After splashing into the lava, something that still felt odd since lava really shouldn’t behave like that, I started descending as fast as I could. I still couldn’t see anything due to the lavas brightness, but as long as I kept swimming against the current I would be fine. The lava was constantly rushing to the surface, providing great guidance to me. As I kept going further and further down, I started worrying about monsters. I wouldn’t be able to see them coming even if I tried, but I also wasn’t entirely certain if there even were any monsters inhabiting the volcanoes.

I knew for sure that they were splashing around in the lava lakes, but I hadn’t seen any signs of them in the volcanoes. My worries were dismissed soon after. I knew being arrogant would eventually be my downfall, but my attributes had soared to ridiculous levels over the past months, to the point that I considered nothing on this layer to even provide a slight challenge. So, even if something decided to gobble me up, I was confident that I could persevere.

As I continued ever further down it slowly became clear that there probably were no monsters here. That, or they somehow sensed that I was too strong to take on. I swam and swam, ever deeper for what felt like half an hour before I finally noticed a change.

The current that had been constantly rushing toward the volcano's top suddenly shifted direction. It happened so abruptly that, by the time I realized what was happening, I’d swam past the new current and into an entirely different one. This new current was going down, and not gently like the upwards stream I’d grown used to. No, this new current was strong and pulled me along for the ride. I was a bit concerned about where it was going to take me, but since I was attempting to go deeper anyway, I just let it happen.

I briefly wondered how much longer I’d be able to hold my breath. My increased constitution score let me function without breathing for an amazing amount of time, but if I went too deep I might find myself in trouble. I calmed myself by deciding to use void jumps to return to the surface if I got close to my limit. I hated doing blind jumps, but I’d rather do that than suffocate like a fool. I relaxed for a while as the current pulled me deeper much faster than I could swim, wondering where this current went.

My question was answered when I suddenly found myself in the open air, shooting out of an opening along with highly pressurized lava. My wings snapped open on instinct and I started cruising, taking in the new environment.

I found myself in a massive open space, jets of lava emerging from the walls all around it. In some places the lava fell like giant pillars from the ceiling, giving the illusion that they were holding up the roof of the place. Below me, a veritable ocean of lava churned and bubbled, constantly being added to by the masses of lava coming through the holes in the walls and the ceiling. I marveled at the crazy display, wondering if it was supposed to look natural, or it it had been built by somebody.

The underground space was so large that I couldn’t see the other end of it, mostly due to the pillars of lava blocking my view. It did stretch for as far as the eye could see, though, and I had to wonder if it spanned the same area as the volcanic dome above. Whether or not it was true, I got excited as this new area provided me with something to explore. The obsidian palace had to be down here somewhere, I could just feel it.

If it wasn’t I might actually give up my search.

Intent on exploring this massive underground ocean, I picked a random direction and started gliding, using the lava pillars as a makeshift slalom course. While I enjoyed this new theme park, it got stale pretty quickly. There was literally nothing aside from lava in this place if one didn’t count the ceiling and the far-off walls. My excitement dimmed a bit, but I pushed on nevertheless. It still remained a spectacular sight, for sure, but my eyes constantly scanned for even a sliver of black.

It took about four hours of randomly flying around before I finally saw it. For but a brief moment, I had seen a distinctively black… something between two pillars of lava, and I immediately changed course toward it. Once I rounded the lava pillar, I finally saw the thing I’d been looking for all these months. The system confirmed this by telling me that I’d completed my bonus objective, which had simply been to “find” the palace. Of course, I wouldn’t just turn around because I completed the given task. No, this damn palace had been on my mind for months, and I wanted to know what secrets it held.

The palace itself was massive and, as the name suggested, completely made from the darkest obsidian. The black glass was polished to a sheen and ominously reflected the lava all around it. The palace itself consisted of a large dome structure in the middle, surrounded by hundreds of differently-sized spires. There were four straight roads that formed a cross leading away from the dome, barely ten meters above the sea of lava below. I assumed they were roads, but oddly enough they started dipping downward and disappeared into the lava. Did whoever built this life in the lava?

The place looked deserted so I treated the closest road as a runway to land on. Now that I was on ground level I once again realized just how big this thing was. If I was still human I’d have to crane my neck to see the top of the nearest spire, but thankfully my bendable eye stalks made looking at everything quite a bit easier. I started following the road towards the dome, the spires seemingly closing around me like a wall.

The obsidian didn’t let any light through, so once I got a bit further it became quite dark. The contrast from constantly being blinded by the lava to this level of darkness was quite jarring and it took me some time to adjust. It didn’t help that the obsidian was naturally black as well. It was almost impossible to make out any details around me, as the darkness fused with the obsidian. If there were some stairs coming up, I felt it would be unavoidable to run into them face first, since there was no way that I could see it.

I continued like this for a bit before remembering that I could simply create some light myself by conjuring some void javelins and letting them hover above me. They didn’t give off a lot of light, but the obsidian reflected their purple light, which would at least stop me from running into a wall. The road I was on continued in a perfectly straight path until, eventually, I came to what looked to be some kind of moat.

Between the many spires and the palace center was an open space of about a hundred meters where the lava was lazily bubbling. I’d admit that a moat filled with lava was quite a bit more effective than the ones filled with water, but seeing as the only ones able to come here needed some kind of resistance to it, it felt more decorative than defensive. Ahead, I could see the large dome structure, a large opening letting the road pass into the palace proper. I couldn’t make out anything inside as, unsurprisingly, it was completely black.

I continued on, passing the opening in the dome in short order and entering what seemed like a courtyard. It was hard to make out, but I could barely see what looked like an actual castle built inside the dome. I was confused as to the function of the dome, wondering why the palace was encased like that. There was also not a single source of light visible inside, making me wonder how whoever lived here managed to get around without constantly bumping into walls they couldn’t see. There were two more entrances to the dome to my left and right, and I assumed there was a fourth one behind the palace. The openings were the only source of light, as the lava from outside weakly illuminated the whole space.

My eyes wandered the open space between me and the palace but I could not make out a single decoration. There was just perfectly smooth obsidian without a single statue, bench, flower, or anything else you’d normally see in front of a palace. Admittedly slightly creeped out, I pushed forward to the palace. It quickly became apparent that I was either to the side or the back of the castle, as there was no way for me to enter and I started to follow the walls in search of a door. Once I arrived at the opposite walls of the rather large palace, I finally found what I was looking for.

A large double door, crafted from obsidian just like everything else, stood ajar welcoming me in. The reflections revealed that there were decorations carved into the doors, but the light was too faint to make out anything specific. With a shrug, I passed the doors and into the palace proper, and as soon as I did, it was like I stepped into pure darkness. It had been hard to see before, but now it felt like I was standing in a pure void. If it wasn’t for the void javelins above me providing a soft purple glow and being able to feel the ground beneath me, I’d have assumed that I might have fallen into some sort of trap.

The darkness here was almost unnatural and I felt like the obsidian around me was actually absorbing the light instead of reflecting it. I crept forward slowly, making sure that I didn’t accidentally bump into something or trigger a trap if there even were any, thinking that I should look into getting a light spell at some point the entire time. That, or mutate my eyes to see in the dark. My eyes were only tier-two so far, which would be relatively cheap to upgrade. I had a strong suspicion that I’d get a lot of mutation points once I finally evolved with a tier-ten core, so I should definitely remember to do so when the time came.

I scouted out the hall I found myself at a snail's pace, being reminded how slow I had to take things back when I was a tiny tier-zero slug. It was nice to take it slow every once in a while, but I was definitely happy that I could speed it up nowadays. There were several hallways leading away from the hall, two sets of stairs leading upwards, as well as another door that was only slightly ajar opposite the entrance. Of course, I was curious about the rest of the palace, but I assumed that if there was anything of interest to be found here, it would be in the throne room. Thinking that my best bet at finding said room would be the door opposite the entrance, I squeezed myself through the small opening.

I was greeted by even more darkness, which wasn’t all that surprising. What was surprising, though, was that I could see a very faint orange shimmer at the end of what I assumed to be a hallway. I carefully inched forward toward the glow, curious as to what I might find there. If I had to guess, it would probably be some lava pits or something, or maybe I’d finally find some torches or magical lights.

At the end of the hallway was yet another double door that was slightly ajar. Through the crack between the doors, I could see the faint orange glow beckoning me. Instead of squeezing through, I opted to push open the door this time. Just as I’d thought, this was probably the throne room. At the end of the long hall was a throne of obsidian, two rows of obsidian pillars supporting the roof. I could see all of this relatively clearly due to the object located in the center of the room.

There was something floating above a small pedestal that was giving off ample amounts of light, although I couldn’t make out what exactly it was from this distance. I approached the pedestal and it quickly became clear what I was looking at.

A key.

It was a bit oddly shaped, but it was definitely a key. Looking at it, it seemed to be crafted from obsidian, lava lazily flowing around inside of it. How exactly the lava hadn’t cooled down ages ago was a question I’d likely never find the answer to, but that didn’t really matter. What did matter, was that I finally remembered that I was supposed to look for a key as well. I had been so laser-focused on finding the damn obsidian palace for the past few months, that I’d forgotten that there were additional requirements to descend to the next floor. It was the first time that I needed to complete additional tasks to earn the right to descent, as before the sole task had always been to evolve to the next tier.

I carefully extended a tentacle to touch the key, immediately retracting my tentacle as soon as I did and jumping a few meters backward. I eyed the key suspiciously, watching for any signs that it was trapped. After nothing happened for a few minutes I approached again. Nothing happened this time around, but there was no guarantee that wouldn’t change once I actually took the key. I once again extended my tentacle to touch the key, pulling it into my inventory after taking a calming breath.

The throne room was plunged into darkness as soon as the key disappeared and I once again jumped backward, extending my senses to watch for any traps activating. Again, nothing happened. Could it really be that easy?

Well, one could argue that it hadn’t been easy at all to get here. After all, I needed to find a lava fruit that almost killed me, and then I’d spent months looking for the palace. The system had softly guided me to find the key, which made me think that the bonus objectives weren’t as optional as I’d thought on this layer. Or maybe there were more keys hidden around the layer that I hadn’t been able to find. It mattered little since I finally found one. The system confirmed that it was indeed a magma elevator key, leaving defeating an elevator guardian as the only task left before I could descend.

Well that, and getting my seed to the tenth tier.

I was about to turn around in order to start exploring the rest of this place when a soft blue glow appeared. The source was quickly identified as it came from the wall behind the throne. A large mural was slowly appearing, depicting the throne room, filled with curious creatures that I couldn’t quite identify. I may not have been able to figure out what the mural was depicting, but I sure did know what the mural was. I had seen enough of them on the fourth layer to know that this was the system offering me to watch a memory of this place. There was no incentive for me to witness what the system wanted to show me, unlike on the fourth floor, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.

I approached the mural and waited for the system prompt to show up, selecting yes when asked to view the memory.