Chapter 3
A few hours passed walking, and the two approached an unnatural opening, leading to a larger cave.
Alfia's grip tightened.
Cadmus.
A Floor Boss. A dragon of immense power, its scales harder than any steel, its fangs sharp enough to carve through even the most skilled adventurers.
If the Cadmus was here, then it should be the 51st floor.
Normally, this wouldn't be an issue.
Normally, she could handle this.
She was someone who could go toe to toe with Level 9s as a Level 7.
Even alone.
Even with its overwhelming strength.
But—
Her body was failing her.
Not from the battle before.
Not from wounds inflicted by the Dungeon's monsters.
No.
This weakness—this unbearable fatigue that clung to her like a shadow—was the result of a battle against people.
The Astraea Familia.
A battle fought not with monsters, but with warriors.
Adventurers who wielded their strength in the name of justice, striking down those they deemed evil.
She had fought them.
And even in victory, she had paid the price.
Her mind had been overstrained. Her body had been pushed beyond its limits. She was running on borrowed time, and she knew it.
Her incurable disease making her condition much worse, and her mind had just been recharging.
Could she still fight? Yes.
Would she win?
Not without consequence.
Her vision wavered for just a second, her breath shallower than it should have been.
Tch.
She clicked her tongue in frustration.
How pathetic.
A moment of weakness was all it would take for a battle like this to turn fatal. And she refused to let that happen.
Which meant…
She would have to rely on her.
Her gaze flickered toward the girl standing beside her.
Sitonai.
A being that should not exist in this world. A Heroic Spirit, as she called herself. Something beyond Alfia's understanding—an anomaly that shouldn't have been here.
But—
Right now, it didn't matter what she was.
What mattered was whether she could fight.
And then, as if she had been waiting for this moment—
Sitonai stepped forward.
A chill swept through the chamber, so subtle yet so absolute that Alfia felt it sink into her bones.
The playful gleam in Sitonai's eyes was still there, but it had shifted—warped into something deeper.
Something ancient.
Something divine.
A being who had seen death countless times, yet stood before it with an innocent smile.
"Ara~ Seems like you're hesitating, Miss Grumpy."
Alfia didn't respond.
She simply watched.
Sitonai exhaled softly, raising a hand.
The air grew colder.
The dragon's golden eyes narrowed, sensing the shift in power.
A pulse of something—an energy Alfia couldn't quite place—radiated from the girl beside her. It felt like magic, but at the same time, it wasn't.
Not mana. Not divinity.
Something different.
Then—
Sitonai spoke.
A name.
A declaration.
A force of nature given form.
—[Oputateshike Okimunpe.]
The temperature plunged.
Alfia's breath hitched as frost erupted across the cavern.
Ice, thick and pure, expanded in an instant, blooming like the fangs of a hungry goddess. The very walls of the Dungeon groaned under the sheer force of the freezing power that had been unleashed.
And at its center—
A beast emerged.
A monstrous, divine creature, fur white as untouched snow, fangs bared in regal authority.
A bear.
No—a guardian deity.
Sitonai's expression was serene, as if none of this was unexpected.
She stood, wreathed in frozen power, as the great beast loomed behind her.
Alfia's breath was steady, but her mind raced.
This power—
This felt like an arcanum.
The overwhelming force, the suffocating presence, the way the very air itself seemed to bow beneath its weight—these were unmistakably the marks of divine power.
And yet—
The Dungeon did not react.
No tremors. No violent rejection.
No sign of the Dungeon's fury against an intruder who bore the essence of the gods.
That should have been impossible.
The Dungeon hated divinity and the gods. It rejected it, lashed out at it with all the force of its endless malice. Even the gods, bound in their mortal shells, could not freely unleash their true power here without consequence.
But Sitonai—
The Dungeon recognized her power as something else entirely.
Despite the sheer presence of it, despite the cold certainty that she was wielding something beyond mortal comprehension—
It was not divinity.
Alfia didn't understand.
She had fought and seen gods before. She had seen the way the Dungeon roared in defiance at their presence.
But Sitonai's power…
It did not defy the Dungeon.
It superimposed her rules here.
And that realization sent a rare shiver down Alfia's spine.
This girl.
This fleeting spirit of ice and divinity.
She might just be more terrifying than the Cadmus itself.
The air was thick with frozen mist.
Cadmus's golden eyes burned with primal fury, its massive form towering over them. Scales gleamed like polished obsidian, each one layered like armor crafted by the gods themselves. Its breath was heavy, steaming against the unnatural cold that had invaded its domain.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then—
It moved.
The dragon's wings snapped open, a shockwave of force blasting through the cavern. The ground trembled beneath its sheer presence. With a snarl, it lunged, the cavern walls cracking from the sheer force of its charge.
Alfia remained still.
She could react. She should react.
But she didn't.
Because this time—
This battle belonged to her.
To Sitonai.
The girl met the dragon's charge without hesitation.
The great bear behind her—her divine guardian—let out a deafening roar. The very ice that had covered the cavern surged forward, spiking like frozen spears.
Crunch!
A glacial wall shattered as Cadmus's tail slammed into it, sending shards of ice scattering in all directions.
Sitonai didn't flinch.
She lifted her hand, and the cold deepened.
The ground beneath her rippled as ancient power surged forth. The great bear charged, its white fur bristling with frost.
Cadmus twisted, its maw opening wide—
A blast of searing flame erupted from its throat.
Alfia's breath hitched—
The cavern was instantly illuminated in hellfire. The ice, the frost—everything was bathed in golden-red light, as if the cold had never existed in the first place.
Heat exploded outward.
For a moment, the chill that Sitonai had brought into this place was consumed by the dragon's fury. The very air distorted, warping under the sheer heat of the blast.
Alfia shielded her eyes, her cloak billowing from the shockwave.
And yet—
As the flames cleared—
Sitonai still stood.
Her expression was untouched by concern.
The bear—her Noble Phantasm—had taken the brunt of the fire, its massive form standing defiantly against the dragon's breath. Ice had melted, steam rising in waves, but the beast did not fall.
In fact—
The moment the flames died, frost began creeping over the battlefield once more.
Alfia's eyes narrowed slightly.
She counteracted it?
It wasn't just resistance—Sitonai's ice was reclaiming the battlefield, as if the fire had never been there in the first place. A seamless shift, as if she held complete control over the elements themselves.
The Dungeon itself should have reacted to power like this, but it hadn't.
That alone was enough to make Alfia reassess her.
"Ara, what a naughty lizard~," Sitonai mused, dusting nonexistent debris from her sleeve. "Breathing fire without permission? How rude."
She raised a hand, the bear shifting as if responding to her thoughts.
Then—
Crack.
The Dungeon trembled as the temperature plummeted.
The frost returned with a vengeance, creeping faster, sharper. Ice coiled around Cadmus's legs, locking its movement for just a moment—
A moment was all she needed.
Sitonai moved.
Faster than Alfia expected.
A blur of white and blue, weaving through the battlefield like a wraith. Her feet barely touched the ground as she danced between the dragon's thrashing limbs.
A blade of ice formed in her hands.
No, not ice—something else.
Something older.
A weapon not forged, but manifested.
With a single step, she was beneath the dragon's exposed underbelly—
And she struck.
The blade cleaved upward, aimed directly for the chink between Cadmus's scales.
A roar tore through the chamber as the dragon reared back, its massive form convulsing from the attack. Blood—thick, dark, and steaming—splattered onto the frozen ground.
Alfia observed closely.
The wound was deep.
Too deep.
A blade of ice should not have been able to pierce that hide so easily.
And yet—
Sitonai only grinned, twirling her weapon as the frost around her deepened.
"Awww, did that hurt?" she cooed, tilting her head. "Poor thing. But don't worry~ I'll make it quick."
The dragon's rage ignited once more.
It slammed its tail downward—
But Sitonai didn't dodge.
She countered.
The bear leapt, meeting the dragon's force head-on. The impact sent another shockwave rippling through the chamber, ice and stone flying in all directions.
And at the center of it all—
Sitonai's smile never wavered.
Alfia exhaled slowly, her grip on her staff relaxed.
She had underestimated her.
Not out of arrogance, but because she had no reference for what Sitonai was. A divine spirit that wielded neither divinity nor magic, yet controlled the battlefield as if it were her own domain.
Not once had she faltered.
Not once had she lost momentum.
She fought with the confidence of someone who had done this a thousand times before—someone who knew exactly how this battle would end.
Cadmus roared.
The cavern trembled under its fury, its blood staining the frozen ground. The dragon's massive frame shuddered, struggling against the relentless ice creeping up its legs. Each breath it exhaled came out ragged, its golden eyes blazing with desperate resistance.
But it was over.
Sitonai twirled her ice-forged blade, her movements lazy, almost playful. The battle was already decided. The frost thickened around her, the air itself growing sharper, biting. The dungeon's darkness had been overtaken by the pale blue glow of encroaching ice.
Cadmus's wings flared open in defiance—
Crack!
The frost surged, encasing one of them in an instant. The weight of the ice pulled the wing down, shattering as the beast tried to move.
The dragon's body tensed, its tail whipping out one last time, desperate to crush the little girl that had humiliated it.
Sitonai didn't dodge.
She stepped forward, meeting the attack head-on.
With a flick of her wrist, the great bear behind her lunged, fangs bared. Its form shimmered as it collided with Cadmus's tail, an impact so forceful it sent cracks spiderwebbing through the ground beneath them.
Cadmus roared in pain.
That was her opening.
Sitonai leapt—no, glided—across the battlefield, her ice blade gleaming with ethereal light. With a single precise motion, she drove it deep into the dragon's exposed throat.
The world went still.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
A deep, shuddering exhale.
Cadmus's body stiffened, its golden eyes dimming. The ice crept further, consuming it. The massive dragon, the ruler of these deep floors, was frozen in its final moment of defiance.
With a final, resounding crack, the beast crumbled, its body shattering into shimmering, ice-covered fragments.
Silence fell upon the battlefield.
Sitonai let out a satisfied sigh, brushing nonexistent dust off her sleeves. "Yare yare daze, that took longer than I wanted." She turned, tilting her head at Alfia. "So? Where are we now?"
Alfia remained still for a moment, her gaze lingering on the frozen remains of the dragon. Despite herself, she found her lips curling slightly. That had been… impressive.
"…We're on the 51st Floor."
There was a pause.
Then—
"EH?!"
Sitonai's exasperated cry echoed through the cavern.
"The 51st?! That's where we are?!" She groaned, throwing her hands up. "Come on, that's way too deep! What kind of ridiculous situation did I wake up into?!"
Alfia exhaled through her nose, a hint of amusement flickering in her eyes. "You're only realizing that now?"
Sitonai pouted. "I was a little busy, thank you very much! Fighting a dragon isn't exactly the best time for a geography lesson!"
Alfia merely turned away, beginning to walk forward. "Then you should keep up. Complaining won't change the fact that we need to move."
Sitonai let out a dramatic sigh but followed.
As they left the frozen battlefield behind, one thought lingered in Alfia's mind.
For someone who had just faced down a dragon without fear—
Sitonai certainly had no problem complaining like a child.
--+--
A/N: I like the strong from the start as the next guy, but don't worry about Sitonai being broken, just let me cook, cause i'm nerfing her anyway. Anybody curious on how I would nerf her?
Also, I know Alfia could probably beat a Level 9, cause cause her skill Gif Blessing is like she constantly doping, so she could def speedblitz the cadmus normally, but look here.
She's at the end of her life, and her disease is it at worst, and she just fell down to the 50th floor after losing to the Astraea familia, and only had quick healing from Sitonai. So yes, she's way weaker now.