In the green space of flesh lit by red light, an eerie atmosphere spread through the air, leaving everyone in Hermes Familia momentarily speechless.
Even Asfi's expression kept shifting, a look of alarmed uncertainty on her face, unable to react in that first instant.
Only Leo, having looked at the room full of flower buds as if looking at some filthy thing, then turned his gaze to the red crystal pillar wrapped in the three Giant Flowers, fixing his eyes on the base of that great pillar.
There, a green orb clung to it, and inside the orb was a fetus with huge open eyes, grim and terrifying.
"A jeweled fetus..."
Leo's hand gripping the black longsword tightened for no clear reason.
He saw it: this orb, just like the three Giant Flowers parasitizing the quartz, was absorbing the great pillar's nourishment.
Only, what it absorbed wasn't the seeping nutrient fluid. Like a fetus drawing nourishment from its mother, it paid no heed to the great quartz pillar, which seemed to be groaning aloud, and fed directly and greedily on the nourishment inside it, twitching and contracting with the movements of the unborn.
The sight was enough to make anyone shudder.
Leo's hand instinctively started to rise, ready to blow it to pieces with a single Meteor Dance.
Unfortunately, a guardian had already stepped out beside that stone pillar.
"...So you made it here after all, adventurers."
The one who spoke thus and slowly walked out of the darkness was the man in white, robed in white with a monster-bone mask over his face.
"Who are you?"
Asfi finally snapped out of it, and the moment she saw the man in white she raised her short sword and demanded an answer.
The rest of Hermes Familia went on guard too.
But the man in white ignored them entirely, only looking at Leo.
"Your reputation truly precedes you, Monster Rookie of Loki Familia, Leo Eligos."
The man in white seemed to have eyes only for Leo, as if he regarded only Leo as a threat and took no notice at all of the rest.
That angered Lulune and the others somewhat, but Asfi wouldn't let them act out, watching quietly instead, as if waiting to seize the moment.
"You know me?"
Leo lifted his head to meet the man in white's gaze and spoke calmly.
"Who could not know you?" The man in white gave a low chuckle as he said, "Rising all the way from Lv.1 to Lv.5 in less than three months, and twice defeating a Floor Boss in what was near enough a solo challenge... is there anyone in the whole lower world who hasn't heard your name?"
"Is that so?" Leo said, his words carrying a deeper meaning. "But your companion doesn't seem to know me very well."
Leo was of course referring to Revis.
You could tell from the way Revis behaved: she didn't know Leo at all, didn't even know Ais, or she wouldn't have kept calling her "Aria."
That was clearly very abnormal.
With Leo and Ais's fame, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say both were known throughout the lower world; an ordinary person might not manage to recognize them on a first meeting, but who among those who worked the Dungeon could fail to recognize them?
These days Leo would be recognized even with a hood on hiding his face, let alone Ais, who was famous for her beauty to begin with.
So this was, in effect, him mocking the other side for being ignorant.
"Forgive her. She has no interest in the world above, after all, and has spent all her time down in the Dungeon, rarely coming into contact with the outside." The man in white shrugged, not defending his companion in the slightest, and instead joined in the mockery, "I'm different. I'm well aware of your affairs, and I know just how great a threat you are.
"Especially you, Leo Eligos."
The man in white pointed at Leo, his voice turning full of malice.
"You've grown too fast, reaching your current level almost in the blink of an eye. I truly can't imagine how terrifying you'd become if you were given more time.
"This is an opportunity too.
"If we can wipe you out here, our plan will have one less enormous threat to it."
Hearing this, Asfi finally spoke.
"What plan do you have? And what are you about to do?"
That forceful demand made the man in white glance at her.
"I have no obligation to clear things up for you, Perseus, and I have no interest in you whatsoever. I'd advise you not to go poking your nose into other people's business."
With that, the man in white snapped his fingers, and an abnormal stirring appeared all around.
First were the flower buds hanging on the walls; they began to split open rapidly, dropping gaudy, multicolored monsters onto the ground with grating cries.
Every one of these flower buds held a Viola.
Then a group of black-robed men, wearing large robes that covered their upper bodies and headscarves with brow-guards, emerged all together from the darkness, surrounding the whole of Hermes Familia and giving off a vicious, murderous aura toward them.
"Wh-who are these people?!"
Lulune and the others cried out, faces wary, backing up against one another to form a defensive formation, squaring off against the crowd of black-robed men who had surrounded them.
Leo looked at these people too, and as if suddenly remembering something, opened his mouth in warning.
"Careful, they're Evilus."
The moment those words came out, all of Hermes Familia was stunned.
"What?"
"Evilus?"
"Evilus actually showing up?"
"How is that possible?"
Everyone cried out in shock together, only to meet, the very next second, the attack of this crowd of people radiating a dangerous aura.
"Kill!"
"Kill them!"
"Offer up their lives to our noble god!"
The black-robed men shouted at the top of their voices, then charged this way.
They charged in a very crude, direct manner, the very picture of reckless bravery with no strategy, let alone any coordination with one another, rushing at Leo's group like a rabble of scattered stragglers, and anyone experienced could tell at a glance just how amateurish they were.
The people of Hermes Familia saw this too, and immediately judged that this crowd of black-robed men wasn't strong, with barely a few upper-class adventurers among them, mostly just weaklings and nobodies, nothing to worry about at all.
So they instinctively fought back.
The vanguard shield-bearers braced against the incoming blades and kicked and punched these black-robed men over, the middle-guard skirmishers snatched away the enemy's weapons in a couple of moves, and even the rearguard Mages tried to fend them off with bow-work or staff-work, easily knocking down their opponents, beating the whole black-robed crowd into a pitiful state.
That made the people of Hermes Familia let out a collective breath and let their guard down.
Then Leo scolded them without mercy.
"I told you to be careful! Didn't you hear me?!"
Startled awake by Leo's rebuke, everyone finally noticed something was wrong.
Those black-robed men they'd knocked down were each falling into a state of either daze or frenzy, tearing open the clothes on their bodies.
Beneath their black robes, without a single exception, they were all wound with brightly colored gems.
They were vivid red gems, as if flame had been sealed inside them.
Seeing these vivid red gems, never mind the rest of Hermes Familia, even Asfi stopped breathing.
"Flame Stones!"
As a master magic-item maker, Asfi recognized the origin of these vivid red gems at a glance.
This was a drop item that could only be taken from a monster dwelling in the Deep Floors region, the Flame Rock.
The Flame Rock was a monster dwelling in the volcanic zone on Floors 44 to 48, the Crimson Mountains, possessing a fearsome explosive-flame attack, classified at Lv.4.
The items dropped from these monsters, even as unprocessed flesh, carried strong flammable and explosive properties.
The Flame Stone was an especially famous type among the drop items you could obtain this way, and because of its considerable burning and explosive properties, many high-level smiths needed to use it when forging armaments, but because it also carried a certain destructiveness and danger, the Guild restricted its circulation, and only those who had applied and gained the Guild's permission could use it legally.
And now, such items were strung together like beads and wound around these black-robed men's bodies.
What did they mean to do?
What were they about to do?
Asfi felt a sense of crisis almost instantly, and let out a sharp cry, her lovely face draining of color.
"Fall back, now!"
But her warning came too late. The black-robed men were already moving.
"O god, I shall obey the covenant and offer this life up to you..."
One black-robed man moved first, yanking hard at a small box connected to a fuse at his waist, igniting the magic-stone igniter.
The others immediately followed.
"Bless your foolish children!"
"The world after death is our true wish!"
"Offer up your loyalty to our patron god!"
"Forgive my sins!"
"Let this sacrifice settle my crimes!"
"Ah, ah, o god."
Amid cry after cry, they tore open their black robes one after another, exposing the Flame Stones wound around them, and lit them without the slightest hesitation, red light blossoming in succession.
The next moment...
The first black-robed man to light his Flame Stones burst apart, throwing up a pillar of fire to the heavens.
One after another, the black-robed men who had lit their Flame Stones burst apart, their whole bodies swallowed by explosive flame amid a deafening roar, setting off one great explosion after another.
Watching the fire so close at hand, many of Hermes Familia's people went blank in the head, with no time at all to dodge.
At the critical moment, a figure swept in at astonishing speed, kicking them all flying one by one, and only then did they avoid the explosions rushing at them head-on and escape being swallowed by the flames.
"Everyone, get out!"
Leo grabbed Lulune by the scruff of the neck and, ignoring her yelp, hurled her flying, then shouted at the top of his voice.
Only then did the people of Hermes Familia, faces ashen, turn and run, not daring to stay where they were.
But the remaining black-robed men seemed to have gone mad, each casting aside his own life like a worn-out shoe, charging at the people of Hermes Familia.
Grand explosions kept going, sending scorched limbs flying every which way.
That scene was like hell itself.
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