Quest completed

Ten out of twenty stone statues moved for the first time, it's been thousands of years since they were called by their masters, it was time to attack or defend, just as their masters' ordered.

At that moment five of them got pierced by a Magical arrow.

Ikky felt confident with new skills and passives, there was no way he would lose! Thus he used all of his attack skills, not holding back.

Even though Mana arrow did cost an extra 3 MP which made Ikky spend 8 MP every time he used Mana arrow together with Guided arrow, his newly gained passives made up for that loss.

Mana arrow returned 2 MP and Absorb mana also recovered 2 MP. Every time the target got hits, Ikky would recover 4 MP, and there was no way he would miss while using a Guided arrow. Moreover, Ikky was confident to hit his normal attacks 18 times out of 20 shots, so he only used Guided arrow for the skills as it would be a big loss to not hit a skill, which means his normal attack, together with Mana arrow, recovered him 1 MP.

'I should have taken the normal arrows from Lyra...' thought Ikky when he saw his MP bar being depleted even with such recovery passives.

Once he used all of his skills together with the Mana arrow and Guided arrow. Even if 1 MP was worth the exchange for a 10% damage boost, in the case of Multishot he had to spend an extra 5 MP, which was noticeable in a long run.

For a second, Ikky considered spending his remaining Skill points to increase his stats. But in the end, he decided not to, as he knew having some points in spare was much more advantageous, especially if he would miss just a few points for new items.

Lyra wanted to help, but her petite body was already exhausted to the point where she could barely stand. All she could do was hope for him to clear this wave by himself, so she could support him with her summoning skill on the next one.

Ikky ran around, dodging and attacking. Statues were removed one by one. At some point, he also had to run and take his normal arrows from Lyra as he ran out of MP, even though he also used his Mana Rapture skills, which gave him 1-hour cooldown as he couldn't keep his mana over 50% when it was used.

Results were already obvious, even with the exhaustion they felt, thoughts of only ten statues standing between them and exiting from this hell, gave them an extra boost in their willpower, finding the power to move their exhausted limbs.

Therefore even the last wave was conquered as well, with the assistance of Lyra and her Holy Spirit, which was summoned from the mana she saved up in the last few minutes.

Both of them dropped exhausted on the ground, panting hard. Even after several more minutes neither of them moved, the only thing moving were their chests as they were hardly breathing.

'This is it, this is what I was looking for...an exercise I could not meet in the real world, an exercise with your life on the line.' Ikky was very happy, even though he felt more tired than ever, he liked this feeling, the feeling where every inch of your body hurts, the feeling where you felt alive, even though it felt like dying.

In the game, there was no option to set how much pain would you feel, but rather users themselves determine the level of pain and exhaustion they could feel. How? It was done by their thoughts on a subconscious level reflecting our bodies from the real world, so nobody could cheat the system by simply thinking otherwise. After all, our memories and thoughts were something that people hardly understood by themselves. If it was the opposite, there would never be any sadness and pain in the world.

[You have cleared the God challenge hall. Please leave the hall by the portal.]

This simple window almost made her cry, she never had to go through such hardship in her life, but it was finally over.

She heard some rustling sounds next to her, so she moved her head in that direction, even such simple action was very hard for her.

"How...are you...standing...?" Lyra asked with difficulty.

"I'm used to running for a long time from the real world, but even this is extreme for me...I'm definitely logging off and taking a break after I exit this hell," Ikky said with a hoarsened voice.

"I hope there is no bonus round," he added.

"What..?" she asked confused.

"You know, Boss to kill or something," Ikyk answered worriedly.

"No, there is not...I have finished the quest...We just need to leave..by the portal,".

Ikky looked around and finally noticed a small blue portal next to gigantic stairs.

"I have bad news..." said Ikky with concern and looked at Lyra with a serious face.

"You will have to climb those stairs." he pointed at stairs that looked a hundred meters tall.

"..." Lyra broke inside.

***

Both of them were standing in front of the portal. Neither of them said anything, and neither of them moved to touch the portal.

"..." there was nothing but awkward silence.

"Thank you very much for the help," Lyra said in the end.

"If it was not for you, I would not be able to clear this quest." she continued.

"Same for me, I don't know how I would get out of here if it wasn't for your quest to create a portal." He was unsure what would happen otherwise.

Another silence followed as both of them didn't know what to say.

"Well, I'll be going. Take care." Ikky said breaking the silence and trying to hurry up away from this awkwardness.

"W-Wait!" Lyra said fastly and Ikky stopped, looking at her.

"D-Do you want to add each other to the Friend list?" she asked looking to the side.

"I owe you, after all. You might contact me in case you would need some help with your quest." she tried to play it to the offsite.

"Sure why not," answered Ikky with a smile.

[#Lyra- has sent you an invitation for a Friend request]

(Accept)

"Well then, see you sometime in the future," Ikky said with a smile and entered the portal.

***

When Ikky opened his eyes, he was able to see the blue sky. He was present somewhere in the forest, but he didn't care at all.

'Finally outside.' small drop of tear appeared in the corner of his eyes.

[You have successfully exited the Underwater labyrinth.]

[Gained Unique Title .]