Floor 16 marked the beginning of the tower’s upper section—where the dungeon stopped being rely difficult and beca actively lethal.
The architecture itself felt wrong here. Gravity shifted at random angles. Shadows moved with predatory intent. The air tasted of corruption and old magic.
"Upper floors," Hendra announced as they entered. "Level 50-plus enemies. Enhanced aggression. Environntal hazards. This is where most casualties occur even in successful runs."
"Then we make sure this isn’t most runs," Rama said. "Everyone stay tight. Follow my positioning exactly. The upper floors have overlapping threat patterns—enemies plus environnt plus traps. One mistake cascades into multiple deaths."
The team ford a tighter formation, the earlier floors having built absolute trust in Rama’s coordination.
Floor 16’s first enemies appeared—Corrupted Sentinels. Level 54. Massive armored constructs that hit like siege weapons.
Four of them, positioned to create a kill box with overlapping attack ranges.
"Standard engagent is frontal assault," Johan said. "Takes twelve minutes, usually lose one or two to the crossfire."
"We’re not going standard." Rama studied the sentinel positions through [Tactical Overseer], reading attack patterns that hadn’t even begun yet. "Bima, Sari—you’re drawing aggro left. Agus, Santoso—you draw right. DPS splits. Sri takes left pair with fire, Johan takes right pair with ice. Sentinels have elental weaknesses opposite their armor color. Left pair: fire-weak. Right pair: ice-weak."
"How do you know their weaknesses?" Sari asked. "They haven’t attacked yet."
"Armor coloration indicates internal elental alignnt. Dark red = fire-weak. Pale blue = ice-weak." Also, I’ve fought these exact sentinels three tis before. "Tanks, positions. DPS, prepare elents. On my mark..."
The tanks moved into position.
"Sri, Johan—pre-cast your strongest spells. Release on my count. Three. Two. One. Mark!"
Both mages released simultaneously.
Sri’s fire spell struck the left pair. Johan’s ice spell hit the right pair.
The sentinels staggered—elental weaknesses exploited perfectly.
"Now! While they’re vulnerable! Thirty seconds of reduced defense!"
The DPS squads demolished them in the window. All four sentinels down in forty-five seconds.
Perfect elent matching. Perfect timing. Perfect execution.
"That was..." Dewi stared. "That was surgical. How did you know the exact vulnerability window duration?"
"Elental disruption chanics. When constructs take super-effective damage, their defense matrices destabilize for twenty-five to thirty-five seconds depending on spell power. Sri and Johan both used maximum power spells, so thirty seconds." All technically true. Also morized from previous deaths.
Floor 16’s second encounter was an environntal hazard—a corridor where gravity reversed randomly.
"Single file," Rama directed. "Gravity flips every eight seconds. When I say brace, grab the nearest solid surface. When I say release, move forward three steps. Rhythm is critical. Miss the timing, you fall into the ceiling spikes."
"How do you know it’s eight-second intervals?" Hendra asked.
"Consistent magical pulse pattern. I can sense the rhythm." Also, I counted it while dying here twice.
Rama led them through the corridor, calling out timing perfectly.
"Brace... Release... Brace... Release..."
Thirty-eight seconds. Entire corridor crossed. Zero casualties.
The section that normally killed one or two people who mistid the gravity shifts.
Cleared perfectly.
Floor 17 introduced what the guild called "the gauntlet"—a long chamber with continuous enemy spawns. Level 55 Corrupted Assassins appearing from random locations. Wave after wave until the team reached the far door.
Most teams fought defensively, taking positions, weathering the waves. Took twenty minutes. Always lost soone to a spawn they didn’t see coming.
"We’re going aggressive," Rama said. "Continuous advance. I’ll call spawns before they happen. You execute imdiately. No hesitation. No questioning. Just trust and move."
"You can predict random spawns?" soone asked skeptically.
"They’re not random. They’re procedurally generated based on team positioning and advancent speed. I can read the pattern." Also, the spawn locations are the sa every run if you move at the sa pace.
The team advanced.
"Spawn left, seven o’clock, two seconds!"
Sri fired preemptively. The assassin materialized directly into her ice lance.
"Spawn right, three o’clock, now!"
Johan’s fire blast caught it mid-appearance.
"Spawn above, twelve o’clock, three seconds!"
Bima’s wind technique struck before it could attack.
Over and over. Rama calling spawns before they happened. The team executing flawlessly.
What looked like prescient prediction was actually perfect timing based on procedural spawn chanics he’d learned through repetition.
But to the team, it looked like precognition.
"Right wall, five o’clock, now!"
"Ceiling, directly above Agus, two seconds!"
"Behind formation, six o’clock, now!"
Not a single spawn caught them unprepared. Not one assassin landed a hit.
The gauntlet that took twenty minutes and always cost casualties?
Cleared in six minutes. Zero damage.
The team erged into the safe zone beyond the door, stunned.
"That was impossible," Santoso said. "You called every single spawn. Twenty-seven spawns. Twenty-seven perfect calls. How?"
"Pattern recognition at Champion-level perception," Rama said. And dying to these spawns enough tis to morize the sequence. "The System grants abilities beyond normal hunter perception. This is what makes Champions valuable—we see threats others can’t."
"I’m starting to understand," Hendra said quietly. "Why you’re so insistent about creating more Champions. If one Champion can do this—coordinate an entire team to perfect execution—imagine what fifty could do. Or a hundred."
"Exactly. Against the void entities, we need armies of this capability. Champions leading teams. Perfect coordination across multiple battlefields. It’s the only way humanity survives."
"And the trials to create Champions?" Dewi asked. "The ones with fifteen to twenty percent mortality?"
"Necessary sacrifice. The trials are dangerous. So won’t survive. But those who do beco exactly what we’re witnessing today—force multipliers who can save hundreds of lives through superior coordination and perception."
Sri nodded. "I’m volunteering. After this raid, I’m signing up. Whatever the risks."
" too," Bima said. "If there’s even a chance I could gain abilities like yours—worth the risk."
More hunters volunteered. One by one. Committing to the trials.
Rama watched them volunteer with satisfaction. Last ti, recruiting had been agonizing. Weeks of persuasion for a handful of reluctant volunteers. This ti, they were eager. Believing. Ready.
"Good," Hendra said. "We’ll need volunteers. Because after today’s performance, I believe everything. The void threat. The tiline. The need for Champions. All of it."
Floor 17’s second section introduced elite monsters—Void-Touched Marauders. Level 56. Enhanced speed, void-energy weapons, coordinated pack tactics.
Five of them. Fighting as a unit.
"These are dangerous," Johan warned. "They coordinate better than most hunter teams. Usually we—"
"Usually you lose two people in the first thirty seconds," Rama finished. "Not today. Dewi, you’re bait. Don’t worry—I’ll keep you alive. Everyone else, attack positions I’m marking. The marauders coordinate through the center one—it’s the pack leader. We kill it first, the others lose cohesion."
"How do you know which is the leader?" Dewi asked. "They all look identical."
"Body language. The leader makes micro-adjustnts before the pack moves. I can see it." Also, it’s always the third from the left. Always. "Dewi, position here. They’ll charge you in five seconds. Don’t dodge—I need them committed. Trust ."
Dewi swallowed hard but took position.
Five seconds later, all five marauders charged her simultaneously.
"Now! Everyone, full assault on number three!"
The entire team focused fire on the third marauder—the pack leader.
It died in two seconds under concentrated assault.
The other four marauders suddenly lost coordination, attacks becoming disjointed and predictable.
"Clean up! They’re scattered now! Easy targets!"
The remaining marauders fell quickly without pack cohesion.
Floor 17 cleared. Zero casualties. Perfect execution.
Again.
"Seventeen floors," Hendra said, his voice carrying awe. "Seventeen floors without a single death. We’re four and a half hours ahead of record pace. And you—" He looked at Rama. "—you haven’t made a single mistake. Not one wrong call. Not one missed prediction. Perfect execution for seventeen straight floors."
"Because I know what I’m doing. And because this team trusts and executes flawlessly." Rama looked at the assembled hunters. "This is what we need to replicate against void entities. This level of coordination. This degree of trust. This perfect execution. It’s possible. We’ve proven it today."
"Three more floors," Sri said. "Then the final boss. Can you maintain this? Can you really finish with zero deaths?"
"Yes," Rama said with absolute certainty. "Zero deaths. Record ti. Perfect clear. That’s not a hope. It’s a guarantee."
Because I’ve died enough tis to ensure everyone else lives.
They advanced toward Floor 18.
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