UNLIMITED SPEED

A sense of emptiness filled Noah's very being. He felt light like never before. His speed carried a lot of weight in his growing existence; not having it available to him, made him feel void. Even if the remainder of his power was still available to him.

He tried to run with the speed forces empowerment, but nothing happened.

Noah took a few minutes to come to terms with that reality, he swore he felt like jumping would take him to the sky, and that made him focus on his environment.

The sky of that place was black and starless. It was the most empty looking sky he had ever gazed at, but a large object, seemingly the moon stood; illuminating the area with its silver light.

It felt like night time, except different. A strange quietness ensnared the environment, creating a vibe that wasn't nice at all.

The very environment tried to get into his mind, to inflict fear, but Noah was stronger than that. Nevertheless he was already on guard.

He still didn't know what type of creatures existed in that dungeon, so he had to be careful.

Sweeping his gaze on his surrounding, Noah took note of the huge mountains surrounding the place.

Heck he stood backing one. Thankfully the matter didn't weigh on his mind. He knew he couldn't get out since that was part of the information given to him.

[Reach the center of the maze to travel to the next floor]

A panel appeared in his eyes, and his gaze landed on the green walls before him.

Walking closer to the one closet to him, Noah felt stunned to find that it was actually made of leaves.

"They are very strong," he muttered realizing that he couldn't actually cut the tight bunch of grass.

The path before him was dark, and it branched out into only two other paths.

Noah tried to unfold his consciousness at that point. But something immensely heavy caused it to only reach a few feet from his figure.

'This is the real deal,' he thought, getting serious already.

If he couldn't map out the maze, he would have to do so manually, which could take hours if not day's.

From the looks of things the maze was huge, probably a few kilometers in size. The walls made out of grass reached heights of about 100m. So they were very tall, which was mainly why he had mistaken them for stone walls.

Ideas began to appear inside Noah's mind, and one that could really help him appeared in his mind.

The idea saw him climbing the walls to scout the area, and it was very doable. Although he didn't have access to the speed that came with empowerment, he was naturally quick on his foot.

Noah dashed forward, arriving before one of the walls of grass, he placed his foot on it, and rapidly placed his second foot.

His figure sprinted up the wall faster than gravity could catch up with him. Noah felt ecstatic about that event, but his joy was incredibly short lived, barely a second.

Arriving at about half the distance of the wall, Noah felt an immense pressure suddenly flicker into existence, literally more than twenty times stronger than gravity.

The pressure was so strong that when he landed on the ground he dug it for a few feet.

Noah lay inside the crater he had formed; his eyes open with disbelief.

The event had been so fast he had been unable to blink. It felt like he had instantly arrived on the ground with a powerful bang.

"No way," he muttered to himself before getting on his feet and dashing towards then up the wall.

In the same manner as before Noah found himself on the ground, and he didn't stop trying until the fifth time.

A downcast expression stood on Noah's face at that juncture, his former excitement about managing to pass the dungeon quickly had been brutally snuffed out by the limitation applied to running up a wall.

Noah guessed he couldn't even jump past a certain height at that point.

Heaving a sigh of helplessness, and shattered hope, Noah figured he had no choice but to walk down the many paths until he finally arrived at the center.

"This place truly is cursed," he hissed walking down the path. The night-like state of his environment coupled with the heavy silence almost made his skin crawl.

He walked for minutes, constantly moving his gaze. He didn't encounter anything during that period however.

Soon he arrived at a cross-point. There were two paths on either of his sides, and he had to pick one that he would explore.

Noah had no help from his instincts since it didn't have any clue about that environment. Notwithstanding he had to choose at some point.

He had every certainty that those paths would branch up into tens if not hundreds more, and making a mistake could cost him hours. He would also need to retrace his steps if such an event occurred, but that would be hard since the walls of grass all looked the same.

Nothing ever change in the scenery, not even the smoothness of the ground was different. Everything was consistent enough to make his environment identical.

With a sense of deep uncertainty and nervousness permeating his mind, Noah chose the left path, and began his journey down it.

However, rather than allow himself get lost, Noah caused spikes of ice-stakes to stab into the ground every 30m he covered, and just like he expected, the path began to reveal other paths and this time he chose a certain path that bent towards the right side of the maze which should be where the maze was.

Upon walking a few hundred meters into the said path however, Noah felt a strange presence fall upon him and his vision directly went blurry.

[You are under fear stat]

[You have successfully canceled it]

[You are under fear stat]

[You have successfully canceled it]

[You are under fear stat]

Noah fought a battle within his mind, but eventually succumbed to the influence of the said stat.

A bone chilling fear tried to seep into his very existence, but he managed to reduce its intensity, and gained a certain level of clarity in the process.

His eyes fell on a series of unclear silver figures barely 2m in height. They numbered about ten in number and their power was undeniable.

"Practically higher stage," Noah muttered feeling his hands tremble, even if his dagger appeared in his grip.

[Hollow beast]

[Level: 100]

[Affinity: [Unavailable]]

[Level of danger: Unknown]