Leveling Endlessly with the Strongest System

"You are safe. I got you."

Before she could sink deeper, Roy grabbed her hand and pulled her up, telepathically conveying reassuring words to her in order to stop her from panicking.

With his help, she resurfaced, coughing and sputtering water.

Roy held her defensively, keeping her stable in the river with surging water.

"You okay?" Roy asked her, his overall calmness betrayed by a hint of concern in his voice.

Delilah nodded, rubbing the water out of her eyes.

"Yeah, just not used to it."

Ending up miserable from just jumping into the river, she felt pathetic.

"Hold on to me tightly. I will lead you to our destination." Roy extended an invitation, assuring her that he would guide her until they reached the ashen land.

"I will be okay." She refused, feeling too shy to cling to him like a monkey.

"Well... whatever you like."

As Roy turned away from her, he felt a hot body cling to him.

"On second thought, I will hold on to you until we are out of the river. After all, how can I refuse an offer made by my lord?" Delilah said as she enclosed her hands tightly around his body.

'Is she a tsundere?' Roy wondered as he let the strong current carry them away.

Delilah held onto Roy even tighter as he swam under the river. She was hugging him like an octopus and breathing into his skin. Her limbs were coiled around his waist, and her twin peaks were pressed against his back.

Roy went along with the rolling water, swimming deeper into the river in search of the crack in the holy barrier.

After a few moments of swimming under the river, the world around them faded away, replaced by the eerie silence of the water.

The silence reminded Delilah of her traumatic past. She had days when she made mistakes and was confined in a tiny room with not enough space to move for weeks.

Roy's muscles were tensed as he resisted the downward pull and followed the direction of the flow himself. He could feel the weight of her body against his back, but he didn't mind. Her closeness was a source of comfort to him. As much as he liked the idea of a solo adventure, he couldn't deny that it sounded less than being with her. He liked her.

As they swam deeper into the river, the world around them began to fade away. The sounds of the outside world were replaced by the eerie silence of the water. It was as if they were in a different dimension, separated from the rest of the world by a thin layer of liquid.

For Delilah, the silence brought back memories of her past. Memories she had locked away and tried to forget. She had made mistakes in the past that her captors didn't like, and she had been punished for them in cruel ways. They confined her in a tiny room, with no room to move, for weeks on end, giving her trash for food and whipping and torturing her every night, engraving in her flesh and bones that she should do better if she wanted to survive in that hellhole.

Fortunately, that place was ransacked by a warrior from the empire, and she and her sister were saved.

A single healing spell was enough to heal the scars on her body, but the wounds deep inside her heart were impossible to heal.

The memories were painful, and they threatened to overwhelm her.

But she couldn't let them. As an assassin, she knew that fear and hesitation could be deadly.

She closed her eyes, recalling a spiritual scripture to cleanse her mind from all messy thoughts while leaving Roy to do the work.

She trusted him. She knew he would keep her safe and safely bring her to the other side.

Roy carefully scoured the surrounding, looking for any suspicious signs while moving through the river. The longer he stayed under the river, the more tension he felt building up in his body.

Suddenly, he saw it!

"There it is!" His heart pounded in his chest in excitement as he spotted a large crack in a rock wall submerged in water.

It was hidden by overgrown weeds, and although it was close to the holy barrier, it was the only area under the middle course of the river that wasn't covered by it.

It was massive, several meters long, and looked like a giant mouth waiting to swallow them up.

Well, that was what he wanted.

With Delilah clinging to him like a lifeline, Roy sliced through the current with the finesse of a seasoned swimmer and swam toward it. The water roared around them, and a mysterious force threatened to pull them to the depth.

Roy, with the ease of a seasoned warrior, countered the invisible and mighty downward pull with his own formidable aura. "Get lost!"

He wasn't interested in knowing the deep sea creature who was playing these dirty tricks on them. And it seemed like it had the same thought as it didn't bother them again. Roy could no longer feel a mighty downward force acting on him.

He made his way towards the gap in the holy barrier.

As they neared the gaping crack in the wall, the rustling weeds that surrounded it appeared to come to life, writhing and twisting like serpents in the murky depths. Their tendrils lashed out towards them with alarming speed. Even underwater, their speed was nothing to scoff at. They moved through the water like lightning across the sky and came crashing down on Roy and Delilah.

"You are signing your own death! Venegenful Fist of the Fire Dragonkin!"

Undaunted, Roy brought his powerful fists together in a resounding clap, and a surge of energy erupted from his very core.

Shua!

The water around them ignited in a shower of vibrant emerald fire, illuminating the darkness with a fierce brilliance. The flames surged forward with a force that was mightier than the rolling waves above.

In the midst of the icy wetness, Roy's magical fire burned with a ferocity that belied its surroundings. The cold seawater could not extinguish the bright flames that bloomed from his knuckles, searing the darkness and burning away the tendrils.

The weeds were set ablaze and reduced to ashes.

『Ding! Congratulation. You killed four low-level aquatic demonic plants.』

『Gained 2000 experience points.』

Having successfully dealt with the unruly troublemakers, Roy cautiously approached the looming crack in the wall beneath the river.

The other side of the opening appeared to be a desolate, dreary cave, completely shrouded in darkness.

His gaze pierced through the darkness. He didn't see anyone lurking within the cave. His sixth sense, the one that could detect energy fluctuations, was not picking up anything unusual either.

Thus, he squeezed through the wide gap and stepped into the unknown with Delilah on his back.

『Ding! You have entered the Ashen Land!』