The great melee on Floor 58 lasted from daylight above ground until dusk fell, and only then did it stop being so fierce.
The Ill Wyverns that had kept diving down from the vault above grew fewer and fewer without anyone noticing, until they stopped appearing at all, and the Floor 58 monster horde led by the Valgang Dragons finally began to thin as well, its momentum failing bit by bit until, like the Ill Wyverns, it stopped coming.
This was no easy thing.
The Dungeon is alive, after all. Beyond the monsters that already existed on Floor 58 and the floors above it, the Dungeon kept birthing new monsters throughout the melee, which was what created the endless stream and dragged the fight out for half a day.
Fortunately, the Dungeon has its limits too. The rate at which monsters respawn has a limit as well, the spawn interval being what it is, and unless the Dungeon set its mind on causing trouble and produced an Irregular, then as long as Leo and the others held on, coming out alive from a dead end wasn't just a dream.
To hold on, everyone gave it everything they had.
Tiona and Tione fought until they were drenched in blood and covered in wounds. There was no counting how many High Potions they went through, and they used Elixirs more than once, drinking ordinary potions for stamina like water. That was how they lasted.
Ais didn't end up drenched in blood. She was Lv.6, after all, her Status well above the monsters of this floor, and she had the armor of wind that Ariel created for protection, with Riveria's protective magic shielding her for a while on top of that, so she took no real injuries. Her stamina, her focus and her physical condition, though, went sharply downhill, and the cold expression the girl always wore was replaced by a stretch of pallor.
Ariel truly is strong. Wind magic that came from the Great Spirit Aria, it gave Ais added abilities that could even bridge a gap in Level, but the burden it puts on the body is real. Ais, who had been using the magic without a break, eventually had her limbs starting to twitch, her whole body in agonizing pain, and she was having a harder time holding on than Tiona and Tione.
Lefiya likewise took no real injuries, but to support everyone, to cut down the enemy numbers as much as she could and lighten the pressure on the others, she had overloaded herself using wide-area annihilation magic again and again, wringing her Mind dry one time after another, and burned through nearly half the Magic Potions she had on hand. That was the only reason she hadn't gone into Mind Down.
As for Leo... his condition was the best of anyone's.
He had blocked every flying unit in the sky by himself, going all out from the very start, accelerating without stop, and with his extremely high protection he had barreled through the flock of dragons like a meteor, ramming countless Ill Wyverns into bloody wails and sending countless more falling from the sky like kites with cut strings, dropping to the ground like dumplings into a pot, smashed nearly to pieces.
The effect of the flight magic Comet Chase is powerful. Once Leo was willing to throw caution aside and accelerate without regard for the cost, he could accelerate without a ceiling, and it became nearly impossible for anyone to catch him. The Ill Wyverns could only eat his dust or serve as so many targets to be rammed away alive, and not one of the fireballs filling the sky could land on him. With no allies up there at all, no need to worry about hitting a friend, all Leo had to do was keep accelerating and keep crashing into wherever the monsters were thickest.
Of course, the drain on his Mind from that was heavy, but Leo's condition was still far better than Lefiya's, who had been using high-power magic without a break.
For one, he had the Spirit Healing Development Ability, which automatically restored some Mind at every moment, keeping his Mind from running dry.
For another, the Starlight in his hand could amplify his Mind as well. The two magic treasure stones made by the hand of a Great Spirit, guided by the mysterious patterns formed of Hieroglyphs, kept assisting Leo and pouring out magic, greatly easing the rate at which his Mind drained.
Add to that the fact that Leo still had plenty of high-grade Magic Potions on him, and that using flight magic cost no stamina, and once Leo had smoothly dealt with every last Ill Wyvern his condition was actually decent. He was only somewhat tired, not battered and wretched like the rest of them.
Faced with this situation, perhaps even the Dungeon instinctively judged that there was no point continuing, because no Irregular appeared. Leo's group defeated every monster in the end, destroyed all four walls of Floor 58 to make sure no more monsters would respawn, and then simply collapsed on the ground.
"We, we won, right?"
Tiona lay sprawled out on the ground, gasping violently, blood running down her whole body as she spoke in that uncertain voice.
"Damn things... if they hadn't quit, I was going to smash this entire floor to pieces!"
Tione lay beside Tiona, her pretty face smeared with blood and twisted, anger still lingering on it, telling everyone just how furious the Amazoness warrior known as Jörmungand had gotten during this melee.
Both sisters looked to be in terrible shape, but that was probably also the reason they had been able to keep going until now.
Tiona has two Skills: Berserk and Intense Heat.
Berserk raises attack power according to how injured she is. Intense Heat greatly raises all of her Status when she is on the verge of death.
Tiona had been taking wounds the whole time and had entered a near-death state more than once, so both Skills had been active for almost the entire fight, which was what let her cut her way out of a horde of monsters with a potential Level of 5 over and over.
Tione also has two Skills: Rage and Great Counterattack.
Rage raises attack power according to how injured she is, and its effect scales further with how angry she is. Great Counterattack raises her Strength parameter by an enormous degree when she is on the verge of death.
In other words, the angrier Tione gets, the higher her attack power, which is why she used to be able to tear worm-type monsters apart with her bare hands. Add a massive boost to her Strength parameter in a near-death state, and once she flew into a rage she was far fiercer than Tiona.
Both sisters could only carve through a huge horde of monsters classed at Lv.5 like vegetables because of the boosts from their Skills. Otherwise, not having reached Lv.6 yet, there was no way they could have held on until now.
"Did, did we make it...?"
Lefiya hadn't collapsed on the ground without any dignity the way Tiona and Tione had, but she was slumped there all the same, her pretty face pale and shaken, looking like someone doubting whether she was really still alive.
"Don't doubt it. We made it."
Beside her, Leo was supporting Ais, whose whole body had gone limp with no strength left to stand, and he looked at the girls in front of him and laughed, finding humor in the misery.
"To be honest, even I'm surprised, but we did drive off every last monster on our own strength. This is the victory of endurance."
Leo had assumed that holding out until Finn and the others reached Floor 58 to come reinforce them would count as a victory.
He hadn't expected that, whether because Tiona, Tione, Lefiya and the rest had fought so desperately or because he really had gotten too strong, they would end up holding on by their own strength and successfully driving off every monster before Finn and the others even arrived.
Or maybe both reasons together were what finally brought about this result?
In any case...
"Be proud. Just the five of us conquered the floor we didn't reach last time, and could get no further than the time before that."
Leo's words left the girls each stunned for a moment, and then some broke into grins and some let their tensed bodies go completely slack.
"Did you hear that, Tione? This time the five of us here took Floor 58 all by ourselves!" Tiona laughed happily. "That's something we couldn't manage before!"
"What are you so happy about?" Tione's anger clearly still hadn't fully faded, and her tone was foul. "You think the credit is mostly ours? It's because Ais leveled up, and because that bastard Leo was here this time, that we got this result."
"...That's not true." Ais still couldn't stand on her own strength and could only lean in Leo's arms, shaking her head as she spoke. "Lefiya worked hard too. She was a big help."
"Huh?" Lefiya blanked out, as if she hadn't expected to be named, and once it registered she shook her head over and over. "That, that's not it! I only did what little I could! The real ones who deserve credit are Miss Ais! And... Mr. Leo."
By the end her tone had turned grudging, which left Leo not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
"All right, that's enough being modest at each other. Just rest properly now."
Leo helped Ais over to sit down next to Lefiya, then fished a Magic Potion out of his belt pouch and drank it slowly while looking off in one direction.
At that sight, his drinking paused slightly.
"...What is it?"
Sitting on the ground, Ais sharply caught the change in Leo and asked.
"Look over there."
Leo didn't answer the question, only pointed in a direction, drawing everyone's eyes that way.
They were looking toward the north end of the floor.
There lay the passage up to Floor 57.
And on that passage, a group of monsters was pouring out while fighting the other monsters that had survived on the floor.
They pounced on those monsters with tremendous ferocity, swallowing them down hide and bone, then moved toward the south end of the floor.
"It's those worms!"
Tiona made out the full shape of those monsters and cried out.
"Tch, so they show up on this floor too."
Tione clicked her tongue.
"Have, have we not been noticed?" Lefiya said, somewhat tense. "Where are they going?"
At that, Leo and Ais gave the same answer together.
"Floor 59."
That was right. The destination of that horde of worm-type monsters was Floor 59.
Because at the south end of this floor was the entrance leading down to the next one.
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