Infinite Classes in the Apocalypse

Chapter 91: Diving into an A-Rank Rift

The darkness between Earth and the Rift stretched long, far longer than it had before.

Damon’s vision was completely dark as he felt his body fall into the abyss. But then, as his arms instinctively moved and his eyes blinked, a quick realisation dawned on him.

He wasn’t falling, he was drowning.

His mouth immediately filled with water, his lungs burning from the lack of oxygen as his arms flailed around him in hopes of breaking the water’s surface.

It took long, his vision, although already completely dark, began to blur from the lack of oxygen in his brain, but just as he felt his consciousness slip—

"Aaah!"

The second he broke the surface of the water and his head rose above the sea around him, Damon began to force ragged breaths into his lungs, spitting the water that filled his mouth moments earlier.

As he turned around, he was met with nothing but an endless sea with a large pale white moon hanging above him, one that shouldn’t be there. Rifts didn’t have suns or moons, at least not according to everything he knew. The normal cycle of day and night inside the rift was artificial, so why was there a massive white disk floating in the sky above?

Before he could find an answer to his thought, the water beside him broke, and Nyla’s face rose from the dark sea. Just like him, she began taking massive breaths of air until her racing heart calmed and her eyes moved toward him.

"What the hell is this place?" she asked.

"Rift... I think?" Damon replied, though he wasn’t too sure himself.

The two of them looked around for a little while, their eyes searching for refuge, but the endless dark sea around them was nothing of the sort.

What’s worse, Damon could clearly sense a lot of mana presence deep below. Monsters, that much he was certain of and right now, not only were they inside an A-Rank rift, but also inside a sea where any of their fighting skills would be rendered completely useless.

That realisation made the urgency of their situation even worse. Damon moved his arms to spin around in the water as he searched for anything they could get onto.

But before he could find anything, Nyla’s voice cut his search short.

"There!"

Her finger pointed toward a very small object protruding from the sea. It looked far, almost impossible to notice at a single glance, but as Damon narrowed his gaze, he could see it well enough to make a decision.

"Let’s go."

The two of them began to swim erratically through the dark sea. Neither of them was a great swimmer, average at best, but their physically enhanced bodies, thanks to mana and their raised stats, made the long distance not seem as much of a problem.

However, there was one problem, a very big and coming at them way too fast problem that just as Damon realised it was coming, it was already too late to evade while submerged in the dark water of the sea around them.

"Watch out!—"

His warning was of no use before a massive gaping maw closed around the two of them and swallowed them whole.

Their world became a whirlwind of movements inside the monster before they fell into its stomach and hit its bottom with a wet thud.

"Eww!" Nyla yelped.

At the same time, Damon was oddly lost in thought. Swallowed by an oversized monster was kind of a throwback to his beginnings, back on that train. But before he could reminisce for any longer, the stomach acid began to sizzle against his armoured boot.

’It’s biting into metal...’ The realisation was both intriguing and terrifying. If it were any ordinary clothing or his skin, it would burn right through to his bones within moments.

The good thing was that they were both armoured, the bad thing was that they had to somehow get out of there.

Suddenly, a bright light ignited near them as Nyla activated her furnace ability.

"Good thinking," Damon said as he could finally see the monster’s inside.

Its stomach was enormous, at least ten meters wide and long.

The monster must have felt the radiating heat from the furnace as its stomach lurched violently the moment it appeared.

Without wasting much time, Damon raised his arm and sent a half dozen shards of black ice at the monster’s stomach. They struck with a terrifying force, his recent rise in levels made quite a difference, but despite the impact, the monster’s flesh remained mostly intact expect for a couple of shallow wounds.

At the same time, seeing him make a move, Nyla leapt into the air with her hammer raised high. It crushed into the beast’s stomach with a deafening sound, and yet again, it left no trace of impact across its flesh.

After watching her failed attempt, Damon summoned his weapon. Although the shards of black ice had good ability, their penetration strength was weaker than that of a blade held by someone with his strength.

Damon lunged at the nearby wall of flesh, his dark blade plunging deep into the monster’s flesh.

But he didn’t stop at that small cut, once the blade was already in, Damon activated his black ice manipulation once more, letting the shards of ice blossom across his blade and tear all the flesh around it, spreading through the mangled flesh until there was nothing but ice left.

The monster moved desperately as Damon’s attack tore through its flesh inch by inch with it unable to do anything about it until a loud notification cut through his head.

[You have slain a Level 71 Dread of the Dark Sea]

[New Monster Index bonus: +12 Stamina, +15 Strength, +26 Vitality]

[You have reached Level 58. You have received 1 Stat Point.]

[You have reached Level 59. You have received 1 Stat Point.]

’Level 59?’ A pleasant surprise flashed across Damon’s face as he didn’t even realise what his level was after the siege of the citadel.

But before he could dwell on his current level and all the unallocated stats he must’ve had, the wall of black ice cracked, and water began flooding inside the monster’s stomach.

’We need to get out before!—’

Damon’s warning was cut short as the water rushed inside, but Nyla didn’t need to hear the end of it to know what to do. The two of them forced themselves out of the gaping hole in the monster’s stomach and began to quickly swim toward the surface.

The swim was long. The monster had already dragged them deep into the sea, so it took almost four minutes of continuous paddling before they finally broke the surface once again.