BXBX NOVEL Chapter 67: The Tenth Floor
"A temporary path to one of the higher areas? That sounds risky," Magnus reasoned.
"What floor are they calling from?" Finn asked the shopkeeper.
"The Tenth. This gateway is being opened within every Bazaar currently, across every Tower in the world," the shopkeeper explained.
Jasper breathed out, seeming to fully sober up at the statement, "The Tenth? I only barely scratched the surface of the fourth."
"It is a risk, but…I think there\'s value in it, right?" Charlotte reasoned with hesitance of her own. "It won\'t be just us there–others will be there, won\'t they?"
"If other people decide to show up, that is," Magnus remarked.
Finn considered it, looking at that ominous doorway, unable to peer into the other side as he weighed his options.
"You are free to accept or decline the Convergence Call. However, it will close in thirty seconds," the Bazaar keeper further clarified.
It was a pressing matter, though one without a clear cut decision to be made. Finn looked between the others, who each seemed to look for him to be the deciding factor.
Whether for better or worse, it seemed he had become a figure of responsibility; one who was looked to for such decisions on the fly.
"We\'re all stronger than we were before," Finn reasoned, looking between his companions. "This is a good opportunity–maybe we can find others, too."
"That\'s right. The point of climbing the Tower was something like this already, wasn\'t it?" Charlotte said, nodding her head.
"It seems I am walking straight into an early grave. I\'ve made it far enough, I suppose," Magnus pessimistically remarked with a sigh.
Jasper lended a slap to the cannoneer\'s back, "Chin up, mate. Don\'t die with your head down."
"I wish I had your lack of brain cells to be unafraid," Magnus retorted, calling his weapon to his hold.
With the choice made, Finn took the first step towards the threshold of complete mystery. Even if it was the decision cemented, he couldn\'t shake the feeling of anxiousness in his body as he stepped before the door of mercury.
A sensation like needles prodding his arms and legs overcame him as he pushed his hand through the entrance.
"Ah—"
Though he opted to feel it out first, he found himself being pulled through the gateway without any warning.
[Convergence Call Accepted.]
[Transporting: Floor Ten – "The Colosseum of The Depraved"]
A weightlessness swallowed him whole; a depravity of sensation brought him for a moment to question if he even had a body, only able to perceive the void of silver, sleek mercury before–
"Pyuh!--" He spat out a breath.
He was on his feet, only finding a single second to have passed, though greeted by a scenery far removed from the calm marble of the Bazaar. It was difficult to make out what color the tiles of the floor were, seeing as they were stained in dried blood.
There was a lack of walls ahead, only a single pathway of a bridge leading towards an ominous structure ahead: a pitch-black colosseum.
Behind him, the sound of footsteps dropping down and light gasps of his companions arriving met his ears, though he remained entirely focused on the unknown territory.
"This is the tenth?" Magnus remarked, still adjusting to the sudden transportation.
"Looks like it spit us out deep into the area…This place is a lot bigger than the other floors, from the looks of it," Jasper observed while looking around.
Along the sides of the bridge were floating torches that held silver flames, presenting only a dim light. Finn peered over the edge of the narrow pathway, seeing what awaited below–darkness. It was difficult to tell, possessing a questionable depth that made his stomach turn.
"It\'s water, or something like that…It\'s a sea," Charlotte observed beside him.
"Yeah," Finn said, pulling back, feeling the scale of the foreign setting sinking in.
It was an entirely grim environment, reeking of blood and grime with a sharp aroma of salt in the air. If his reservations based off the first look at the scenery wasn\'t enough, the sounds in the distance ahead did not help:
The sounds of steel clashing from a collision of blades, ruptures of magical force, all overwhelmed by the screams of men and women from within that ominous colosseum. That ambience of terror, from twisted shouts and cries, did not speak of a favorable outcome.
"Do you hear that?" Charlotte asked quietly.
"I\'m sure even if I was deaf, I\'d feel that," Magnus answered with caution.
A moment of silence stood between them all as the confidence they once had was shaken by the grim atmosphere.
Jasper stepped onto the bridge, looking towards the colosseum with his hand readied by his sheathed sword, "We have to help, right? I mean, we all heard that, yeah?"
As the one who was bestowed the knight class posed the question, something launched from the colosseum, soaring over its walls–
"What\'s that?--" Magnus pointed out, looking up.
Finn watched as the object came down from the abyssal sky before it came crashing down right on the bridge in front of them–SPLAT.
"Shit!" Jasper yelled, taking a step back.
What landed like a cannonball was a barely recognizable body of a bow-wielding man, covered in lacerations and bludgeoned so badly their body was entirely red and purple.
"What the hell did we walk into?..." Magnus questioned with a look of disgust, covering his mouth.
The gruesome sight slipped away as the splattered body slid off the edge of the bridge, dropping right into the abyss.
Shock left the group motionless until the sound of more footsteps dropping in turned Finn\'s attention. Where he came in from, his gaze found multiple people following through the mercury gateway.
"Urgh, what\'s up with this place?" A man with messy, gray hair remarked, wearing an open, fur coat with his bare chest on display. "It reeks."
He stood with a towering height and a physique like that of having been pumping iron since he could walk with a face that looked both princely and grizzled, with scars on his lips and nose.
[Name: Isaak Sokolov]
[Age: 32]
[Designated Class: Monk]
[Level: 25]
"Ah…This is giving me the creeps," a short woman with blonde fringes that covered her eyes nervously said, clutching her steel stave close to her chest.
She wore a light-blue cloak atop a t-shirt of a musician—"Igorrr." Paired with denim shorts and black leggings beneath, her half-and-half attire was peculiar.
[Name: Ember Morgan]
[Age: 22]
[Designated Class: Arch Mage]
[Level: 26]
Another arrived through the emergency gateway: a tall man of messy, white hair and golden-brown skin, layered in tattoos with a set of goggles sitting on his forehead. From the baggy, gray pants he wore and the lack of upper attire, only having bands on his arms with a massive hammer held in his right hand, it wasn\'t apparent at first what class he possessed.
[Name: Ramon Caballero]
[Age: 29]
[Designated Class: Maestro]
[Level: 24]
"Yo," the hammer-carrying, sweat-laden man raised his hand as the attention of everybody else by the colosseum-leading bridge looked at him. "Am I late or something?"
Magnus was the first to speak up with a quiet breath, "I think this is a case where "never" might be better than late."
The mercury gateway began to fizzle out, shrinking, though not before one more figure stepped through. It was an arrival that brought hesitance, as if the air itself had changed with their presence; the aura of a fighter–somebody unconditionally strong.
"Hold on, that guy–" Charlotte recognized.
Finn confirmed it with a nod, "Yeah, that\'s him."
It was hard to mistake those massive, gilded gauntlets, paired with the golden hair that stood out like a shining star in the gloomy environment.
The man in the snow-white coat of rolled-up sleeves rolled his shoulders, looking ready to fight, "The hell are you all standing around looking at? Move aside if you\'re just going to shiver and piss your pants."
[Name: Seung]
[Age: 22]
[Designated Class: Crusher]
[Level: 39]
\'He\'s an even higher than before, isn\'t he? With somebody like him around, we might actually stand a chance, right?\' Finn considered, watching the hot-headed figure pass right by him.
Right past everybody, Seung didn\'t waste a moment beginning to move across the bridge. That sheer confidence brewed alongside recklessness finally pushed others to follow behind.
The monk-class man stomped right behind Seung, not wasting a moment himself, "Nobody is shivering! I\'m ready!" Isaak claimed.
Between Jasper and Magnus, who seemed to have something to prove to one another, they didn\'t hesitate any longer as well, though both still seemed to be reasonably cautious of the place.
Finn looked over to the woman beside him, "Ready, Charlotte?" He asked.
"Yeah…We can do this," Charlotte answered, seeming to have to hype herself up with some inhales.
Walking alongside the spellblade, he could hear the Maestro still confused about what was going on, while the Arch Mage was gripped by nervousness.
"I kind of jumped through the gateway because time was tickin\' down, but I didn\'t even hear what was going on," Ramon admitted while scratching his head.
"S-seriously?...This place is really, really–I mean, super dangerous! It\'s bad news…" Ember said, looking up at the goggle-wearing mechanic.
"Hah! Well, the only thing we can do is move forward then!" Ramon smiled without any fear, giving the meek girl a gentle slap on the shoulder to get her moving.
Ember stumbled forward, "Eek!-- Hold on!"