The rest of the thirty-sixth floor proved relatively trivial, and Jake and company soon completed the entire thing to enter the in-between room. There had indeed only been six rooms and their accompanying labyrinths, but when they arrived at the break room, he was a tad disappointed to see that they’d only managed to get three achievements along with the usual completion bonus.At least, he was disappointed until he saw the achievements in question.Thirty-sixth floor completed. 360 Nevermore Points earned.Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor within one day (24 hours). 750 Nevermore Points earned.Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor while selecting the highest difficulty for every room. 600 Nevermore Points earned.Achievement earned: Complete the thirty-sixth floor without straying from the shortest possible path by more than 10% of the total distance. 900 Nevermore Points earned.That was a whopping 2250 Nevermore Points from achievements alone. Addin

The very next second, the orb of steam above Minaga exploded, bathing the entire room in dense white fog. This steam shared some concepts with the labyrinth’s mist, meaning that within a second, he had severely limited the sense of everyone. Well, everyone except Jake, that is. With his Mark of the Avaricious Hunter and Perception, he was pretty much unaffected, considering the size of the room.“Dina, left, fire,” Jake warned her.She responded just in time by turning and manifesting a wooden shield right as a staff slammed into it, exploding in a huge inferno that blasted her backward. As she slid across the ground, Bobo managed to help shake off the last of the damage, dozens of tendrils of wood extending from her body.Minaga was about to strike again when a stable arcane arrow pierced the mist, hitting him in the shoulder and penetrating his robe.“Man, how bloody high is your Perception stat?” Minaga questioned as he telekinetically pulled the arrow out just before it exploded,

Blood flew into the air as Jake managed to slice the neck of Minaga, making him stumble back. His one arm already hung limply at his side as he tried to retaliate with the other using a blast of fire, but Jake dodged under it and stabbed Minaga in the arm.A final eruption of power sent Jake stumbling back amid a rain of lightning bolts, making his entire body tingle from the impact and his scales crackle with energy. Minaga himself looked spent as he stood there, leaning on his staff.Jake pulled out his bow, showing no mercy by firing an Arcane Powershot into Minaga that sent him flying into a wall with another hole in his chest. Activating his Arcane Charge from the Mark, he made Minaga flash with arcane energy and groan.Still embedded halfway into a wall, he looked at Jake. “Heh… good fight. I at least had fun. You are also the first one to win, so take pride in that! Good luck with the rest of our battle.” Minaga smiled. “See you soon.”With those words, Minaga’s clone turned in

Jake’s eyes slowly adjusted as he sent out a Pulse of Perception, trying to get a read on what exactly Minaga had done when he exploded the giant orb. What met him was a mental image he had not seen coming.The entire room, outside of the now mostly bare floor, was gone, with even the tiles having disintegrated from the odd shockwave. The walls and ceiling had been blasted apart, leaving large platforms floating all around them in empty space.Indeed, that was all Jake saw beyond the central platform and the many floating pieces of debris: empty space. The environmental mana had also changed significantly, feeling far emptier. Hollow. Nearly all of the affinities were gone, leaving them only with pure mana.As his eyes slowly adjusted, he noticed how much darker it had gotten. When they finished adjusting, he finally got a good understanding of what had happened.Jake and company found themselves floating on a large stone platform in the middle of space, the surrounding stars giving o

Jake maintained distance as he continuously retreated and took potshots at Minaga, who had no way of fighting at long range without his magic. At the same time, Jake heard from the Fallen King that the entire labyrinth Minaga had summoned seemed spatially expanded, making it a nightmare to get through. He did try to blast walls apart, and while he had some success, it appeared slower than simply rushing through as fast as possible. Jake did want to simply summon him again, but doing so was a huge strain on the Fallen King. Doing it once was fine, but more than that could have less-than-desirable consequences. So he fought alone.Minaga handled Jake’s barrage of arrows extremely well, but he still couldn’t block everything. Jake had gotten good at shooting tricky arrows that curved to hit where the Unique Lifeform moved to dodge or looped around the staff raised to block it. His opponent was obviously also aware of this, as he stopped chasing and stood still while looking at Jake with