Chapter 40: Archon Conquest (2)

“Tch.“

The second floor wasn’t much different.

Monsters appeared—I killed them.
If something rare dropped, I picked it up. That was it.

The very definition of grind. Pure manual labor.

To think I’m doing the same grind I used to do in the game, now in real life.
The more I think about it, the funnier it gets.
Ah, now that I think about it… I was grinding even before I got isekai’d, wasn’t I?

“This map is disgustingly big.”

Clicking my tongue, I dragged my heavy legs forward.

If the first floor was a lava zone, then the second floor was a glacier field covered in towering icicles.

But just because the environment looked cold didn’t mean it actually was.
In fact, moving around this much was starting to make me sweat.

Why not cold?

Because the principle is simple.
I’m maintaining my body temperature by coating myself in a thin layer of mana at all times.
Magic really is the ultimate convenience.

“Kiieeek!!”

Most of the monsters here were Ice Walkers—your run-of-the-mill low-grade creatures.
They were weak as hell individually, but a pain to deal with because they constantly swarmed in from all directions.

“Seriously…”

I focused my mind and conjured the image.

As I drew in mana from every part of my body, a magic circle unfolded in the air.

[4-Star Magic: Shockwave]

BOOOM—

A heavy rupture echoed out as the shockwave exploded.

Shockwave is a spell that blasts a shockwave in all directions centered on the caster.
In situations like this, you couldn’t ask for a better solution.

Crack—

One by one, the Ice Walkers’ bodies were pulverized mid-air and scattered like dust, limbs bending grotesquely as they vanished.

No way a bunch of low-tier mobs could endure a Shockwave amplified by maxed-out passive skills and mastery bonuses.

“And again—no drop?”

Is this drop rate for real?

It’s like the higher I go, the worse the rates get.
No wonder people call this a trash game.

“When the hell is the field boss showing up?”

And that’s not even the worst part.
The whole situation just felt… wrong.

It’s not like this is my first time running this dungeon.
Has the second floor field boss ever taken this long to show up?

“…Don’t tell me—something’s changed again?”

Please, anything but another damn butterfly effect.

I moved on, praying silently in my head.

This dungeon doesn’t really have some deep strategy.

You kill the waves of random mobs until the field boss appears, then kill that boss.
Once it’s dead, a path to the next floor opens. That’s the whole routine.

Once the boss is defeated, the corruption progress on that floor drops to 0%, and monsters stop spawning.
So yeah—it’s basically an endurance test.

If you want to clear all five floors, you need not just skill but a good chunk of luck too.

“F*ck.”

But the current situation? Clearly not normal.

I mean, come on—there’s no sign of the field boss at all.

“Judging by the steady mob spawns, there’s definitely a boss somewhere…”

I was finally reaching the point where I needed to start conserving stamina and mana.

Even with my upgraded specs, dealing with wave after wave of monsters without continuous spellcasting just wasn’t possible.

Still, this was suspicious.

This isn’t the fourth floor or something—it’s just the second.
Why is the boss holding out for so long?

A veteran’s intuition screamed at me.

Something’s wrong.

“If I don’t kill the boss, I don’t get a break…”

You have to defeat the field boss in order to open the path to the next floor.
And until you pass through that path, this dungeon offers zero downtime.

Once the corruption rate of a floor hits 0%, it transforms into a completely safe zone, free from monsters.

But again, that only happens after the boss is dead.
Right now, it’s nothing more than a pipe dream.

A creeping sense of dread began to spread through my entire body.

—————————————————————————

[Status]

Name: Luke Richter
Level: 70
Gender: Male
Mana: 5,550 / 12,050

—————————————————————————–

More than half of my mana was already gone—and it was still draining in real time.

Even with Sleepwalking, I couldn’t let my guard down.
After all, the activation conditions I currently knew for Sleepwalking were only sleep and unconsciousness.

Does every form of losing consciousness count as sleep?
Does it matter whether the fainting is voluntary or not?

Naturally, there are still far too many unknowns that need testing.

Crack—

I lashed out with a whip of mana, smashing nearby monsters to bits as I continued trudging forward.

“……”

Both my patience and my mana were running on fumes.

And then—

RUMBLEEEEE—!!

That distinctive tremor in the ground.

No doubt about it—that was the signal that a field boss had appeared.

“Finally…”

It took forever.

Let’s end this in one blow again.

Then I can rest for a day before moving on to the next floor.

I was just finishing that mental checklist when—

The second-floor glacial field boss tore through the air and emerged before me.

So far, so good.

But there was something very wrong with the boss’s appearance.

[Lv 5 / Ice Bone]

“…What the hell is that?”

Its outward appearance matched the Ice Bone I remembered.

But what the hell was with that garbled mess floating above its head?

And even more disturbing was its gaze.

Normally, Ice Bone emits a bright blue glow from its eyes as it breathes frost.

But now?

Its eyes flickered with a deep, blood-red glow, locked directly onto me.

“A bug?”

What is this situation?

There’s no way this is a system bug.
Text only breaks like that when the system is being actively tampered with by a higher authority—like a divine-level power.

“…No way.”

A dangerous thought flashed through my mind.

There’s only one being in this dungeon capable of awakening that kind of authority: Arcon, the demon.

A being that gets stronger the more time passes.
A demon with a low starting point, but an insanely high ceiling.

Arcon is what you’d call a “late bloomer” class demon.

Of course, his early game is so abysmal that most people never see him reach that endgame state.

And the first trigger for Arcon’s awakening—

—is the blossoming of divine authority.

<Authority: Illegal Modification>

Just as it sounds—it’s an authority that allows illegal modification of monsters.

It might not seem like much from the name alone, but in reality, Illegal Modification is considered one of the highest-tier authorities in the game.

In Eterna Online, there’s a system called Enhancement.

You consume resources to upgrade weapons or armor—
one of the core growth mechanics found in every RPG.

Enhancement is supposed to be strictly managed by the system.
Even in-game, only specific NPCs approved by the system can perform it at all.

But Arcon, that bastard—he can enhance without any system approval.

When Arcon’s Authority was first leaked to the community, it caused an absolute uproar.

“Is this just his first awakening…?”

I narrowed my eyes and focused on the monster in front of me.

[Lv 5/ Ice Bone]

Judging by the way only the level is garbled, this is probably just the first stage of awakening.

If that’s the case, he’s still manageable.

No—not just manageable.
I have to kill him here.

“This is insane…”

How did he awaken his Authority already?

It’s way too early.
Could it be… is Pandemonium interfering again?

“Of course. Trash game strikes again.”

Not even surprised anymore.

I summoned all the mana writhing inside my body and pushed it to maximum output, switching to full combat mode.

KRAAAAAH—!!

Ice Bone.

It’s technically a field boss, but stat-wise, it’s barely even worthy of being called a “boss monster.”

As long as you avoid its crowd-control skills using ice magic, it’s basically no different from a beefy mob.

But the one thing that’s off—

The Ice Bone I remember wasn’t this huge.

What kind of modding did he do to bulk it up this much?

“Hoo…”

This kind of bullsh*t is on another level.

Tried to get clever using the Necronomicon, and now it’s all blowing up in my face.

[7-Star Magic: Rune Detonation]

I sat down right where I stood and pressed my palm to the ground, channeling mana into it.

Immediately, a glowing formation etched itself across the floor beneath Ice Bone’s feet.

Rrrrrrrk…

Sensing something off, the creature stomped its foot—

—but it was already too late.

The light bursting from the formation locked his legs in place.

Vwooooom—

My overflowing mana surged into the spell as radiant light poured out of the runes, now floating midair in a web of glowing symbols.

Runes. The language of dragons.

When a mental image is compressed to its absolute limit and fused into mana, it manifests in rune form.

This is the primitive version of what’s known in Eterna Online as Dragon Tongue.

Of course, a rune cast without a proper mental image is essentially just a magic bomb.

Not just any bomb—a nuclear one.

[Mana: 900 / 12,050]

My mana was nearly gone—but that didn’t matter.

In terms of raw destructive power, Rune Detonation is top-tier even among 7-star spells.

Screeeee—

The visions embedded in the runes twisted violently, resonating with the surrounding mana.

The air filled with an ear-piercing screech that dug into my eardrums.

“Die.”

BOOOOOOOM—!!

The blast shook the entire dungeon to its foundations—
a massive explosion of pure mana that swallowed everything in its wake.