Arpious of the Planes

"Maybe I can burn it?" I mutter to myself before using Amaterasu.

A few black flames were sent barreling towards the barrier, but instead of hitting it and setting it on fire as I hoped it would, it instead just went through it and landed on the dome-shaped rooms' floor.

It proceeded to burn quickly, but with a snap of my fingers, it instantly disappeared.

Think… Think… Think… Think…

"Wait… It said it couldn't be destroyed, but it never said I couldn't deactivate it…." I mutter to myself with a smile sneaking onto my face.

Once again, I activate [Weak Celestial Bone Dive] and fly towards the wall to the left of me, which I immediately slip into.

And upon phasing through the smooth stone walls, I feel a thick liquid wrap around me, but instead of keeping my breath in, I immediately exhale all the air within my lungs before poking my head out the side of the wall.

"*gasp*."

I once again gasp for air as soon as I came in contact with the outside world again, and thankfully, my ears and chest weren't hurting as much anymore.

Though I didn't realize it until later on when I came out of the smooth stone and lifted myself onto the grassy plane, my ears started to ring, and my chest felt like somebody was repeatedly hitting it.

And even though it was just a hypothesis, I took the chance as there was going to be no backlash and just tried it out.

When scuba divers come back up from their long exploration of the deep sea, they need to rid all the compressed air within their lungs, so their lungs literally don't explode as the farther they swim up, the more that compressed air will start to expand.

But obviously… I don't exactly know why that reaction was happening when I didn't feel much pressure placed on my body in the first place.

"Okay, seems like it worked… Now I need to figure out how to deactivate this stupid barrier," I mutter to myself before checking my surroundings and pulling my head back into the smooth stone wall.

I repeat this process a few times until I approached where the barrier was aligned with. And retracting my head once more, I swim slightly forward while flailing my arms all around me, trying to find anything that could give me a clue.

Tup

Oh, a sound. Is there something here? Mmmmmm… Yep, still too dark to see.

I continue to feel my way around the smooth object I had just touched and eventually came to a small groove with a raised part right next to it.

Click

Oh shit… hopefully, nothing bad happened.

I take a peek outside the smooth stone wall, only to be interrupted by hundreds of flying stone eyes with 2 wings attached to each side of them.

They flew in every direction, up, down, to the side, and upon eye contact with me, they charged towards me, swarming my head which I had just poked out for a quick second.

"Shit!" I shout before quickly retracting my head and swimming a bit farther down in the opposite direction.

And as soon as I felt I was far enough, I dove out of the wall and instantly began to flap my feathered wings once again, just keeping me barely above the rushing clear liquid.

The raging flaps of the winged eyeballs filled the seemingly now tight corridor as they tried to surround me from all sides.

[Gargoyles]

[A winged eye-like monster made entirely from stone that protects its designated area. They normally travel in packs of thousands and can get up to tens of thousands depending on how big the designated area is.]

Huh? This thing is a gargoyle as well?

I didn't have much time to be astonished, though, as I was quickly surrounded by the eyes who shot gray beams of light at me.

A few just barely scratched my clothes, and upon contact, they began to disintegrate it like what medusa does.

[Anapofeyktos Thanatos]

After summoning my massive scythe, I then immediately start swinging at the rocky eyeball creatures who annoyingly kept running into me even if they weren't shooting a gray laser beam.

I see… so it's about 5 seconds between each shot they can take, and whenever they get too close and can't shoot a laser beam… they then run into me, hoping to do just a bit of damage or hinder my movements.

[Apocolyptic Weapon Swing]

With one swing of my scythe, I took out about half of the current eyeballs, but after only a couple more seconds, even more started to flood in.

The constrictive space within the corridor made any movement impossible, so I immediately used [Forbidden Magic: Hermes] to escape through the open roof.

I thought I had escaped the swarm of eyes, but after just managing to wipe a drop of sweat from my chin, the flying eyes came pouring out of the hole.

I instantly flew up, dodging a few gray laser beams while readying my scythe behind me. It was injected with [Forbidden Magic: Medusa], causing it to emit a gray mist that slowly petrified any eyes ahead of the group.

SHING

My scythe ripped through the air and proceeded to tear apart each eye in front of me, not missing a single one as they were packed quite closely together.

"Seems these things aren't as smart as the goblin-like gargoyles- shit," I mutter before flying up a bit more and readying my scythe once again.

Even more, eyes poured out from the open roof of the corridor, so I once again slashed at them with my scythe while putting all my power behind it.

SHING

SHING

SHING

I continued this for 10 more minutes, but the number only kept growing, to the point where they couldn't even line up in a single file line, ready for me to kill.

This meant I struggled to keep my distance as I couldn't wipe them out in one go as they charged towards me.

"Damn it… I might have to avoid these things entirely," I mutter to myself before activating Hermes repeatedly.

My body tensed with each passing activation, but I soon got a second to rest as I entered the smooth stone wall once again.

I swam towards where I was before and felt the same groove with a slightly raised part right next to it. And though I was hesitant to touch it again, I eventually concluded that it was part of the solution to taking down the barrier.

Click

Very slowly, I poked my head out of the smooth stone wall, only to be greeted by thousands of flying eyeballs that tried to turn me to dust with their gray laser beams.

But, there was something else that I had noticed... the previously invisible barrier was now visible to the mortal eye.

I retracted my head instantly before popping out again, only to dive into the wall parallel to mine.

This way… and… here we go.

Click

And then down here…

Click

A smile crept onto my face as I poked my head out, but it quickly turned upside down as thousands of gray laser beams passed by my face.

My expression soon paled even farther as I saw the barrier was still at the same transparency as before I did the remaining two clicks.

Are there more? Maybe there are more…

I dive towards my previous wall, which I had come from, and begin to swim up while occasionally peeking my head out to check my position. But I had to be extremely wary as the number of laser beams now was so overwhelming that they filled my entire vision.

…

Half an hour had passed, but I still couldn't find anything besides the four switches that made the clicking sound. And even when I tried to switch them again, nothing happened, so I was extremely confused while trapped in the stone walls.

My only possible way of getting out and trying to find a different solution would be to go through the top and use Hermes, but that still has its risks as there might be even more eyes than what is currently surrounding me.

I need a plan… maybe I could use my summons to distract them? But I don't know if they are recharged yet… so let's test it out with one of my weaker summons.

Poking my head out of the stone wall, I was immediately assaulted with a barrage of gray lasers, but before I hid back in, I used [Summon: Walking Jungle Hydra].

A massive plant-like hydra appeared in the middle of the clear liquid, and nothing happened to it, but it didn't matter as it disintegrated into dust only a few seconds later.

"Okay, they're recharged- urk-"

I barely manage to dodge a few hundred laser beams to the face before swimming my way upwards until I hit a familiar hard ceiling that blocked my way.