The walls and floors were a sheer, bone-white, emanating a menacing aura that floated through the Dungeon air in a heavy cloud. The lighting was terrible, forcing even Adama’s enhanced eyes to narrow to see more than a few feet in front of him. His ears picked up some ominous clacking off in the distance, the noise echoing hollowly down the palace’s passageways in a muffled cacophony. Besides that, the entire place was lifeless. Not the comfy lifeless of an empty sky or a rocky beach, but the miserable lifeless of a pile of skeletons. The air itself felt thin, making it harder to breathe and ensuring that the castle’s occupants would tire even if they did nothing.
The Palace was easily one of the most miserable places that Adama had ever been to, probably in the top three at least. It reminded him of vast depopulated areas on Cradle: Filled with death aura, stalked by angry ghosts, and completely sterile. Most people would’ve turned around and left immediately, but Adama just cracked his neck and strode forward. He had business with the Palace.
It wasn’t long before he was attacked. The nearby walls twisted and shattered, and a trio of figures jumped out and rushed Adama with an angry clattering. They swung steel weapons at him with incredible speed, forcing the swordsman to put in real effort to deflect the attacks and step backward. The three enemies pressed him, leaping forward with wild abandon and attempting to savage Adama with a lightning blitz. They fought with coordination and skill, always covering each other’s blind spots as they sought to drive Adama into a corner.
For his part, Adama focused on falling into the rhythms of battle, carefully sizing up his opponents to get a feel for their fighting style. The enemies were human skeletons, eerily walking around and fighting without a hint of flesh, tendon, or muscle. Their very existence was contrary to most laws of nature, but nobody told the Spartoi that as the monsters continued their crusade against the lone swordsman. The creatures were generally accepted to be at the peak of Level 4 stat wise, and their skills far surpassed that of any other monster Adama had faced, more reminiscent of other adventurers than other Dungeon denizens.
Adama exchanged numerous blows with the enemy in the blink of an eye, sword blurring as he deflected the enemies’ weapons in a shower of sparks. He could’ve used his magic to finish the fight much earlier, yet Adama wanted to win purely based on his sword skills. Partly for more training, partly to get a good feeling for the Spartoi fighting style. From what he’d read, the monsters weren’t true individuals, meaning they didn’t have their own unique weapon techniques. Some wielded swords, others axes, but if you looked long enough, you could spot patterns in their footwork and attacks that were present in each of the monsters.
These patterns weren’t mistakes, exactly, but they were consistent quirks. Generally, the Spartoi fighting style produced no obvious holes, combining a semi-animalistic aggression with fast-twitch reflexes that allowed the beasts to block or dodge almost any counter. The trio’s teamwork was good enough to push Adama back for a while, yet once he’d had some time to analyze the Spartoi, he began to stand his ground. Thanks to his Hidden Stat Sheet, Adama had the physique of a normal peak Level 4, at the very least. His past decisions to accumulate stats before Leveling up had a permanent positive effect on his stats, one that would only grow larger as he continued to climb the ladder. It meant that he matched the Spartoi strength-for-strength, and he was clearly their better in terms of skill. While the patterns in their style weren’t openings themselves, they could be exploited in order to create openings. It wasn’t long before Hearthblade took each monster in the skull, shattering them and turning the Spartoi to dust.
Adama continued on his crusade, encountering several more deadly threats as he traversed the Palace’s ivory halls. There were the Greater Barbarians, hulking walls of red muscle who bellowed horribly and swung heavy clubs down at Adama. They were essentially the Level 4 version of Minotaurs, tough and strong but still lacking somewhat in Dexterity. So long as Adama didn’t let them corner him, they were relatively easy to dismantle. There were the Lizardman Elite, who were both tough and dexterous, often wielding bladed weapons with nearly as much skill as the Spartoi. They were a bit trickier to deal with than the Barbarian, but still easily dispatched.
The Loup Garou were the wolf-person upgrade of the dog-headed Kobolds found on the Upper floors. They were neither strong nor tough nor skilled, but they were fast, and they moved in packs. Adama was handling a group of around eight of them when the first serious threat to his life within the White Palace appeared. He was just cutting down two of the creatures, then pressing the advantage when a sudden prickle of danger ran down his spine. He bent backward right as a skeletal head appeared mid-air, open jaws clamping down right where his head used to be. Adama flipped backward and looked around the room again, eyes scanning for any other hidden threats.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
As for the flying skull, closer inspection revealed it to be a skeleton sheep, its body clothed in a midnight-black robe that swayed unsettlingly like dead skin. It turned to look at Adama, soulless black eyes calculating mechanically. Its robe shifted, and the creature appeared to melt into the shadows as Adama watched, apparently circling around in search of another ambush opportunity. The Skull Sheep was a troublesome opponent, especially when it ambushed you while you were already distracted. It was a stealth hunter that relied on high agility and powerful jaws to tear apart unsuspecting prey. However, it couldn’t fully muffle its hoofbeats; an attentive ear could discern when and where the Sheep would strike. The next time that monster came after him, Adama cut it in two, and the Loup Garou weren’t far behind in death.
It was the tricky monsters, like the Skull Sheep, that proved the most troublesome as Adama made his way deeper into the Palace. The Spartoi, Lizardmen, Barbarians, and Loup Garou all wielded weapons and attacked him directly. They were especially vulnerable to his Endless Sword when he was attacking seriously. But there were also Obsidian Soldiers, craggy, black-bodied creatures with cyclopean purple eyes. Their physical defenses were respectable, but their magic defenses were near-absolute. Even an Endless Sword at full power didn’t leave so much as a scratch. As a trade-off, the Soldiers were clumsy, lacking speed and dexterity, so they were easy to kill, one-on-one or in small groups. Yet they were very troublesome when they teamed up with other kinds of monsters. The Soldiers could often play the role of a tank for Spartoi or Loup Garou, making the dexterous and deadly monsters much harder to kill.
The Ooze were the inverse of the Soldiers. Their slimy, multicolored forms were largely immune to physical attacks, only destroyable when you dispersed them with magic or shattered their core. They were a bit easier for Adama once he got the hang of hitting their cores with the Rippling Sword, but they could get very annoying when they teamed up with the Soldiers, for obvious reasons. The worst-case scenario was when that duo teamed up with a third monster type, pairing a lethal offense with a nigh-invulnerable defense.
And yet, the worst specialized monster was easily the accursed Peluda. It was a green, serpentine monster that crawled on four stumpy legs, with long rocky spines growing from its back. Those spines could be fired at a rapid speed, delivering an exceptionally dangerous venom if they hit. A mere scratch from one of these could eventually kill Adama, even with his Abnormal Resistance. A direct hit from one would definitely put him down, if left untreated. He might survive the few heartbeats required to down an antidote if hit by two. More than that?
Well, he’d finally find out if there truly was an afterlife.
Fortunately, Adama had the skills to deflect these projectiles mid-flight, so Peluda weren’t a problem on their own. But if they were behind a wall of Soldiers and Oozes, then guarded by Spartoi and Lizardmen…that was when the Dungeon’s true cruelty manifested itself. Most Adventurers Level 6 or below didn’t explore the White Palace alone, thanks in no small part to these devilish snakes. Though any individual within the Palace didn’t exceed a Level 4 Guild ranking, their teamwork allowed them to present threats that could exceed Level 5. Not to mention the fact that monsters spawned more frequently here than on any of the higher floors, meaning that the pressure rarely let up.
Despite all this, Adama thrived in this Land of Death. The fact that many enemies spawned with metal weapons presented a profound threat to most, and a unique vulnerability for him. The Endless Sword dominated the Palace’s primary footsoldiers. The more of them there were, the more vulnerable they became to Adama’s most powerful technique, and the Obsidian Soldiers couldn’t be everywhere at once, making even their defenses ultimately insufficient. The Peluda spikes could also be deflected with smaller uses of the Endless Sword, neutering even these exceptional dangers. Once Adama got a good idea for the fighting styles of each monster, he started leaning heavily on every tool in his arsenal, and the opposition crumbled before him. Peluda were slaughtered, Obsidian was shattered, and Spartoi were scattered to the wind.
The mighty swordsman waltzed through the shadow of death with the poise of a supreme warrior. Each of his movements contained a small part of the hidden profundity that Takemikazuchi used to empower his attacks. Each of his chantless spells ripped outward with greater power than ever before. Like the sun, his blade flashed in the east and fell in the west, and all his enemies fell to pieces before him.
It would have been an exaggeration to call it a walk in the park. The dangers were always lurking. Skull Sheep leapt from the shadows as Spartoi spawned right on top of him. If Adama let his guard down, they would slaughter him. So, he didn’t. He kept on firing on all cylinders, and he slaughtered them instead. He made a mockery of the Dungeon’s most vicious trips and traps, calmly dismantling anything that came his way. But the mockery wasn’t over. Indeed, after a long trek, Adama came to the threshold of his final destination. The deadliest place in the entire Palace, and one of the deadliest locations in the entire Dungeon.
The Colosseum.
