Draiss grinned, and then used pure speed on floor 489, blasting past them with a basic combination of haste, his speed boots, and time stop. Floor 490 was another fight floor, it having been set up just to counter stealth or speed, but it had not expected him to instead blast his way through with a massive barrage of energy. Floor 491 was unique, near as he could tell, because it was as big as an island, and the starting area was raised enough he could tell that the island was a maze, and made out of the unusual metal that had been able to resist balefire. He couldn't sense any enemies inside it, but he also couldn't tell where the stairs were. Clearly, the Cave was done fucking around, and was out for his head. "What, can't handle me now?"<br/><br/>He shook his head, recognizing a death trap when he saw it, and considered his situation. This wasn't a case of a trick or unorthodox view to win, this was a blatant case of the Cave cheating. He stared at the maze, and went over what he knew of the 'rules' and how it should operate, and what was in front of him, before getting two very different answers. The Cave was supposed to slowly ramp up, and the artifacts were supposed to let the challenge get a bit deeper each time. It was NOT supposed to ramp up the difficulty each entry, and most certainly not supposed to start reacting to the challenger like this level clearly was. Something was very wrong with the Cave, either the basic understanding that had been gained through the first four hundred levels, or the Cave had multiple 'settings' which it cycled through the deeper a group got. As it was, he felt that the second was most likely, but getting through the last nine floors to get to the 'final, normal' boss was getting to the point of impossibility, even with his equipment which was nearly gamebreaker status, even for the Cave. There was a trick here, there had to be, and he just wasn't seeing it.<br/><br/>He had the record for a divine solo entry, having obliterated the previous record for it which had been in the late 200s, and now the divine team entry record was dust. But he could almost feel the Cave gloating at him, and tempting though the thought was to just say fuck it, toss a couple nova bombs or the magical equivalents around, he also knew the Cave could, would, and already had started blatantly cheating. Him cheating back would just make the Cave that much worse. He sighed, and toyed with the Swing Wing, before having a radical idea. A brief examination of the Swing Wing later, he was using the Swing Wing to leave, and would simply make entries down to 400 for the rest of the week, farming equipment, and hopefully essence gems. His idea would have to wait, but if he was right, the mortal that had broken the 500 had used a similar technique. He just had to figure out what the finer points were, before trying it, and that would mean playing around with Swing Wings. He could easily farm Swing Wings by not entering with one, and the Cave automatically spat one out before the 50th floor.