The silence of the 10,000th floor was a heavy, physical thing that seemed to press against our eardrums as we approached the massive, ornate barrier. Every step we took across the shimmering crystalline floor echoed like a gunshot in a cathedral. The air was thick with the scent of ancient, stagnant mana and the metallic tang of something long-forgotten. We opened the door and we saw a big empty room.
The scale of the chamber was staggering. It wasn't just a room; it was a vast, hollowed-out void within the crust of the universe-sized floor. The walls were made of a dull, non-reflective obsidian that seemed to swallow the light. We stepped inside, our boots clicking on the cold stone, and the transition felt like stepping into a vacuum. The door closed on us, the heavy boom of the obsidian slab slamming shut vibrating through the very marrow of my bones. There was no latch, no handle, and no way out. We were trapped in the dark.
And suddenly a monster boss appeared. It didn't emerge from a shadow or fall from the ceiling; it simply phased into existence in the center of the room, a tear in the fabric of reality itself. It's a weird black and purple entity, its form shifting and roiling like a storm cloud of dark energy. It had no discernible face, only a core of pulsating violet light that looked like a dying star. The pressure it exerted on the room was immense, making it difficult to even stand.
It instantly attacked us with dark purple beams. The entity didn't roar or signal its intent; it simply discharged multiple lances of concentrated, destructive energy. The air hissed as the beams cut through the void. I barely dodged it, the heat from the passing energy singeing the hair on my arms as I threw myself across the obsidian floor, my mana-less body relying entirely on raw, desperate instinct.
Celdrich tried to write in his grimoire to kill the entity. He stood his ground, his fingers flying across the parchment as he attempted to manifest a countermeasure. But before he could write anything the entity blasted him. A beam of purple light caught him square in the chest, sending him flying backward across the room. I cried out, thinking he was dead, but as he slid to a halt, Celdrich smiled. He stood up, his clothes smoking and his skin red from the heat, but his eyes were glowing with a predatory intelligence.
"Thanks for your magic," he whispered, his voice carrying clearly through the silent room. Suddenly he used the entities beams against the entity. The energy he had absorbed was channeled through his grimoire and amplified a thousandfold. A massive, swirling vortex of stolen purple light erupted from his hands, striking the entity with the force of a falling moon. The impact was cataclysmic. It left a big hole on it's body and it died. The entity shrieked—a sound that felt like glass breaking inside my skull—and then dissipated into nothingness, leaving only drifting embers of violet smoke.
Suddenly it left an orb. It rolled across the floor, glowing with a soft, undeniable white light that seemed to pierce through the darkness of the chamber. I realized that it's the orb of truth. The nightmare, the dark reflection, the story my mother told me—it was all real, and it was sitting right there. I instantly grabbed it and puts it on my pocket, my hands trembling as the smooth, warm surface touched my skin. For a fleeting second, I felt a rush of victory, but that feeling was instantly shattered.
When I turned on my back I saw Elphyete standing while there's a clear big hole on her stomach.
Time seemed to stop. The world went gray. She was looking down at herself with a confused, distant expression, her hands hovering over the massive, jagged cavity where her abdomen should have been. She had been caught in the crossfire of the entity's beams, and her protective magic hadn't been enough to stop the sheer power of the 10,000th floor. I instantly panicked and ran into Elphyete trying to cover the hole but it's too big. I pressed my hands against the wound, my palms slick with the terrifying warmth of her blood, but there was nothing to hold onto. The damage was total.
She laid on my arm coughing out blood. Her weight was becoming a leaden burden as her life force drained onto the obsidian floor. Her eyes, usually so bright and full of life, were beginning to glaze over. I let out a choked, desperate sob, pulling her close to my chest, my mind screaming for a way to fix the unfixable.
Euphyne and Celdrich looked with terror. They were frozen, the sight of our friend's impending death paralyzing them. But the dungeon wasn't finished with us. And suddenly ten even more powerful bosses appeared. The room was flooded with light—not the warm light of the sun, but the harsh, oppressive glow of ten cosmic horrors. They were larger, more defined versions of the first entity, each one radiating a level of power that made the first boss look like a mere shadow. They surrounded us in a perfect circle, their violet eyes locked onto our small, broken group.
Euphyne and Celdrich summoned their spirit and tried defending me and Elphyete. They stepped forward, their shadows lengthening against the wall as they prepared for a final, hopeless stand. Celdrich got hit with ten boss attacks and he got his arms and legs dismembered. The violence of it was instantaneous. Ten beams of light converged on him, and in a spray of blood and light, he was torn apart. He fell to the floor, a mangled torso, unable to even scream.
Seeing his friend butchered changed something in Euphyne. Euphyne instantly became extremely arrogant. He didn't look afraid anymore; he looked disgusted. He straightened his back, his muscles bulging as a golden aura erupted from his skin. He said, "You ten bosses are nothing compared to me. I'm a god compared to you ten."
The ten bosses attacked Euphyne but they didn't even scratched him. The beams of light simply washed over his golden aura like water over a stone. He stood there, laughing at the cosmic horrors, his voice booming through the void. He was using his unique stat EGO.
While Euphyne held the line, suddenly a burst of light appeared and Celdrich instantly regenerated and stood up. His limbs didn't just grow back; they manifested out of thin air in a flash of blinding white light. He wasn't the same either. Suddenly a different spirit—not his book spirit, but a glowing white and black entity with a crown—appeared. This new spirit radiated an aura of absolute sovereignty. Suddenly it attacked the bosses and it killed one of them with a single, sweeping strike of a spectral blade.
I looked down at Elphyete. She was fading. I couldn't help her. I was mana-less. I was useless. In my despair, I summoned my spirit and I asked the demon girl to do something. The dark, horned figure appeared behind me, her expression as bored and detached as ever. I begged and cried to her. I poured all my grief, my rage, and my love for Elphyete into my plea.
And she talked. Her voice was like velvet dragged over gravel, deep and resonant. I was surprised that she can talk but I begged her even more to do something. I didn't care about the cost. I didn't care about my soul. I just wanted Elphyete to live.
She sighed and said that she can temporarily merge Elphyete's body with mine to heal her body and I'll even temporarily get her magic.
I instantly said yes cause anything just to save her.
The world turned green. A burst of green light erupted from our bodies, so bright that the bosses actually recoiled. I felt a sensation of absolute completion, as if a piece of my soul I never knew was missing had finally returned. And Elphyete disappeared. She was no longer in my arms; she was inside me.
I'm glowing green and for some reason I have an elf ear and I have Elphyete's arc angel god spirit. I could feel her heart beating in time with mine, her magic flowing through my veins like liquid fire. I stood up, the obsidian floor cracking beneath my feet. I suddenly felt powerful. This wasn't just magic; it was the authority of a god.
I summoned just 20 arc angels and attacked the bosses and it killed 2. The angels were towering figures of light and steel, their wingspans filling the room as they dove into the fray. Their swords cut through the entities like they were nothing more than mist.
I used Elphyete's Creation magic to create 100 floating swords and fired them at the bosses. The air was filled with the whistle of enchanted steel as the swords rained down in a coordinated, lethal strike. While Euphyne and Celdrich kept attacking the bosses, their new, god-like powers tearing through the circle of entities. The room was a chaotic battlefield of gold, white, black, and green light. One by one, the cosmic horrors shrieked and dissolved under the weight of our combined assault. We killed every bosses remaining.
The silence returned, but it was different now. The room was littered with the remnants of the battle. The bosses dropped weapons. They lay on the floor, glowing with a divine luster. I grabbed a white gold sword, the hilt fitting perfectly into my hand, feeling the resonance of Elphyete's magic within the blade. Celdrich grabbed a black dagger and a black katana, his new spirit and book spirit floating behind him. And Euphyne grabbed a big one side war axe, resting it on his shoulder with an arrogant smirk.
We had won. We had the Orb. Elphyete was safe, or at least, she was alive within me. Celdrich tried to teleport us back to the safety of the upper floors, his hands beginning to glow with the familiar blue light of space-time magic. But the light flickered and died. He tried again, his expression shifting from confidence to confusion. He looked at the walls, at the locked door, and then back at us.
His teleportation magic got blocked.