Isagi did not follow the other girls into the tower right away.
Instead, he paused — gazing up at Rivira drifting in midair — and after a moment's thought, decided to check on the town first.
With his own flight ability and Ais's beside him, they made quick work of it. Before long, the entire group had ascended to Rivira — floating in the sky above the holy city, or more precisely, sandwiched between the two holy cities, one above and one below.
The adventurer town that had once stood firm on its hillside now resembled a small island adrift in the void.
The adventurers still on it wore expressions of pure bewilderment, utterly unable to comprehend how things had come to this.
They had been coming down to the Dungeon to level up frequently before — Isagi and the girls. The sight of Rivira changing, an inverted city appearing, another city materializing below the crystal floor — none of that was exactly news to the people who lived here.
But the colossal monster that had just appeared.
And now this sudden, inexplicable shift — that, no one had seen coming.
On top of everything else, the surroundings were pitch black.
A dense, all-consuming darkness pressed in from every direction. Only the two crystal cities — one above and one below — radiated a clear, bright luminescence, their presence visible precisely because of that light they gave off.
Inside Rivira, magic-stone lanterns and torches had been lit to push back the darkness. Even so, looking out in any direction, all you could see was an endless, smothering night.
Still.
The town itself appeared to be fine.
Ganesha Familia had already taken over management of the place. Both Isagi and Ryuu knew one of their Level 4 officers stationed there. After a brief exchange, they confirmed that Rivira itself had not suffered any abnormalities.
What might happen next was another matter entirely.
Rivira normally housed hundreds, sometimes thousands of adventurers at any given time. If something went wrong, Isagi couldn't guarantee their safety.
And so —
Relying purely on his sense of direction, Isagi and Ais quickly located the Artificial Labyrinth entrance set into the crystal wall at the edge of the darkness.
The Dungeon's influence hadn't left the Artificial Labyrinth untouched — but for now, it hadn't actually changed anything inside it, either.
So they seized the opportunity.
Using the tamed Wyvern mounts that Ganesha Familia had deployed in the adventurer town, they ferried everyone out in groups. It took considerable time, but batch by batch, every last adventurer was transported into the Artificial Labyrinth — and from there, they rode the already-installed elevators straight back up to the surface.
Several hours passed this way.
By the time the adventurer town had fallen completely quiet, Isagi and the girls finally turned their eyes toward the tower nearby — the one that had been "spliced" into existence before them.
"Why does this feel familiar somehow?"
"It looks like Babel."
"A bit, yeah — but not quite as large—"
Babel was enormous. Roughly comparable to the Dungeon's first floor in scale, with each of its levels easily capable of accommodating several thousand people.
The tower before them was a full size smaller by comparison.
And yet — why did it look exactly like Babel?
Isagi confirmed it: the original holy city, whether the outer inverted portion above or the frozen interior below, had contained no such tower. Which meant it had only just appeared.
Was it like the clock tower and the abandoned chapel where Alfia had been before? Was the Dungeon "imitating" the city's architecture?
Carrying that question with them, Isagi and the girls moved out quickly.
Before long, a new dilemma presented itself: the tower had two completely identical entrances — one at the top and one at the bottom.
So.
Top down, or bottom up?
From a pure efficiency standpoint, splitting up to explore both simultaneously made the most sense. But given what they'd just faced with Alfia and Absolute Evil — the possibility of encountering another special boss strengthened by the Dungeon, something of at least Level 7 — keeping everyone together was obviously the right call.
Isagi made his decision.
They'd start from the top and work their way down. If there was nothing inside, they'd backtrack and try from the bottom up.
More importantly — something about the tower gave Isagi the distinct sense that it wasn't a "stage" in the conventional sense.
Not like the Road of Agony from before, with its traps and mechanisms and monsters lurking around every corner. This felt less like a gauntlet and more like —
[A form of expression. Something the Dungeon was trying to say.]
As it turned out, Isagi had guessed correctly.
They first flew up to the inverted holy city above, using their flight abilities as before.
The moment they made contact with it, their sense of direction shifted once more. A powerful pull surged from above, and in an instant, "up" became "down" — Rivira flipped over entirely, now hanging inverted just overhead.
And once they stepped inside the tower itself — they encountered nothing worth calling dangerous.
Inside.
A spiral staircase wound upward, and murals lined the walls on every side.
The murals were not difficult to read — even the airheaded Tiona could follow them clearly. They showed a vast Goblin army that had once dwelt closest to the surface, which, in its hunger for greater strength, had begun pushing ever downward — waging war deeper and deeper, striving to return to the darker, more profound depths below.
["Darkness" is the source of all monsters' power. The closer a monster is to the "Darkness," the stronger it becomes.]
[And so, driven by that hunger for power, the Goblins — who had already conquered countless other monsters — pressed onward, ever downward, seeking to draw closer to where the Darkness was most concentrated.]
But.
When they exited the tower, followed Isagi's original plan, and entered from the bottom entrance — making their way upward — the murals told a different story entirely.
Here, monsters dwelling within the darkness were depicted seeking every conceivable means of escape from the bottomless depths, yearning to reach the surface, to reach the city above.
[The Dark Mother yearns for the sky. And so, buried deep in the heart of every monster, a small, quiet wish has been planted.]
[To reach the surface. To see the sky. The sun, the clouds, the moon, the stars — everything the deep earth does not have. Everything that monsters have never possessed.]
Up. Up. Up. Up. Up —
In the murals, Isagi and the girls watched them: countless monsters rising from the deepest dark, forming vast armies, surging upward without end.
They fought other monsters. They fought adventurers. They fought the ancient heroes of old.
And all of it — every last clash — in service of one single goal: to break through the tower's seal, to break through the great pit, to return to the world above.
The monsters above wanted to descend and grow stronger.
The monsters below wanted to ascend and fulfill their mother's wish.
And so.
[We were caught in the middle.]
In the murals, Isagi and the girls could see them — a group of monsters being attacked from both sides at once, pressed between the Goblins above and the creatures surging up from the depths below.
And so, they had become the most desperate of all.
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan in "P" for more!🔥👻
🔥 New history: Uchiha Reborn in Jujutsu Kaisen: The System Thinks I'm in Konoha, but I'm Not
Help us unlock these community rewards:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone