Chapter 544

Jake dashed aside as a blast of energy sizzled past him, momentarily leaving a glowing purple trail in its wake. The bolt slammed into the hard ground, carving out a sizable crater and sending molten fragments of rock spraying in every direction. A wave of heat washed over him.

The shoulder-mounted cannons of the Great Devourer smoothly readjusted their aim, relentlessly tracking his movements before firing two more energy bolts at once. The crackle of the deafening discharge echoed across the air. Jake hurled himself out of the way, and both blasts screamed past him.

One passed so close that it grazed his armored shoulder, leaving behind a blackened scorch mark. Both projectiles slammed into the rocky ground somewhere behind him, blasting it apart into hundreds of razor-sharp shards that rained down around him.

Without slowing for even a moment, Jake kept moving. He knew that stopping, even for an instant, would give the Great Devourer’s cannons all the time they needed to line up a direct hit.

He continued racing around the huge monster as it unleashed barrage after barrage of energy shots at him. Every missed shot gouged fresh craters into the rocky ground, filling the air with dust, smoke, and glowing debris.

He already knew that after a few more volleys, the monster’s weapons would overheat and stop firing for a while as they cooled down. He had already forced that to happen several times during the battle. That brief window of opportunity was when he would shift from the defensive back to the offensive, throwing everything he had at the huge void beast before its cannons became operational again.

The battle between him and the Great Devourer had already been raging for over twenty minutes. It had lasted longer than any fight he had fought over the past several hours. But that wasn’t really surprising. After all, the Great Devourer was the final boss of this dungeon, and it was by far the strongest creature he had encountered since entering the Dark Void.

Over a dozen hours earlier, when Jake stepped through the portal on the floating island, he had found himself in a dungeon called the Dark Void, sharing the same name as the anomaly itself. He had no idea how come there was a dungeon hidden inside the anomaly or why he had been teleported directly to its entrance instead of somewhere else.

What he did know was that he had no choice but to clear the dungeon if he wanted any chance of getting out. So after reading through the information the System provided, he stepped through the entrance portal and began making his way through the dungeon.

While it looked vastly different from the previous dungeon he had cleared long ago, the Maze of Torment, the rules were exactly the same. This new dungeon, the Dark Void, consisted of five levels. Each one was filled with monsters and contained a puzzle he needed to solve in order to activate the portal leading to the next level.

So for the past several hours, Jake had fought his way through countless monsters, solved one puzzle after another, and gradually advanced from one level to the next. In that respect, the Dark Void wasn’t any different from the Maze of Torment.

There were all kinds of monsters he had to deal with as he fought his way through the dungeon. Some looked like twisted, nightmarish versions of ordinary animals, while others resembled enormous insects with thick armored shells and razor-sharp limbs. A number of the creatures had been fused with ranged weapons such as energy cannons, allowing them to bombard him from a distance while others rushed in for close combat.

Every level presented him with a different combination of enemies, forcing him to constantly adapt his tactics. But no matter how many monsters the dungeon threw at him or how powerful they were, Jake steadily fought his way through one level after another. Every battle brought him closer to the dungeon’s end.

There were five levels in total. Unlike the Maze of Torment, however, the Dark Void, despite being called a dungeon, wasn’t actually one in the traditional sense. Instead of underground halls, endless corridors, or massive chambers carved into stone, each level consisted of a floating island suspended in the endless void.

Unlike the small island that held the entrance portal, these islands were much larger, stretching for miles in every direction. Jagged cliffs, towering rock formations, and deep chasms covered their surfaces, creating natural obstacles alongside the monsters roaming them.

Every level looked almost identical. Each was nothing more than an enormous mass of dark rock hovering in the void beneath the same swirling purple sky, where the enormous vortex rotated overhead without ever changing. It was obvious that the dungeon existed within the same world as the place where he had first arrived after being sucked into the Dark Void anomaly.

The levels only differed in the type of puzzle each one contained, while their landscapes remained largely the same. Aside from the puzzles and the monsters inhabiting them, there was little to distinguish one floating island from another.

It took him a few hours to fully explore each level. Between fighting monsters, searching for clues, and solving the puzzles needed to unlock the portals, clearing a single island was a time-consuming process. As a reward for completing each level, he earned a unique ability.

He briefly studied every new ability as soon as he received it, skimming through its description to get a general idea of what it could do, but he didn’t devote much attention to any of them yet. The reason was that every one of them had high attribute requirements, so he couldn’t acquire any of them anyway.

For now, all he could do was collect the rewards and continue forward. He planned to study their descriptions much more carefully once he finally met the requirements needed to acquire them.

Another interesting detail about this dungeon was that, unlike the Maze of Torment, where he could leave after completing a floor before deciding whether to continue, the Dark Void didn’t allow him to leave after finishing a level. Jake didn’t know why that was the case, and nothing in the dungeon’s description offered any explanation.

So apparently, unlike the Maze of Torment, he would be allowed to leave only after completing the fifth and final level. At least, he hoped so.

Unlike the first four levels, the fifth consisted solely of a massive boss arena, just like the fifth floor of the Maze of Torment. There were no ordinary monsters to fight and no puzzle to solve this time.

While the dungeon boss was enormous, it was much smaller than the one he had fought on the final floor of the Maze of Torment, standing only slightly larger than an elephant. Even so, its sheer size and heavily built frame made it an intimidating opponent.

The Great Devourer was a four-limbed beast that roughly resembled a gorilla. It normally moved on all fours, but it could also rear up onto its hind legs and move bipedally whenever the situation demanded it.

Its long snout was filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth. Long, jagged spikes jutted from its back, while a powerful energy cannon was mounted on each shoulder. Between its immense physical strength and the powerful cannons, the Great Devourer was a dangerous opponent at both long and close range.

Jake had been battling the Great Devourer for over twenty minutes now. During that time, he had dealt quite a bit of damage to his opponent. Its thick armored hide was now dotted with numerous ragged holes, deep slashes, and shattered plates from which blood freely flowed, dripping onto the rocky ground beneath it. Several of the spikes along its back had been broken off during the fight, and scorch marks covered much of its body where its own overheating cannons had vented intense heat. Even so, the enormous beast refused to fall, continuing to fight with relentless determination.

There were no other enemies anywhere on this dungeon level, allowing Jake to devote his full attention to the Great Devourer without worrying about anything attacking him from behind. He kept fighting the beast for several more minutes, patiently waiting for another opening while continuing to chip away at its defenses. Then, seizing the brief opportunity created when the creature’s shoulder cannons overheated once again, Jake landed the final blow.

The huge monster’s body went limp. It let out one last low, rumbling growl before collapsing onto the rocky ground with a tremendous thud that sent dust and loose stones scattering in every direction.

That was it. The final enemy of the dungeon had been defeated.

Jake remained where he was for a brief moment, then he jumped down from its massive lifeless body onto the rocky ground below. A few yards away, a swirling portal slowly materialized out of thin air. Had to be an exit from the dungeon. At the same time, a notification detailing his achievements appeared in his vision, confirming that he had successfully cleared the dungeon.

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>>> Final Results <<<

Total Time Taken to Complete the Dark Void Dungeon: 13 hours, 26 minutes

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Rewards Earned:

Bio-Plasma Cannons (An Epic Ability)

Acid Mortars (An Epic Ability)

Head Cannon (An Epic Ability)

Siege Beast (A Legendary Ability)

Living Railgun (A Legendary Ability)

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All of these abilities had been added to the current section of the Genetic Development Interface, where they would remain available until he met the requirements to acquire them.

He had leveled up significantly during the dungeon crawl, gaining a considerable number of points along the way. However, since he still couldn’t acquire any of the newly earned abilities, he had invested every single point into his attributes instead, steadily working toward meeting the demanding requirements of the newly gained abilities. It wasn’t the most exciting use of his points, but it was the only sensible choice for the time being.

Jake was sure every one of these abilities would prove extremely useful in the future. After completing the Maze of Torment, he had gained five unique abilities that had become invaluable in all kinds of situations, serving him well in battle and beyond. So he had no doubt these new ones would become just as useful.

Judging by their names alone, they seemed to focus heavily on ranged combat, and the two legendary abilities especially piqued his curiosity. He couldn’t wait until he finally met the requirements to acquire them and put them to the test in real combat.

So the Dark Void anomaly had turned out to be far less intimidating than he had originally expected. The first time he had been sucked into it, he had been transformed into a morphus, an experience that had completely changed his life. Now, instead of killing him, it had not only spared his life but even rewarded him with five unique abilities, two of which were legendary.

On the other hand, he couldn’t help but remember what Mick had told him at some point. It was the mysterious Whisperers who had interfered when he had been pulled into the Dark Void as a human. They had tinkered with the System’s processes, greatly improving his chances of surviving the anomaly and successfully transforming into a morphus. Without their intervention, he wouldn’t have survived the transformation.

So perhaps they had interfered again. Maybe the dungeon hidden within the anomaly and the unique abilities it provided were not simply coincidences. Maybe the Whisperers had once again adjusted the System’s rules, giving him a chance to grow even stronger.

Jake figured he would find out whether his suspicions were correct the next time he met Mick and had a chance to ask him about it.

He dismissed the notification and looked around. Despite everything, he still held onto a small hope that Owen would suddenly materialize beside him, just as he had appeared after previous teleportations. But of course, it didn’t happen. The area remained completely silent and empty.

He hadn’t seen Owen since they had been separated after being teleported away from the cave filled with those organic pods. From that moment onward, there had been no trace of his friend. Therefore, there was no reason to believe he would appear now. Wherever his friend was, he was no longer with him, and Jake knew there was nothing he could do about it. At least not for the moment. All he could do was keep moving forward and hope that, somehow, Owen was still alive and would find a way back to him.

Finally, he approached the portal. The swirling gateway hovered silently in front of him, its surface shifting like a pool of glowing purple energy. Jake couldn’t help but wonder where it would take him. Even after everything he had gone through inside the Dark Void, there was no guarantee that this portal would lead him where he wanted it to.

Would it finally take him out of the dungeon and the Dark Void anomaly, returning him to the real world? If so, where would he emerge? Would he return to the Spartan base, exactly where he had entered the anomaly? That seemed unlikely, though. Chen had surely deactivated the anomaly as soon as he and Owen had been pulled inside, meaning the entrance they had used should no longer exist.

So perhaps the portal would send him to some random location in the real world. Or maybe instead of returning him to reality, the portal could simply transport him to another location still within this strange alien world.

Anyway, there was only one way to find out. Jake took one last look around the barren landscape, then stepped forward and entered the portal.