The alchemy shop was a hole in the wall in the West District, smelling of sulfur and dried herbs.
"Antidotes," Aiden said, placing coins on the counter. "And burn ointment."
The shopkeeper, a bored human with stained fingers, slid three small green vials and a tin of salve across the wood. "600 Valis. The frogs on Floor 5 are spitting heavy this season."
Aiden paid. 1,570 Valis left. Every step they took cost money.
"Zanis knows what he's doing," Lyra said as they walked toward Babel, clipping the vials to her belt. "Frog Shooters are slow, but they hunt in packs. Their spit melts leather. Their tongues are like whips. He expects us to come back melted or not come back at all."
"He expects us to beg for help," Aiden adjusted the pauldrons of his new leather armor. It felt stiff, but it was better than a hoodie. "He wants us to realize we can't survive without the Family."
"Are we going to?"
"We're going to survive," Aiden said, his hand brushing the iron-banded handle of his sledgehammer. "Just not his way."
The descent to Floor 5 was a speed run.
With their new gear and Aiden's increased Strength, Floors 1 through 3 were trivial. The Kobolds and Goblins shattered under the sledgehammer's weight. Floor 4 was trickier—more dungeon lizards and shadows—but Lyra's new wand proved its worth. She could cast Gossamer faster, with less mental strain, confusing enemies long enough for Aiden to close the distance.
They reached the stairs to Floor 5 in record time.
The atmosphere shifted immediately. The air turned humid, thick with the smell of stagnant water and rot. The walls were covered in slick, green moss. The floor was uneven, dotted with puddles of murky water.
"Floor 5," Aiden noted. "The Green Hell."
Squelch.
Aiden stepped into a patch of mud.
"Eyes up," Lyra warned, her wand raised. "I feel... hunger. Wet, sticky hunger."
Thwip.
A sound like a wet towel snapping.
Something red and blurred shot out from the shadows of a mossy alcove. It aimed for Aiden's head.
Aiden instinctively raised the hammer handle to block.
Smack.
A long, thick tongue wrapped around the iron handle. It was coated in viscous slime.
The owner of the tongue revealed itself. A Frog Shooter. It was the size of a large dog, green and warty, with bulging yellow eyes. It anchored itself with powerful legs and pulled.
Aiden felt the jerk. It was strong. But Aiden had Strength I-19.
"You want it?" Aiden growled, planting his feet. "Take it!"
He didn't pull back. He pulled with the frog.
He heaved the hammer backward, dragging the surprised monster out of its hiding spot. The frog flew through the air, flailing.
"Lyra!"
Lyra was already moving. She didn't use magic. She drew the red Killer Ant dagger.
As the frog flew past her, dragged by its own tongue, she slashed.
The serrated chitin tore through the soft white underbelly of the monster.
The frog landed with a wet thud, croaked once, and dissolved into ash. A piece of green skin and a small stone remained.
"One," Aiden unwrapped the severed tongue remnant from his hammer handle. It dissolved into smoke a second later. "Nine to go."
"That was one," Lyra said, wiping slime off her armor. "But Zanis said 'infestation'."
As if on cue, the darkness of the cavern ahead lit up with dozens of pairs of yellow eyes.
Croak. Croak. Croak.
The sound echoed, overlapping into a deafening chorus.
"Thirty," Aiden counted, his stomach tightening. "Maybe forty."
"That's not a spawn," Lyra stepped back, her knuckles white on her wand. "That's a Monster Party. Zanis must have used a lure to bunch them up here."
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Three tongues shot out simultaneously.
"Move!" Aiden shoved Lyra behind a stalagmite.
Two tongues slapped the stone where she had been standing. The third caught Aiden's left shoulder pauldron. The acid slime sizzled against the leather.
Aiden swung the hammer, smashing the tongue mid-air, but it was rubbery. It absorbed the impact.
"They're kiting us!" Aiden shouted. "They're staying out of range!"
The frogs were perched on ledges, behind rocks, and on the ceiling. They were peppering the area with long-range tongue strikes and globs of acidic spit.
Aiden was a melee fighter with a heavy weapon. He was a sitting duck.
A glob of purple acid hit his thigh. The leather smoked, and a sharp sting burned his skin.
[Damage: Acid Burn (Minor)] [Armor Durability: 85%]
"I can't reach them!" Aiden roared, smashing another tongue that tried to grab his leg.
"Cover me!" Lyra shouted.
She stepped out from cover. She didn't aim at a frog. She aimed at the air in the center of the room.
She raised her wand. The crystal tip glowed with a frantic violet light.
"The world is a mirror. You are your own enemy."
[Magic: Gossamer - Reflection] [Cost: Medium Mana]
A shimmering haze filled the center of the cavern. It bent the light, creating a localized mirage. To the frogs, the stalagmites and rocks seemed to shift position.
The frogs fired again.
Thwip. Thwip.
But their aim was off. Tongues hit walls. Tongues hit the floor. Two frogs accidentally hit each other, their sticky tongues tangling in a knot.
"Confusion!" Lyra gasped, sweat beading on her forehead. "Go now!"
Aiden charged.
He ignored the acid burning his leg. He sprinted toward the nearest cluster of three frogs on the ground level.
They tried to hop away.
Aiden didn't swing for a kill. He swung for the ground.
BOOM.
The sledgehammer struck the wet earth. The shockwave splashed mud and dirty water into the frogs' eyes. They flinched.
Aiden spun the hammer.
Splat. Splat. Splat.
Three kills in one fluid motion. The hammer was a blur of black iron.
He scooped up the dropped skins—slimy, green hides—and shoved them into his pouch.
"Four down!"
But the frogs on the ceiling were adjusting. The mirage was fading.
A massive frog on a high ledge—a specialized variant, larger and darker—opened its mouth. It didn't fire a tongue. It spewed a stream of high-pressure acid.
"Aiden, above!"
Aiden looked up. He couldn't dodge. The spray was too wide.
He raised the hammer, holding it like a shield over his head.
Hiss.
The acid coated the iron head and the banding. Some splashed onto his face, burning his cheek.
Aiden screamed, blinded in one eye.
"Aiden!" Lyra's voice was pure panic.
"I'm fine!" Aiden lied, wiping his eye. It was blurry, stinging like fire. "Get it down! Bring it down!"
Lyra looked at the ceiling frog. It was out of dagger range.
She gripped her wand with both hands.
"Gravity is heavy. Dreams are heavy. FALL."
[Magic: Gossamer - Burden (Focused)]
She poured her mana into the frog. She convinced its nervous system that it weighed ten tons.
The frog's grip on the mossy ceiling failed. It slipped.
It fell five meters, landing on its back with a wet slap right in front of Aiden.
Aiden didn't hesitate. He couldn't see clearly out of his right eye, so he trusted the blur.
[Skill: RENDER] [Target: Biological Elasticity]
He slammed the hammer into the frog's exposed white belly.
He didn't just crush it. The Severance Devil surged. He severed the structural integrity of its internal organs.
The frog popped.
It exploded in a shower of slime and ash.
Aiden stood there, panting, acid smoke rising from his armor. His face was red and blistering.
The remaining frogs, seeing their alpha exploded and their packmates decimated, did what predators do when the prey bites back too hard.
They retreated.
The croaks faded as they hopped back into the deep shadows of the dungeon.
Silence returned to Floor 5, broken only by the drip of acid and Aiden's ragged breathing.
Lyra ran to him. She uncorked a vial of antidote and a tin of salve.
"Your face," she whispered, her hands trembling as she applied the salve to his cheek. "It missed the eye by an inch."
"Armor took the worst of it," Aiden grunted, looking at his pauldrons. The leather was pitted and scarred. "Zanis... he wanted us to get dissolved."
"We have the skins," Lyra checked the ground. She gathered the drops quickly. "Six... seven... plus the ones you grabbed... Eleven."
"Eleven," Aiden spat a glob of blood. "We're done."
He leaned on his hammer. The iron head was smoking, the metal discolored by the acid, but the structure held.
"Let's go," Aiden said. "Before the smell of blood brings the Dungeon Lizards."
The return trip was miserable. Aiden's leg burned with every step. His vision in his right eye was blurry from the fumes. Lyra supported him, her own mana drained to 30%.
They reached the surface as night fell.
They didn't go to the Guild. They went straight to the Soma base.
They walked into the main hall. It was dinner time. Zanis was there, sitting at a high table, drinking wine with his lieutenants.
The room went quiet as Aiden and Lyra entered. They looked like they had crawled out of a swamp—covered in green slime, mud, and burns.
Aiden walked to Zanis's table. He didn't bow.
He reached into his pouch and dumped the bundle of wet, stinking frog skins onto Zanis's plate, right next to his roast chicken.
The slime splattered onto the white tablecloth.
Zanis stared at the skins. Then at Aiden.
"Eleven," Aiden rasped. "We cleared the route."
Zanis's expression twitched. For a second, there was genuine surprise. Then, the mask of the Captain returned. He smiled, though it was tight.
"Diligent," Zanis said, picking up a skin with two fingers. "Very diligent. I expected you... later."
"We work fast," Aiden said. "Are we done?"
"For now," Zanis waved his hand. "Go clean up. You smell like failure."
Aiden turned and walked away. Lyra followed, her hand resting on the hilt of her dagger, her eyes drilling into Zanis's back.
As they reached the stairs to their room, Aiden heard Zanis whisper to one of his guards.
"Watch them. If they try to leave the city, break their legs."
Aiden closed the door to their room and locked it.
He collapsed on the bed.
"He's not going to let us go," Lyra said, starting to strip the ruined armor off Aiden. "He's going to escalate until we die."
"I know," Aiden hissed as the salve touched his burns.
"We need to leave the Familia, Aiden. We need to convert."
"We can't," Aiden stared at the ceiling. "Soma won't release us. And no other God will take us with the debt and the stigma."
"Then what do we do?"
Aiden looked at the sledgehammer in the corner. Then he looked at his own hand—the hand of the Severance Devil.
"We don't convert," Aiden whispered. "We take over."
Lyra paused. "What?"
"Soma doesn't care about the Familia," Aiden said, his mind racing through the canon lore. "He only cares about the wine. Zanis runs the show because Soma is negligent."
"So?"
"So," Aiden's eyes hardened. "If we give Soma something better than the wine... or if we prove Zanis is damaging his 'brewing process'... we can cut Zanis out."
"That's politics," Lyra said. "We're Level 1 nobodies."
"For now," Aiden closed his eyes. "But the System... it tracks 'Corruption'. Maybe we can sever the addiction itself. Not just for us. For the God."
It was a crazy plan. A suicide mission. But it was the only path that didn't end in a shallow grave on Floor 5.
[Quest Completed: The Captain's Hazing.]
[Reward: 24 Hours Autonomy.]
[Status Update: Aiden Cross]
[End: I-5 -> I-9] [Proficiency: Render 11.2%] [New Mutation Unlocked: Acid Resistance (Trace).]
"Sleep," Aiden commanded. "Tomorrow... we go deeper."