Maria Virdis regretted her overconfidence. She had the strength, wit, and the skills to fulfill her mission.
If she was at her full strength of peak rank 6, killing a low rank 6 Undead creature called Reaper would've been child's play.
She should've reached at least the peak of rank 5 when she's this close to clearing zone 1. But she's still a peak rank 4.
'Why? What happened? Where did I go wrong?'
As the world around her blinked in and out as they teleported hundreds of millions of miles every time, Maria fell into deep thought.
But before the thought process even began, the weirdness of having the luxury to think in such a dangerous escape struck her.
'R-Right! It's all because of him.' Maria turned her gaze to the right and saw Varian's tired but solemn expression.
She had activated her space treasure to match his and despite that, Varian was putting in a lot of effort for this escape.
If she had to escape from this chase by herself, Maria had one treasure. But if she used it now, the mission might as well be abandoned.
For the disciple of Miss Calamity, it's a blotch of shame that'd haunt not only her but even her master.
Still, if it wasn't for Varian, she'd have struggled much more to climb the tower and would've been forced to improve her strength.
But her crafty plan ended up backfiring and the smooth ride became the reason for their rough circumstances.
"I can sense something approaching," Maria's eyes suddenly glowed into focus and she looked behind with a pale expression. "Death…death energy that's enough to kill even a peak rank 5, no, ten peak rank 5s."
Varian sensed it a few seconds after Maria did. The two glowing spheres of black and red.
Even if he used his full space powers, he wasn't able to get rid of them. They seemed to remember the scent of his life and hunted him like hounds.
'I can't possibly face that attack head-on.' Varian didn't think he could use 'stars' or 'planets' as cover to weaken these death bringers. They're simple, not dumb.
'Is there a way? Is there any way I can deal with a power of this magnitude without killing myself?' Varian felt his body grow heavy as the toll from unending teleportation started to build.
He wouldn't be able to run for long. He had to do something. Anything.
He might be able to fight a low rank 5 now with all his powers and artifacts. But peak rank 5 was a world away from a low rank 5.
And this wasn't a normal peak rank 5 attack. It's a weakened attack of a rank 6 and could still instantly kill ten peak rank 5s.
'Something…someone…'
The space around him blipped on and off as the surroundings continued to change with each teleportation. He was disappearing and appearing so quickly that he felt a sense of disconnect from the world and even himself.
Amidst the chaotic situation, Varian's mind turned to the woman beside him. The reason he took her to escape instead of abandoning her was fairly simple.
Her presence was tremendously useful in crossing the floors. And her knowledge came quite handy, saving him weeks of work. Otherwise, he wouldn't have reached the 29th floor so quickly.
Saving her wasn't taking any extra toll on him since she let him use her space treasure. Ironically, if he actually escaped alone, he'd have been more tired.
"T-Tree girl," Varian's voice was rough and his breath was ragged, in complete contrast to the usual calmness he maintained. "A-Any ideas?"
"The attacks are powerful but not fast enough. If you keep running forever, they can't catc—ouch!." Maria touched her forehead.
"Speak human words."
"I don't know. If only I had my powers back, I could easily blow them off." Maria hung her head low and replied in a depressing tone. "I think I've blown my mission. There's no way we're escaping from thi—ouch!"
Maria clutched her forehead again and glared at him. "You bastard! What's your problem?"
"Speak human words."
"I don't want to fail in the mission. Arghhh, I never failed so far. My ego won't allow me to withdraw! Fuck that skeleton! And fuck you for making my climb so easy that I didn't even get stronger."
Varian almost wanted to slap her for blaming him. He did what? He made her life easier and now she got the galls to complain about it?!
Slapping her would take him nowhere and this woman might be mad enough to fight him on the spot.
Unwilling to jeopardize the shot at survival, Varian asked. "Where are the seals on your ranks placed?"
"Huh?" Maria's depression was gone, replaced by vigilance and slight hostility. But the hostility quickly faded and instead, a glimmer of hope appeared.
Even though she didn't know him for long, she witnessed his deeds in person. Even when his strength wasn't enough to bulldoze through the problem, he's always able to figure out a way.
"The rank 6's seal is in my soul, rank 5 in my heart, and rank 4 was in my aura itself." The tree princess replied.
"Brace yourself." Varian put a hand on top of her hand and clenched his fist.
"Huh?"
A silent spiritual attack struck her soul when she was least expecting it. But the protective treasure on her body reacted in time and prevented her from fainting.
"I-I'll ki..ll yooou," Maria glared at him with bloodshot eyes and a dangerous aura began to ooze out from her storage ring.
Varian flicked her forehead and said. "Don't misunderstand, I'm trying to break the seal."
The dizzy Maria who wanted to perform a move of mutual destruction paused and gave him a chance.
A mysterious force she could only vaguely feel entered her body from his hands and forced into her heart.
"This is hard." Varian frowned.
Even with the sliver powers, he'd need to spend a significant time to break this seal. What's more, in doing so, the spillover might destroy her heart and at least half of her left torso. That's actually the best-case scenario. But if things actually went south, her head would blow up and she'd be dead.
"Y-You're kidding, it's impossible to r…emove the s-seal f..rom outsi.d..e."
Varian didn't listen to her blabber and got to work. At the same time, he directed her to activate the next-floor-circle detector treasure.
"Ten solar systems away,"
Varian's eyes flashed with determination and he channeled all the aura in his body for a final sprint.
"S-Slow! Slow d—" Maria bled from her nose, ears, and eyes as the space around her grew utterly chaotic. Soon, countless cuts began to appear on her skin and she became a bleeding mess.
If the teleportations until now felt like she was poking a wall of soap bubbles in the way, this one felt like she was pushing through endless walls of concrete. With pointed nails.
"Arghhh!"
Varian's condition was worse than her and since he poured all his powers into space, he wasn't even healing properly anymore. But he remained eerily silent and continued on.
At the ninth minute, they jumped into a star system, found a planet and Varian quickly blasted through a cave of rank 4 apes to jump into the teleportation gate.
Two minutes later, two black-red spheres entered the planet's atmosphere. By the time they approached the cave, every grass, flower, plant, and tree on the planet died. As did every creature.
The spheres weakened considerably but feedback from these corpses nourished them in moments and they were back to almost 90% of the state they were a few minutes ago.
With a woosh, the two spheres also entered the 30th floor.
