it did. But the next second, it stopped in its tracks and stared up at the moon, no, it stared at the dot that departed from the moon and fast rushing towards the planet.
The dot expanded in a blink and turned into an enormous dinosaur that seemed to cover the entire sky.
The heavenly beast raised its neck and issued a warning. The moon dinosaur didn't care and continued descending.
"Run! Run!" Varian and Maria ran in a straight line and reached the edge of the continent. The sea in front of them was in a disturbing red. But they didn't care and jumped in. The next moment, a terrifying shockwave swept the entire continent.
Even the sea suffered from a tsunami.
Varian and Maria swam to another continent on the planet, hoping to quickly enter that teleportation circle and leave the floor.
But—
Four eyeb.a.l.l.s gazed at them with thick killing intent.
The peak rank 5 and rank 6 dinosaurs that eyed them at the beginning and started off this entire thing.
"You're still following us?" Maria lost her temper. "If you want blood, the blood you'll get."
The rank 6 beast and the rank 6 princess faced off.
Meanwhile, Varian awkwardly waved at the peak rank 5 beast. "H-h.e.l.lo, I don't think we have any personal enmity. How about you wave this off and help your buddy over there? That woman might be a sub-rank lower but she got a lot of nasty treasures to a.s.sist her."
Boom!
A cloud of dust rose into the air and a silent tremor spread throughout the continent.
Maria rose from a deep crater with disheveled hair and spat out some mud mixed with blood before yelling. "Hey, on whose team are you really?"
The rank 6 dinosaur growled and slashed its giant wing at her.
Ignoring his teammate, Varian continued to persuade the rank 5 dinosaur who seemed to be at least listening.
"Think about it, if you don't help your boy, he'll die. Then, you'll have to fight a rank 6 by yourself! You won't survive!"
The dinosaur was visibly fl.u.s.tered imagining the possibility.
Varian's lips arched into the smile of a conman and he continued. "But! If you kill her first, you and your boss can easily kill me."
The dinosaur tilted its head and blinked its large eyes. It seemed to give his words some serious thought.
"Yes, make the most logical dec—f.u.c.k!" Varian jumped out as a huge head slammed into the ground, narrowly missing him.
The rank 5 dinosaur looked at him with disdain and snorted before it threw its claws at him.
"You dumbf.u.c.k! You guys deserved that asteroid!" Varian cursed and teleported to the clouds.
He didn't want to fight a peak rank 5. But now, he had no choice.
— — — —
Watching the two of them on a screen from another planet, a man and woman quietly fought against several rank 6s.