The Infinity Dungeon [LitRPG]

Deep in the catacombs below the city of Rome, the tendril of energy that Michael had been following seemed to take on the form of a flowing river of magic. The flow was visible as Michael walked right into it, the magic parting around his aura without much resistance.

If his hunch was right, the general direction of the catacombs was the center of the city.

"The Vatican, more accurately," Icarus said, "assuming the catacombs don't wander away from their current general direction."

The maps Michael had been following turned out to be incomplete and mostly incorrect in how they depicted the layout of the maze of underground tunnels below the city. Fortunately, his senses were strong enough that, with some help from his personal AI, Michael could map the tunnels close to him as he walked. It wasn't very precise, and his senses couldn't penetrate deep, but it was enough not to get lost.

"Think there's a Dungeon in the Vatican?" asked Michael as he ducked below something that might or might not have been a human femur covered in cobwebs.

"The data suggests there might be one. It would explain the flow of magic we are sensing."

Michael knew that, unless he consciously denied Icarus access, their senses were linked and the AI saw and felt everything he did.

"And the miasma aboveground," he added. "A non-contained source might saturate an area after a while instead of always expanding. But then why is the energy so different from the Appalachia Dungeon?"

"Another entity altogether, perhaps?" Icarus speculated, "We don't have much data to go by."

Michael hummed. He wasn't convinced, not with the ghostly images of other people he saw in the dungeon, or with the presence of Theobond and past civilizations. People like Johanne and the Renegade hinted at the fact that the dungeon system as a whole was a single unit, with many branches and endpoints, but one single source.

That's what he liked to think, at least.

"The only thing we know is that the flow goes from the center of the city towards the periphery. It could be any number of things producing the energy, even just the sheer concentration of people."

As he ventured deeper, crawling through narrow tunnels in utter darkness, Michael started to notice small anomalies here and there. Unlike the unfamiliar energy in the air, these glowed with magic he was more familiar with: Ancestral Mana. He walked past them, able at a glance to tell that they weren't anything Unity Corporation would find useful enough to take, or dangerous enough to dispose of.

Then the small tunnel he had been following opened into a chamber. Snapping his fingers, Michael materialized a small flame inside a protective layer of shield. Travis had been right in thinking that there might be flammable gas down here, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

Michael directed the construct to float on its own, making a sweep of the place. He increased the luminosity of the flame, sweating a little when the spell initially refused to do so. He got the impression that the flame was not supposed to be used as a lighting beacon, that's what Light Magic was for, but he ignored the feeling and pushed through. Compared to the suffering of being exposed to raw Truth for days on end, it was only mild discomfort, and if there was one thing Michael had cemented in his mind during his self-harming experimentations, it was that limits existed to be broken.

This was his primordial Dao: limitless potential.

"Shield and Candle Light both leveled up to 6. It was high time." Icarus said.

"I'm ninety percent sure I just psychologically abused both skills," Michael said as he ducked below the short door and walked into the room.

"Well, potential and all that," Icarus said, "I can hear your inner monologue, you know?"

"I know," he said. Frowning, he inspected the rows upon rows of marble inscriptions in the stone walls of the place. "Burial niches, aren't they?"

"Probably," Icarus replied.

"Anyway, if you can hear my thoughts, then you should also know that beneath the illusion of control there's a deep undercurrent of not having the slightest clue about what the hell I'm doing. What if there's no Dao and I'm making it all up?"

"You're not wrong yet in your assumptions about magic, but who knows?"

After the brief exchange and some more exploration, his attention was drawn by one of the better-preserved niches. All of them had withstood the passage of time rather well, with the catacombs always at a constant temperature and surprisingly low humidity, but this one looked like it had just been placed.

"There's energy coming from there," Icarus said.

"We almost missed it," Michael whispered as he walked closer, "the ambient miasma is thick enough here to mask weak magic."

Looking around, he realized that the flow of the unknown energy was much slower in this room, like a small lake slowing the flow of water in a river. Both at the edges of the room and close to the burial niches, this flow was almost absent and the strange magic felt staler than the oldest Ancestral Magic Michael had ever felt.

"Do we break it and see what's inside? Feels strangely blasphemous to do."

Suddenly, a powerful voice cut through the holy silence of the room. "And it very well is!"

Michael looked up and around, silently snuffing out the floating flame and forming a double-layered shield around himself. The voice had spoken in a thick Italian accent, and it belonged to a wrinkly, weathered old man dressed in church garbs. His clothes were ceremonial, filled with golden crosses and priceless decorations. The fabric itself seemed to command respect and reverence, its pristine condition a stark contrast to the weathered and old man wearing it.

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Even in the total absence of light, where Michael could only see thanks to his unique condition, the man's gaze locked onto him and followed his slow movements without fail.

"Who are you?" asked Michael, still speaking in a barely audible tone. The place had felt eerie before, but now with the presence of the strange priest, clad in red and gold and decadent Christian iconography, the air was charged with static.

"I'm retribution!" the priest announced, voice booming in the cavernous space. While it felt cramped between the rows of burial chambers, the ceiling was actually rather high and spacious.

Michael walked to the side, trying to see more of the priest who had the high ground, showing his hands in the universal sign of non-aggression. "Do we know each other?" he asked.

"Who I am does not matter," the priest announced, tracking him in the darkness. He tapped his scepter to the ground, metal against bare stone. "One of many. You, on the other hand. You're the Americano, the one with the omniscient blasphemous machine who wants to rule the world. How does it feel to be surprised by things you didn't know, couldn't predict?"

Michael didn't have time to answer, because suddenly a thick ray of energy shot from the tip of the scepter towards him. It shattered his double-layered shield as if it wasn't there, pierced his aura and gouged a hole in his body before melting the stone behind him. Eyes widening, Michael threw himself to the side and made a run for it, using the rows of burial chambers to hide.

The priest didn't seem to care about them, despite his earlier statement. The ray of energy tracked Michael and cut through the stone structures like butter, making them tumble to the ground and kicking up clouds of ancient dust. Some of it had to be from decayed bodies and pulverized bones, Michael thought as he put up a hasty shield, not feeling like breathing any of it.

His body healed, he counterattacked, keeping his power low so as not to collapse the chamber. He shot raw Forgefire, a laser not too dissimilar from the priest's. It tore through the air, superheating it to a boil. The stones close to it began to glow red almost immediately, and something caught fire in one of the nooks in the stone.

The priest tapped his scepter again, and the ray of destruction was sucked into it with ease. Michael felt a disturbance in the air, like a small ripple, an aftereffect of the power being used to disrupt his attacks. It made him stop for a moment, because even though the power used wasn't much, the weight behind it felt gargantuan.

"Like a whole city of people powering the scepter…" he muttered.

"You understand, yet you are also wrong! I have the whole Faith behind me!"

The priest launched another attack. This time, the room turned upside down, the gravity transforming the chamber into a blender. Everything became a projectile, ten times heavier than it should be, shrouded in this strange Faith Energy that turned even pebbles deadly.

Michael's shield took the impacts, robbing them of some of their power, but the Faith Energy was corrosive and tore holes in the protective bubble. Qi flowed out of Michael, the higher order of energy more effective but only by a small margin.

Surviving the attack took bare stats and Michael's immense healing factor.

This time, he didn't restrain himself as much in his counterattack. With Telekinesis, he sought to disarm the priest while distracting him with a barrage of Ice, Fire and the full suite of mind-altering skills he possessed.

The priest watched the attacks, cackling. He let go of his scepter, bony hands going into the air in a chant, and the attacks were all nullified. Michael, who had lunged at the priest, suddenly found himself without cover and hovering in the air.

The priest walked around him in circles, descending down several stone steps. Michael was immobilized in the air, unable to break free of his bindings. The priest looked at him, head craned upwards while he flailed in the air.

"Pitiful," he spat. Michael replied with a muted scream of effort as he contorted his body to break free. He couldn't. He was trapped in the air in what felt like an indestructible soap bubble.

"The Don will be happy," the priest said. "We thought you'd be a problem, but you can do nothing against the power of God."

He shook his head, sitting on a stone. "Do not worry, lost lambs will be brought back into the Father's loving embrace."

"Like hell," Michael shot back.

The priest laughed softly. Getting up, he retrieved his scepter from the ground and polished the stone at the top with his clothes. The silk didn't even stain from the white dust. It simply slid off.

"Let's put an end to this farce," the man said. He tapped the scepter again, and Michael felt the largest gathering of Faith power.

"Yeah," Michael said, "let's."

With a mental command, power exploded out of him. His Aura flooded the room, breaking him free of his restraints. In mere instants, his hand was around the priest's throat, lifting the man into the air.

The man gasped for air, punching Michael's chest weakly. He grabbed at his clothes, but Michael's grip was iron.

"I…" he rasped.

The scepter fell to the ground. Michael's grip tightened.

Then he made a mistake. Thinking that the priest might be useful, he didn't kill him when he had the chance. One of the many decorative trinkets on the man's body lit up, and Michael was thrown across the room by a force stronger than his strongest punch. He collided with a stone wall, partially embedding himself in it.

Protecting his head with Aura was all he could do before he felt himself being dragged out of the hole. The priest, now superhumanly strong, grabbed him and tossed him to the ground and then into another wall until he was holding Michael by the throat.

"To think," he spoke, voice hoarse from the earlier constriction, "that you would adapt so quickly. You truly are a monster. A devilish being, you deserve only the mercy of death."

"You haven't seen it all yet." Michael said. A dangerous glint was in his eyes.

"What?" the priest said with disdain, "I'm channeling enough Faith to crush you. How can you even talk?"

"I'll show you. I'll show you the reality of the world. Icarus, set Truth to 5%."

The room imploded. Michael screamed as the stone of the structures around him was turned to dust and then to nothingness. The walls bent, like a breathing lung, inwards and outwards. The fires died down, fleeing the failing veil of reality.

The priest couldn't even scream. His brain turned to mush, then a watery fluid in a matter of seconds. It flowed out of his nose and ears while his eyes melted. His skin turned to leather, wrinkles appearing everywhere as its layers peeled and vanished into dust that joined the cloud of dust in the air. This cloud began to whirl and twist, a miniature maelstrom with Michael in the eye of the storm.

Michael wasn't faring much better, covered in blood and wounds, barely able to heal his vital parts and shield them with ever-thinner defenses. With the priest dead, his plan had been to cut the flow of Truth but something was clearly wrong with it. It had become self-sustaining.

It was out of control.

"Icarus!" he cried out, through teeth that had clenched so hard they had broken.

Above, the ceiling couldn't withstand the pressure anymore. A large crack, then a spiderweb of cracks, then it all fell on Michael's head.

"Unity level up."

It was the last thing he saw before darkness took him.