Floor 41 felt wrong from the moment they entered.
The staircase from Floor 40 did not open into another forest path or cavern corridor.
Instead, it opened into a vast empty vertical chamber.
The entire floor was one enormous spiraling staircase winding upward around a hollow shaft so deep and dark it looked bottomless. The steps clung to the inner wall of the World Tree, curving in slow circles toward a distant platform far above.
There was no ceiling in sight.
Only open air.
And the sound of wings.
Pixelle immediately stiffened.
"This floor is bad."
Nyxian glanced at her.
"That is a very inspiring assessment."
Pixelle pointed upward.
"No, seriously. This floor is bad."
As if the tree itself wanted to prove her right, the shadows above them moved.
Long, jointed legs unfolded from the branches growing along the inner wall.
Then the first creature leapt.
A Sky Mantis.
It was the size of a horse, with emerald armor plating, jagged forearms sharp enough to split bark, and translucent wings that hummed with murderous speed.
Then a second one appeared.
Then five.
Then twenty.
Soon the upper staircase was alive with them.
They clung to the walls.
Hovered overhead.
Leapt from platform to platform with terrifying precision.
Pixelle's wings fluttered nervously.
"These things tear apart full adventuring parties."
Jax squinted upward.
"More insects."
Bunny groaned.
"Oh great."
Before the first wave could descend, Jax raised his hand.
"Air cover."
Gryph launched upward instantly.
Several smaller flying shadows followed—shadow hawks, raven-like assassins, and a pair of winged hounds Jax rarely bothered naming because they usually solved problems before anyone needed to remember them.
The chamber erupted into aerial combat.
Sky Mantises darted from every angle.
They were fast.
Terrifyingly fast.
But Gryph was faster.
The shadow gryphon smashed into the first mantis mid-dive, claws tearing its body apart before it could even reach the staircase.
Another tried to circle behind the group.
A shadow hawk intercepted it and drove it screaming into the wall.
Below, Llandra calmly drew Starpiercer.
Her first arrow split the eye of a mantis descending toward Zee.
The second hit one in the throat.
The third curved through the air and caught a fourth just as it launched toward Pixelle.
Pixelle stared.
"They're coming from all directions!"
Jax nodded.
"That's why we control the sky first."
To her, the chamber looked like death.
To him, it was just another battlefield to organize.
The Vixens moved in formation as they climbed.
Bunny guarded the outer edge.
Zee stayed near the center.
Nyxian's whip cracked with lethal precision whenever a mantis slipped too low.
In less than twenty minutes, the staircase was littered with twitching mantis corpses.
They kept climbing.
Then came the second phase.
The air changed.
Something drifted above them.
At first Pixelle thought they were glowing seeds.
Then one dropped.
And exploded.
A wave of force shook the staircase.
Zee nearly lost her footing.
Above them floated strange round creatures with roots dangling beneath their bodies and petal-like shells around their centers.
Seed Bombers.
"They drop pods!" Pixelle shouted. "Don't let them get above you!"
The creatures drifted lazily through the air like harmless plants.
Until they released their payload.
Pods rained down the spiral staircase.
Each one exploded with enough force to launch a person clear off the ledge.
Llandra and Jax opened fire immediately.
Starpiercer's arrows flashed upward in impossible volleys, piercing the bombers before they could reach ideal drop range.
Jax drew Infernal Requiem.
The twin pistols barked repeatedly.
Every shot was deliberate.
Every movement efficient.
To Pixelle, he looked less like a man fighting and more like someone conducting music only he could hear.
Then the floor shook.
A chain reaction.
One falling pod struck a lower section of the staircase, causing three others to explode in sequence.
The blast wave hit the group from below.
Zee slipped.
Her foot slid off the edge.
For one horrible second, her body tipped backward into the void.
Pixelle screamed.
Then Lilith's Kiss snapped outward.
Nyxian's whip wrapped around Zee's waist and pulled her back to safety.
Zee hit the staircase hard, gasping.
Everyone paused.
Even Nyxian blinked.
The whip had not shredded her.
It had not cut her.
It had simply held her.
Nyxian looked at the weapon in mild surprise.
"…Oh."
She smirked.
"So you can behave when you want to."
Zee looked up shakily.
"Thank you."
Nyxian shrugged.
"Try not to fall. It ruins the mood."
Floor 41 ended twenty minutes later.
Pixelle had expected death.
Instead, she had witnessed another demonstration of exactly how absurd this group truly was.
They climbed to Floor 42.
If Floor 41 had been dangerous, Floor 42 was disgusting.
The entire chamber looked like a parasitic garden.
Flowers bloomed from the bark walls.
Massive petals opened and closed slowly, breathing mana into the air like lungs.
Among them slithered pale centipede-like creatures with too many legs and glowing maws that pulsed with anti-magic energy.
Pixelle recognized them immediately.
"Mana Gnawers."
She looked genuinely unsettled.
"They eat mana."
Nyxian looked at Jax.
"That sounds rude."
The flowers around them opened.
Leech Blossoms.
Their petals glistened with nectar-like fluid, but every time one pulsed, the group felt their mana tug slightly.
Pixelle put a hand over her chest.
"They drain magical energy from anything near them."
Jax looked across the field.
Then smiled.
"Perfect."
Instead of summoning his usual frontline shadows, he raised his hand and called forth a different nightmare.
The Mana Hornets.
Pixelle's jaw dropped.
The same exploding monsters that had made Floor 40 such a problem now hovered before him in dense swarms.
The hornets hesitated only a moment before sensing prey.
The Mana Gnawers.
Then the massacre began.
The hornets descended like living bullets.
They tore through the centipede creatures with ravenous precision, devouring them so aggressively that Pixelle almost forgot they were shadows.
The Mana Gnawers fought back.
Leech Blossoms drained.
The hornets died.
And every time one died—
It exploded.
Those explosions tore through the flowers.
Chain reactions spread across the floor.
Entire clusters of blossoms erupted in bursts of glowing sap and mana pollen.
The flowers had created their own doom by surrounding themselves with the exact creatures meant to counter them.
Jax folded his arms.
"Nature is beautiful."
Floor 42 took thirty minutes.
Pixelle no longer knew what to say.
Then came Floor 43.
And for the first time since entering the World Tree…
The room was quiet.
At the center of the chamber hung a cocoon of roots the size of a mansion.
Thick silk-like strands connected it to the walls.
The air smelled damp.
Still.
Wrong.
No lesser creatures rushed them.
No swarm attacked.
Pixelle felt her stomach tighten.
"That's not good."
The cocoon trembled.
Then split open.
A monstrous body emerged.
Thirty feet tall.
A massive spider queen armored in bark-like plating, her abdomen swollen with eggs, her many eyes glowing with predatory intelligence.
She lowered herself with hideous grace and opened her maw.
Behind her, smaller shapes began crawling free.
Spiders.
Hundreds of them.
Then thousands.
Acid dripped from their fangs.
Their armor was thick, almost tick-like.
Zee whispered the name first.
"Verdant Broodmother."
Her voice was tense.
"She is a spawning beast. Her power is multiplication."
The spider queen reared back, preparing to flood the chamber with an endless tide of offspring.
Jax simply stood there and watched.
Pixelle waited for urgency.
For panic.
For some sign this worried him.
Instead, he tilted his head and said casually,
"Technically, spiders are arachnids. Not insects."
Nyxian stared at him.
"Is this really the time?"
Jax smiled.
Then spoke one word.
"Dante."
The cavern split with a roar.
Shadow poured upward.
The dragon emerged in full.
His enormous body barely fit the chamber, his wings scraping silk and bark as hellfire built in his throat.
Pixelle's mouth fell open.
The Broodmother only managed one full shriek before Dante exhaled.
Hellfire consumed everything.
The spiders vanished first.
Then the cocoon.
Then the queen herself.
When the flames finally died, nothing remained but smoking ruin and a glowing core.
Jax checked it with Inspect.
S-Rank.
Destroyed in under a minute.
His system chimed.
Would you like to add the Verdant Broodmother to your army of Shadows?
"Yes."
Would you like to name this Shadow?
Jax looked at the remains and smirked.
"Charlotte."
A shadow spider queen rose from the ashes.
Pixelle could only stare in awe.
The raid was getting harder.
The monsters were growing more terrifying.
And somehow…
Jax and the Vixens were still tearing through it like this was the easiest day of their lives.
They checked the time.
Not even lunch on the second day.
And they were still climbing.
The problem was no longer whether they could continue.
The problem was that they still had no idea how far this tree truly went.