Right Before The Crescendo

One and a half hours earlier, a group of about 50 mostly black robe-clad figures accompanied by tens of tamed monsters arrived on the 18th floor, where they had intended to borrow some further manpower from the Ikelos Familia that was calling this place its home. To their shock, however, they found nothing but broken cages, the corpses of those that they had come looking for, as well as numerous pools of blood that hadn't entirely dried up yet.

His voice trembling a little, a one-eared, one-armed Cat Person turned to the leader of their party. Within his eyes, a green, terrifying shadow flashed past. Consequently, the knuckles of his hand that was clutching a red whip had turned white and his knees had turned a little weak. The scene before him had triggered the memory of a traumatic event which haunted him day and night. Once more, phantom pain assaulted him, like it had so many times before.

"Olivas, what is g-going on here? How come the enemies have… have already made it here?!"

Derisively snorting at him, the man with the horned skull mask shrugged, disregarding the obvious traces of fear that had stolen themselves upon his temporary comrade's features.

"Who knows? Most likely, they didn't enter Knossos from only one entrance. If I had to bet, then they probably found the one on the 18th floor too. To be fair, I always thought that that one would be the first one to be discovered, because that floor is too small for us to go entirely unnoticed for long."

Turning around to face in the direction in which the blood-stained footsteps of various monsters led, he thought for a bit before continuing to speak. Not once did he question the fact that it had been almost too easy for him to spot this obvious trail.

"This massacre should be the doing of those monstrosities that call themselves 'Xenos'. From what I can see, they're heading to the 17th floor and couldn't have gone far in the time that has passed since they came through here. Let's go!"

At his commanding nod, the entire group proceeded to venture forward once more. Even the horrified Cat Person didn't stay behind. However, instead of simply following his orders quietly, he worriedly whispered a few more words of caution towards their leader.

"Are you sure we can deal with monsters that wiped out the Ikelos Familia?! Doesn't all of this seem too dangerous to you? We don't even know who else has entered Knossos! If they have the cooperation of those Xenos, then they should at least be equal in manpower and strength, right?"

Scoffing unhappily, Olivas arrogantly shook his head. The look which he shot at Jura, that scaredy-cat, was one full of fake, but polite, pity. His voice just loud enough for Jura to hear it, he explained his thoughts on the matter.

"Look, I get that you can't forget about what happened to your familia back then. I really get it. But this situation won't turn out like that. That jerk Dix was merely a novice Level 5, while I'm a lot stronger than he ever was. With the power that I obtained from 'her', I could even face off against a novice Level 6 without breaking a sweat! So even if the worst happens, I can at least ensure a moderately safe retreat. Also, don't you have your monsters? Quite a few of them are Level 5 as well! Our assignment is to draw the enemy further in, so that we can obliterate them with Enyo's manpower, don't forget that. Also, don't tell anyone. On account of your occupation as a tamer, I've clued you in to facilitate smoother cooperation. You know what will happen to you if you let this confidential information slip, right?"

Clearly disgruntled at this treatment, but also very clear about his own position and strength, Jura nodded and tried to calm down somehow. Although it was forced, he somehow managed to push his fears aside and focus on his mission for now. If he hadn't even been capable of such a feat of mental self-control, then he would have been kicked to the curb years ago.

"I… understand."

Finally satisfied with Jura's behaviour, Olivas nodded to himself. The group made their way to the 17th floor without any further issues.

Around ten minutes had passed since they had stumbled across the remains of the Ikelos Familia's members… when Olivas finally caught sight of the back of a Siren, who had just flown into a branching path that was connected to the hallway that his group was in. The humanoid bird monster had been multiple hundreds of meters away, but he had still managed to catch a glimpse of it, even though the lighting was quite suboptimal.

"We've found them. Everyone, charge! We can't give them a chance to escape our grasp!!"

Ecstatic at not having to waste much time on searching for his prey, Olivas commanded his troops to follow the Siren that he had spotted, leading the way at the front. However, due to him slowing down considerably to account for the massive stat difference between him and the Evilus members, the moment that they rounded the corner that the Siren had disappeared behind, the monster was already long gone. All that remained were the carcasses of numerous Violas, as well as a couple of feathers that had stabbed them to death.

Clenching his teeth at having missed the Xenos just slightly, Olivas hurriedly checked for any signs that would let him know where they had gone. By closing his eyes and focusing fully on his hearing, he soon made out the sounds of battle as well as the roars of monsters that weren't under the control of Jura. They came from the seventh closest hallway that branched off from this one.

A smirk played across his lips as a murderous glint shimmered in his eyes.

'I won't let you get away this time. If those idiots really drag me down too much, then I'll just leave them behind and catch up to the enemy first. Stalling them until everyone else arrives should be easy enough.'

With his mind set on ending this as quickly as possible, the hunt commenced.

Then, twenty minutes later, Olivas was about to roar in overwhelming frustration, but ultimately held himself back. Even though he had separated from his subordinates, for some reason, he hadn't been able to catch up to the monsters that he was chasing. Everywhere that he went, only the corpses of Enyo's creations lay strewn about. He had never lost track of the sound of battle, but he had always failed at confronting his enemies by a very slight margin.

'... fine, guess I'll have to change my strategy, then.'

Originally, he had planned to rely mostly on himself to deal with the Xenos, but it was clear that this couldn't be done, at least not in the short term. Perhaps they had some way to locate him, which was why they managed to slip away just barely every time. However… could they do the same if he caught them in a much wider net?

Grinning deviously, he retraced his steps and reconvened with the Evilus members. Upon explaining his plans to them and sharing the layout of this area of the 17th floor with them, they quickly understood what he wanted them to do. Fortunately, he had become friendly acquaintances with that descendant of Daedalus years ago, so he had been provided with many copies of the blueprints of this place.

"I just have to assign five of my monsters to every ten man group, right?"

Upon confirming Jura's inquiry with a nod, they all split up to corner the Xenos. Olivas had the responsibility of indirectly leading them to a dead end by following them via specific paths, while the others would cut off all routes that would prevent them from going exactly where they wanted them to end up.

'Heh, let's see how you'll deal with this!'

Another twenty minutes passed and everything went according to plan. A group of five approximately Level 5 Xenos - a Siren, a Lizardman, a Gargoyle, a Green Dragon as well as a Fomoire - had been driven into a corner, staring at Olivas with hateful expressions, which only further brightened the cocky smile on his lips.

"You never would have guessed that I had you all dancing on the top of my palm, right?"

Furrowing her brows, the Siren stared daggers at him, but ultimately refused to respond.

"Even if you beg for mercy, you won't be getting any. I'm looking forward to crushing you all under my boots."

Reveling in the pleasure of having them with their backs almost against the literal wall like this, Olivas grew more and more excited at the prospect of finally getting a chance to battle to his heart's content. Just in case, he turned to his subordinates and gave them their orders.

"Everyone, simply observe. Hold them back if anyone tries to escape."

While saying so, he mostly focused on Jura, who had the strongest manpower - or rather, monsterpower - under his command. The rest would only be capable of slowing down Xenos as powerful as these for a few moments, so it would be a waste to let them all die here already, for no reason. He wasn't opposed to using cannon fodder, but he wouldn't just use it haphazardly like that.

Taking a step, he cracked his knuckles and licked his lips in anticipation, then he took a deep breath. He had long since pushed Enyo's orders to the back of his mind. That god may have given him a command, but as he wasn't his real master, he could simply pretend that the circumstances at the time hadn't allowed him to follow his instructions. In other words, he could put his worries aside and enjoy this battle to his heart's content.

Right when he was about to attack the Xenos, their expressions suddenly turned from fearful ones into ones of ridicule. This abrupt development took him by surprise, but he didn't think about it too deeply, aside from feeling offended at their impudence.

"Looks like I'll have to teach you five some manners…!"

Not wasting any more time on rambling, he took another step, pushing himself off the ground and charging at them with all of his might, preparing to punch the face of the Lizardman who had somehow managed to draw most of his ire by grinning the most despicably. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain between his shoulder blades. His speed increased by three or four times and he lost most of his control over his body. Before he knew it, he had already collided with the wall that the Xenos had been corralled towards.

'... huh?!'

Although he was hurt, he had more than enough Endurance to shrug off this mere environmental damage that had been inflicted upon him. As he pushed himself out of the wall, he could hear the voice of the Evilus members behind him, but due to his eardrums having been ruptured due to this high-speed impact, he couldn't make out exactly what they were shouting.

"What the fuck happened…?"

Confused, he stretched and turned around, intending to find out who had so rudely kicked him from behind. In the middle of turning, he realized that while the rest of his body was already rapidly recovering, the kick-induced injury on his back was far worse than he had initially thought. The pain that had wracked the rest of his body had momentarily drowned out the alarming nerve signals that his body was sending his brain about that particular wound. Wasn't part of his spine damaged? Could that be the reason as to why he found it a little difficult to walk normally at the moment?

But all of these thoughts flew out of the window when he finally saw who now stood just mere meters away from him, between him and the Xenos.

It was a girl, nay, a young woman with long golden hair. Her ethereal beauty was enough to take any person's breath away when they first laid their eyes upon her. However, that was not the reason as to why Olivas had frozen up as if time had suddenly ground to a halt. Rather, it was because he had figured out the severity of the situation that he found himself in.

'The Sword Princess?! Does that mean… the ones who came here are from the Loki Familia? I can't possibly deal with all of them on my own!'

He didn't feel particularly threatened by Ais' presence, as he had heard that she had only recently ranked up to Level 6. Even considering that she was usually far stronger than what her Level would indicate, he was confident in at least being able to escape. As for that kick… that had been a sneak attack, plain and simple. Anyone would have been taken off guard by that. Yes, that had to be it. No doubt about it.

Instead of wasting his breath on conversing with the Sword Princess, Olivas ignored her and shot towards the members of Evilus, loudly shouting his orders.

"Everyone, retreat! I'll cover you all. Jura, you know what to do. Take the lead!"

When he finally tore his gaze away from the biggest threat in the room, Ais, he then noticed that nobody had actually successfully heeded his orders. In fact… well, they were already engaged in a tough battle with a group of three. If his eardrums had already fully recovered, then he would have noticed this earlier, but in his current state, it had taken him until now to comprehend what was going on.

'I'm such an idiot! Of course the Sword Princess wouldn't come here on her own. Let's hope Jura's monsters will be able to break the encirclement. Speaking of…'

Searching for the one-eared Cat Person in the crowd, he turned his head. However, when he eventually found Jura, he wasn't met with what he had expected to see. Instead of being scared but struggling to hold on against the enemy, Jura had grown extremely pale and wasn't putting much effort into his resistance. His legs were seemingly about to give out, his face a mask of unimaginable horror.

"Jura!! What are you doing, you bastard?! Get your shit together!"

Annoyed beyond belief, Olivas attempted to sprint towards him, but a sudden attack from behind made him unsheathe a sturdy monster bone dagger from his belt and hastily block a somewhat threatening scimitar strike that had been aimed at his back.

"You're not going anywhere. Didn't you want to teach us some manners? Well, we're all ears~"

Smiling both playfully and ferociously at the same time, Lyd brandished both his longsword and his scimitar, attacking Olivas in a flurry of blows. He was giving his absolute best, intending to suppress him completely.

'This trashy lizard…!!'

Clearly recognizing that he didn't have the luxury to be held up like this if he wanted to salvage the situation, Olivas dodged for a bit, then he pushed the longsword aside using his gauntlet and parried the scimitar, giving himself a second of reprieve. However, he wasn't just facing a single opponent.

A club landed on his back and caused him to clench his teeth in fury mixed with slight pain. The Fomoire, Four, had used Olivas' confrontation with Lyd to make his way behind the horned skull mask-wearing Creature and aimed at the bloody bootprint that had been left behind by Ais' genuinely quite 'gentle' kick. If she had been even the slightest bit serious, he would have just burst apart on the spot.

Before Olivas could even catch his breath, some feathers shot past his cheek and left a thin line of blood behind. He had barely managed to move his head to the side in time.

'If she hadn't injured me with that kick, these weaklings wouldn't be able to threaten me like this…!'

Under the watchful eyes of the patiently observing Sword Princess, he was slowly getting bogged down by the five Xenos who he had made fun of just moments earlier. There was no way for him to help his comrade, or to even find out what exactly was actually going on.

-----

"G-Gale!!!"

Jura never had the time nor the opportunity to properly react to the leader of his party getting attacked by Ais. Instead, all of his attention was focused on one of the three people that she had arrived with - an Elven woman who was clad in a green cloak that almost entirely obscured her body. Only while moving about could the white top, short green pants and brown boots underneath be made out. This figure… it was the one that had haunted him for around four years!

The Rudra Familia, which he had been a part of back then, had been one of the Familias which the organization 'Evilus' had consisted of. Over a period of less than a week, every single one of their members had been assassinated or straight up slaughtered in the streets by the Astraea Familia's last surviving member, Ryuu Lion - commonly known only under her Alias, 'Gale'.

Jura Halmer had been one of the Rudra Familia members that she had been gunning for, and he was the only one who, according to what he was aware of, had managed to escape her wrath. Still, it hadn't been in one piece. He had lost almost two thirds of his right arm as well as his left ear to her onslaught of attacks. In all honesty, the main reason as to why he had somehow survived was because he had coincidentally been buried underneath the corpses of his companions.

Mind you, he was never really the sentimental type and had seen more than enough deaths, so it wasn't their demise that had scarred him for life. Rather, it had been the loss of his body parts that had done so. For someone as almost entirely selfish as him, to lose parts of himself to Gale had left him with a deep trauma, one that the deaths of those around him couldn't even compare to. Even now, he would wake up multiple times each night, drenched in cold sweat, as the time when he had lost so much replayed itself within his head.

He hadn't been wallowing in misery for these four years, however. Rather, he had frantically studied all that he could about monsters to further his taming skills. Eventually, he had stumbled across a very special monster that he thought might be enough to take Gale by surprise and kill her… but he hadn't had any luck in setting up his plans so far. At the moment, they were only in the initial stages!

When he saw Ryuu sweeping through the monsters that he sent her way without much of an issue, despite her still not having ranked up to Level 5 even though four years had passed, the fear within his heart erupted even more violently. While he, at first, had still managed to give his strongest monsters relatively coherent commands, he was now just blankly staring at them getting slaughtered one by one, feeling as if he was stuck in a nightmare.

The resulting inaction of his tamed monsters was the most severe drawback to the profession of tamer as a whole. Wild, untamed monsters would always rely on their instincts to battle their opponents, whereas their tamed counterparts would rely on the commands of their tamers during a battle. Only very basic instructions could be left with them in the case that their tamers, for one reason or another, were not capable of directly controlling them at a particular moment. So while tamed monsters under the command of a talented tamer could outperform regular monsters quite easily, should something happen to the tamer, they would be many times less dangerous.

This was exactly the situation that Jura's monsters now found themselves in. And the more of them that got defeated, the more irrationally terrified Jura became, leading to a further decrease in the monsters' performance. It was a downwards spiral straight into the bottomless abyss, with no ray of light to cling onto.

Olivas was already being steadily suppressed by his Xenos opponents, while the Chienthrope man and the female human mage that had come with Gale were keeping the around 50 Evilus members in check by themselves. Evilus may have had outstanding mages back in their heyday, but by now, there were none left that were even remotely proficient. Due to this, even a single Level 4 mage could suppress the entire group, with the Level 4 warrior who was equipped with an axe and a shield picking off one of the people on Evilus' side whenever he saw an opening. Otherwise, he protected the mage, shielding her from all projectiles.

The worst part was that the Sword Princess was overlooking the whole situation, not even bothering to join in. With all of those scenes playing out in front of his eyes… Rudra just gave up. He knew that he couldn't run away, even if he tried. His monsters couldn't hurt Gale, and there was no way to beat this enemy ambush with the forces that they had at hand. Everything was stacked against him. There was no way that he could get his revenge either.

With lifeless eyes, he dropped his whip and unsheathed the shortsword that was fastened to his hip, blankly staring at his own reflection for a moment. The missing ear and limb still bothered him and caused rage to bubble up within his heart, but he knew that there was no real way to vent it. Instead of struggling and enduring humiliation plus eventual death… why not rob his enemies of that pleasure and just… end it here?

-----

As he was one of the people who had participated in the unexpected assault that had led to the death of her entire familia, Ryuu naturally recognized Jura the moment that she saw him. She didn't know his name, but his facial features had never left her mind, just like those of all of the others that had killed her friends and committed countless other heinous crimes. What surprised her, however, was that he was still alive. Had she not already killed him back when she went on her rampage?

While she was battling against the monsters that the Cat Person sent her way, she was contemplating what to do with him. She had already considered him to be someone who she had killed, so… should she just do it again, but thoroughly this time? Still, at this point in her life, she wasn't sure whether or not she would ever take the life of another person again, no matter what they had done…

Of course, she realized how blatantly sloppily the tamed monsters that she was battling were behaving, but upon seeing that Jura had almost peed his pants at her sight, she took this as an opportunity to tear through them in a matter of minutes. She wouldn't look this gift horse in the mouth.

When she finally got within ten or so meters of him, the one-eared Cat Person finally dropped his whip and unsheathed his weapon, so she prepared herself for combat - but what happened next utterly flabbergasted her. Instead of rushing at her or putting his guard up in defiance, Jura stared at his blade for a while, before slicing his own throat and proceeding to thrust his weapon straight through his heart. He appeared as if he was almost incapable of feeling pain as he did so, his face as blank as a fresh sheet of paper. Only half a minute later, when the light of life finally left his eyes, a small smile of relief plastered itself upon his lips.

Ryuu hadn't just been standing around like an idiot during that time, observing him amidst the chaotic battle as he bled out on the ground - she had ended the lives of the last remaining monster and had dodged any and all attacks that had come her way. However, she had still paid attention to Jura, because she honestly didn't know what to do or think at this point.

His last expression made her feel heavily conflicted, but she couldn't even properly explain what emotions she was feeling, or what she felt torn between. She was just… confused.

Deciding to not dwell on it further for now, because that might endanger her current companions, she supported them and helped them in overwhelming the rest of the Evilus members in the area. To her surprise, though, none of them exploded after their deaths, which was starkly different from what had happened back when the Astraea Familia had been wiped out four years ago, or when one of her closest friends had been killed by Evilus using underhanded means a year before that.

"Why is it different…?"

Deciding that she would approach Isaac with this question later, as that man had undoubtedly collected lots of information from Knossos as a whole which might explain the details behind Evilus' circumstances, she looked up and at the bodies of the tens of corpses that now cluttered the floor. She hadn't dealt a fatal blow to any of them, but they had still been killed by Cruz and Elfy…

As she was sighing to herself, the Xenos finished off Olivas, who had been an extremely resilient foe. He had managed to hold on for more than half an hour! However, at this point, despite his exceedingly outstanding Endurance, he had lost too much blood and the majority of his limbs were gone. He was only left with a single leg and the rest of his body was riddled in holes as well as cuts. A stony claw had just penetrated his ribcage, crushing his heart.

"... heh… you'll… not make it out of… here alive… bastards… One day… 'she' will… kill you… all…"

Coughing up some last words of spite and resistance in between mouthfuls of blood, a maniacal, wide grin spread on Olivas' face. Shortly after, his body limply dangled off Gros' hand, the last embers of vitality having been snuffed out.

"He really had to be obnoxious right until the end."

Shaking his head, Lyd helped Gros to pull the body off his arm and dispose of the corpse. Of course, he didn't forget to rip out the unusual magic stone of a Creature from Olivas' remains, throwing it up into the empty air, from which it disappeared without a trace.

"What now?"

Walking up to Ais, who hadn't gotten involved in the battle except for that one kick in the beginning, Ryuu asked her for further guidance now that their previous assignments had all been dealt with.

"We'll wipe out the rest of the monsters on this floor, then we'll continue towards the 19th floor."

Earlier, before they had lured this Evilus party into a trap, both the Xenos and Ais' party had already wiped out a huge number of the various monsters on this floor. There had been many of them for sure - in fact, thousands - but because Isaac had researched them back on the 59th floor, everyone knew exactly how to approach them safely and how to swiftly eliminate them.

With the 16th floor entirely cleared, because Finn's, Bete's, Tiona's and Tione's parties had just finished their monster slaying assignments right on schedule, they would join Ais' party as well as the Xenos. Then, only three more floors would remain.