The Cyclops was waiting.
It stood in the center of the boss chamber, motionless as a statue, its single, bloodshot eye tracking Nozomi as she stepped through the illusory wall. The creature hadn't moved from its position atop the glowing teleportation panel. Floor Guardians were bound to their domains, their existence fused to the dungeon's structure.
But bound did not mean helpless.
Nozomi kept her distance, studying it. The Cyclops towered above her, muscles like coiled steel cables beneath rough gray skin. Its crude club was the size of a telephone pole, and even at a glance she could tell a single hit from it would crack her skull open, Celestial Aegis or not.
It was stronger than the Scarlet Tip Spider she had killed with Longinus. Faster too. And the sheer pressure radiating from it made the air feel heavier.
She couldn't afford mistakes. Not here. Not now.
Her mind ran through options, but one question dominated all the others.
Could she kill it without using Longinus?
Nozomi raised Nightbane, her voice cutting through the still air.
"Chains of Imprisonment."
Dark energy flared from the staff's crystal. Chains materialized out of the shadows, wrapping around the Cyclops's limbs, chest, and throat. For a heartbeat, they held tight.
Then the Cyclops flexed, and the bindings shattered like brittle glass.
The chains didn't dissolve. They broke.
Muscles bulged like living steel, veins standing out as the creature let out a guttural roar. The air shook with the sound.
Then it charged.
Nozomi dove aside, rolling behind a cracked stone pillar just as the club came down with a crash that split the floor. Shards of rock exploded outward. The impact sent a shockwave through her bones.
Too strong. Her magic couldn't restrain that kind of power.
"Salamander!"
The fire spirit erupted from her staff, hissing with heat. It launched at the Cyclops's face, striking the creature's eye in a flash of molten flame.
The explosion melted stone.
When the smoke cleared, the Cyclops was still standing.
Its eye glistened, unharmed, protected by a shimmering membrane. The burns around it smoldered, but that was all.
"Damn it."
Fire failed. Chains failed. Her other spells, Fracture, Absolute Zero, Corruption, were meant for smaller foes. Against this thing, they would be little more than sparks against a mountain.
Which left only Longinus.
But that would cost her thirteen percent of her soul integrity. That would leave her at seventy-four.
Four more casts, maybe, before her soul unraveled.
Four miracles.One hundred sixty-five floors left.
The math did not work.
The Cyclops roared and came at her again. Its club swept in a horizontal arc that would have bisected her at the waist if she hadn't dropped low, feeling the rush of displaced air ruffle her hair.
She retreated, circling the edges of the chamber. Her heartbeat was steady now, her eyes calculating.
The Celestial Aegis.
The Witch's words echoed in her memory. "It will turn aside anything short of divine attention."
She hadn't thought much of that at first. But magical artifacts always had hidden depths. Maybe...
She opened the description
[Celestial Aegis]
[Type: Legendary Armor]
[Durability: Infinite]
[Special Ability: Divine Conversion]
[Effect: Converts kinetic energy from impacts into mana]
[Conversion Rate: 1,000 force = 100 mana]
Her eyes widened.
If she could survive a hit, she could turn that force into mana.
It was insane.
But insanity was all she had left.
The Cyclops swung again. This time, Nozomi didn't dodge. She stepped forward, braced herself, and raised Nightbane to meet the blow.
The club hit her like a meteor.
The world went white.
Her body flew backward, slamming into the far wall with bone-rattling force. For a second, she couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't move.
Then the armor pulsed.
The Celestial Aegis drank the impact, drawing the kinetic energy inward.
Her mana bar surged.
8,900 → 13,700.
The excess mana seared through her veins like wildfire, too much for her body to contain. But Nightbane absorbed the overflow, its crystal flaring to life like a newborn star. The swirling galaxy within spun faster, brighter, until the weapon itself thrummed with unbearable power.
Nozomi rose to her feet, blood dripping from her nose but alive.
She had survived the hit.
And now, she had more than enough power to use Longinus without touching her soul integrity.
"Come here," she said. Her voice echoed, layered with something inhuman.
The Cyclops obeyed, thundering forward.
Nozomi didn't move. She raised Nightbane, every muscle tensing as her magic gathered into a single point. The air around her fractured with light.
"Longinus."
The spear formed.
But this time it was vast, thirty feet long, glowing with black and gold radiance, pulsing with enough force to distort the air.
It launched from Nightbane's crystal like a cannon.
The Cyclops's eye widened.
Then the world split.
Longinus pierced it clean through the chest. The spear didn't just kill. It divided. Flesh, bone, and soul severed in perfect geometric lines. The Cyclops's body collapsed in two halves, organs spilling onto the stone with wet, heavy sounds.
Silence.
Then the system notifications flooded her vision.
Experience. Level ups. Strength gain. Floor Guardian defeated.
But Nozomi barely saw them.
She fell to her knees, breathless but unbroken. Her soul intact.
A laugh tore itself free from her chest, half hysterical, half triumphant.
She had done it.
She had turned the dungeon's strength against itself.
The Celestial Aegis wasn't armor. It was a weapon in disguise. Every hit she took could be fuel. Every blow survived was another miracle waiting to be unleashed.
The Witch had known.
She had been given the tools to survive, so long as she was willing to hurt.
Nozomi stood, swaying slightly, her body screaming in protest. Her muscles remembered the pain even if her bones hadn't shattered. She would have bruises. But she was alive.
A small price to pay.
She distributed her new stat points. Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution. Her mana rose to 9,800. Her health climbed past 3,400. She could feel herself getting faster. Sharper. Stronger.
Level 34.
Daichi: 47.
Akane: 44.
Kenji: 45.
The gap was closing.
She stepped onto the teleportation panel. Light swallowed her.
And the ascent began.
By the time Nozomi reached floor 100, night had fallen. Or what passed for night in the dungeon—the torches dimmed, the ambient mana shifted, and exhaustion finally caught up with her.
She found a defensible alcove in floor 100's corridors, a small chamber with only one entrance that she could monitor. She gathered some of the dried wood scattered throughout the level and used Salamander to ignite it, creating a campfire that provided both warmth and light.
The fire crackled and popped, filling the chamber with familiar sounds. For a moment, Nozomi could almost pretend she was somewhere safe. Camping in the wilderness, perhaps, on some training expedition with a party that didn't hate her.
The illusion lasted exactly as long as it took for her to check her status screen:
[NAME: NOZOMI HAYASHI]
[CLASS: ABYSSAL WITCH (UNIQUE)]
[LEVEL: 36]
[HEALTH: 3,920/3,920] [MANA: 10,600/10,600]
[STRENGTH: 65]
[DEXTERITY: 53]
[CONSTITUTION: 68]
[INTELLIGENCE: 104]
[WISDOM: 72]
[CHARISMA: 67]
[SOUL INTEGRITY: 87%]
Level 36.
She was stronger now than she'd been in her life. No longer a trembling cleric hiding behind parties who viewed her as sentient garbage. No longer the scared little girl she'd always been.