Chapter 242: Frozen Stone Caverns (1)
Morning at Abyssal Watchers headquarters was already in full motion. Workers hauled equipment between storage rooms. Researchers carried relic diagrams back and forth from Lily’s growing archive of notes. Hunters came and went through the main hall in a steady stream.
Lily and Elden sat buried beneath stacks of scrolls near the back window. Outside, Raze was already sparring with a handful of recruits, shouting corrections between exchanges.
Kai walked through headquarters, and Lily spotted him before he’d made it halfway across the room.
"...Leaving already?"
Kai nodded. "I’ve been staring at plans for days straight."
Sera appeared beside him, already dressed for travel. "So we’re taking a break."
Lily sighed dramatically. "You call a B-Rank dungeon a break."
Kai smiled. "...Compared to Disaster?"
A pause.
"Yes."
Everyone within earshot laughed. Even Lily couldn’t argue with that logic.
...
Outside the city, Kai and Sera stopped in front of the Association barrier surrounding another B-Rank gate. Kai paused mid-step, something occurring to him.
"...I haven’t checked this in a while."
Sera blinked. "Seriously?"
Kai nodded, and a blue window opened in front of him.
[Player: Kai Rosefield.]
[Rank: B.]
[Class: NULL.]
[Level: 59.]
[Exp Requirement: 4,532 / 285,000.]
[Attributes.]
[Strength: 98. (+210)]
[Vitality: 100. (+270)]
[Agility: 96. (+280)]
[Magic: 97. (+230)]
Kai studied it quietly for a moment. "...Been a while."
Sera whistled low, reading over his shoulder. "Those bonus stats are ridiculous."
Kai chuckled. "I stopped looking. Too many other things kept changing."
He closed the window with a flick of his hand. "...Let’s see what today gives us."
...
The gate rippled as they stepped through.
[Dungeon Found.]
[Frozen Stone Caverns — B Rank.]
Then, as the light swallowed them:
[B-Rank Dungeon: Active.]
Cold air washed over them the instant they crossed through. Massive crystal formations lined the cavern walls, catching the ambient blue light and scattering it across frozen rivers cutting through the stone floor. Jagged cliffs rose on either side, ice glittering along every fractured edge.
The dungeon felt quiet. Peaceful, almost.
Until several shapes detached themselves from the shadows along the cavern wall, moving with a silence that made them nearly invisible against the ice.
[Ice Fang Stalker]
[Level 58.]
Sera smiled. "...Warm-up?"
Kai nodded. "Warm-up."
...
The Stalkers attacked without hesitation, and Kai barely broke stride. One clean slash dropped the first before it fully cleared the shadows.
[Distortion Applied.]
[Drop Quality: Optimized.]
A rare monster core clattered onto the ice, alongside several crystalline claws still faintly glowing with residual mana. Kai scooped them up almost absentmindedly, stowing them without really looking.
Sera crushed another Stalker’s charge with her shield, finishing it with a single follow-up strike before it could recover its footing.
Neither of them was breathing hard.
They kept walking, and the conversation picked up naturally between fights.
"So," Sera said, sidestepping a lunging Stalker without looking at it directly. "Still thinking about Tiamat?"
Kai nodded, stepping in to finish the same Stalker with a short, efficient cut. "Hard not to."
Another group broke cover ahead, and Kai moved between them without slowing his pace, three strikes landing in the time it took Sera to finish her own sentence.
[Distortion Applied.]
[Drop Quality: Optimized.]
More drops scattered across the frozen ground. Ice Essence, glowing faintly blue. Mana Crystal Ore, dense and cold to the touch. Frozen Beast Hearts, still pulsing faintly with residual mana.
Sera knelt to collect them. "...Lily’s going to love these."
Kai laughed. "She’ll probably find three new projects for them by tomorrow morning."
...
The dungeon continued deeper, monsters gradually climbing in level, fifty-eight, then fifty-nine, but nothing forced either of them to actually stop moving or talking.
"I’ve been thinking," Kai said between fights, cutting down a Stalker that lunged from his blind side without breaking eye contact with Sera.
She glanced over. "About?"
"We’ve been treating every plan equally back at headquarters." He sidestepped a claw swipe. "Maybe we shouldn’t."
Another monster leaped at Sera. She caught it on her shield without flinching, and Kai finished it with a quick follow-up, the conversation never actually pausing.
"We should prioritize the plans that help Mythal immediately," he continued. "Not just the ones aimed at Disaster specifically."
Sera thought about it for a second, deflecting another strike. "The city network. The Academy. The evacuation routes."
Kai nodded. "They improve the city either way. Even if Disaster never actually comes."
Sera smiled, driving her shield into the last Stalker in the pack. "So nothing gets wasted no matter what happens."
"Exactly."
...
They entered a resource chamber a while later, and instead of monsters, crystal growths covered nearly every surface. Mana flowers bloomed along cracks in the ice. Frozen Spirit Moss carpeted entire sections of wall. Rare ore veins ran visibly through the exposed stone.
Kai started harvesting methodically, and Sera worked alongside him, carefully cutting rare plants free without damaging the root structures.
They talked as they worked, casually running through who back home would want what. Lily for the mana flowers. Mira for the ore. The Academy for teaching samples. A few local craftsmen who’d been asking for better materials for weeks now.
Kai paused, turning over one particularly dense mana crystal in his hand. "Funny."
Sera looked over. "What is?"
"We used to clear dungeons just for ourselves."
She nodded slowly, thinking about it. "Now we’re clearing them for an entire city."
A quiet moment passed between them, neither adding anything further to it, just letting the thought sit there while they finished stripping the chamber of everything worth taking.
...
The cavern gradually widened ahead of them, opening into an enormous stone platform stretching wide enough that the far walls disappeared into darkness. Half the dungeon lay behind them now.
The frozen platform suddenly trembled. Then another tremor followed.
Crack. Crack.
The ice beneath their feet shattered as dozens of enormous shapes climbed out from below.
[Ice Fang Ravager]
[Level 60.] [
Frost Carapace Beetle]
[Level 61.] [
[Frozen Stone Golem]
[Level 62.]
One. Five. Twenty. More and more monsters emerged until the entire platform was covered.
Sera slowly counted them. "...I think the dungeon just got tired of sending them one at a time."
Kai smiled. "That’s more efficient."
The first Ravager lunged. Kai vanished. One clean slash split straight through its neck, and the body hadn’t even hit the ground before he appeared behind another. Then another. Then another. Three corpses crashed onto the ice almost simultaneously.
[Distortion Applied.] [Drop Quality: Optimized.]
Rare monster cores scattered across the battlefield. Mana Crystals. Frozen Fangs. Ice Essence.
Sera laughed. "I’ll collect them later."
She planted her shield into the ground. Three Ravagers slammed into it together.
BOOOOOOM!!
The impact echoed through the cavern. They didn’t move her even an inch.
"Too light."
She twisted, and the shield swept outward. All three monsters were launched across the cavern before crashing into an approaching Stone Golem.
Kai appeared above them. One downward slash, and the Golem split apart from head to waist. The Ravagers beneath it disappeared beneath falling stone.
Another wave rushed forward, this time Frost Carapace Beetles, their shells reflecting the blue light like polished steel as dozens of them rolled forward together.
Sera raised an eyebrow. "...Cute."
She punched one.
CRACK!!
The shell exploded instantly, the broken body crashing into another Beetle, then another, three more rolling into the pile before Kai landed beside her.
One horizontal swing, and a crescent of mana swept across the battlefield. Five Beetles collapsed together.
[Distortion Applied.]
[Drop Quality: Optimized.]
Kai never stopped moving. One step. Slash. Turn. Thrust. Another monster fell. He spun beneath a Ravager’s claws before driving Dusk upward through its jaw, the blade emerging through the top of its skull. He pulled it free, and the body hit the ground. Another immediately replaced it.
Sera shook her head. "They’re persistent."
Kai shrugged while parrying another claw. "It’s a dungeon." "I’d be disappointed if they weren’t."
They continued talking almost casually. Around them, the battlefield became chaos. Stone Golems slammed enormous fists downward, and Kai sidestepped every strike by inches, each miss shattering huge sections of ice instead.
Sera charged directly toward one, lowering her shoulder.
BOOOOOOOOM!!
The Golem actually staggered backward. "...There." "I finally found something heavy."
Kai laughed. "You’ve been waiting to say that."
"I have."
The Golem roared. Sera punched it directly in the chest.
Crack.
A second punch.
Another crack.
The entire torso collapsed inward, and the massive construct crumbled into hundreds of frozen rocks.
Farther ahead, six Ravagers surrounded Kai simultaneously, one attacking high, another low, the remaining four striking from every direction. Kai calmly inhaled. Then moved. One precise step carried him between all six attacks, and their claws struck each other instead.
Kai smiled. "Thanks."
One slash. Then another. Six heads rolled across the ice.
Silence. Only for a heartbeat. Because the dungeon answered immediately. A deafening roar echoed from every tunnel.
Sera slowly looked around. "...That’s a lot."
The walls themselves began shaking, and more monsters poured into the chamber. Dozens. Then hundreds. An endless tide of ice-covered creatures rushed toward them from every direction.
Kai looked over at Sera. "So..."
She rolled her shoulders again. "...Now this feels like a B-Rank."
Both smiled. Then they charged straight into the horde.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The entire cavern erupted into battle.
Kai looked deeper into the cavern. Somewhere far below, past where the light reached, a powerful roar rolled up through the stone, deep enough that Kai felt it in his chest before he consciously heard it.
Not the boss. Something stronger than anything they’d fought since stepping through the gate.
Sera rolled her shoulders, stretching out the muscles she hadn’t really needed to use yet. "...Break’s over."
Kai smiled, already turning toward the sound. "I was just getting warmed up."
They started walking toward the deeper chambers together, the freezing wind picking up around them with every step, colder now than it had been anywhere else in the dungeon so far.