The Shadows disdained after noticing Varian's strength and shot their elemental attacks together.
They didn't just want to kill him, they wanted his corpse to be shredded into pieces and scattered into the realm.
So, those three attacks came together and the Shadows, like always, expected these attacks to amplify.
<Diminish>
Varian's eyes glowed with an ominous black light and the world froze for a moment. The darkness in the surroundings intensified and the evening atmosphere turned into one of midnight.
The attacks—lightning, ice and fire—all went from strong rank 6 attacks to strong rank 5 attacks.
Varian swatted them away with the back of his hand and drew his sword. An arc of crimson cut through the space between Varian and the shadows.
It was his strongest attack, but nowhere enough to threaten three of these shadows.
But the crimson arc expanded, the crimson sparks around it crackled and the arc glowed brighter than a star.
Then—
And there's no then.
The crimson arc sliced through the three rank 6 Shadows, crushing their final resistance and killing them with ease.
'That's a peak rank 6 power, no, maybe even rank 7?' Varian didn't know but he kept staring between his sword and the hundred miles of blank area where even darkness was blown away.
For a moment, he wondered how it'd be like if he had that much power without this amplification.
'With one shot, I could have killed a hundred of those skeleton bastards. And Miss Calamity clone? Bitch please! I would've never ended up here in the first place.'
As his mind wandered, a scream from Maria pulled his thoughts back.
"Arghhh!"
Maria was also unlucky and got grazed by a few amplified attacks she desperately tried to dodge. As a result, she managed to save her life but ended up on ground, like her peers.
Coincident or not, she was lying down right next to them.
"Err," Maria looked at Varian and opened her mouth, embarrassment apparent on her face.
"Go on, say it." Varian gritted his teeth as he jumped back to the guarding position and faced off against the remaining Shadows.
"T-Thank you f-for…"
"For saving your ass, the third time? Or fourth? I lost count." Varian exhaled and swung his sword thrice.
Three crimson arcs shot out from the blade, expanded, and exploded, ending all the Shadows in a blink.
From there on, it was an easy journey.
The fabled spiral of shadows, with legends lamenting its difficulty, turned into a literal cakewalk.
Maria and her friends were smart enough to not poke into Varian's secret and just remained grateful for his help.
They didn't know, but if they did things that crossed the line, Varian was ready to abandon them and walk in alone.
They took on the strong rank 6s and were really helpful. But if it really came to down it, Varian could also spend a few weeks or even months to reach great strength in rank 6.
-— —- — — —
The fourth spiral was one where the land was glittering with starry, glassy sand. It looked like they were standing on a glass with stars underneath. Varian didn't want to break it and find out though.
Interestingly, the land of the spiral vanished after reaching a place with three doors.
Three silvery doors with an arch, inscribed by microscopic ruins formed macroscopic images of a yin-yang fish at the center of each door.
"What is this place? And the doors?"
There's nothing in front. Unlike other places, Varian couldn't see the fifth spiral anywhere. It's just void. He tried to go around the doors and step into the void. But a strong force repelled him back. If he insisted, he might get serious injuries at best and die at worst.
"This is the only way, huh." Varian understood the nature of the test.
[Pick The Right Door To Pass.]
This was the <Order> of this region, modeled by a power beyond his reach. Even compared to the safe zone, the spirals had stronger order and chaos laws.
'This place is related to you, isn't it? Logos?'
[…]
The System maintained its right to silence. But Varian wasn't expecting an answer anyway.
"If you pick the right door now, you just have to pick the right door for the next three times and you're done," Bella explained, putting on the look of a great scholar.
Perhaps picking four right doors to get to the next spiral was related to the position of this spiral from the outside—Fourth.
"But if you go through one wrong door, then you'll be asked to pick from nine doors next. Wrong again? Then, twenty-seven, eighty-one, and so on." Bella's scholarly face crumbled and she put on a frustrated expression.
It was a tricky situation. If purely based on luck, there's just around a 1% chance of getting it all right. It's hard, but not that bad.
"What if I get the first door wrong and the second door right?" Varian asked with a frown.
"That's a problem. Since your first attempt was wrong, the doors will reach nine. If you got the second door right, you'll still have to pick from nine for the third door. If you're right again, then nine for the fourth door and so on. When you pick four right doors consecutively, you can leave."
The number of doors could only increase but not decrease.
Varian rubbed between his brows.
The chances just got worse.
If he made just one mistake in the first door, then he'd have to pick the right one from nine for four consecutive times.
The chances fell from around 1% to around 0.01%! Nearly a hundred times deduction!
A second mistake means twenty-seven doors. That's close to a 1 in a million chance. Varian didn't even want to think about the consequences of the third mistake.
With trembling hands, Varian raised his sword and thrust at the door with his full strength.
Kaa!
Not even a scratch on the door while his arms started to tingle and his palms began to bleed.
"Don't bother, the doors are indestructible," Bella said and looked at his shocked face with a wry smile. "You can leave if you want. It's already enough to help. Especially the last spiral, without you, we'd have all died."
Varian was silent.
He thought this place was just a trial that could at most kill him. It's a fucking prison!
Being trapped in this place where your chances of getting out would decrease exponentially with every wrong choice would mean prison for eternity.
If he went it, he might never return. To Varian, such imprisonment was worse than death.
Forget other things, such imprisonment would severely limit his chances to fight and grow stronger.
Even if he could just practice on his own and improve his strength, for how long could he sustain here?
How long would he remain sane while knowing this his wives, people, and race all were under unknown danger?
Varian's fingertips dug into his cheek as his mind went through a painful decision.
Only Sarah's wedding ring was here. So, that meant Sia and everyone else were safe and at home.
He could just turn around, leave the world tree, get to the safe zone and out of the tower, and return to Hortus right away.
It's that simple. It wouldn't take more than five minutes.
It's a very simple decision to take. One wife or one wife and everything else?
The Emperor of Humans always considered himself rational. For a rational man, the decision in the current situation was obvious.
"Haaa!" Varian took a deep breath and closed his eyes shut.
"I'm sorry," He stepped forward. "I just want to be a fool now."
