The platform descended the dark shaft steadily, faintly rumbling every now and again as we passed unnaturally smooth walls. This elevator ride was pretty nerve-wracking as my mind was conjuring up hellish pictures of what the fourth layer might be like while I was going down.

What if it was a fiery pit filled with lava? What if, in contrast to the desert, the fourth floor was entirely underwater? What if it was a snowy tundra that tried to freeze me to death? I wasn’t much scared of the monsters awaiting me down there, but the environment could potentially be really, really bad for me. The desert wasn’t favorable terrain for me, and it was painfully obvious that there were more biomes that could potentially fuck me over.

I had to calm myself down several times while riding down. I was strong, incredibly so. I had done everything I could to prepare myself. I’d just have to improvise, adapt, overcome. It’s just that easy. I kept telling myself that, but I couldn’t get rid of this all-encompassing nervousness.

I spent the rest of the ride tensed up, ready to react to anything the system might throw at me until eventually, the platform emerged into the “sky” above the fourth layer. After not being immediately attacked by some flying dinosaur abomination, as my imagination lead me to believe, I hurried to the edge to take a good look before I lost my vantage point.

Contrary to my fears, the fourth layer wasn’t some deadly hellscape at all. In fact, it looked the most familiar of all the layers so far. Green as far as the eye could see, roiling fields, sprawling forests, snaking rivers, and massive lakes were visible from up here. If it wasn’t for the floating islands in the distance, I would have believed this layer to be modeled after earth.

I drank in the (mostly) familiar scenery, relishing the fact that the whole layer wasn’t an active volcano. The moment was short-lived when I saw two giant monsters clashing with each other in a distant field. Familiar it might be, but this was definitely still a monster-infested place, and by the looks of it, the battle was raging on 24/7, contrary to the desert above.

Even if I would have liked to take more advantage of my eagle-eye view, the platform descended mercilessly, eventually coming to a stop on the ground. This was it, time to disembark and face whatever monster figured out that spawn-killing was a viable strategy. Not intent to let anything surprise me from below the ground, I faced the nearest forest and activated my leap skill, launching myself as high up as I could, before using the second leap to push myself toward my goal.

I kept an eye trained below me and the other above, not leaving anything up to chance this time. I eventually slammed on the ground, the impact stronger now that I wasn’t landing on malleable sand, using my tentacles to rocket towards the forest with significantly smaller leaps. I made it to the tree line undisturbed, climbing into the crown of a random tree to hide myself and keep an eye on where I just came from to see if anything would come out.

As I waited and nothing emerged to kill me, I remembered that I could have used void cloak to stay hidden the whole time and mentally berated myself for being an idiot. Here I was, thinking I was powerful enough and ready to react to whatever the fourth layer could throw at me. And the first thing I did was forget about an incredibly convenient spell I had at my disposal like a moron.

While I was angry at myself, no monster appeared out of the bushes to come and claim their rightful snack, so I calmed myself down a bit, relaxing my combat-ready demeanor a bit. I made it down in one piece, which was worth a lot. I quickly pulled up the system to see if it was finally ready to reveal my evolution conditions to me.

Evolution Goals:

Reach Level 20

Bonus Objective:

Hold a system node for three days (0/3)

Find traces of an ancient civilization (0/3)

So, the good old “reach level 20” made a return, along with two objectives that I couldn’t really make heads or tails of. Just what was a system node, and what did the system consider traces of an ancient civilization? As always, the system was delightfully vague and I had to figure things out by myself.

Now, I was no expert, but to find out how to complete either of these, I would have to explore. Unlike in the third layer where I just stayed put in the oasis, I’d actually have to roam around and look for clues to these objectives. I was actually kind of looking forward to moving around a bit more since being cooped up in the oasis got a bit boring at some point. It also helped that the fourth layer wasn’t some sort of hellscape.

I felt much more ready to explore a nice environment than an empty desert.

And I’d bet I’d find some answers on one of the floating islands I saw when I came down. These things stood out like a sore thumb, and I would probably have gone to take a look even if I didn’t think there were achievements to be had up there. I mean, they’re floating islands after all!

With my new void jump spell, getting up there shouldn’t be too much of an issue either, so I had no excuses. So, the first order of business would be making my way to one of these floating islands and exploring it. I was almost certain that I’d either find a node up there or some hints at this civilization.

It was kind of weird that this planet even had something relating to an ancient civilization, after all, it was filled with monsters that wouldn’t get it either way. I remembered the odd face statues I found in the oasis and how out of place the hunters were and combined it with this new information. The system was most definitely sprinkling things on this planet that were specifically here for travelers like me to find and/or overcome.

Well, I wouldn’t get anywhere just by sitting up in a tree and doing nothing. I had an entire new layer to explore, monsters to fight, and levels to gain. Time to get a move on!

I jumped out of my tree, going deeper into the forest. The forest here was a lot more densely packed with trees than the oasis was, so I had to be a bit more careful with where I went. I alternated between pushing myself off the ground with my “leg” tentacles and grabbing and swinging from low branches with my “arm” tentacles to rapidly change direction. I was beginning to wonder where all the monsters were since I hadn’t seen any since arriving here, aside from the big ones fighting each other in the distance.

Did this layer operate after some rules as well? If the third layer had the rule of all the monsters duking it out during the night, there might be something like this here as well. No, I shouldn’t make too many assumptions yet, it’s entirely possible that I was just “lucky” by not encountering any monsters, even though I was really itching for a fight.

I really wanted to kill something, feel the thrill of battle again.

When I took a moment to feel if I could detect any tremors nearby I finally got a ping. I could feel something moving to my right, but the vibrations were a bit weird, almost too constant. Usually, monsters sent out small vibrations through the ground when they stepped on the ground in a rhythmic pattern. But this one was just a constant vibration. Not deterred by a bit of weirdness, I made my way over to my first victim of the fourth layer and almost had to laugh when I saw what it was.

A reaper snake was leisurely winding through the forest, unaware that I was stalking it. It was an incredibly long snake, huge too, but I couldn’t help but feel it was smaller than the one I had encountered in the first layer. There might be some fuckery going on since I was bigger and less afraid of it this time around, but it definitely seemed smaller.

Just like the one in the first layer, six appendages extended from near the head, making it look like a face-hugger, but instead of being made for grabbing, these things had incredibly sharp blades at the end. Even though it wasn’t alert, it still had its front raised a bit, blades at the ready for anything that might attack.

Well, I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting first encounter and started conjuring up some void javelins. I wasn’t sure what level this specimen was, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. The hunter I fought was a max-level tier-four monster, and even if it had some hunter-specific bonuses, a high-level monster here would still be able to put up a fight against me. So, better play it safe.

Once I had my usual array of six javelins hovering above me I started my assault, concentrating fire on the head. All six javelins hit their mark, the explosions almost uprooting a few nearby trees and doing some significant damage to the reaper. I only waited a split second to see if the volley was enough to kill it, and when it didn’t I leaped into action just as the enraged snake started slicing apart everything in its vicinity with reckless abandon.

It apparently couldn’t tell where the attack had come from, but I still had to pay attention, lest I be cut apart by one of the flying energy blades it could apparently send out with a skill. I started conjuring up a storm of poison spears, impacting the already open wound again and again. When I saw it try and turn toward me, I sent out a poison bomb and detonated it right next to its face, the force enough to whip its head away from me.

It didn’t take long after that before the snake fell to the ground, defeated.

You have killed a T4 Lv. 12 Reaper Snake

You have been awarded 26’150 XP

You have been awarded 124 Data Points

You have leveled up twice!

Damn, that was a lot of XP! Seeing as I only leveled up twice from that, it would seem like leveling up needed a lot more XP this time around even if it rewarded more for defeating an enemy. It honestly was a great benchmark to see just how far I’d come. Back in the first layer I only managed to kill one of these because it was already wounded and I managed to employ dirty tactics. Now? I could dispose of one relatively easily.

I quickly stored the corpse in my inventory for later consumption, remembering that I still had the hunter in my inventory. I should eat it relatively soon to get the gluttony XP bonus. As I did so, I could feel the tell-tale tremors of several monsters approaching me. It would seem that no matter the layer, once a noticeable fight broke out the riffraff would come running to join in.

Just as well, since I was itching for more fighting and still had some more things I wanted to test, like void-empowered poison spells.