A [Monster Rex] descended without warning.
For adventurers, there was no greater nuisance in the Dungeon than being swarmed by a horde of monsters — and no trial more fundamental.
Monsters were everywhere the eye could see.
They kept sprouting from the floor, the walls, the ceiling — an endless tide of creatures pouring forth, surging toward the group from every direction.
"Hold formation!"
Veteran adventurers that they were, Isagi and the girls had rarely faced an assault on quite this scale.
But Riveria, Ais, Heith, and Tiona had — they had years of experience between them. In an instant, they began shifting positions, rapidly constructing a compact defensive perimeter on the spot.
Old hands at this, they knew exactly what to do when a [Monster Rex] hit.
First: everyone moved to encircle one another, forming a ring.
Vanguards on the outermost edge, mages at the core — a wall of iron, solid as a barrel, sealing off the monsters pouring in from every direction.
At a time like this, you never fell back against a wall — because the wall itself could sprout new monsters at any moment.
At the same time.
Ais took to the air with practiced ease.
She moved to intercept the monsters raining down from above — they came like a downpour, or rather like hail, rattling and crashing from the pitch-black ceiling in an endless cascade. In a [Monster Rex], enemies from above were the most troublesome, the hardest to handle.
Meanwhile, Riveria — the most seasoned, the most veteran adventurer among them — immediately took command.
"Lefiya, use your frost magic."
"Understood."
"Isagi, you and Heith handle the ranged monsters. Leave the outer perimeter to Tiona and Ryuu."
"Got it."
"Hold the formation — no breaking ranks. Haruhime, stay on standby for now; don't cast your magic yet. My Lady, please be careful as well——"
Cold magical energy began to gather.
"——O harbinger of the end, O pristine white snow. At the twilight hour, rise up as a howling gale. Sealed radiance, frozen earth. Driving blizzard, three-fold winter — I am Alf."
"Sky of ice, azure rain from the heavens on high. White frost that adorns the forest — drive back these wretched savages——"
"[Ecstasy · Fimbulwinter]!"
"[Hail Crystal Dust]!!"
Lefiya and Riveria were not casting the same spell.
And so.
A breath of white frost unfurled around the group first — ring after ring of ice spreading outward, transforming the surrounding mountain paths and rock faces into a world of snow and ice, and flash-freezing every monster that drew near.
Then came Lefiya's frost magic — the technique she had learned from Alicia.
Countless tiny ice crystals burst outward in a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, shattering every frozen monster into glittering shards that scattered and fell.
The two Elf mages worked in seamless, wordless sync.
They cycled through their frost spells in a continuous rhythm — imposing at minimum a slow and a freeze on every approaching monster, and buying Ryuu and Tiona on the outer perimeter precious time by cutting the rate of advance.
Then.
With the Amazon girl as the primary striker, she swung her massive great-dual-blade in a wide, spinning windmill arc — blood and gore erupting with each revolution — and pulverized every monster that dared close in.
Whatever slipped through was left to Ryuu-senpai.
Deep-green orbs of light danced under the girl's direction, filling every gap, making it utterly impossible for the monsters to approach.
And accompanying the scarlet slash-magic that trailed like streaming fire, she kept cutting down monster after monster alongside Tiona.
As for the ranged threats.
Isagi handled them — weaving Glintstone Magic and golden prayers together, raising magical barriers to intercept the monsters' ranged attacks, while returning fire with brilliant azure glintstone.
Miss Heith, for her part, maintained a constant chant — the [Book of Poison Milk] held aloft in her hands as she called out her wide-area healing magic in a loud, clear voice.
Amid the distant monster swarms, golden magic circles bloomed one after another.
Then, just as quickly, they decayed — and with them, every monster caught in range began to rot. Their bodies gradually dissolved into black, viscous sludge, until at last they melted away entirely.
And alongside all of that.
The sound of arrows — sharp and relentless as falling rain.
Goddess Artemis was incredible!
Perhaps it was because the monsters before them, though numerous, were not particularly powerful — which only made the goddess's strength stand out all the more.
Every arrow, a headshot. Like she was cheating.
Even the monsters that couldn't be killed in a single hit were still a sight to behold just watching her work.
And the moon goddess's experience against monsters was formidable — whenever she faced a foe that was large and clearly dangerous, she would calmly target weak points: an eye, a throat, a gap in the armor.
The line held.
The monsters in front of them weren't especially high-level — around Lv. 3 to Lv. 4, the ordinary range for monsters on the lower floors.
But there was something off about them——
None of them could be killed cleanly in one go. No matter how much damage they took, as long as their magic stone remained intact, those deep-green vines and vivid flowers they had seen before would begin to grow — sprouting from whatever broken, mangled flesh remained.
The vines and flowers melded with the remnants of the monsters' bodies, remaking them into something far more terrifying than before.
However.
In this transformed state, the monsters were extremely vulnerable to fire-element magic.
So Lefiya pivoted — in the gaps between her other spells, she began chanting her most familiar magic: [Fusillade Firebolt]. She unleashed it in a relentless barrage, scorching vast swaths of monsters into complete obliteration.
But.
This couldn't go on indefinitely.
In theory, the monsters of the Dungeon were infinite — and that was precisely what made a [Monster Rex] so terrifying.
No matter how powerful an adventurer was, prolonged combat would whittle them down, and eventually, the endless tide of monsters would simply drown them.
Of course, as veteran adventurers.
Riveria and the others were not without a plan.
In ordinary circumstances.
When caught in a [Monster Rex], adventurers were supposed to rally on the spot, then attempt a breakout through the encirclement.
Rally more adventurers nearby, then fall back while fighting.
Under normal circumstances.
A [Monster Rex] was a single-floor event — as long as you could leave the floor, whether going up or down, you could escape it entirely. The connecting corridors between floors were, in particular, generally safe ground.
And gathering more adventurers allowed the group to rotate, rest, and cover one another.
But the problem was.
In this Dungeon, right now — beyond their own group, how many other adventurers were even here?!
This was no ordinary Dungeon.
And there was another hidden risk in that plan as well.
Fighting and retreating at the same time would leave monster corpses strewn along the escape route — along with magic stones that no one had time to harvest.
That was a recipe for spawning Enhanced Species.
This was one of the most dangerous aspects of a [Monster Rex]. Usually, in its aftermath, the Guild would commission high-ranking adventurers to sweep the affected floor in search of any Enhanced Species that had emerged.
In all her years in Orario.
Riveria had heard far too many accounts of adventuring parties stumbling across an Enhanced Species and being wiped out to the last person.
So the best course of action was to destroy every magic stone on the way out.
But that was extraordinarily difficult to pull off — and on top of that——
There was her own Skill to worry about.
It was always what you feared most that came to pass. Soon enough, something began to stir within the distant monster swarms.
The chaotic roaring that had filled the air was suddenly replaced by a single, low and powerful sound.
"Uuugh——"
Like a lament.
Then, all at once, the noise from the monsters fell silent — and somehow, impossibly, the whole horde gave off the uncanny impression of acting in unison.
An Enhanced Species was neither a rare monster nor a Floor Boss.
But its danger was something else entirely.
Because.
An Enhanced Species could continually devour magic stones to grow stronger — and so, the longer it was left unchecked, the longer it was allowed to rampage through the Dungeon, the more terrifyingly powerful it would become, given enough time.
And there was another critical point.
An Enhanced Species possessed intelligence on par with — or even surpassing — that of an adventurer.
They would probe for weaknesses. Lay ambushes. Feign retreat. They would first observe how a party of adventurers fought, then pinpoint the vulnerabilities — targeting the mages or supporters with little in the way of defense.
They would even command other monsters, rallying a swarm to launch coordinated assaults against an adventuring party.
An Enhanced Species was absolutely not the same as a simple "elite monster" — something merely stronger than its ordinary kin.
It was a headache of an entirely different order.
And for that reason, from the Guild's perspective: the moment an Enhanced Species was confirmed, it had to be hunted down immediately. Without delay.
And now, in the space surrounding the group.
The Enhanced Species that had already been born were not just one — they kept coming, one after another, in a stream with no end in sight.
____
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