Chapter 19: Celestial Abyssal Tower AKA Twin Tower

Ash was worried sick about what was going on as Neo had been away for over an hour now. Random but worse ideas about what would have happened came across his mind, but he shook them away as Neo was his only hope.

The guards of the city and even the city lord weren't helping them as they left this problem to the players and were in a debauchery. They only enjoyed their life and didn't care about commoners like them.

But the players were very helpful as they solved almost all the problems of the Tower, but there were always exceptions like the issue with vindicors and the dungeon related to it that could only be accessed by starting players, and it was a solo dungeon with the last boss being the worst.

Ash paced back and forth, worried about his sister. It was eating him from inside. Gritting his teeth, Ash resolved himself and walked toward the door and opened it.

Something or someone jumped into his embrace as Ash was stunned by it. He looked down and saw a face full of tears and joy. He trembled as he embraced her tightly, as it was his sister.

Neo glanced at the siblings hugging and crying, and said, "It's strange."

{What is?}

"The desire to get them when they are not with you."

{It's a nature saved in everyone. I'll meet many types of people.}

Neo stroked Bolt's fur and said to it, "Buddy, are you ready?"

Bolt tilted its head, not understanding what Neo was talking about.

Neo smiled as a small portal about two times the size of Bolt opened. He put Bolt down and also sat down next to it.

Bolt looked at the portal in confusion and stepped into it. Neo waited anxiously, as if anything bad happen. He'll pull it out or go into the dimension to get him back.

The wait lasted for a while and just as he was ready to go in, Bolt came back with a dead creature in its mouth, looking at Neo with glittering eyes.

"Liked it being in there?"

This time, Bolt understood as it left the monster and rubbed its head against him before going back in, dragging the dead creature with it, and the portal closing behind it.

After the portal closed, Neo sighed and moved toward the siblings, who stopped crying.

Ash saw Neo come in their direction and bowed deeply in gratification.

Neo waved his hand to show that it was no problem. Ash invited Neo to his house, which he complied with and entered their home. It was a simple and clean house with two rooms, a kitchen, a washroom, and a living room.

Neo sat down as he waited for Ash, who tucked his little sister in and came out.

Ash once more bowed deeply toward Neo and said, "Thank you big brother, I am very grateful to you for this."

"It was not a big deal, besides you promised to tell me about the first floor tour, so we are even."

It really was no big issue, and Blaze even cursed that it should've been so that they could have had a powerful opponent.

It surprised Ash a little, as he only said that to ask for help and was ready to pay a high price for Neo's service. But Neo didn't care and just told him to stick to guiding him. He got ready, and they left the house, ready for a tour.

Ash introduced different buildings and their function along with the currency that was used in the tower and surprisingly there were two currencies rotating on this floor, which he was familiar with.

One being the standard Skycoin currency which had the face of the Sky-world with an island hovering on top, which was the Tower. The other currency was a surprise for Neo, as it was [Tower coin.] They were also used in the Tower, but their rarity was something which made them more valuable as high-end shops used [Tower Coin] to trade and even auction had that policy. The exchange rate between the two currencies was huge, as one Tower coin was equal to 100 Skycoins. The average person's salary was 100 Skycoins a month, and that person was considered well off. So this was a really huge amount.

Ash introduced different places like a blacksmith shop, potion shops, Butcher's shops, and many more before arriving at a currency exchange center where Neo exchanged the Tower coin for 95 Skycoins. He frowned as Ash said that it was a hundred Skycoins and asked for the reason.

The person at the reception looked Neo up and down before saying a single word indifferently, "Tax."

Blaze started boiling up and was about to cut the person in half, but just stopped and left the exchange shop. The receptionist sneered and was happy because he earned two Skycoins from him. There was indeed a tax, and it was 3 Skycoins. Many were irritated by this, but high ranker evolvers didn't bother exchanging the coin and low rankers could only do so much about this, because of which, it became a norm.

Neo and Ash wandered as Ash told him about other floors and that there was no safe point on those floors until reaching floor 10 which was a temporary safe point for the players, but ultimately if they wanted to rest, they had to go back to the first floor.

Neo compared this information to the one he got from Bella and pretty much everything was the same except that Bella didn't emphasize that much on the first floor. So, either there were safe zones, but Ash didn't know them as he had never left the first floor or that there really was no floor like the first floor.

Still, he thanked Ash, who couldn't bring himself to accept that as he bowed deeply once more for saving his sister and then went back to his house.

Neo, on the other hand, moved toward the direction that lead to the second floor as he thought about it and decided to go as high as he could before thinking about other things.

Neo checked his Nether and Divine energy bars and found not a lot of them were left, and it was not regenerating.

"This can be a problem." Neo said and turned his attention to the Twin Towers to see how was the progress. He just looked at it for a while before moving his gaze away from it.

"I think it---"

He stopped midway through as he found himself in a white room again.

"Where are we?"

{The Celestial Abyssal Tower or what I call the Twin Tower.}

"Is it repaired?" Neo asked as he looked around and found two doors standing opposite to each other. He looked at them and found one shining with a bright golden glow while the other had a dark blackish aura surrounding it. Both of them had rune and shapes carved on them. Both doors had carvings of strange creatures but the difference between them was that one of them had a golden radiance and people had wings of feathers while the other door had blackish aura around them, and they had horns and wings made up of skin like bat wings.

He looked at these doors for a while before moving toward the door with the golden glow. Arriving before it, Neo put his hand over it and a notification appeared.

『 Gate of the Divine Realm: Sealed.』

『 Requirement to Unseal: Divine Dominator Class + Blood of the Keeper.』

Neo stared at the notifications that were in red for a while before saying, "Should I go in?"

{Nah, go to the other door. I think the things inside this one seem annoying and from the looks of it, creatures are going to fly around. I have nothing that can hit a flying target.}

'The other one also had flying things in it.'

Neo then went to the other door, which made one shudder when they inhaled the energy surrounding it, but he felt at home and his nether energy bar was full. He touched the door and the notification again appeared.

『 Gate of the Void/Abyssal Realm: Sealed.』

『 Requirement to Unseal: Demon Dominator Class + Blood of the Keeper.』

Neo looked at the notification and pricked his finger with a blade and put it on the gate. But instead of getting smeared on the door, the drop of blood floated and moved to the center of the room and then dropped on the ground. Formations appeared on the ground and runes appeared which stretched throughout the room like a spider web, toward both doors and a creaking voice sounded as the doors opened.

{I think I am in trouble}

Neo felt the heavy footsteps and moved to the center of the formation to see what was going on, and a notification appeared.

『 Hold the enemies back.』

『 Commencing formation stabilization program.』

{Great, just what I needed.}

Roar*

But he didn't have the time or luxury to say anything as roars and snarls of the monsters came from both sides and monsters poured in from the gates.

They didn't wait and charged at Neo like he stole their girl. Two blades appeared in his hand but then vanished as Blaze said, "Let me."

He activated the [Authority of the Armament] again, and a black aura surrounded him as a massive great sword materialized in his hand. The blade was at least five feet long and two feet wide, with a sharp, tapered edge. The hilt was long enough for him to wield with both hands and was adorned with blurred carvings that looked like dragons and serpents that seemed to writhe in the flickering light of the aura. The pommel was shaped like a dragon's head. As he swung the sword, the aura seemed to intensify, leaving a trail of black behind the blade, which wanted to tear the space itself apart.

'But I don't have that much energy to do it.'

"Well, I'm in the presence of the very ground zero of such energies so making it while in taking the energy isn't that big of a deal."

Neo nodded as he felt the energy that was used to make this giant monstrosity was getting replenished as soon as it left him.

Blaze swung the blade as he infused the [Authority of Flame] with the blade and a black slash moved away from the blade. The flaming slash moved out as the air surrounding it scorched and landed on the monster that was charging at him. It cut the monster in half with both of its half had a burned mark on both of its halves.

"Cool." Blaze said as he looked at the slash, cutting down some monsters while also sending others flying back, with a scorching wound on their bodies.

"Mixing the skills together makes them more powerful." Blaze said as he put the giant sword over his shoulder, waiting for the monsters to get closer.

'Or just that using this much Nether Energy is giving it such effects.'

Another sword materialized, and just like the first one, this one had the same size and length but was golden. At that moment, the monsters were less than 5 meters away from him.

Blaze's mouth arched up as he saw this and held both swords horizontally and said, "This will be a massacre, no, a genocide."

He started spinning as a flame slowly revolved around him as he activated the [Inferno Whirlwind] and his voice echoed in the room along with the roar of the demon and divines.

"Let's go with moderate level of flames first." Blaze said as black flames engulfed him and his feet began spinning, the greatswords spun along with him. The monsters charging at him, were torn into pieces and those with thick skin were sent flying by the force of the black flame's sword and a deep gashing wound etched on body which eroded their body as the black flame was not a normal one but infused with Nether energy, which wanted to consume the monster when it came in contact with it.

"Don't you dare stop coming."