chapter 1191: the fox’s plight

    when tsubaki had arrived at the hidden dungeon via her avatar, she had expected it to be a simple matter to go down at least twenty floors. given her admittedly extreme level, she thought that even an avatar of hers would have no trouble with monsters of this level. granted, these avatars actually had a good portion of her strength, each one able to use more than half of her total power. this should have been enough to carry her at least twenty or thirty floors, if not all the way to the core of the dungeon world.

    yet, it was only a measly five levels before her avatar began to be killed by local monsters. whether she employed her divinity, her special martial arts, or even her divine relics, it was a life and death struggle to simply take down one of these creatures.

    after she finally managed to fell the fire giant, with the sacrifice of numerous avatars in consecutive battles, she was skeptical about whether the levels reported by the dungeon were accurate. how could a creature of no more than level eight thousand kill her avatar, when her avatar should have been the equivalent of roughly twice that level, at least.

    at first, she considered that this creature must have been an outlier, and went searching for another target to hunt from the same floor. the next creature she found was a water giant, its body like a massive, dark ocean. unlike the fire giant, this one did not have any form of solid frame, and seemed to flow in a vaguely humanoid shape. a humanoid shape that stood taller than could be seen with the naked eye.

    at this size, its power should be spread out throughout its entire body. there is no logical reason as to why it would be capable of attacking with enough force to instantly destroy my avatar. she thought to herself, readying her daggers. she knew that the monster had not even perceived her existence, as she appeared to be less than a single grain of sand before it.

    taking a deep breath, she steadied herself. against a target so large, the way of hidden truths was useless, so she began to channel the heart of combat. as she did, a red aura spread around her body, which she slashed out with one of her daggers. using her martial will, she created what looked like a deep gash in the creature’s leg, though it closed almost instantly.

    i wasn’t able to cut cleanly through its leg? she questioned, unsure if she had simply not used enough ki. as she was thinking this, the creature lifted one of its massive legs, stomping towards tsubaki. it looked as if an entire planet were crashing down upon her, but she didn’t panic.

    instead, she slashed out again, this time directly upwards. theoretically, if she were able to break the surface tension of the water before it hit her, it would greatly reduce the force of the impact. after that, it should have simply been water, at least in her understanding.

    the red crescent swept through the air, striking the descending limb and cleaving a gash into it. tsubaki rushed up into this gash, entering before it could close again. in her mind, this was the safest strategy to avoid being destroyed by the attack, given that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to move fast enough to get out of the way in time.

    however, even still, her avatar was instantly destroyed as soon as the wound closed. this surprised tsubaki, who had another avatar watching from far in the distance. to avoid getting caught up in the monster’s attacks, it was in a completely different region of that layer, simply watching through world sight.

    with my divine body, i can even walk in and out of a black hole with minimal damage. how did my avatar get destroyed by mere water pressure? she thought to herself in alarm. none of this made any sense to her. if she was helpless before this creature, then there should be nobody capable of slaughtering it.

    however, where others may have felt despair at this revelation, tsubaki instead felt excitement. the simple fact was that she had never had the chance to fight an opponent at this level. nothing that she faced in the past even came close. and, although it seemed hopeless, she knew that she did have the level advantage. in terms of raw power, she should have been capable of defeating this monster.

    the keeper looked over at tsubaki in surprise when he heard that. “is everything okay?” he asked, and she simply nodded her head.

    “of course, my keeper. this is not some problem that i need seek the guidance of others.” she assured him with a warm smile. “once i am done with this training, i should have become far stronger than i am at the current moment.”

    the keeper blinked in confusion, but simply nodded his head. “in that case, is there anything that i can do to help?”

    tsubaki thought about that for a moment. “i would appreciate a leave of absence. in order to perform this training, i need to exert more power than i can do within the confines of olympus. additionally, this will require all of my attention, so i will not be leaving any of my avatars behind to act as cleaning staff.”

    the keeper nodded his head thoughtfully. “of course. you go and do whatever you need to do to train yourself. i’ll be eagerly awaiting your return.”

    tsubaki smiled at that, feeling her service domain triggered by his words. “i will be as swift as i can be.” she assured him, before turning to walk out of his office, the rest of her avatars following her to leave olympus.

    tsubaki had already decided on the perfect training ground for herself. while she could have simply set up an educational stream for herself, she didn’t want the training to be so readily broadcast to the rest of olympus. those present could find her through the admin room if they wished, but it wouldn’t be as easy as turning on her stream. with the plan that she had created for herself, she was worried that those who watched might misunderstand her intentions.

    thus, tsubaki traveled to the eighty-ninth floor of fyor, which existed as nothing but an empty landscape. there was not a shred of life to be seen, and those who were strong enough to reach this place would have the means to bypass it and go straight to the surface.

    thus, tsubaki traveled several light years out, away from both the gates and the mana spire. only then did she finally stop with her army of avatars. tsubaki drew both of her daggers, turning to face the army that had produced similar weapons. “let’s start with... five.”

    as soon as her words left her mouth, five of her avatars charged forward, their faces carrying a firm resolve. this was tsubaki’s plan, to use her own avatars to force out her latent power. each avatar may have been weaker than tsubaki herself, but by making them attack in greater numbers, she would pressure herself to dodge all of their various attacks.

    furthermore, if tsubaki achieved any growth, that growth would feed back into her avatars, further strengthening them as well. as the disparity between her main body and avatars increased, she could have more and more of her avatars join the fight. this was the best training method that she could come up with, as well as the most safe, since tsubaki was able to keenly sense her own condition to prevent her avatars from dealing a fatal blow.

    the only question in tsubaki’s mind was how long it would take for her to be able to unleash her true power. she wasn’t able to specify a duration for this training because she herself wasn’t confident that she’d be done soon. in the worst case scenario, she would have to ask the keeper to return to the admin room and give her several years to train on her own, to make sure that she was ready for the upcoming invasion.