While Leo and the others were debating whether these new-species monsters were enhanced species, out in the open the worm monsters were still attacking Cadmus, drawing one world-shaking roar of fury after another from it.
It swung its claws, swung its long tail, even turned its whole dragon body into a giant war-chariot, charging this way and that, sending the worm monsters that swarmed it flying or crushing them outright. But this not only failed to scare the worm monsters off, it made them attack it all the more frantically.
The worm monsters it crushed burst like overripe fruit, every one of them exploding all over the instant its body shattered, spraying out great gouts of purple-black liquid that splashed onto the ground and onto it as well.
Then the ground, and Cadmus's huge body too, would smoke the moment the purple-black liquid touched it, hissing as it dissolved away before their very eyes.
Cadmus's scales were dissolved ragged by this purple-black liquid in an instant, exposing the flesh beneath, seeping great patches of blood, and it threw back its head and roared in agony.
And the worm monsters around it kept right on attacking, in the very way it feared most.
They let out an unpleasant gurgling, popping sound, their cries grating like cracked gongs, turning their eyeless faces toward Cadmus. From what might have been the position of a face, a mouth opened, and then a great volume of purple-black liquid came spewing out with violent force.
This terrifying liquid, a mixture of purple and black, formed into a line-shaped jet that landed on Cadmus's body, dissolving its frame amid a hiss, drawing one agonized howl after another from it.
This rare-species monster hailed as "the mighty dragon," a fearsome existence that even Finn would have to pair up two Lv.6 members to deal with, had, before a swarm of these disgusting worm monsters, fallen to the point where it could only be cruelly dissolved to death.
The sight made Leo and the others, hidden behind the rock in the distance, go wide-eyed.
"What a terrifying dissolving fluid!"
Lefiya let out a small gasp, and even Ais, Tiona, and Tione couldn't avoid grave looks crossing their faces.
"Cadmus is no match at all for that swarm of worm monsters."
Even Tiona found it a little hard to believe.
"...Nothing we can do. That worm dissolving fluid is too terrifying. Even Cadmus's scales and body can't block it. If we went up there, we'd probably get dissolved too." Tione analyzed coolly, but a flash of irritation crossed her eyes.
"It's dangerous."
Ais gave the most direct assessment of all.
It really was dangerous.
Setting aside how strong these things were in themselves, that dissolving fluid alone was enough to make a first-class adventurer's scalp prickle.
Cadmus was utterly helpless against that dissolving fluid too, able only to struggle frantically, but no matter how it struggled, the outcome was already set.
The moment it attacked the worm monsters, the dissolving fluid inside the ones it killed would burst out all at once, splashing onto it, dissolving its scales and flesh. And even when it didn't attack the worm monsters, they'd spew dissolving fluid themselves, attacking Cadmus, dissolving its body bit by bit.
Its body was simply too big, there was no dodging that dissolving fluid, and when it tried to flee it was already surrounded, the chamber's entrances and exits all blocked off by worm monsters, leaving it nowhere to run.
The worm monsters' sickening yellow-green bodies kept spilling out their fluids, dissolving the very ground at their feet as they dragged themselves forward, and there was simply no way for Cadmus to break through the encirclement.
So, under the gaze of Leo and the other four, the roars of Cadmus, whose strength surpassed even the Floor 37 boss Udaeus, grew weaker and weaker, its struggles feebler and feebler, until at last it was utterly buried beneath the countless worm monsters.
The sound of flesh being corroded was not pleasant to the ear, and Cadmus's huge body finally toppled, its whole frame as if eaten away by sulfuric acid, until only a maimed skeleton remained, its presence gradually fading.
Before long, Cadmus's huge body crumbled to ash and vanished, leaving only a massive magic stone fallen on the ground, along with a wing-membrane shining with golden light that drifted down, extremely conspicuous.
"That's... Cadmus's Membrane!"
Tiona's and Tione's eyes lit up faintly.
It was the kind of reaction adventurers only showed at the sight of precious spoils.
Cadmus's Membrane, a drop item that only had a certain chance of appearing when the dragon was slain, was not only a superb armor material for crafting First Class equipment but could also serve as a base for recovery-type items, an extremely rare drop item.
Even bringing down Cadmus didn't easily produce such a drop item, and on top of that, the Familias in Orario capable of reaching a Deep Floor region like Floor 51 and strong enough to bring down the dragon could be counted on one's fingers. So Cadmus's Membrane ranked among the very top, rarest tier of all the drop items the Dungeon produced, enough to make countless commercial-type Familias drool.
A drop item like this could fetch a fortune just taken in for cash, and if the vast sum it brought were used to buy equipment, you could fully outfit every member of a large-scale adventurer squad.
Its selling price was at the very least on the order of tens of millions of valis, and there was demand without supply, so even a first-class adventurer would be delighted to see a drop item like this.
And yet, faced with such a precious drop material, the worm monsters ignored it completely.
Their only target was that magic stone. The worm monster nearest the magic stone stretched out a tentacle, seized the magic stone, and swallowed it whole in one gulp, paying no mind whatsoever to the membrane Cadmus had dropped.
Could they really be enhanced species?
The same thought flashed through every one of the girls' minds.
And then they noticed it.
After eating Cadmus's magic stone, the worm monsters immediately turned their eyeless faces toward a single direction all at once, as if drawn by something again.
That direction was exactly where Leo and the others were hiding.
"Not good!"
"We've been spotted!"
Ais's, Tiona's, and Tione's expressions changed in an instant.
The next second, the worm monsters all let out cracked-gong roars and worked their short, many-jointed limbs, charging like so many disgusting yellow-green war-chariots toward where Leo and the others were.
Purple-black dissolving fluid was sprayed out a step ahead of them, raining down on Leo and the others' hiding place.
"Look out!"
Ais, Tiona, and Tione didn't even think, their forms turning into streaking afterimages that swept aside, dodging the dissolving fluid that poured down on them.
Leo, for his part, had already grabbed hold of Lefiya, the nearest person to him, and, ignoring her startled scream, shot away like a bullet.
The next moment, the dissolving fluid landed on the huge boulder, dissolving it amid a haze of green smoke and the sound of corrosion, leaving a huge crater that gave off a corrosive stench, a horrifying sight.
Seeing this, the worm monsters quickly spewed out dissolving fluid one after another, blanketing the area around Leo and the others.
"Don't try to take it head-on!"
"Dodge!"
Leo, holding Lefiya, and Ais, holding her silver saber, called out the warning at the same time, their forms leaping about, dodging the incoming dissolving fluid again and again.
"Damn it!"
"This stuff is too annoying!"
The Amazoness twins, who'd meant to scatter the incoming dissolving fluid with the weapons in their hands, abruptly stopped what they were doing, cursing as they dodged.
They'd both already witnessed how terrifying that dissolving fluid was, knew it could dissolve even Cadmus's scales and body, and if they used their weapons to deal with it, those would probably get dissolved too.
"Can I cut them?!"
Tiona hollered this while frantically dodging, only to get one line out of Leo.
"If you're not scared of your weapon getting dissolved, or of the thing bursting the second you kill it and spraying you head to toe in dissolving fluid, then go ahead and cut!"
With that one line Leo killed Tiona's intent to act, sending her scurrying off in retreat.
"Bastard things! Disgusting filth! Get the hell away from me!"
Tione was frantically dodging too, but being unable to attack, unable to fight back, able only to flee in a sorry scramble, peeled away her already scant patience bit by bit, her face turning savage as her true nature gradually showed.
Anger piled up inside her, and still the worm monsters came one after another, leaving Tione on the verge of going berserk.
Without a word she hurled one of the curved blades in her hands, the sharp edge shooting out as a streak of cold light that ran clean through the worm monster nearest her, finishing it off.
Almost the same instant it died, the worm monster burst open, all the dissolving fluid stored inside it erupting at once, dissolving the floor, the walls, even the ceiling of the chamber, sending up a great chorus of hissing.
Tione, who was close by, got dissolving fluid on the hem of her skirt, and scorched marks appeared on it at once as if it had caught fire.
As for the curved blade she'd thrown, it was already coated in dissolving fluid under everyone's gaze, melting away before their eyes.
"It really can dissolve weapons!"
Tiona shuddered all over and didn't dare entertain the thought of attacking anymore.
Her huge double-bladed Urga was First Class equipment worth a hundred and twenty million valis! If it got dissolved, she wouldn't even have anywhere to go and cry.
Ais, by contrast, saw Tione kill a worm monster with a long-range throw and immediately hurled the Desperate in her hand.
She threw it toward Leo and Lefiya's side.
Ais, with her extremely keen sense for monsters, had already noticed something odd: most of the worm monsters present were charging at Leo and Lefiya.
Leo, holding Lefiya, could only barely dodge the incoming dissolving fluid. He was, after all, only Lv.3, and even with no small potential, there was no way his speed could match the Lv.5 first-class adventurers. He was already in a precarious spot, and if it weren't for sparring so often with Ais, and for specifically drilling the two movements of moving and dodging during his Concurrent Chanting training with Riveria, he'd probably have been hit by the dissolving fluid long ago.
Seeing this, Ais lent a hand without hesitation, throwing her silver saber and bursting the two worms nearest Leo and Lefiya.
Those two worms burst open too amid cracked-gong wails, dissolving fluid spilling across the ground like blood, and Ais's Desperate was coated in dissolving fluid as well, yet unlike Tione's curved blade it wasn't dissolved.
This was the Desperate's special property taking effect. The unbreakable property: a weapon with this property would never be damaged, so even coated in dissolving fluid, it wouldn't be dissolved away on the spot.
"That's not fair!"
Tiona, afraid of her weapon getting dissolved, hollered again.
"Quit yapping! Hurry up and figure out how to save them!"
Tione's volatile temper had eased a little with the monsters thinning out, but seeing the monsters all heading for Leo and Lefiya, she immediately cursed out her own little sister and charged toward Leo and Lefiya.
"Why are they all going for Leo and Lefiya?"
Tiona couldn't figure it out no matter how she tried, but she charged over along with the others anyway.
Ais needless to say had already leapt high and thrown herself down in front of Leo and Lefiya, blocking the worm monsters.
"Miss A-Ais!"
Lefiya, cradled princess-style in Leo's arms, only came to her senses at this point, first flushing red to the ears at the male presence so close at hand, then wearing a look of alarm as Ais shielded the two of them and faced down the worm monsters.
"Light of heaven, sword of stars."
Leo, without a word, chanted his Magic.
"Meteor Dance!"
A magic circle giving off dazzling starlight spread out beneath his feet, and countless meteors surged up, swirling around the three of them.
The sight, far from making the worm monsters fall back, made them charge in all the more frantically, which jolted something to mind for Leo.
Are they reacting to Magic?
Leo's gaze shifted, locking in an instant onto the Supporter backpack Lefiya carried on her back.
This Supporter backpack held not only supplies like potions but also a portion of spare weapons, items, and the magic stones they'd picked up along the way.
The whole way down, Leo and the others had killed plenty of monsters, but because the drop items from large-category monsters were too big and took up too much space, and because they also needed to leave room in the packs for the spring water from Cadmus's Spring, they'd left all the drop items and such uncollected. The magic stones, though, they'd picked up every one.
The worm monsters had no interest whatsoever in Cadmus's Membrane and only swallowed its magic stone. His group had been hiding perfectly well yet was suddenly discovered en masse. The worms had all come toward him and Lefiya, and they'd just now reacted to his Magic. Leo understood everything in an instant.
Right then, Leo grabbed Lefiya's backpack, pulled it off, and threw it in another direction.
Sure enough, the worm monsters' attention was almost entirely drawn to the backpack full of magic stones, with only a few still fixed on Leo, who'd cast his Magic.
Leo didn't even think, releasing the trigger in his mind and loosing the Magic.
A roaring boom rang out across the whole space.
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