The Threat Still Closing In

This was a spectacular bombing.

Countless meteors streaked across the night sky like a Meteor Shower, blasting the worm-like monsters charging towards Leo into oblivion. Even the dissolving liquid splattering from the monsters' bodies evaporated, causing the entire cavern to tremble under the bombardment of the meteors.

After blasting the worm monster, the meteors continued their trajectory, falling onto the ground, walls, and even the ceiling, creating craters in their wake.

In an instant, dust flew up and stones filled the air. The entire cave shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck, as if the earth had cracked and mountains had collapsed.

Aside from Ais, who was standing in front of Leo, and Lefiya Viridis, who was being held in his arms, Tiona and Tione, who were still entangled with the worm monster, were almost caught in the crossfire of this indiscriminate bombardment.

"Whoa! That's dangerous!"

"No—watch out!"

The Amazonian twins frantically dodged the incoming meteors, looking extremely dangerous. In reality, these meteors would automatically deviate from their paths as they approached, avoiding a direct hit. Otherwise, with such a dense barrage of attacks, the twins might not have been able to dodge them all.

And so, countless worm monsters were killed by Leo's magic, and evaporated along with the dissolving liquid, turning a crisis into nothing.

"Call----"

Leo, holding Lefiya Viridis in his arms, finally let out a breath, a look of barely suppressed exhaustion appearing in his eyes.

Clearly, such a wide-range magical attack, even just increasing the number of attacks without increasing firepower, had already drained a significant amount of Leo's mental energy.

Are you alright?

Ais then turned around, half-squatting beside Leo, supporting him, and asked softly.

"Here, I'll give you the elixir!"

Seeing the undisguised exhaustion in Leo's eyes, Lefiya Viridis was startled and quickly and awkwardly broke free from Leo's embrace, taking out a magic potion from her person.

This is a specially made high-grade magic potion, and its effect on replenishing mental energy is even better than the high-quality magic potion that Leo had previously prepared for use in the main battle on the floor.

"Thanks."

Leo didn't refuse; he took the elixir and downed it in one gulp.

"Wow, that magic was amazing!" Tiona leaned closer, looking at Leo, and said excitedly, "It took care of so many monsters at once! Its attack range felt even greater than Riveria's magic!"

"Your magic is indeed convenient," Tione exclaimed in admiration. "A spell that can increase the number of attacks at will—as long as you're willing to use your mental energy, its attack range is probably even greater than many large-scale, wide-area annihilation spells."

"The prerequisite is being willing to expend mental energy." Leo tossed away the empty bottle of the elixir, and said with a wry smile, "Just that one shot evaporated more than 80% of my mental energy, far exceeding the consumption of upgrading my firepower to Lv.6."

There was no other way. In order to eliminate all the worm monsters in one go, Leo had to use too many extra attacks with his magic this time. He had just launched at least a thousand meteors. It was only because Leo had undergone systematic learning and learned more efficient ways to use his mental energy that he hadn't been completely drained. Otherwise, given his previous condition, using this magic would probably have left him mentally exhausted.

"I'm so sorry," Lefiya Viridis said dejectedly, her voice trembling with disappointment. "It's all because of me that you—"

The elven girl took all the blame upon herself.

After all, those worm monsters were clearly after the Magic Stone she was carrying, and she had performed so poorly that she couldn't even escape, forcing Leo to come and save her.

If it weren't for me, he probably wouldn't have acted so recklessly.

"What are you saying?" Leo glanced at Lefiya Viridis and said, "Isn't it common sense to prioritize protecting rear-guard Mage on the battlefield?"

The implication was that his saving her was simply a matter of course.

"But you're a defensive Mage too."

Lefiya Viridis said it instinctively.

"I was just assigned to the position of a rear-guard Mage when the clan was fighting as a group. My main job is a magic swordsman, a center-back who can go to the front line. Whether it's supporting the front or the back, it's something I can do or should do."

Leo had regained much of his strength, stood up, patted Lefiya Viridis on the shoulder, and said this.

"Alright, stop dwelling on it. It's all in the past now. Let's get down to business."

Upon hearing Leo's words, Ais and the others, who were still trying to comfort Lefiya Viridis, immediately realized what was happening.

"Yes! We still need to collect spring water!"

Tiona quickly looked around, then her eyes lit up and she pointed in one direction.

"Over there!"

Everyone immediately looked in the direction Tiona was pointing.

In the deepest corner of the dilapidated, pitted cave dwelling, a clear spring flowed quietly, beautiful in its own right.

On the wall beside it, a mysterious spring with a deep blue glow slowly flows down from a crack, accumulating in a low-lying area overgrown with flowers and grass, forming a beautiful spring with rippling waves. The water is clear and blue, and just looking at it makes people feel refreshed.

"Fortunately, the spring was not damaged."

Tione breathed a sigh of relief.

She was genuinely worried that Cadmus's fountain might have been destroyed during the fierce battle between Cadmus and the worm monster, or perhaps by Leo's map-wide magic attack. In that case, their trip would have been in vain.

There are many more.

Ais retrieved her Desperate, shook off the dissolving liquid that had clung to it, then went to the spring to observe it before uttering these words.

"I... I'll do it!"

Desperate to make even the slightest difference, Lefiya Viridis composed herself, hurriedly retrieved the backpack Leo had thrown away, and ran to the spring.

It's fortunate that the backpacks weren't damaged, otherwise everyone would have made a wasted trip.

The water of Cadmus Spring needs to be contained in a special container to maintain its efficacy; otherwise, its effects will dissipate over time, eventually turning into useless water.

The specially made container was now lying in her backpack. Lefiya Viridis took out bottles one by one and began to draw water from the spring.

Originally, the water from the spring would be drunk up by the Strong Dragon Cadmus as soon as it gushed out, so even if someone came here to collect the water, they could usually only collect a little bit. That's why Finn decided to go to both Cadmus Spring at the same time and collect water from both springs to make up the required amount.

But this time, the Strong Dragon Cadmus was dealt with by the worm monster first, so Lefiya Viridis immediately filled her cup with the amount of spring water specified by the adventurer's request, making her expression slightly complicated.

"Speaking of which, what are those worm monsters?" Tiona guarded Lefiya in boredom, frowning, and asked in confusion, "When did that kind of monster appear on the 51st floor? Is it really a new species?"

"----Who knows." Tione twirled the remaining recurve knife, pursing her lips. "Maybe it came up from a lower floor?"

"Impossible!" Tiona retorted immediately. "We've been to the 58th Floor, you know. There aren't any monsters like that in floors 52-58. Could they have come up from the 59th Floor, which we haven't been to?"

That's certainly unlikely.

Monsters do cross floors and run to other floors, but most of them only move around on specific floors. At most, one or two might accidentally wander into another floor. It's generally unlikely that monsters will run to other floors in groups.

Furthermore, when monsters go to other floors, they usually only move within a few floors above and below their current floor, and they don't cross multiple floors at once.

There are seven floors between the 59th Floor and 51st Floor.

Crossing seven or eight floors in one go is virtually impossible.

"It's only almost, not entirely impossible," Tione said impatiently. "The Dungeon isn't a place where everything is governed by rules; anything can happen here. Perhaps this is an unusual situation?"

"That's too unusual! A large group of creatures, seemingly a new species of monster, killed the Strong Dragon and devoured its Magic Stone. Could it be that an Enhanced Species race has really emerged in the Dungeon?" Tiona looked at Ais and asked, "Ais, what do you think?"

Ais shook her head and said nothing.

She simply watched Lefiya Viridis drawing water from the spring, then looked at Leo, her mind filled with a myriad of thoughts.

Unaware of the women's conversation, Leo was currently examining a piece of skin in his hand.

It was Cadmus's skin.

"This stuff is too good to pass up."

That's what Leo thought.

Although they hadn't picked up any of the dropped items along the way to the 51st Floor, Cadmus's membrane was an extremely rare item worth over ten million Valis. If they didn't pick it up, it wouldn't just be a waste, it would be foolish.

So Leo retrieved Cadmus's skin and put it into Lefiya Viridis's backpack.

"Let's leave as soon as we've collected the water," Leo said. "Those worm monsters might reappear; we'd better go back to the base and report."

"W-what?" Lefiya Viridis, having finished filling the spring water container, exclaimed in surprise upon hearing Leo's words, "Are those monsters still around?"

"Otherwise what?" Leo reminded him, "Have you forgotten that the 51st Floor has been unusually quiet all day?"

A single sentence instantly sparked a flash of inspiration in everyone's minds.

"You mean—the reason why the 51st Floor is so quiet today is because of those worm monsters?"

Tione's expression changed drastically.

Leo didn't answer but asked a question in return.

"Since they can even target Cadmus's Magic Stone, do you think those worm monsters will ignore all the monsters and Magic Stone on the 51st Floor?"

Everyone fell silent, a chill creeping into their hearts.

Recalling how many fewer monsters they had encountered on their journey to this level compared to previous visits, the group finally understood where all the missing monsters had gone.

They were definitely eaten by those worm monsters.

The 51st Floor is larger than the entire Orario area, yet there are so few monsters along the way. How could there only be such a small number of worm monsters hunting there?

The monsters on the 51st Floor spawn at very short intervals and in large numbers. The fact that no new monsters have been spawned since they arrived, resulting in a significant decrease in the monster population, proves that this hunting is still proceeding at a very rapid pace.

Therefore, there must be many worm monsters hunting in the current 51st Floor, otherwise this phenomenon would never occur.

Furthermore----

"If those worm-like monsters really came from the lower floors, could they continue climbing upwards towards our base?"

Leo's words, one after another, made the girls' faces change color.

"Also, we've encountered worm monsters here, what about the guild leader's side?"

Upon hearing this, the women could no longer remain seated.

"Stop talking!" Tione growled, his face ashen. "We're going back right now!"

Unfortunately, this decision came too late.

"Ah!!!"

Suddenly, a piercing scream rang out, echoing throughout the entire 51st Floor and reaching the ears of Leo and the others.

The pain of the scream caused everyone, including Leo, to change their expressions drastically.

"That voice was...!"

Lefiya Viridis's face turned pale instantly.

"Raul!"

Tiona and Tione spoke at the same time, their faces contorted in pain.

Without a word, Leo and Ais launched themselves into the air and instantly rushed out of the cave.

"Commander!"

Tione let out a scream no better than before, and surprisingly burst out with unprecedented speed, leaving Leo and Ais, who had rushed out of the cave ahead of her, far behind.

"Etc----!"

"Miss Ais! Miss Tione!"

Tiona and Lefiya Viridis quickly followed.

The group of five ran at top speed, leaving behind even the monsters they encountered along the way, and rushed towards the direction from which the sound came.

Before long, everyone spotted their target.

"Commander!"

Finn!

"Old man!"

"Mr. Bete Loga!"

Yes, they met the members of the first group.

Finn, Gareth, and Bete Loga were rushing towards them, while Raul had just screamed, lay on Bete Loga's back, looking like he was on the verge of death.

Finn and the others also saw Leo and his group of five, but they did not stop.

"Run!"

Finn shouted in an unprecedentedly urgent voice, causing Leo and the others' expressions to change repeatedly.

Without any hesitation, Leo and the others turned around and started a new round of running.

Because they all saw that a large group of yellowish-green monsters were chasing after Finn and the others.

They jostled and pushed against each other, shaking up and down as they moved forward. Their enormous bodies collided with the four-meter-high ceiling several times, shearing off several pieces of the ceiling. Their width was almost equal to the two ends of the road. It was as if countless insects were crowding outwards, a truly disgusting sight.

Leo and the others were already familiar with those monsters.

"There really are these worms! Aa..."

Tiona let out a scream of despair and fled for her life along with the others.