Spacetime in the Forgotten Layer was strange. Not only was time stretched out by several hundred times, but space was also messy.
He attempted to fly away from the black hole in the middle of the layer, but no matter in which direction he went, he never really distanced himself from it. He also somehow always found demons and other beings eager to kill him.
The terrain was also weird. It was just a flat, black surface that stretched out seemingly infinitely, its ends impossible to reach. It was seemingly impossible to damage either.
After a while, Eden understood that the only way away from the black hole was up, so he went there.
But no matter how high up he went, Eden did not find anything. The black hole did become smaller with the increasing altitude, and so did its pull, but there was nothing above either.
Eden wished he could keep on exploring, but his mana was not infinite, and as he got away from the black hole, his mana regeneration returned to normal. He could not sustain himself while going up.
Frowning, Eden returned to the ground layer, and kept scouring the layer, searching for a portal, or an exit of any kind. All he found, however, were demons upon demons, with other monstrosities and aberrations, all fighting one another to the death.
His search was not easy either as most beings imprisoned upon this layer were also very strong. The Balor and Nightwalker were among the stronger, but the others were no joke either, with a vast majority being Tier II.
Eden might be able to fight one, but the Tier Suppression was still overwhelming, and a fight never stayed a duel for long. There would always be more monsters drawn whenever he fought, and the longer it went on, the stronger and more numerous they got.
It felt like the very world was against him as no matter where he went, there would always be demons coming for him. The skies were not safe either, as many were capable of flight. Not that it really mattered, as it did not take long for Eden's mana to run out.
It was recovering faster in this environment, but not fast enough to spam 4th Circle spells. Far from it.
Hiding was seemingly impossible too. Again, the terrain was only a flat expanse, with nothing else but monsters and corpses. That was also why there would always be something trying to fight him, as it was simply too easy to see others in this open field.
So, quickly, Eden's goal shifted from finding an exit, to finding a place to rest and recover. There were none.
Eden did not have any hiding skills either. He did have potions of invisibility, but many of the monsters also had True Sight. It might hide him for a while, but he would inevitably be found out.
Since he could not run, Eden decided to fight. His mana ran out first, meaning that he could no longer buff himself with his spells, making fighting Tier II enemies much harder. His stamina and Cursed Energy were also dropping.
However, with Eden's diminishing resources, the corpses around him started piling up as well. Not all of them were his kills, as they attacked each other just as much as they attacked him.
The situation was a despairing one to be in. For each demon Eden killed, two more would come over, and for every one he did not kill, three more would arrive.
He thought about running, but there was no point in doing so. There was nowhere to go.
As Eden reached his limits however, he realized something. As crazed as the monsters were, they did not attack the dead ones.
Glancing at the nearby mountain of corpses, an idea sprung in Eden's mind as he twisted the head off the demon facing him, and he allowed it to fall on top of him as he dug his way into the mountain of corpses.
It was stuffy, nearly impossible to breath, and some of the demons had acidic blood, but as Eden laid there, the attacks finally stopped.
The battle was still ongoing, the sounds outside made that obvious, but no demons checked under the pile of corpses.
Eden had gone through some very uncomfortable situations ever since he had arrived in Dreamland, and this one had to be among the worst ones, probably only below that time he had drifted on the sea in his last mission world.
The weight of the corpses on top of him crushed him down at all times, it was nearly impossible to breath, and the few gasps he managed to get would get blood in his orifices. Still, after a while, the sound of battle faded around him, the monsters remaining getting drawn to other battles.
The Forgotten Layer of the Abyss was never quiet, Eden realized as he started meditating, recovering his mana quickly, as the sounds of fighting, dying wails, monstrous roars and magical attacks were never-ending.
Even as he he recovered his full mana, Eden did not leave the mountain of corpses, despite how uncomfortable it felt, and rested.
As he did, his gaze was drawn to a nearby horn, because it had a status description.
[Goristro's Horn]
[Rank: Common]
[Attack: +10]
It was a bad weapon, and no Player would use it, but for a broken body part of one of the demons to be deemed a weapon, without any tempering of any kind, spoke of how powerful they were. The Goristro were not even among the strongest demons Eden had fought either, and he doubted he had seen more than a fraction of them.
Setting it aside, Eden looked through his Inventory for anything that might be of use, but found nothing. The Umbra Aegis had been destroyed, and the rest of his equipment was weaker.
The only thing of note in his Inventory were Sukuna's Fingers, which were useless since Eden had made that Binding Vow that stopped him from reaching Tier II.
Other than that, he had his spell scrolls from Elminster. From them, Wish was obviously the most useful one, as it might be his ticket out of the Abyss, but even in good conditions, it ought to be an extremely complex spell to learn, not to mention in this environment.
Taking out any of the spell scrolls on the ground floor would inevitably result in them getting destroyed, and the spell getting lost. However, that was not to say it was completely impossible to do. If he flew up high enough, the influence of the black hole would weaken, and the scrolls might survive.
Learning spells while flying was far from ideal, of course, but at least that gave him a way. It might take longer, but from the looks of things, time was ironically his greatest resource.
So, once he had rested enough, Eden burrowed his way ought of the pile of corpses, and cast Tasha's Otherworldly Guise on himself, before taking to the sky.
Eden had a total of 666 MP, and each cast of Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, his only mean of flight, cost him 108 MP, meaning he could only cast it six times. He also needed a charge of it for when he fell back to the ground, if he did not want to end up in a splatter.
This meant he only had five uses of it. And each cast of the spell lasted for 5 minutes, so 25 minutes of flying time.
He used ten of them, or two casts, to fly up outside of the influence of the black hole, and after casting it for a third time, Eden took out the scroll for Remove Curse, the least important of the spells scrolls he had at the moment.
He closely observed it, and was happy to find that it was not crumbling down. Eden could see that it was unusable because of the absence of the Weave, but it did not matter, as that did not stop him from learning.
So, he put it down, and took out the one for Wall of Force.
Wall of Force was a 5th Level spell, so the equivalent of a perfectly mastered 3rd Circle Spell, and it allowed him to create an invisible, solid barrier anywhere in sight within a certain distance, for up to ten minutes.
Since a perfectly mastered 3rd Circle Spell typically cost 90 MP, or 81 for Eden with Silver Fire, that meant he could sit down and meditate for 10 minutes for only 81 MP.
Meditating, in turn, allowed Eden to recover 100% of his MP in exactly 48 minutes, and with his current pool of 666 (he felt like the Universe was playing a joke on him), that meant 13.875 MP per minute. 10 minutes would thus allow him to recover 138.75 MP.
In other words, this was a sustainable way to stay up. Of course, it was far from ideal, and could not be used to sleep since he did need to meditate and cast the spell every ten minutes, and he could not study his spells while meditating, but he needed just under 6 minutes to recover 81 MP, so that left him with four minutes.
And if he really needed to, he could cast Simulacrum, leaving the learning part to it while he focused on keeping up the Wall of Force.
Of course, its best value was in giving him a way to climb. It would be slow, and tedious, but it was definitely possible.
Leaving all of that aside, Wall of Force was also a very powerful spell on its own, which was why he had gotten it from Elminster. The barrier created was invisible and impervious to damage, and could be somewhat shaped.
But before any of that could happen, Eden had to learn it.
As expected, trying to learn a spell while flying above the final layer of the Abyss was far from being an easy task, but it was not impossible.
His second to last charge running out, Eden started free falling as he put the scroll back in his inventory, and looked down. Naturally, the way down was much faster than the way up, and as he approached the ground, he noticed two large beings fighting near his landing point.
One of them was a Balor with similar attributes to the one he had fought, and the other was no demon, but it matched the Balor all the same.
[Name: Abraxax]
[Title: Commander of Phlegethos]
[Perks: Tier II, Diabolical Strength II, Fiendish Resistance II, Hellish Flame II, Fear Aura, Magic Resistance II, Truesight, Telepathy]
[HP: 924/1470]
[MP: 1043/1470]
[Strength: 80]
[Agility: 25]
[Physique: 70]
[Intelligence: 70]
[Wisdom: 39]
[Immunity: Fire II, Poison II]
[Resistances: Cold II, Bludgeoning II, Slashing II, Piercing II.]
[Weaknesses: None]
It was basically the devil equivalent of a Balor, if a little stronger. A Pit Fiend. He had fiery red skin, was just had tall, had two large black horns rising from his forehead, and two giant bat wings in the back. Their most obvious difference, other than their stats, were their weapons, as the Pit Fiend only had a large flaming mace.
Abraxax was also clearly winning, as despite missing some HP, the Balor he was facing only had a little over 300 HP left. Seeing this, Eden stopped himself from casting Tasha's Otherworldly Guise, and instead went for Feather Fall.
Eden had planned his descent with Tasha's Otherworldly Guise because it would give him better control of where he would fall, but he wanted to keep enough HP to cast another spell.
His fall was slowed down considerably, his body going from terminal velocity to a gentle drifting, as if he was no more than a feather, and he watched as the Pit Fiend below drop the Balor to its last few HP.
The moment the Balor's HP got under 70, Eden pointed a finger at the Balor, and chanted, "I cast Disintegrate."
A light green ray shot out of the spell circle, catching the Balor completely unaware as it hit his nape.
The Pit Fiend suddenly stopped, his gaze staring at Eden, while the Balor gasped its last breath. However, instead of exploding into flames and force, his body disintegrated instead, completely negating it fiery farewells. The Balor's soul also attached itself to Eden, and as a Tier II being, it was quite potent.
Of course, Eden had not done this to help to Pit Fiend, but because of the Balor's weapons, which now laid amidst the ashes that used to be the Balor. Whenever it exploded, it would also take out its weapons.
Dismissing his Feather Fall, Eden landed a few meters in front of the Pit Fiend, his mana completely spent, but still raring to go as his Cursed Energy pulsated in his core.
But then, the Pit Fiend spoke. It was not in a language Eden understood, but speaking was a sign of intelligence, not complete and utter madness.
Eden did have the Comprehend Languages spell, but he did not even have enough MP to cast it, as his last MP had gone into that Disintegrate.
Fortunately, it was not needed as he felt something reach his mind, and something was transmitted over. Not quite literal words, but intent. Enough for him to understand.
"Are you still sane, human?"
Though surprised, Eden replied straight away in the best way he could think of, through thinking it hard enough, "I am. And so are you."
He immediately knew the Pit Fiend had gotten the message as he scoffed, saying something in his language before transmitting telepathically, "Brave for a wise man to stand so close to me. Brave, or foolish."
Eden blinked, taking a moment to remember that in many cultures, wizards, warlocks and all sorts of spell-casters could also be called 'wise-men'. Clearly, he believed Eden to be a squishy wizard.
Still, as Eden took a step forward, Abraxax took one back, his mace posed to strike.
Smirking, Eden bent down to inspect the two weapons that had been left behind.
[Flame Whip]
[Rank: Unique]
[Attack: +80 Fire, +80 Force]
[Clad in Fire: Wielding this weapon burns the user for 10 fire damage per second.]
[Lightning Sword]
[Rank: Unique]
[Attack: +80 Lightning, +80 Force]
[Clad in Lightning: Wielding this weapon electrocutes the user for 10 lightning damage per second.]
They were trash, unfortunately. And also impossible to use. Not only because of the Clad in Fire/Lightning features, but also because they were far too big for Eden to use. It had perfectly suited the three meters tall Balor, but not so much Eden.
He had hoped they would have been considered magical weapons and would fit to their user, but that was not the case.
The Flame Whip was especially useless among the two, since most of the monsters present in this Layer were high ranking devils and demons, meaning they pretty much all had fire immunity. The only saving grace was the Force damage, but with the amount of damage Eden would be taking wielding these weapons, he was better off using his fists.
Still, that did not stop him from pocketing the two weapons. Because they were useless to him did not mean no one would be interested in them. There had to be Players this would suit.
Seeing the two weapons disappear, Abraxax clutched his weapon tighter as he said telepathically, "Since you're here, I suppose not, but you wouldn't happen to know how to walk through the planes?"
"I don't, no. What do you know about this place?"
Abraxax turned and smashed his mace into a demon attempting to sneak on them. More were coming. That did not stop him from answering, "I heard rumors. A place of unending punishment, reserved for the worst enemies of the worst beings."
His gaze turned toward the black hole in the center, and he added, "How about an alliance?"
Gazing at the rushing demons, Eden raised his fists and said, "Sure. Any ideas of how we could get out of here?"
"Well, Plane Walking is one way. You could also try to fly up, but you'd need to fly for a month straight to reach the 664th Layer."
That was not good. Eden's plan of relying on Wall of Force to slowly make his way up had suddenly become much more complicated. With the rate at which he would be rising, that months would turn into years, if not decades.
But Eden was still human. He needed to eat, drink and sleep.
"That's not good."
"You could say that."
The two turned silent, and met the horde of demons coming for them.