CHAPTER 38: The spider's tale and further dungeon

I pushed the heavy oak doors of the Golden Griffin. The hinges groaned quietly in the morning calm, and the cool, crisp air of Oakhaven fell into the warm room behind us. The solo slaughter on the floors from the fifty-first to the sixtieth had finally come to an end. The massive, area-of-effect electrical-pressure detonation with which I had leveled the boss and his entire army of the deep to the ground had burned an enormous amount of my calorie reserves. My internal sapphire reactor worked steadily now, humming quietly in my chest, but my physical Vessel demanded a hard, immediate reset and a massive dose of carbohydrates to stabilize.

Shnee was by my side in a fraction of a second. The murderous, icy mask she usually wore in the deep had completely evaporated, replaced by an expression of pure, fanatical loyalty and possessive care that shone clearly in her diamond-bright eyes. Without a single word, she gently pulled the dusty black coat from my broad shoulders. Instead of moving away, she leaned her shoulder firmly against my side, wrapping her arm around my back as if to absorb the physical warmth of my stable foundation. It had become our established routine at the base. We built an absolute, unshakeable sanctuary of security around us.

"You did it," she murmured quietly, her voice carrying a soft, feline purr as she snuggled into my side.

"Sixtieth floor officially closed. Clean disposal on pure logic," I answered with my constant, brazen coolness, briefly stroking her smooth white hair with a relaxed hand.

I approached the main table and dropped heavily onto a carved oak chair, stretching my legs. Elena was immediately beside me, her doe eyes shining with that same deep, protective devotion. Without a single word of explanation, she placed a steaming, clay bowl of thick, high-protein meat broth and a gargantuan plate of roasted boar meat and thick crusty bread in front of me. There was no cheap, dramatic desire or forced romance in this room. This was a pure, raw Intimate Brotherhood of Arms, a bond cemented in blood and absolute trust. The innkeeper sat right on my other side, moving so close that I felt the warm, comforting contact of her thigh against mine.

I began eating in silence, loading the empty fuel tank of my Vessel with maximum efficiency. Shnee rested her chin softly on my right shoulder, watching me with quiet fascination, while Elena added more steaming portions to my plate with a silent, proud smile. In this one short moment, in the very heart of the Lower City of Oakhaven, I was the absolute center of their universe. My power gave them freedom and a clean slate, and in return, they gave me a physical haven where I could let down my guard.

Suddenly, Kaede jumped off my pauldron. The agile white ball landed straight onto the center of the oak table, stepping nimbly between the steaming bowls of broth.

"Alright, you guys are calmly serving breakfast here, and you don't even have a single clue what a massive, legendary carnage Dave did last night on the floors from fifty-one to sixty!" the spider began predatorily, waving her front legs to add dramatic tension and clicking her mandibles against the wood. "The boss drove in there like a fucking steamroller!" she continued with absolute, wild excitement, pacing the tabletop. "He turned on thirty percent of his aura, until the passive gravity of his Vessel literally hardened the air! He fired electrical detonations, evaporating those giant, three-meter obsidian beasts. And when we fell into a narrow canyon on the fifty-ninth floor and hundreds of multi-armed, venomous mutants tried to flank him from behind? He released massive, razor-sharp tentacles of Sapphire Slime from his back, huge and thick like fucking Carnage, and simply sliced them into perfect, bloody slices!"

Mina blinked several times with her large, feline eyes, her fluffy tail twitching with sudden disorientation. "Like who?" she asked quietly, her ears flattening in a classic, cognitive lag.

The rest of the crew caught an identical lag, their medieval minds completely failing to process the pop-culture reference.

I swallowed a thick, juicy piece of meat, washed it down with water from the clay mug, and only waved my hand carelessly. I smiled under my breath, feeling the pleasant, relaxed nonchalance of the moment.

"Nevermind, forget it. I will explain this concept to you someday. Keep going, Kaede," I threw freely, leaning back.

"The tentacles butchered everything on their way themselves, leaving only gore and clean, high-level cores!" the hyped mascot continued, standing proudly on her hind legs. "And at the end, he dropped directly into the boss chamber on the sixtieth floor. There was a whole fucking army of the deep in there! Dozens of elite constructs and the Many-Eyed Beast itself! Dave didn't even play with any fencing or defensive blocks. He just drove his fist straight into the obsidian floor, fired a monstrous, high-voltage impulse, and made such a massive, pressure-electrical area detonation that everyone evaporated! He leveled the entire army to the ground, choking them with their own echo!"

I allowed this heavy, awe-struck silence to hang in the dining room for a few more heartbeats, watching their expressions. Luthia sat frozen, her pen hovering over her financial ledgers, her analytical dark elf mind struggling to compute the sheer, physical tonnage of my power. Mina and little Ria stared with wide, round eyes, while Elena slowly stopped her wiping cloth, her face pale with a mixture of terror and absolute respect. They realized that my power did not rely on cheap, mystical tricks of the guild, but on a raw, inhuman causal force that bent the environment to my will.

Finally, I yawned lengthily, interrupting this dramatic theater on pure common sense. I brushed the breadcrumbs off my shirt and slowly stood up from the carved chair, cracking the stiff joints of my neck with a satisfying pop.

"Alright, end of this meeting," I threw in a calm, relaxed voice, which immediately defused all the thick tension in the room. "I consider the morning reset and loading carbohydrates officially closed. Time to get back to work, because this dungeon will not turn itself into pure capital for Silas."

I shifted my gaze to the white-haired elf. The dangerous, cold hunger of an assassin still buzzed in her diamond eyes, but at my signal, she immediately stood at attention, her posture straight and disciplined.

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"Shnee, gather your gear. End of laziness, you are returning to the front line," I ordered firmly. "Kaede, load back onto my left ear. We are entering the sixth ten. Let's see if these deeper levels have any real resistance to offer us."

The icy mask of a professional assassin returned to Shnee's face in a fraction of a second, completely closing her soft, warm side from the outside world. She nodded with predatory readiness, adjusting the belt holding her new, transparent rapier of Heavenly Silver. Kaede, absolutely delighted with the prospect of another slaughter session from the free VIP box of my ear, nimbly bounced off the oak tabletop, ran up my sleeve, and slipped deep into my left auricle.

"Tactical radars fired up, boss. Ready for tactical pinging," the small spider reported in our native Polish cipher.

"Luthia, Elena," I threw in parting to the rest of the crew, sliding my hands deep into the pockets of my black coat with complete, unshakeable brazen chill. "Guard the business and maintain the monopoly in the base. We are going to break more bones."

We left the warm, welcoming interior of the Golden Griffin, stepping straight into the crisp, cool morning air of Oakhaven. With every step towards the dark portal of the Forgotten Necropolises, my sapphire reactor began to purr stronger under my skin, ready for the brutal neutralization and deconstruction of the subsequent floors.

We entered the sixty-first floor, and the transition welcomed us with a sudden, violent jump in barometric pressure. The blue portal folded with a quiet hiss, and the cool air of the surface was replaced by a stuffy, heavy atmosphere reeking of sulfur and old rust.

"Boss, this reflex is pure e-sports," Kaede chirped in my ear, fastening her mental seatbelts as my passive gravity barrier smoothly deflected the toxic fumes from our path.

"Sayonara, pebbles," I threw completely relaxed, flicking a speck of grey soot from my shoulder lapel.

I looked at the frosty elf walking behind my shoulder and cracked my stiff neck.

"Let's roll with this stuff," I summarized, moving deep into the darkness.

Going down stopped being a leisurely stroll, and the dungeon began to throw heavier, coordinated units on the table to slow our express speedrun. On the sixty-fourth floor, the obsidian corridor abruptly opened into a wide, circular arena of black volcanic stone.

In its very center, an elite guard was waiting for us—six Knights of the Abyss, colossal constructs armored in solid, blackened steel. Each of them was a head taller than me and wielded massive, serrated greatswords in their empty gauntlets. Unlike the brainless skeletons of the upper floors, their movements were perfectly synchronized, forming a tight, steel-hard wall of shields and blades.

I yawned shortly. My right hand, in a fraction of a second, was covered with a hard, diamond-dense layer of Sapphire Slime.

Instead of getting into a tedious fencing exchange, I dived into their zone with a brazen chill. I threw a massive, kinetic blow with an open hand straight into the chest of the left knight. The raw, concentrated momentum hit with a deafening bang, literally crushing his thick steel breastplate inward like an empty can. The crushing force threw the multi-ton construct several meters back, breaking their formation.

The second knight tried to cut me diagonally from my blind spot, but before his sword could even fall, Shnee soundlessly grew right behind his back. Quiet as death, she delivered a lightning-fast, precise thrust with her transparent rapier. The blade dived into the joint of his armor from behind, and the extreme frost of her instantly blew his steel structure apart from the inside, leaving only falling ash.

Within three minutes, the sixty-fourth floor was completely cleared. The six knights had turned into piles of smoking black dust and shining, purple cores of essence, which I smoothly gathered into my bottomless pouch using a minimalist wave of telekinesis.

"Cleanly swept," I assessed coldly, sliding my hands back into my pockets as we moved deeper. "Let's see what this place has waiting on the sixty-seventh floor."

The sixty-seventh floor of the Forgotten Necropolises tried to slow us down with a completely different, environmental layout. Instead of narrow obsidian corridors, we stepped out onto a vast, flooded plateau where icy, toxic water reached up to our ankles.

And in its very center, a monumental, eight-armed Snake-Tail waited—an elite beast whose lower body part resembled a giant, venomous centipede. Before we could even get into close range, the monster spat out a thick, choking cloud of paralyzing green gas and immediately dived beneath the murky water with a massive splash.

"It is trying to play on fatigue," Shnee evaluated coldly, her boots splashing as she cut and froze the approaching gas fumes with her rapier.

I snorted shortly, feeling a surge of Brazen chill. With all my heart, I hated opponents who chose cheap status effects and running instead of a direct, physical clash.

"Boss, it's surfacing right behind you! Its mana is spiking!" Kaede's tactical message pinged in my ear in our Polish cipher.

The Snake-Tail suddenly emerged from the water right behind my back, crossing its eight arms in a magical gesture. Its thick body began to glow with purple light, preparing an area-of-effect spell designed to freeze our Naczynia and wipe us out from a distance.

"Don't even dream about it, ugly," I murmured with complete disgust.

On pure logic, charging a massive spell in front of someone who holds the space in his bare hands is a critical, system-resetting error. I didn't give it a single millisecond of screen time.

I didn't draw Orcrist. I simply used hard, raw telekinesis to propel myself into the air, nullifying my own weight. In the blink of an eye, I closed the distance, finding myself directly in front of its face. My right hand, coated in Sapphire Slime, executed a precise, brutal uppercut straight into its jaw.

The purple light around the boss went out instantly with a dry, metallic snap—CLACK!—as its neck broke in half. The multi-ton body of the Snake-Tail collapsed back into the water with a massive crash, turning into a harmless pile of ash and leaving behind a giant, emerald-red core of essence.

"Oh fuck, what a beautiful cancel, boss! Zero respect for its super-skill!" Kaede cackled in my ear, and Shnee sheathed her rapier with quiet, absolute satisfaction.

I caught the giant core in mid-air using telekinesis, sliding it under my coat. We maintained our murderous pace, clearing the remaining corridors of the sixth ten without the slightest stutter or hesitation.

When we finally reached the border of the sixty-ninth floor, Kaede let out a sharp, warning hiss from my shoulder.

"Dave, stop! The space ahead... something is wrong there!" her tactical message cut through our silence in Polish.

I braked, my boots dragging heavily against the stone.

The final stretch of the wide corridor, which should have opened straight to the massive gates of the seventieth floor, had changed beyond recognition. The gravity here was noticeably, uncomfortably heavier, and the air was thick with the metallic stench of ionized copper.

Directly before us, blocking the entire passage, stood a living, pulsating wall of black basalt, festering vines, and the pressed, mutated bodies of previous monsters. From this disgusting, biological barrier, dozens of thick tentacles armed with sharp, bone spikes began to violently slide out, tensing like a spring.

"Hell is officially opened, and we are just getting started," I muttered with a slight, predatory smile, adjusting the collar of my black coat as Shnee took a firm combat stance beside me. "Let's show this system who sets the rules."