Deep in the Dungeon, Floor 39—the Great Tree Labyrinth, Safe Zone.
They called it "safe," but the air still felt thick and rancid, like milk left to ferment for three days. Even so, for Loki Familia's expedition force, this place was the last slice of paradise before the march into hell.
"All units, check your gear!"
"Are potions distributed?! If you're missing anything, go find that red-haired 'Doraemon'—Emiya Shirou—and collect it!"
"Five minutes until we break camp! If you want to write a will, write it now! Not that anyone's going to deliver it!"
Gareth Landrock, the veteran dwarf whose voice could rival thunder, was running final roll call with his signature brand of "hardcore motivation."
Meanwhile, at the expedition's logistics hub—
Emiya Shirou was completely surrounded by support members.
"Sir Emiya! My backup dagger has a crack!"
"Shirou! This is Captain Finn's special mana-recovery mix!"
"Emiya-senpai! I want one last rice ball before we leave! Ume flavor!"
"Okay, okay—one at a time." Shirou sighed, but his hands moved so fast they blurred.
"Trace—On."
"Projection—Container."
"Cooking—Speed Mode."
In that moment, he wasn't fighting as a front-liner.
He was a blacksmith. A pharmacist. A cook.
The expedition's logistics god.
Watching him, Liliruca Arde couldn't help muttering, "Emiya… you look like a mangaka the night before deadline, desperately patching plot holes. You're radiating 'death by overwork.'"
"Don't say it, Lili." Shirou forced a laugh. "That's what 'the capable work more' really means. And… if I don't arm these people to the teeth, the road ahead won't forgive us."
He lifted his gaze toward the black mouth leading deeper.
His Mind's Eye (True) throbbed faintly—
not with malice aimed at him alone, but with the Dungeon's pure killing intent.
"Time's up!" Finn Deimne stood atop a boulder and struck his spear against stone.
"Loki Familia—move out!"
"Objective: Floor 50!"
"Let's give that cowardly thing hiding in the dark a lesson!"
Floors 40 to 48 — The "Death March"
Among adventurers, the stretch from Floor 40 onward had a name:
the Death March.
If the upper levels were the tutorial, and the middle layers the advanced zone… then the deep floors—starting around the White Palace—were the kind of content designed by a sadistic developer who wanted you to suffer.
Enemies started around Level 4.
Terrain turned hostile.
Traps multiplied.
And the spawn rate was obscene.
"Up ahead is the Flame Hell!" Riveria's voice echoed through amplified magic. "All units, activate fire-resistance wards!"
Floor 44 had no roads—only magma rivers and heat-warped rock.
Temperatures soared past fifty degrees. Every breath felt like swallowing embers.
A roar erupted.
From the magma climbed Fomorians—massive giants wreathed in flame, swinging obsidian maces that shook the ground with every step.
"Seriously?!" Tiona hacked apart an incoming fireball and shouted, "Are they trying to host a bonfire festival?! And this weather is murder on my skin!"
"Shut it and hold the line!" Bete Loga became a streak of silver lightning, weaving through the giants. His enchanted boots—Hati—met fire with fire, sending flaming brutes stumbling and howling.
But there were too many.
And in this terrain, stamina drained at triple speed.
"Rear guard, magic unit—support!" Riveria raised her staff to begin a large-scale chant, but the giants clearly weren't going to let her "read the cast bar" in peace.
"Then we do it my way."
In the middle of the formation, Shirou's eyes sharpened.
He didn't draw heavy ordnance like a greatsword—too clumsy here.
Instead, he raised both hands as if gripping empty air.
"Trace."
His circuits turned.
This time he wasn't projecting a single weapon—
He was projecting a battlefield.
"I am the bone of my sword…"
Dozens of ice-aligned magic swords appeared in midair, their designs mismatched, their surfaces radiating cold.
"Freeze and extinguish!"
They launched like missiles, embedding into giant feet—or plunging straight into magma.
"Broken Phantasm—attribute release!"
The explosion didn't bloom into flame.
It burst into absolute cold.
Magma flash-froze into black stone.
The fire giants became ice statues—only for a few seconds, but it was enough.
"Now!" Finn snapped instantly. "All units—charge!"
Gareth bellowed with laughter and surged forward, smashing frozen giants into shattering fragments.
Off to the side, Lefiya Viridis stared at Shirou's back while chanting, her eyes full of awe—and a painful pinch of envy.
"Is Emiya… really Level 3? That kind of precision control—mass projection into instant detonation—this is cheating…"
"Don't drift, Lefiya." Riveria tapped her head with the staff. "That's his talent. You can't copy it. Focus on your chant."
With Shirou functioning as a human crowd-control engine, Loki Familia's pace became terrifying.
What should've taken three days through Flame Hell, they carved through in half a day.
Floor 49 — The Great Wasteland
A vast open plain with no cover.
The last gate before Floor 50.
Even Ais Wallenstein—as relentless as she was—breathed a little harder now.
Continuous high-intensity fighting did that, no matter how many potions you swallowed. Fatigue accumulated in the mind first.
"Ten-minute rest!" Finn ordered. "This is the last pause. Floor 50 is ahead."
Shirou walked over and handed Ais a compressed ration bar and a bottle of special mana water.
"You okay?"
Ais took a small sip. "I'm fine. As long as I see that… I can keep moving."
She meant it—the Corrupted Spirit.
Revenge was the fuel in her bloodstream.
"Don't push too hard." Shirou sat beside her, looking toward the gray "sky" of stone overhead. "If you're exhausted, get behind me. Don't forget—I'm your backstop."
"…Mm." Ais nodded softly and, without realizing it, leaned a little closer.
Down here, where death saturated every breath, Shirou's presence felt like a moving hearth—warm and steady.
"Ahhh, young love." Loki appeared out of nowhere, wearing a smug grin that said she'd seen everything. "Want me to officiate your wedding? Right at the entrance to Floor 50! Romantic, yeah?"
"Loki!" Ais flushed instantly.
"Stop it," Shirou groaned. "Now's not the time to raise flags. Anyone who says that before a final battle has, like, a ten-percent survival rate."
"Tch. No sense of humor." Loki shrugged—
Then her expression sharpened.
Her red eyes locked onto the massive passage leading to Floor 50.
"That is…"
A wind rolled across the wasteland.
No—
not wind.
Mana.
A suffocating storm of mana, thick with the scent of rotting flowers and blood.
"It's here." Finn rose, spear humming.
"All units—battle stations!"
Floor 50 — The Garden
When Loki Familia's main force stepped into Floor 50, everyone froze.
This floor should've been barren rock.
Instead—
it was a sea of flowers.
Gigantic blooms the size of trees filled the entire level.
Red petals oozed like blood.
Purple vines pulsed like veins.
It was gorgeous.
It was obscene.
It was beautiful in a way that made your skin crawl.
"W-What is this…?" Lili shrank behind Shirou. "The flowers… they're moving."
"They're not flowers," Shirou said, activating Mind's Eye (True).
In his vision, the entire "flower field" wasn't a field at all—
It was one organism.
These were all tentacles. All extensions.
"They're alive," he said grimly. "And they're drawing mana from this floor."
A voice spoke directly into everyone's minds.
It sounded like a girl whispering.
An old woman screaming.
And a chorus of monsters roaring all at once—layered, warped, and insane.
"Welcome… to my garden."
The central bud—massive enough to blot out the ceiling—began to open.
Petals unfolded—
revealing its core.
A female upper body, pale as bone, fused into a lower half of endless vines, roots, and writhing tendrils.
Hair like green creepers.
Eyes with no pupils—only a black, chaotic void.
Corrupted Spirit — a split body.
"So pretty…"
"So hungry…"
It tilted its head, staring down at the adventurers like they were plated desserts.
"Give me your magic stones…"
"Give me your lives…"
Finn's face darkened.
That mana output wasn't "boss-level."
It wasn't even "floor lord-level."
It was—
calamity.
"Ais." Riveria looked at the girl beside her.
Ais didn't answer.
She simply drew her blade—Desperate.
The wind on the sword howled violently… then darkened, the gale turning almost black from sheer density.
A resonance.
A skill awakening.
Avenger.
"Kill," Ais said—one word.
"Attack!" Finn roared.
"Ariel!"
"Helfinegas!"
"Win Fimbulvetr!"
The three pillars of Loki Familia detonated at once—three strikes strong enough to erase a town.
They slammed into the Corrupted Spirit.
And—
"Useless… useless…"
It laughed.
Petals snapped shut into a colossal shield.
The impact thundered.
When the smoke cleared, the shield was broken—
but the Corrupted Spirit's body was untouched.
Worse, the petals regrew instantly.
"Regen…" Shirou's stomach sank. "It's faster than the skeleton king."
This was the problem.
Unless you annihilated its core in one decisive blow, it wouldn't die.
"If you won't give…" the Spirit purred, "then I'll take."
Its mouth opened.
Green beams erupted—from its throat, from the flowers, from every corner of the garden.
"Firebolt!"
"Defend! Full defense!"
The battlefield became a furnace.
The beams weren't just powerful—they were corrosive. Anything hit began to melt: armor, flesh, weapons.
Screams rose.
Several support members went down before they could even move.
"Damn it—too many!" Gareth raised a tower shield and tanked the barrage, teeth grinding. "We'll get ground down like this!"
"We have to break its rhythm!" Finn shouted. "Bete! Tiona! Cut the tendrils—stop it from drawing mana from the ground!"
"Got it!"
And then—
Shirou felt a familiar, nauseating gaze.
It wasn't the Spirit.
It was coming from below.
From beneath the flower's massive base, shadows shifted.
Something red and skeletal stepped out.
A monster holding a greatsword forged of orichalcum.
Its body was damaged—still scarred from Shirou's earlier annihilation—yet the pressure it emitted was heavier, more concentrated.
Bone Tyrant — Modified.
It hadn't died.
It had been… reforged.
The ghostfire in its eyes locked precisely onto Shirou.
"Senji… Muramasa…"
"Again… fight…"
Shirou exhaled slowly, almost resigned.
"I knew it."
He loosened the bandages around his arms—ones he'd already slipped free with magecraft.
Then he drew the massive blade from his back:
Pseudo-Demonic Sword: Severing Mountain.
"Ais—leave the big one to you," Shirou said, eyes burning with battle intent as the Bone Tyrant approached. "This 'old friend'…"
He raised the greatsword.
"…is mine."
"Emiya—be careful!" Ais tried to move—
But tentacles swept down like a storm and separated them, sealing her into the main battle.
Shirou didn't turn.
"Don't worry."
"Last time, I wasn't ready."
"This time…"
His circuits opened fully.
The mana of Level 3 surged, reinforced by Mystery—a pressure that made the air tremble.
"Trace."
"Unlimited Blade Works—half-open."
Behind him, countless sword-shadows ignited into existence—no longer vague phantoms, but steel given murderous form.
He stared at the Bone Tyrant.
And smiled like a man walking into hell on purpose.
"I'll show you…"
"…what the real underworld looks like."
On Floor 50, the decisive battle finally began.
One front—Loki Familia's main force challenging a living myth.
The other—an old, personal duel between a red-haired "hero" and a resurrected tyrant.
This expedition, once called an "adventure," had crossed the line into epic.
And now—
it was entering its most brutal chapter yet.
....
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