Following One After Another, Abnormal Situation

The monsters before the two of them had all been annihilated.

The glow of magic behind Liber gradually faded away.

Looking at the wreckage scattered across the ground, Liber let out a slow breath.

He felt the girl behind him gasping for air and turned around to look at her.

Lefiya's face appeared somewhat weak and weary.

"I told you, you could do it if you put your mind to it," Liber said to the somewhat frail Lefiya.

Lefiya, who had been looking pale and listless, felt a blush creep onto her face upon hearing Liber's words.

Liber examined her strained expression and sighed.

He asked with concern, "That magic just now was incredibly powerful; is your mental strength holding up?"

"Actually, I'm fine," Lefiya replied, though her expression clearly showed she was forcing herself.

"Thanks to you, Liber, I didn't have to use much magic along the way, so I still have some mental energy left even now."

"Well, don't push yourself too hard," Liber said with a sense of relief. "It's a good thing you were well-prepared."

"Here is your pack; I didn't feel it was right to rummage through it."

Liber retrieved the backpack Lefiya had prepared from his storage space and continued.

"Find some medicine and recover as soon as you can."

"We've temporarily escaped the crisis, but we are still inside the Dungeon. It's not safe here, so we need to hurry."

Lefiya nodded obediently at Liber's words, crouched down, and began searching through her pack.

Liber watched as Lefiya started looking for the potions.

He shifted his gaze to scan the surroundings, preparing to clear the messy scene before them.

Surveying the carnage, he used magic to retrieve the arrows he had fired at the monsters—whether intact or broken—directly back into his storage space.

During the retrieval process, he also collected the Magic Stone dropped by the War Shadow into his storage.

After Lefiya used her magic to wipe out the large group of War Shadow, a significant number of special items, which usually had a low drop rate, were scattered across the floor.

As the "Newbie Killer," the most distinct drop from a War Shadow is the pair of claws on its hands, reinforced by magic; their formal name is War Shadow Finger Blade.

These drops can be used in various weapon forging and equipment crafting to enhance hardness and mana conductivity, making them quite valuable.

However, only a small portion of the claws Liber had severed earlier remained on the ground after slightly changing form; the rest had vanished along with the monsters' demise.

Monster drops are a matter of probability; even if you dismantle a Dungeon monster completely, its limbs will disappear once it dies.

Liber felt the accumulation of War Shadow Finger Blade in his personal storage and recalled the sense of crisis he felt when the sharp claws crossed paths in the middle of the monster swarm.

He gave a secret, wry smile; it was better to encounter fewer of these frightening windfalls.

"Here, Liber, you should take a bottle too."

Liber, who was busy retrieving items with his storage space, was suddenly interrupted.

A small hand reached out in front of him, holding a potion of a peculiar color.

Following the arm, he saw Lefiya holding a potion bottle in each hand, offering the one in her right hand to him.

"You used magic frequently, so you must have consumed quite a bit. You should take this one."

Liber looked at her and declined.

"No need. My magic consumption is relatively low, so I'm still fine for now. I just need to rest for a moment to recover my stamina."

At this, the previously shy and nervous Lefiya suddenly and forcefully shoved the potion into Liber's arms and lowered her hand.

Liber watched her let go and scrambled to catch the bottle.

Lefiya gripped the other potion in her hand and said earnestly, "You must drink it, or I won't drink mine either."

Liber looked at her, noting her newfound confidence compared to before, and after a brief pause, he nodded at her with a smile.

He watched as Lefiya raised her potion bottle and downed the mana potion in one go.

Liber took his own bottle, gave it a shake, looked at the strange liquid inside, and drank it as well.

He felt the mental fatigue ease and his mental strength and mana slowly return, marveling at the potency of the potion.

In this world, mana is often directly linked to mental strength; the more powerful the magic, the greater the toll on the mind.

If a person overdraws their mental strength, they might even suddenly faint or lose their sanity.

Therefore, for a mage, keeping a constant watch on their mental threshold to avoid losing combat capability due to overexertion is a vital part of adventuring.

After both had finished their potions, he looked at Lefiya, who had no other needs, and tucked the pack back into his storage space.

He said to Lefiya, "Let's call it a day."

"It's almost evening now. We only intended to get used to working together on the fifth floor today, but then we ran into this situation."

"Since this is our first time teaming up and we encountered such an emergency, it's safer to head back the way we came."

"Lefiya, what do you think?"

Liber asked for Lefiya's opinion as he spoke.

"Ah? Right, no problem." Lefiya's complexion gradually recovered, and having no objections, she nodded in response.

With their opinions aligned, the two began walking in the direction of the surface.

However, they hadn't taken more than a few steps when they felt the ground begin to shake again, causing both of them to grow vigilant.

"Wh-what... what is happening now?"

Lefiya asked nervously, straining to observe her surroundings in an attempt to find the cause of the tremors.

Liber also frowned, probing for the source of the vibrations.

"This direction is... behind us!" He realized where the shaking was coming from.

He whipped his head around and discovered that from the direction the War Shadow had charged from, a series of muffled, thunder-like footsteps were approaching.

Just like before, dust was kicked up, and the dense sound of footsteps grew steadily louder.

Liber prepared himself vigilantly, drawing his weapon to prevent any accidents while nudging the still-tense Lefiya beside him to remind her to get ready.

Feeling Liber's light nudge, Lefiya quickly calmed down, staring intently at the movement ahead from behind him.

The two watched together as the commotion grew even greater than before.

Their expressions gradually turned grim.

Compared to the tall group of War Shadow from earlier, what they could now clearly see before them was a dense swarm of insect monsters.

A group of insects with hard shells crawled along the ground, advancing in their direction.

The surface of the insects' bodies displayed a metallic, reddish luster.

Their mouths were two guillotine-like mandibles, their six legs moved nimbly across the ground, and their upper bodies possessed four sickle-like insect hooks.

The overall appearance was similar to a red ant magnified several dozen times.

These were the Killer Ant that primarily inhabited the 7th floor.

Monsters with individual bodies comparable to a teenager in size, they were skilled killers that could summon companions and coordinate in group actions.

However, the number appearing before the two was simply too astonishing; from their perspective, it looked like an endless red ocean.

Amidst the advancing Killer Ant was a strange individual monster.

This individual appeared to be a Killer Ant magnified another four or five times, with a body length comparable to four or five adults stacked together, and a tail so massive it accounted for the majority of its body.

Surrounding it were seven or eight strange individuals flapping their wings; these strange individuals had slightly longer bodies than the regular Killer Ant, and the sharp claws on their upper bodies were significantly thicker.

Liber looked at the monsters he had never seen in the records and the sheer, massive quantity of them.

He groaned in agony, "A true anomaly has appeared."

The Killer Ant of the 7th floor had jumped floors on a massive scale.