At this moment, Olivas's heart filled with a shock and terror he had never felt before.
In his eyes, Riezel's detestable face had completely turned terrifying, as though a demon that saw through everything were mocking him with ridicule and contempt.
Every sentence, every secret that was revealed made Olivas feel as if layers of his skin were being peeled away, exposing fresh, bloody flesh beneath, leaving him ugly and unable to hide anything.
Whether it was the matter of the Corrupted Spirit or the existence of Enyo, these were all secrets that should have been buried at the deepest level.
Yet Riezel had exposed them all as if it were nothing, so how could Olivas not feel fear?
"You… You… How do you know so much?!"
In an instant, the lofty mentality in Olivas's heart was shattered.
As a former member of Evilus, there had always been an unstable side to his personality.
He had once sought to bring destruction and chaos to Orario, but years ago, he had been killed in the Dungeon during a large-scale subjugation led by the Loki Familia, the Freya Familia, and the other major familias of Orario.
He had thought he would lose his life there, but in the end, due to the Corrupted Spirit, he had been implanted with a brilliantly colored magic stone and reborn as a hybrid.
From that point on, he had fallen into fanatical devotion toward the Corrupted Spirit and treated her as an object of faith, worshiping her in the same way one would worship a goddess.
Because of this, he felt pride and honor in his identity as a hybrid of human and monster.
He believed that someone like himself, who possessed both human and monster power, was a supreme and unparalleled existence who ought to stand above all life in the Lower World.
He thoroughly despised every race in the Lower World, despised adventurers, and even despised the remaining remnants of Evilus who, like his past self, had once belonged to Evilus.
But this overblown sense of superiority had now been shattered completely in front of Riezel.
In contrast, Riezel's attitude remained calm, to the point of cold indifference.
"I know that you hybrids can hear her voice. I know that she's always whispering in your ears, saying that she wants to return to the surface, to see the light again, and saying that she wants Aria, wants the power and flesh of her kin."
"And you, who worship her so deeply, probably never thought those desires were strange. You only felt that they were natural, treated them as a divine decree, and went all out to fulfill them."
"You probably also believe that obeying her wishes is the truth, and that we, who get in your way and stand in her way, are just a group of inferior lives who understand nothing."
"But in my eyes, whether it's you or that Corrupted Spirit, you have both already abandoned your identity, awareness, and dignity as beings of the Lower World, and have fallen into nothing more than monsters."
Riezel slowly walked toward Olivas.
"Whether it's her or you, you're both filthy to the core."
"If that's the case, what right do you have to look down on us and think that you're the ones standing above?"
"I won't claim that I'm protecting Orario or Babel, but since you've set your sights on Ais, then prepare yourselves."
With these words, Riezel suddenly stamped his foot and shot toward Olivas.
"V-Viscum!"
Olivas screamed in panic.
"Stop him!"
Following the orders of the monster that shared the same root but with different branches, Viscum's massive body writhed once more.
*Whoosh!* *Whoosh!* *Whoosh!*
Vines like stone pillars transformed into wildly dancing giant whips, raining down and crashing toward Riezel.
"Awaken... Tempest."
Facing the massive storm of vines that looked capable of blasting apart the entire rocky passage, Riezel finally chanted magic and called upon the 'wind' of the great spirit Aria.
*BOOM!*
A raging airflow surged from all directions, forming a violent storm that coiled around Riezel's body.
At the same time, his breathing rhythm mysteriously synchronized with the storm's howling, merging the two forces until they were indistinguishable.
*SCREEEEEECH—!!!*
All around them, countless brightly colored monsters let out hoarse cries at the same time, reacting violently to the 'wind' on Riezel's body.
Even Olivas was the same way.
As though he had received the ecstatic, high-pitched scream of some distant existence, his expression changed drastically as he cried out in disbelief.
"Aria's power?!"
"No! Impossible!"
"Why do you even have it?!"
Olivas could not believe his eyes, nor could he believe what he was hearing.
Maybe this was the first time he had ever doubted the Corrupted Spirit's voice, ever resisted it.
Unfortunately, that changed nothing.
With the combined use of Ariel and Wind Breathing, Riezel's speed, which had already reached godlike levels due to the extreme AGI enhancement from Raumure, skyrocketed even further.
"Tempest."
"Tempest."
"Tempest."
With each short chant, Riezel not only raised Ariel's output to its former maximum but pushed beyond the limit and reached an entirely new realm, all because of Wind Breathing.
Thanks to the support of Wind Breathing, the extraordinary magic called Ariel, born from the great spirit, had opened up new possibilities.
Just as Morgan's Tower had transformed due to Riezel's own being, evolving through the effect of Pioneer of the Sun into a true tower of light capable of calling forth the end of the world and binding the surface of the planet, this was the very definition of a chemical reaction.
Therefore, when Riezel pushed Ariel's output beyond its limit, the entire labyrinth shook beneath the overwhelmingly violent storm.
The storm quite literally swept everything away.
It blew everything aside, hurling the surrounding Virgas and Violas into the air, dragging them into the wind, smashing them uncontrollably against the ground, walls, and ceiling, like they had been thrown into a spinning drum.
"NO! STOP! NOOOO—!!!"
Olivas sensed a fatal danger as the shadow of death completely swallowed his heart.
He screamed in terror, struggling wildly against the storm ravaging the battlefield, then turned around and fled in madness.
"Lil Rafaga."
What reached Olivas's ears was a calm voice that should have been drowned out by the overwhelming roar of the wind, yet for some reason echoed with unnatural clarity.
*BOOM!*
In the next instant, the storm transformed into a godspeed assault and erupted within the vast rocky passage.
*Swish!*
Countless massive vine tentacles, raining down like a storm, were shredded.
*Pu-chi!*
The shrieking Viscum was pierced clean through.
*Pu-chi!**Pu-chi!**Pu-chi!**Pu-chi!*
One brightly colored monster after another was either minced by the storm or pierced through by the divine wind within the charge, their magic stones destroyed along with them.
The howling storm advanced through the wide, rocky passage like a tornado, tearing up the ground, blasting away sand and soil, shaking loose fragments of stone, pulverizing rubble, and, with a thunderous roar like a sonic boom, it finally caught up to the fleeing Olivas.
*Pu-chi!*
Olivas's tough skin, as hard as a Black Rhino's, was instantly pierced through.
At this moment, the body he had taken such pride in was torn apart, ripped open, and severed by the violent wind, gradually losing its shape and form.
"NOOOOO—!!!"
Olivas could only roar, shout, howl in pain, and scream as he stretched one hand toward some distant direction, as if begging some unseen existence for help.
But the only thing he heard in the end was still that joyful, high-pitched voice.
[Aria!]
[Aria!]
[Aria!]
[I want you so bad! Aria!]
And that was all Olivas heard in his head.
She only wanted Aria.
She thought only of Aria.
Olivas was nothing more than her puppet, a tentacle she used to achieve her goal.
Needless to say, from the very beginning, the life or death of a puppet had never been within her concern.
"..."
Realizing this, Olivas froze, and at the same time, he fell into despair.
Just like that, the man named Olivas reached his end.
*BANG!*
In an instant, as the divine wind pierced straight through his body and tore him to pieces, he burst apart on the spot, like a balloon being punctured.
Only then did Riezel's figure emerge from the storm, yet his momentum still carried him forward for some distance, and he did not stop until he was close to the end of the rocky passage.
*Click—*
Without turning around, Riezel dispersed the wind around his body and slowly sheathed his sword, returning Fool to the scabbard at his waist.
Behind him, the ground of the rocky passage had been completely destroyed, transformed into a trench dozens of meters wide, clear proof of the power of the violent storm thrust he had just unleashed.
As for the Viscum, Virgas, and Violas, every single one of them had been shredded by the storm, just like Olivas.
In this destroyed passage, there were no monsters left, no hybrids left—only Riezel stood there quietly, the final victor.
"Don't worry. You won't be the last..."
Leaving behind this brief murmur, Riezel turned around and walked toward the direction of the 53rd Floor ahead.
With that, the Dungeon returned to silence and slowly began to repair this battlefield, restoring the damaged passage to its original state.
===
*Pa-ta—*
A brilliantly colored magic stone, perhaps blown away by the wind, fell into a corner of the Dungeon as it regenerated.
"...He really died?"
Along with this murmur, a figure emerged from the darkness and appeared in the corner.
"I told him long ago that this level wasn't enough."
Murmuring to herself, the red-haired hybrid, Revis, looked down at the magic stone, speaking in a cold tone that did not sound like mourning at all.
"Unable to see himself clearly, unable to see others clearly—that's the kind of pitiful guy he was."
"He really thought he was some supreme existence?"
"Don't make me laugh."
Revis spoke with mockery.
"Whether it's you or me, or even including 'Her,' we're all just monsters."
As she spoke, Revis picked up the magic stone from the ground and tossed it into her mouth.
*Crack—Ka-cha!*
As the sound of chewing something hard rang out, Revis's voice echoed once more.
"Not enough..."
"Still not enough..."
"I... still need to become stronger..."
===
[A bonus chapter for every 500 Power Stones.]
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