As Ixel jumped to the top, he was surprised that there was so little space for him within the dungeon cave provided by the Demon Metropolis. Hence he had to stop short before he crashed into the ceiling of the dungeon cave.
With more than sufficient strength, Ixel clawed and stuck himself to the ceiling and placed one hand downwards, facing the maximum security prison. The Dragonlite sentries were a bit wary when they saw this attempted lawbreaker manage to reach the top of the Demon Metropolis without even breaking a sweat. For some reason, the strange stature and the fact that he was up there gave them a very bad feeling.
The air pressure was getting thinner the higher they went up, and one of the Dragonlites already felt faint when they were approaching where Ixel had positioned himself.
“Sorry guys, it’s nothing personal. Just business and pleasure.” Ixel muttered as a ball of energy spiralled and generated around his palm. As one of the more promising Clan Head candidates of the Grizzly Bear Clan, Ixel had improved and mastered an Epic Grade Technique which already bordered on the Legendary Grade. It was the “Yawn of the Hibernated Bear.”
As the name suggested, it was similar to Jin’s Panda Yawning Chi Beam, and if anyone saw the two in action, it would be crystal clear that Ming had used this technique from the Grizzly Bear Clan as his inspiration.
However, unlike Panda Yawning which could be activated almost in an instant, the ‘Yawn of the Hibernated Bear’ required at least five seconds to charge even at the Epic Grade. (At Basic Grade, that particular technique required 20 seconds to charge.) Hence, the reason why Ixel had decided to jump upwards was to begin preparing for that spell.
Comparatively, the technique Yawn of the Hibernated Bear, possessed an immense amount of power unless Jin decided to fully utilise his version by yawning longer. Ixel brought the miniature ball of spiral energy near his mouth so he could consume it and subsequently began to yawn naturally.
To the Dragonlite sentries, there was a disturbance in the air, but they did not notice anything thinking it could be the air pressure, and when a beam of bright yellowish energy suddenly flew downwards, it came as a surprise. Ixel’s yawn burnt them into leaving nothing behind, not even ashes as the raging beam continued to descend towards the maximum security prison.
Through Ixel’s visor, he noticed that the System had already adjusted his aim for him and automatically focused his beam so that he could concentrate on maintaining the output of the beam to the maximum. The rest of the skulk saw the beam moving rapidly down the skies and hitting the tip of the spherical energy shield.
Even with enhanced layers being inserted to reinforce it, the shield barely held for a second, causing it to shatter completely. The seemingly unstoppable beam then drilled its way through the multiple levels of the maximum prison.
All those metal, wood, concrete and special alloys melted as soon as they came in contact with Ixel’s beam and it the beam did not seem to have any intentions of stopping for quite some time. First, it reached the tenth floor, then it pierced through the twentieth floor, subsequently the fiftieth floor and only when it reached the ninety-eighth floor, did the beam finally lose enough power on the way to go on.
Prince Paimon, the Second Prince to the throne, was flabbergasted. For a prison invader to do this much damage, just by himself, has been unheard of. He had never seen a magical attack this devastating that could penetrate these many floors in his life. One shouldn’t forget that each floor was more reinforced the lower one went, yet Ixel’s technique couldn’t care less about all the expensive materials the demons’ had used for construction.
The Guards were in a dire pinch. There was nothing in their handbook that described such an unexpected situation to occur. Usually, prison invaders would be apprehended long before they could even pass the tenth floor, but this time around, the level of damage was just too outrageous. The poor guards even peered through the burnt hole to see how far it went, but all they could make out was darkness.
However, as the half quoted saying went, curiosity killed the cat. Only in this instance, the ones killing the guards were the rest of the foxes when they took the opportunity to jump into the hole, biting off the heads of any poor onlookers. Except for Kraft, he had decidedly chosen to kick down the main door and was having his share of fun by eliminating any guards that he encountered. (The System was unsure whether to be happy or unhappy by this sudden influx of more souls)
After his magnificent gate crashing performance, Ixel enjoyed the descent down into the depths as he returned back to a fox form and skydived to the 98th floor to meet with the rest of the skulk. Alas, by the time he reached there, all the demon guards and prisoners lay in a comatose state. They had all been bested by Evon who had long since released his psychedelic drugs into the surrounding atmosphere.
The killing ensued so there was no resistance in their path to search for the staircase down and to not miss out any survivors who were mentally awake enough to see the skulk of foxes scurrying around to find the exit.
Of course, with the blueprints uploaded into the System, it was only a matter of time before they found the door for Ixa to bash it through with a body slam. So they descended to the 99th where they repeated this process before eventually arriving at 100th floor. The guards were definitely more armed, but no one could escape the handle the strength of Evon’s drugs, making him think his initial plan could have worked. (Still, he decided to keep quiet, not wanting to incur the same kind of jinx that Kraft had.)
“I believe it’s the elevator similar to what was drawn on the blueprint,” Kai said as he saw the elevator gates open widely with no guards handling them.
“Now, here comes the real challenge. The last nine floors are what Moloch described as the 9 levels to hell.” Pei reminded them of the minotaur’s warning stated in Kraft’s memo, but she could see that it did nothing in the eyes of those battle-hungry foxes. All of them were already dying to have a proper fight that. Even Ixel who had just fired a death beam complained that it had merely been a warm-up for him.
“You guys definitely have to give me the first boss, I am itching for some proper combat!” Rex demanded out loud as they all stepped into the elevator despite his initial claim to take the last floor but the entire skulk gave their objection simultaneously.
“Why?! If I kill the first boss, you guys can go on ahead and handle the rest. I will catch up soon.” Rex defended himself, but Kiyu spoke out.
“No! If we allow you to do that, there won’t be anyone left for us to fight with!”
“What are you talking about? If I fight the first…oh. You guys think that I will one-shot the first and continue with the rest as I descend down?” Rex gave a tease of his theory why they were objecting him so adamantly, and to his (not so) surprise, the entire skulk nodded their heads in unison. Even Pei who did not wish to fight that much felt it would be unfair.
“Fineeeee. I will take the last level boss as usual. Just gather the keys to unlock the corridor to the dungeon core.” The newly joined Panda Remnant reluctantly gave them the go-ahead with their plans. The elevator had brought them down to the 101st floor, and Pei walked out of the lift.
“Since I am the weakest. I will take this.” Pei decided, and no one disagreed. After all, she was the doctor, and it was best she cleared something easy so she could assist the others later on. As Pei waved goodbye to the skulk, blue flames lit up the corridor, directing her to the ‘boss ‘room. She decided to stay in her fox form and continued to walk with her senses heightened, ensuring there weren’t any traps around.
“There is nothing to fear.” She encouraged herself as she continued forward.
