The Labyrinth City (IV)

After about an hour passed with Izuku and Ais just sitting a couple meters away from each other, Ais felt she had recovered enough to start making her way back up. As she stood up to leave she asked, "How much further down do you plan on going alone?"

"To be honest, even I don't really know. I might try to reach the next Safe Floor after I'm done finding what I came here to look for. But if it gets too dangerous I'll have to give up," Izuku said. It seemed that merely by staying near Ais for as long as they had been sitting together, it'd gone a long way in curing his awkwardness.

"You mean beyond the 39th Floor? You really think you can make it to the 50th Floor alone?" Ais asked. Her naturally unexpressive inclination left Izuku unable to gain an inkling as to what she thought of him.

"I don't know. I'll have to see how strong the monsters get," Izuku said, further thinking, 'Although, seeing as I've managed to get this far down without having to resort to full Draconification, I should be able to get at least that far down if worse comes to worst.'

"Good luck then," Ais said. She then gave him a slight bow and added, "Thanks for accompanying me as well. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," Izuku acknowledge and the two split off to continue their respective goals. At least… that was what Izuku was prepared to do until he noticed that Ais had completely forgotten the massive Grade XVIII Monster Core that had dropped from the Monster Rex she had killed.

"Ai—" Izuku didn't even bother as the swordswoman had already left.

[New Quest Detected!

Side Quest(s)

The Forgotten Monster Core: Ais forgot to take the Monster Rex's Core with her. Just look at the size of that thing! It must be worth a fortune! More importantly, it most hold an insurmountable amount of sentimental value seeing as it came from the Monster that allowed her to Level Up. You should be a good person and bring the Monster Core back to her. It'd probably go a long way in getting you in her good graces and you… You need all the friends you can get…]

"…" Izuku grumbled as he took the Monster Core and placed it in his backpack. He'd return the Monster Core to Ais after he finished his mission, gained the power to hide his Exposed Nature, and tracked her down. He didn't need some snarky quest chiding him to do it; it's what anyone would have done…

Izuku emptied his head of any more distracting thoughts. He focused on completing the task Ouranos had given him. He walked beyond the fifth wall, past the stairway leading further into the dungeon, and into the sixth wall that continued to expand further past the center of the Floor.

When he entered the area within the sixth wall he was surprised to find that it was many times larger than that of the first wall; after which, the rooms had been progressively getting smaller. He spent the next two hours cleaning out the room before coming out the other side with nothing to show for it; excluding the many Grade XII Monster Cores he'd reaped of course.

The area within the seventh wall, he later found out, was half the size of the sixth wall and after he finished clearing that as well, the eighth and ninth walls scaled similarly and were cleared out as well.

It was only after he made it to the tenth wall that he found the Orb of Origin floating as the only thing in the otherwise empty room.

[Observed Status

Name: Orb of Origin (Budding)

Durability: 100/100

Description: A nascent Orb of Origin that formed at, at most one month ago. Its size suggests that it is a "High Threat" if given the chance to mature and bloom into a Dungeon Outbreak. It should bloom in about eleven months.]

"So these things are the cause of Dungeon Outbreaks? I wonder how that works…" Izuku thought as he undid the Form Fitting alteration placed on his left arm to reveal the true form of his Brazo Del Diablo. He made use of the grotesquely sharp nails his left hand had to dig out a chunk of the Orb of Origin and placed the "sample" in one of the boxes Ouranos had given him.

He then looked at the mostly undamaged Orb and decided to destroy it.

'The Guild was going to have a group of Adventurers do it anyways, but since I'm already here, I might as well…' He thought.

He punched the Orb and it shattered into a thousand pieces…

And then the entrance to the room within the tenth world was instantly closed off by a pillar of earth that had shot up from the ground. The previously white room then took on a red hue as the walls started trembling.

And of course…

The walls spit out the most powerful Monster Izuku had yet to come across.

[Observed Status

Level: 100

Name: Vengeful Udaeus

Stats

Health: ~100%

Stamina: ~100%

?: ~100%

Strength: ~180

Constitution: ~150

Dexterity: ~130

Agility: ~150

Intelligence: ~50

Wisdom: ~10

Will: ~0

Charisma: ~0]

"Of course, this is how I find out why Ouranos hadn't asked me to destroy the damn orb," Izuku snorted as he fully Draconified. He wasn't going to be taking any chances against a clearly stronger variant of the Monster Rex he had just recently seen fight with the ability to create and command swords.

A second later he was rewarded for his caution as the monster summoned dozens of swords and shot them at him faster than some of the guns he had seen some of the Possessed Solider back in Hell could shoot. It then took the time Izuku had to spend dodging the flying swords to attempt to slash him diagonally across his shoulder.

'Big mistake,' Izuku thought as he carefully timed the monster's lunge with a Shockwave Argent Blast to stun it in place. He then seized the moment and kicked the monster by its waist and sent it cratering into one of the walls.

The monster came flying back out as if it hadn't been effected at all, but Izuku could see that his kick had permanently dented the humanoid's armor deep into the monster's body. He could also Observe that its Health had dropped by a whole 40% after taking both the full force of his Draconified kick and Shockwave Argent Blast to the face.

Unfortunately, unlike Izuku who would actually suffer from the effects of damage and exhaustion, the monster was like an animated puppet that would continue to fight a full capacity until it either died or ran out of energy.

It was intelligent enough to be wary of Izuku's Argent Blasts and decided to take the battle to range, seemingly possessing an endless amount of whatever force conjured swords out of thin air as they rained down on Izuku at such quantities that the injuries slowly started to pile.

'Two can play at that game,' Izuku sneered as he aimed a finger at the monster and let loose a barrage of Argent Bullets.

This revealed to him the monster's most glaring weakness: It couldn't actually move whilst controlling the swords it had created — it had stopped creating more after it had enough spread them out across the room to attack Izuku with ten swords from just about anywhere.

To dodge the Argent Bullets the monster had to stop shooting swords at Izuku. He wasn't stupid enough to waste the opportunity and rushed towards the monster and took the fight up close and personal… and unfortunately miscalculated that the gap in Dexterity actually put the monster in a more advantageous position.

It managed to land two clean hits on him before Izuku willingly took on a third to trap the monster in his grasp. With his left hand now touching the monster's waist by the area that had been previously weakened and dented, Izuku let loose a full Shotgun Argent Bullet attack and ended the fight.

Before it completely turned to ash, however, the Monster managed to stab its fingers about an inch into Izuku's left bicep as it grabbed him and screeched its death wails.

[New Curses!

Remembered As Divine: You bear the mark of one that an Irregular Monster Rex has acknowledged to be a god. After all, you did manage to kill it without any form of assistance. The Dungeon now recognizes you as a divine entity even if you aren't one. All Dungeon Monsters will now prioritize killing you even if you fight in a group. Moreover, every Monster Rex you encounter will be guaranteed to be an Irregular Monster Rex.]

Once the monster fully turned to ash, Izuku undid his Draconification and sure enough, he saw a new mark within the wounds left over from the Monster's curse.

'Fan-freaking-tastic,' Izuku sighed.

He really couldn't catch a break to save his life…

…

After breaking out of the entrapment that had sprung before his fight with the Vengeful Udaeus, Izuku returned to the center of the Floor and continued to make progress down the Dungeon until he reached the next Safe Floor on the 39th Floor.

The whole trip took less than half an hour as he had managed to make it the whole way through without needing to stop to kill monsters. Izuku expected that insofar as returning to the 37th Floor was concerned, but for the 38th Floor, he was surprised to find out that it was just a massive corridor that led into an empty coliseum.

He'd expected to be swarmed by monsters the moment he entered the coliseum, but when he didn't, instead of being relieved, he felt a bout of paranoia for what that might mean. So far, the Dungeon had been spawning stronger monsters at even fast rates the further down he'd managed to make it. So, for him to not see any monsters on the 38th Floor…

It did not bode well, especially after he'd been cursed to be a particularly hated enemy of the Dungeon…

Whatever the case, Izuku made it easily enough to the 39th Safe Floor and took the rest of the day off the rest. The total of 4% of his Argent Energy he had used to combat the Irregular Monster Rex actually took over twenty minutes after he had made it to the Safe Floor to recover; it seemed to be recovering at a rate of 1% per fifteen minutes.

Aside from that, Izuku's Stamina had dropped to the lower 40s from having to fight just about all of the monsters on the 37th Floor, excluding the normal Floor Boss that Ais had beaten alone, and the Irregular Monster Rex had also managed to cut him down to just barely over 30% Health.

Its flying swords had been effectively chipping away at his Health for nearly a full minute before Izuku had recklessly brought the fight to melee combat, where the monster was even more dangerous. The three clean attacks it had managed to land, each took over 15% of his Health.

Still… He'd managed to beat the Irregular version of the Monster Rex without having to bring out his trump card. He'd overcome a higher Level monster that had several Stats that eclipsed his for the first time.

'I can do this…' Izuku thought. 'I can make it to the 55th Floor. If the pattern of encountering Boss Monsters continues, I'll just need to beat one more Irregular Monster Rex.'

Compared to the Safe Floor of the 28th Floor, which was many times more barren than the fully established settlement that had been set up on the 18th Floor, there was hardly anyone at all on the 39th Floor. This allowed Izuku to find a suitable spot to sleep almost immediately.

When he woke up hours later, to a fully recovered Status, it didn't take him long to continue with his descent down the Dungeon. Before he even managed to reach the end of the stairs that led further into the 40th Floor, he started feeling the temperature slowly increase.

Sure enough, by the time he made it to the 40th Floor, he hadn't been surprised at all to see that it actually had volcanic terrain. Not after the forests, waterfalls, and white-walled palatial labyrinths he'd already passed through.

Aside from the "moderate" heat that permeated the Floor and the normal monsters that were marginally stronger than the monsters of the 37th Floor, Izuku did not encounter anything out of the ordinary. With just a partial Draconification applied to his limbs, he killed every monster on his way to the stairs that led further into the Dungeon.

The 42nd through 47th Floors, saw the environment get increasingly hazardous to the point where Izuku had to take care of where he stepped as there were many pools of magma and slow streams of lava flowing across the Floor.

When he reached the 48th Floor, the hazardous terrain itself became an actual threat as the sheer quantities of monsters that spawned everywhere — including from the fire pits of magma — occasionally left him with no other choice than to momentarily expose himself to burns by making contact if he didn't want to get hit by several monsters. And, even for as fast as he was, he wasn't fast enough to not get burned from touching molten rock. The 48th Floor proved to be the most challenging Floor he'd experienced throughout the entire Dungeon for this sole reason.

He was just a single man fighting against thousands of fire-resistant, sometimes fire-spewing, monsters that all had Levels in the high 40s and he was fighting them where they held the home field advantage. Even in Hell, at least the terrain was as neutral as possible; neither he nor the demons held any kind of advantage from fighting in an open desert field.

Regardless of the fact, a fully Draconified Izuku eventually reached the base of the 49th Floor. His Health was in the upper 80s and his Stamina was exactly halfway through with leaving him unconscious from exhaustion.

Once he took five steps away from the base of the stairs that led up to the 48th Floor, he was struck by the feeling of deja vu as the stairs were barred by another pillar of earth and the already mildly yellowish-orange tint of the room darkened to a bloody red.

Hundreds of meters away, Izuku saw a figure shoot out from the ground and screech. Then… a veritable sea of monsters started spawning seemingly from every three or so meters across the entirety of the Floor.

[Update

Skills

Observe (Level 17 → 25)

Milestone(s)

(Level 25) Divining Description: You will now receive a short description of anything and anyone even if you don't have even the slightest context clue to derive information from. The higher the level, the more detailed the Divined Description.]

[Observed Status

Level: 133

Name: King Balor

Stats

Health: ~100%

Stamina: ~100%

?: ~100%

Strength: ~150

Constitution: ~200

Dexterity: ~120

Agility: ~100

Intelligence: ~250

Wisdom: ~0

Will: ~0

Charisma: ~0

Description: The Irregular version of the Monster Rex on the 49th Floor of the Dungeon. It summons and commands an army to vanquish all divine entities.]

'So… The first thing I should do is kill the Irregular Monster Rex to stop the monsters from fighting any more strategically than they already do,' Izuku thought as he dropped all pretenses and assumed his Demon Dragon Form.

He didn't just have the one Irregular Monster Rex to deal with, but also the hundreds of meat shields that stood in his way to getting to it…

Of course, with this being the first time he'd assumed his Demon Dragon Form since he'd left Hell… After he'd pushed his body to the limits of what should have been possible for a human… Now that he'd returned to his penultimate state of augmented power, he quickly realized that further using Empower and Hastening Runes would only serve to bring his current level of overkill to a pointless level.

The power he now held in his body was the stuff of literal nightmares as he'd grown powerful enough to start insta-killing all of the Irregular Monster Rex's forces. These were, at the very least, Level 75 Monsters with a variety of equally valid Stat distributions and his every move would either turn the monsters into a shower of gore or at the very least break their bodies to the point where they evaporated to ash mere moments later.

Izuku was also now so ridiculously fast that even amidst the sea of monsters, he was only taking damage every few seconds; and that was "damage" that needed to be accrued by the droves to actually chance a decrease in his Status.

In no time at all, Izuku found himself in a position to attack the Irregular Monster Rex. When he found an opening in between the dozens of monsters that continued to throw themselves between him and their commander, he punched the Monster Rex and frowned.

'That 200 Consitution is something else,' he snorted as the sight of the Monsters Health only dropped by 3%.

Still, Izuku had his priorities straight. He did not know how much further down he'd need to go to make it to the next Safe Floor, so he chose to conserve as much Argent Energy as possible. This dragged out the battle between him and the monsters on the 49th Floor to nearly ten minutes before he finally managed to deal enough damage to the Monster Rex to kill it.

By then, he'd already killed about half of the Boss Monster's army, so he dropped his Demon Dragon Form, but retained his Draconification, to kill off the rest of the monsters.

When he was done, he was left alone… and in the middle of a field full of some of the highest-grade Monster Cores, he had ever seen.

Shaking his head, he emptied out most of the Monster Cores he'd previously been carrying to make room for all the ones that he'd earned from the last battle. It took him so long to do this that he'd recovered over 3% of his Health by the time he was done, and in the end, he only kept the Monster Rex Monster Cores he'd earned as well as Ais' forgotten Monster Rex Core and the rest were Monster Cores from the 45th Floor and higher.

A few minutes after that, Izuku discovered that the 50th Floor was the next Safe Floor.

He became helplessly distraught at the thought that he'd lost so much time, effort, and energy when he could have both ended the fight as well as collected all the Monster Cores in the previous floor several times faster had he just kept up his Draconification and used a Hastening Rune…