Bell Cranel's steps halted in the middle of a pulsing, purplish corridor of flesh. The labyrinth walls of Floor 60 seemed to breathe, glaring at the rescue party with a thick aura of hostility. Behind him, Leon Vardenburg, Bete Loga, Lefiya Viridis, and Heith stood panting, their bodies battered and exhausted after pushing through hell.
Yet, Bell stared straight ahead. The youth's face was remarkably calm, almost like the surface of an icy lake that reflected not a single ripple. He gripped the Hestia Knife in his right hand, letting its blade point toward the blood-moss-covered stone floor.
A memory flashed through his mind. A memory of a black-haired god with green-tipped braids playing a lyre on the roof of an church while sipping wine.
"Listen, Bell," Venti's voice flowed casually in his memory. "Stories about heroes struggling from scratch, getting beaten black and blue, and leveling up step-by-step are nice. Very romantic. But... sometimes I think a hero who is already strong from the very beginning is much better."
At that time, Bell had simply listened in silence, not fully understanding.
"With absolute power," Venti had continued, gazing into Orario's night sky with the perspective of millennia, "you can prevent many tragedies even before they happen. Without power... this world will only be filled with tragedies and the cries of people you couldn't save."
Bell opened his eyes. The ruby-red glow in his irises flared brightly, radiating an absolute resolve he had never shown before.
He spun around, looking at Leon, Bete, Lefiya, and Heith one by one.
"From now on," Bell said, his voice calm yet laden with an unnatural authority, "I'll kill all the monsters ahead. I'll be the one to save Ais-san."
Silence instantly froze the corridor. The labyrinth's wind seemed to stop blowing.
Bell turned his body back to face front. "You all... just need to watch."
That declaration made everyone's jaws drop. At the Guild command headquarters on the surface, Hestia, Loki, Freya, and the other gods stared fixedly at the Oculus screen.
"Bell Cranel, what do you mean?" Leon Vardenburg asked, breaking the silence. The Level 7 knight's eyes narrowed sharply, trying to evaluate whether the youth before him was losing his sanity from the labyrinth's pressure.
Before them, from behind the golden mist and pillars of flesh, hundreds of Violators and the remnants of the Thracian spirits began to emerge. Their petal wings unfolded, chanting large-scale, deadly magic circles.
"My aunt trained me," Bell stated bluntly, answering Leon's question without turning his head. "It's about time I show the pure results of my aunt's training."
At Hearth Mansion, Alfia—hearing that sentence through the projector—smiled faintly. A nearly imperceptible smile, yet one that radiated absolute pride.
The hundreds of monsters before them howled, preparing to unleash a wave of destructive magic.
Bell didn't chant a spell. He didn't read Firebolt. Instead, he took a short breath and activated all his energy to reinforce his body. In the Gekai, physical reinforcement energy had an absolute limitation: it could only stay within the user's body or cling to a weapon's blade to increase cutting power during physical clashes. It was impossible to fire this energy like elemental magic.
Yet, Bell had been schooled by the Silence. He was taught a technique created specifically to shatter that absolute limitation.
Bell channeled and condensed all of his Level 6 physical energy along the entire blade of the Hestia Knife. The black blade vibrated violently, emitting a very dense resonance of silvery light. This was the first stage: Critical Energy Compression.
"One," Bell muttered.
Instead of holding back that energy while slashing, Bell executed a horizontal swing with extreme speed and precision. The master-class swordsmanship forcibly carved into his muscles by Alfia worked to perfection. This swing was designed to "throw" the compressed reinforcement energy right out of the blade into the open air.
Whoosh!
The thrown energy manifested into a giant crescent-shaped wave of cutting light that surged forward.
Afterglow (Zankou). A technique often dubbed the "Castle Cutter" for its ability to cleave giant structures from afar.
KRAAAASH!!
That cutting wave slammed into the frontline of the Thracian spirits, splitting dozens of those magic-shielded monsters into two halves with effortless ease, before finally exploding and destroying the flesh pillar at the end of the room.
"W-What was that...amic?!" Lefiya shrieked, her eyes widening in disbelief at a phenomenon that violated the laws of magic.
"He... fired a sword slash? Afterglow," Leon muttered, shocked to see pure physical energy thrown as a projectile.
Bete Loga swallowed hard. The wolf realized that the youth before him now existed in a completely different dimension of strength.
For Bell, a single slash was merely the beginning. The main tactical advantage of Afterglow was its spammability. Because it was based on physical technique rather than a spell, Bell needed neither chant time nor charge time.
Bell stepped forward. He flicked his wrist, swinging his dagger to the left, right, and upward with absolute rhythm.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Flashes of silver light shot out consecutively. Every swing released a projectile slash of massive destructive power. That shockwave tore through enemy ranks from twenty meters away. Monster limbs, heads, and wings scattered into the air, crumbling to dust before they could even finish casting their spells.
Bell eliminated a physical fighter's fatal flaw of having to close the distance, while simultaneously discarding a mage's waiting time. He transformed into a walking artillery unit.
"That kid... he's slaughtering them from afar as easily as cutting cabbage! That technique... Afterglow," Hermes shouted in surprise at the Guild room.
Bell kept walking. The purple flesh walls shattered, pillars crumbled down. Not a single drop of dirty monster blood managed to touch his silver armor. It took him barely two minutes to wipe out the spirit remnants that had nearly killed the Loki Familia's elite team.
The group kept following Bell's unshakeable back until their steps were suddenly halted by a blood-freezing sight in a wide, circular hall.
In the center of the room, the figure of a bronze-skinned woman knelt on a blood-soaked floor. Her short black hair was disheveled.
"Tiona..." Lefiya whispered, her voice choking in her throat.
Tiona Hiryute, the Amazon of the Loki Familia, was in a heart-wrenching condition. Her clothes were torn. Her right arm was swollen into a pulsing lump of flesh with deformed claws. From her back, brown, vein-like tubes snaked outward, injecting cordyceps-type monster parasites directly into her nervous system and falna. Deadly flowers covered part of her face.
"Tiona!!" Lefiya screamed, moving to rush forward, but Leon firmly caught her arm.
Controlled by the parasite, Tiona raised her face and charged at them like a rampaging wild beast.
"Step aside," growled Bete, dashing forward. The wolf had no intention of saving her. In his eyes, a host infected with this level of parasitism was already dead.
"Bete, wait!" shouted Lefiya.
Yet before Bete could unleash his lethal kick to put Tiona out of her misery, a silver flash preceded him.
Bell Cranel had darted past Bete with a speed the wolf's eyes couldn't catch. Development Ability: Initiative flared. Time seemed to slow down in the youth's eyes.
Tiona swung her mutated right claw toward Bell's face.
Bell didn't dodge backward; instead, he ducked sharply, slipping into the empty space beneath Tiona's arm. He focused his Afterglow technique on a micro-level, wrapping the blade of the Hestia Knife in a layer of energy as thin as a thread yet as sharp as a diamond.
What use is Aunt Alfia torturing me if I fail at something this trivial? Bell thought with determination.
With nearly absurd surgical precision, Bell swung his dagger at Tiona's back. He didn't slash the Amazon's skin. Bell purely severed the parasitic tube network rooted in Tiona's spinal nerves. His swing was so smooth and fast that the parasite was severed without touching its host's spinal cord at all.
Tiona let out a stifled gasp as the parasite's control was cut. Her body slumped forward. Bell caught Tiona with his left arm, while his right hand quickly grabbed the giant cordyceps parasite core he had just pulled from the woman's back.
The parasite writhed wildly in Bell's hand, trying to drive its roots into Bell's skin.
"Die," Bell said flatly.
Bell channeled focused Firebolt magic directly into his palm. A small-scale yet highly dense explosion of fire and lightning incinerated the parasite core to ash in a matter of seconds.
Absolute silence enveloped the hall.
Bete, Leon, Lefiya, and Heith stood petrified. The rescue happened in under five seconds. There was no sacrificial drama. No crazy self-immolation tactics. Everything was executed instantly and flawlessly.
The flowers on Tiona's face withered and fell off. Her mutated right arm deflated, returning to its original shape as the parasite core was destroyed. Tiona coughed, foul blood spilling from her mouth, but her clear eyes looked back at Bell supporting her.
"Argonaut... kun?" Tiona whispered weakly, tears flowing from the Amazon's eyes.
"You're safe now, Tiona-san," Bell answered with a gentle smile. He looked back. "Heith! Heal her external wounds."
Heith, still gaping at Bell's efficiency, snapped out of it and rushed forward, radiating her healing magic.
"H-How did you do that...?" muttered Bete, still staring fixedly at the remaining parasite ash on the floor. "Even Finn wouldn't be able to sever those parasite nerves without killing the host."
"Absolute precision," Leon answered, a smile of awe carved on the knight's face. "He manipulates his cutting energy on a microscopic level. A level of physical mastery only true masters possess."
On the surface, cheers erupted at the Guild headquarters. Loki wiped her wet eyes, laughing freely seeing her Amazon child saved from a fate worse than death.
However, the labyrinth refused to let them celebrate victory.
The entire room shook violently. From the fleshy ceiling above them, a vortex of pitch-black wind exploded. The silhouette of a woman slowly descended from above.
Her raven-black hair spilled down to her heels. Her form resembled an adult woman shaped from Ais Wallenstein's memories, yet wrapped in a dense aura of darkness. The avatar of the Corrupted Spirit in the form of Black-Haired Aria.
The Black Girl smiled innocently, staring at the rescue party below her.
"Ta-da," whispered the Black Girl.
A black wind spear shot out faster than lightning, aiming right at Bell's head.
Bell raised the Hestia Knife, unleashing a vertical Afterglow slash to parry it. The clash of their two forces created a shockwave that threw Bete and Lefiya a few steps back.
The Black Girl chuckled softly. She raised both hands. Thousands of black wind spears materialized in the air, preparing to rain down upon them with an absolute storm of death designed to erase their existence.
Leon Vardenburg stepped forward, raising his greatsword, preparing to chant his protective magic and sacrifice himself to withstand the storm.
Yet, before that rain of death could fall, the labyrinth ceiling above the Black Girl shattered to pieces.
THOOOM!!
A giant blood-soaked double-bladed battle axe (Labrys) slammed into the Black Girl's wind barrier, forcing her to stagger backward and canceling her attack.
From behind the cloud of wreckage, a giant shadow leaped down. A black minotaur with curved horns and steel muscles.
"That damn minotaur, seriously?!" yelled Bete, readying to dash.
Behind the giant monster, a lizardman figure armed with a sword and a small dragon-hooded girl glided down into the arena.
"Yo, Bell! Looks like the party's getting crazier here!" yelled Lyd cheerfully, slashing the remaining spirits trying to approach them. Wiene, the dragon girl, stood behind Asterius's legs, looking at Bell with a relieved smile.
Bete, Leon, and Lefiya widened their eyes staring at the monsters fighting on their side and speaking human language.
"Xenos?! Why are they here?" Lefiya screamed in panic.
Yet, the most absurd surprise came from the last figure jumping through the crack in that ceiling.
A dark elf in tattered clothes landed with a very dramatic style. He closed his eyes, holding his sword elegantly, before suddenly his legs shook and he collapsed to his knees, crying hysterically.
"Uwaaaaaah!! Why do I have to be saved by these monsters?! I can't take this! This place is too scary! I'm too shy to die here!! Thank you for letting me live, Bell!!" wailed Hogni Ragnar, the former Dark Elf King, weeping bitterly like a lost child, shattering the remnants of dark elf pride to pieces.
"H-Hogni-san?!" Bell broke into a cold sweat seeing that bizarre behavior.
Asterius snorted loudly, ignoring the whiny elf. The giant minotaur stared at Bell, his feral eyes radiating pure competitive spirit. He pressed the hilt of his Labrys to the floor.
"When this is over... we fight," growled Asterius in his heavy voice.
Bell met that gaze with a bold smile, pressing the Hestia Knife forward. "Yeah. I promise."
The Black Girl floating in the center of the room focused her aura of death once more. Her abyss-black eyes stared sharply, realizing her prey had multiplied.
"Let us and this blonde knight hold off these small-fries!" yelled Lyd, leaping forward to slash the remaining spirits trying to swarm them.
Leon Vardenburg nodded firmly, his sword emitting a golden glow. "We'll secure the perimeter. Finn, Riveria, and the others must be trapped in this room's corner. Bell! Focus all your power on her!"
Bete snorted softly, kicking a giant spider until it shattered. "Don't you dare lose, you stupid rabbit."
Finding an opening from the solid barricade formed by his new allies, Bell nodded firmly. He stepped forward alone, leaving the chaotic fight behind him.
Fifteen meters before him, the Black Girl smiled innocently. A storm of black wind swirled around her body, creating a horrifying distortion of power.
Behind that monster, far at the end of the giant room, a flesh wall fifty meters high pulsed slowly, imprisoning the huddled, helpless body of Ais Wallenstein. In other corners, flesh cocoons could be seen trapping Finn and the other Loki Familia top brass.
Ais hadn't been saved. Death still stalked her every breath.
Bell halted his steps. He stood with perfect posture. The white-haired youth now stood face-to-face with the darkest elemental natural disaster the Dungeon had ever birthed, without protection, without help.
Aunt... Bell thought, his eyes burning brightly as they reflected the black storm before him. I'm going to destroy this creature.
At the Guild headquarters, all the gods held their breath. The decisive duel stage had been set. Orario's fate would be decided in this head-to-head clash.
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P - Gem_Blanks
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