The last time Damien had set foot in the dungeon's depths, he had been on Floor Sixty-Six. There, he had battled Jörmungandr.....the World Serpent, the Seventh Guardian Rex. Later, Ais had defeated Baobhan Sith, the Sixth Guardian Rex. That left five. Five unknown horrors lurking in the depths, waiting.
He had no clue when they would attack. How they would attack. Or if they would attack at all. So he made appropriate plans and continued on.
Floors Sixty-Seven to Sixty-Nine:
These floors were a welcome change of pace.
After the frozen hell of the Glacier Territory and the abyssal darkness that followed, Damien found himself walking through terrain that resembled a jungle...lush, vibrant, alive. Massive trees with broad leaves formed a canopy that filtered the light into shifting patterns of green and gold. Vines hung from the branches like curtains, and the air was thick with humidity and the scent of exotic flowers.
It was beautiful. Almost peaceful.
But this was still the dungeon.
The monsters here were venomous and stealthy—serpents that blended into the foliage, insects that swarmed from hidden nests, creatures that struck from the shadows without warning. Damien dealt with them efficiently, his senses sharp, his instincts honed by years of combat.
The most interesting encounter, however, was with the Gorilla Lords.
They were a species of monsters that possessed the physical power of gorillas but far greater intelligence. They formed their own languages, their own plans, their own tactics. They were not mere beasts...they were a society.
And they had no interest in fighting Damien.
When he encountered a troop of them on Floor Sixty-Eight, they simply stepped aside. Their leader....a massive silverback with scars covering his chest....watched Damien with knowing eyes, then gestured for his kin to part.....Essentially...Recognizing Damien as a threat that could wipe them out...They chose to not fight
Damien nodded at them and continued on.
Intelligent monsters. He filed that information away for later.
Floor Seventy:
Floor Seventy was not what he expected.
He had thought he would face a Monster Rex here. Every major milestone floor seemed to have one....a guardian, a challenge, a trial by fire.
But there were none.
Instead, Floor Seventy was a desert.
A massive, endless, unforgiving desert.
The terrain had changed once again. The lush jungle gave way to sand...dry, hot, and utterly lifeless. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky, its rays merciless. There was no wind. No sound. No movement.
Just sand. Heat. And sun.
Damien stood at the edge of it, his eyes scanning the horizon. He could see nothing but dunes stretching into infinity. The air shimmered with heat waves, creating mirages that danced at the edge of his vision.
He stepped forward.
The test of Floor Seventy, he concluded, was survival.
And survive he did.
It was easy for him. He would travel during the day, then teleport back home at night to sleep in his bed, eat real food, and drink clean water. The next morning, he would teleport back and continue his journey.
But for a normal group of adventurers?
Even an expedition?
Damien marked Floor Seventy as the hardest and worst floor he had ever encountered.
The key was that there was nothing in it. No food. No water. No life. Only desert, heat, and sun. There was not even night...the sun remained fixed in the sky, an eternal, unblinking eye. The floor was, as Damien estimated, around twenty times larger than the entirety of Orario. It felt like a continent, not a floor.
The only decent thing about it was that there were marks on the sand...faint, ancient, weathered by time....that guided you toward the exit.
Other than that?
Damien could imagine how much a normal expedition would suffer. They would have to bring their own food, their own water, their own shelter. They would sleep on the sand, dragging carriages and equipment across an endless wasteland. They would deal with the heat with bodies that were not as godly as Damien's. They would suffer.
Truly, a hell on earth.
It took Damien around twenty days to cross it completely. He was not moving at full speed....he was being careful, cautious, wary of hidden threats. But even still, he was alone. He had resources. He had breaks.
A normal expedition would have none of that.
Floor Seventy-One:
After the endless desert, Floor Seventy-One was a revelation.
It was a complete opposite to the floor before. A true heaven on earth.
Green grass. Towering waterfalls that cascaded from floating islands. Small forests filled with vibrant flowers and ancient trees. The air was cool and sweet, filled with the scent of blooming life. It was like the greatest landmarks of the world had been combined into one perfect landscape.
It was beautiful.
So beautiful that even Damien believed it.
He walked through the meadow, his guard lowering for the first time in weeks. The sun was warm but not oppressive. A gentle breeze ruffled his hair. Birds...or something like birds...sang in the distance.
He thought he was in a safe zone.
He was not.
The world shifted.
The meadow disappeared. The waterfalls vanished. The forests dissolved into nothing.
And Damien found himself standing in another desert.
But this desert was different.
It was moving.
The sand beneath his feet shifted and flowed like water. The ground trembled. In the distance, massive shapes began to rise....mountains, he thought at first. But they were not mountains.
They formed a massive circle around him. Far away. Too far to reach.
The sand began to slide downward, disappearing into a vast hole in the ground. A hole that had not been there moments before.
Damien leaped into the air, his instincts screaming. He flew upward, his eyes scanning the scene below.
And then he realized what he was looking at.
The mountains were teeth.
The hole was a mouth.
And the creature it belonged to was a....
"A FUCKING SAND WORM?!"
The worm's mouth was massive. As big as Orario itself. The sand poured into its gullet like water down a drain, and Damien could feel the suction pulling at him even from a distance.
He hovered in the air, his mind racing.
"How the fuck does one even begin to kill this thing?!"
The Sand Worm....the true Monster Rex of Floor Seventy-One....was beyond anything he had faced before. Its size was incomprehensible. Its power was undeniable.
And it was hungry.
Damien gripped his daggers, his eyes fixed on the massive maw below.
This was going to be a long fight.
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