"You said I shouldn't trust anyone. So why should I trust you with my Grimoire?" I put my hand over the Grimoire. Even though it was solid to me, to others, it'll be a hologram.
Litha looked at me with a baffled look on her face, and like before, Temur laughed. "I'm beginning to like you, Torvan. You've managed to surprise Litha twice now."
"That's a problem," Litha said. "I can't show you around without touching on the Grimoire. Since you are a novice and didn't pass through floor 103– where the basics are taken."
"Very well. We will all share our Grimoire, this way, there won't be any issues, right?" she raised her brow.
I shrugged. "That's fine."
Temur clapped. "Before you start all that we should get out of here. We don't know if there are still members of the cult, we don't want to be caught after we kill their priestess after all."
"Let's see if we can get our things," Litha said.
But instead of going to the tunnel as I expected, Litha crouched before the dead woman, her hands outstretched, but then she paused and looked at me. "Come here and loot her."
I blinked. "I should steal from her?"
She gave me a flat look. "If that's what you want to call it. She kidnapped us and would have killed us, but she's the one that's dead now, so yes, 'steal' from her if you want to. Just do it, be quick about it!"
I started from the front pocket and then her side ones, doing my best not to get blood on my hands but I failed. My stomach rolled, but I firmed my gut. 'Am I not the one that said I want to climb the Tower? Well, then I should get used to this'
Although I might know how cruel and dangerous the new world is, it was far different experiencing it first hand. My thoughts went to Mike that just betrayed me and the anger helped me focused.
I found nothing in her pockets. The only place she had anything valuable was on her left finger. A black ring with a small stone set in the middle that shimmered strangely.
It was a spatial ring. I had heard about it before, and it's so expensive back on earth that only the billionaires have it.
Litha nodded in satisfaction. "Good. That's a spatial ring. Anything you found inside is yours as the on that saved us, but let's check first for our things."
They found their spatial rings in what was stored inside the Priestess ring. And some other things, thirty bronze monster cores, ten Iron monster cores, and two silver cores.
Weapons and ritual spellbooks.
Litha looked at it and shook her head in disgust. "She should have more than this. Maybe this is not their real base or she's not that high."'
I put everything back in the spatial ring, but I left one book that caught my attention. 'The Book of Chaos and his Devourers"
I opened it and looked through it, most of it was how to worship Chaos and what was needed for sacrifice. I read aloud. "Five thousands souls and their Grimoires are needed to call one of the Devourers. They are the guardians sent before to cleanse and make way Chaos itself..."
I closed the book and looked at the others. "Didn't she say she wanted to call one of the Devourers?"
"That's what she said," Temur nodded.
There was silence as we looked at each other, and then Litha stood. "Let us see the ritual place, and then we're off."
On our way, Temur stopped to loot the body of the Iron rank and the bronze still at the edge of the altar pit before we climbed down the steps that led into the pit. A large pot was sunk into the ground, and inside it, a boiling pot of blood churned.
Some bodies were still on the edge their blood drained from them, waiting for their turn to be turn into the flesh soup.
Bodies were piled high around the pot, but most of them were inside it, floating among the already melted bodies. Most of them are nonhumans. I looked away, fixing my eyes on anything but the bodies.
"The Tower Guards and the GUV won't be happy about this," Temur said, his mouth set in a straight line. "We must get out of here as fast as we can."
Even as he said that, he began to loot the bodies closest to him.
Litha snorted and joined him. "Take only monster cores. The Global Union Federation sure won't like it with all the pressure the guilds are putting on them. To think the missing people on the 102 floors ended up here."
"And you, Torvan! Start looting, too, it's not as if they can use the materials again. And the GUV will take everything anyways."
That caught my attention, and I also began to loot the bodies. I knew about the GUV, an association made up of representatives from all over the countries on earth. They are in charge of floors 103 to 100 and anything Tower and dungeon-related on Earth, which means they decide who climbs the Tower or not. At least on the Earth part of the world.
Their rules are only for ordinary people though. Allegedly.
"Mmmmuh!" A dead body suddenly shouted.
I recoiled from the body I was checking in shock. It was alive! "What the fuck!"
Temur and Litha were there immediately, daggers in hand, but there was no immediate threat. In front of us was a bound and gagged boy about the same age as me.
"A survivor?" I said with uncertainty, my pulse thundering in my ears.
With a swipe, Litha cut the rope binding his hands and legs but left the power-suppressing cuff untouched. "Who are you?" she demanded.
The boy was human, and he smiled in relief. "I'm so happy to see you! I thought they were going to kill me like they did the others!"
"When were you taken?" Temur asked gently.
"Five? Six days ago? Do you have food? I've not been fed for days!" He struggled to sit up.
"We don't have food."
"Maybe I should check for more survivor." Litha blamed herself for not checking for survivors.
She straightened, closed her eyes, and then felt with all her senses at once, listening to the flow of mana in the area.
'Apart from the four of us, there was no one else with a beating heart in the pit. Wait…' Litha shivered. Then she listened again, much closer, her eyes snapping open as she turned to us in horror.
"We have to get out of here fast. Whatever they are trying to summon, it seems they succeeded or something, because I can feel life from that pot and it's far different from any being I've ever felt before!"