176. The S-Rank Dungeon (VIII)

They took a short break in the lair. Zane munched on soul recovery treasures, while Reina, Avery, and Evan munched on essence treasures.

Once they were sure he was fine, everyone else took sighs of relief. He'd given Evan and Avery a bit of a scare, and Reina more than a bit, but things turned out okay. They were in pretty good spirits after that.

Reina brought out some food she'd packed—giant legs of juicy meat, all A-rank treasures, which they had for a sort of dinner.

Reina was trying to convince him that unless he had to use the Cyclone, other choices would be better, at least for now. She bit her lip. She was flushed just thinking about it.

He assured her it'd be okay—he told her about his new control Skill. He tried it out to demonstrate. When he had tried forcing his will on essence before it'd felt like brute force. But now he could fashion his soul into a kind of tool—firm a shape, find handles on the stuff. It made it easier to hold it down, to wrestle it into shapes he liked.

He sparked up some Stormfire. Holding it at bay was much easier now—he tried his darndest, forcing the full weight of his soul on the little bright star of Stormfire in the middle of his palm, and found he could even stop the crackles, the flickers—if briefly. He found Stormfire quite slippery, especially when he tried for precise control like this.

He tried probing Reina's, Avery's, and Evan's essences too. He didn't think he could wrestle them away if he tried—he could feel how firmly connected they were to their owners. But interestingly he felt he might be able to throw them off, cause them some issues. There was a Skill here somewhere.

Some kind of Soul skill? He frowned. This was getting to be a whole new kind of technique. He didn't even know what to call it, much less use it. He figured he'd need some kind of manual for that. A vision maybe.

Still, Zane told Reina he would be careful. If there was a better choice he'd take it.

"The Cyclone also makes it harder for us to support you," she said. She was still holding him and healing him. He was pretty sure he was fine now, really this time. It was more for her peace of mind than anything.

"We can't get close—the farther I am the harder it is to heal you. And it takes so long to get those spins going, especially underwater! That's a big risk. We could only distract those Blobs because they were immobile and easily befuddled. If something faster and sharper comes at us, you won't have that time."

"Let us back you up," she said earnestly. "You won't need to take those risks if we work closer together."

"Sure," he said.

She made good sense to him. And it would help her feel less stressed, which he liked—he saw the tension go out of her shoulders; she broke into a smile. Whenever she smiled at him like this he felt a strange tender warmth in his chest. It made him want to make her do it more.

***

Reina's healing him also helped her Law, it turned out. She'd been troubled lately by the thought she wouldn't be able to keep up with him to help him. So she'd been pouring a lot of her own time into solo comprehension. She'd gotten a good ways into Earth Laws, and was even touching upon a Concept.

Her comprehension was quite high—an A9. It'd only be a matter of time. For her, pouring her Skill on him was almost like meditating at times. He felt the wisps of a Concept in there, something to do with growth and new things.

It would come.

***

The Boss also dropped some treasures. Slabs of thick glowing white meat. They looked incredibly juicy.

𝔽𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕪 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕓 𝕄𝕖𝕒𝕥 (𝕊) 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕓 𝕂𝕚𝕟𝕘'𝕤 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕤 𝕚𝕥 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖-𝕕𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕖 𝕗𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕙 𝕠𝕗 𝕒𝕟𝕪 𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 ℂ𝕠𝕣𝕖. 𝔸 𝕤𝕦𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕓 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕔𝕖.

They all got their slabs and started to munch.

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟟𝟡 -> 𝟙𝟠𝟘

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟠𝟘 -> 𝟙𝟠𝟙

It was interesting that these slabs gave more essence than the Boss itself. Reina, as always, had a few theories. The first was that since they were drops, they were much more concentrated than the actual skin of the Blob Monsters.

The second—"We don't get all the essence from a slain Monster," she said, holding up a finger. "Not even close. A good chunk goes to us, but much of it disperses into the dungeon itself."

She thought that—like some slain adventurers' treasures and bodies—they got recycled into the System. As some kind of fuel. It was interesting, but Zane didn't know what to make of it. He just assumed she was right, which was usually a safe bet.

By the end of it Reina was in the mid-160s. Same for Avery. Evan had got up to Level 175, and was as fresh and excited as he was when he stepped into the dungeon.

They all went down to the third floor in a chipper mood.

***

The floors were separated by two things as far as Zane could tell: darkness and pressure. As they dropped lower and lower, sunlight became a distant memory. It could've been hours, even days since they'd last seen it. The darkness down here felt almost physical. It was there in its Elemental form, thickening the water, making it nearly a sludge.

𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕:

𝔽𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕣 𝟛, ℍ𝕒𝕕𝕒𝕝 ℤ𝕠𝕟𝕖

𝕋𝕠 ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕤:

𝕊𝕝𝕒𝕪 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝔹𝕝𝕠𝕓 𝕂𝕚𝕟𝕘

(𝟘/𝟙)

Just swimming took some effort for Avery, Reina, and Evan. There were thousands upon thousands of feet of unnaturally heavy waters pressing down on them—strong enough to flatten solid metal cubes in an instant. But they wore treasure armors, which were more than just dead pieces of metal. They draped a layer of essence protection over them too, taking off much of the load.

Even so, they had to stop for rest breaks every half an hour of hard swimming or so. Zane saw his friends struggling and panting, frowning. Reina especially was having a rough go of it, even though she pretended she was fine. He wished he knew some way to transfer all their weights onto himself.

They kept swimming.

After a while, they noticed some lights in the distance. Little lights twinkling like distant stars. They drew closer and closer… Evan started drifting ahead, wide-eyed and gasping. He looked a little entranced.

Zane frowned. He could feel some kind of power drifting off that light, something in the astral plane. Something whispering to his soul, trying to dig its hooks into him…

Avery grabbed Evan by the ear. "Nope!"

Evan blinked confused. "Heh?"

Avery sighed. "You're like a lil' panda aren't you?"

"Heh?"

"You woulda died a hundred times over if it weren't for all my conservation efforts!" She gave him a flick on the head.

Evan looked abashed. "…I screwed up again?"

He looked briefly sad. Zane could feel he was trying his best. He was a just also quite gullible. He couldn't help it.

"That's okay," said Avery. She gave him a headpat. "Try again. What's rule number one?"

Evan blinked at the light. Frowned at it a bit. Then gasped.

"Ooh! There's a Monster behind it, isn't there?"

Avery gave him a pat on the head. "Very good! See, that was faster this time! You're improving."

Evan beamed. He turned to Zane. "I'm improving!"

Zane also gave him a pat on the head.

"Now throw some light on it and show us," said Avery.

"Um. Okay!"

He raised his sword; out came a broad blast of sunlight, a flash.

Then they saw the thing that little shiny light was attached to. That absolute darkness, which had seemed so empty, wasn't empty after all.

Most of the dark just in front of them was filled. Within striking range. But an absolute behemoth.

A strip of flesh like a fishing rod, arching in a long loop…

It connected to the head of a Monster.

ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕡𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕖𝕖𝕡 (𝕄𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣)

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟡𝟟

It looked like an Anglerfish had been put through a vat of acid, then blown up to a hundred times its size. Its skin was wrinkled, rough, charred; it looked very old. Each of the teeth in its mouth was as tall as a tree trunk, honing down to points as narrow as needles… points glimmering with Electricity Law…

Its Skin was saturated with the same deep Absorption Concept as the Blob King.

It was dangerously close to Level 200. By Level it was almost as strong too.

Evan cried out.

Then it lunged for them, moving at speeds Zane never would've thought possible for something that big. The whole ocean seemed to lurch as it came; great pools of water were smashed out of the way, spinning up whirlpool currents in its wake.

Frowning, Zane moved to intercept it.

At the same time, Avery gave a battle cry. She cast an illusion; they shifted a dozen feet to the right. The huge beast stilled, snarled, charged the bait, missed—

And Zane's meteors smashed into that rough hide, detonating smoking, crackling craters. The beast howled. When he retracted his hammers, it looked like half the beast's sides had been scooped out by a rough spoon. And a field of Stormfire raged in the aftermath…

𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!

𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕞𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 𝕊𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕙 𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀𝕀

He noticed how much energy was in his Stormfire Smash before. He struck, and it exploded wantonly. Much of it hit the enemy, but much of it went everywhere else.

But with his new skill, he could force every bit of it straight into the Monster's defenses.

The Reaper wheeled back around in a fury, let out a deathly shriek, and threw back its counter.

Pure Electricity raced out its mouth, a dazzling pillar of lightning, instantaneous. And though Zane often found himself too slow to dodge these kinds of strikes, he at least had time to brace for them. His essence was welling up in him, his whole body clenched firm—and he took it head-on.

It felt like he'd stuck his hand straight in a socket—a torrent of pain crackled down his body, seizing his muscles; he couldn't even grip his Chains. His fingers were twitching, locked out straight. It had him jerking all over the place. He gritted his teeth, wrestled with his own body, managed by sheer force of will to squeeze his jerking fist shut…

His Health started dipping fast.

But the Monster was draining all its essence to bind him like this. It felt a huge amount of danger from Zane; just one look at him, and it'd felt a sharp pang of fear. Zane noticed he had that effect sometimes. He seemed to have an aura.

But to hold him here, it had to ignore his friends.

"Clear Beam Slash!" cried Evan. There was a slash of hot sunlight, and the beam broke off. The Reaper jerked away hissing, eyes scalding—and Zane got the opening he wanted.

His other hammer swung around in a wide arc. And clocked the beast straight in its ugly saggy face.

Dozens of teeth snapped in half like toothpicks. Its nose squashed in with a sharp CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! It screeched, careening away.

When it came close again, Avery distracted it, Evan blinded it, and Zane took care of the smashing—and simply ate whatever it gave him, the few times it managed a shot off. Every time he got hurt, Reina was there for him, healing him up—and she was getting noticeably better at it each time she did. He kept smashing, and smashing, and smashing…

When the fight ended, he was barely under 90%. Breathing a little heavy, but that was all.

That went pretty darn well, all told.

There were fewer Monsters down here. But each one was like that Reaper, like a mini-Boss. You had to be quite strong just to exist in these waters.

They made their way to the walls, which opened up into a maze of trenches, linking to form gorges slicing deep into the earth.

There were fewer treasure areas down here too. Just two in the range of their mini-map. No chests. But each yellow dot was much bigger than any they'd seen so far.

A giant red dot blocked off the first.

They waded toward it.