kscans

Chapter 613 - At the Bottom of the Earth

It’s one thing for the ground to crack and split, but for the floor to shatter and for us to fall means there’s a large space below. That’s to be expected, but—

“What kind of structure is this place…!?”

“I don’t know, but it was a similar feeling on the way back here!!!”

“There’s so much we don’t know!”

Thrown from the chamber as not just the floor but the entire ceiling shattered at once, we descended along with the debris of the boss area into a vertical shaft of such ridiculous scale that even the term ‘great cavern’ couldn’t do it justice.

Of course, underground, where no sunlight reaches, should have been pitch black.

We had been able to see in the passages and the boss room simply because the shells of the moles, which had similar properties to the `Gemlant Army`, were acting as a light source. They were still falling with us now, illuminating our immediate vicinity, but the pitch-black bottom was completely invisible.

“Hey, how far down does this—”

Even for someone who can fly, I needed to have an accurate sense of the distance to the ground to avoid an accident upon landing. If the environment was similar to the one Lux had descended through, then there should be another layer… but my hasty question was cut off by the roar of the wind.

“Hyaah!”

As always, she was chantingless. A special player skill belonging to the highest tier of techniques, Lux activated her magic with a single shout, whipping up a gale.

It caught the massive amount of debris that was accompanying us on our journey to the bottom of the earth. The light-source shells were shot downwards at high speed, and the faint light illuminated the path ahead—ah, I could see it.

And I could see them too.

“Tch…—Sen!”

“Uwah?!”

As we fell, I sent a shadow thread to my self-proclaimed reinforcement, who had been separated from me, and pulled her in. I then secured her to my right arm, which I could only move clumsily, as if cradling her.

She was going on about being a lady or something, but that must have been my imagination. Holding the [Traveler] like a sack of rice…

[Rocket] ignition. And [Eyes Oculus] activation.

I kicked off the void towards the endpoint I had caught in my sight, and in that instant, a brilliant light, incomparable to the faint glow of the shells, raced through the vertical shaft.

Another—no, four other companions were falling with the debris. An enthusiastic approach from the group of [Feidran Tyrantinus], who seemed to be furious that their nest had been destroyed.

To put it mildly, it was a scene from hell.

The countless spread lasers fired from four maws filled the vertical shaft, a sight that even I would have found hopeless to evade without the attack prediction of my silver left eye… and I had one thought.

“You… how did you survive repeating this three times?!”

“Well, we didn’t really fight seriously, so everyone wasn’t this worked up, and… hey, Har-kun, I’m a girl, you know. Isn’t this a bit rough?”

“Bite your tongue and shut up!”

Kicking off the air, off the debris, off the walls in a pinball-like maneuver.

While Lux complained, she settled into my arms as if to say, “Now I’m safe,” and let out a carefree voice. Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to control my body, which was far from its best condition after the fierce battle.

And so, after what felt like ten seconds of dancing through the air as we fell from top to bottom…

“Which way?!”

“That way!”

I kicked off the ‘floor’ of the endpoint I had finally stepped on and leaped into the darkness of a horizontal hole—a bit too large to be called a crack in the wall—that Lux was pointing to. A few seconds later…

A violent sound and impact, enough to make a real person lose consciousness, exploded behind us. The mass of four giant dragons shook the earth, and the rage of four giant dragons shook the air—

“They’re…—coming after us, aren’t they?!”

The sound of four giant dragons’ footsteps exploded into a run, chasing after their fleeing foe.

“What’s with them, suddenly getting along?! They should be fighting like before!”

“Oh, that’s just how it is. The master of the ‘room’ seems to have a thing against ‘intruders,’ no matter if they’re the same species or not. If I led another one in, they’d turn on it in order of threat level, but after the room was destroyed, they all seemed to go, ‘This is your fault!’…”

“A perfectly reasonable rage!!!”

They must be too focused on chasing the hated bugs, because they weren’t using the ‘eye’ attack that would stop them in their tracks, which was a saving grace.

I wasn’t sure if they lacked the intelligence to have one stop us while the others pursued, or if they were just blinded by rage—but either way, it was convenient for me.

Don’t think you can catch me in a simple game of tag, you moles!

“So?! Is this going to repeat forever?!”

“No way! The ‘path’ is shining super bright! This is probably—”

As we raced through the vast horizontal tunnel, steadily pulling away from the tsunami of giant dragons, Lux, still clinging to my right arm, stopped mid-sentence.

And the silence was only for a moment.

“—Har-kun, here! Down!”

She tugged on my clothes as if to stop me, pointing straight down.

“What’s down?!”

“We’re going down! Break through the floor!”

“Tch… If you say so, then…”

I tossed Lux, who had given the order, aside and at the same time summoned the massive [Gravidon] hammer. Thanks to the cheat that is [Naraka Gandharva], I threw it straight up with one left hand and connected a shadow thread to it.

[Ignition] ignited. And furthermore—

“It means we can break through, right?!”

From just below the ceiling, the expanding and contracting thread slammed the monster hammer down onto the ground. The moment it touched the earth, I pulled the trigger on the handle with my shadow fingertips, activating the weapon gimmick, ‘Ignition’. The impact was less than the great fall earlier, but I was confident that the pinpoint force was greater. A heavy blow exploded.

“Sen…!”

“I told you, that’s rough!”

I re-secured Lux to my right arm, shielding her from the flying debris, and continued downwards.

Our bodies, swallowed by the floor that the war hammer had shattered and pierced, were once again sent flying through the air.

Not into darkness, but into a dazzling light.

“ “—…” ”

An abnormal situation where the [Traveler], along with me, was at a loss for words.

Breaking through the final floor, which was likely the true ‘endpoint,’ the two of us reached the bottom layer. The scale of the caves, chambers, and passages we had been through seemed minuscule in comparison to this otherworldly vastness.

In this ridiculous space, which rivaled or even surpassed the great basins where the ‘Colored Monsters’ sat enthroned…

We came face to face with it.

Even though we were looking down on it from the sky, having broken through the ceiling, I was certain that it was the one in a higher position.

It was like an ‘egg’—no, that’s not it.

A ‘cocoon’—no, there’s a more fitting expression.

It was a living thing in itself.

Its form, which pulsed as if it were a body awaiting its emergence, was—

“A chrysalis…?”

Lux’s dazed whisper was likely the correct answer.

A white-green majesty, filling the entire underground space that must have been several kilometers in diameter.

And so, as the tiny players held their breath, swallowed by its presence, in their vision—

[Novem, Earth-Governing Dragon]

By the hand of the system, the name of that being was displayed, inorganic and cold.

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There are two types of beings in Arcadia that bear the name ‘Dragon’.