So floors held demon civilizations.
And in so of those floors, there were Demon Lords of their own.
Rynne had not walked through those floors freely.
To descend past the Forty Fifth Floor, she had to find scattered entry points leading downward. None of them were easy to locate, and even when she found them, using them was never safe.
Sotis an entry was guarded by monsters that treated the area like a nest.
Sotis it was occupied by demons.
Sotis it was a trap left behind by other explorers, ant to lure outsiders into a kill zone.
Rynne had risked her life several tis just to move one floor deeper.
She did have treasures to protect her when things beca critical. But those treasures did not reduce the danger she faced. They only gave her a chance to survive it.
She was not the first person to enter Hell with protection. Plenty of people ca equipped far better than her, stronger than her, richer than her.
And yet, every year, countless supernaturals died in Hell anyway. So vanished without leaving a trace.
Hell did not care how prepared soone was.
Rynne did not elaborate further on her journey.
The segnted arcs along Rynne's key circular bow began to glow one after another, runic engravings lighting up like veins carrying energy through the tal. A low hum resonated from the treasure, subtle at first but growing clearer as spatial currents gathered around
it.
Michael felt the shift imdiately.
The air around them distorted.
Rynne extended the key forward.
The mont she did, the space several ters ahead split open silently.
A portal ford.
Unlike the swirling rift they had used earlier, this one was more stable, more refined. Its edges were lined with faint crystalline light, the interior far clearer.
Through it, another world could be seen.
A frozen landscape.
Endless white plains stretched beyond the portal's threshold, broken by jagged ice formations and distant snow-covered ridges. Pale winds swept across the land, carrying frost particles that shimred like dust beneath a dim, colorless sky.
Cold bled through the opening imdiately, biting against Michael's skin even from this distance.
Rynne lowered the key slightly but kept the portal open.
"That leads to the First Floor," she said.
Michael studied the frozen world beyond for a mont longer.
Then Rynne spoke again.
"You should go first."
He glanced at her.
"If I enter first," she explained, "the portal will close imdiately behind ."
She lifted the key slightly for emphasis.
"The treasure recognizes as its holder. Once I pass through, it will consider the transit complete and shut the gateway."
Michael nodded faintly.
That made sense.
Rynne added another detail.
"And there's sothing else. The portal treats each traveler as an individual entity," she said. "So even if we enter one after the other,
we won't appear in the sa location."
"Within the First Floor, yes. We'll both land sowhere different. But don't worry, it's absolutely safe."
Silence lingered briefly between them.
By now, Michael trusted Rynne to an extent. She had no reason to
deceive him at this point, and everything she had shown so far
aligned with her explanations.
Michael stepped closer to the portal.
Cold air rolled over him more intensely now.
He paused at the threshold and gave the frozen world one last
asuring look.
Then he turned slightly toward her.
"Thanks," he said simply.
Rynne gave a small nod.
"We'll et again at the academy."
Michael did not reply verbally. He only dipped his head once in
acknowledgnt.
Then he jumped.
His figure crossed the portal's boundary in a single motion, swallowed
instantly by the frozen light beyond.
The surface of the portal rippled once.
But it did not close.
Instead, the scene within it shifted.
The endless white plains dissolved like mist being wiped from glass.
The frozen ridges lted away into streaks of light as spatial layers rearranged themselves.
A new landscape began to form within the portal's fra.
It was another random location on the First Floor.
Rynne watched the change calmly.
Without hesitation, she stepped forward. Her figure passed through
the portal.
The gateway finally began to contract, crystalline edges folding
inward as the rift sealed itself and vanished from the violet swamp
entirely.
Silence returned to the Fifty Sixth Floor of Hell.
Michael's vision went white the mont he crossed the threshold.
Cold.
That was the first thing he felt.
Not biting enough to harm him, but sharp enough to make his senses
snap fully awake as spatial transit completed its transfer.
The distortion around him peeled away layer by layer.
Then the world stabilized.
Michael landed lightly on solid ground.
Ice cracked faintly beneath his boots as his weight settled.
For a brief second, he remained still.
Then he exhaled.
A slow breath left his lungs, turning into pale mist in the freezing air.
"...Finally."
Relief.
He lifted his gaze and scanned his surroundings.
He had appeared in a frozen valley, surrounded by jagged ice
formations that rose like broken blades from the ground. Snow winds
drifted lazily across the terrain, and in the far distance, glacier ridges
layered the horizon like sleeping beasts.
The First Floor of Hell.
Michael rolled his shoulders once, letting tension bleed out of his
fra.
Fortunately, nothing had gone wrong after that accidental use of spatial power back on the Fifteenth Floor.
His eyes narrowed slightly as mory resurfaced.
That jump had not been intentional.
He had only been trying to escape.
At the ti, he had been running from two Rank Four superpowers
whose interest in him had been abnormal.
They had not attacked to harm him, but their interest in him and the
pressure they exerted alone had been enough to make his instincts
scream.
The uncontrolled spatial transit had dragged him far deeper than intended.
Straight to the Fifty Sixth Floor.
Even now, thinking back on it, he knew how lucky he had been to
survive the aftermath of that displacent.
If he had appeared in the wrong territory, he would not even have
known how he died.
Michael still did not know why those two were interested in him.
And that uncertainty bothered him more than open hostility would have.
To be honest, if he had been forced to pick a side between the two forces he had encountered, Director Arven would have been the better choice compared to the Federation General.
That did not an he trusted Arven.
Far from it.
There was sothing fundantally wrong about that man.
But the Federation's way of doing things unsettled Michael even
more.
They had not hard him in any way he could call severe, but he did
not trust them.
The General's decision to render him unconscious back then only
made it worse.
Trust, once shaken, did not rebuild easily.
So in truth, Michael trusted neither side. And for now, he intended to keep it that way.
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