Draconic Ascension - System Apocalypse Isekai LitRPG

Michael looked at the large stone circle, which looked out of place with New York City as the backdrop instead of the rocky underground of the Tutorial Zone. It stood clearly on the side of a fallen building, on the largest piece of stone, surrounded by broken glass and ruined steel foundations. As conspicuous as it could be.

Still, that isn't the only kind of Dungeon entrance.

He had already seen how the entrances to the underground Dungeon were simply the paths to the subway. He scratched the back of his head and took a breath. No matter what, he needed to enter this Dungeon, so there was no point in wasting time outside. Stepping forward firmly, Michael touched the stone door. A message appeared in front of him.

[Would you like to enter the Lost Building Dungeon?]

He frowned at the Dungeon's name. Lost Building? It was clearly related to the collapsed building the Dungeon had appeared on, but what did it mean? The building had crumbled, but it hadn't been lost. Michael blinked as the realization dawned upon him.

…The past, huh?

Only the building's past version had been lost. As such, he now had a good idea of what kind of environment the Dungeon was. Still, he couldn't easily predict what kind of enemy he would face or what kind of Boss. He sighed.

Yes.

The door slid to the side, revealing only darkness. He stepped inside it, letting it devour him. The darkness started to disappear after a second. After only a few moments, Michael found himself in the middle of a seemingly perfectly ordinary office building's floor. Behind him were two elevators, while the walls were made of concrete. Glass windows could be seen every so often, behind the wooden desks and cubicles. Computers and printing machines lay on the desks, alongside notebooks and even family pictures of faceless people. He looked around, some nostalgia filling his chest.

…It's been a long time.

To him, it had been years since he had been greeted with such an ordinary sight from Earth. Because two of those years had been spent in endless fighting and flirting with death, it felt like it had been even longer. Part of him even felt a bit hateful at the System for creating such a Dungeon. A message appeared in front of him, making him raise his gaze to look at it.

[Labyrinth: find the exit.]

Michael scoffed at it. He had guessed as much. His senses, including mana sense, had allowed him to have a clear idea of how big this building was. It extended itself for dozens of floors, both above and below, with each floor being far larger than that of any building from the past. Based on his experience, the exit would be located in a specific spot on a specific floor, possibly under a desk or even above the ceiling. It was a higher-level Labyrinth than the one he'd cleared during the Tutorial.

With a small sigh, Michael focused all of his senses on the beings he could perceive to draw an accurate picture of what they looked like. They were humanoids that walked around in groups, but they were much bigger and more muscular than humans. They spoke to each other in grunts and snarls that only they seemed to understand, and held crude weapons that ranged from metal pipes to ripped-off, sharp pieces of wooden desks. They had long, pointy ears, and judging from the way their voice sounded, their mouth was filled with sharp fangs. Overall, they reminded him of a specific creature from movies and books. As his thoughts reached this point, he frowned.

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But those aren't the same size as the goblins I'm used to.

He hadn't encountered a single goblin-like enemy during the Tutorial. Was the System drawing from fiction, now that the Tutorial was over? Even now, he had no idea what criteria it used to create the enemies in the Dungeons, if they were created at all. It also didn't mean the Tutorial's criteria would be followed completely. Michael shook his head and grabbed the Elder Chief's Staff.

Whatever you've come up with, I don't have to play by the rules.

This was an isolated space, which meant that he could go wild without risking being seen. He had been able to damage the walls of the Labyrinth he'd cleared in the Tutorial even back then, and he was much stronger now.

Michael simply pointed his staff at the ceiling. His Dragonheart beat strongly within his chest. His blood rushed through his veins, granting him as much power as it could. His mana veritably rumbled in his spiritual world, the vague image of his spiritual self crossing his mind. The world around him vibrated.

I guess I never got to test out how powerful I became after fighting Veilthar.

The passing thought made Michael smile. Because he had faced an insurmountable enemy for two years, he hadn't had a firm grasp on his abilities until he cleared the Abyss. Now, even though he could see his Status Window and had had some time to properly gauge his prowess, this would be the first time that he could go wild to his heart's content. His mana left his body as a whisper.

"Arcane Missile."

The atmospheric mana twisted and turned before coalescing into twin, blue longspears with golden tips. Each was over eight meters long and thicker than a human male's arm. Once they pointed upward, their tips dragged across the ceiling because of their sheer size, easily destroying it.

Go.

The Missiles immediately shot upward, spinning into a hurricane of deadly power. The air and ceiling were forced to part before its overwhelming power, but it only kept going. Michael unceasingly fed mana into the spell, intent on finding out just how far he could go.

The Arcane Missiles effortlessly pierced through floor after floor, slaying every goblin-like creature that had the misfortune of being in their way. The damaged ceilings cracked and collapsed under their own weight, but every piece of stone that neared the hurricanes of energy was scorched black, then turned to dust, which was also seared away into nothingness.

In such a fashion, the spells continued ever higher, destroying everything in their way. However, as they went, Michael noticed that it became harder for his Missiles to go through the floors. He raised an eyebrow, his staff still pointing upward.

Interesting.

He increased the amount of mana he was feeding into the spells. Their power surged, allowing them to keep going. The air within the building roiled, energy crackling throughout it. The sounds of the floors collapsing were deafening, yet drowned out by the satisfaction he felt. The walls of the nearest floors came crashing down, falling around Michael, who effortlessly punched away or avoided the debris. Not a single hair on his body was harmed by the avalanche of System-created stone, metal, and glass.

It was only ten seconds later that Michael lowered his staff and dismissed the Missiles, then looked through the veritable channel he'd created through the Dungeon itself.

The Missiles had pierced through a total of fifty floors. The first few were the ones with the biggest holes, having lost the entirety of their ceiling and most of their floor. Naturally, the entire floors had collapsed. The further upward Michael's gaze went, the more he realized that the size of the holes created by his Missiles decreased.

I see.

It was fitting for the higher floors of a Dungeon to be more resistant to damage than the ones at the start. However, he still wasn't able to see the sky, which meant he hadn't broken through the final ceiling. Michael lowered his gaze to look all around him. The floor he stood on had been overwhelmed by the broken pieces of its kin, but it hadn't collapsed under their weight. Under some of the rocks and debris, he could see crimson blood. The monsters had been caught in his destruction, as expected. Michael nodded to himself and lowered his center of gravity, looking up.

Now, let's see what's there at the top.

Even though the Dungeon extended itself downward as well, since he had already carved a path through the upper floors, there was no harm in checking out the building's peak before thinking about going to the floors below the starting one.

Lightspeed.

It was time for him to test out just how much his Blessing's abilities had improved after getting the 'Sacrifice of Light and Darkness' Title.