Chapter 271

Chapter 271: Chapter 271

"Tsubaki!" Rayleigh shouted.

"I know!"

Tobiume stabbed straight through the center of the exposed cluster.

The creature convulsed violently, but before it could recover, Ais drove Gonryōmaru in right beside the heavy blade.

Golden lightning flashed brilliantly through the packed stones.

The cluster shattered into a thousand useless pieces.

The monster collapsed heavily to the floor.

Its massive body remained completely still for several tense seconds before it finally began dissolving into piles of fine, black dust.

Lyra let out a long breath, watching until the very last piece disappeared.

"That was incredibly exhausting for just one monster."

Asfi landed softly beside her, brushing dust from her coat. "It was also highly informative."

"I would have strongly preferred just exhausting."

Rayleigh crouched silently beside the small fragments left behind in the ash.

He sifted through them carefully.

There was absolutely nothing artificial among the remains.

No strange, embedded crystal.

No constructed magical core.

It was only partially digested, naturally occurring magic stones from several different deep-floor monster species.

Tsubaki walked over, firmly resealing Tobiume in its case. "So, an Enhanced Species then."

"Yes," Rayleigh agreed, picking up one half-dissolved stone to inspect it. "I fought one before that learned spear techniques just by watching adventurers. It copied the physical movement perfectly, but it didn’t understand proper distance, timing, or why someone would tactically choose one technique over another."

Ais looked quietly toward the spot where the monster had died. "This one learned much faster."

"Much faster," Rayleigh confirmed.

Asfi crossed her arms, analyzing the data. "Because it wasn’t merely watching you fight. It was consuming your spiritual pressure directly."

Rayleigh stood up, dusting off his gloves. "Exactly. That gives it something much closer to the original structural blueprint than simple visual observation."

Ardi looked warily down the dark corridor ahead of them. "If the other monsters down here can do the exact same thing... fighting them actively teaches them how to kill us."

"Which means we don’t give them the luxury of the same lesson twice," Rayleigh stated firmly.

Tsubaki rested the heavy Tobiume case casually across her shoulder. "Well, that certainly sounds more interesting than simply blowing everything up."

Asfi looked at the half-dwarf flatly. "You say that like you won’t still actively try to blow everything up."

"I said it was more interesting. I did not say it was better."

Ais suddenly turned her head, her hand dropping to her hilt.

"More are coming."

...

Nobody had time to answer or prepare a defense.

The first group rapidly appeared through the lower passage.

There were eight of them.

However, they were not moving like ordinary, mindless Dungeon monsters.

Two broad, hulking creatures with massively oversized, armored forearms entered first, deliberately using their heavy bodies to cover three smaller, fragile monsters behind them.

Narrow, incredibly fast-moving creatures flanked them, staying tightly along both walls, clearly waiting for an opening rather than blindly rushing ahead.

Asfi’s expression instantly hardened. "They’re in a tactical formation."

Lyra released Arachne’s silk, weaving a quick perimeter. "And apparently, the first one we fought wasn’t the smartest member of the family."

Rayleigh watched the formation advance with a cold, calculating eye.

’They’ve never seen this specific group fight,’ he realized. ’Yet the armored creatures are already positioned exactly where they can absorb frontal Zanpakutō attacks.’

Something had passed the previous lesson on.

"Don’t use the same combination again!" Rayleigh ordered sharply. "Tsubaki, break their formation without hitting them directly! Lyra, control the runners! Ardi and Ais, handle absolutely anything that gets through the line!"

Tsubaki smiled, a feral glint in her eye. "Now you’re speaking my language."

"Snap, Tobiume!"

Her first fireball did not aim for the monsters.

Instead, it struck the solid stone wall right beside the advancing formation.

The devastating explosion blasted heavy stone, concussive heat, and blinding dust directly across the corridor, physically forcing the heavy armored monsters toward the opposite side of the tunnel to avoid the debris.

Tsubaki didn’t hesitate, firing again.

The second shot hit the floor directly behind them.

The massive pressure wave violently shoved the rear monsters forward, completely cutting off their retreat without giving a single one of them a direct spiritual attack to absorb.

Asfi looked genuinely impressed despite herself. "Using explosive pressure instead of the fire itself. Clever."

Tsubaki grinned proudly. "I’m a blacksmith."

The first narrow runner burst aggressively through the smoke screen.

Arachne caught its rear leg perfectly.

Lyra pulled hard just once and instantly released the tension. The creature stumbled wildly, falling directly into Ardi’s waiting strike.

Nejibana sent a short, violent wave of pressurized water upward, launching the disoriented monster high into the air.

Ais met it effortlessly before it even began to fall.

One precise thrust through the skull.

A second runner flanked, coming in hot from Ais’s blind side.

Asfi dropped silently from the ceiling above and drove an entirely ordinary steel dagger deep into its shoulder.

It barely hurt the mutated monster. But it forced the creature to flinch and change its direction.

That micro-adjustment was all the team needed.

Tsubaki caught the runner squarely with the heavy flat of Tobiume, knocking it like a projectile straight into Rayleigh’s path.

Benihime flashed in a crimson arc, neatly opening the beast’s chest, and Ardi seamlessly destroyed the exposed magic stone with her trident.

The two heavy armored monsters finally reached the front line together.

One reared up, raising both thick forearms to block Tsubaki’s next incoming fireball. The spiritual portion of the attack rapidly weakened as the beast’s plates absorbed the energy.

However, the purely physical explosion still hit like a runaway carriage, sending the massive creature skidding helplessly backward.

Asfi pointed a gloved finger toward it. "They can absorb the magic, but they can’t absorb the kinetic pressure created after the explosion!"

Tsubaki’s single eye lit up with dangerous inspiration. "Oh, that is incredibly useful."

Rayleigh immediately saw exactly where her chaotic mind went. "Absolutely no collapsing the corridor, Tsubaki."

"You never let me enjoy anything!" she complained loudly.

The second armored creature slammed into their line like a battering ram.

Rayleigh gracefully redirected its swinging arm with Benihime rather than trying to block the massive charge head-on.

At the exact same moment, Tsubaki dropped her shoulder and hit the beast’s opposite side with her entire body weight.

The half-dwarf’s metal boots tore deep, smoking trenches through the solid stone floor.

Incredibly, she actually stopped the beast’s momentum dead.

Tsubaki bared her teeth, glaring up at the towering monster. "You think you’re heavy?! I train with Gareth!"

The monster’s balance completely broke.

Asfi capitalized instantly, tossing a mundane explosive directly beneath its raised forearm.

The blast blew the armored joint completely open.

Rayleigh followed up instantly, bringing Hyōrinmaru down to freeze only the highly damaged internal tissue before immediately cutting the technique off.

The creature’s parasitic mouths flared, desperately trying to drain the ice. Tsubaki’s heavy hammer-strike smashed the frozen joint into a thousand pieces before it even managed a drop.

The group dynamic had already flawlessly evolved.

Nobody waited for Rayleigh to call out every single move.

Each attack existed only long enough to seamlessly create the next person’s opening.

The monsters could easily copy spiritual techniques. But they absolutely could not copy years of hard-won experience fighting beside other people.

Realizing the battle had completely turned against them, the remaining creatures shrieked and began rapidly retreating down the dark tunnel.

Lyra raised a gauntlet, sending a thread of silk after the closest one to drag it back.

Rayleigh immediately raised his hand. "Wait. Let them go."

Lyra looked at him, confused. "We just spent several minutes explicitly establishing that they’re actively learning from us."

"Exactly," Rayleigh confirmed.

Asfi understood his tactical play first. "You want to know where they carry what they just learned."

Ais lowered Gonryōmaru, looking intently toward the retreating shadows. "And where they took Raul."

Rayleigh nodded slowly. "We follow them."

Tsubaki resealed Tobiume, the heavy lock clicking loudly in the quiet tunnel. "And if they’re just leading us directly into an ambush?"

Rayleigh started walking after the tracks.

"Then we found the right direction."

...

The retreating monsters never made a serious attempt to lose them.

Asfi noticed it after the second intersection.

Whenever the creatures gained too much distance, they slowed just enough to remain visible before disappearing around the next bend.

She used Talaria to keep ahead of the others whenever the tunnel widened, but deliberately refused to close the gap once the pattern became obvious.

When she dropped back beside Rayleigh, her expression had become noticeably colder.

"They know we’re following them. Twice now, they could have disappeared into side passages before I reached the turn, but instead they waited long enough for me to see which direction they chose."

Ais had already reached the same conclusion.

"They want us deeper."

Tsubaki rested a hand on Tobiume as she studied the blood trail running alongside the monsters’ tracks.

"Then we can safely assume there’s an ambush waiting somewhere ahead. Unfortunately, Raul’s people went in the same direction, so knowing it’s a trap doesn’t give us much reason to turn around."

Ardi nodded.

"Whatever they’re planning, the wounded expedition is still the priority. We deal with the trap when we reach it."

Nobody had anything useful to add after that.

They continued down.

The Dungeon gradually became quieter around them, and after another several hundred meters the ordinary signs of combat began to change.

At first Rayleigh noticed claw marks, which were hardly unusual this deep underground.

Then he found weapon damage mixed among them—several sword cuts driven into the same section of wall at nearly identical angles, followed farther ahead by repeated spear thrusts clustered around a single point.

An axe had been used against another wall until the stone had become deeply indented.

Asfi stopped beside the marks and ran two fingers close to the damaged surface without touching it.

"There isn’t any blood around these cuts, and the surrounding floor shows no signs of a fight. Somebody stood here and repeated the same movement over and over."

Ais examined one of the sword marks.

"The angle changed a little each time."

Rayleigh understood what she meant.

The earliest cut was awkward and shallow.

The next few became straighter, then deeper, until the final marks were nearly identical.

Tsubaki’s expression hardened as she followed the sequence.

"They were practicing."

Lyra found a broken spear lying several paces farther down.

The weapon had not snapped in battle; the wood near the grip had been worn down from repeated use, while the head was chipped from striking stone again and again.

That discovery dragged an old memory back into Rayleigh’s mind.

Years ago, he had fought an Enhanced Species capable of using a stolen spear.

The monster had copied the physical motions of an adventurer surprisingly well, even reproducing a legitimate deflection technique, but its understanding had ended there.

It had known how to move.

It had never understood distance, timing, or the countless little decisions that separated memorized technique from actual combat experience.

The creatures on this floor were trying to close that gap.

"They’re doing more than copying whatever they see during a fight."

Rayleigh looked at the trail of damaged weapons and repeated strikes disappearing deeper into the passage.

"They’re practicing afterward and correcting the movements that failed."

Asfi glanced toward him.

"If different groups are also sharing what they learn, every adventurer they’ve fought has effectively become an unwilling instructor."

"That would explain why the second pack already knew how to protect the monsters carrying the magic stones."

Tsubaki’s hand tightened around Tobiume.

"And somewhere ahead of us, they’ve had Raul’s expedition to study for almost a full day."

Ais suddenly lifted her head.

"There are people ahead."

The faint spiritual signatures were weak, but numerous.

Rayleigh felt them a moment later.

"Move."

They abandoned caution and accelerated.