Backed up Against a Corner

After I went through the 13th floor, my excitement turned into disappointment as so far there was no real difference to the monsters and their strengths. As I breezed through the floor, I was utterly bored so I decided to check my stats for a bit.

'System, display UI.'

[FOR HONOR SYSTEM]

[Armory]

Host: Reza (Half-Angel)

Equipment:

(Armor)

Helm: Helm of Dullahan

Arms: Arms of Dullahan

Chest: Chest of Dullahan

Legs: Legs of Dullahan

(Ambrosia)

Blade: Blade of Golden Aleister

Hilt: Hilt of Golden Aleister

Guard: Guard of Golden Aleister

Status:

Level: 2 (0/1000)

Power: 129 H (2527)

Endurance: 126 H (2524)

Dexterity: 125 H (2523)

Agility: 128 H (2526)

Magic: 0 I (0)

Abilities:

[Warden of the Fallen]

Rank: S

[Parry]

Rank: D

[Divine Sword Talent]

Rank: A

[Slash]

Rank: D

[Pierce]

Rank: D

[Shoulder Bash]

Rank: E

[Devour]

Rank: S

[Phantom]

Rank: A

[Bloodlust]

Rank: A

[Blood of the Primordial]

Rank: S

[Wings of the Fallen]

Rank: S

While I inspected my progress, I furrowed my brows and became frustrated.

'Although I already expected had known that progressing my stats would become harder as I raised my stats, I didn't think that the stats that the orcs and infant dragons gave me would decrease so soon...'

I already slaughtered quite a large amount of monsters which would have probably given me around 300+ stats in my previous level. However, that increase suddenly decreased by around 3 times and was still decreasing even more as I slaughtered more and more of them. After sighing once more at my ever-decreasing progress, I actually entered and breezed through the 14th floor as well and found myself at the end of the 14th floor already. After exiting the 14th floor and entering the 15th floor, I finally came across a new species of monster which seemed to resemble the Minotaur that I've read of from my previous world's Greek mythology.

'Finally, some new prey!'

I thought to myself happily as I began to attack attack them in a frenzy. After slaughtering quite a few minotaurs, my excitement began to fizzle out once more as they were undoubtedly weaker than myself.

'Well, at least they still give out quite a bit more stats than the orcs and infant dragons... Better than nothing I guess. There souls taste quite a bit better too.'

As I was thinking about the taste of the Minotaur's soul, an interesting thought came to mind.

'Maybe my soul has a stomach as well which gets tired after eating the same 'dish' over and over again... Perhaps that would explain the lessening of the stats besides it naturally getting harder to increase them the higher the number goes...'

Once again, as the stats given out by the minotaurs began to lessen by a significant degree, coupled with the fact that my excitement from seeing and battling them totally bottomed out, I thought of various other things while I breezed through the 15th to 16th floors. Finally, an idea that would bring some fun to me came to mind.

'Didn't I have some wings that the Warden gave me? Since no one is around to witness me at the moment, this is the best time to try them out!'

I briefly stopped my slaughter of the minotaurs as I quickly felt and activated the ability.

[Wings of the Fallen]

For a brief moment, I felt an excruciating amount of pain coming from my back, as if something was trying to burst out from it. After a moment passed, the [Angel Wings] finally came out of my back. It felt as if I grew another pair of arms which made it really confusing for my brain to process for a bit which were me arms and which were my wings. After a while, I got the hang of it and started to practice flying. Although I kept face-planting to the ground after trying to fly a few times, I finally got a hang of it and soared through the skies.

'Well, this isn't really the skies as I'm currently in a dungeon. No matter, the feeling of flying is a truly amazing thing.'

However, due to me being infatuated at the time with the feeling of flying, I failed to notice the faint tremors that came from the dungeon floor which seemed to have triggered in response to the release of my wings...

______________________________________________

Around 10 minutes after I learned to fly with my wings, I was able to quickly reach the end of the 16th floor while slaughtering many minotaurs along the way.

'Damn, flying really is convenient... If only I could use my wings all the time.'

I sighed at my thought of using my wings outside as that would truly be too much of a giveaway to the Gods that I am a Warden or possibly some other creature that they betrayed in the olden times.

'Well, time to enter the next floor.'

I thought to myself as I exited the 16th floor and entered the 17th floor. As soon as I entered, however, I suddenly felt a large amount of danger and quickly flew up as soon as I entered the 17th floor. Sure enough, I made the correct decision to quickly fly upwards as I saw something dangerous when I looked down.

'Is that some sort of laser or something?'

As I looked down, I saw some sort of red laser beam which made me feel hot and sweaty even from the distance I was viewing it from. Then, I traced the blue laser beam-looking attack back to it's source and found a titanic-like figure which made me widen my eyes.

'If I remember correctly... That is the abnormal goliath that was spawned because the dungeon found out of the presence of a Hestia, a Goddess, inside it. Well, if a goliath spawned before I entered the room, I guess that would be purely a coincidence. But, this goliath is also a dark-skinned, abnormal goliath... Did a God enter the dungeon just now or something?'

I thought to myself as I was really confused as to why an abnormal goliath spawned. Then, my eyes subconsciously looked towards my beautiful dark, fluttering wings. It was then that my eyes almost popped out at the revelation that I came to understand.

"Fuck, has the dungeon interpreted my wings to be some sort of divinity?"

I muttered to myself softly as I observed the Black Goliath that was roaring ever-so incessantly at me, seemingly frustrated at the fact that it couldn't reach me. Suddenly, it tried to use it's laser beam attack on me once more which abruptly brought me out of my thoughts as I dodged it.

'Tsk, although I probably out-speed it by a long shot, it's endurance and Power alone would make it for me to be almost impossible to defeat...'

As I entertained the thought of retreating and letting other people handle the abnormal monster, another realization came to mind which made me nervously sweat even more compared to when the Black Goliath was shooting his laser beams on me.

'Wait, if I do that, won't the adventurers that come to take care of it report back to their Gods that it was abnormally odd-looking and stronger compared to usual? And, as they came to the conclusion that Hestia was the one who caused it to spawn because of her divinity, wouldn't they also come to the same conclusion if they were to find out about this?'

I shivered at the thought of the Gods discovering my presence this early on as my strength was nowhere near being able to resist the onslaught of all of their adventurers and powers. After trying to find various different answers to my problem, I calmed myself down as I glared at the Black Goliath whose bloodcurdling roars against me probably already alarmed some of the adventurers in the lower and upper floors.

"Seems like my only way out of this is to kill you, you loud motherfucker."