The air seemed to solidify at this moment.
The entire space exuded an undisguised, terrifying malice as if to crush everything.
The ground beneath their feet began to shake violently, and the entire seventeenth floor began to tremble under the strain!
Crack crack crack—
A massive crack, like a black lightning bolt, suddenly tore a shocking ~ wound from top to bottom along the smooth, mirror-like Wall of Sighs.
Boom!
With a deafening roar, countless massive rock fragments scattered like cannonballs, slamming heavily onto the ground—raising a cloud of dust.
A colossal creature, accompanied by the violent shaking of the ground, crashed—down!
Its body resembled a human, but it stood nine meters tall.
Its entire body was a deep, inky black, emanating an ominous and destructive aura!
Its crimson eyes, filled with brutality and madness, fixated on Rhode.
The next second.
"Roar—!!!"
A thunderous roar, powerful enough to tear off a roof, erupted from deep within its throat.
Black Goliath strode forward with heavy steps, like an out-of-control siege engine, charging towards Rhode, who still had a faint smile on his lips, with an unparalleled sense of oppression.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Each time its massive foot stomped down, the hard rock ground was instantly crushed, and the entire hall vibrated violently under its heavy steps.
"Roar ah ah ah ah!"
Black Goliath roared, swinging its massive fist, thicker than a stone, creating a piercing shriek as it slammed fiercely towards Rhode's seemingly minuscule body!
Loyal Enwei's eyes flashed with a cold light, and her figure moved slightly, ready to meet the attack.
But from behind came Rhode's calm, unruffled voice.
"Stand down."
The next moment.
Boom—!!!
Black Goliath's massive fist, capable of punching a large hole through a city wall, solidly struck Rhode!
A terrifying shockwave instantly erupted in a ring, centered on the point of contact!
With a "buzz—," the piercing sound waves almost tore one's eardrums.
The ground, like a lake into which a giant rock had been thrown, suddenly caved downwards.
Spiderweb-like cracks spread wildly in all directions, extending all the way to the hall's walls!
On the walls, countless rocks were shaken loose by this force, and even several massive cracks appeared.
"Gah?"
However, when the all-consuming dust slowly cleared.
Black Goliath's crimson eyes for the first time revealed... a look of stunned disbelief.
Within the dust, Rhode still stood quietly in place, let alone injured, not even a wrinkle on his clothes.
He merely casually raised one hand, using his incomparably slender palm, completely out of proportion to the giant fist, to effortlessly block that terrifying, mountain-splitting blow.
"...I thought it could evolve into at least an Lv.7 monster."
Rhode slowly raised his head, a hint of disappointment flashing in his eyes.
"Turns out, it only barely reached Lv.6... You've disappointed me a little."
"Roar—!!!!"
Black Goliath seemed to feel this extreme mockery, it raised its head to the sky, letting out a deafening roar!
"Roar roar roar roar—!!!"
This was the Floor Boss's summon!
This high-pitched roar echoed through every corner of the entire seventeenth floor, summoning an endless army of monsters!
"Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh!"
The rock walls on all sides were violently broken open!
Large numbers of various monsters, like a bursting flood, surged madly from the broken holes.
Mad Beetles, Borg Bears, Sniper Dragonflies, Minotaurs, Crystal Mantises...
All kinds of mid-level monsters, endless, surged from all directions, brandishing their fangs, claws, and sharp horns, with bloodthirsty madness, launching an overwhelming attack on Rhode in the center of the arena!
Rhode spoke calmly.
"You've got one thing wrong."
"In this game, you're the challenger."
Crack!
A crisp, teeth-grinding sound of bone breaking rang out.
Rhode's hand suddenly transformed into a sharp claw, his five fingers exerting force, instantly crushing Black Goliath's massive fist, bones and muscles alike!
"Ow—!!!"
Black Goliath let out an angry and painful wail!
Its super-defensive skin was useless, and its self-regeneration couldn't be activated in time.
Just as all the monsters rushed close, and all attacks were about to fall on him.
—The shadows boiled.
Countless, like a black tsunami, shadow armies roared and shrieked out from the shadow beneath Rhode's feet.
With absolute loyalty to their monarch, they instantly clashed with the monster army summoned by Black Goliath!
Monsters enraged by divine power lost their minds, but absolutely loyal Shadow Soldiers were equally unafraid of death!
Dungeon monsters died every moment, but Rhode's Shadow Soldiers were endless.
Shadow Soldiers constantly died and resurrected, while those recently deceased Dungeon monsters would be reanimated by darkness the next second, rising again to become part of the shadow army, turning their blades on their former kin!
As a result, what was clearly a group attack initiated by Black Goliath, ended up with Rhode's army growing larger and larger after a few minutes!
Black Goliath was even momentarily stunned by the incredible scene before it.
In its momentary daze, Rhode's figure had appeared like a ghost above its head at some unknown point.
He extended his right hand, gently placing it on Black Goliath's massive head.
"I've pretty much tested the feeling of the Divine Body, it's time for you to exit."
No sooner had he spoken than Black Goliath's massive head, like a watermelon struck by a heavy hammer, instantly exploded.
Black blood and brain matter, mixed with shattered skull fragments, splattered in all directions.
Rhode's figure quietly landed, not a speck of dust on him.
Black Goliath's massive, headless corpse crashed, kneeling on both knees, finally falling heavily before him, as if offering its final submission to a new monarch.
And behind him, was an already completely converted, boundless army of Shadow Soldiers.
They quietly knelt on one knee, awaiting their monarch's next command.
Rhode casually gestured, collecting the rare material [Goliath's Tough Hide] that dropped after Black Goliath's death into his bag.
Then, he looked up at the massive corpse, still emanating an ominous aura, a satisfied smile on his lips.
"A pitch-black monster immune to divine power erosion… Perfect. My legion is just missing a big guy specializing in anti-god combat. You'll be incredibly useful in the upcoming plans."
Rhode intended to gather all floor bosses in their Black Goliath state and combine them with deep-level monsters to forge a god-slaying army.
This was a grand gift he specially prepared for the evil gods who secretly mocked peace and sought to overthrow the righteous Familia.
As for gods being able to resurrect after death?
Then let them be trapped in the eternal hell of undeath within the bodies of monsters.
Moreover, whether they could break through Kamui Space was still an unknown.
Rhode reached out to the headless corpse, issuing a command with an air of supreme authority.
"Stand up."
The area of the Dungeon from the 19th to the 24th floor was known as the Great Tree Labyrinth.
The labyrinth, covered in tree bark, made one feel as if they were exploring the inside of a gigantic tree.
The light source here was no longer the familiar phosphorescence of the previous floors.
The ceiling, walls, and ground were densely covered with large amounts of glowing moss, shining like the Court of the Stars.
From a scenic perspective, this magnificent view naturally made Rhode feel refreshed after a long time.
However, the drawback was that the paths here were extremely winding and numerous forks made it very easy to get lost.
And because this was six or seven years before the start of the original main story.
Although there was already a good amount of information about this area, if the goal was to quickly reach the lower levels, the fastest Strategy route had not yet been developed.
"Tsk, can this game really be played without a map?"
Rhode couldn't help but complain.
The deeper one went into the Dungeon, the larger each floor's area became.
The 24th floor alone was half the size of Orario.
Combined with the intricate and almost guideless three-dimensional structure of the Great Tree Labyrinth, Rhode often felt a sense of déjà vu, like playing some Souls-like garbage games in his previous life.
Especially from the 19th floor onwards, besides the appearance of monsters that could be called [Humanoid], many plants and insects with abnormal status-inflicting attacks also appeared.
One could only say that the Dungeon might also be a fan of Hidetaka Miyazaki; perhaps it had some interesting little stories in its childhood.
However, these malicious elements were practically useless against Rhode.
Aside from the Black Goliath, he had extracted the inherent characteristics of almost all the monster shadows summoned in the upper levels and fused them into a fifty-person elite female stealth unit.
After all of them were granted Grace, they were led by Enwei to explore everywhere.
These creatures had the physical defense of killer ants and armadillos on their bodies, combined with the magic defense of crystal mantises. Their claws were fused with the sharp talons of battle shadows, and their legs incorporated the jumping power of needle rabbits.
Comprehensive characteristics fused from beastmen, silverback gorillas, minotaurs, tiger claws, wyverns, Borg bears...
This meant that their individual attributes started at the level of an entire Lv.3 party!
And each of them was also endowed with the monsters' special skills!
The flying ability of wyverns, the flames of hellhounds, the disruptive sound waves of bats, the poison powder of Purple Moths, the healing ability of Blue Morpho Butterflies...
Furthermore, because they gained human intelligence after being transformed into shadow soldiers, combined with the unique pheromone communication function of killer ants.
These fifty soldiers achieved an almost telepathic connection with each other, fighting with such perfect coordination they were like a single entity!
Rhode even thought he wasn't playing a Scourge of the Undead, but a Zerg swarm…
However, not all monster shadows were fused.
Rhode also deliberately kept some of the original flavor.
A portion of the wyverns, which could serve as mounts, were re-fused with characteristics from other monsters, and he molded a new group of small female dragons to serve as Kamish's retainers.
Though she was quite displeased with them, she would say that such things weren't even qualified to be cannon fodder in the dragon legions of her time.
Additionally, there were the healing Blue Morpho Butterflies. Because of their highly ornamental nature, Rhode "protected" them this time, keeping them as pets, and then casually emptied a few food storages.
··············
As for the Purple Moths with poison powder abilities, Rhode planned to use them as a base to fuse various abnormal characteristics of monsters from the middle-level areas.
The last type of monster Rhode kept was the Dungeon worm.
Rhode's only reason for keeping them was that they were disgusting enough to cause sanity loss.
At this moment, Rhode was leisurely half-reclining on a thick tree trunk, a crystal-clear Blue Morpho Butterfly dancing on his fingertip.
A strong gust of wind howled!
A giant shadow enveloped the earth as Kamish, flapping her sky-obscuring dragon wings, descended from the sky.
With a loud "boom," she slammed a massive monster corpse onto the ground, making it tremble.
Then, she impatiently leaned her huge head, comparable to a small car, towards Rhode, rubbing against him affectionately and purring contentedly, awaiting her master's caress.
The poor Blue Morpho Butterfly, startled by this sudden commotion, trembled and quickly fluttered into Rhode's collar to hide.
Rhode helplessly stroked Kamish's warm, large nose, his gaze falling upon the corpse on the ground.
This giant dragon was over ten meters long and five meters wide.
The membranes of its wings on its back were already tattered from battle, but its hard, tree-bark-like dragon scales were also peeled off in chunks, and its gaping maw, large enough to swallow a person whole, was filled with sharp teeth.
A hint of surprise flashed in Rhode's eyes, then he chuckled and patted Kamish.
"No wonder you were in such a hurry to act cute with me; turns out you found a retainer that you're somewhat satisfied with."
A rare species, the Tree Dragon.
It usually appeared on the 24th floor; Kamish somehow managed to get this guy from somewhere.
.... ..... ...
This guy's potential ability was equivalent to Lv.4, making it the strongest monster on the 24th floor, but because it usually played the role of a treasure guardian, ordinary adventurers rarely encountered it directly.
"Roar—!"
Kamish seemed to be showing off her battle achievements, letting out a low growl behind her.
Immediately after, over a dozen slightly smaller wyverns each grabbed several enormous trees, as if uprooted from the ground, and slowly flew down, respectfully prostrating themselves before Rhode.
Rhode's gaze fell on those trees, or more precisely, on the gem-like, crystal-clear fruits growing on them.
He reached out and, using his Ruler's authority, drew a ruby-like fruit to himself.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, rare material: gem tree."
Rhode estimated the number of fruits before his eyes.
"This batch alone is probably worth at least two hundred million Valis."
He couldn't help but rub his chin, feeling quite pleased.
"On the surface, Alise and the others earn me prayer points, and in the Dungeon, the shadows earn me money. Doesn't that mean I can just slack off, haha."
Just then, the exploration team led by Enwei also returned silently.
She merely cast a cold glance at Kamish's offered "gift," snorted disdainfully, and then waved her hand.
Her subordinates immediately stepped forward, presenting their spoils from the expedition one by one before Rhode.
Besides the corpses of new monster types appearing in the middle levels, such as Battle Boars, Fire Birds, Mad Beetles, Mammoth Fools, and Sniper Dragonflies, there were also mountains of various collected materials.
"Oh, it's White Tree Leaf?" Rhode's eyes lit up.
"I remember Lyra mentioning that this material is currently out of stock in all item shops, so it should fetch a high price."
He was not stingy with his praise.
"Good, well done."
He planned to stock a batch of high-level equipment in the shop in the future for the girls to exchange, as the variety of redeemable items in the shop was still too small.
By the way, Apophis was also complaining that she didn't know what to make the next limited gacha banner about.
However, even with a friendly discount, asking Tsubaki to make them would still cost a considerable labor fee.
Unless, he found a way to trick… invite Tsubaki herself over. Then, she might become the first person to be paid to work.
Or he could just raid her home and have Hephaestus join his warm big family!
The Court of the Stars was a bit small, but Kamui Space was quite large.
"Hehehe…"
Hearing her master's praise, Enwei, who had just looked aloof, immediately squirmed and moved closer to Rhode, also raising her head and looking at him with expectant eyes, asking for a head pat as well.
After Rhode's palm landed on her head and gently stroked it, she comfortably narrowed her eyes.
Then, she secretly glanced at Kamish not far away, proudly raising her slender neck, her expression silently declaring.
"Did you see? I am the ultimate victor!"
Kamish snorted two hot streams of air from her nostrils, too lazy to bother with this overly jealous woman.
Enwei, after all, had inherited the knowledge of a Lv.4 adventurer; she naturally knew that this area was a designated collection zone for many adventurers' quests.
Besides various herbs that provided quick stamina recovery and detoxification effects, even the dazzling moss that formed the light source could be exchanged for a good amount of money on the surface.
Under her leadership, the fifty-person female unit had practically scoured the entire 19th floor.
Wherever they passed, not a blade of grass remained! Xiao.