Reality unfolded exactly as Xien expected.
Once the first Mammoth Yugo toppled, the corridor beca instant chaos—enemy blood, shattered limbs, and chunks of flesh exploded in every direction. So bodies were crushed by sheer force, hurled into the air, and then dissolved into ash—leaving only magic stones clattering to the ground.
But it still wasn't over.
As if they had awakened, the plants—driven by Xien's will—continued their work with unwavering "obedience." Their bodies, endless and tireless, wrapped, tightened, and strangled anything the creator recognized as an enemy.
Then—almost unsettlingly clever—they began to sweep away the remnants, clearing the corridor and carving out a clean, unobstructed path for their master.
Just like that, a lethal crisis was erased.
And the sight left even Xien and the Familia mbers behind him montarily stunned.
"Tch—nice one."
Tsubaki let out a whistle, praising him without reservation. Honestly, she thought stopping those monsters was already impressive enough. She had no idea how he'd made the plants behave so… wrong—but it didn't matter.
The danger was gone.
For Xien, though, this was his first real glimpse of another face of "Abundance."
Not the miracle of healing.
But "vitalization."
Before casting, he'd worried the spell—newly learned—might not reach the level he needed. So he'd instinctively poured what he called "life-force" into the magic, aiming to boost its output.
If it's nature magic… life-force should be compatible, right?
That was the thought.
But the outco exceeded every expectation.
Yes, the spell's power increased—
And it felt like it increased too much.
He could feel those plants.
Not just their existence—but a faint emotional "texture," like the lightest brush of sensation.
Under Abundance's infusion, they were no longer simply energy manifested as vines.
They had beco real plants.
The shock hit him hard.
So… creating life was that easy for Abundance?
Then the thing he'd been calling "life-force" all this ti—
Its aning was far broader than he'd understood.
Even the na was wrong from the start.
With a wave of his hand, the vines that had been brimming with vitality rapidly withered and dissipated.
He couldn't leave them behind.
If this were the Familia's ho base, he'd happily keep them for experints—but this was the Dungeon. Leaving unknown living growths here was begging for catastrophic consequences.
Better to erase them.
And in doing so, he confird sothing else.
That "emotion" he sensed wasn't true independent consciousness—more like a faint reflexive imprint.
And above all—
He held absolute authority over them.
He rely thought they should vanish, and they died.
A heavy weight settled in his chest.
This power needed careful study.
Careless use could easily birth disaster.
Abundance wasn't only "healing."
Its destructive potential was not inferior to any other path.
Until now, he had equated it with saving lives.
But he finally understood: the word "abundance" ant far more than curing the sick.
In that mont, the orange cat's warning—"If you slip, you could beco a life-type calamity that threatens the cosmos"—stopped being abstract.
It beca real.
"Nice work, Xien. You're really good at surprising people," Alysse praised. "Looks like you actually learned sothing serious."
"Ah… yeah. I did want to surprise everyone."
"That," Tsubaki nodded, "was definitely a surprise."
Xien kept the deeper realization to himself.
Saying it out loud would only burden them with fear.
He would talk to the orange cat later.
Once he steadied his mind, the expedition resud.
The more they descended, the more Xien beca convinced of one thing:
The Dungeon was its own independent world.
The environnt was no longer rely a dark cave.
It began to mix beauty with lethal intent.
Rivers hiding man-eating monsters.
Traps disguised as breathtaking scenery.
A buffet of abnormal conditions:
Poison. Paralysis. Parasites…
Down here, brute force alone was not enough.
Knowledge—how to apply it fast, under pressure—beca survival.
And that was exactly where Xien's value spiked.
With his system, he could identify threats hidden in the dark and call them out.
And if soone still got hit, his "universal heal" could cleanse virtually any negative status, massively increasing the team's safety margin.
Stone shattered with thunderous force.
A rain of rubble poured down as a massive body dropped, the Dungeon birthing new monsters.
First ca a violent tearing sound through the air.
Then the floor "played" a brutal percussion of impact.
The shock made the entire floor tremble.
When the dust cleared—
A long blue-white body writhed in a crater, moving with alarming speed.
It was the serpentine monster:
Orobas Serpent — "Orobas" (the "Orobas" type known here as "Great Serpent Well," Da She Jing).
Its compound eyes had been smashed, blood pouring from them. It rolled and thrashed as if suffering the most unreasonable pain in existence.
It vomited blood-tainted sludge from its massive jaws while whipping its long body violently—trying to intimidate its hunters into backing off.
It failed.
The next second—
BOOM.
The serpent's body jolted.
Not once.
Twice. Three tis. Four.
Each "impact" drew harsher screams, and its blue-white scales began to ignite under extre heat—like soone had lit lamps across its armor.
Two flashes circled it.
Each flash carved another massive wound into its body.
One was like raging fire.
The other—
Fast as thunder.
No—golden lightning.
As its presence weakened, the two attackers wordlessly prepared to finish it.
Lightning and fla struck the serpent's vital point—its "seven-inch" zone.
Burned through, pierced through, its body collapsed with a heavy crash.
Two figures stopped.
Xien and Kaguya.
"Tch—pretty good," Xien said. "A Lv2 and a Lv3… and you actually took down a Lv4-class serpent together. Kaguya, you've gotten stronger."
"Of course," Kaguya replied. "I learned a new trick from our little junior…"
"Huh? You an that thod you used to wrap your weapon in lightning?" Tsubaki's eyes widened.
"Yep."
"…Xien, you're playing favorites."
Xien shrugged. "That breathing thod doesn't suit everyone the sa way. If anyone's interested, co to . When I have ti, I'll adjust the breathing rhythm to match the person."
He wasn't trying to hoard anything.
As he'd already noticed, people here—blessed by the gods—tended to be shallow in technical efficiency. A lot of fighting was "stats and brute force," not refined utilization.
Breathing thods—techniques that improved bodily efficiency—were rare.
Teaching them could raise the Familia's overall combat capability.
He was fully in favor.
"Then count in when we get back," said Lyla the Pallum, looting nearby. "If you're offering, I'm not turning it down."
" too! too!" others chid in.
Xien nodded, accepting.
As they approached the boss territory, Xien's role shifted more and more into that of a pure healer.
The gap between levels wasn't sothing you crossed casually. That was the privilege of truly exceptional talents.
Even then, crossing one level was typically the limit.
For Xien to leap two levels and kill was already pushing his current ceiling.
No matter how abnormal his growth was, against numbers and level 4-class violence, he couldn't just brute-force it.
If a pack of Lv4-class monsters sward him, he'd still have to avoid direct confrontation.
Their pace slowed.
Because on this floor they were about to et the second Floor Boss since Goliath:
Amphisbaena — the Two-Headed Dragon.
Because no major familia had conducted a full-scale subjugation in this period, the boss had remained undisturbed—waiting in its domain for the adventurers it hated to arrive.
"Mm… Lv5-class threat. Definitely a tough one," soone muttered.
"It's fine," another tried to laugh it off. "We did it before, didn't we? It's just a floor boss. And we've got Xien—easy, easy."
"Kaguya, don't get careless…" Lyla warned.
But Lyla couldn't help feeling sothing was off.
The werewolf, the amazon, even normally composed Kaguya—everyone seed… abnormal since entering the Dungeon.
Overexcited.
And when fighting, they hit harder than necessary.
Tsubaki, anwhile, was impressed.
"Your morale's high and your coordination is flawless," she said. "I'm honestly curious how you achieved this."
The mont the words left her mouth—
The entire team fell into silence.
Only footsteps remained.
It startled even Tsubaki.
When she looked back, even the usually thick-skinned beastn and amazons wore expressions of lingering dread.
That kind of teamwork—
Was forged in desperation.
It was wisdom hamred out in a true hell, built on blood and tears.
Kaguya exhaled, voice flat.
"Don't ask. It brings back despair."
"…What did you even go through?" Tsubaki asked, bewildered.
"Just don't," Lyla said, forcing down a tremor. "That was hell."
"…Sorry," Tsubaki said. She didn't understand, but she knew to stop.
They passed through a long corridor and entered a vast chamber.
Above them, the Great Fall—a massive waterfall spanning multiple floors—roared endlessly. They could even see roots from the Great Tree of Floor 24.
But the most striking feature was the huge lake ahead.
If they didn't know this was the boss' birthplace, the scenery alone would have stunned them.
Then the calm lake began to churn.
A giant splash erupted like a colossal object falling into still water.
The tyrant erged.
A calamity approached.
Do not draw near—this was the incarnation of destruction.
Its body was almost entirely white.
It possessed two enormous, savage heads.
A breathtaking "phantom dragon" silhouette—
Yet in truth, it was nothing but overwhelming violence and ruin.
"The Floor 27 'Lone King of the Labyrinth'—"
Two draconic cries overlapped.
Twin heads moved with separate intent, yet acted as one.
Hostility and killing intent exploded outward.
Amphisbaena.
"ROOOOAAARRRR!!"
The titanic roar shook Floor 27—
No.
It shook the entire "Water City," spanning three floors.
Even Astrea Familia was forced to lean back under the pressure.
This was primal domination—high-tier predator suppressing lower lifeforms by instinct alone.
"…So that's the lower-floor boss…"
The second "Lone King of the Labyrinth," following Goliath.
They had to crane their necks just to see it properly.
It easily exceeded twenty ters in height.
Its width dwarfed even large-class monsters like the half-orc.
A body that truly deserved the title of Floor Boss.
Its eyes—vertical pupils like a serpent's—were unquestionably those of a monster.
There was no rationality in them.
Only the savage gaze of a beast that lived to destroy.
Most striking of all were the two dragon heads that seed able to act independently.
Its neck split from the torso and extended into two branches, each ending in a true dragon visage.
Each scale along its neck was like a slab of armor.
The left head had azure eyes.
The right head had crimson eyes.
The roar finally stopped—leaving only its fading echo bouncing through every corner of the Dungeon.
And then—
Silence.
The kind that cos right before annihilation.
....
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