Chapter 73: Hollow Drop

Chapter 73: Chapter 73: Hollow Drop

The edge of the Hollow Drop was a jagged cliff of black stone that plummeted straight down into absolute darkness. The air rising from the two-mile vertical shaft was freezing, carrying the faint, echoing shrieks of the gargoyle swarms nesting in the walls.

Donald stood at the precipice, looking down into the abyss.

If his [Shield of the Colossus] shattered halfway down, the wind pressure and terminal velocity would turn him and Sylvia into paste on the cavern floor. He couldn’t rely on his Level 16 baseline for a stunt this reckless.

He pulled up his internal interface.

[STATUS PANEL: DONALD]

[Level]: 16

[Free Stat Points]: 30

[Current Stats]:

Strength: 66

Speed: 66

Stamina: 65

Mana: 68

He needed structural endurance and raw magical output to maintain the shield against aerodynamic drag and hostile impacts.

Allocate ten points to Mana, Donald thought. Ten to Stamina. Five to Speed. Five to Strength.

[Processing...]

[Stats Updated.]

Strength: 71

Speed: 71

Stamina: 75

Mana: 78

[Free Stat Points]: 0

A sudden, intense rush of heat flushed through Donald’s veins. His muscles tightened, growing noticeably denser beneath his dark jacket. The newly expanded mana pool settled heavily in his chest, thrumming with a calm, deep reservoir of power. He cracked his neck, feeling lighter, faster, and infinitely more durable.

"Alright," Donald said, stepping back from the edge. "Formation."

Evelyn walked to the center of the platform. Her massive, sapphire-and-gold wings erupted from her back, bathing the dark precipice in blinding celestial light. Sylvia stepped up to Evelyn’s right side, her violet eyes locked on the drop. Donald stepped to Evelyn’s left.

Evelyn wrapped one incredibly dense, S-Rank arm around Sylvia’s waist, and the other around Donald’s.

"I’ve never done a combat drop without a parachute," Sylvia muttered, her hands resting nervously on Evelyn’s armored shoulder.

"It’s just falling, Sylvia," Evelyn smirked. "I’ll do the catching. Donald, wedge us."

Donald extended his right arm straight down toward the pit. He tapped into his newly expanded 78 Mana.

"[Shield of the Colossus]," Donald commanded.

Instead of a flat wall, a massive, V-shaped wedge of solid, blinding-gold holy light materialized directly beneath their feet, pointing downward like the nose cone of a fighter jet.

Evelyn didn’t hesitate. She stepped off the cliff.

Gravity seized them instantly. The acceleration was violent. The air rushing past them turned into a deafening roar, but Donald’s golden wedge parted the wind pressure perfectly, creating a slipstream of calm air for the three of them inside the pocket.

They plummeted through the dark shaft at terminal velocity. The stone walls blurred past them in a dizzying streak of gray.

Then, the walls came alive.

The celestial light of Evelyn’s wings and Donald’s shield acted like a flare in the pitch-black shaft. Thousands of glowing red eyes snapped open in the crevices of the stone.

"Gargoyles!" Sylvia shouted over the roaring wind, drawing her tungsten daggers. "Incoming from the perimeter!"

Massive, stone-skinned bat-creatures peeled off the walls, diving into the shaft to intercept the falling intruders. They were Level 30 C-Rank monsters, possessing heavy physical defense and razor-sharp talons.

Evelyn couldn’t swing the Bloodhound’s Fang without dropping one of them, and Donald had to keep his right hand locked to maintain the shield.

A massive gargoyle, easily the size of a van, tucked its wings and dive-bombed straight toward Donald’s exposed flank, its jaws unhinging to tear his head off.

Before Donald could raise his Thunderclap Pile Bunker, Nyx moved.

The winged black cat detached herself from the collar of Donald’s jacket. She didn’t fall; she simply ignored the terminal velocity, her shadow-woven wings beating silently as she launched herself directly at the incoming gargoyle.

Nyx didn’t slash with her claws. She collided with the stone monster and phased straight through its solid chest like a ghost passing through a wall.

The gargoyle instantly shrieked in absolute terror, its wings seizing mid-air as if its muscles had just been turned to lead.

In Donald’s vision, the golden text flared wildly.

[Familiar (Nyx) engaged target: Gargoyle.]

[Skill Triggered: Phantasmal Siphon.]

[Nyx has stolen: +18 Strength, +12 Speed.]

[Transferring stats to Investor...]

Donald gasped as a violent, unnatural surge of raw physical power flooded his nervous system. His newly upgraded 71 Strength temporarily spiked to an absurd 89. His muscles felt like coiled steel cables.

As the weakened, paralyzed gargoyle tumbled past them, Donald swung his left arm out of the slipstream. He didn’t even fire the Pile Bunker. He just backhanded the stone monster with his bare, titanium-plated gauntlet.

The sheer kinetic force of his temporarily boosted 89 Strength shattered the gargoyle’s stone skull on impact. The monster exploded into a cloud of dust and gravel, instantly ripped away by the wind.

"Good kitty," Donald grinned beneath his mask, feeling the stolen stats humming in his blood.

Nyx phased back into the slipstream, landing lightly on Donald’s shoulder and letting out a pleased purr before diving back out to siphon another target.

"Brace!" Evelyn roared. "Bottom floor approaching!"

The ground was rushing up to meet them at terrifying speed.

"Hold the shield!" Evelyn commanded.

She flared her S-Rank wings to their absolute maximum span, fighting the aerodynamic drag to aggressively decelerate their fall.

Donald poured the rest of his mana into the golden wedge beneath them.

CRASH.

The point of the golden shield slammed into the stone floor of the cavern. The holy construct violently shattered under the cataclysmic impact, but it perfectly absorbed the kinetic shock. Evelyn’s boots hit the ground a microsecond later, her S-Rank legs cracking the bedrock as she absorbed the remaining momentum.

They had survived a two-mile free-fall in under two minutes.

Evelyn let go of them, her wings fading as she drew her sword. Sylvia hit the ground rolling, instantly melting into the shadows of the massive cavern. Donald stood up, shaking the stinging numbness out of his right arm as Nyx fluttered back to his shoulder, the temporary stat buffs slowly bleeding out of his system.

The air here wasn’t cold. It was blistering hot.

Donald looked around, his [Valuation Eye] scanning the environment.

They weren’t in a typical dungeon boss room. The cavern ceiling was hundreds of feet high, but instead of stone, it was a swirling, unnatural sky of bruised purple and violent red clouds.

Spread out before them was a sprawling military encampment. Hundreds of black iron tents lined the cavern floor. Siege engines forged from dark metal and bone sat in rows. And standing in perfect, disciplined formations were hundreds of heavily armored Orcs, Dark Elves, and towering, demonic brutes.

"Sylvia," Donald said quietly, looking at the army. "Where is Julian Vane?"

Sylvia materialized from the shadows near a massive iron pillar. She pointed toward the center of the encampment.

A mile away, at the base of a towering, jagged obsidian fortress, the flashes of A-Rank elemental magic were erupting. Julian Vane and his twenty-man Dragonheart elite team had taken the Outer Spiral, and they had just walked right into the teeth of an abyssal legion.

"They’re getting slaughtered," Sylvia noted, her violet eyes tracking the distant explosions. "Vane brought a raid team to fight feral monsters. He didn’t bring an army to fight a war."

"This isn’t a dungeon," Evelyn whispered, staring at the perfectly ordered ranks of demonic soldiers. "It’s a bridgehead. They’re preparing to march on Genesis City."

Donald stepped forward, the heavy titanium plating of his Pile Bunker clicking as he powered the B-Rank weapon on. Then he looked at the Abyssal army standing between them and the obsidian fortress.