Chapter 357

Jacob and Taya arrive at the Dungeon after following directions from some of the locals, and without further ado, enter it.

As soon as they enter, they can both feel a very, very thick Primordial Magic spread throughout the Dungeon.

Jacob goes still.

“There is a Mana signature in here,” he says. “It’s so powerful. It’s more powerful than what I felt from Lyra. What the hell is this place? I can feel something. It’s like something inside of me is resonating with this entire place.”

They both hear a female voice cackling from the walls. They’re in a very simple stone room with one door, and the voice bounces off all the walls.

“I can’t believe my luck,” the voice says. “How has Karma brought my prey to me? I can’t believe this.”

Jacob doesn’t recognize the voice and turns to Taya. “Is this for you?”

“No, it’s not for her,” the voice snaps, before Taya can actually reply. “You have never had the honor of speaking directly to me, Jacob Cloud. This is the first time I’ve ever tried condensing my power, and I can’t believe you’re trapped with me. Do you know what this means? Do you know that your fate was just sealed, and—”

“Sorry, who are you?” Jacob says, interrupting the screaming voice.

“I will— Wait, what do you mean, who am I? Have you not yet understood?”

Jacob looks at the walls and says, “Is this a sentient Dungeon?”

“A sentient— Are you daft? What do you mean, a sentient Dungeon? Can’t you feel my power?”

Jacob tries to activate the Grimoire to get a better read on the Dungeon, but the Grimoire is actually not responding.

“Um, no. My— Well, I can’t really use my Skill, apparently, here.”

“Your Rainbow Skill. The Grimoire. The Skill I created, you mean?”

Jacob looks around. “You created the Grimoire?”

“Have you not heard what my Apostle told you when you met her? And you had the guts, the courage, to kill her, thinking there would be no repercussion?”

“I wasn’t really thinking about repercussions whenever I killed your Apostle. Wait — Asmodeus? But I never… Haven’t we met? Haven’t I just killed your incarnation? What’s happening here?”

“You compare me to an inferior divinity?” The voice and the walls shake violently. “I am Apocalypse. Tremble before me. I will take your body and soul.”

“Ew,” Jacob replies. “That sounds weird. But— So this is— But this is just a normal Dungeon. How can you be Apocalypse? Why are you lying?”

Apocalypse is shell-shocked by the flurry of insane questions that Jacob is asking, and by the fact that he doesn’t believe she’s actually Apocalypse. She’s even tempted to stop her condensation process and drag the half-formed body she has in front of Jacob to strangle him with her own two hands.

“You…” She’s speechless. “Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know. To intimidate me? I guess that if you’re a sentient Dungeon, it would make sense that you would fake being Apocalypse.”

“How would that make any sense? What advantage would a sentient Dungeon have in letting you believe that it was Apocalypse? That it was me?”

“I mean, isn’t it obvious?”

“No, it’s not,” the voice snaps.

“Well, if you were a sentient Dungeon, you would tell me you’re Apocalypse to scare us. You know, make us nervous. Think that we can make mistakes.”

“You cannot use your Rainbow Skill. How do you believe I am just a Dungeon? I will rip the Rainbow Skill from your body. You have no idea what it means that you brought it here. Rafnov tore it from me. A Skill that is rightfully mine.”

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“A Skill that is rightfully yours, and Rafnov tore it from a normal Dungeon?”

At this point, Taya caught on to what Jacob was doing and snorted a laugh. That seems to make Apocalypse even more furious.

“I will reap your pitiful life. Now that you cannot access your Grimoire, you’re done. You’re dead. You’re beyond salvation. If you beg nicely, I will kill you slightly less slowly. But you shall still suffer a thousand years of soul torture.”

Then Apocalypse’s laughter makes the walls tremble.

Jacob looks at the Dungeon, scratches his chin, and says, “Oh, so this is a Dungeon full of traps that I could have easily gone through with the Grimoire. But since you’re here, I can’t use the Grimoire. And that means — oh man — that I can’t survive this place. Oh no.”

“I see that you’re finally realizing how dire your situation is.”

“Indeed. So dire. It’s terrible. So how many rooms are here? Like, how many traps are we talking about? Were you cheap when you made this? And by the way, since you’re already killing me, do you mind telling me why you would hide as a sentient Dungeon and claim to be Apocalypse?”

“I am Apocalypse!” the Primordial Goddess shouts at the top of her lungs. Her voice carries throughout the entire Dungeon. “I am condensing my true self. That is something that can only be done once. Unlike the inferior divinity that you must have destroyed, a Primordial God only appears once. But when we do, our power is unstoppable. We have faith and Karma on our side. We can manipulate reality. And now I have enough resources stacked that I can destroy Zamorye and Rafnov’s heritage once and for all.”

“I mean, why didn’t you do it before?” Jacob frowns. “If you are Apocalypse, that is.”

“Someone — some bastard — created a Skill Crystal that—”

“Oh, the Wrath of Blade Skill Crystal?”

Apocalypse suddenly goes silent.

“Well, it was hard, let me tell you. Because of the Grimoire that I suppose you gave me, I had a really hard time turning Mana nodes into anything. Matter of fact, I still can’t do much with them. I can also feel, like — are there Mana nodes in here, or am I imagining things?”

“Get to the point.”

“Well, it was hard to craft Wrath of Blade into a Skill Crystal, because I destroyed every Mana node that I touched.”

That made sense to Apocalypse, since she knew how the Grimoire worked. It would be almost impossible for a Grimoire user to create Skill Crystals from mines like anybody else would be able to. It was perhaps one of the few drawbacks to such a perfect Skill. And once she absorbed it back, her power would be boundless. She already had abilities that rivaled the Grimoire in many ways. But since that part had been carved out by Rafnov and turned into a Rainbow Skill, she would finally be at full power as soon as she killed Jacob and took everything from him.

“But thanks to King Blade’s spirit reappearing after I mistakenly destroyed the Book of Blade here, we condensed the cores needed to make the Skill Crystals, and I helped him out creating them.”

“What?” Apocalypse says, stunned. “Are you saying you were the one who created those damn Skill Crystals? Are you saying you’re the one who once again became a thorn in my back? The reason that — right when I was about to finally start slaughtering Zamorye in earnest, and I could delay my condensation further until I had killed every single heir of Rafnov and his rotten disciples — you came to this damn world and created the Skill Crystal for a Skill — for a Primordial Spell, actually — that had been lost for millennia?”

“You make me sound like I’m really obsessed with you,” Jacob says. “But I guarantee you, I ended up here because I was chasing the Mad God, who in turn had tried to trap me and kill me with the God of Monsters, Asmodeus. And I’ll be honest, if you gods left me alone, none of this would have happened. So this is kind of on you. You could have avoided messing around with me back in Ashenmere.”

Apocalypse couldn’t believe her ears. Her name was enough to terrorize even Rafnov’s disciples. Even Rafnov himself spoke to her with respect whenever they had crossed paths. Who was Jacob Cloud to speak to her like this, so vulgarly?

“I will cut your tongue. I will chew on it. I was never this happy to have finally condensed a body. I will be feasting on your corpse. I usually employ spells to consume flesh and blood, Jacob Cloud. But I will keep you alive as I slowly chew through every single bone of yours. As I absorb your essence and chip away at your soul, until you go mad with pain.”

“You know that that sounds awfully sexual,” Taya suddenly says. “It’s a bit disgusting and too graphic.”

That’s when Apocalypse — who had been so taken with Jacob — turns toward her.

“And who the hell are you? What is that weird power I feel in your body?”

It was the kind of power that even Apocalypse could not read. It was a first in her entire life.

“None of your business,” Taya replied with a laugh, and then turned to Jacob. “You really are from a different world. I’ve never heard anyone talk to a primordial being like that.”

“It’s the mines. You could say I’m a peasant, you know.”

Jacob laughs, and Taya laughs back.

Apocalypse has now reached a level of anger she had never experienced before. Not even when Jacob Cloud killed Lyra. Why are these two laughing together, cutely, at her — while she’s technically not just in front of them, but all around them, since she’s possessed the entire Dungeon?

“I will have your life, and I can’t wait for it. It’s a pity that you will die in the first room of this Dungeon. I had envisioned this to torture the inhabitants of Zamorye, but apparently I should have stretched it a little longer to make sure that—”

“Yeah, whatever.” Jacob cuts Apocalypse off. “Let’s just start with this.”

Apocalypse recoils. “I’m not done talking!”

But Jacob’s already walking inside the first room, looking around and telling Taya, “Do you mind walking ahead of me?”

“Sure.”

“You will both die nonetheless. This room is filled with Mithril Rank traps. How do you think you’re going to survive that, huh?”