A chilling wind swept across the chasm's rocky walls.
Buck and Ryan hung in mid-air, rapidly descending along the cliff face. Darkness enveloped them, with only the Illumination Crystals hanging from their waists casting a faint glow, barely enough to confirm each other's positions.
"Uncle Buck, the wind here is too eerie! It's making my bones ache," Ryan shouted into the vast emptiness of the chasm, his palms slick with cold sweat as he gripped the rope.
Buck, positioned about three meters above, steadily lowered the rope with his feet planted firmly against the wall. Without turning his head, he snapped, "Stop whining and hold onto the main rope! If you're scared, climb back up now."
Ryan swallowed hard, forcing a grin. "I'm just trying to make conversation to boost my courage. It's too quiet down here, it's creeping me out."
"Uncle, besides those two legendary adventurers, has there been any other big news in Blackedge Town lately? Tell me something to distract myself."
Buck paused his movements. "Big news? Sure. Ever heard of the famous Silver Blade Squad?"
Ryan's eyes lit up, and he quickly replied, "Of course! They're one of the top ten Silver Rank squads in our town. Their captain is an Advanced Swordsman, and they even have a High-Rank Elemental Mage named Allen. Their lineup is downright terrifying."
"What happened to them? Did they score some epic gear in the Dungeon?"
"Gear? Not a chance."
Buck curled his lip. "They went missing. The entire squad entered the sixth floor and never came back. The guild has already marked their status as confirmed annihilation."
Ryan shuddered, his hands trembling so badly he nearly lost his grip on the rope.
"Annihilation? A fully equipped Silver Rank squad wiped out in the sixth floor? Not even a single survivor to report back?"
Pale with fear, Ryan looked up and shouted at Buck, "Uncle! If even a Silver squad was wiped out in the sixth floor, what's the difference between us two Iron Ranks scavenging at the edge of the sixth floor and walking straight to our deaths? Shouldn't we just turn back?"
"Shut up! Stop howling!"
Buck glared at him fiercely. "Who said we're going deep into the sixth floor? The sixth-floor Silver Ruined City is vast. Our landing spot is just the edge of this chasm on the sixth floor."
"We'll scavenge some discarded junk on that rock and won't take a single step into the ruins. As long as we don't wander off, the chance of encountering high-level Monsters is extremely low."
Ryan felt slightly reassured, but his hands continued to tremble uncontrollably as he gripped the rope.
The two continued their rapid descent. After what felt like an eternity, the surrounding darkness was broken by a green glow.
"Look to the left," Buck reminded him.
Ryan turned his head and, through a gap at the edge of the chasm, caught a full view of the third-floor Illusory Mushroom Forest of the Dungeon.
Countless enormous mushrooms grew across the vast underground space, with the entire floor shrouded in a dense layer of green Poison Gas Cloud.
The gas churned and boiled but was confined to the third floor's space, unable to spill into the Sighing Chasm.
"This is the Stratum Barrier," Buck explained. "The Dungeon's rules lock everything in its proper place."
As Ryan marveled at the spectacle, his gaze swept over some hidden crevices in the chasm's rocky walls.
By the light of the Illumination Crystal, he faintly saw pairs of crimson eyes glowing in the dark caves.
Ryan shuddered. He focused his gaze and saw that crouching in those caves were "humanoid creatures."
Their builds were similar to humans; however, their skin was covered in rough, gray-brown stone scales, and the nails on their hands and feet had grown sharp and pointed. They were lying in the darkness, watching the two of them with greedy eyes.
"U-uncle! Monsters!"
Ryan shouted, instinctively reaching for the Fine Steel Dagger at his waist.
"Don't draw your blade!"
Buck reacted swiftly. He kicked off the rock wall, swung over to Ryan on the rope, and grabbed his hand to stop him from drawing the weapon.
Sweat beaded on Buck's forehead as he warned through gritted teeth:
"Do you want to provoke all of them? Those things won't actively attack people climbing on ropes; that's an unwritten rule in the giant cavern! As long as you don't show aggression, they'll just watch."
Ryan stammered, "What the hell are those things? They look human, but they're not..."
Buck sighed and said, "You're not mistaken. They were indeed human once, adventurers just like us."
"What?!" Ryan's eyes widened in shock.
"This is the Dungeon's most vicious hidden rule–the Assimilation Curse."
Buck kept a wary eye on the surrounding caves as he lowered his voice and explained quickly, "You think the Dungeon is just an inanimate place? Wrong! The rules here have a consciousness of their own."
Buck pointed at the stone-scaled monsters: "When outsiders enter the Dungeon, if they stay here for more than a few years, or consume too much of the Dungeon's native Mana and food to survive, they will be forcibly judged by the Dungeon's rules as Native Inhabitants.
"Once judged as Native Inhabitants, their human cognition is altered. They forget they were once human, forget the sunlight and loved ones on the surface.
"Afterward, their bodies begin to assimilate and mutate, turning into these inhuman, non-monster creatures. The most terrifying part is that they become bound by the Stratum Barrier, forever imprisoned in their corresponding stratum, unable to leave for all eternity, becoming part of the Dungeon's Monsters."
Ryan felt his scalp tingle and his stomach churn.
Turning into such a half-human, half-monster abomination, forever trapped in the sunless Dungeon–that was ten thousand times more horrifying than dying in battle.
"So, we must leave immediately after getting what we came for. We absolutely cannot linger in the Dungeon. It would be terrible if we encountered a room we couldn't escape from."
Buck concluded gravely.
However, just as Buck was explaining this terrifying rule, an extremely faint rustling sound came from the rock wall above them.
A large Mutant was silently creeping down the rock wall.
This Mutant had likely been a tall adventurer in life, but now his lower body had completely assimilated into a spider-like form, growing eight thick, barbed limbs.
Although his upper body still retained a human outline, his skin had completely petrified, and his mouth was filled with interlocking fangs.
Extreme hunger had driven it mad, causing it to directly violate the unwritten rule of "not attacking those on ropes."
"Watch out above!" Buck caught a glimpse of the shadow from the corner of his eye and roared.
But it was already too late.
The Half-Spider let out a piercing shriek, its eight limbs pushing off the rock wall as its massive body lunged through the air toward Ryan below.
"Ahhhh!" Ryan screamed in terror.
The Half-Spider's sharp forelimbs sliced through the air with a cold gleam. With a crisp snap, it cleanly severed the secondary safety rope around Ryan's waist.
Ryan lost his balance entirely, left dangling by only the main rope as his body swung violently and uncontrollably at the cliff's edge.
Having struck successfully, the Half-Spider pounced onto Ryan. Its heavy frame, combined with the force of its descent, pressed down on him, leaving him gasping for air.
"Get off! Get off me!"
Driven by a fierce will to survive, Ryan gripped the main rope tightly with his left hand while drawing a dagger with his right, stabbing frantically at the Half-Spider's chest.
He channeled his Iron Rank Battle Aura unreservedly into the dagger, but the result was chilling.
The blade struck the Half-Spider's thick, petrified skin, producing only a series of grating sounds. Aside from leaving a few shallow white scratches, it didn't even break the surface.
Against such a deeply mutated monster, Iron Rank strength was utterly and completely outmatched.
The Half-Spider opened its bloody maw, foul drool dripping onto Ryan's face as its sharp fangs closed in on his neck.
"Ryan! Duck!"
At this critical moment, Buck above gritted his teeth and roared.
Pushing off the rock wall with both feet, he swung in an arc through the air, grabbing the rope as he swung above the Half-Spider.
True to his experience as a seasoned low-level adventurer, Buck didn't waste effort attacking the impenetrable petrified skin with his weapon in such a desperate situation.
Holding the rope tightly with his left hand, his right hand–at some point–had already drawn a fist-sized black metal sphere.
It was a costly High-Explosive Alchemical Bomb.
Seizing the moment as the Half-Spider opened its mouth to shriek, Buck's right hand shot out like lightning, shoving the alchemical bomb deep into the creature's throat.
"Go to hell!" Buck cursed, kicking the Half-Spider's head to push himself back and swing away.
The Half-Spider swallowed the bomb, gurgling painfully in its throat. It released Ryan, its hands clawing desperately at its own neck.
The next moment, a muffled explosion echoed through the Sighing Chasm.
Flames erupted from the Half-Spider's orifices as its hardened and petrified body exploded from within, shattering into countless fragments that plummeted into the abyss along with foul-smelling bodily fluids.
Ryan gasped for breath, drenched in cold sweat, grateful to have survived.
However, Buck's face showed no joy; only extreme terror.
The power of that High-Explosive Alchemical Bomb had been too great. The intense shockwave from the explosion, combined with the force of the Half-Spider's death throes pulling on the ropes, had all transferred to the main rope's anchor point above the cliff.
The rock pillar above, hardened though it once was, had grown somewhat fragile after years of weathering. Under the intense strain, dense cracks began spreading across the rock surface.
Crack… crack…
The sound of widespread fracturing echoed sharply through the vast chasm. Along with the shattering of rock, the main rope's anchor point collapsed.
The rope in their hands went completely slack.
Buck and Ryan lost their foothold, their bodies plummeting uncontrollably as they screamed, falling into the dark abyss.
...
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