"Ran pretty fast, didn't he!" Bete spat to the side.
They had been completely tied down by the worm horde. One moment of carelessness and the monsters would have closed into melee range. They simply hadn't had the time to deal with that guy and could only watch him escape.
"How many magic swords are left?"
"F-four!"
Raul counted the remaining resources as he answered Finn's question.
"We used up that many in one go?" Finn frowned deeply.
Although magic swords shattered once their power was exhausted, they could normally be used many times if handled sparingly. Yet against the worm army, they had burned through over ten swords in barely two minutes.
And that wasn't even counting Ryoji's magic sword consumption.
He had been firing the most aggressively during the battle and had shouldered the greatest pressure.
"You alright?" Finn turned toward Ryoji beside him.
"I'm okay… give me two Mental Power potions." Ryoji rubbed his brow, waves of needle-like pain stabbing through his mind.
His magic swords were transformed from Spiritual Items (Devices).
Driving a magic sword to its limit was equivalent to grinding a Spiritual Item (Device) to its limit.
That was an enormous burden on the mind, let alone doing it repeatedly several times in succession.
An ordinary person would have collapsed long ago. The only reason he was still standing was that his willpower was strong enough.
So magic swords weren't something he could use recklessly either.
Of course, if it were simply "fire one shot, swap to a new one," there wouldn't be much issue.
But the battle frequency just now had been too intense. There hadn't been enough time to change them out, since manifesting a new Spiritual Item (Device) and reshaping it both required time.
After drinking two high-grade Mental Power recovery potions, Ryoji's complexion improved considerably.
Gareth and Bete shot him puzzled looks.
What did using magic swords have to do with mental exhaustion?
Finn and the others, however, appeared thoughtful.
They knew the secret behind Ryoji's soul weapon and had their own suspicions.
Still, it was obviously Ryoji's personal secret. Since he had no intention of explaining, no one asked.
"Anyone else need recovery?" Finn swept his gaze across the group.
"If you do, now's the time. From here downward lies completely unknown territory. No one knows what's waiting below…"
Everyone shook their heads.
Including Ryoji, everyone's condition had recovered to its peak.
"Then let's move out!"
Everyone's spirits surged.
Following the Pallum leader's stride, they marched forward toward the stairway leading to the 59th Floor.
There lay the glory of the Loki Familia.
The honor of Adventurers.
The destination of their ideals and ambitions.
And also the secrets of Evilus… The secrets of the new-species monsters!
Everything… would be revealed next!
......
"According to the records left behind by the Zeus Familia, the 59th Floor should be a world of glaciers, right?"
At the stairway entrance, Finn's footsteps slowed slightly.
"That's right." Riveria nodded faintly.
The deepest recorded point reached by the Zeus Familia was also the 58th Floor, but they had still gathered information on the 59th.
According to the records, the 59th Floor should have been a realm of endless ice.
Temperatures dropped dozens of degrees below zero, and fierce winds capable of freezing even First-Class Adventurers raged everywhere.
It was extremely dangerous, which was why they had specifically prepared Fire Dragon protective garments before setting out.
"But you can't feel that chill at all from here…" Finn muttered absentmindedly.
Hearing this, the others suddenly realized.
That's right.
Standing inside the passageway, they should have been able to sense conditions from the lower floor.
If it were truly a frozen domain, icy air should already be drifting upward.
But now, there wasn't even the slightest trace of cold.
Instead, the only faint chill came from the area behind them that Riveria had frozen.
"Forget everything I taught you before."
Finn let out a long breath, struggling to suppress the excitement in his heart.
"What lies below… has probably become a world completely beyond our understanding."
"My thumb hurts. I've got a really bad feeling about this."
"My intuition is telling me the same thing. What's below is extremely dangerous!"
Ryoji closed his eyes briefly, his expression turning solemn.
The group exchanged glances.
Finn and Ryoji possessed the strongest intuition among them all. Their instincts were so sharp they had practically become a special ability in their own right—even Bete, who didn't get along with Ryoji at all, wouldn't deny that.
Now, with both of them issuing warnings at the same time, just how dangerous the floor below might be was almost impossible to imagine.
"Let's go."
Finn took a breath, and his expression gradually hardened with resolve.
Amid the quiet sound of footsteps, the passage slowly shortened.
They continued advancing toward the end of the darkness.
Toward the light at its far end.
And beyond that light, lay the unknown, a place neither mortals nor gods had ever reached.
Then, the group finished descending the stairs and arrived at the place where the light originated.
The sight that entered their eyes robbed them of words for a moment.
There was no ice here.
No towering glaciers.
No crystal-clear frozen rivers.
What they saw instead was an abundance of bizarre vegetation and strange plants growing wildly everywhere, a landscape utterly beyond everyone's expectations.
"…A jungle?" Ryoji muttered despite himself, gripping his twin blades.
Looking around. this was an enormous stone chamber, even larger than the 58th Floor they had just left behind, covered in lush green vines and trees.
The ground was carpeted with verdant grass.
Looking upward, countless towering trees filled their view.
There were clusters of vividly colored flowers that looked violently poisonous at first glance.
Even the distant walls at the far end had countless gigantic flower buds hanging down from them.
Faced with a scene completely outside their expectations, even the First-Class Adventurers fell speechless.
"…Wait, there's a sound?"
Bete's wolf ears suddenly perked up.
"It's coming from inside the jungle!"
It sounded like chewing.
Or perhaps collapsing rock.
Occasionally, there were also sharp, ear-piercing noises.
"Advance!"
The moment Finn gave the order, the squad moved immediately.
Re-equipping her double-bladed sword, Tiona chopped down every tree blocking their path.
The fourteen-member party advanced deeper into the forest, staying alert for danger at every step.
At the same time, the sound grew louder and louder, until even Lefiya could hear it.
Following the source of the noise, the group proceeded straight ahead for several minutes.
Then, tThe jungle vanished.
Their field of vision opened up once more and what finally appeared before the Adventurers…
"…What is that?" Tiona stared blankly ahead.
No one answered her question.
Everyone had been stunned by the unimaginable sight.
It was a vast stretch of gray earth.
In the center of this wilderness-like clearing within the jungle, huge numbers of new-species monsters, worms, man-eating flowers, and others, had gathered.
And those monster forces, enough to make even First-Class Adventurers hold their breath… Were currently surrounding a female-shaped monster with an enormous plant-like lower body.
"Death God Amorphophallus… it's been parasitized?" Riveria trembled as she spoke the true name of the plant lower body.
That was a plant-type monster powerful enough to rival a Valgang Dragon…
A tyrannical creature that devoured Adventurers and even its own kind alike.
Yet now… That domineering monster had been reduced to nothing more than the parasite host of the female-shaped monster.
(End of Chapter)
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