Chapter 68: The Stairs Just Left Without Us?!

Chapter 68: Chapter 68: The Stairs Just Left Without Us?!

The moment all five of them were spat out onto the second floor, a low grinding sound rippled through the air.

KRRRRRR...

Kael turned. "Uh."

The staircase behind them dissolved into drifting crimson particles, vanishing entirely into the stone wall.

"...Where did the stairs go?" Kael asked, voice climbing. "WHERE DID THE STAIRS GO?!"

"They’re gone," Rika said, not even turning around.

"I CAN SEE THAT!"

"That’s how this dungeon works," Rika said, checking her map instead of his emotional state.

Kael stared at her. "You knew this would happen?"

"Yes."

"AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US?!"

"I told you we shouldn’t go past Floor Five."

"You said that like it was a suggestion!"

Zalor glanced around, unbothered. "It’s normal."

"Why are you so calm about this?"

"Because Rika explained it before we left the city, man."

Kael rounded on Vex. "Did you know too?"

"Everyone knew," Vex said simply.

Kael’s shoulders sagged. "...Nobody tells me anything."

Lucien pressed a hand over his mouth, failing to hide his laugh.

"More like you were too busy eating to listen."

"Once you descend a floor section," Rika explained properly again for Kael’s sake, "the staircase behind you disappears and the only way out is defeating the boss controlling that section."

She traced the logic on her map. "We’re only going for Floors One through Five, so if we want to leave from here, we defeat Floor Five’s boss and that opens an exit portal. But if we go past Floor Five into Floor Six, we’re locked into the next section entirely and the only way out then is clearing Floor Ten’s boss."

Kael’s expression slowly collapsed into horror. "So if we go to Floor Six,"

"We’d have to beat the Floor Ten boss to leave, which is Peak B rank." Rika confirmed.

"...I suddenly love the idea of stopping at Floor Five," Kael said. "Floor Five is my favorite floor, so Let’s make sure we never go past Floor Five."

"We haven’t even reached Floor Five yet," Vex pointed out.

"I’m building anticipation."

The cavern stretched out ahead of them, utterly unlike the open grassland plains above.

Massive stalactites hung from a ceiling lost somewhere in the dark, some easily a hundred meters long. Crimson mana veins threaded through the rock walls like frozen lightning, occasional droplets of something red falling from unseen heights.

The floor itself was a maze of narrow passages, wide chambers, natural stone bridges spanning deep ravines, and dead ends that led nowhere useful.

"I liked the grass," Kael said mournfully.

"You complained about the grass," Zalor pointed out.

"I was wrong, I take it back, bring back the slimes, I prefer them over this creepy place."

Lucien’s Night Vision turned on the moment the darkness thickened, the cavern’s black depths resolving into something merely dim.

’It’s really convenient, Night Vision is going to be ridiculously useful here.’ he thought, watching the others squint uselessly at their surroundings. ’Really convenient, thanks Vane it’s the least you could do.’

Rika unfolded the glowing map, and Kael leaned over her shoulder immediately.

"You can actually understand that?"

She turned slowly. "...Obviously."

"Just checking."

She smacked him. "Why else would I have paid for it, if I couldn’t read it?"

Lucien glanced at it, curious. "Speaking of which Rika, how much did you pay for the map and info?"

Rika’s expression soured. "...Enough."

"How much is enough?"

"Enough that it hurt."

Kael burst out laughing. "Fifteen hundred gold, she paid fifteen hundred gold for a map alone, I told her that she got scammed."

"It’s a high-quality Guild expedition map!" Rika said and immediately smacked Kael.

Lucien’s eyebrows shot up. "For just the map?"

"It’s not just a map!" Rika snapped, jabbing a finger at it. "It’s got floor layouts, monster territories, resource locations, known dead ends, previously explored routes, this is information compiled from multiple Guild teams, and for all five of the first floors."

"It’s worth it," Vex said, backing her up.

"Yeah, information saves more money than it costs, besides this dungeon is new and trending, so obviously they would charge more." Zalor added.

"Better than going in blind." Lucien agreed too, though the price didn’t bother him, thanks to all the return investments from the girls.

"Still fifteen hundred gold," Kael muttered.

"You didn’t complain when we bought your new armor, that cost nearly five thousand gold." Rika said.

Kael went quiet. "...Fair."

"Anyway the dominant species down here," Rika said, tracing the map, "is Bloodveil Nightbats, or just called Nightbats, they are C-Rank and way nastier than the jellies, they can suppress their own mana signature, making them hard to detect until they’re already in front of your face." She explained along with their various abilities and appearance.

"Great," Kael said. "So invisible bats this time."

"Not invisible, just quiet and sneaky."

"Makes no difference when they’re biting my neck and sucking me dry."

"Okay, enough standing around, let’s move." Rikas said as they got in formation and headed for the staircase that went down to the 3rd floor.

They moved deeper, their footsteps echoing softly against stone.

Vex suddenly stopped as he looked up sensing movement. "Above us."

Everyone looked up and saw nothing but darkness.

"Where and what?" Kael squinted.

Vex pointed elsewhere instead. "The Nightbats and they’re moving."

The cavern held its breath, silent.

Lucien looed up and thanks to his Night Vision trait, he was able to trace the ceiling’s contours and immediately froze.

Hundreds of shapes clung upside down against the stone, wings folded tight, small red eyes beginning to blink open one after another.

"They’re above us," Vex confirmed, grim.

"Formation!" Rika snapped, shield rising.

The swarm dropped all at once.

WHOOSH.

"Left!" Vex called, already loosing an arrow of condensed mana.

THWIP.

A bat dropped.

"Right! Rika!"

She caught the diving creature on her shield, angling it aside before finishing it with a clean chop.

"Three above Kael!"

"I SEE THEM!"

Kael planted his greatsword and grinned like a man about to do something deeply unwise.

"COME ON YOU BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS! AND I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT LUCIEN!" he bellowed, arms spread wide.

"KAEL!" Rika started.

Too late, the bat’s redirected toward the loudest, most obnoxious target in the cavern.

’He’s either incredibly brave,’ Lucien thought, watching Kael get absolutely mobbed, ’or incredibly stupid.’

"Both," Zalor said beside him, reading his face.

Kael swung his greatsword in huge, desperate arcs knocking several bats clear across the chamber.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Then one of the bats got through his swings.

BITE.

"OW!"

Another landed.

BITE.

"GET OFF!"

Lucien moved before the third could land and bite.

’Alright,’ he thought, drawing both scythes, chain rattling taut between them. ’Let’s see what all that learning actually taught me.’

A bat dove toward Kael’s exposed shoulder. Lucien threw the first blade.

WHOOSH!!

And hooked its wing mid-flight, chain snapping tight as he yanked it clear of Kael entirely, cutting its wing right off.

The second blade spun in behind it.

SLASH.

Dead, the core inside its small body split cleanly in two.

’Gotta not break the mana cores by accident. ’He thought and doing what he thought.

SLASH.

’Footwork from the sword manual. Reach management from the spear manual. Hooking mechanics are basically the axe technique adapted sideways.’

’None of these manuals were built for a chained scythe, but pieces of all of them apparently fit here anyway.’

’And top it off with the scythe manual, I’m basically a weapon master, well in mind only, but once I actually get experience, ’

Another bat came from behind. He didn’t turn fully, his body simply reacted before hisnmind could, Predator’s Reflex firing before conscious thought caught up, chain snapping backward on pure instinct.

CLANG. Caught.

Pull. Spin. SLASH. Dead.

A third dove from above. He ducked under it, blade sweeping in a low arc behind his own shoulder without him needing to look.

SLASH.

’This is what Aurelia meant, probably,’ he thought, catching his rhythm. ’Understanding the weapon instead of fighting it, every one of these fights is just reading the space between attacks now.’

Hook. Pull. Swing. Release. Catch. Slash.

He wasn’t thinking about individual techniques anymore. They’d started blending, the sword’s precision, the spear’s control of distance, the axe’s redirect, all filtered through a weapon none of them had been designed for, and somehow it worked along with the actual technique.

’Still missing actual experience, though. Everyone else here’s spent years doing this. I’ve spent a few days or weeks and a suspicious number of near-death experiences.’

’Good enough for now.’

A Nightbat finally landed clean on his forearm as his thoughts wandered.

CHOMP.

He looked down, as the bat’s fangs sat lodged uselessly against his skin, barely breaking the surface.

The bat looked back at him, apparently equally confused, its big glossy eyes staring straight at his blood red one.

"...Really?" Lucien said.

It tried biting harder, but nothing happened.

He flicked his arm.

WHAM.

The bat sailed across the cavern and hit a rock wall with a small, pathetic thud as it was stabbed through but a sharp rock jutting out.

"What the hell?" Kael called, having witnessed the whole thing.

"Weak teeth," Lucien said, rolling his shoulder like he’d been mildly inconvenienced by a mosquito.

"What do you mean weak teeth?!" Kael asked looking at the dead bat as he swung his greatsword, and then at the bite marks across his arms.

’Note to self, don’t casually flick monsters across rooms in front of an audience next time.’

Rika worked methodically at the front, shield redirecting dives before her axe finished each kill. Vex stayed back, calling positions in a steady stream.

"Three approaching Rika! Zalor, left! Kael, duck!" an arrow sailing over Kael’s ducking head to drop a bat mid-swoop.

"Nice shot!" Kael called giving a thumbs up.

"You’re welcome, but don’t get distracted!"

Zalor moved like smoke, appearing and vanishing at the edges of vision, twin curved daggers finding exposed cores with unsettling precision.

"Zalor, left!" Rika called.

"Already there," came the reply, from exactly where she’d pointed.

"I hate fighting next to people who can teleport," Kael muttered, nursing a fresh bite.

"I can’t teleport."

"Whatever it is, I hate it."

The swarm finally thinned, then broke entirely, and the cavern fell quiet.

Roughly a hundred small black and red bodies littered the stone floor.

Kael slumped against a rock, breathing hard. "I hate bats."

"You hate everything," Zalor said.

"Not true."

"Name one thing you like."

Kael considered this seriously. "...Food."

"And yelling," Lucien added.

"I don’t yell."

Everyone stared at him.

"...Okay, maybe a little."

While the others caught their breath, Lucien crouched beside the corpses, drawing thin streams of blood into small vials.

Kael noticed immediately. "What are you doing?"

"Collecting."

"That’s blood."

"Yes."

"You’re collecting monster blood?"

"Also correct." Lucien capped another vial. "I’m a vampire, so blood is useful to me, works kind of like a weak healing potion."

Kael turned to Rika. "Is that true?"

Rika shrugged. "Yeah for vampires, depending on their bloodline, own rank and the blood’s rank."

"It’s probably useful to him," Zalor said, studying Lucien for a moment longer than necessary.

"Exactly," Lucien said, meeting his gaze evenly.

’Can’t exactly explain the whole ’I get traits from it’ part, he thought. ’Luckily I’m a vampire and this cover works fine.’

They gathered the rest of the loot together, mana cores, wing membranes, fangs, venom glands, etc all going into Rika’s storage ring for storage.

"Not far to Floor Three now," Rika said, checking the map as they started moving.