The Dragon's Urn, as the name suggests, was an urn that held dragons, the domain of the demon dragons.
All seven floors from Floor 52 to Floor 58 are called by that name, and of course that isn't only because of the great red dragons that at this very moment were down on Floor 58, aiming upward, viciously spewing enormous fireballs.
Besides the Valgang Dragons, there was another kind of monster in this layer-domain. Ill Wyverns.
Those were winged demons over three meters long counting the tail, large monsters that possessed the power of flight, exactly as their name suggested.
These flying demons, blue-purple all over, would come up through the vertical shafts blasted open by the Valgang Dragons' fireballs, flying in from the floors below to attack adventurers.
In other words, this kind of monster likewise possessed the trait of ignoring the barriers between floors, and its strength far exceeded that of the monsters on Floor 52.
The Ill Wyverns and the Valgang Dragons, the blue-purple flying wyverns and the crimson dragons, these two kinds of monsters, able to attack adventurers across floors, were the reason Floors 52 to 58 were called the Dragon's Urn.
"Roar!!!"
Along with the clear, eardrum-shaking roars, blue-purple demons beating their wings came pouring out of the horizontal tunnels that linked the red-hot vertical shafts together like an ant nest, eyes gleaming with malice as they hurled themselves at the expedition team racing through Floor 52.
Most of them came from Floor 56 and Floor 57, where horizontal tunnels riddled the rock, and the Ill Wyverns emerged from there one after another, carrying a vicious air, flying up through the vertical shafts like locusts to arrive at Floor 52.
"Riveria!"
Finn called out to the High Elf behind him.
"Wood spirits, grant my wish, robe of the forest, my name is Alf."
Riveria didn't listen to the rest of Finn's words at all, and didn't need to; years of fighting side by side gave her the understanding to know what the Pallum leader needed from her, and without a word she chanted her magic even at a full sprint.
That practiced Concurrent Chanting, that calm intonation, rang clear in everyone's ears as though to cool the scorched, burning air.
Veil Breath!
A second later, Riveria completed the release of the magic, wrapping every person present in a robe of warm green light.
This was the second stage of Riveria's second magic, a protective magic that could ward off every attack from an enemy.
Riveria's second magic, Vas Windheim, was a defensive magic, and through the trait of Chant Link it possessed three effects in total.
The first was Dream Lodging, which raised resistance to two attribute types of attack, physical and magic, and like an enchantment its effect lasted for a period of time and could lightly heal bodily injuries; it was a supplementary defensive magic.
The second was Veil Breath, which, as stated above, could ward off any type of attack and protect the target of the spell.
The third was the fully chanted Vas Windheim, which could block off physical attacks and magic attacks entirely; it was a barrier magic.
The situation was urgent and everyone was in constant motion, unsuited to releasing the long-incantation barrier, so Riveria released the second-stage Veil Breath without hesitation, protecting everyone with the green robe of light.
Granted the blessing of the city's strongest Mage, everyone could finally ignore the skin-searing heat and meet the oncoming Ill Wyverns head-on.
"Don't get tangled up with them! Don't stop! Fight while you run! Hold the formation!"
Finn adopted tactics suited to high-speed movement and had everyone change their formation.
The Supporters all moved to the center, and Leo and Riveria, the two rear-line Mages, were protected in the middle as well. Ais and Bete, the fastest of them, stayed at the front to keep opening the way, cutting down the monsters blocking the path with maximum efficiency, while Finn and Tsubaki met enemies on the two flanks. Only Gareth was in the rear, and the great Dwarf warrior had finally found his moment, bearing the greatest pressure of all.
There was no helping it. At that speed, the vertical shafts blasted open by the Valgang Dragons were left far behind the party, and the Ill Wyverns that flew out of them all ended up coming from behind, which meant Gareth alone had to hold them off.
"Finally my turn. Come on, then!"
Facing countless demons beating their wings as they came, Gareth's expression wasn't grim in the slightest. He grinned, brimming with fighting spirit, and swung a great battleaxe in each hand at the Ill Wyverns.
In his left hand was the Grand Axe, First Class equipment forged by Tsubaki, the city's strongest smith, possessing the highest grade of weight, durability, toughness, and destructive power of any type of weapon. Because its weight went past every reasonable limit, even a first-class adventurer would struggle to handle it; only a warrior like Gareth, whose Strength and Endurance parameters both reached the highest standard, could use it. It was worth forty-five million valis, which anyone could see was a friendship price.
In his right hand was the Axe Rolan, Unbreakable attribute, with power equal to Second Class equipment and a value of over 100 million valis. Its weight, durability, toughness, and destructive power fell short of the former, yet it was still the best of the best.
The great Dwarf warrior with a battleaxe in each hand, in the instant he swung them out with brute force, drove the air itself into a violent sonic boom.
Along with the roar, the several Ill Wyverns flying at the front were blasted away as though they had been detonated, the strikes of the two great axes landing like they'd set off a massive explosion, sending the Ill Wyverns flying with blood spraying from their whole bodies, crashing into their own kind behind them and knocking a good number of them away too.
This was an attack born of overwhelming arm strength and weight, an absurd offensive only Gareth could manage, a great warrior who had even put his Skills into reinforcing Strength and Endurance.
The shock kicked up by that ferocious attack even threw the rest of Gareth's own team into disarray; they felt the ground beneath their feet shaking violently, the air roaring, a hard wind striking them from behind, loose rock and rubble flying, and it nearly broke the formation apart.
Even Leo heard a sharp whistle of split air behind his head and quickly tilted it aside, dodging a shard of rock that came at him like a bullet, then shouted back at Gareth with a wry smile.
"Old man, ease up a little, would you? Are you fighting monsters or your own teammates?"
Gareth burst out laughing.
"This much and you're already scared? Looks like you've got a long way to go yet, kid!"
Once Gareth entered combat, none of his usual kindly warmth remained; his whole presence surged out, all sharp edges, and even his tone of voice was full of the keenness particular to a warrior, the kind that set the blood racing.
"I'm scared you'll throw your back out!"
Under the influence of Gareth's bared-edge warrior's air, Leo's tone turned blunt without his meaning it to.
"You damn kid! Who do you think you're looking down on?"
Gareth let out an exasperated laugh, but his hands didn't slow in the slightest. The two axes came down again, and in another thunderous roar they sent a swarm of oncoming Ill Wyverns flying, blood spilling on the spot.
Even while fighting, Gareth kept pace with the team without losing any speed, and from beginning to end the group never stopped; if anything, they went faster.
There was no helping it. A faint sense of crisis, the feeling of being locked onto by something, followed like a shadow in every one of their hearts, so that the keen-sensed first-class adventurers didn't dare stop at all, and the Supporters, faces pale and breath heaving, worked their legs desperately and didn't dare stop either.
"Left!"
"Right!"
"Further right!"
Throughout it, Finn's orders never let up, guiding them forward.
The area of Floor 52 alone was already considerably larger than all of Orario, and it was labyrinthine terrain besides, forks and side passages everywhere, and since few adventurers could ever reach here the map of this floor still couldn't be completed to this day. Yet Finn had memorized every known route and road, constantly updating their path in his head, detouring, advancing, and evading with precision, avoiding the obstacles on the way while pressing unwaveringly toward the entrance to Floor 53. That memory and intellect were nothing short of superhuman, enough to make anyone watching marvel.
The terrible explosions still reached Floor 52 at intervals, each one producing a roar and a blast that shook the entire floor, sending huge pillars of flame surging up from behind the expedition team all the way to the ceiling, sometimes even blowing out the ceiling of Floor 52 and reaching the floors above, drawing wails from countless monsters.
This sniping from the Valgang Dragons could always lock onto the expedition team's position, aiming at them across several floors and firing on them, and the moment anyone in the expedition team stopped, they would be swallowed by the blast flames of those giant fireballs just like the monsters chasing behind them, burned to nothing in the end, not even a body left.
So they couldn't stop, and didn't dare stop; they could only keep pushing on.
But if it was just the first-class adventurers, that would have been one thing, since their Levels spoke for themselves; even Riveria, a Mage, could keep going without running dry.
The Supporters whose Levels hadn't yet reached Lv.5 were another matter.
Raul was running with veins standing out all over his body, his clothes soaked through with sweat, and Alicia had been gritting her teeth in effort the whole time.
But Lefiya... Lefiya was already close to her limit.
As time went on, Lefiya's breathing became rapid and ragged, her face frighteningly pale, reflexive tears welling in her eyes, and she coughed constantly as she ran.
Raul and Alicia might not have been first-class adventurers, but they were Lv.4 and could just barely keep pace with the main force. Lefiya was only Lv.3, and a Mage at that. Her Strength parameter was only I, her Endurance parameter only H, her Dexterity and Agility only G; only her Magic reached A, making her a genuine "magic idiot," and asking someone like her to stay right behind the main force in an environment this tense and dangerous was asking a great deal.
Worse, because she was so tense, Lefiya's stamina drained abnormally fast, and that overstrung state made her energy bleed away at a terrible rate.
And so her pace inevitably slowed.
"Lefiya! Don't stop! Keep running!"
Alicia, who had stayed at Lefiya's side the whole time, adjusted her breathing and shouted the warning.
"Quick, restock, quick!"
Raul, panting hard, fished a stamina-recovery potion out of the pack on his back and worked to hand it to the Elf girl.
Lefiya reached out to take it, but distracted for that moment, both of them inevitably let their guard on their surroundings drop.
Neither of them noticed at all that at the top of the passage they were racing through, a Deformis Spider hidden in the darkness had fixed its malice-filled eyes on them.
Without any warning at all, the Deformis Spider spat thick webbing at the two of them.
"This is bad!"
Ais and Finn, whose senses were the sharpest, were the first to notice, and both of their expressions changed.
But one of them was a vanguard and the other was on the flank, and both were running at full speed; even having reacted, there was no time to intervene now.
At the critical moment, a figure spun around and leaped, meeting the incoming webbing head-on.
It was a clear, spring-water singing note, the sound raised by a keen blade scraping free of its scabbard.
A white-gold light flared, and a cold slash flashed past like a burst of light, cutting into that thick webbing.
The webbing was sliced open on the spot by that astonishing sharpness, the white-gold slash giving it no chance to entangle anything, severing all of it.
Only then did Leo's figure emerge from that blur of speed, the dazzling longsword flickering with white-gold light in his hand. One stroke sent the sword's light tearing through the webbing, tearing through the air, and landing on the Deformis Spider, cutting it in half at the waist.
That stroke was sharp and swift.
That stroke was brilliant and dazzling.
Everyone's attention was drawn to that stroke, surprise showing on their faces.
Tsubaki especially. Looking at the white-gold sword in Leo's hand, she couldn't hide the gleam and delight in her eyes no matter what she did.
"What a sword!"
As a smith, Tsubaki could see the sword's extraordinary nature at a glance.
And just as she'd guessed, this was a work far beyond her own craft, a true divine weapon.
However, having resolved the crisis for Raul and Lefiya with that stroke, Leo, because he'd leaped up and was hanging in midair, had been left behind by the sprinting team.
And the demon that had been locking onto this place the whole time did not let the opportunity slip.
The ground shook and burst open with a roar, kicking up boundless hellfire that swept in.
The crimson blast flames shattered the earth and surged skyward like a volcanic eruption for who knew how many times now, swallowing Leo's figure before he could land.
Leo's pupils shrank; he had only time to raise both arms in front of his face, and then he plunged into those crimson blast flames.
Everyone clearly saw Leo's figure fall through the flames, and in the end he dropped into the blasted-open vertical shaft and vanished from sight.
"Leo!"
"Mr. Leo!"
Raul and Lefiya cried out together in horror and grief.
Ais, up front, didn't think at all. She turned and charged, surging wind wrapped around her, and before anyone could react she plunged into the flames that had yet to disperse and, going after Leo, jumped into the vertical shaft.
"Ais!"
At that, even Riveria couldn't hold back a cry of alarm.
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