The freezing fog on Floor 58, which should have been pure white, was now slowly turning blackish-purple. The deadly freezing air was no longer pure, but carried a nauseating stench capable of crumbling the sanity of any adventurer.
In front of Alfia and Aria, a sea of darkness crept forward. Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of pairs of eyes radiating red and purple glows lit up behind the curtain of fog.
As the front lines of that army finally stepped into the radius of the icy phosphor light, their true forms made anyone's stomach churn. This was no ordinary group of labyrinth monsters. It was a nightmare exhibition of high-level monsters from the Dragon Territory that had been infected and forcibly fused together.
A Black Rhino—a bipedal armored rhino monster that usually boasted absolute defense—now possessed a bulging stomach made of melting flesh, dripping acidic slime that hissed upon touching the ice floor. Beside it, a Valgang Dragon crawled without hind legs, its body dragged by dozens of fleshy tentacles growing parasitically from its spine. Several Deformis Spiders—giant spiders with a natural reddish-purple color—appeared to be melted into one giant mass with dozens of intertwining legs smeared with poisonous liquid.
All those monsters had nothing in common but one thing: they were rotting and infected while still breathing.
"Disgusting," hissed Alfia. Her heterochromatic eyes narrowed sharply, radiating unmasked disgust. "The labyrinth is a cruel place, but it has its own beauty in the form of dust and crystals. These creatures... they are an absolute insult to the Dungeon's natural ecosystem."
Aria floated a few centimeters above the ice surface, her beautiful face now hardened like carved marble. Her eyes, cloaked in a hazel illusion, shone brightly, radiating purity. If Alfia felt disgusted visually and logically, Aria felt it down to a spiritual level.
As the Great Spirit of Wind—a holy entity born from the manifestation of a pure element—the existence of these corrupt creatures felt like a sickening stain on white silk. The air element around her screamed, as if crying from being forced to come into contact with the foul aura emitted by the anomalous army.
"The purity of nature rejects your existence," whispered Aria, her voice melodious yet carrying an absolute pressure that made the entire expanse of Floor 58 shake violently. "The air you breathe is a pollution. I will not let this rot take another step."
GROOOOAAAAARRR!
A deformed roar echoed in unison from hundreds of rotting throats. As if provoked by Aria's holy aura, the first wave of the hybrid army lunged forward like a starving tsunami of flesh.
Alfia did not wait. She stepped, positioning herself at the front lines. Her hands did not reach for physical weapons, but rather became conductors for overflowing magical energy.
"If crushing their heads isn't enough to kill them," said Alfia coldly, casting Concurrent Chanting at a speed surpassing the blink of an eye. "Then I just need to pulverize every cell of their filthy flesh until there is nothing left to regenerate!"
"Gospel!"
A sonic boom and a condensed shockwave were fired from her palm. Unlike the usual Gospel magic that focused on the sharpness of sound, this shot was infused with a far more massive volume of Mind (magic energy) to create an area-of-effect destruction.
BLLAAAMMMM!
The shockwave slammed into the front lines of the hybrid army like an invisible concrete hammer. Dozens of monsters—deformed dragons, melting-fleshed rhinos, and masses of spiders—instantly exploded into shards of dust and flesh. Black blood and purple slime sprayed into the air, but before the filthy liquid could splatter and stain them, a storm instantly took over.
Aria spread both her arms with elegance. "Dance in the void."
An emerald-colored tornado exploded in the middle of the ice corridor. The storm didn't just spin the air, but created thousands of microscopic wind blades that sucked up every drop of blood, slime, and monster flesh fragments that Alfia had just blasted. In a matter of milliseconds, the tornado pulverized the remnants of flesh into bone-dry dust, ensuring not a single anomalous cell could knit its body back together.
"Perfect synergy, Sylphie," praised Alfia without turning. She shot forward through the remnants of the wind vortex, charging straight into the heart of the enemy army.
The dance of extermination began again. But this time, there was no elegance of a regular adventurer looking for an opening to strike a weak point. This was a pest control operation.
Three hybrid Black Rhinos with unnaturally swollen arm muscles leaped, trying to smash Alfia from three directions with their bone maces. The Level 7 mage did not retreat. She spun her body in the air; her right leg, coated in silver mana, smashed into the first rhino's jaw until its skull caved in. At the same time, her left hand released a close-range Gospel toward the second rhino, crushing its entire upper skeleton.
The third rhino managed to get close, but before its arm came down, a crescent-moon-shaped wind blade slashed through the air, cutting the rotting monster into two symmetrical halves. Its severed body parts froze instantly as Aria instantaneously drew the heat from the surrounding air down to absolute zero.
"Do not let their purple liquid touch your skin, Alfia!" warned Aria from behind. Her hands continued to dance, firing wind spears that nailed the hybrid monsters to the ice walls. "I can feel a curse within that slime. It consumes life energy!"
"I have no intention of letting these filthy things touch me," Alfia replied coldly.
Amidst the chaos of battle, Alfia's genius brain continued to analyze. When a hybrid Valgang Dragon, half of its body covered in fleshy tentacles, lunged, Alfia leaped past it. Her sharp eyes caught an unnatural black glow—not in the chest cavity where a Valgang Dragon's magic stone usually resides, but embedded among the coils of parasitic flesh at the base of the dragon's neck.
Their magic stones have shifted locations, Alfia thought, confirming her suspicion.
She landed on the dragon's back, ignoring the acidic slime hissing softly near her boots. With a stomp reinforced by magical repulsive force, Alfia crushed the monster's spine, then fired a Gospel straight at the pile of parasitic flesh on its neck.
CRACK!
A dark purple crystal shattered into pieces. Instantly, the hybrid dragon stopped struggling. Its rotting flesh immediately dried up and crumbled into a pile of blackish ash that stained the white ice.
"Sylphie! Their cores are not in the usual place!" shouted Alfia, providing vital information to her partner. "These monsters are infected by a parasite from the floor below! Look for the dark purple crystals pulsing beneath their flesh. Destroy those, and their bodies won't be able to regenerate!"
Aria heard the instruction clearly. Her eyes turned golden and radiated a light that pierced visual illusions. With her spiritual vision, she could see the flow of disease energy circulating within each monster's body. Sure enough, beneath the forcibly fused muscle tissues, purple crystals pulsed, radiating a curse.
"I see them all," Aria answered.
She brought her palms together in front of her chest. The freezing air on Floor 58 suddenly stopped flowing. A deafening silence descended, enveloping the ice corridor for a full second.
"Wind of judgment... Severing Gale."
When Aria spread her arms, hundreds of invisible wind blades shot out at speeds surpassing sound. Guided absolutely by the Great Spirit's spiritual vision, the blades cut precisely through the monsters' protective flesh, destroying the purple crystals inside their bodies simultaneously and accurately.
The sound of shattering crystals echoed, breaking the silence. Hundreds of monsters that were previously fearless suddenly froze in place, before finally drying up and crumbling en masse into tons of black ash.
In less than ten minutes, the first wave of the massive army was annihilated, leaving nothing behind.
Alfia landed smoothly on top of the pile of black ash. Her face radiated a dense gloominess. Her brain began piecing the facts together.
"The logic of time," muttered Alfia sharply. She turned to Aria. "About half a year ago, before the Hera Familia was destroyed, we crossed this floor. At that time, Floors 58 and 59 were pure glaciers. The monsters submitted to the Dungeon's rules. There was no rotting flesh or purple-cored parasites."
"This is not an evolution of the labyrinth, Alfia. This labyrinth has given birth to a deadly anomaly," said Aria with a tone filled with certainty. "As a Great Spirit, I am connected directly to the essence of life. The aura emitted by those purple crystals earlier... is a pure parasitic curse. The Dungeon has created something down there whose sole purpose is to taint and rot life."
Aria touched her chest, focusing her mind on Ais. The resonance of Ais's purity was still intact and shining brightly at the bottom of the labyrinth. Talia's eternal ice seal still protected her perfectly.
"Whatever anomaly is nesting on Floor 60... its parasitic instinct is drawn by my daughter's purity radiating through the ice," Aria's voice turned very cold. "That creature craves it. It uses Ais's purity as a compass to gather and mutate these monsters."
The mystery behind this rotting army had been answered. Their enemy was a high-level labyrinth anomaly.
"In that case, there is nothing to wait for," asserted Alfia, downing a bottle of Mind Restore. "We descend to Floor 59, destroy the remaining guards, and crush the anomaly on Floor 60 into nothingness."
.....................................................................................
Floor 59 was supposed to be a vast and majestic expanse of frozen tundra, filled with giant ice pillars the size of mountains.
However, when Alfia and Aria set foot on the floor's border, the sight that welcomed them was a canvas of pure despair.
The expanse of ice that was once clear blue was now crisscrossed by pulsing blackish-red veins of flesh beneath its surface. Several hanging ice stalactites had mutated into giant lumps of tumors dripping deadly acid onto the floor.
At the far end of this incredibly vast floor expanse, lay a giant chasm crater which was the only entry route to Floor 60. And right in front of the crater's gate, an ocean of monsters stood ready.
CREEEEAAAKK...
The entire expanse of ice trembled. From behind the still-standing ice pillars, thousands of pairs of eyes lit up in unison. Their numbers on this floor were three times more massive than the first wave on Floor 58.
Hundreds of Deformis Spiders crawled aggressively on the ice walls. On the floor, herds of totally mutated Blood Saurus and Black Rhinos jostled against each other, their swollen bodies fused with sharp bones dripping thick acid. This was the filthy army directly infected by the radiation of the anomaly below them.
And in the middle of that sea of corrupt monsters, stood a giant creature fifteen meters tall.
The creature looked like a nightmare amalgamation between a Valgang Dragon and the skeleton of a Black Rhino, forcibly stitched together by muscle tissue that continuously rotted and grew. Standing on two thick concrete-like legs, its dragon jaws were filled with poisonous fangs dripping slime, and a massive purple crystal pulsed brightly in the middle of its open chest cavity.
The Gatekeeper.
"Ugh, the smell on this floor really makes me want to throw up," complained Alfia, narrowing her eyes to withstand the poisonous fumes wafting in the air.
Aria landed beside her, bringing her hands together. The Great Spirit's face looked very tense. The spiritual dissonance on this floor was so dense that Aria had to focus her power to build a wind shield to keep the curse's aura from eating at their skin.
"They deliberately blocked the absolute route to the crater," said Aria, as cold as glacial ice. "Killing these pests one by one with a sword or single magic will waste our time, and that giant must be tasked with absorbing the remnants of corrupt energy to heal those who are injured."
Alfia looked at the sea of enemies and the giant guardian alternately. An extremely brutal yet efficient plan formed instantly in her brain. Her signature arrogant smile adorned her face once more.
"Sylphie, can you gather all those little pests and disgusting pieces of flesh into the center of the room? Pull them forcibly away from the crater gate, gather them into a single center of gravity," ordered Alfia, rolling up her cloak sleeves and stepping slightly forward.
Aria turned. "I can create a floor-scale suction tornado. But a storm that strong will take time to mince them all to the core, and that giant will likely try to disrupt my concentration during the process."
"You don't need to bother mincing them," Alfia cut in.
Alfia's right hand extended forward, while her left hand gripped her own wrist very tightly. She was holding back an incredibly massive surge of Mind within her body. The glow of magic energy around Alfia was no longer silver like Gospel magic, but slowly shifted into a spectrum of pure black and white waves that distorted the light and air around her.
"Just gather them into one collection point. Let me be the execution hammer."
Seeing the absolute conviction in the eyes of the elite Golden Era mage, Aria smiled. The Great Spirit of Wind brought both hands together in front of her chest, then raised them high into the air.
"O storm that sweeps the land, become a cage for those who have sinned."
WHOOOOOSSSHHH!
The air pressure throughout Floor 59 plummeted to an extreme point, creating a giant-scale vacuum in the middle of the ice expanse. In a matter of seconds, a horizontal suction tornado reaching hundreds of meters wide formed in the air.
The unstoppable suction force forcibly pulled every Deformis Spider, Blood Saurus, Black Rhino, and hundreds of other hybrid monsters standing on the ice. Their steel claws and bones snapped instantly due to the brutal pull of the wind. The monsters howled in panic as their giant bodies were dragged into the vortex, jostling, crushing one another, and piling up to form a single giant compressed ball of corrupt flesh hovering and spinning in the air.
The giant Gatekeeper groaned loudly, digging its rhino concrete legs and dragon claws into the ice to resist the pull so it wouldn't be dragged by the storm current towards the center of destruction.
"Now, Alfia!" shouted Aria, maintaining the concentration of her storm.
Alfia took a deep breath. This was her mass-destruction attack magic—an absolute magic that she used to only unleash to cleave a Behemoth or destroy a giant boss, a pinnacle magic whose destructive power had the potential to collapse the entire structure of the labyrinth floor if not directed properly.
"—Pierce through, and swallow all despair!" Alfia shouted the final verse of her absolute destruction magic incantation. "Satanas Verion!!"
A beam of black and white energy ten times more massive than Gospel magic exploded outward from her palm. The pillar of annihilating energy shot forth, cleaving the freezing air of Floor 59, plunging straight into the exact center of Aria's suction tornado vortex.
When the level-nine annihilation magic collided with the compressed ball of monster flesh, a phenomenal reality-altering explosion occurred.
KABOOOOOMMMMM!!!
Blinding black light exploded into a shockwave that swept away and leveled all the ice pillars across half the area of Floor 59. Thousands of hybrid monsters trapped within the storm evaporated from existence in a matter of milliseconds. Their flesh, their protective steel bones, even the parasitic purple crystals inside their bodies were vaporized without leaving a speck of dust.
The explosion's shockwave continued to surge forward, squarely hitting the remaining bodily defenses of the giant Gatekeeper. The fifteen-meter-tall dragon-rhino amalgamation monster was pushed backward by absolute destructive force, its muscle tissue and thick protective skin severely torn. It slammed hard into the crater wall with an ear-splitting howl of agony.
As the flash of energy subsided and the ice dust slowly fell back to the ground, Floor 59 was completely swept clean. Thousands of monsters from the dragon territory vanished entirely, leaving an expanse of ice that was now cracked, scorched, and filled with traces of centralized destruction.
At the far end, the half-destroyed Gatekeeper still refused to die. The giant purple crystal in its chest cavity pulsed crazily, secreting acidic liquid attempting to knit back together its torn dragon muscle tissue.
Alfia lowered her hand, her shoulders rising and falling, panting slightly. Draining such a massive volume of Mind in one second provided a dizzy sensation and a stiff feeling in her arm muscles.
"I've leveled the path. The rest of that filthy giant is yours, Sylphie," said Alfia.
Aria floated forward, approaching the guardian monster that was gathering its strength to rise. She stared at the rotting giant with a gaze as cold and sharp as Glacier ice.
"You have done your part perfectly," said Aria.
Aria simply pointed her right index finger at the monster's chest. She compressed the wind element at the tip of her finger to form a tiny vortex point that pulsed with absolute density and cutting power.
The giant swung its remaining claws blindly, trying to injure the figure threatening its life. Aria did not dodge; she merely flicked her finger gently.
SRAASH!
The point of pure wind shot out like a beam of green laser light, drilling straight through flesh without resistance and striking the purple crystal in the giant's chest. The loud sound of extremely thick glass shattering echoed, followed by a vacuum explosion from within the monster's body cavity.
The guardian of Floor 59 froze mid-motion, before finally shattering into pieces of poisonous black ash that were instantly swept clean to the bottom of the chasm by a cleansing gust of wind from the Great Spirit.
The path to the crater had completely opened. Absolute silence took over Floor 59.
Aria lowered her hand, staring at the now empty expanse. She turned back to Alfia and gave a reassuring smile that dispelled all the aura of death in that place.
"There are no more obstacles," said Aria.
Alfia nodded slowly. She stepped forward, taking a position at the edge of the giant crater that emitted a dark blue glow—a darkness emitting an absolute cold aura capable of piercing to the core of the soul.
They had reached the final gate of their destination.
"The disgusting existence that is the mastermind of all this awaits us at the bottom of this crater," hissed Alfia. She let the black and white mana glow crackle softly on her fingers again, relaxing her muscles to prepare for the unavoidable death battle down below.
Aria stood at the edge of the crater, beside Alfia. The Goddess of Wind's spiritual heart beat fast in tandem with the absolute proximity between her and her daughter. Ais waited for her inside a block of ice at the end of the darkness there.
"Mother is coming, Ais," whispered Aria softly, her voice falling to echo at the bottom of the crater.
Without wasting a single second to hesitate, the two legends who had swept clean the sea of labyrinth rot leaped down into the ice hole, free-falling toward Floor 60, ready to end the horrifying anomaly once and for all.
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