Max
Max descended the stairs, Auto-Evade humming quietly at the base of his skull. It felt like a low-voltage wire running down his spine—ten feet of autonomous awareness, coiled and waiting to snap.
The transition between floors was immediate. Floor 1's rough, natural caverns gave way to something that felt older, more deliberate. The walls of Floor 2 were smoother, slick with moisture that glistened in the faint phosphorescent glow of the moss. The air was cooler, heavier, carrying the metallic tang of deep earth and stale water.
Deeper means darker, Max noted, his eyes adjusting to the gloom.
He slowed his pace, his mind rifling through the encyclopedic lore of the anime.
Floors 1 through 4 are the beginner zone, he recited mentally. Goblins and Kobolds are standard everywhere here. But the Dungeon Lizards... do they start on Floor 2 or Floor 3?
He couldn't quite recall the specific spawn tables. The lizard-type monsters were ambush predators, clinging to ceilings and walls to drop on unsuspecting rookies. Knowing where they started was the difference between a safe walk and a concussion.
He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, pushing his Magic Sense outward. Unlike the tight, ten-foot bubble of Auto-Evade, his active sensing swept the entire corridor.
There.
Fifteen feet ahead. Directly above. A cold, stationary signature clinging to the stone.
So they do start on Floor 2, Max thought, a smirk touching his lips.
He could have killed it instantly. A burst of Shunshin to the ceiling, or a simple Byakurai from range. But he stopped.
This is a perfect controlled environment.
He needed to trust the code. He needed to know if Auto-Evade would actually override his reflexes or just act as a warning siren.
Max walked forward, deliberately stepping into the ambush zone. He kept his hands away from his weapon, suppressing the urge to look up, playing the part of the oblivious rookie.
Come on, he thought, stopping directly under the shadow. Do it.
The signature above flared. Muscles coiled.
The Dungeon Lizard detached from the ceiling—a silent, gravity-assisted missile of scales and claws dropping straight for his neck.
Max forced himself not to move. He let the threat enter the ten-foot perimeter.
Ping.
The automation snapped.
It wasn't a conscious decision. It wasn't even a reflex. It was a hijack. A jolt of magical electricity bypassed his brain entirely, seizing his motor neurons.
His legs shifted on their own—a sharp, violent sidestep to the left.
Whoosh.
The lizard's claws slashed through empty air where his head had been a fraction of a second earlier. The creature hit the floor with a wet thud, its momentum wasted, confusion radiating from its jerky, reptilian movements.
"Whoa," Max breathed, staring at his own feet.
The sensation was disorienting—like lag in a video game, or a passenger grabbing the steering wheel for a split second. He'd felt the ping of awareness, then the sudden, jerky execution of a command he hadn't given.
It works. It actually overrides me to save me. Max thought in joy. While the Dungeon Lizard recovered, hissing, its tongue flicking out to taste the air. It coiled, muscles bunching to lunge again.
This time, Max didn't need Auto-Evade.
His rapier flashed once. A clean, precise line of silver in the dark.
The lizard froze, then dissolved into ash.
Max stared at the dissipating remains, flexing his hands. The dodge had been perfect. No hesitation. No wasted movement.
"Being a passenger-in-my-own-body is definitely going to take some getting used to," Max muttered, adjusting his gloves with a satisfied grin. "But I can't argue with the results. Auto-Evade confirmed."
He collected the magic stone and turned back to the corridor.
"Alright, Kairu. Tests over. Let's pick up the pace."
Ki!
But the Dungeon, seemingly annoyed that its first ambush had failed, ramped up the aggression immediately.
As Max moved deeper into Floor 2, the encounters became frequent. More Lizards. More Goblins. More Kobolds. And they were learning.
Max noticed the pattern quickly—the Lizards loved distraction. They waited until he was engaged with a Kobold parry or slicing through a Goblin before dropping from the ceiling. It was almost always a solitary strike, or perhaps a pair working in tandem, trying to catch him in a blind spot.
But with Auto-Evade acting as a 360-degree radar and Shunshin turning him into a blur, they were just speed bumps.
WHOOSH. Slash. WHOOSH. Kill.
He traced straight lines through the labyrinth, turning the confusing geometry of the Upper Floors into a drag strip. Whenever a lizard dropped, the protocol twitched, guiding him out of the way just enough for him to deliver a counter-strike before the monster even hit the ground.
Kairu adapted beautifully to the high-speed warfare. The slime stopped bouncing off Max's shoulder with every stop and start. Instead, he flattened himself, sticking to Max's armor like a second skin. When loot dropped, Kairu didn't jump down; he extruded long, gelatinous pseudopods, snatching magic stones out of the air mid-sprint.
And at every major fork, Max paused just long enough to slap his palm against the wall.
Hum.
A purple circle etched into the stone. Infrastructure. The network was growing.
When they hit Floor 3, the game changed.
The architecture shifted again. The smooth walls gave way to jagged, uneven stone, and the ceiling vaulted upward into a cavernous, craggy expanse. It was a vertical playground, and the Dungeon took full advantage of it.
"Heads up," Max whispered.
It wasn't just one or two lizards anymore. The ceiling was alive with movement.
A rain of scales descended. Five, six, seven lizards dropped simultaneously, while a pack of Kobolds rushed from the front.
"Deciding to get serious, huh?"
Max grinned, glancing back to confirm no other adventurers were following him. "Let's even the playing field then."
He channeled power to his back. With a snap of canvas-like sound, his wings unfurled.
He didn't dodge this time. He launched.
Max shot upward, meeting the dropping lizards in mid-air. The aerial melee was brutal and short. His rapier was a crimson blur, severing tails and piercing throats before the monsters could grapple him. While he dominated the airspace, Kairu handled ground control. The slime shot compressed water bullets from Max's shoulder, sniping the Goblins and Kobolds below with lethal accuracy.
They cleared the room in seconds, but they didn't stop there. This vertical dominance became their rhythm for the entirety of the third floor.
Every cavern followed the same bloody script. The Dungeon would try to crush them with a pincer attack from the ceiling and the floor, only to find that Max had claimed the airspace. It became a drill of increasing efficiency: launch, sever, snipe, land. Repeat. By the time they reached the stairs to the next level, the ambushers were dying before they could even uncoil from the stalactites.
As Max stepped onto the stairwell leading down, the air began to change. The vaulted, high-ceiling caves of the third floor felt breezy and expansive, but the further they descended, the more the Dungeon seemed to contract. The temperature ticked upward, and the smell of dry dust was replaced by a humid, organic musk that stuck to the back of Max's throat.
The architecture had shifted from natural caves into a series of claustrophobic, winding tunnels that twisted like petrified intestines. The walls were jagged and uneven, and the bioluminescent moss here was a sickly, dull green, making the shadows feel heavy. It was perfect terrain for a bottleneck, and the Dungeon knew it.
As Max rounded a sharp bend, he skidded to a halt. The corridor ahead wasn't just occupied; it was fully blocked. Goblins and Kobolds were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, a chattering, screeching mass that filled the hallway from wall to wall. It was reminiscent of the horde Max had fought on his very first dive—a brute-force attempt to drown him in numbers. Above them, clinging to the low ceiling like stalactites with teeth, Dungeon Lizards hissed, waiting for the ground forces to pin him down so they could strike from his blind spots.
They roared as they saw him, a deafening cacophony in the tight space, and surged forward like a tidal wave of rusty weapons and claws. Max didn't flinch. He didn't even raise his guard.
"Trash mobs," he scoffed, his amethyst eyes narrowing. "Quantity doesn't equal quality."
He tightened his grip on his rapier, and his demonic energy answered the call. Crimson-black mana flooded the steel, coating the blade in a vibrating aura of pure annihilation. But he didn't stop there. He let the energy bleed down into his legs, priming the Shunshin.
"Let's see if you can block physics."
He launched. Max became a kinetic projectile wrapped in erasure magic. He didn't move around them; he didn't try to flank. He went straight through the center, like a living drill.
CRASH.
The impact was devastating. The Goblins in the lead didn't just die; they disintegrated. The Power of Destruction on his blade, combined with the sheer velocity of his movement, allowed him to carve a literal tunnel through the center of the horde. Weapons shattered against his momentum or dissolved on contact with his aura. The Lizards dropped from the ceiling to grapple him, only to find themselves grasping at a violet blur that was already twenty feet past them.
He zigzagged through the masses—Strike. Vanish. Strike. Vanish.—a rhythm of accelerated violence. It was a meat grinder moving at highway speeds, turning the hallway into a corridor of dissolving ash and floating magic stones. By the time he reached the other side of the cavern and the stairs to the next floor, the horde was decimated, carved apart from the inside out without ever landing a single hit.
Max stood at the threshold of Floor 5, looking down into the darkness. As they crossed the invisible boundary, the change wasn't gradual; it was a plunge.
The noise of the chattering mobs above died instantly, replaced by a silence so heavy it made his ears ring. The atmosphere plummeted, dropping the temperature by five degrees in a single step. The phosphorescent moss that had provided a faint, eerie comfort on the upper floors died out completely here, as if the Dungeon itself was holding its breath. In its place was a suffocating, inky darkness. The walls were formed of black, oily stone that seemed to actively absorb the faint light of his magic, shrinking his visual radius to a claustrophobic bubble.
Everything here felt sharp, cold, and predatory. Max shifted his grip on his rapier, the low-voltage thrum of his Auto-Evade intensifying in response to the lightless void ahead. This wasn't a maze anymore—it was a tomb.
"Ambush territory leveled up," Max noted, his eyes scanning the gloom as the hairs on his neck stood up.
The monsters here weren't just waiting; they were well positioned.
Max spotted them with his Magic Sense before his eyes could pierce the dark. Magic signatures lit up his mental map like constellations. Dungeon Lizards covered every available surface of the corridor ahead, but they weren't scattered randomly. They were organized.
Heavy, thick-scaled variants—living anvils of muscle and bone—clung to the ceiling, their claws dug deep into the rock, waiting for the signal to drop and crush intruders flat. Smaller, agile brown variants clung to the vertical walls, muscles coiled like springs, ready to leap horizontally and shred the flanks of anyone foolish enough to dodge the ceiling drop.
It was a kill box. A three-dimensional gauntlet designed to catch anyone walking on the floor.
"I appreciate the dedication," Max muttered, a genuine flicker of respect in his voice for the Dungeon's malice. "It really, really wants us dead."
But a trap only worked if the prey followed the rules of the road.
Max tightened his grip on his rapier, the blackened steel humming with anticipation. "Too bad for them. I don't follow rules."
Shunshin.
He exploded forward.
He didn't run down the center. He didn't even touch the floor.
He launched himself diagonally, slamming his boots onto the right-hand wall. His momentum—combined with a pulse of mana acting like magnetic adhesion—stuck him there against gravity.
He ran horizontal to the ground, a violet blur tearing along the vertical stone.
Slash-Slash-Slash.
He blitzed the line of agile brown lizards before they could even uncoil. His rapier took off three heads in a single, fluid motion, turning their ambush into an execution.
Then, he kicked off.
He shot across the open corridor like a bullet, crossing the empty space in a heartbeat to land on the left wall.
The heavy lizards on the ceiling reacted. They released their grip, dropping like stones to intercept him—but they had aimed for the floor. They had aimed for where a human should be.
CRASH.
They hit the stone floor with bone-shattering force, shaking the corridor.
But Max was already twenty feet past them, running along the left wall, shredding the flankers on that side with ruthless efficiency. By the time the heavy lizards looked up, confused and dusting themselves off, their prey was gone.
Max landed at the end of the corridor, skidding to a halt near the stairs. He looked back at the chaotic pile of confused reptiles and dissolving ash.
"Too slow, suckers!" Max called back, catching a magic stone Kairu tossed to him.
They reached the end of the floor in record time, leaving a trail of confusion in their wake. The "Coffin" of Floor 5 had been conquered not by brute force, but by sheer, unadulterated speed.
-◈ -
By the time they reached the threshold of Floor 6, a few hours passed. The difficulty spiked almost immediately as the environment shifted into something far more hostile. The relatively clean stone of the upper levels was swallowed by a humid, oppressive atmosphere that smelled of stagnant water, rotting vegetation, and the sharp copper tang of old blood.
Max slowed his pace just a fraction, the heavy air triggering his mental encyclopedia.
Right. Floor 6. This is where the tutorial ends, he thought, rifling through the lore he'd memorized from his previous life. The real 'Rookie Killers' start showing up around here. War Shadows—fast, high physical resistance. Killer Ants—armored and swarm tactics.
He frowned, trying to picture the rest of the bestiary. There was something else. Something amphibious.
Wasn't there a toad? No, a frog... He couldn't quite recall the specifics, just a vague memory of long tongues and sticky traps.
He didn't have to strain his memory for long. The moment he stepped into the first large, marshy cavern, the welcoming party was waiting.
Frog Shooters.
Max flickered into the cavern, intending to blitz through, but the Frogs were ready. Unlike the mindless Kobolds above, these were reactive predators. Their bulging, independent eyes swiveled, tracking even his high-speed movement with disturbing accuracy.
Thwip!
A tongue lashed out from the damp shadows—not at Max, but at the moving lump on his chest. At Kairu.
The slime yelped as he was yanked backward off Max's armor.
"Hey!" Max skidded to a halt, turning on a dime, his rapier already seeking a target.
But Kairu didn't need saving. As the tongue retracted, dragging him toward the Frog's maw, the slime flattened and formed a serrated blade from his own body. With a wet shluck, Kairu severed the muscle.
The Frog croaked in agony, flailing, just before Max erased its head with a point-blank Power of Destruction blast.
"Good reflex," Max praised, waiting for Kairu to bounce back to him. "Guess that answers the frog question."
Then the shadows moved.
Ping.
Auto-Evade screamed at the base of his skull.
Max's body jerked violently to the right, his spine twisting at an unnatural angle. A black claw sliced through the space his neck had occupied a millisecond before.
War Shadows.
They were fast, silent, and hit with the force of a hydraulic press. But against the automated defense, they were hitting ghosts. Max danced through their ambush, his body moving on autopilot as three War Shadows slashed at empty air, their claws sparking against the stone.
"Physics vs. Magic, huh," Max grinned, regaining motor control as the protocol released him. "Magic wins."
He raised his hand. War Shadows had high physical resistance—blades often passed through their shadowy hides—but against magic? They were paper.
Crimson magic erupted from his palm, not as a beam, but as a shotgun spread. The shadows shrieked as the destruction magic tore through their incorporeal forms, unraveling them instantly into dissipating smoke.
Max watched them fade, his mind snagging on the way they moved—semi-solid, projecting themselves from the darkness.
Projection...
A memory surfaced from his extensive anime library. Fairy Tail. Specifically, the Thought Projection magic used by Jellal and Siegrain.
If I get the concepts right... I should be able to do that.
He continued walking, stepping over the dissolving remains, his mind racing with the possibilities. Shadow Clones from Naruto split your chakra evenly, which was risky as it could overwhelm the mind or leave the original vulnerable. But Thought Projection...
If he created a "Hologram" type—a pure visual projection without substance—it would cost barely any mana. A perfect clone that could run his businesses or act as a decoy while he focused on the grind.
But if I go the Siegrain route... a solid body... Max mused, kicking a loose pebble into the dark. That splits my strength and magic in half. Fifty percent power on two bodies. Risky for boss fights, but for farming? Or being in two places at once to maintain an alibi?
"My demonic power should be able to handle the concept," he whispered, eyes narrowing in thought. "I just need to visualize separating my consciousness without fracturing my mind."
It was a complex theory, definitely something to test in the safety of his soundproof suite rather than a damp dungeon corridor. But the seed was planted.
Focus, Max, he chided himself as he felt he was drifting away. Monsters first. Experiments later.
He pushed deeper into Floor 6, the humid air clinging to his skin. The War Shadows and Frog Shooters came in waves now, often working in tandem—the Frogs pinning prey with tongues while Shadows struck from the blind spots. It was a kill zone for the unprepared. For Max, it was target practice.
He refined his strategy on the fly. He let Auto-Evade handle the silent strikes of the Shadows while he prioritized the Frogs with ranged magic blasts. Kairu played defense, slicing any tongue that got too close and hoarding the magic stones with ruthless efficiency.
They carved a path of destruction through the muck and gloom, turning the dangerous wetland floor into a harvest run. By the time they reached the end of the cavern system, the air smelled less like rot and more like ozone and charred flesh.
Floor 6 was cleared.
-◈ -
Max found a quiet stairwell leading down, the stone dry and secure, and slumped against the wall.
"Break time."
He dug into his supplies, pulling out a strip of jerky and a waterskin. As he chewed the tough, savory meat, his hand brushed against a Recovery Potion. He hesitated, gauging his fatigue. His muscles ached with a dull, background throb, but his breathing was steady and his limbs didn't tremble.
I don't really need it, Max realized, shoving the potion back in. The Baptism really worked. A week of getting beaten half to death by Trent and Alfrigg really did wonders for my stamina.
As he rearranged the bag, a folded piece of parchment was knocked loose by the potion bottle and fluttered to the floor. Max picked it up. It was the price sheet Rose gave him at the Guild.
He stared at it, then slapped his forehead. "I'm an idiot. I've been running blind when I had a cheat sheet in my pocket."
He unfolded it, scanning the entries past Floor 5. The data was comprehensive, listing monsters, which floor they appear on, and, most importantly, drop items. His finger traced down to the entry for Floor 7.
Monsters: Killer Ant, Needle Rabbit, Purple Moth, Blue Papilio.
He paused.
Purple Moth: Risk of poisoning.
Blue Papilio: Wings contain potent healing properties. Ingredients for healing Potions.
Max's eyes lit up. "Healing properties?"
A slow, greedy smile spread across his face. Healing items were money. But more than that, if he could harvest enough Papilio wings, he might be able to use Ars Magna to synthesize his own recovery items on the fly, bypassing the need for his rough PoD cauterization or expensive potions.
"Priorities just shifted," Max muttered, memorizing the list up to Floor 12. "We burn the Ants, but we farm the butterflies."
He checked the map logic in his head. Floor 12 was the end of the Upper Floors, the gateway to the Middle Floors. That should be the next major rest stop unless necessary.
"Ready, buddy?" Max asked, wiping crumbs from his lip.
Kairu, who had been busy dissolving a small mountain of magic stones, rippled and reformed into his compact travel shape. Ki!
"Let's go."
-◈ -
Max stood up and stepped onto the stairs of Floor 7.
The atmosphere changed instantly. The damp, dark stone gave way to walls that seemed to vibrate with a greenish, organic hue. The air was sharper, filled with a dry, dusty scent of formic acid and dry earth.
And waiting at the bottom of the stairs was another welcoming committee. A single Killer Ant looking around as if it were on a treasure hunt. It was large, its red chitin gleaming under the dungeon light like polished armor. Its mandibles clicked rhythmically, sensing the air.
"Another Newbie Killer," Max murmured, drawing his rapier.
He didn't use Shunshin. He didn't use PoD. He just walked forward. The Ant lunged, mandibles snapping shut with the force of a hydraulic press. Max side-stepped—no automation needed, just observation—and slashed.
Shing.
The blade sang. The Ant split horizontally, the top half sliding off the bottom half with a wet thud. Kairu hopped down to grab the stone.
"Keep that one separate," Max ordered. "Killer Ant stones and all monster items from this floor are accepted at the Familia exchange."
But the death of the scout was a signal. A high-pitched keen echoed through the tunnels—a pheromone signal screaming INTRUDER.
From the cracks in the walls, from the tunnels ahead, they came. More Ants. And with them, the erratic, bounding shapes of Needle Rabbits. Dozens of them. Then scores.
"Okay," Max said, watching the corridor fill with red chitin and white fur. "Now we're talking."
He channeled lightning into his rapier. The blade hummed, wreathed in blue sparks. Max charged. He carved a path through the first wave, the lightning singing as it fried chitin and fur alike. But for every Ant he killed, two more seemed to crawl out of the woodwork.
Within minutes, the cavernous corridor was a writhing sea of monsters. Hundreds of them. Max stopped, surrounded. It reminded him of the desert. Of the stampede.
A cold, arrogant smile played on his lips.
"Too many bugs," Max whispered. He sheathed his rapier and raised both hands. He didn't need to chant, but he wanted the density. He wanted the crushing weight that only words could provide.
He began the aria, his voice cutting through the screeching of the swarm.
"Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man!
"On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens."
"Hadō #73. Sōren Sōkatsui!"
BOOM.
A torrent of blue fire erupted from his palms. It was a deluge. Twin lotuses of destruction spiraled out, merging into a massive wave of incandescence that filled the entire corridor from wall to wall. The swarm didn't die; it vanished. The blue fire incinerated everything in its path.
When the light faded, the corridor was empty. The walls were scorched black. Nothing remained but a carpet of magic stones and drop items glittering in the dim light.
"Level 73 spell. Was it overkill? Maybe. But was it effective? Absolutely." He nudged Kairu. "Clean up, buddy."
Kairu, looking awestruck, bounced into the smoking aftermath to collect the loot. Max rolled his shoulders, feeling the drain on his mana but noting how quickly his regen was topping it back up.
"Deeper," he commanded, stepping over the scorched earth. "We're not done yet."
-◈ -
Leaving the blackened corridor behind, Max turned a corner into the next section of the labyrinth. Immediately, his skin prickled. A subtle tingling sensation washed over him, like walking through a static field or... pollen.
Status ailment check, his mind registered instantly.
He looked around. The scorched stone was gone, replaced by lush, thick vegetation that clung to the walls and ceiling. Huge, vibrant flowers bloomed in the gloom, releasing clouds of shimmering dust. And floating among them were the locals.
Purple Moths fluttered lazily near the ceiling, their wings shedding a fine, violet powder—poison. Below them, dancing near the flowers, were beautiful butterflies with wings like stained glass. Blue Papilios.
Max blinked. It was... peaceful. The Moths and Papilios drifted around each other in a strange harmony, pollinating the dungeon flora.
It almost feels wrong to interrupt, Max thought. It's a nice ecosystem.
Then he remembered the price sheet. Papilio Wings: High Value.
"Sorry, guys," Max muttered, raising his hand. "But the Dungeon will just respawn you anyway."
He couldn't use the Sōren Sōkatsui here. An explosion that size would incinerate the delicate Papilio wings. He needed precision. He pointed a finger at the nearest Blue Papilio.
Snap.
A needle-thin beam of compressed mana pierced the butterfly. It dropped instantly, wings intact. He sniped another. Then a third.
The sudden death of their symbiotic partners triggered the Moths. Dozens of compound eyes locked onto Max. With a collective, buzzing shriek, the Purple Moths swarmed, diving toward him in a cloud of toxic dust.
"Wrong move," Max said.
He didn't bother with a chant. He just breathed out, channeling fire. A cone of flame erupted from his mouth, expanding to catch the descending swarm. The poison dust ignited instantly, creating a chain reaction of small pop-pop-pop explosions as the Moths were vaporized mid-air.
Within seconds, the air was clear. The Moths were ash. Max walked through the smoke to where the pristine bodies of the Blue Papilios lay on the ground.
"Kairu, gentle with these," Max instructed. "The wings are the money maker."
They moved deeper into the floor, settling into a new rhythm. It was a systematic cleanup. In corridors dominated by Ants and Rabbits, Max unleashed hell. In the lush caverns, he played surgeon. It got harder when the rooms mixed—trying to save a delicate butterfly while being charged by ten Killer Ants required a level of multitasking that strained even his focus—but Max found a grim satisfaction in the challenge.
Save the money, burn the trash, he thought, dodging a mandible snap to grab a falling wing out of the air. Simple economics.
With that rhythm, they reached the end of the floor.
-◈ -
Graphic Violence Warning - Skip to Floor 10 if you want to avoid it
Before descending further, Max knelt by the shadowed wall of the connecting corridor between Floor 7 and Floor 8. He pressed one of the purple contract circles against the cool stone, tucking it into a narrow fissure.
Hum.
The parchment pulsed, linking to his network.
"Checkpoint secure," Max whispered. It was becoming routine now—establishing infrastructure at every boundary. A trail of breadcrumbs leading back home to his cash cows.
Satisfied with the infrastructure laid, Max stood and stepped onto the landing of Floor 8.
Immediately, his back burned. It wasn't the dull, constant heat of the upper levels; this was sharp—a distinct sting that felt like a heated needle tracing the jagged hieroglyphs of his Falna. It spiked, hot and aggressive, digging into his shoulder blades before settling into a heavy, throbbing pulse that vibrated through his core.
Skill check? Or maybe I'm leveling too fast, Max thought, wincing as he tested his range of motion. Lux Tenebris feeds on depth and challenge... it feels like the skill is physically stretching my soul to make room for the influx of experience.
He flexed his hands, feeling the demonic power humming through his veins with renewed vigor. Despite the sting, he didn't hate it. It felt like progress. It felt like power.
He looked ahead, his eyes narrowing. Floor 8 was a twisting maze of caverns infested with the crawling red tide of Killer Ants and the erratic bouncing of Needle Rabbits. But unlike the previous floor, Goblins and Kobolds had joined the fray in large numbers, creating a chaotic ecosystem of aggression. As he began to fight, Max noticed something different: dark, rusted red stains smeared across the walls and floor in several chambers. It wasn't the usual monster ash. It was dried blood—old enough to be dark, fresh enough to tell a story of a party that had been cornered.
"Let's speed this up," Max muttered, his mood dipping into a darker territory.
He didn't bother hunting them one by one. He adopted a strategy of efficient malice. He would wound a single Killer Ant—just enough to make it scream, cracking its carapace but leaving it alive—and then wait. The distress pheromones would flood the air, and the dungeon would seemingly vomit monsters from every crack, drawn by the call for help.
When the corridor was choked with chitin and fur, Max acted. Sometimes it was a gravity crush; other times, simple explosive telekinesis. He cleared entire hallways with singular blasts of erasure, Auto-Evade occasionally jerking his head aside to let a stray horn whistle past.
By the time they crossed the threshold to Floor 9, the atmosphere shifted from aggressive to oppressive.
The first thing that hit Max wasn't a monster—it was the smell. A foul, cloying stench of decay that felt heavy enough to taste. It was a visceral, biological rot: the sweet, sickening aroma of putrefying meat mixed with the sharp copper of old blood and the acrid scent of sulfur.
Unlike the previous floors, there was no welcoming committee. No skittering feet, no chittering. The entrance was eerily quiet. The silence was a physical weight that made Max's gut tighten. His danger sense wasn't screaming, but it was humming—a persistent warning that he had walked into a tomb.
"High guard, Kairu," Max whispered, his hand white-knuckled on his rapier hilt.
He made his way through the silent, damp corridors until he reached a large central cavern. The chittering finally returned, but it wasn't the sound of a hunt. It was rhythmic. Methodical.
As he rounded the final stone pillar, Max froze. The scene was grotesque beyond anything he had witnessed. Leg segments and broken carapaces of ants were littered everywhere, but among them lay the shredded remains of human gear—shattered shields, torn leather tunics, and boots. In the center of a circle of subservient ants sat one massive Killer Ant, easily twice the size of its peers, its chitin a dark, bruised violet.
It was hunched over the remains of an adventuring party, methodically chomping. Max watched in frozen horror as the creature consumed a magic stone—not from a monster, but from the pocket of a fallen rookie. It was using the stones and the meat of its kills to forcefully evolve.
Max stood there, his mind coming to a screeching halt. Back on Earth, he'd seen gore in anime, but the reality was different. This was a "rookie killer" doing exactly what it was named for. These people were probably just like his old-self—hopeful, desperate, trying to make a life. Now they were fertilizer.
His Devil body remained calm—his heart rate didn't even spike—but his human soul felt a cold, sinking sadness.
Kairu, sensing the turmoil through their bond, flowed up from his chest and nuzzled against Max's neck, a cool, reassuring pressure.
"I know, buddy," Max murmured, taking a slow breath through his nose to center himself. "I'll ensure this never happens to us. And I'll work faster... get that Uber service running. Maybe people can escape before it gets this far."
He wanted to erase the entire cavern with the Power of Destruction, but he stopped himself. He didn't want to vaporize the remains of the people. They deserved to be returned to the surface.
He pulled his rapier. His eyes flared with a dangerous crimson light.
Shunshin.
Max vanished. He didn't use flashy magic; he used surgical speed. He flickered behind the outer circle of ants, his blade a silver blur that decapitated them before they could even turn. Then, with one final, long-range burst, he appeared directly above the mutated "Champion" ant.
The creature looked up, mandibles dripping, but it was too slow. Max drove his rapier through its central nervous system, channeling a precise pulse of electricity through the blade to fry it from the inside out.
The giant ant collapsed. The remaining swarm hissed in confusion, only for Max to blitz through them with cold, mechanical efficiency.
"Kairu," Max said, his voice flat. "Collect their belongings. Their remains, whatever's left. Store them separately. We'll leave them at the Guild."
The grim scene had killed his mood for experimentation. He didn't want to be here anymore. For the rest of Floor 9, Max didn't just fight—he purged. He used the Power of Destruction with reckless abandon, erasing every monster he sensed or saw, turning the floor into a corridor of vanishing shadows and silence.
-◈ -
By the time Max crossed the threshold to Floor 10, the claustrophobic, tomb-like air of the previous floor vanished, replaced by a cavernous expanse that felt dauntingly immense. The ceiling vaulted upward into a dark abyss, the stalactites dripping with shadows that fluttered and shrieked. The scent was a thick, stomach-turning cocktail of wet fur, ancient guano, and the sharp, metallic tang of monster intent.
"Big boy territory, huh," Max noted, adjusting his grip on his rapier. He could feel Lux Tenebris pulsing steadily against his spine, a heavy heat that seemed to hum in approval of the rising stakes.
He didn't have to wait long for a greeting. A seven-foot Orc stepped out from behind a jagged stone pillar. It was a mass of olive-colored muscle and tusks, snarling as it raised a crude, tree-sized club. In the upper floors, Max had relied on speed, but here, he wanted to test the physical parameters of his Devil physiology.
The Orc roared and brought the massive club down in a vertical arc that should have pulverized stone. Max didn't dodge. He braced his stance, channeled a pulse of magic into his forearm, and intercepted the strike.
CLANG.
The sound of wood hitting magic-reinforced bone echoed through the cavern. The club shattered into splinters, sending vibrations up the Orc's arms that left it stunned. Max hadn't budged an inch. Before the monster could process its weapon's destruction, Max stepped in and drove a fist straight into its solar plexus. The kinetic force caved in the Orc's chest, launching the beast backward. It dissolved into ash before its back even hit the floor.
"Orcs are easy," Max mused. "It's the supporting cast I'm worried about."
As if on cue, the ceiling erupted.
High-pitched screeches tore through the air, vibrating against Max's teeth and turning his equilibrium into a chaotic mess. A swarm of Bad Bats descended, leathery wings beating a frantic rhythm. Their sonic attacks were invisible, hammering his eardrums and making his vision swim.
While he was disoriented, the shadows at his feet birthed more threats.
Imps.
Small, wiry, and malicious, they didn't fight with the honorless rage of a Kobold; they fought with the coordinated cruelty of a pack. While the bats disrupted his focus, the imps formed their own "monster party," ganging up on him from the flanks.
Ping.
Auto-Evade jerked his shoulder back just as an imp's claw reached for his throat, but the protocol couldn't save him from the sound waves. Max stumbled, his ears ringing. Every time he tried to focus on an Orc, a bat would dive-bomb his head, and two imps would dive for his shins.
"Annoying little bastards," Max hissed, rubbing his temple. "Group tactics, huh? Fine. Let's change the weather."
He recalled the lore. These fliers and swarmers had a fatal flaw: they were highly combustible.
He sheathed his rapier and raised his hand, abandoning lightning for something more primal. "Burn."
He didn't use a structured spell. He just let his Demonic Power push the concept of Ignition. A wide, roaring cone of fire erupted from his palm. The Bad Bats, caught in the updraft, shriveled instantly, their leathery wings turning to crisp paper. The imps shrieked, breaking their formation to flee the heat, but Max was relentless. He began treating the cavern like a firing range, snapping off fireballs that exploded with the force of grenades. Each blast took out half a dozen of the wiry bastards at once.
He carved a scorching path through the rest of the floor, but the Dungeon had one final trial waiting at the exit.
Blocking the corridor to the 11th Floor was a literal army. It was a meticulously organized blockade of over two-hundred monsters. A dozen massive Orcs formed a frontline shield wall, flanked by agile Needle Rabbits ready to pounce. Above them, a cloud of Bats waited to scream, while the ground behind the Orcs was a writhing carpet of Imps.
Max stopped, ten yards away, staring at the sheer scale of the "party" the Dungeon had assembled to stop him. A dark, reckless grin spread across his face. He felt the intoxicating hum of his skill lingering in his mind.
"You guys really want a show?" Max whispered.
He took a deep breath, centering every scrap of mana he had. He thought of a legend—a ghost from a world of shinobi who stood before an entire alliance and didn't blink.
Max dropped his stance, his hands coming up in a coordinated dance of intent. He didn't have chakra, but he had something more versatile. With his left hand, he summoned a massive, localized gust of wind. With his right, he prepared the ignition.
He inhaled, filling his lungs with superheated magic until his chest felt like it would burst.
"Katon: Gōka Mekkyaku." (Majestic Destroyer Flame)
He exhaled.
A stream of super-dense magic erupted from his mouth mixing with the fire from his right hand. It hit the windstream he conjured with his left hand and expanded.
The Majestic Destroyer Flame filled the corridor from wall to wall, ceiling to floor.
The Orcs didn't even have time to raise their clubs. They were vaporized in a heartbeat. The Imps behind them were turned to cinders instantly. The Bats in the air were caught in the vacuum of the fire and erased. The roar of the flames drowned out the screams of over two-hundred monsters.
The fire burned for a full ten seconds, a continuous deluge of annihilation. When Max finally stopped, the air shimmered with an unbearable heat. The stone walls were glowing red, and the floor where the monsters had been standing was no longer stone—it was a smooth, glittering path of obsidian glass.
"Hoo boy," Max wheezed, falling to one knee as he wiped soot and sweat from his forehead. His breath came out as steam. "That... took a good chunk out of my reserves."
Kairu, unbothered by the heat thanks to his magic resistance, bounced into the scorch zone. The slime moved with frantic glee, collecting the hundreds of magic stones that littered the ground.
"Good haul," Max murmured, checking his internal clock. He was tired. The constant fighting, the high-speed travel, the magic use—it was adding up.
I'll push to Floor 12, he decided. Then I find a safe area and rest before the Middle Floors.
He stepped over the blackened remains of the Orc blockade and descended the stairs to Floor 11.
The mist began to thicken here. The 11th floor was notorious for poor visibility and hard-skinned monsters.
Max stepped off the stairs and immediately gutted an Orc that lunged from the fog. He blasted a cluster of Bats with a leftover fireball and kept walking.
Then, he heard it.
A commotion. Not the usual roar of combat, but the sound of... bullying?
Max slowed, peering through the thin mist.
In a clearing ahead, a group of massive, white-furred apes—Silverbacks—were gathered in a circle. They were hooting and hollering, taking turns throwing something large and heavy between them.
Max squinted. It looked like a lizard. A small, greyish lizard with... wings?
A Dragon?
Max frowned. Infant Dragons were rare. They were valuable. And usually, they were dangerous enough that a monkey wouldn't be playing catch with one.
He crept closer.
The Silverback holding the creature wound up and hurled it. The lizard sailed through the air, limbs flailing, and crashed into a rock wall with a sickening thud.
It slumped to the ground, shaking its head.
Max prepared to intervene—bullying was unsightly, even for monsters—but then he paused.
The lizard stood up. It didn't look injured. It shook off the dust, let out a puff of smoke from its nostrils, and looked at the Silverbacks with an expression that looked less like pain and more like profound annoyance.
Wait, Max thought, staring at the scene. Is that dragon... rolling its eyes?
Max didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry about the absurdity of the scene. A sarcastic dragon being used as a volleyball by gym-bro apes?
He decided he simply didn't like their sense of humor.
"Game over," Max whispered.
He raised his hand. Crimson-black energy gathered at his fingertips—a Power of Destruction bullet.
Snap.
He didn't aim for one. He swept his hand. The pellet split into multiple homing shards of erasure.
The Silverbacks never saw it coming. The red light flashed through the mist, and their heads vanished mid-hoot.
The mist settled. The clearing was silent except for the soft plink of magic stones hitting the ground.
Max stepped forward, kneeling near the small dragon. It was still slumped against the rock, one wing bent at an awkward angle. Its grey scales were scuffed, and a thin trickle of smoke leaked from its nostrils with each labored breath.
Up close, Max could see it more clearly. It wasn't an infant dragon—at least not a regular one as those were larger and more aggressive.
The creature's reptilian eye cracked open, locking onto him. There was intelligence there. Not animal cunning, but awareness and recognition.
It tried to stand, wobbling on shaky legs, and let out a pitiful wheeze that might have been a growl if it had more lung capacity.
Max tilted his head. "You okay, little guy?"
The dragon blinked. Then, with visible effort, it puffed its chest and released a tiny flame—barely bigger than a candle flicker—directly at Max's face.
Max didn't flinch or moved back, trusting the little guy wouldn't harm him. As expected, the fire dissipated harmlessly against his skin.
"Tough guy, huh?" Max smirked, understanding the Dragon's acknowledgement. "I respect that."
The dragon wheezed again, deflating. It looked around the clearing—at the dissolving Silverback corpses, at the human who had killed them in a heartbeat, at the exit passage beyond.
Then it made a decision.
With a pathetic hop, it limped toward the shadows, favoring its good wing. It didn't look back.
Max watched it disappear into the mist.
"Godspeed, little dragon," he murmured. "Try not to piss off any more monkeys."
He collected the Silverback stones and moved on.
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Whoa! That's the biggest chapter so far at 7.2k words, I had to strongly suppress my urge to split this in half as I felt it wouldn't make sense and feels abrupt, lol. And as promised it covered multiple floors till Floor 11. Maybe I could have pushed to Floor 12, but I felt it would have felt rushed and decided to show that in the next chap.
And obviously Max came across the cruelty and the real danger of the dungeon and by the looks of it, he didn't like it. If you think what happened to others who were killed during the day, the older adventurers carried them back while the party Max encountered were the stragglers who wanted to earn a little extra.
Aside from that, he realized how dumb he was with the Loot Sheet in his pocket and wants to test Thought Projection, obviously it will take time. Though he didn't get a need for his PoD Healing or the Potions yet. Who knows what the next floors would throw at him??
As always, don't forget to share your thoughts on the story and any suggestions you have on what else Max could try in a review/comment. And also if you feel these long chapters are too much to read.
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Next update will be on Friday.
Ben, Out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.