207. Familiar Chaos

“I think we’ve gone far enough now?”

“They don’t seem to be following us.”

“Ugh… I can’t even flap my wings anymore. Porter, carry me.”

“Just go back into the bracelet and rest.”

“Got it…”

After sending Pria back into the Bracelet of Growth, Helena and I took a moment to catch our breath.

After running for what felt like ages, we’d finally managed to shake off the monsters from the ruins.

Since those things rarely strayed far from their own territory, we could consider ourselves safe from them now.

As for the dungeon crawlers who roamed the entirety of the 6th Floor-they were probably all dead, killed by the snakes. No issue there. The only thing left was to find the exit and get out.

“This… looks like traces of our party, doesn’t it?”

“It does. They seem relatively recent.”

Scattered on the ground were burnt-out torches and various other signs of passage.

Probably left behind by the party. Half-burnt torches were usually just discarded in the labyrinth.

“They haven’t completely cooled yet. There’s still some residual warmth.”

“If we follow this path, we might just run into them.”

“Right. Lady Leah must have led the party to where the Transfer Stone is, so let’s follow the trail. It’s probably there.”

Anyway, with my map-making skills, I couldn’t find a proper path on the 6th Floor.

So, if I followed the trail left by the party, I’d eventually reach the Transfer Stone.

Lady Leah had the Guide ability, so if I traced her path, I’d inevitably arrive at the Transfer Stone’s location.

‘I told them that if we got separated, escaping should be their top priority.’

I hoisted the shrunken Helena onto my shoulder and began tracking the trail.

Moving while checking the discarded torch handles at every turn, I soon started encountering broken traps. Dead monsters, too.

But the further I went, the more something felt off.

“The blocked paths are one thing, but… these traps. Don’t they seem a bit crude?”

“They don’t look like natural labyrinth traps. Someone-or something-must have tampered with them. And for some reason, I feel like we’re being led somewhere.”

Helena felt the same way. Just as we were discussing the oddities, I suddenly sensed movement behind me.

“Fuck-!”

I barely managed to dodge a projectile hurtling toward me.

What the hell? A thorn vine?

“Ulysses?”

At the end of the corridor, something writhed in the darkness.

It looked eerily humanoid.

“No way…”

I launched a hypercube toward the end of the hallway, illuminating the darkness.

As the shadows receded, the figure that had shot the thorn vine at me became clearer.

“Ulysses, what are you doing there…?”

The body of an Alraune came into view.

The only Alraune on the 6th Floor was Ulysses. But something was wrong. Why was there something like a jellyfish attached to his head?

“This is insane.”

“Something’s latched onto his head.”

“What the hell is that?”

What was that mass of flesh clinging to Ulysses’ head?

A bright red lump of flesh was wrapped around his face like a facehugger.

“It looks like some kind of parasite…”

“There’s no monster like that on the 6th Floor.”

Which meant it must be a new one.

If a new monster had appeared, its origin had to be the newly formed area.

“It must have come from the Flesh Zone.”

The newly formed area.

That place was said to be made up of bright red flesh walls.

This thing was probably a derivative of that.

‘If Ulysses got caught, what about the rest of the party…?’

Were there any survivors?

The worst-case scenario was their bodies being completely destroyed.

‘Lady Leah.’

For the others, I could just find them new bodies, but Lady Leah was different.

I hadn’t bound her with a Soul Chain.

If she died and her body was lost, I’d have to search for her soul wandering the labyrinth’s otherworld.

The worst outcome would be the labyrinth’s malice getting its hands on her soul first.

“Tch…”

No time to waste here.

I rushed toward Ulysses, who’d been infested by the parasite.

His curses wouldn’t work on me. The only real danger was the thorn vines.

“Gah-!!”

A thorn vine burst through the wall and coiled around my neck.

It was hard to dodge such an irregular attack.

Schwak!

If I let it be, the vine would wrap around my entire body, so I quickly severed it and fired a barrage of arrows at Ulysses.

The distance was close enough that I could land every arrow I’d prepped in my inventory, and Ulysses-now resembling a porcupine with arrows embedded all over his body-staggered and collapsed.

“Shion…”

As I approached, I heard Ulysses muttering.

Was he still conscious?

“The colony’s… master… is in the Flesh Zone… You have to… kill it…”

“Are you lucid?”

“I’ve been… lucid… the whole time… Feels like my soul’s… being violated… Just kill me… already…”

“Fuck.”

I pulled out an axe and decapitated Ulysses.

Greenish sap splattered as the Alraune’s body slowly began to wither.

“We need to store it in the spatial pouch before it rots. It’s not easy to get another Alraune’s body.”

Following Helena’s advice, I quickly stored the dead Alraune’s body in my inventory. We’d have to take it to the Church to resurrect Ulysses.

I wasn’t sure if the Church could revive a monster’s body, but it’d be a waste to just discard it.

“We should resurrect Ulysses and hear the full story.”

“We do have a golem.”

“Let’s put him in that.”

Right now, we were severely lacking in information.

Rather than wandering around like idiots, it’d be better to stuff Ulysses into a golem body and get some answers.

“Ulysses. Are you lucid?”

“Ugh… My mind’s foggy. Damn goblins… Fucking bastards.”

“Goblins? You mean the Golden Goblins, right?”

“Yeah. Those bastards are the masterminds behind this.”

“Explain in detail what happened.”

At Helena’s urging, Ulysses-now possessing the golem-began recounting the events.

“So, the Golden Goblin King was waiting at the Transfer Stone, and you were attacked, losing your body. Is that it?”

“Yeah. Chloe was the first to go, then me.”

“What about the others?”

“I clearly saw Joshua and Leah escape while Maximus held off the flesh monsters.”

“Maximus must have been caught too.”

“Probably.”

Joshua, being a golem, wouldn’t be infected by the parasites even if attacked, and Lady Leah must have fled quickly enough to survive.

“One more thing. For a brief moment, I was mentally connected to that massive flesh mass.”

“Did you learn anything else?”

“The ones who evolved those things to this extent were the Golden Goblins.”

According to Ulysses, the original ‘Mother’ of the Flesh Zone had an intelligence level no higher than that of a dungeon crawler.

Then the Golden Goblins approached, offering their own heads. After implanting the Golden Goblins’ superior brains, the Mother went berserk.

In simple terms, the hardware was the flesh walls, and the software was the Golden Goblins.

“It didn’t originally have any parasitic abilities. Everything here was created using the Golden Goblins’ brains. Their evolution accelerated dozens of times over.”

“Wow…”

“Worse, the goblins are trying to dominate the entire 6th Floor. They’re deliberately transforming parts of it into flesh walls to use as passageways, spreading their influence everywhere.”

“They’re creating paths only they can use?”

“Exactly. And since the Golden Goblins themselves are mutating within the Flesh Zone… they’ve reached the point where Golden Goblin Kings are being mass-produced.”

“…”

“We need to escape through the Transfer Stone. This isn’t something we can handle alone. We need to assemble an extermination team.”

“Another extermination team…”

“Just like how we cleared the 5th Floor, we need to bring down stronger fighters to purify the 6th Floor. If this continues, even the ancient ruins’ monsters will be absorbed, doubling the difficulty. The enemy is evolving in real time.”

This was insane.

Beyond unfair-this was a complete breakdown of balance.

Why did highly intelligent monsters have to merge with rapidly evolving ones?

Monsters that grow and evolve in real time? This was the worst.

What I hated most was how I was starting to get used to this kind of chaos.

“At least it’s better than the Demon King.”

“Pria, you’re awake?”

Pria, who’d been sleeping inside the bracelet, suddenly popped out.

“Yep. From what I heard, the Church will have to step in again.”

“Seems like it…”

“If we bring all the Saint candidates down, we might stand a chance.”

Pria suggested bringing down Logie and the other two candidates.

“If we push through all the way to the Spirit Tomb, we might find an answer. If the enemy evolves in real time, we’ll just mass-produce Saints in real time too.”

“Would three Saints be enough?”

“More than enough. If I weren’t in this state, I’d have smashed those Golden Goblins to pieces.”

“True…”

If Pria were in her Saint form instead of a bird, she’d be a massive asset. She and Raphael had stopped a giant together-she could probably blow a Golden Goblin King’s head off in one hit.

“For now, let’s prioritize finding Lady Leah and the others and escaping.”

“Agreed.”

Though bound by the Soul Chain, Chloe and Maximus weren’t properly dead yet, so I couldn’t retrieve them.

So, we had to find them. Find them, escape quickly, and then come back down.

‘Originally, this labyrinth expedition was just to scout the 6th Floor’s condition.’

Our top priority wasn’t conquering the 6th Floor but locating the Spirit Tomb.

We’d failed in that, but we’d learned about the 6th Floor’s state. That alone was more than enough progress.

“Let’s get moving.”

“Agreed. I think we’ll find something if we go that way.”

Following Ulysses’ direction, we pressed onward.

Somehow, the operation to rescue Lady Leah had begun.