The airboat began to ascend towards the light source in the gooified terrain. Everyone was getting ready, but I would take the time to look into the height limit and see if anything was up here. While there was risk, if a super monster showed up, I would just run towards the sphere.

Also, the airboat’s engine was disabled. Otherwise, it would break down during the ascent from the sphere’s energy, possibly explode. Jacob had already run several tests and recommended this course of action. While we were losing an airboat, it was an acceptable loss to get more information.

It felt strange there were no monsters to stop me. I kept looking out as the ground got further away. Definitely going past the super danger portion of the monster layer here in the sky. Normally I would never have risked this.

One of the big reasons why I was testing this was that if there was no height limit then we might try to flee instead of fighting. Also, it might trigger the Almighty System to pay attention to what was going on with the Systemic Lands and the sphere. There was still a lot of hope there would be some kind intervention.

The light source still remained equidistant in the sky, but now the ground was no longer clearly visible. I had gotten enough height the obfuscation effect had kicked in with the ground. The clouds were also getting smaller below me. It was incredibly concerning that the light source was still up there, not changing. Was there no height ceiling, just some kind of infinite?

With how this place worked, that could very well be true. Just keep going up endlessly. But I didn’t think so. While the Almighty System was power, it didn’t seem powerful to keep going on until infinite. I looked down again and there was nothing but a hazy blur as the clouds got too far away as well. I couldn’t make out the void zones either.

I had picked the location to make sure I didn’t drift over nothingness, so I wasn’t too concerned. I would need to gain a lot more height before I could lose any sense of where I was and go somewhere too dangerous.

The airship slammed into something. The balloon at the top crumpled and I went flying upwards from the momentum. Air Burst x2. I used my skill to go upwards and hit the barrier myself. It was completely clear and see through. There was no ripple or disturbance to the illusion beyond it. The light source was still there up in the sky along with the clouds.

But that made no sense. If I got closer, it would have changed in some way. Unless there was a barrier, and the illusion was so far away it didn’t appear to change. Air Burst. I pushed myself back up in the air. Acid Shot. Force Shot. I overpowered both skills to get a massive annihilation blast right in front of me.

The attack didn’t hit anything, appearing to go through without issue. Air Burst. I ran into the barrier at the top of the Systemic Lands once again. Acid Shot x10. But my attack went through. Air Burst. I had to keep using the skill to keep myself airborne. The barrier was smooth, and I could find no purchase on it. It was also something I couldn’t sense.

“Almighty System, you up there?” I called out and there was no response. “Anyone?” Still no response. That was unfortunate, but that idea had almost no chance of working. So, while disappointed, I wasn’t surprised. After a moment of consideration, I realized there was nothing more I could do. It was time to head back and report the bad news. Escape was no longer an option.

I began to free fall and saw the plummeting airship beneath me. That answered one question, what was at the top of the Systemic Lands, a barrier that just stopped me and not my skills. That was the only thing of interest up this high. That was both disappointing and expected at the same time.

Disappointing since I was hoping for something more. Maybe a floating island, or the System’s mainframe. Instead I just got a barrier I couldn’t physically pass through. There was no energy I could make out in the barrier either. That was even more concerning. No warning about hitting it from danger sense.

Whatever the barrier was, it completely illuded any ability of my stats to detect. Not even a massive annihilation attack did anything. There was nothing to break or damage. Could that be what the vote was for, to remove that barrier?

I had also paid close attention to if the barrier was flat or curved and I couldn’t tell. But if I had to guess it would extend to the edges and bottom of the Systemic Land as well. Either as an oval or rectangular shape. There would be no easy escape or way to contact the Almighty System unfortunately.

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I had time to think as I plummeted towards the ground. It was strangely relaxing to be sky diving. The old me would have been terrified of falling like this. But now I knew I could survive even if I didn’t use my skills to slow me down. I considered the height ceiling of this place and the possibility of attacking the sphere from high up by dropping things.

There was no wind or air movement in the block terrain that I could tell. Unlike other zones which always had some air movement, even if it was quite small. That meant that bombing was possible and something to consider. But accuracy would be a problem. If we had hundreds of super large bombs, that might have been a possibility, but not right now.

I continued falling through the air. It was too bad the Almighty System didn’t give achievements or anything like that. I would definitely get one for reaching the height ceiling of this place. It made me wonder what actually existed behind the barrier if this all wasn’t a simulation.

Well the wind felt real, and now I could see clouds again as I kept plummeting downwards. It also didn’t escape my notice that the sphere and changed gravity in the entire zone, using itself as the epicenter. That could have serious implications in terms of damaging the chamber it was in. But the reflection from its attacks was worse, than having to use Air Burst to get back to solid ground.

I now saw the ground beneath me. The same zone I had ascended in. If I had to guess the ceiling height of this place as around 10 miles, or 16 kilometers. It wasn’t that far. Talking to some of the support personnel in the Forbidden City before I left, commercial planes back on Earth only flew around half or two thirds of that height.

There was also no thinning in the atmosphere. Mount Everest around 8,850 meters, or 5.5 miles above sea level. I was way above that and the air hadn’t thinned and the temperature hadn’t changed. I had no doubt if I moved between zones up in the sky, then things would just change like on the ground. A clear divide between the zone types irrespective of height.

The height limit was also interesting since it was around half the width and length of the zone. It stood to reason that zones were equally deep. While digging in the past and the destruction of Purgatory had shown a much shorter depth, I could see the roads being in the middle of the height limit. And then below the ground and bedrock, there was more inky blackness and then a barrier of some kind.

Not that I would be testing anything but the height barrier any time soon. The risk was far too high, in terms of messing with the inky blackness, and there was nothing to gain. If the sphere was still over the void, that might have been an option as part of the environment. But we weren’t going to blow through that super durable block terrain to the void. That could be a problem for much later.

The ground was approaching, but I wasn’t concerned. My Mind stat was high enough to take its time processing things in a fast-paced setting. It was hard to say if I was falling faster than I moved, but the difference wasn’t that much. I was easily able to process my descent and make sure I didn’t go splat.

I noted the remains of the airboat nearby slam into the ground, completely breaking apart. It had done its job of getting me up into the sky and testing the height limit. I frowned, since the airship hadn’t gone through the barrier, but my skills had. So probably nothing physical then. A shame we couldn’t run more tests right now to see what was outside the barrier using certain skills and trying to go through the lower layer.

Michelle was busy testing and seeing how her summon abilities held up under the sphere’s energy and if she could find a work around. That would be important for when we assaulted the sphere and needed to suppress its minions from shredding the airship.

Air Burst. I used the skill at the last moment, landing on the terrain. It hadn’t turned to goo yet. I set off in the direction that I had seen a road from the air, with the goal of returning to the Forbidden City. The energy wave wasn’t completely uniform in density up and down, but that was expected.

It was much denser closer to the ground. That expectation was why I had gone a bit further into the sphere’s energy influence, before ascending. It wasn’t that much different though. I would say it was closer to an angled wall than a wave. Maybe ten to twenty degrees in how the energy taped off as I went up.

This place felt smaller. And while it had in the past with me mapping out most of the zones and all of the known cities, there had been some thought there might have been other landmasses across the void. But now with the presence of a barrier, this was probably it. There were no other cities or anything else we would be able to flee towards.

The Systemic Lands was closed off, and I had no idea where to start on the barrier that surrounded everything. It was sad in a way to have that confirmation of what was most likely true. I liked exploring. Each new monster was interesting in some way. Like a puzzle to figure out. At least when I wasn’t pressed for time, and everything was about to be destroyed.

There was nothing really new to explore on Earth for the longest time. The highest mountains had been climbed. The tundra of the poles had been traversed. Cave systems explored. Underwater trenches scouted out by subs. There really was nothing much left to explore without risking ones life or having insane amounts of money.

It had become a hobby of mine in the last decade, fighting new monsters and figuring them out. Now there were only so many zones that could be left. It was a shame, but not unexpected.