Chapter 703 - Confidence Or Madness?

Before entering the dungeon, Ryan and Femradiel activated Mana Concealment. It wasn't weird that Femradiel could use the skill since she saw Ryan using it for many hours in the last few days. As soon as they touched the crystal, they were already ready for a fight, but much to their surprise, no one attacked as soon as they appeared.

"What is this place…" Ryan furrowed his eyebrows.

It didn't look like they were teleported to another planet. Both of them looked around and only saw what seemed to be a massive different dimension created with magic. There were no mountains, but there were many rocks of different sizes and shapes. It would make the travel on foot on that place incredibly challenging, physically speaking. It also would be hard to locate oneself in such a place since there were no clear landmarks.

The sky seemed like Earth's, but no star or cloud could be seen. Thanks to that, it looked pretty ominous, like a sea of darkness that could swallow anyone that stares too much into it.

"This is unexpected," Femradiel said. "I don't feel the presence of a domain. I guess Thanatos didn't imagine that anyone would invade his world to face him."

If that was true, that was something pretty good for them. The first dungeon master that Ryan had defeated also didn't have a barrier to protect its crystal. Still, the difference was that the enemy was a big slime. Either Thanatos was stupid like a slime, or he was pretty confident in his victory in that world.

"There is no moon here…" Ryan muttered. "Bastard, he probably knows that I caused a lot of damage on Poseidon by using Lunar Arrow. That was fast, considering that made me move around for the past few days."

"The opponent this time isn't underestimating you," Femradiel said. "In any case, I already marked this place, so we can leave without losing the only way out."

Ryan wasn't interested in leaving without Thanatos' head, but Femradiel did the right thing in the end. They began to fly around, trying to be as quiet as they could be while looking for any sign of Thanatos. Knowing how much elder gods liked castles, it was the first thing they looked for. Still, even though Ryan could see things dozens of kilometers away from him, he didn't find any sign of any type of buildings.

After a few hours, Ryan got sick and tired of looking. They didn't find a single thing aside from rocks and adding that atmosphere to the equation. It was no wonder that any sane person would feel pissed. It was like a world devoid of light and any warmth that slowly eats away the mind of those who arrive there.

"Something is off…" Femradiel said. "Even if this world is ridiculously massive, we should have been able to find something aside from these rocks… maybe we were caught under an illusion spell."

"Why would Thanatos use an illusion to play with us when we are in his world?" Ryan asked.

"Maybe he didn't… directly," Femradiel replied. "I am thinking that this place automatically casts an illusion to fool people like us. It is like a trap to slowly kill those who came here alive."

"That would make sense, since Thanatos was supposed to be the god of death, but I don't see my Illusion Resistance leveling up," Ryan replied.

"Your Gravity Resistance doesn't level up just by staying on Earth," Femradiel replied. "It is the same thing… Anyway, this is an illusion that messes with our senses, so if we cut our connection to this ambient, we should be able to cancel it."

"Mana Barrier might do that, but we won't be able to use Mana Concealment," Ryan replied.

"We don't have any other choice," Femradiel shrugged.

As usual, Ryan wanted to use the surprise factor to have the chance to attack first, but never mind finding Thanatos, he won't be able to find anything at that rate.

In the end, both of them deactivated Mana Concealment by using Mana Barrier. It took a few moments. Still, they eventually saw the space around them changing. At some point, they left the rocky region and found themselves flying above an ocean. They only noticed that because of the sound of the waves, since everything around them was completely dark.

"What a weird place…" Ryan said.

"My senses are working again, and it looks like Thanatos finally found us as well," Femradiel said and then pointed to their two o'clock. "He is in that direction… alongside a massive number of presences."

"My parents are there?" Ryan asked.

"It is hard to know, they might be within that massive number of presences," Femradiel replied. "I can only clearly feel Thanatos presence because it is crazy powerful and much more ominous than Poseidon. It seems a certain number of their soldiers are flying toward us… he isn't moving even a single bit."

"Despite what you said earlier, he is underestimating us through and through," Ryan clenched his fist as he said that.

"Let's just take this chance and decrease his forces as he tries to amuse himself against us," Femradiel said. "At this point in time, he already knows that you are a blockhead that won't retreat no matter what before freeing your parents' souls. So, he won't fight until the very end."

Ryan nodded after taking a deep breath. Thankfully, Femradiel was there to be the voice of reason in his head. Otherwise, he would have dashed to make Thanatos fall from his high horse at that very moment. For the good or the worse, Ryan's victory over Poseidon granted him a boost of confidence, and that was why he felt so compelled to fight Thanatos despite his title as the god of death. Confidence was one of the few things that Ryan lacked in the last year despite his actions, but everything in excess could be harmful. Even Ryan wasn't stubborn enough to deny that.