The cavern winds whipped against Kyouya’s leathery wings as he banked sharply around a colossal stalactite.
His Wyvern form was a masterpiece of biological engineering. With a wingspan of nearly thirty feet and scales like reinforced steel, he tore through the sprawling darkness of Floor 100 with terrifying speed. Flying wasn't just efficient; it was exhilarating. He could chase down fleeing prey in seconds or execute evasive maneuvers that his slime body could never achieve on the ground.
Suddenly, a sharp, vibrating pulse echoed through his mind. It wasn't Nova; it was the tactile feedback from his [Thread Manipulation] network.
"Trap 12 just triggered," Kyouya thought, his draconic eyes narrowing as he adjusted his flight path. "And whatever hit it is heavy."
"Analyzing thread tension," Nova chimed in, her digital voice crisp. "Host, exercise extreme caution. The entity struggling in the web is not a standard beast. It is an Abyssal Reaper."
Kyouya’s massive wings faltered for a fraction of a second. The Abyssal Reaper. It was the Rank A spectral horror that had nearly harvested his soul during his first week in the dungeon.
"The grim reaper knockoff," Kyouya hissed, a surge of adrenaline and vindictive anger flooding his system. "I've been wanting a rematch. Can we take it?"
"Probability of victory is high," Nova calculated. "However, the cost will be severe. The Reaper is a spectral entity armed with a necrotic scythe. It is highly resistant to physical trauma. Its primary weaknesses are Holy Light and Thunder Magic. You possess neither."
"I have Fire and Water," Kyouya argued, hovering just above the cavern ceiling, looking down at the trap.
Below, a terrifying, skeletal figure draped in tattered, floating shadows was systematically severing Kyouya’s acidic threads with swings of a massive bone scythe.
"Fire and Water magic will yield less than a 20% efficiency rate against a spectral carapace," Nova warned. "If you engage in standard combat, you will sustain critical injuries and likely lose over half of your HP."
Kyouya clicked his draconic tongue. "Poison?"
"Ineffective against the undead."
"So I just let it go?" Kyouya demanded, frustration bubbling.
"I did not say that," Nova’s tone shifted, taking on a distinctly smug, conspiratorial edge. "You may thank me later, Host. During your last sleep cycle, I managed to permanently optimize the [Absorbing] skill's algorithmic limits. If you utilize your fluid mass to completely engulf the target, you can now absorb entities exactly one Rank higher than your current status."
Kyouya’s draconic maw curved into a terrifying smile. "I'm Rank B. It's Rank A."
"Precisely. Drop on it."
Kyouya didn't hesitate. He retracted his Wyvern wings, instantly deactivating the shape-shift. His massive, scaly body liquefied mid-air, returning to a colossal, dark-violet gelatinous sphere. Guided by gravity and his own spatial awareness, he plummeted from the ceiling like a gelatinous meteor.
Before the Reaper could sever the final thread, the darkness above it collapsed.
SPLAT!
Kyouya enveloped the undead monster completely. The Reaper shrieked—a soundless, psychic wail that rattled Kyouya’s infinite intelligence—and swung its scythe wildly within his liquid body.
A sharp, agonizing chill tore through Kyouya’s core.
[WARNING: Necrotic Damage Sustained. HP: -150]
"Digest it!" Kyouya roared in his mind, channeling every ounce of his mana into the acidic enzymes of his slime body. The struggle was violent but brief. The Reaper's shadowy cloak dissolved, its skeletal frame snapping under the immense fluid pressure, until finally, the scythe melted into nothingness.
A cascade of blue System screens illuminated the dark cavern.
[Target Defeated: Abyssal Reaper (Rank A)]
[Massive Experience differential detected. Level Up: 135 ➔ 145]
[Max HP: 5,000 (Current: 4,850)]
[MP increased by 250. SP increased by 100.]
[STR increased by 200. AGI increased by 200.]
[NEW SKILLS UNLOCKED]
[Intangible Body] (Level B): Allows the host to phase through solid matter. (Ineffective against Holy-warded barriers).
[Death’s Embrace] (Level B): Inflicts severe necrotic damage upon physical contact.
[Soul Reap] (Level C): Can extract loose mana/soul fragments from recently deceased targets.
[Aura of Despair] (Level A): Emits a localized field of psychological terror.
[Abyssal Veil] (Level C): Advanced shadow camouflage.
[Shadow Phase] (Level B): Short-range teleportation between shadows.
Kyouya reformed into a small puddle, practically panting from the exertion. "Okay, this is getting ridiculous. I have so many skills now I can't even keep track of my own loadout. Nova, can you auto-sort these into a quick-menu or something?"
Silence.
"Nova?" Kyouya prompted. Usually, she had a sarcastic remark ready within a millisecond. Her silence was deafening, and highly alarming.
"Host," Nova finally spoke, her voice devoid of any humor. It was sharp, clinical, and genuinely tense. "I am detecting an anomaly. Three meters to your left. The wall is projecting a passive cloaking field. Behind it... is a massive spatial pocket. I am detecting concentrated artifacts, unknown structural layouts, and zero biological life signs."
Kyouya froze. "A hidden room? On the Demon Lord's floor?"
"If we lose our focus here, we both die," Nova warned gravely. "This is not a monster. This is architecture. What is your command?"
"We didn't come this far by playing it safe," Kyouya thought, his curiosity overriding his caution. "Let's check it out. But stay quiet."
Activating his newly acquired [Intangible Body] alongside his [Hidden (Level ∞)] passive skill, Kyouya slithered toward the obsidian wall. As he pressed against the cold stone, his fluid body began to vibrate, phasing through the dense rock as if it were a thick fog.
He emerged on the other side and immediately stopped.
He was not in a dungeon anymore. He was in a library.
It was a cavernous, beautifully preserved archive. Massive mahogany shelves stretched fifty feet into the air, lined with thousands of leather-bound grimoires, scrolls, and ancient texts. The room was softly illuminated by floating, eternal candles. The air smelled of dust, old parchment, and dense, concentrated mana.
"The Demon Lord's Library..." Kyouya murmured, utterly awe-struck.
"There are no traps. No guards," Nova confirmed, though she still sounded highly suspicious. "Just data."
Kyouya's eyes metaphorically lit up. In this world, knowledge was the ultimate weapon. He didn't know the geography, he didn't know the politics, and he didn't know the true rules of the System. To survive the brutal logic of this reality, he needed all the pieces on the chessboard.
"I'm going to eat the books," Kyouya declared.
"Excuse me?" Nova asked, genuinely taken aback.
"I don't have hands to turn pages, and I don't have time to read," Kyouya explained, aggressively expanding his slime form until he was the size of a small house. "I'm going to absorb the entire library. I'll assimilate the ink, the parchment, and the data simultaneously."
"Host," Nova sighed, the familiar exasperation returning to her voice. "You are literally committing the Sin of Greed right now."
"I prefer the term 'speed-reading'," Kyouya shot back.
He surged forward like a tidal wave of dark jelly, crashing over the nearest bookshelves. He activated [Absorbing].
The moment the first hundred books dissolved into his core, it hit him. It wasn't physical pain; it was an apocalyptic psychological DDoS attack. Thousands of years of history, magical theory, geopolitical maps, and technological blueprints flooded his mind in a single, agonizing minute.
His massive form instantly lost cohesion. Kyouya splatted onto the pristine wooden floor of the library, completely flattened into a pathetic, twitching puddle of dark violet slime. The room spun wildly. He felt like he was going to vomit out a dictionary.
"Idiot," Nova chided softly, immediately taking over administrative control. "Processing data package... sorting temporal tags... indexing geographical coordinates... Dizziness neutralized."
Slowly, the spinning in Kyouya's mind ceased. His consciousness sharpened into crystalline clarity.
He knew. He knew everything.
The world they were in was called Cascadia. It was currently the Industrial Year 404. Unlike the medieval fantasies his classmates were likely experiencing, the world—specifically the southern regions—was actively transitioning into an industrial revolution fueled by mana-steam technology.
The geography was divided into two massive landmasses separated by a treacherous ocean:
The Eastern Continent (Meridiana): Home to the holy, winter-locked Northern Frontierra and the heavily militarized, industrialized Southern Sunderland.
The Western Continent (Cresthaven): A fractured landmass consisting of four major nations. Highlandia, which controlled the eastern seaboards; Greenfield, dominating the lush northern territories; Gallowmere, the shadowy nation to the west; and finally, Vaeloria. Vaeloria was a deeply traditional, landlocked kingdom situated at the absolute westernmost edge of the known world, completely isolated from the sea.
And this dungeon? They were directly beneath The Outland—an unmapped, anomalous island situated dead center in the ocean between Meridiana and Cresthaven. It was the eye of the storm.
But it was the history that truly chilled Kyouya’s core.
According to the forbidden, ancient tomes of the Demon Lord, the history of Cascadia was completely fabricated. There was no record of a divine creator. Instead, the texts suggested a terrifying truth: Goddess Kamiya, the being who had kidnapped his class, was not a benevolent savior.
"The texts indicate that the entity known as Kamiya engineered the System as a parasitic loop," Nova whispered in his mind, synthesizing the data. "She is not fighting the Demon Lord to save humanity. She is using the perpetual war to harvest the souls and mana of the dead. The humans worship her, but they have slowly been forced to forget that she is likely far more malevolent than the Demons they fight."
Kyouya lay frozen on the floor. His classmates were up there. Hiroto, Shiori, Rina... Tatsuya. They were being used as disposable pawns in a rigged, cosmic chess game by a psychotic deity.
The anger that blossomed in Kyouya wasn't the hot, vindictive rage he felt toward monsters. It was cold. Absolute. Calculating.
"Nova," Kyouya projected his thoughts, his voice chillingly calm. "Can I kill her? Can I eliminate Goddess Kamiya?"
Inside his mind, the AI ran billions of simulations, weighing Kyouya's current Rank B stats against the localized divine authority of a world-ruler.
"Under your current parameters, the probability of successful divine assassination is zero percent," Nova answered honestly.
Kyouya didn't flinch. "I didn't ask about right now."
Nova paused. When she spoke again, her digital voice carried a profound, terrifying weight.
"If you reach Rank SSS... if you manipulate the geopolitical board above... and if you fully weaponize the abyss... The probability is exceptionally low, Host. But it is no longer zero."
Kyouya began to pull his liquid body together, rising from the floor of the library.
"Then let's get back to work."
✦✦✦