Basram
This wasn't how the mission was supposed to unfold.
Basram, High Priest of the Apate Familia, stood on the shores of Floor 27, his heavy black-and-purple robes growing damp from the pervasive mist. He gripped his shakujo tightly, his narrow eyes fixed on the churning lake in deep annoyance.
He was not here to fight a Monster Rex. His mission, ordained by the dark coalition, was far more glorious: to lie in wait and orchestrate an ambush that would shatter the morale of Orario.
Intelligence had placed the main body of the Loki Familia expedition deep below Floor 39. It was a certainty, however, that they would send a specialized vanguard back up to secure the Amphisbaena's spawn. When that detachment arrived, Basram would be waiting to crush them.
To ensure the party couldn't escape or maneuver freely, Basram and his squad had deliberately intercepted the roaming Amphisbaena on Floor 25 and violently wrestled it all the way down to this lake. They would use the enraged beast as the ultimate environmental hazard, boxing the Loki elites into a lethal trap.
It had been a grueling physical feat, but the inconvenience of the labyrinth meant nothing before the power of his apostles.
He watched with a fanatic smile as one of his Level 5 Spirit Soldiers—an armored dwarf radiating a putrid aura—stood knee-deep in the water. Its crystalline hands were clamped brutally around the neck of the Amphisbaena's fire-breathing head.
The Monster Rex bellowed in fury, rearing back to unleash its signature attack. A torrent of blue, napalm washed over the Spirit Soldier, engulfing the corrupted warrior in a sea of liquid fire.
Basram didn't even blink. That particular apostle was infused with an anti-fire spirit; it simply devoured the heat.
A few yards away, the second Level 5 Spirit Soldier was locked in a brutal grappling match with the dragon's mist-breathing head. The apostle was using strictly physical might, bludgeoning the beast to conserve its magical reserves for the impending ambush. Basram found a dark irony in it—the corrupted, miasma-leaking corpse and the mist-spewing dragon head sharing such a similar, suffocating attribute, yet violently trying to tear each other apart.
Unwilling to waste an opportunity to assert his dominance over the Dungeon's so-called 'kings,' Basram waded into the shallows. He activated the mechanical strengthening device integrated into his heavy gauntlet. The magical pistons hissed, locking into place.
He approached the thrashing fire-head, pulled back his fist, and punched the monster right in the snout.
CRACK.
The dragon gurgled its hard scales cushioning the blow, but the reinforced gauntlet did its job. Basram laughed, punching it again. He was deliberately aiming to chip off the beast's highly sought-after scales. They would fetch a fortune on the black market.
He considered ordering the Spirit Soldiers to haul the beast completely onto land to make the harvesting easier, but quickly dismissed the thought. Taking the Amphisbaena out of the water would exhaust it too quickly. He needed the Monster Rex angry, energetic, and lethal for when the Loki party arrived.
It was a petty indulgence to punch a pinned god of the lake, but it brought him a particular satisfaction. As he struck the beast, his mind drifted to the laughable absurdity he had witnessed upon entering the boss room earlier.
Someone—surely a monumental idiot—had actually staked a hastily written parchment poster to the cavern wall near the entrance. It read, in bold letters: THIS MONSTER REX IS RESERVED BY MAXIMUS. ANYONE WHO TRIES TO STEAL THIS KILL WILL FACE THE CONSEQUENCES. CONSIDER THIS YOUR NOTICE.
Basram laughed until his chest ached, immediately commanding a Spirit Soldier to tear the pathetic sign to shreds.
I would love to see the face of the fool who wrote that, he cackled internally, landing one final blow to pry loose a few scales. To watch him strut in here, expecting an easy prize, only to be devoured by a beast I prepared specifically for his betters.
He tapped the butt of his shakujo against the floor. The ringing chime echoed through the cavern, a direct command to the corrupted minds of his squad.
"Let it go," Basram ordered. "And conceal yourselves."
The Level 5s released the Amphisbaena's necks. The water dragon thrashed and roared, retreating into the deeper waters of the lake to nurse its pride, while the armored apostles melted seamlessly back into the shadows of the shoreline.
Basram withdrew toward the grottos at the edge of the cavern, settling into a hidden alcove that offered a perfect vantage point of the lake.
Let the vanguard arrive, Basram planned, closing his eyes and letting a fanatic calm wash over him. Let them engage the beast to exhaust their spells and bleed their stamina. Once they think they have won... my apostles will descend.
Time bled away. For what felt like a quarter of an hour, the cavern was ruled by a heavy peace. The only sounds were the rhythmic sloshing of the lake against the shores, the distant, sulking growls of the Monster Rex, and the steady dripping of condensation from the ceiling.
Basram breathed in the chill mist, savoring the absolute control he held over the battlefield. The trap was set. The snare was flawless. Every faint echo drifting down from the upper tunnels felt like a promise of Loki blood.
He was just sinking into the deepest depths of his religious reverie when a heavy boot stomped loudly on the shoreline.
"What the fuck is going on here?"
Basram's eyes snapped open. The voice was young, deeply agitated, and entirely uninvited. It shattered his zen moment like a hammer through glass.
He looked down from his spot.
Standing at the edge of the boss room, completely ignoring the dragon churning the waters behind him, was a young man in his late teens. He had striking blue hair, glowing amethyst eyes, and was dressed in a dark violet breastplate. On his shoulder sat a vibrant blue ooze.
For a second, Basram felt a nagging twitch of recognition. Have I seen him somewhere before? The reports about Orario had been chaotic lately, but the details eluded him.
What didn't elude him was the boy's complete lack of fear. It bordered on the suicidal.
Basram scanned the layout. The four Spirit Soldiers hadn't moved; they were still concealed in the shadows, their putrid auras thinly veiled. The boy had walked right past them to get to the water's edge. He had to have seen them as he was effectively surrounded.
Yet the teenager didn't spare the lurking experiments a single glance. He didn't look at the raging Amphisbaena. He marched straight toward Basram's alcove, his eyes narrowed in unabashed irritation—not the cautious approach of a sane adventurer, but the annoyed stride of a man whose schedule had been interrupted.
"Hey, Old man," the boy called out, pointing an accusing finger up at the High Priest. "Did you tear my sign down?!"
Basram blinked.
He stared at the teen. Then he looked at the shredded pieces of parchment floating in the shallow water.
This is him. The monumental idiot.
A malicious thrill shot through Basram's chest. He wanted to see the fool's face, and the Dungeon had delivered him directly to his doorstep. But rather than ordering his Spirit Soldiers to instantly execute the boy, his manipulative instincts took over.
The vanguard was taking forever to arrive. He was bored. Why not play with this arrogant whelp before he died?
Basram composed his features, molding his face into a mask of grave concern.
"No, kid," he lied smoothly, his deep voice echoing with faux-sympathy. "We didn't touch your sign. One of my fellow servants was hit by a monster... a terrible blow. They were thrown against the wall where your sign was posted. It must have been destroyed in the collateral damage."
Honestly, Basram was tempted to gather the soggy pieces of the poster and throw them directly into the boy's face just to see his reaction.
He watched the kid from the ledge, expecting blind acceptance or childish outrage. Instead, the boy's eyes narrowed an inch. A sharp knowing glint passed through his gaze, as if he was dissecting the lie.
Basram's grip tightened on his shakujo. He maintained his sorrowful expression, but a faint warning bell chimed in the back of his mind. He knows I'm lying. The boy is more perceptive than I gave him credit for.
But the kid didn't press it. The sharp glint vanished, replaced quickly by a long-suffering sigh of resignation. The boy clearly recognized the lie but decided the priest simply wasn't worth the argument.
"Whatever," the boy muttered, rolling his shoulders and giving his rapier a casual twirl. He looked from Basram to the Amphisbaena, which had just surfaced, its twin heads snapping toward them. "Are you guys fighting that thing now, or can I take care of it?"
Basram observed the boy carefully. There was nothing about his physique that screamed 'first-class adventurer.' However, there was a strange, heavy feeling clinging to him—a dense, suffocating aura that felt distinctly out of place for a human.
But Basram was the commander of the Spirit Soldiers. He spent his days bathed in the rotting miasma of corrupted spirits. Next to his own apostles, the boy's aura felt like a mere curiosity, ringing no immediate alarm bells in his mind.
He is just an overconfident child, Basram concluded.
"Before I allow that," Basram said, leaning forward over the ledge, keeping his tone carefully polite. "What level are you, boy? And which Familia do you serve?"
The kid didn't even hesitate. "Level 3. Freya Familia."
Basram's blood ran cold.
Freya.
The name alone tasted like a death sentence. In their grand war councils, the Freya Familia had been the very first faction targeted for retaliation after the brutal culling of their Daedalus Street members. But leadership had ultimately decided against it. Freya's might was simply too overwhelming. Killing a member of her flock, even a Level 3, invited the terrifying wrath of the Warlord. Ottar would tear Floor 27 down to the floor looking for the culprit.
Basram's mind raced. If my Spirit Soldiers kill him, the magical residue will trace back to us. It will jeopardize the Loki ambush. It will bring Freya's elites down on our heads.
He looked at the arrogant brat again. A solo dive? With nothing but a puddle of ooze for backup?
Then, a cruel understanding dawned on him.
It fits, Basram realized, his lips twitching upward into a malicious grin. The rumors of the Goddess of Beauty's brutal meritocracy. Might makes right. They throw their initiates into the meat grinder just to see who crawls out. This idiot is probably trying to prove his worth by soloing a Monster Rex.
It was the perfect tactical solution.
If the Monster Rex kills him... that's a tragic dungeon accident. A foolish rookie biting off more than he could chew. No blood on Evilus hands. And a beautiful revenge against the whore's lackeys.
Basram smiled—a wide, benevolent expression that completely masked the rot in his soul. He nodded approvingly.
"A Level 3 of the mighty Freya Familia. Impressive," he praised smoothly. "By all means, go ahead. I will join you once I have recovered my stamina. I, too, wish to gain some Excelia from such a beast."
"Great. Appreciate it," the kid said, giving a nonchalant nod.
Max turned his back on him, striding casually toward the edge of the lake. He didn't draw a shield. He didn't drop into a defensive stance. He merely tapped the blue slime on his shoulder and stared down the roaring, two-headed Monster Rex as if it were an overgrown stray dog.
"Hey! You guys!" the boy suddenly shouted, pointing toward the Spirit Soldiers lurking in the shadows around him. "Steer clear of the splash zone! I don't want you messing up my aggro!"
Basram nearly choked on a laugh. The boy had noticed the apostles surrounding him, yet he was treating them like an inconvenient audience rather than an execution squad?
Gripping his shakujo, Basram silently pulsed a command through the rings to his soldiers: Hold position. Do nothing. Let the beast tear him apart.
Settling comfortably back into his vantage point, Basram watched with eager, unblinking eyes. He couldn't wait for the Loki vanguard to arrive, but in the meantime, watching a Freya brat get incinerated by the agitated Amphisbaena was the perfect way to pass the time.
-◈ -
Max
Turning his back on the Evilus rat, Max strolled toward the water's edge, keeping his gait loose and intentionally arrogant.
Clever bastard, he thought, a cold calm settling over him. Lying straight to my face like I couldn't smell the rotting miasma clinging to those lackeys in the shadows.
Fels' warning about these bastards on this floor was the reason he'd rushed here in the first place, but honestly, he would have caught on regardless. The four things trying to hide around the shoreline were doing a piss-poor job of it. To anyone else, they might have passed as weird adventurers. To his senses, they screamed like reanimated corpses, their foul, leaking aura thick enough to taste. His Magic Sense had already mapped the whole perimeter without effort. Five hostiles in total. The old rat up on the ledge was a Level 3, but the four concealed figures were the real threat—two Level 4s, two Level 5s, each one radiating that same corrupted stench.
A kill squad, waiting for its moment.
His eyes flicked briefly to the Monster Rex thrashing in the water. Fresh scuff marks scarred both of its heads, dull impact scoring across scales that should have been pristine. Someone had already gone a few rounds with it. He filed the detail away without much interest—if this squad had softened up the boss earlier, that only made his job easier. Not that it mattered either way. He was killing the dragon regardless, and once that was done, he had a sign to avenge and a lying old man to deal with.
If he let this fight with the Amphisbaena drag out into a messy brawl, that squad would strike the moment his stamina dipped. He needed his rearguard locked down, and he needed this two-headed lizard dead before the peanut gallery could formulate a trap.
Honestly? He was more than happy to oblige.
The half-assed disaster in the Colosseum had left a coiled knot of frustration in his chest. He was itching for a proper fight—one where he didn't have to hold back for fear of bringing down the wrath of the Dungeon on his head. Now that he was fully recovered and ready, he finally had the perfect punching bag in front of him to vent that tension.
Reaching the shoreline, Max smirked. Through the heavy mist, glowing silhouettes drifted just beneath the lake's dark surface. Hundreds of aquatic monsters, lurking like piranhas waiting for the boss to leave them scraps.
If this lake was going to be a battlefield, he needed to control the environment first.
"Kairu," Max murmured, not even breaking his stride.
Shooting off his shoulder like a bullet, his familiar hit the rocky shore and expanded exponentially. In less than a second, Kairu erupted into a ten-meter-high curved barricade of blue gel, sealing off the shoreline. To secure it against the Level 5s lurking behind them, the slime integrated his elemental affinity, flash-freezing the gel's internal layer into a core of unbreakable ice.
From the elevated alcove behind the wall came a sharp gasp.
Caught you off guard, huh? Max thought, keeping his eyes locked on the water. Just wait for the real show.
The sudden eruption of the ice wall drew the Amphisbaena's attention. The twin-headed dragon locked its glowing eyes on him and unleashed a cavern-shaking bellow.
RRRROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!
The roar vibrated the ceiling so violently that massive stalactites snapped loose, raining down like stone javelins. Max didn't stop as Auto-Evade hummed, twitching his shoulders and pivoting his hips just enough. He walked forward, letting the debris shatter harmlessly around him.
Enraged by the lack of reaction, the Monster Rex surged forward through the water. Its left head reared back, throat glowing with an incandescent azure light, ready to drown him in blue napalm.
Max didn't wait for it to finish as he preferred striking first.
Skipping his sword, he planted his feet and thrust his right hand directly at the charging dragon, bringing his left hand up to brace his wrist against the impending recoil. As he didn't know the incantation to properly structure the spell, he had to rely on brute-force compression. He pulled a terrifying density of magic from his reserves, forcing it down his arm until the air around his hands began to warp. The ambient moisture in the cavern instantly vaporized as a volatile sphere of highly-concentrated electricity gathered between his palms.
"Hadō #88," Max announced, his voice slicing clean through the roar of the waterfall. "Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō." (Flying Dragon-Striking Heaven-Shaking Thunder Cannon)
The spell took one sweet, agonizing second to reach critical mass. But just as the Amphisbaena cocked its head back to unleash its power, his spell fired.
An ear-shattering crack of thunder ripped the cavern open. A colossal beam of pale lightning exploded from Max's outstretched hand with blinding velocity. If the dragon had possessed more distance, it might have deployed its infamous red mist to dampen the blow. But at this proximity, it didn't stand a chance.
The thunder cannon struck dead center at the base of the beast's twin necks.
The kinetic impact alone was monstrous, physically lifting the massive dragon out of the water and violently hurling it dozens of meters backward through the churning waves. But the physical blow was only half the spell. The true devastation came when the supercharged lightning plunged straight into the lake.
For a hundred-meter radius, the dark water became a lethal web of extreme voltage.
Every lurking monster in the depths was electrocuted instantly. The water boiled and hissed as the current chained through the liquid, turning the lake into a conductive frying pan.
Max slowly lowered his smoking hand, watching the "invincible" Monster Rex spasm helplessly in the very water it called home. Who said an aquatic biome was a home-field advantage? he thought, smug satisfaction curling at the edge of his mouth. One spell, and all that water had gone from a shield to the thing killing it.
"God damn," he breathed, narrowing his eyes against the glare as the last of the lightning dissipated.
It lacked the apocalyptic, glass-making theatrics of the Explosion spell he'd used in the Colosseum. It didn't shatter the cavern walls or bring the ceiling down. But in terms of environmental lethality? It was a true masterpiece.
Hundreds of charred bodies bobbed up to the boiling surface, blanketing the water in a floating graveyard of monsters. And caught at ground zero of that highly conductive lake, the Amphisbaena was in ruins. Its tough scales had been blown clean off its chest where the beam hit, the flesh beneath seared black. Smoke poured from its gills, its massive body locked in paralytic spasms, and it let out a wail of despair that echoed pitifully off the cavern walls.
Good thing I didn't pull this out the last time I was here with Hogni, Max mused, taking in the full wreckage of his handiwork. The dark elf would've burst a blood vessel or two just watching the aftermath. That's when it clicked—this might even go toe-to-toe with Hedin's Varian Hildr in raw output. The realisation only added an extra kick to his mood.
Though speaking of the Colosseum, someone else clearly hadn't forgotten it either.
From the shore behind him, a dozen blue pseudopods shot out into the sizzling water. Kairu began snatching up floating monsters by the dozen, as if personally offended by the Colosseum's refusal to drop loot and clearly making up for lost time.
As the crackle of electricity faded, a heavy silence engulfed the cavern. Over the sound of Kairu's rapid looting, a ragged inhalation echoed from the elevated alcove. Max glanced over his shoulder. The old man stood at the edge of his ledge, staring at the boiling lake, the sea of corpses, and the paralyzed Monster Rex with horrified eyes.
Max clamped down on the urge to flash him a grin. Focus. The boss isn't dead yet.
Seeing Kairu finish his sweep, Max seized the opening. He bent his knees and jumped.
His strength propelled him a hundred feet into the cavern's mist. Reaching the apex of his arc, he looked down. From this elevation, the legendary Monster Rex looked pathetic — a charred, twitching bug desperately trying to curl into itself to escape the pain.
He wasn't going to give it the chance.
Hovering in the freefall, Max aimed both palms downward and began the chant.
"Walls of iron sand, a priestly pagoda, glowing ironclad fireflies. Standing upright, silent to the end."
"Bakudō #75. Gochūtekkan!"
Five colossal pillars of glowing iron materialized in the mist and plummeted. The Amphisbaena was notoriously agile in the water, a nightmare to pin down under normal circumstances. But locked in electrical paralysis? It was a sitting duck.
The pillars slammed down with explosive force, displacing massive geysers of water as they embedded themselves deep into the bottom of the lake. Two crushed down over the dragon's twin necks, pinning its heads securely beneath the surface, while the remaining three locked its serpentine body into an unbreakable cage.
Still hanging in the mist above the wreckage, Max watched the bindings settle and allowed himself a second of satisfaction before gravity caught up with him. As he began his fall, he called down through the mist. "Kairu! Now!"
The slime abandoned his half-finished feast without hesitation. A wave of biting cold rolled outward across the water. The lake crystallized in a heartbeat, locking the beast, the pillars, and the surrounding cavern into a solid sheet of ice, just in time to catch Max's landing.
His boots hit the frozen surface with a heavy crunch, fifteen meters from the pinned Rex. The ice held firm beneath his weight, and the tension bled out of his shoulders on its own. He let his eyes fall shut, standing in the freezing mist while the dragon thrashed weakly ahead of him, muffled and distant.
The silence gave his mind room to wander back through the fight, and an involuntary smirk crept on his mouth. All thanks to Bell's party, he thought wryly. Watching them struggle against this exact boss in the anime handed me the cheat sheet. Pin it. Freeze the terrain. Crush it. He'd basically walked in with the answer key.
After relishing the superiority for a moment, he opened his eyes and started walking, closing the gap at an unhurried pace. A few feet from the thrashing heads, he stopped and extended his left hand, running through the last steps of his newest spell. Power flowed down his arm, and two crimson circles flared to life above his palm, spinning slowly. A beat later, a matching pair blinked into existence above the Amphisbaena, linking the two together.
Max closed his fist, crushing the circles together.
"Gravity Prison."
The effect was immediate. A wave of dense gravity crashed down onto the beast like a falling sky. The half-dead Rex groaned as the iron pillars sank even deeper into its ruined flesh. It should have sunk into the water to escape the pressure—instead, Kairu's ice held firm beneath it, an anvil where there should have been water. Caught between the crushing weight above and the unyielding floor below, its shattered scales ground against the ice, the pain compounding by the second.
"WHAT ARE YOU ALL WATCHING?! ATTACK HIM! KILL HIM!!"
The scream tore through the alcove, and right on cue, heavy impacts thudded against the far side of the slime wall. Max didn't bother looking back. The heavy hitters hiding in the shadows apparently decided a blind rush through a slimy-ice wall was the optimal route.
"DON'T WASTE TIME THERE, YOU IDIOTS! GO AROUND THE WALL!!" the old rat hissed, voice cracking with desperation.
Max huffed out a quiet laugh. Dunderheads. He wasn't about to wait around while they figured out basic pathfinding.
Drawing his rapier, he stepped up to the edge of the field he'd conjured, watching the air ripple where gravity bent around the dying beast. Not done with his new experiment, he opened his fist again. The twin crimson circles resurfaced above his palm, and this time he brought them down to the base of his blade—dragging the circles along the steel until it wrapped fully around the metal and fused there. The rapier darkened to a pulsing crimson, humming with the same weight he'd just poured into the dragon.
With the blade primed, he snapped his fingers, dispelling the Gravity Prison holding the beast in place. The sudden release let the Amphisbaena lurch upward with a desperate roar—exactly what Max had been waiting for. He met the rising heads mid-leap, twisting his torso into the swing.
"Calamity Slash."
The gravity-filled edge sheared clean through both necks without resistance. The massive body dropped away from its heads in one motion, painting the ice in a wide arc of blue.
Before the heads even settled against the frozen ground, a streak of blue shot past Max's boots—Kairu, diving headfirst into the dissolving corpse, determined to claim his loot before the water could swallow it.
-◈ -
Basram
He gripped his shakujo so hard the iron rings bit into his palm, the metal slick with his own nervous sweat. He was beyond livid.
What had begun as a highly entertaining execution had unraveled the moment that accursed ice wall swallowed his view. Then the lightning struck, and every ounce of fanatic calm he had cultivated shattered along with it.
What in Lady Apate's name is happening down there?!
How was a mere Level 3 capable of spells like that? Basram spent decades observing the limits of adventurers, and what he had just witnessed defied every law of the Dungeon. The boy should have collapsed instantly, his Mind wrung utterly dry after a blast of that magnitude. Instead, the heretic had casually pinned the beast, altered the laws of gravity, and taken both its heads before Basram could even finish composing his outrage.
The Amphisbaena had been the lynchpin of everything—the bait, the box, the very trap he had dragged across three floors to build. With it dead, the Loki vanguard would simply find an empty room and turn back instead of walking into his ambush. His mission was in ruins. How was he supposed to face his benevolent Goddess after this catastrophic failure?
Ten minutes. The entire engagement had taken the infidel barely ten minutes.
HOW? JUST HOW?
And that ooze. What was that thing? Had the boy bound himself to a High Ice Spirit? Its magical output rivaled a first-class adventurer's, flash-freezing a boiling lake in a single breath. Basram had spent his life managing corrupted power; he knew when a monster's parameters didn't belong in a Level 3's shadow. The way it was devouring the dead monsters—with a greedy, almost sapient hunger—made his skin crawl.
Desperation, sharp and frantic, clawed up his throat. He needed to salvage this—at any cost.
As his four Spirit Soldiers finally rounded the frozen barricade and closed in on the boy, a new plan assembled itself in his mind with the speed of a drowning man grabbing driftwood.
He has to be empty, Basram reasoned, his breathing ragged. No mortal frame could spend Mind like that and walk away clean. He's running on fumes and adrenaline. A Mind Down is coming. He'll drop any second.
If his apostles could just keep the heretic occupied, the noise of the fight would carry through the tunnels. The Loki party were self-righteous fools; they would hear the clash and come running to "help," walking right into his kill zone regardless. If Basram played this correctly, he could still spring his trap on the Loki elites. And as a bonus, he would drag home a Freya heretic and a spirit-bound ooze—assets Evilus could bleed dry in the name of vengeance, right until the day their true strength rose to swallow this city whole.
Yes. It is plausible. Lady Apate has simply provided me a greater offering.
He raised the shakujo and struck it once against the stone. The chime rippled outward, carrying his will directly into the hollow minds of his soldiers. Tire him out. Break his legs.
He held the two Level 5s in reserve—the Loki party would need the real muscle—and sent the two Level 4s forward as the vanguard. Leaning over the ledge, he watched the skirmish unfold across the ice with hungry, unblinking eyes.
Then, the boy simply stopped moving. His aggressive assault ceased, his body settling into a defensive stance.
His mind has run dry. Finally.
"Take him! End it now!" Basram hissed, his lips curling into something between a sneer and a prayer.
The apostles lunged. But the instant they closed the distance, the heretic vanished behind a rippling wall of crimson-black magic—and the Level 4s screamed.
They reeled back, clutching their hands to their chests. Basram's breath caught in his throat. The fingers that had brushed that magic weren't wounded. They hadn't been sliced or burned. They were gone. Erased, down to the last joint, leaving smooth, impossible stumps as if the digits had simply never existed.
Basram's grip on the staff went slack. His Spirit Soldiers were mind-wiped husks—hollowed-out weapons stripped of every scrap of fear, pain, and hesitation. They neither flinched from injury nor retreated from death.
Then why are they retreating?
The horrifying realization hit him: the mortal flesh wasn't feeling pain. The spirits embedded inside must be recoiling in existential terror from a magic that threatened to permanently unmake them.
Before Basram could process the impossibility of that power, a deafening boom tore through the cavern on the other side of the frozen lake. Basram's head snapped toward the sound just in time to watch his Level 5—the one specifically prepared to counter Nine Hells ice magic—take a point-blank glacial blast from the ooze and get thrown across the ice like a discarded ragdoll.
-◈ -
Max
The moment the four foul things closed in, Max's arrogance dropped away. His stance sank low and serious. His rapier, still humming with the warping residue of the gravity spell, swept out in a brutal arc—carving straight for the nearest one.
Three of them scattered, twisting out of the blade's path on unnatural instinct alone. But the fourth didn't move. It simply raised a thick palm and caught the deadly edge bare-handed, as if the space-warping strike was nothing more than a stiff breeze.
But Max caught the struggle immediately. The deadpan face was a lie. Beneath that glassy stare, the abomination's fingers trembled violently against the steel. Bloodless cuts were already splitting across its palm where the localized gravity tore into flesh it apparently couldn't feel.
There wasn't time to appreciate the damage. The other three crashed in from different angles, throwing their full weight behind fists and heavy boots that could cave in solid stone.
Auto-Evade hummed as Max ducked, pivoted, and rolled his hips out of four attack lines at once. The sheer kinetic force of their misses cracked the thick ice beneath his boots. They possessed the raw speed and power of first-tier adventurers, but facing them wasn't overwhelming in the slightest.
The four of them fought like strangers thrown into the same body.
They tripped over each other's footwork, collided shoulder-to-shoulder mid-lunge, and wasted more effort correcting their own clumsy messes than actually coordinating strikes. Their raw stats were the only thing keeping the fight going, especially with Kairu elbow-deep in the Amphisbaena's corpse across the lake, entirely too busy devouring the boss to assist him.
Slipping into the rhythm of the dodge, Max realized what was bothering him. None of them were hanging back to charge a spell or calling out formations. He caught a proper look at their faces as he slipped under a sweeping hook, and finally understood why.
They aren't alive.
They were ruined vessels—big, tan-skinned men built like brick walls, radiating a foul, corrupted stench like the most natural perfume in the world. But their eyes told the real story. Wide open. Glassy. Utterly empty. Foam and spit ran down their chins, pooling around thick iron restraints bolted straight through their jaws and wired deep into the backs of their skulls. Whatever minds had once lived behind those eyes had been violently scooped out.
Zombies, Max concluded in disgust. You can't cast a spell with your brain dead.
A plan started forming. He needed to know exactly what he was dealing with. Instead of dodging the next heavy hook, Max planted his feet, brought up his bare left fist, and met the strike head-on.
The collision sent a shockwave of displaced air echoing across the cavern.
Max didn't budge an inch. The creature's arm shuddered violently, outmatched by his Devil physiology. But as Max casually overpowered the limb, his eyes narrowed. The raw kinetic energy behind that punch was staggering. It hit like a high Level 5.
A cold realization washed over him. He wasn't in any personal danger—he had just bullied a biome-boosted Monster Rex for fun—but the macro implications were terrifying. This was supposed to be a low-tier ambush led by a weak Level 3 rat. If Evilus was somehow mass-producing lobotomized Level 5 meat puppets, anyone else who walked into this trap would have been slaughtered. It would take a solid Level 6 to survive a coordinated squad of these things.
He needed to test what else they could take, maybe dissect one properly—
Ping.
A sharp call cut through his focus.
He ignored it. He was busy contemplating the threat level of Evilus's new toys. Not the moment. His mind ran through the possible callers, instantly ruling out Freya. She, at least, had the decency not to call him while he was in the Dungeon.
Ping. Ping.
It came again. Heavier and more insistent each time, gnawing at the edge of his consciousness until it was impossible to tune out.
Fine. I'll answer.
He didn't drop his guard. Instead, he wrapped his body in a dense shroud of Destruction. It surrounded him like an impenetrable wall. Anything foolish enough to touch him now would instantly regret it. That bought him the breathing room he needed. He just had to hold the defensive line until Kairu finished gorging and rejoined the fight.
He accepted the mental link.
As he suspected, it wasn't Freya's voice waiting on the other end.
"MAXIMUS!"
The voice tore through his skull—frantic, desperate, and stripped entirely bare of its usual, drawling nonchalance.
"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK—IT'S EVILUS!"
For a second, as a mindless zombie slammed itself blindly against his wall and screamed violently as its fingers dissolved, Max's mind went completely blank.
Loki?
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Well, well, well, that was a quick battle against the Monster Rex. Max treated it more like a speed bump than the actual menace it was supposed to be as he was already on a battle high, and has other 'guests' to accommodate. Kairu being the greedy little goblin he was purely focused on the loot. ;)
Lake is electrified? Meh, Loot!! Master is attacked by 4 Zombies? Master will be fine, Eating DRAGON first. As in the end, LOOT IS ETERNAL!!!
Finally, we came to one of the most important parts of the arc. Loki is under attack. How many of you expected that when you first read Basram's pov? :)
The next chapter will be from Loki's side detailing what happened and Max's response to the attack, trust me, he would make Evilus wish it was just a bad dream, heh.
Do share how you felt the chapter was. Was it good or did you feel it was a bit forced? Please share your feedback/suggestions on how to improve the story in a comment/review. I will address them to make the chapter better.
If you'd like to read 10 chapters ahead(around 50k words), support my work, check character images for free, or commission a story idea, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m/b3smash
Please note that the chapters are early access only, they will be eventually released here as well.
Next update will be on Friday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.