Finally, on the 37th floor, I slowed my pace down, flying around the celestial environment. Multiple groups of other Players were busy slaying the angelic mobs that littered the floor, which was sort of ironic considering the heavenly theme. I scanned the ground, trying to spot Tommy among the groups.

[System alert: Even Death Can't Stop Me achievement has finished processing rewards.]

I brushed the message away as I continued to search for my friend. Yeah, I was excited to see what I got, but in all my years of knowing him, I've never once received a text like that from Tommy before. It meant that whatever he was going through, it was bad enough for him to reach out to me, of all people.

"Tommy!" I called out, my voice echoing through the vast space. The angelic mobs looked up at me, their halos dimming slightly before resuming their attacks on the Players. Either they were too preoccupied with the enemy in front of them to chase after me, or my presence was just too powerful for them to even try to fight me. Both explanations were humorous despite the task at hand.

"Shit, if only there was a way to track him down faster..." I muttered, before landing on the ground. I really didn't want to have to use it, but I wasn't losing much in exchange for time.

Using my ring, I sacrificed some Risk points and summoned Skalyt and Levius, ordering them to search for Tommy based on a loose description I gave them. Then, I rewound my Duplicate skill and conjured my clone, who flew off to help with the search.

I grimaced as I replenished my Risk stats using my extra points. If only I could use the system's built-in party function to see where Tommy's location was without actually having to party up with him. My phone was useless in the tower floors and dungeons, so that wasn't an option either.

"Sephera, can you help me find Tommy?" I asked the blue message in the air. "You can see everything, right?"

[Only in a certain radius around you, and it's not that very large.] Sephera's response was immediate. [But I'll try my best.]

I clicked my tongue out of frustration, but then lifted off into the air to continue searching for Tommy.

After about 15 minutes of flying around, I finally spotted him, sitting on the edge of one of the floating islands, his shoulders slumped and his head in his hands. The sight of him, in such a defeated posture, brought a knot to my stomach. Tommy was never one to show weakness, especially not to me.

I flew down, quietly walking up to him. "Hey bro."

Tommy looked up, his eyes bloodshot. "Oh, hey Luke."

"You good...?"

Tommy took a deep breath, his eyes lingering on the ground before meeting mine. "No, man. Not really."

I quietly sat down next to him, keeping my mouth shut. For a while, we sat in silence until he finally took a deep breath.

"You remember Andrea?"

I was a bit taken aback. I thought he was going to tell me something had happened between him and Sarah, but I guess not.

"Yeah. She doing okay?" I replied, recalling his younger sister.

"...No. She got hurt in the PvP arenas along with multiple others when a PK syndicate somehow got through security. She's... she's not a Player, so it's taking a while for her to recover." Tommy quietly explained, looking over the floating islands. It wasn't the time or place, but I wondered how he managed to get up here without any flight skills.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, sincerely. As far as I knew, the PvP arenas were supposed to be safe zones for Players to train and test their skills. It was a big deal if someone could harm a non-Player there.

"Thanks bro," Tommy sighed, pulling out a wicked but cool blade from his Inventory. "Normally... I'd talk to Sarah about this, but we're not exactly together at the moment."

Oh damn. So something really did happen between them. I felt terrible that Tommy was going through so much while I was off concerned with getting stronger. Of course, it was for the sake of the world, but still.

"That's why you've been grinding on the tower floors? To get your mind off things?" I continued, looking at all the other Players below us farming angelic mobs.

"Part of the reason, yeah. The other is to hunt for monster cores to earn more money. The doctors have no idea what that PK syndicate did, but it severely weakened Players and non-Players alike to the point where they're in a coma," Tommy replied, a hint of anger in his voice.

Before I could think of something to console him, he stood up, pulling out another sword whose blade was a dark jade.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Anyways, that was pretty much the gist of what I wanted to talk to you about. After farming on the 37th floor for a while, I've gotten into the zone. You wanna join me?"

I had planned to try out one of my achievements prior to Tommy's text, but I figured he needed me right now. Besides, I could always try it out later or tomorrow. A gamer never sleeps.

"Sure," I got up and pulled out the Soultaker. "Let's party up."

----------------------------------------

Apparently while venting his emotions out on farming, Tommy had leveled up significantly, though it wasn't even up to Celine's numbers. He had put 100 points into Risk, stating that that was the most pain he could tolerate for now, which made me wonder if I truly was a masochist.

Alongside power-farming, his Title also received an upgrade, going from a B-rank 'Baron of the Blade' to an A-rank 'King of the Blade'. The perks were more or less the same, with an added benefit of having his stats boosted by 50% for every Blade-type weapon he had actively equipped. That meant dual-wielding would essentially double his stats.

For a while we were silent, each of us cutting through swarms of angelic monsters with ease. I was a bit fascinated with how the system of the game had programmed them. The angels we faced weren't just mindless drones, they had patterns and tactics, making them feel eerily human in their movements and reactions. Many of them were speaking the same language as us.

I guess the Soultaker had a grudge against anything angelic or heavenly because it laughed a lot more manically as I swung it through the monsters with ease. Tommy had raised an eyebrow at the talking sword, but I simply shrugged and told him the quick version of the story. Thankfully, he accepted it without any questions, which further led me to wonder just exactly what kind of person the people I knew viewed me as.

Begrudgingly, I had to admit it was also kind of exhilarating, using my newest achievement to sync my Strength with the Soultaker’s damage. I felt a bit drunk on power as I swung the sword with nearly 21 billion damage behind each slash. In the back of my mind, I knew that the craziest part was, for all that damage, it wouldn’t even reach Bathalt and his level 2 Ascension.

Finally, after about an hour or two, we ceased our slaughter, taking a leisurely break on one of the floating islands. The silence was almost deafening, only broken by the distant chorus of the slain angels and the occasional whisper of the wind.

I considered redistributing my extra Stat Points to round out my other traits, but left them be for now. I was going to have to do a bit of manipulation with both my Risk and extra points later, when I finally had a chance to test my achievement back in my apartment.

"You got even stronger, Luke." Tommy broke the silence, his eyes scanning over my stats. "I could've sworn you were still in the hundred-thousands a week ago."

While he meant it as praise, I could hear a hint of envy in his voice. I gave him a wry smile. "Go big or go home, right?"

Tommy chuckled, shaking his head. "You were always more into gaming than I was, but it seemed to have paid off now. I can't even imagine the kind of hell you went through to get here."

[:D]

Irritation pricked at me seeing Sephera's message pop up in front of me. Didn't this Admin have anything better to do than to listen in on a private conversation?

"Well, I did die quite a few times in a poorly designed tower," I replied, unfazed by Sephera's indignant messages spamming my vision.

Tommy shivered, closing his eyes. "I've only died once in my tower. Just the mental shock of that, I couldn't imagine... well, dying over a thousand times."

At first, I was amused, since it was definitely insane that I had racked up so many deaths. Even with my mental reduction preventing me from actually going crazy, the pain I felt was nothing to laugh at. It did make me wonder how someone like me, who invested most of his time gaming, could tolerate such torture. But then I grew somber, recalling my past childhood and Aurora.

"What if I said there were things worse than dying?" I quietly asked him.

Tommy didn't reply. Just like me, he didn't pry into things if I wasn't willing to tell him.

Honestly, I was heavily considering telling him what Aurora had told me, since Tommy had been open as to what had happened to him when a system message popped up for the both of us.

[Congratulations! Floor 37 has been cleared. Floor 38 has been opened.]

"Whoa, already?" Tommy murmured, getting back up. "But I thought the GPA wanted to hold off for at least a month before taking on the 37th floor boss. What the hell, I don't think a majority of us are proportionally strong to the enemies yet. Who's even strong enough to do that?"

"So clearing this floor wasn't planned?" I asked, following his lead. It didn't matter to me who cleared the floor, but the timing did. I needed to reach Ascension before we hit the 50th floor, so whichever Player or Players was pushing the global level probably didn't know about the truth.

"No, definitely not," Tommy replied, his eyes flickering with worry. "This isn't a good sign. If we're not ready, then it's going to be a slaughterhouse when the next wave of mobs come."

"Worse. If none of us reach Ascension, then we're fucked once the 50th level dungeon break happens," I added, gripping my Soultaker tightly. It was then that I noticed Tommy looking at me strangely. "What?"

"If none of us reach... what? And once what happens?"

I blinked, realizing that the system had censored me. I guess that's how it felt to be on the other side. At least I knew I could actually say it, even if others couldn't understand it.

"Never mind," I brushed it off. "Let's just catch up to whoever's moving things faster than they should."

I was a bit curious as to who would disregard the GPA’s advice and push the floor even higher. Were they aware of the impending 50th floor’s catastrophe? If not, why would they be pushing so hard? Unless they were also following the same Risk strategy as I was, there was no world benefit to clearing floors if it was all about leveling up by themselves.

I figured that with a majority of Players following the rules, there had to be some that didn’t think those applied to them. Granted, I was guilty of that too, but I at least had the numbers to back it up. It only made me wonder if the person or group that was pushing the floor levels were just as strong.

****

[Updating…]

[Stat Points: 34,342,856]

[Items]

[Soultaker (10,125,776)] +72