Lili stood on a stool, carefully preparing the ingredients.
"Wait… Mikoto-sama, no matter how badly you want to win, you can't shake Lili's stool!"
Lili puffed out her cheeks, her hands freezing mid-motion.
"I would never do something so underhanded!"
Mikoto shot back at once.
But then she felt the tremor beneath her feet and frowned.
"This is… an earthquake?!"
"Lili's never heard of earthquakes happening in the Dungeon…"
After glancing at the ingredients on the table, Lili stopped hesitating and quickly jumped down from the stool.
"Something must be happening outside. Could it be a monster attack?"
Mikoto hastily wrapped up the rice ball she had just shaped and rushed toward the door.
The ground trembled silently. Signs from the makeshift open-air stalls toppled over one after another, drawing curses from their owners.
"What the hell is this?! Stop it!"
"It's not me!"
"What's going on…?"
Shock quickly turned into uproar as the people of Rivira Town poured out of their buildings.
The shaking grew more intense. Then someone suddenly muttered,
"What's that above us…?"
Everyone held their breath and stared upward.
The white crystal illuminating the entire floor began to dim. Within its glow, a massive silhouette took shape.
It wasn't floating in the sky. It was seeping into the very core of the light, giving birth to countless black shadows.
"The pitch-black calamity…"
Cassandra whispered under her breath, too soft for anyone else to hear.
The shadows writhed like living things within the crystal's heart.
In the next instant—
A violent tremor swept through the entire street. Before the adventurers could even finish complaining, the sharp crack of fracturing crystal echoed overhead.
A sharp snapping sound rang out.
The black mass seemed to vent its fury against the crystal itself, pressing fracture after fracture across its surface.
"Hey… isn't that the exact spot we were planning to hunt at earlier?"
A chill raced down Welf's spine.
"…Yeah. It is."
Lili frowned.
"If we'd been over there, who knows what would've happened… This is supposed to be a safe floor. Don't tell me that black monster is going to fall down?!"
Just imagining it made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
Daphne glanced at Cassandra before immediately turning away.
"There's no time to think about this. We need to run."
Within seconds, the cracks spread and the tremors intensified.
The monsters inside the eighteenth floor began roaring one after another, as if responding to the black shadow above.
Anyone could see it—the Dungeon itself was changing.
"Run!!"
Adventurers surged toward the southern archway in a panic.
But before anyone could escape the town, the thunderous crash of collapsing rock drowned out the sound of shattering crystal.
"The passage to the seventeenth floor is blocked?!"
"Damn it! The Dungeon isn't letting us leave this floor!"
"You've got to be kidding me!"
The rough-faced adventurers were now pale with anxiety.
As curses filled the air, fragments of crystal began to rain down like a storm.
The white light dimmed further, and at last, the black shadow revealed its true form.
"What is that?!"
"A pitch-black Goliath…?!"
The answer came in the form of a massive head emerging from the shattered light.
Its enormous eyes were wide open, as if looking down on everything—or searching for something specific.
"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!!!!"
With a roar that froze the blood in their veins, the giant tore itself free from the crystal's radiance and crashed down along with what had once resembled a false sky.
A pitch-black meteor slammed into the ground. The white crystal shattered completely, its light extinguished.
Only the remaining blue crystals hung high above, casting down a cold glow that declared the arrival of [Night].
That icy blue light illuminated the terrifying body of the Monster Rex.
"Daphne-sama!"
Lili didn't say anything else. She simply called their commander's name and waited for instructions.
"…"
Daphne narrowed her sharp eyes and scanned the entire floor.
In a situation this abnormal, choosing the right direction to flee was everything.
Even with the passage to the seventeenth floor buried beneath boulders, adventurers still threw themselves toward it one after another.
Goliath had crashed down onto the grassland near the central tree.
Judging by the distance, heading for the southern passage and hoping someone's magic could blast the rocks away was, on paper, the most reasonable option.
But would the Dungeon really let them escape so easily?
With the lives of the entire group resting on her shoulders, cold sweat beaded on Daphne's forehead.
If Cassandra hadn't stopped them with that strange excuse, they probably wouldn't have even had time to run.
Was that simply luck, or was there something else behind it?
And what, exactly, was different about that Black Goliath?
Daphne's thoughts spun, but she couldn't reach a conclusion.
"Um… Lili thinks we should follow behind those adventurers and let them scout ahead!"
Seeing Daphne hesitate, Lili decisively voiced her "shameless" idea.
According to the Guild's information, the Floor Boss Goliath didn't have any long-range attacks. If they stayed behind the crowd, they could test whether the passage to the seventeenth floor could be dug open.
"No…"
Cassandra shot the proposal down, trembling.
"Lili knows it's shameless, but—"
"That's not the reason. We can't go that way!"
Cassandra tried to keep her emotions in check, but her voice still came out sharper and heavier than she intended.
The prophecy contained phrases like [Life and Death Reversed] and [Hear the Bells]. Cassandra was certain that if there was any way to break through this despair, Bell would be the key.
This wasn't a calamity they could simply run away from.
They couldn't place their hopes on the passage to the seventeenth floor. That "light of hope" everyone was rushing toward would only shove them straight into the abyss of death.
"Cassandra… don't tell me you're going to bring up those weird dreams again…?"
Daphne didn't know why, but the moment she saw her friend acting strangely, she thought of those dreams she'd mentioned before.
Skepticism and impatience rose up in her all at once.
"…"
Cassandra fell silent for a moment.
She bit her lip, then answered, "No, it's not that… I just think we need to go to the passage to the nineteenth floor."
"Cassandra-dono, that's right near the Floor Boss…"
Mikoto looked into the distance.
The Goliath that had fallen from above had already steadied itself. Its entire body was pitch black, and its blood-red eyes roamed restlessly over the area.
It was searching for something.
Perhaps because it hadn't found its target yet, it was momentarily dazed—standing still, not moving, not attacking.
But the crushing pressure of its presence mixed with the monsters' roars, grinding down everyone's nerves.
If anyone had been near Goliath when it hit the ground, they would have been chased down and crushed beneath that massive body.
The giant wouldn't stay confused forever.
Every second mattered.
Cassandra drew a deep breath and said,
"I know it's dangerous over there, but the Captain is there. If they got hurt on the twenty-fourth floor and only just managed to make it back here…"
Mikoto's expression wavered.
Lili's brow tightened as well.
With Bell and the others' strength, if nothing had happened on the twenty-fourth floor, they would have returned long ago.
Looked at that way, the chance that Bell and the others would come back battered and bloodied was high.
No one in this group wanted to leave the young man to shoulder the danger alone.
Daphne looked at the friend beside her and couldn't feel even a trace of Cassandra's usual pessimism or timidity.
She blinked once, then spoke for them all.
"Decision made. We're going to the entrance to the passage to the nineteenth floor."