Leaving behind the peaceful glowing light of Floor 18, Alfia and Aria stepped into the giant hole that served as the gateway to the Large Tree Labyrinth on Floor 19.
The atmospheric change occurred instantly. The soothing blue phosphor light was replaced by the damp and suffocating gloom of moss green. Tree roots the size of buildings intertwined, forming complex tunnels, bridges, and labyrinth walls. The air was thick with the scent of rotting wood, poisonous sap, and the snorting breaths of hungry beasts.
For ordinary adventurers, the Middle Floors were where the Dungeon began to show its true fangs. Poor visibility and uneven terrain were deadly traps. But for two existences possessing power far beyond common sense, this floor was merely a slightly messy footpath.
"The terrain here is designed to slow footsteps and break formations. We don't have time for that," said Alfia, her heterochromatic eyes scanning the root structure ahead of them. She turned to Aria. "Sylphie, create an air foothold. I will act as the path clearer."
Aria smiled elegantly. "With pleasure."
The Great Spirit raised her hand. The Wind element rustled, forming an invisible flat vortex beneath both of their feet. Gravity seemed to lose its meaning. Alfia and Aria shot forward, flying along the labyrinth's root tunnels at a speed resembling a cannonball.
GROOOAAR!
From behind a giant root in front of them, three Bugbears—thick-furred humanoid monsters with muscles capable of crushing steel—leaped out to ambush. Behind them, a swarm of Mad Beetles prepared to fire poisonous spores.
Alfia did not reduce her flying speed in the slightest. Her left hand raised, her fingertips glowing with incredibly dense silver light. As the peak mage of the Hera Familia, she knew that efficiency was everything.
"Gospel."
That single word was spoken with perfect Concurrent Chanting speed. The air in front of Alfia exploded. A sonic blade of destructive power shot out, cleaving the three Bugbears into two precise halves before they even reached the apex of their jump.
The poisonous spores fired by the Mad Beetles instantly reversed direction as Aria snapped her fingers, creating a momentary vacuum that sucked up the poison and blasted it back toward the swarm of beetles. A rain of crystal dust fell like green snow behind them, while Alfia and Aria were already hundreds of meters ahead.
The expedition piercing through Floors 19 to 24 proceeded without pause. This was not an exploration, but a dance of mass extermination. Alfia, with her absolute combat instincts, severed every threat in their blind spots. Meanwhile, Aria ensured that not a single surprise attack or environmental trap could touch them.
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In just a matter of hours, they broke through to Floor 25, where the environment changed into the Water Capital. Giant waterfalls, underground rivers, and blue crystals dominated the scenery.
The roaring sound of water drowned out hearing. From the cavern ceiling, thousands of Iguazus—blue-feathered demon birds that dove at incredible speeds—formed a dark cloud ready to tear apart anyone passing by. Beneath the water's surface, giant Blue Crabs lurked.
"These birds are a waste of time if I have to blow them up one by one," Alfia clicked her tongue, preparing to unleash an area-of-effect spell.
"Save your magic energy, Alfia. Let me," Aria held her back with a gentle yet authoritative tone.
Aria spread both her arms. Her hazel eyes flashed with the golden glint of purity for a moment. "Sleep."
A giant wind corridor—a wind tunnel pressurized with billions of tons—formed along their flight path. When those thousands of Iguazus dove down, they were instantly sucked into the vortex. The sound of horrifying squeaks was heard momentarily before the birds' bodies were compressed and pulverized into magic dust. Even the giant crabs attempting to leap from the water were instantly sliced by invisible wind blades at the corridor's borders.
Alfia stared in awe at the safe and dry wind corridor in the middle of the Water Capital.
"The power of a Great Spirit... is truly an unfair joke to humanity," murmured Alfia, shaking her head slowly before shooting forward again.
Thanks to that absurd speed and terrifying synergy, they cleared the Lower Middle Floors in record time that the Guild would never believe.
Entering the sixth hour of their exploration, they arrived at the true hell of slaughter: Floor 37, the White Palace.
The walls, floor, and ceiling here were made of bone-white material. The corridors formed an endless circular labyrinth designed to make adventurers get lost and go mad. Worse still, the monster spawn rate here was illogical. Hundreds of Spartoi (tough skeleton warriors) and Loup Garous (ferocious werewolves) flooded the corridors as if the labyrinth was vomiting its contents.
Alfia stared at the long corridor filled with hundreds of skeletons before her. She took a deep breath.
"The structure of this floor is designed like a conch shell. If we follow its path, we will waste precious time just going in circles," Alfia analyzed coldly. Her heterochromatic eyes looked straight at the floor beneath her feet. "We are above the room of the regular boss Udaeus. Down there is a direct route to Floor 39."
"What is your plan?" asked Aria, maintaining the perimeter with her wind wall.
"Why bother looking for the stairs down..." Alfia smirked ferociously, raising her right hand high. A glow of black and white mana began to swirl around her, creating a hum that made the air of the White Palace vibrate violently. "...if we can make our own hole?"
Alfia's Concurrent Chanting this time was not held back. This was her absolute destruction magic, the magic that had once leveled monsters from the golden age of Orario.
"—Pierce through, Satanas Verion!"
A giant blade of sound waves and black-and-white light exploded from her palm, slamming into the white floor beneath their feet with the force of a falling meteor.
BLAAAM!!
Floor 37, claimed to be indestructible, cracked and exploded into pieces. The sonic blast drilled straight through the thickness of the labyrinth, annihilating hundreds of Spartoi trapped in its radius, and punching straight through to create a giant crater on Floor 39.
"Down!" shouted Alfia, leaping into the gaping hole she had just created.
Aria followed, using a thick cushion of wind to catch their landing at the bottom of the crater so Alfia wouldn't feel the impact of such a height.
They continued to use these extreme and brutal tactics. They did not play by the labyrinth's rules. With absolute power, they tore through the Dungeon itself.
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Entering the tenth hour of exploration, the Dungeon environment once again underwent a radical change.
They had crossed the boundary of Floor 49 and were now setting foot on the 50th floors. The Dragon Territory.
Here was where the true line between "adventurer" and "hero" was tested. The labyrinth walls were blazing red volcanic rock. Magma flowed through cracks in the ground, and the air temperature could easily roast mortal humans alive.
RROOAAARR!
A Valgang Dragon—a giant dragon with dark red scales—emerged from behind a cliff. It opened its jaws, preparing to spew hellfire reaching thousands of degrees.
"The heat is annoying," complained Alfia casually. Her stamina as a Level 7 was nearly limitless, but the scorching heat burning her skin was still not a pleasant sensation.
"I will cool it down," Aria replied calmly.
The Great Spirit stepped forward. As the Valgang Dragon spewed its sea of fire, Aria simply twisted her palm. The air in front of them instantly froze, forming an airless vacuum shield that absorbed the absolute heat and split the dragon's fire breath into two streams that missed and hit the cliff walls. The remaining wind blowing toward Alfia felt as cool as an autumn breeze.
Seeing an opening when the dragon ran out of breath, Alfia dashed. Her feet kicked off the volcanic cliff wall, leaping right to the side of the dragon's neck.
"Gospel."
A close-range sonic blast instantly shattered the dragon's skull, piercing straight through to break the magic stone in its heart. The red giant instantly turned into crystal ash swept into the magma.
"Let's keep moving. Don't give them time to gather," instructed Alfia without losing the rhythm of her breathing in the slightest.
Their journey through the Dragon Territory proceeded at a deadly pace. Deinos Suchus (giant prehistoric crocodiles) and various dragon hybrids continually tried to intercept them. However, with Aria manipulating the air pressure and Alfia acting as the pure executioner, the giants were brought down as if they were mere Upper Floor monsters.
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Half a day since they breached the entrance of Babel on the surface, the red glow of boiling lava slowly began to fade.
The roaring sound of magma was replaced by a gripping silence. The hard and rough volcanic rock beneath their feet was gradually covered by a layer of frost, which grew thicker and thicker until it turned into a slick, solid footing of blue ice.
The air temperature plummeted extremely. The air that could previously burn lungs now felt like thousands of ice needles piercing the skin with every breath.
They had arrived at Floor 58. The initial border leading to the Glacier Territory, the deepest zone ever mapped by the Zeus and Hera factions.
Alfia landed lightly on the ice floor. Her breath puffed into white mist in the freezing air. The insane speed of piercing through 58 floors in twelve hours had not at all depleted her immense magic reserves as a Level 7 adventurer. Her heart beat at a calm rhythm, proving that her body was still in prime condition.
Aria floated down beside her, her light cloak unaffected by the freezing weather. Her spiritual core provided absolute warmth that defied the natural laws of the mortal world.
"The air temperature drops drastically at this border, Alfia," said Aria, observing her surroundings. "We should take a five-minute break here. Even though your Mind is extraordinary, you need to adjust your gear and supplies in the bag and stabilize your Mind reserves before we enter Floor 60."
Alfia nodded in agreement. She took a thick leather cloak out of her backpack and immediately put it on. "Makes sense. My Mind is still very full, but I don't want to be careless and disrupt the speed of my magic chanting. We are very close."
Aria closed her eyes, focusing her maternal instincts. The spiritual resonance between her and her flesh and blood felt very strong, pulsing in harmony with her soul. The purity of the wind flowing within Ais's body seemed to call out to her, a bond that could not be severed by distance or time. Her daughter was down there. Just one step away.
However, barely two minutes after Alfia leaned her back against an ice pillar to let her body adapt to the temperature, her combat instincts forged from thousands of battles suddenly twitched violently. The hairs on her neck stood on end.
Alfia opened her eyes. Her gaze sharpened, piercing through the pitch-black ice corridor.
The freezing air blowing up from the floor below carried something wrong. Very wrong.
The labyrinth always smelled of dust, rock, blood, or sulfur. But the wind blowing onto Floor 58 carried a scent that made Alfia's stomach churn. It was the smell of organic rot. The smell of peeling flesh, poisonous slime, and thick, rotting blood.
Aria felt it too. The Great Spirit stood tall, her hazel eyes narrowing sharply. Her aura of gentleness vanished, replaced by high-level vigilance.
"Do you smell it, Sylphie?" whispered Alfia. She stepped forward, her senses sharpened to the maximum limit. Her hands slowly gathered silver magic that crackled deadly in the cold air.
"Yes. Something is creeping up from down there," answered Aria coldly. "Something... filthy. Truly filthy. The wind element around it is contaminated by their presence."
From the darkness of the ice corridor ahead of them, came the sound of claws dragging on ice, followed by a low growl that sounded like a combination of various vocal cords of deformed beasts.
A massive shadow slowly crept out from behind the freezing fog.
At first, Alfia thought it was a Deinos Suchus, a giant land crocodile common in the lower regions. But when the creature's form was exposed to the light from the ice's glow, Alfia's eyes narrowed in horror.
The creature did possess the basic skeletal structure of a giant crocodile, but its body was a nightmare anomaly. Its scales were peeled off, revealing rotting blackish-red muscles dripping with thick purple slime that eroded the ice beneath it. Even crazier, arms resembling the pincers of a Blue Crab grew from the creature's back, and its head was split into three asymmetrical parts, radiating endless madness.
"What the hell is that thing..." hissed Alfia, her jaw clenching.
The anomalous creature stared at Alfia and Aria. All three of its heads opened their jaws, unleashing a roar that was a mix between a scream of pain and extreme hunger.
Responding to the threat, Alfia dashed with lightning speed.
"Gospel!"
The sonic blade struck true, crushing one of the disgusting monster's heads until it was smashed to pieces.
Alfia landed backward and waited for the creature to turn into ash, as per the absolute law of the Dungeon when a monster is killed or suffers a fatal wound.
However, that law did not apply.
The body of the headless monster did not fade at all. Thick black blood spewed from its shattered neck, and with horrifying jerky movements, the flesh around its neck began to forcibly knit itself back together, growing a lump of tumorous flesh that functioned as a new eye. The pincers on its back swung wildly, trying to pinch Alfia.
Alfia widened her eyes and immediately jumped backward to avoid the poisonous slash.
"It's not turning into ash!" exclaimed Alfia.
Aria floated into the air. Her eyes radiated holy anger seeing such a filthy existence dare to crawl closer.
"If it refuses to die, then I will erase it until not a single drop of blood remains," hissed Aria.
An emerald storm vortex exploded from the Great Spirit's palms. Hundreds of wind blades sharper than diamonds enveloped the monster. In a matter of seconds, the rotting anomalous body was minced into thousands of coin-sized pieces of meat. Its black slime and poisonous blood instantly froze and were swept away by the wind pressure before they could even touch the ice on the floor.
The pieces of meat finally stopped twitching, slowly melting into a puddle of disgusting black liquid that stained the ice crystals.
Alfia stared sharply at the black stain on the floor. Her genius brain worked at full speed, dissecting the information before her.
Labyrinth monsters always submit to the core rule. They are made of dust and magic stones, and will return to ash when destroyed, Alfia thought, her veteran instincts ringing loudly. This creature did not turn to ash. It rotted, bled, and tried to regenerate like a deformed creature. This is not a natural labyrinth monster. This is an anomaly.
Alfia looked straight toward the hole leading to Floor 60.
"Something down there is not just spawning monsters," murmured Alfia coldly, ensuring Aria heard her. "Something has corrupted and tainted them. There is a large-scale anomaly at the bottom of this glacier producing these abominations beyond the Dungeon's control and logic."
Aria landed beside Alfia, her face tense.
GRRRRRR... CRACK... SQUELCH...
The sound of dragging feet and distorted growls echoed again. This time, the sound did not just come from one corridor in front of them, but from all the crevices in the ice walls of Floor 58. An army of darkness was creeping up, breaching the floor's border.
A pair, ten pairs, fifty pairs of red and purple eyes radiating madness lit up within the ice fog.
The filthy hybrid army created from the anomaly at the bottom of Floor 60 had arrived, fully drawn by the aura of Aria's spiritual purity which contrasted sharply with their essence.
"It seems," said Alfia, spreading her arms as the glow of annihilation magic resonated in the surrounding air, "we won't be sneaking into Floor 60 quietly, Sylphie. Whatever is hiding down there has sent its welcoming committee."
Aria smiled coldly. Around her, the air element of Floor 58 began to rage, forming a large-scale storm ready to crush bones.
"Good," replied the Great Spirit of Wind, her eyes flashing defiantly at the darkness. "We destroy its army, then we annihilate the center of the anomaly."
The dance of death at the glacier's threshold had reached its climax. The true hell of the Dungeon had finally revealed its real face to two legends of the past.
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