Read Novel Full Chapter 216: Curiosity Is Not For The Weak
Chapter 216: Curiosity Is Not For The Weak
Ayela stared at Lucius with a mix of disbelief and exhaustion while he casually thumbed at his phone, checking something before finally sliding it into his pocket.
It wasn’t even subtle... his priorities were written all over his face. Money first. Everything else somewhere after his morning skincare routine.
"So what are we going to do from here?" Lucius asked, as if he hadn’t just extorted her while she was nearly dragged to her death. "You still have some minutes before your plan expires."
She clenched her teeth hard enough that her jaw hurt.
She wanted... deeply, sincerely wanted to cuss him out and maybe throw him into the Blood Sea headfirst.
But she couldn’t.
He was too strong and too annoyingly in control. Her pride was hanging by a thread.
’He has five hundred million sitting in his account yet he’s charging me,’ she screamed mentally as she exhaled sharply. ’What kind of villain does that?’
But outwardly, she kept her expression calm.
"My job here is to look for the Staircase," she said firmly. "Even if we know the general direction is down here, I’ll have to see it with my own eyes before we pull back."
"I don’t think that will be a good idea," Minerva warned from under Lucius’s arm.
Her voice trembled, which was surprising coming from a dragon. "That monster is not to be trifled with."
"Oi," Lucius said immediately with a cold glance. "She’s paying for this. Keep your mouth shut."
Minerva’s lips snapped together instantly.
She already knew by now that this man treated money with religious devotion, and if she interfered with his sacred transactions, she would suffer for it. Money was after all, the root of the human world.
So she stayed silent and watched Ayela walk toward her doom.
"Let’s go," Ayela said as she turned toward the dark waters. "Can you create a barrier of space around me for protection too?"
"Sure."
Lucius flicked a hand and a spherical orb of space formed snugly around her body like a floating glass bubble.
It glowed before solidifying into a transparent dome.
With that, they submerged.
Ayela went first, descending into the darkening blood-water, the glow of the surface fading quickly behind them.
Lucius followed slowly, Minerva drifting behind him.
For Ayela, whose vision was limited even at high altitude, the underwater gloom was suffocating.
It was thick... red... murky... It was nothing like normal water. It was denser, and absolutely filled with impurities.
And the deeper they went, the more she saw them.
Skeletons.
Dozens of them
Fish skeletons. Monster skeletons. Some as small as her palm, some larger than her entire body. They drifted lazily through the blood sea like decorations in a haunted aquarium.
She swallowed hard and forced herself to keep going.
"Let’s go even deeper..." she managed, though her voice trembled.
She shot downward, her wind ability pushing her further into the darkness.
But even with her occasional bursts of wind, the depth was horrifying. She could barely see a few meters ahead.
She pressed her palms nervously against the interior of the space bubble, grateful for it with every fiber of her existence.
’If I didn’t have this, I’d be screaming,’ she thought.
Lucius caught up several moments later.
As Ayela scanned the murky distance, something flashed in the corner of her vision.
A glow.
A very familiar glow.
She froze, turning her head slightly.
The light became clearer... it had a distinct aura, unmistakable even underwater.
The Staircase.
It was glowing softly in the deep like a submerged sunken temple.
"There," she whispered.
Lucius floated beside her as he focused on the glow.
"That’s the Staircase alright," he said. "And it descends downward instead of upward. What a hassle."
Ayela didn’t wait.
She dove even deeper, ignoring her rising panic.
She needed to see it with her eyes. She had already paid Lucius; she wasn’t about to waste that money.
Minutes passed... they were slow, suffocating minutes and the glow grew brighter. She could now see the outline of the Staircase clearly.
But something else was there.
Something latched onto the lower half of the Staircase like a massive leech clinging to a corpse.
A giant eye opened.
A single, monstrous, unblinking eye that was larger than her entire body fixed its gaze directly onto her.
Her entire soul seized.
Every thought vanished and every muscle in her body locked.
Before she could even move, the surrounding darkness erupted into chaos.
Dozens of enormous tentacles burst outward from the depths, so many that they formed a solid wall of flesh.
They didn’t even come one after another... they came all at once, filling her entire vision, saturating the space around the staircase until she couldn’t even see above anymore.
"F—fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Ayela screamed, her voice cracking uncontrollably as she blasted upward.
She slammed into one of the tentacles but the Space orb bounced off it like she was trapped inside a hamster ball.
She rebounded painfully, spinning in place as panic clawed at her stomach.
’Lucius made these things look so easy... but they’re tough as hell!’
The octopus’s enormous head shifted.
The single eye tracked her with patience. More tentacles reached, darting toward her through the darkness.
"HELP!" she cried, the space bubble quivering violently as she tried to stabilize herself.
And then...
Every tentacle above her exploded.
Lucius soared into view through the blood-clouded water, having ripped through the underwater chaos to reach her.
He grabbed her hand even through the barrier and yanked her upward with a force so smooth and direct that her vision blurred.
He carried her through the thickness of the sea, propelling them faster than even her strongest wind bursts.
The two shot upward at terrifying speed, slicing through blood-water until...
They broke through the surface.
Both of them rolled onto the surface tension, water spinning off their bodies.
"You see what your curiosity has brought upon us?" Lucius asked sternly, not even hiding his annoyance.
Ayela gasped for breath, trembling violently.
She couldn’t answer...
Gratitude and terror twisted together inside her chest, leaving her unable to speak.
"Let me go~!" Minerva whined loudly from Lucius’s other hand, still bound in wood.
He flicked his fingers and the wood bindings peeled away, freeing her body. She stretched her arms triumphantly.
"I’m free~! You dummy—"
"Great," Lucius said flatly, already turning. "Better get to dodging."
"Huh?" Minerva blinked.
The answer came instantly.
The Blood Sea erupted.
Several titanic tentacles shot upward all at once, aiming for their group with unrestrained fury.
Lucius adjusted his grip on Ayela who nearly fainted from the proximity and darted aside while Minerva shot in another direction with a yelp.
Even though none of the tentacles could bypass his Infinity, Lucius knew how to make things look dramatic.
He tucked his legs, dodging a tentacle that would have crushed a B-rank. Then he landed on it lightly and kicked off, bouncing across multiple tentacles like stepping stones.
His target wasn’t the monster... it was the border.
The boundary between the abnormal Blood Sea and the regular one. He assumed this was one of those floor boss monsters that never crossed into Safe Zones. He needed to check that out... That was his current priority.
Minerva had other priorities entirely.
"You thought you could kill me?!" she screeched as she puffed her chest and unleashed a blazing inferno.
Dragon flames erupted like a miniature sun. They scorched the tentacles, scorched the air, scorched the water... anything they touched igniting with unnatural fire.
"I am a dragon! A true dragon who does not submit to anyo—"
"Let’s go," Lucius said sharply.
Minerva squeaked and instantly folded her wings inward before shooting after him at full speed.
The flames had only stunned the monster and soon... tentacles surged upward again, stretching toward them like an ocean-sized net.
But just as they crossed the invisible threshold...
The tentacles stopped.
They hovered inches away, unable to cross the safe boundary.
Lucius raised his hand and flipped one of the thick tentacles, the middle finger.
Ayela, breathless and shaking, stuck her tongue out weakly as Lucius unceremoniously dropped her into the blood-water.
"Your ten minutes of protection are over," he said without remorse. "Let’s go back so you can report what you saw."