From the fifteenth floor onward, the Dungeon is known as the Deep Floors, and the terrain changes once again.
Before reaching the lower levels, the Dungeon's terrain was generally similar to a cave environment.
The safe zone on the eighteenth floor was mainly made up of plains and forests.
But starting from the twenty-fifth floor, water is everywhere.
This is a world of water.
And within a single floor, the terrain no longer simply descends continuously.
Instead, it becomes complicated and unpredictable—sometimes going down, sometimes going up, with many branching paths appearing along the way.
It was very huge!
Unlike the cave-like environment, this place is incredibly open.
In short, everything here is enormous.
The adventurers call this place the Water Capital.
After entering, the first thing one sees is an incomparably magnificent sight.
A waterfall.
Its tremendous roar is almost deafening.
This waterfall begins on the twenty-fifth floor, passes through the twenty-sixth, and extends all the way to the twenty-seventh floor.
Its width exceeds four hundred meters!
The color of the waterfall as a whole looks emerald blue, a truly spectacular sight.
From this point onward lies the area Orario calls the "New World."
"Ardee's Zanpakutō would be amazing here, but unfortunately she has to train the Familia's newcomers, so she couldn't come," Ryuu said with some disappointment.
"She's not some rookie anymore. She's already a second-tier adventurer Level 4."
Not to mention, with the support of her Zanpakutō, Ardee's current combat ability was among the best even among Level 4s.
She could even stand against a Level 5 on equal footing.
With such precious high-end combat power, her tasks naturally became heavier as well.
Even without mentioning Ouetsu—now Rayleigh—just based on the strength of the Astraea Familia alone, there was actually very little danger in the lower floors, especially before the twenty-seventh floor.
At the very least, only from the thirtieth floor onward would the Astraea Familia begin to feel any real pressure.
Although they had only eleven members, every girl in the Astraea Familia had high individual ability and a complete, well-balanced team setup. It was an exceptionally well-rounded group.
Previously, the farthest expedition the Astraea Familia had ever gone on had only reached the twenty-ninth floor.
So the objectives of this expedition were roughly divided into two parts.
First, to update their record by reaching at least one floor deeper—that is, they had to reach at least the thirtieth floor.
Second, to complete the Guild's commission.
Any Familia ranked D or above would receive mandatory tasks from the Guild from time to time.
The Astraea Familia was not a production-type Familia, but an exploration-type one, so their mandatory tasks were basically the same as mandatory expeditions.
And an expedition required them to produce results recognized by the Guild.
For example: updating the deepest floor reached, discovering and mining new materials or ores, exploring unknown areas and drawing maps, or clearing floors completely.
It had already been about a month since Amphisbaena was last defeated.
It was said that the Guild had already commissioned another Familia's subjugation team to handle the next hunt, so this time the Astraea Familia chose to focus mainly on updating their deepest floor reached.
At the same time, they also accepted several gathering commissions.
The materials produced by the Dungeon became rarer the deeper one went, and especially from the lower floors onward, many of those materials were priceless and impossible to find on the market.
That was why the Guild could only entrust adventurers to go into the Dungeon and collect them.
To operate on the lower floors, the minimum requirement was a well-coordinated team composed entirely of upper-class adventurers.
To reduce risk further, they needed a Level 3 frontliner, or an outstanding thief and scout.
And a Level 3, in a small or mid-sized Familia, was already enough to serve as the captain.
They were by no means common.
"Ryuu, I'm counting on you~"
"Mm."
The elven girl released her Zanpakutō, and gray dust scattered outward, spreading into places beyond the reach of sight.
"There's movement."
A moment later, the elf girl's single sentence made everyone tense up, immediately entering a battle-ready stance.
"From the size and shape… it should be Metal Blue Crabs."
"Alright, everyone, prepare for battle."
The steel shells of the Metal Blue Crabs were one of the materials they needed.
The commission required fifteen pieces, but any excess could be kept for their own use.
After all, they even had a smith with them.
Rustle, rustle.
A large number of Metal Blue Crabs came pouring out, numbering in the thousands.
When Rayleigh saw those giant crabs, he sighed and said, "What a shame they're monsters. You can't eat them."
In his previous life, king crabs and emperor crabs on Earth had already been considered premium ingredients, and their biggest selling point was their sheer size.
But the blue crabs in front of him weighed at least twenty to twenty-five kilograms each.
One claw alone could clamp several emperor crabs at once.
Even more absurdly, these crabs didn't walk sideways.
They walked straight forward!
"Hadō #31: Shakkahō."
Rayleigh did not draw his blade, instead, he used Hadō against the charging blue crabs.
One crimson fire blast after another exploded in the middle of the crab swarm.
The sheer power blew them apart on the spot and even blasted craters into the ground.
Alise drew her blade.
"Burn—Engetsu!"
She ran her hand across the sword's edge, releasing it in its Shikai form while also coating the blade in flames.
Then, with a powerful swing—
A flaming slash shot into the crab swarm, instantly scorching all the remaining blue crabs black.
Even though the shells of the Metal Blue Crabs were extremely hard, their resistance to high temperatures was very poor, and they feared flames.
After effortlessly dealing with the first batch of monsters they encountered upon entering the twenty-fifth floor, the group continued deeper and soon ran into Harpies and Sirens as well.
Both of these bird-type monsters had ugly appearances. Harpies in particular gave off waves of foul stench that were hard to endure.
Against such fragile monsters, Ryuu merely waved her hand, and slashes formed from dust severed their wings—or simply cut off their heads outright.
One of them fell directly into the current.
Before the group even had time to rest, Rayleigh suddenly caught sight of a black flash.
His gaze sharpened.
Spiritual power flowed into his blood vessels, and in an instant he activated Blut Vene, then grabbed with his bare hand at something that had been flying toward Maryuu.
Maryuu jumped in fright, nearly collapsing onto the ground.
Rayleigh looked carefully at the thing he had caught and discovered that it was actually a living creature.
Only now it was bleeding from all seven orifices, with even its intestines crushed out.
'A bird?'
Rayleigh tilted his head and searched through the knowledge in his mind.
Then he found it.
'A Flash Swallow!'
It was considered one of the fastest monsters in the lower floors.
Its method of attack was to use ultra-high-speed collisions to pierce through an adventurer's body, making it terrifyingly powerful.
Whoosh!
Black flashes filled the sky all at once!
Lyra broke into a cold sweat.
"Hey, hey… this is bad."
"I'll blast them away!" Alise prepared to confront them head-on with overwhelming firepower.
But Rayleigh stopped her.
"There's an easier way that takes less effort," he said.
The boy smiled faintly.
Facing those self-destructing birds whose power was like Barrett rounds, he calmly spoke.
"Bakudō #81… Danku"