Then, in the very next instant—
Boom—!
The ground beneath their feet exploded.
Flames erupted upward, followed by a crimson shockwave.
Because Shien had warned them in time, and because none of their reflexes were poor, the group managed to leap away a split second in advance.
Even so, the sudden pillar of light dyed all of their weapons red, not to mention the scorching heat that lashed across their faces.
It was like a gigantic land mine had detonated. The floor of the Dungeon was engulfed in blazing scarlet fire, and the monsters along the team's path were swallowed up and vaporized in the inferno.
The heat wave surged all the way to the ceiling, blasting straight through the fifty-first floor they were currently on.
The labyrinth shattered before their eyes, and with the fierce blast wind roaring past them, everyone hurriedly raised an arm in front of their face.
Even in midair, Finn was still watching his comrades. Seeing that everyone seemed shaken but unharmed, he had just started to relax and think of a countermeasure—
But then—
High above them, in a place no one had noticed, a strand of web shot down.
Its target had been chosen with cruel precision: Riveria, the one with the poorest physical ability to respond among the group.
Her body was instantly entangled, and she was yanked upward.
"Riveria—!!"
Before the cry had even finished, the ground directly beneath her glowed red like molten lava—
and began to melt.
"Not good!!"
At once, the others realized what was about to happen.
But they had only just landed. There was no way they could possibly reach her in time!!
The next moment, before the eyes of the other two, a pillar of fire swallowed both the elven princess and the spider monster hanging above her...
"Riveria...!?"
Terror flooded their faces. In an instant, their hearts filled with dread for their companion.
And then—
An orange-red skeletal hand burst out from within the flames and smashed the fire pillar apart, revealing Shien and Riveria inside, wrapped in a cage of rib-like energy.
Those ominous crimson eyes, which usually carried an eerie air, now looked almost unbearably reassuring to the other two.
A heartbeat later, while they were still frozen in shock, Shien used the skeletal giant hand to grab the wall and propel himself forward, landing firmly on the ground.
"Don't stop. Move. Now."
That was Finn through and through. The moment he confirmed the two were safe, he immediately shifted to tactical deployment.
No one wasted a word. They followed at once.
There was no time to set the elven girl down, and besides, she wasn't much of a burden in the first place, so Shien simply kept carrying her.
As for Riveria—
between the urgency of the situation and the embarrassment flooding her heart, she didn't dare move. At this point she had essentially gone full ostrich.
The party's steps were impeded by violent tremors and unimaginable heat.
Massive explosions went off one after another, hot wind and sparks rushing at the squad, while Finn barked orders in rapid succession.
Soon, the roar of dragons echoed clearly all around them, followed by chain explosions that shook the entire floor—no, not just this floor, but the nearby levels as well.
The detonations ripping up the ground on the fifty-second floor blasted open enormous holes, and rock slabs collapsed downward in sheets. Through the gaps, the team could clearly see gigantic fireballs bursting up from below, smashing through several layers of ceiling overhead.
Instinctively, they looked down through one of the openings—
It was deep.
Too deep.
So very deep.
The fireballs erupting from beneath the earth had punched through several floors, leaving behind enormous vertical shafts.
Shien had already caught a glimpse while rescuing Riveria:
huge red dragons were staring up at them from below, smoke pouring between countless fangs.
That was right—
These ground-fire-like blasts, irregular and relentless as they were, were in fact bombardments from far deeper floors.
At this moment, the team was being sniped by monsters hundreds of meters below.
A dragon-cannon barrage, heralded by savage roars.
Enormous fireballs that tore through thick layers of rock.
Attacks from powerful monsters dwelling in the Deep Floors, threatening the lives of all adventurers capable of reaching this far.
Without question, it was violence that ignored the limits of floor-by-floor progression.
A truly unbelievable case of "floor-skipping firepower."
It was because Finn had realized that fact immediately that he ordered everyone to pick up the pace and run at full speed. Now that they understood how the attack worked, their speed should let them evade before the bombardment reached them—
But by now, a better plan had formed in Shien's mind.
They were heading toward the floors near the sixtieth, right...?
"Finn, what if we just jump down?"
"...You mean—?"
Finn's eyes widened in an instant, catching on to Shien's intent.
But that was too—
"Exactly. Susanoo's defense can withstand attacks like these. And from what I saw just now, the bombardment should be coming from the fifty-eighth or fifty-ninth floor..."
The others also began reevaluating what sounded like an utterly insane idea.
After all, what had just happened proved Shien wasn't bluffing.
In the end—
"Hah! Sounds pretty interesting to me. I say we give it a try!!"
The dwarven elder was the first to speak up in favor.
Though he was usually steady and dependable, there were times when he could accept a radical new idea faster than anyone else.
"In that case, Shien, our lives are in your hands."
Shien answered with a confident grin.
"Don't worry. I won't let you down."
At the next moment, another pillar of fire was about to erupt under their feet, and the group silently moved in perfect accord, all leaping backward.
One second later, that attack ended.
Shien seized the chance and shouted,
"Jump!!"
Without the slightest hesitation, the three of them dove together into the flaming shaft, roughly three to four meters across.
Looking down, they could see the dragons below already charging up another round of attacks. These intruders had the audacity to attempt a direct breakthrough, and the dragons answered with the heaviest punishment they could muster. Several of the cannon-dragons had already opened their jaws.
And by identifying their appearance, Finn finally recognized them.
Those monsters were stationed on the floor known as—
Dragon Pot.
Lurking at the bottom of its cavern, on the fifty-eighth floor, were the artillery dragons: Valgang Dragons.
They were immense red dragons, bipedal, with bodies nearly ten meters long.
The four plummeted through the wind, bangs whipped upward by the pressure, dropping toward the bottom of the shaft where the powerful monsters lay in wait.
Other monsters from the surrounding floors were being dragged down as collateral in the chaos, tumbling every which way. The situation was obviously dire. The cannon-like mouths of the dragons burned fiercely, packed with massive fireballs that blazed bright red as they aimed straight upward.
They intended to incinerate the falling group along with every monster tumbling beside them.
And then, almost simultaneously, the red dragons fired.
Enormous fireballs over five meters in diameter rose toward them, painting the four in scarlet light—
and at that moment, those blood-red eyes opened again.
"Susanoo."
A gigantic cage of skeletal ribs wrapped around the four of them, while great arms emerged and met the incoming blasts head-on.
What followed was—
a colossal explosion.
Then the crash and collision of energy against energy.
Before Riveria and the others, the fireballs struck against the enormous skeletal blade-hand, detonated, and vanished.
When the smoke cleared, their figures were still there in the hollow shaft—completely unscathed.
But the danger was far from over.
"Shien! Wyverns incoming!"
Aside from the cannon-dragons on the fifty-eighth floor, Finn sensed movement near the fifty-sixth and shouted a warning.
His voice gave Shien the information he needed. The threat wasn't only coming from below—some of it could come from the sides as well.
From the tunnel openings branching off the shaft like an anthill, a host of winged dragons burst forth.
These were Evil Wyverns, blue-violet flying monsters over three meters long from snout to tail.
The name Dragon Pot came from the presence of both these flying dragons and the cannon-dragons. The wyverns used the vertical shafts blasted open by the red dragons' fireballs to attack any adventurers who reached this place.
But for Shien, this was all small stuff.
These were monsters that would force even upper-class adventurers into a hard fight, yet now they couldn't even reach the group. Susanoo's defenses were simply beyond what such creatures could break.
Under Shien's control, Susanoo's twin arms became the sharpest spears, casually smashing the wyverns out of the air like flies.
Deep Floor, Area 58.
Like the Great Waste (Moit) of the forty-ninth floor, this was another vast, single open space. But instead of a labyrinth with walls and obstructing corridors, it was one gigantic rectangular cavern bounded only by black-lead-colored walls and ceiling.
Seeing that they were about to reach the bottom, Shien immediately told the elven princess in his arms to prepare a spell.
The floor below was almost certainly packed with enemies. In a situation like that, the best option was obvious: a massive AOE sweep, just like before.
Their eyes met. Riveria forgot her embarrassment at once and began chanting an offensive spell.
"Prepare for landing. There'll definitely be enemies all around..."
"Got it!!"
He didn't need to say more.
With long experience in battle, the others already knew exactly what they needed to do.
At last—
with a thunderous crash—
Susanoo's enormous body slammed into the ground, pulverizing a cannon-dragon directly beneath them into dust.
The force of the impact sent smoke roaring dozens of meters high. But the very next moment, cold steel thrust out through the smoke and dismembered the monsters creeping closer to investigate.
It was Shien and the other two.
Not a single wound marked them.
Susanoo had taken the shock; inside it, they had felt almost nothing, as if gravity itself had been nearly reduced to zero.
Naturally, none of them intended to waste such a perfect opening by standing around in awe.
Using the smoke as cover, the trio launched into a massacre of the surrounding monsters.
The dragons fought back desperately, but what they didn't know was that this slaughter was only the appetizer.
The main course was just getting started—
"...Bring down the curtain on great war and burn everything away, Sword of Surtr—my name is Alf—"
"[High Victory Sword]"
Flaming lines surged across the entire floor.
Then came a pillar of fire that exceeded even the cannon-dragons' bombardment.
The descending holy column of flame ignited a chorus of screams. The Valgang Dragons, even with their red scales, were utterly erased under dozens of descending fire pillars.
For a time, this vast-area bombardment engulfed every small, medium, and large monster gathered there in the Deep Floor.
Dozens of monsters turned to ash, while wyverns that had been cut down rained from overhead one after another, until the fifty-eighth floor was soon covered in the wreckage of slaughter.
Black smoke drifted upward. Sparks danced in the air. The surrounding land had become a charred wasteland.
After spending some time clearing the field, the party sat down directly on the scorched ground and took a brief rest while facing the unexplored floors so close ahead.
By the rules of the Dungeon, the next floor would most likely contain yet another Floor Boss. That was something they absolutely could not afford to take lightly.
So to be safe, they needed to restore everyone's condition as much as possible.
Shien took out seeds again, used them to grow fruit, and prepared a simple meal for everyone to recover their stamina. No matter what happened, Riveria's mental state had to remain at its best.
While Riveria and the dwarven elder rested, Finn stood with spear in hand. Habit made him keep watch over the surroundings almost unconsciously. Facing forward, he stared into the dark opening at the southern end of the floor.
Keeping a certain distance, Finn stood in silent confrontation with the passage that led down to the fifty-ninth floor.
From within it, an intense chill was steadily pouring out.
"According to the Guild's records, from the fifty-ninth floor onward should be the Glacial Domain..."
"Yes. They say water from glacial lakes runs everywhere there, making movement difficult. The extreme cold slows the body down..."
"The fire-spirit cloaks are ready."
Hearing Finn and Shien discussing the fifty-ninth floor, the dwarven elder opened a prepared pack and pulled out brilliant red garments. These were fire-spirit defensive cloaks, equipment imbued with anti-cold properties.
Finn nodded. Other things could perhaps be managed, but gear that directly affected the party's status was absolutely essential.
And when they finally crossed the border into the region known as the Glacial Domain, what met them head-on was a chill so fierce it felt capable of freezing the soul itself.
It pierced through armor and equipment alike in an instant, creating the illusion that one's spirit might leave the body on the spot. Every one of them shivered violently.
Shien was in the best condition. With the support of Abundance's power and the fire-spirit cloth, the environment barely affected him at all.
But the others were a different story.
Even with equipment helping them, they still had to resist with raw physical endurance, and the drain on their stamina clearly increased.
The scene before them looked less like a Dungeon than a frozen kingdom forgotten by time.
With a glance, all the eye could see was an endless ice plain, smooth as a mirror, stretching without end.
And they had finally arrived.
....
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