Asfi disappeared down the passage before the echo of Lulune's scream had fully faded.
Talaria carried her several meters above the ground, blue light trailing beneath her feet as she accelerated through the narrow tunnel with none of her usual caution.
Rayleigh caught up quickly enough to see the problem.
"Asfi, slow down. If they took her alive before, charging into whatever is ahead may be exactly what they want."
Her jaw tightened, but she listened.
Talaria lost some altitude as she reduced her speed, allowing Ais and Rayleigh to take the front while Tsubaki stayed close behind.
Anakitty followed with a visible limp, refusing every glance Rayleigh sent toward the blood beginning to seep through the bandage around her thigh.
Nobody wasted time arguing with her.
The scream had stopped.
That worried Asfi more than hearing another one would have.
The passage narrowed until only two people could move side by side, then opened without warning into a long cavern illuminated by clusters of blue Dungeon crystal.
Weapons covered the floor. Swords, spears, axes, daggers, shattered shields, and broken bows had been arranged in rows rather than abandoned randomly.
Some were rusted enough to have been collected months ago, while others still carried fresh blood.
Tsubaki slowed when she recognized several Hephaestus markings among them.
"They've been gathering equipment for a long time."
Rayleigh crouched beside a snapped spear.
The shaft had dozens of small impact marks along exactly the same section, and another sword nearby had been worn almost smooth near the guard.
"They've also been using it."
Ais looked toward the cavern wall.
Several humanoid Enhanced Species stood in front of it, and none attacked.
One repeated the same sword strike against the stone over and over, correcting the angle slightly each time.
Another worked through a spear thrust, withdrawal, and low sweep in a stiff sequence, while a third held an adventurer's shield and practiced moving behind it before striking around the edge.
They were training.
Rayleigh had seen monsters copy adventurers before, but those creatures had learned because survival rewarded imitation.
These monsters were practicing after the battle ended!
One of them noticed the group.
Its head turned, and every other monster stopped at almost the same moment.
Asfi's hand disappeared beneath her cloak and emerged holding three small metal spheres.
"Where is Lulune?"
The monsters did not answer, of course.
One raised its sword, and the others moved with it.
Ais drew Gonryōmaru. Rayleigh put a hand against her arm before she released it.
"Sealed blades first. They haven't seen everything we can do, and I'd prefer to keep it that way."
Ais nodded once.
Tsubaki drew Tobiume but kept Shikai sealed, and Rayleigh kept Benihime sealed as well.
The first monster attacked.
Its swordsmanship was technically respectable, which made the fight stranger.
It approached Tsubaki with measured steps, waited until she committed to a downward cut, then slid outside the edge and drove its stolen blade toward her ribs.
Tsubaki twisted her torso and caught the attack against Tobiume's guard.
The monster changed its grip at once.
Tsubaki's visible eye narrowed.
"That wasn't Raul move."
Rayleigh saw it too.
The movement was different from the techniques used by the Enhanced Species at the barricade.
Someone else had taught this one, whether willingly or simply by surviving in front of it.
Tsubaki shoved the creature away and abandoned clean swordsmanship, switching to the brutally direct style Rayleigh had watched her use during the Great Feud, turning Tobiume into little more than a heavy piece of steel backed by a Level Five's strength.
The monster tried to parry.
Tsubaki broke its sword, and her follow-up strike caved in the side of its head and sent it tumbling through a pile of discarded weapons.
"That's the problem with stealing technique from adventurers. You still need the body to survive it."
Three more came at her.
Rayleigh intercepted two.
Benihime met the first sword near the hilt and knocked it downward, while his free hand caught the second monster across the throat with a Reiatsu-reinforced palm strike.
He deliberately gave them nothing elegant to study.
A knee broke one balance, an elbow ruined another, and when the first creature tried to imitate his close-range movement immediately afterward, it stepped too deep and collided with its companion. Rayleigh cut both across the chest.
'Still the same weakness.'
They learned movements quickly, but they had no accumulated instincts beneath them.
Every adventurer carried thousands of tiny corrections learned from injuries, bad footing, cramped tunnels, fatigue, different opponents, and mistakes made over years.
The monsters were collecting the answers without understanding the questions.
Anakitty entered from Rayleigh's right.
Her injured leg prevented the explosive footwork she had used earlier, so she changed her approach completely, letting one Enhanced Species believe the limp had left her unable to retreat.
She waited until it committed to the opening, then caught its weapon on her shield and cut through the wrist.
The creature stared at the severed hand almost curiously.
Anakitty drove her sword through its chest.
"You watched me fight for hours and somehow missed the part where I lie."
The magic stone broke.
The monster dissolved around her blade.
Asfi had still not joined the melee. Rayleigh noticed her eyes moving constantly across the chamber rather than following individual fights.
She was searching.
Then she saw something.
"Back wall. Above the weapons."
Ais followed her gaze.
A narrow ledge ran along the upper section of the cavern, nearly hidden behind thick columns of Dungeon stone.
Two people had been bound against it.
Lulune hung from one set of restraints with her head lowered and one side of her clothing torn open around a bloodied shoulder.
Several meters away, the missing Hephaestus smith was still conscious enough to struggle weakly against restraints around his arms.
Neither was alone.
A large Enhanced Species crouched between them. Unlike the others, it carried no stolen weapon.
It simply watched.
Another monster stood in front of Lulune with a dagger and drew the blade across her already injured arm.
Lulune jerked awake with a hoarse cry.
The observer tilted its head, and the dagger-wielding monster stepped back.
Then the large creature picked up another dagger from the ledge and reproduced the cut.
Same angle. Same depth. Almost the same speed.
Tsubaki's expression changed completely.
"They're using them as practice targets."
Asfi moved. Rayleigh barely caught the edge of her cloak before Talaria launched her upward.
"Wait. Look beneath the ledge."
A line of monsters had been positioned below Lulune.
Several possessed swollen mouths packed with magic stones.
The moment Asfi entered the open space, every head turned toward her.
She forced herself to stop.
Rayleigh released her cloak.
"They learned she matters to you."
Asfi went very still, the realization hurt.
Lulune had been captured alive, kept visible, and made to scream loudly enough to draw rescuers forward.
These creatures were no longer merely learning combat techniques.
They were learning behavior.
Anakitty wiped her sword against a dead monster.
"They did the same thing at the barricade. Every time someone rushed to protect an injured person, the next attack targeted that reaction."
Rayleigh looked around the cavern again: the scattered weapons, the practice marks, the restrained adventurers, the waiting absorbers beneath them.
The whole chamber had been arranged to produce useful reactions.
"Tsubaki, they know your fireballs. Ais, they've already tasted Gonryōmaru. Don't release either one unless I call for it."
Tsubaki understood what he intended.
"You want to kill the watchers before we show them anything else."
"Exactly. Asfi gets Lulune and your smith. Anakitty stays with her because she's the only one here who already knows how these things move without relying on a Zanpakutō."
Asfi started removing items from her belt. This time there was no joke in her voice.
"I need ten seconds once I reach the ledge. Their restraints are embedded into the wall rather than tied around them, and I won't know whether they're trapped until I see the mechanism."
"You'll have them."
Rayleigh drew Sakanade. He did not release it. The observer above Lulune watched the motion anyway, its head shifting toward the blade.
Rayleigh smiled faintly.
'Interested in this one? Good.'
He slid Sakanade back into its sheath, then drew Senbonzakura.