❮ ◈ ❯

An obstruction in the floor has been detected. Proceeding to clearing.

❮ ◈ ❯

With that message, the ice that had occupied the castle started glowing and disappeared in a flash. The Skulking Angels that were encased inside fell to the ground and fragmented, having lost their resistance after death. Right after, the ground split open to reveal a square-shaped hole.

“That’s handy. It would’ve been a pain to destroy the ice ourselves,” Rakna remarked and hopped off his platform with everyone else after reverting to a therian.

The first thing they did after landing was to collect what the angels had dropped. Other than Talys, there were a few recovery consumables and three items. One of them was a splintered chunk of stone emanating an odd power signature. The second was a necklace with gray wings, and the last was a sort of silver potion.

“{Oh my… lord...}” Fray whispered and Higure shared his shock.

“What’s wrong?” Rakna scowled.

“{Just look at those items’ descriptions and you’ll understand,}” the lioness said. “{Especially… that silver potion.}”

Rakna hummed and grabbed the items with a slanted head. He appraised the three of them and almost felt like laughing when the results scrolled into his vision.

❮ ◈ ❯

Designation: Loot Material/Skulking Blood

Name: Concentrated Skulking Angel Blood

Rarity: Orange

Description:

An agglomerate of blood from a Skulking Angel. When looked at, it will appear as a near-invulnerable piece of rock. When not, it will turn into a metal-like material that can be forged or transmuted into equipment.

---

Designation: Accessory/ Necklace

Name: Skulking Sanction

Rarity: Purple

Durability: 100%

Description:

An accessory imbued with the power of the infamous Skulking Angels. The one who wears it will be granted some of their particularities.

Effects:

- When not being looked at: +20% Agility & Swiftness

- When being looked at: +50% Defense, -50% Agility

- Increase defense against magic by 50%

---

Designation: Consumable/Morph Potion

Name: Stone Lock

Rarity: Red

Description:

The physiology of a Skulking Angel is incredibly mysterious and due to their nature, research has always been very hard to perform on them. When they die, their corpse becomes eternally stone.

The only things one can ever manage to salvage from them are the very rare concentrated blood beads and the vague and puzzling mana traces around them. However, it is possible to mix all these ‘ingredients’ together through alchemy to produce this potion.

Effects:

- When not being looked at: +100% Speed, +300% Agility & Swiftness.

- When being looked at: +999% Defense, -99% Agility.

- Immune to all temporal and spatial interference.

- Increase defense against magic by 999%.

Duration: 5 min.

Note: There is no side effect to this potion. The one who drinks will effectively become a natural disaster of a predator for its whole duration.

❮ ◈ ❯

Rakna snorted and tossed the necklace to Allan. “Here. This is for you. Among us, you’re the one who would care the less about such a large cut in agility.”

The blond caught the accessory with one hand and widened his eyes at the description. “That’s a sweet item,” he commented before equipping it.

“I will keep this blood for myself. As for this…” Rakna held the potion and mused. “Anyone wants it?” He asked as he shared the description with them.

“You don’t want to keep it?” Evelyn asked, awestruck by the effects.

“I don’t really need it. I have enough trump cards as it is.”

“If none of you mind, I wouldn’t mind taking it,” Nyx said with a raised hand. “Other than Rakna, I’m pretty confident to have the most agility here. On top of that, my magic is suited for it.”

“That’s true,” Rakna nodded. “With shadows, as long as someone doesn’t see you, you would be able to move freely; greatly reducing the disadvantage of a Skulking Angel. You guys are okay with that?” He asked everyone else and they all nodded agreeingly. “In that case; here,” he said and handed the silver potion to Nyx.

She carefully received it and gave a thankful nod before storing it. After that, they turned toward the opening that appeared on the floor and Rakna was first to approach it.

“Jump?” Allan uttered with a smirk as he joined him.

“Jump,” Rakna replied blandly and proceeded to leap into the hole without hesitation. The others smiled at each other and followed him. They had nothing to fear going in. If Rakna didn’t feel anything wrong, then it usually meant that it was safe.

The freefall lasted for about fifteen seconds and all of them used their own way to cushion their landing. The second floor of the dungeon was shockingly the same as the first. It was as if they were still inside the castle. The only difference was that the interior was illuminated by torches and chandeliers instead of the sunlight that would infiltrate through the windows.

And, once again, there were statues scattered around. Fortunately, they weren’t Skulking Angels and their number was nothing like above. Moreover, they were completely different.

“They look pretty easy to deal with,” Allan muttered as they watched the humanoid statues around slowly making their way toward them. Unlike earlier, these were not posing as actual statues.

Flavia hummed and scanned them. “They are… Clay Men, huh? This is another form of statue, in a way. It seems that this Dungeon’s theme is centered around that. I wonder if we’ll end up fighting an enemy capable of petrification.”

“A reasonable guess,” Nyx remarked. “Or a being of earth essence.”

“So, how do we deal with these?” Allan finally asked as the clay puppets were getting closer.

“Fire,” Rakna curtly replied.

The blond grinned and summoned a black flame in his hand. “I copied this one from Evelyn. How about you let us three deal with this? What do you say; Evelyn, dragon wannabe?”

The succubus nodded while Tyran roared indignantly at being called like that before shifting into his biggest form. The three of them began to channel their magic and when one of the clay statues suddenly stretched its arm to throw a punch, they released their spells.

Tyran let out a condensed breath that burned everything to crisp and turned the clay monsters into molten puddles. Allan propelled himself with flames and easily blocked the surprisingly swift attacks of the clay men. He then would melt half of their bodies with a single kick or a punch.

On the other hand, Evelyn remained in her spot and poured a sizeable amount of mana into arrows before shooting them with her longbow. The projectiles coated with Hell Fire exploded on impact and melted all the targets in a certain radius.

“This floor is a lot easier compared to the first one,” Nyx commented as she contented herself to watch the trio dispatch the clay statues. She also was amused at how Allan and Tyran seemed to be competing for the highest number of kills.

“Hm, these statues seem to be able to stretch their limbs, and control their shape,” Rakna said. “It would probably be a bit annoying to fight them only physically but in our case, we have more than enough firepower to deal with them.”

“Indeed…”

Soon enough, the system notification sounded to announce the completion of the floor and the passage to the next one was promptly opened.

“Tch, stop with that face! You only won by a few heads!” Allan shouted at the smug expression of the dinosaur who had ultimately won their contest. In the end, Tyran was simply higher leveled and had massively larger-scale attacks compared to the blond.

Evelyn sighed at the display as she lowered her bow. “Technically, I won. I took out more than you two,” she ‘modestly’ said and the duo looked at her with a blank reaction.

“You didn’t apply for the contest so it doesn’t count,” Allan blurted out and Tyran seemingly agreed as he nodded several times.

“…do I have to pass an interview as well?” The succubus deadpanned. Flavia laughed lightly and Nyx brought her hand to her mouth as she smiled a bit.

Rakna snorted at the spectacle. While he entertained the idea of reminding them of where they were and that they should act seriously, this kind of merry atmosphere was as much important as their individual skill.

He shrugged and quietly collected what the clay puppets had dropped. Overall, it was nothing like the Skulking Angels’ loot. Other than Talys and a handful of low-grade consumables, they barely even got a few white rarity items.

“Shall we go?” He soon spoke up whilst heading to the vertical tunnel. His group was quick to listen to him and stopped their amicable scuffle to follow him.

“I’ll win next,” Allan proclaimed as he jumped in the hole and Tyran let out something similar to a goading laugh.

The third floor’s monsters had been regular golems like the one they had fought during their first Trial and without much problem, they made quick work of them. For this one, only Tyran, Rakna, and Allan had participated since they were the most suited.

The fourth floor was filled with gargoyles and bird-like statues. They were all shot down by Flavia, Nyx, and Ganymede using a bit of Rakna’s mana.

The fifth floor started becoming somewhat interesting as what occupied it were foes looking like a mix between a stone golem and machines. They had odd gears spinning in certain parts of their body and they even wielded weapons.

Flavia’s eyes flashed as her telekinesis crushed a lance that had been thrown at her. Nyx followed up by tying up several of the golems with shadow strings twined around her fingers. With just one nudge from her, the strings tightened and sliced the magical beings into small bits.

Farther, Tyran stomped a golem to death with a huff and literally chewed another before flooding his mouth with a fire hotter than lava. He spat the charred remains and rushed for another target while Pronos casually controlled clouds of acidic poison with his mind and enveloped golems until they turned into puddles of thawed stone.

These were his first experiments with Myriad Poison and he was already overjoyed at how easier it was to manipulate his spells.

Above them, Evelyn was floating as she drew the string of her bow and caused golems’ heads to explode with every arrow she shot. And even if they somehow managed to dodge her arrows or survive the blast, her flames were so vicious it would continue to burn them until they could not move anymore.

In the midst of the enemies, Allan was grinning happily as he absorbed incoming attacks with his Void Magic as if they didn’t exist and retaliated a hundred times stronger with each blow. At some point, he punched a hole through a golem and coincidentally pulled out its cogwheel.

He weighed it with a curious eye and snickered. “Hey, Rak!” He called and the therian looked over to him as he cleaved a golem in two with the oscillation of his Guandao. “Remember what you do to annoying flies?” He uttered while waving the gear around.

The corner of Rakna’s lips twitched upward as a memory came back to him. “Slap them.” Allan let out a laugh and hurled the gear spinning in his friend’s direction.

Rakna snorted and whirled Sonata as he beheaded a golem. He then jumped on its headless neck and used it as a stepstone to position himself right in the gear’s path. His eyes flared with a golden light and checked every last golem left.

He pinpointed their locations in less than a second and when the cogwheel reached him, he spun around and kicked it with calculated accuracy whilst injecting a bit of mana into it. The piece of machinery was sent straight toward another golem. It struck the latter’s cogs before bouncing off, hitting a second then bouncing again to damage a third one.

This repeated itself exactly seven times with such consistency that it was almost hard to believe. When the gear finally lost its impetus and dropped on the ground, every golem that had been hit by it simply collapsed, destroyed.

When Rakna landed, Allan was openly laughing and the others were stunned to see the remaining golems being defeated in such a manner.

❮ ◈ ❯

You have completed the Dungeon’s Fifth Floor!

Do you wish to leave?

Yes/No

❮ ◈ ❯

Rakna selected ‘no’ and cracked his neck as the path to the next floor opened once more.

“What was that?” Evelyn asked bewildered as she floated down. “How did you manage to get so many of them consecutively? Did you somehow control the gear with magic?”

“Hm? I just used Projectile Reinforcement on it so it wouldn’t break too easily. Then, I kicked it in the right angle to get all of them at once.”

“Did you calculate its trajectory…?” Nyx inquired tentatively.

“Calculate? No, I just saw where they were standing and followed my gut feeling. It’s normal.”

‘It’s not!’ They all shouted in their mind except Allan. Higure cackled from within the soul realm and Fray cheerfully wrote down what he had just witnessed.