Deep within the Unmapped Territory of The Outland, far below the surface of the world, lay the throne room of the abyss. It was a cavern of unimaginable scale, supported by towering pillars of polished obsidian. There was no natural light, but the room was bathed in a sinister, blood-red luminescence radiating from the throne itself.
Sitting upon it with absolute dominance was a woman who made the very air in the room heavy with despair.
She was Sofia Vileblood. The humans of the continents above knew her only through terrifying legends, calling her The Insane Sovereign or The Blood-Drenched Demon Lord. To them, she was a mythic calamity, an ancient evil responsible for the endless wars ravaging the Sunderland. No mortal knew her true name.
Her crimson-lined cape pooled around her feet like a river of freshly spilled blood, contrasting sharply with her impossibly pale, flawless skin. She wore a midnight-black leather corset that hugged her form, seamlessly fading into an elegant, flowing scarlet dress. It was a terrifyingly beautiful majesty. Her long hair cascaded down her back in a striking dual-tone: pure, abyss-black on the outside, hiding a vibrant, bloody-red underlayer.
Normally, her eyes were a deep, piercing violet. But right now, as she leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her eyes were glowing a brilliant, neon red.
She was utterly captivated.
Floating in the air before her was a massive, translucent screen of dark magic. It displayed a live scrying feed of Floor 100. Specifically, it was zoomed in on a small, dark-violet Slime sliding frantically across the cavern floor.
A high-ranking male demon stepped out of the shadows. He was impeccably dressed in a classic human-style butler's tailcoat, though the twisted, demonic horns protruding from his slicked-back hair gave away his true nature. He held a silver tray bearing a goblet of dark wine.
"My Lady," the butler spoke, his voice smooth as silk. "The Vanguard forces in the Sunderland request new orders. The human military has deployed new ironclad dreadnoughts."
Sofia didn't even blink. Her neon red eyes remained glued to the scrying screen. A wicked, ecstatic smile stretched across her pale face, exposing slightly elongated canines.
"For centuries, I have sat on this throne, drowning in the absolute boredom of this stagnant world," Sofia whispered, her voice a sultry, dangerous purr that echoed through the vast hall. "The Heroes of the Church are always the same. Arrogant, predictable, and fragile. But this... this little anomaly..."
The butler followed her gaze to the screen, watching the Slime. "You have neglected your sovereign duties for hours to watch a Rank D entity, My Lady. Is it truly that interesting?"
"Interesting?" Sofia let out a breathy, manic laugh. "It's intoxicating. Watch, Sebastian. The Goddess's garbage is about to meet a true nightmare."
Location: The Outland - Floor 100
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The cavern floor was vibrating. It wasn't a localized earthquake; it was the rhythmic, terrifying footfalls of something massive moving at high speed.
Kyouya paused his jiggling, his liquid body flattening against the cold stone. "AI," he projected his thoughts, a knot of entirely human panic forming in his gelatinous core. "Tell me that's just a rockslide."
"Negative," the AI replied, her crisp, digital voice ringing in his mind. "Sonar feedback indicates an S-Class entity approaching your exact coordinates. Estimated time of arrival: fourteen seconds."
"Can I absorb it?" Kyouya asked desperately. "I just leveled up. My stats went up. Maybe I can eat it?"
"Are you intentionally trying to get us killed?" the AI snapped. "Its kinetic force alone would rupture your cellular membrane, and its mass exceeds your absorption capacity by a factor of fifty. If you attempt to eat it, you will pop like a water balloon."
"Run away?"
"Probability of evasion via standard flight: 50%. The alternative is immediate death."
"I hate those odds," Kyouya thought, his hyper-accelerated brain kicking into overdrive.
His vision had completely adapted. He didn't need to manually activate [Night Vision] anymore; his new biological structure perceived the darkness as clearly as a sunny afternoon. His 360-degree panoramic sight swept the massive cavern.
He needed explosives. He needed coal.
"Nothing," Kyouya hissed mentally. "Just standard quartz and rock."
"Correction," the AI interjected, projecting a small navigational waypoint into his field of vision. "There is a cluster of highly condensed Fire Crystals embedded in a quartz deposit forty-five meters to your three o'clock."
Kyouya didn't hesitate. He launched himself forward. Jumping as a slime was agonizingly slow and left him vulnerable in the air, so he utilized his [Flexible Body]. He stretched himself out into a long, thin, viscous line, slithering rapidly through the narrowest cracks and crevices of the dungeon floor, bypassing the rough terrain entirely.
The sound behind him amplified into a horrific, clicking roar.
He didn't need to look back to know it was the S-Class Arachnid—the very monster that had poisoned the Minotaur. The air grew heavy with the stench of venom and rotting meat.
"I'm at the crystals!" Kyouya announced, reforming his body into a puddle near the glowing red minerals. "Now what? I don't have pyrite to spark them this time!"
"You do not need a spark," the AI calculated instantly. "Fire Crystals are highly volatile. Sufficient kinetic impact will shatter their containment lattice and trigger a detonation. You must use the Arachnid's own mass and velocity as the detonator."
"You mean I have to play decoy?!" Kyouya yelled internally. "You are always making me do the most difficult, suicidal moves!"
"I can't help it if you are the only variable I have to work with," the AI shot back flawlessly. "Brace for impact. Five seconds."
Kyouya flattened himself into a disc directly in front of the massive cluster of Fire Crystals.
Out of the darkness, the S-Class Arachnid lunged. It was the size of a two-story house, its eight bladed legs carving deep gouges into the stone. Its multiple eyes locked onto the small, dark-violet Slime that had stolen its meal. It let out a deafening hiss, opening its massive, venom-dripping mandibles, and launched itself directly at Kyouya.
Three.
Two.
One.
"Jump!"
Kyouya manipulated his internal fluid pressure, compressing his core to the absolute limit, and then released it like a coiled spring. His Slime body launched vertically into the air at blinding speed, narrowly dodging the snapping jaws of the monster.
Unable to halt its immense momentum, the Arachnid slammed headfirst into the cavern wall.
Directly into the Fire Crystals.
BOOM!
The explosion was catastrophic. Down here on Floor 100, the ambient mana density in the air was so thick that the Fire Crystals didn't just explode; they chained a localized magical reaction. A massive pillar of roaring, crimson fire consumed the cavern wall, swallowing the Arachnid in a localized inferno. The shockwave blew Kyouya's airborne body backward, splattering him against a distant stalagmite.
[System Analysis: Target 'S-Class Abyssal Arachnid' possesses a severe elemental weakness to High-Tier Fire Magic.]
Kyouya peeled himself off the rock, reforming his shape. "Haha! We got it!"
"Do not celebrate yet, idiot," the AI warned, entirely devoid of her usual snark. "Look."
Through the clearing smoke and fire, a horrifying silhouette emerged. The Arachnid was heavily scorched. Two of its bladed legs were blown completely off, and its carapace was cracked and oozing acidic green blood. But its multiple eyes burned with a furious, homicidal rage.
[Target: S-Class Abyssal Arachnid]
[Status: Enraged]
[HP: 28,460 / 42,000 (33% Lost)]
"Only a third?!" Kyouya panicked. "It survived a point-blank mana explosion?!"
"It is an S-Class," the AI reminded him. "Its physical defense parameters are absurd. We are out of explosives. Evasive action is the only..."
"No," Kyouya cut her off.
For the first time, Kyouya's [INT: ∞] wasn't just following the AI's prompts. His own latent genius, sharpened by sheer desperation, took the wheel. His panoramic vision scanned the environment. He noted the Arachnid's cracked carapace. He noted the structural integrity of the cavern ceiling above them. And he noted the massive, iron-hard stalagmites scattered around him.
"AI, route all mana to [Absorbing] and [Changing Size]."
Kyouya slithered onto a large, spear-like stalagmite protruding from the floor. He activated his skills simultaneously. He rapidly absorbed the hard stone into his body, but instead of digesting it, he held the raw, jagged rocks within his viscous core.
The Arachnid shrieked and charged.
Kyouya expanded his mass, then violently contracted it, using his flexible Slime body like a high-pressure pneumatic cannon.
THWACK! THWACK!
He fired the absorbed stone shards at bullet-like speeds. A few struck the Arachnid's cracked carapace, sinking into the soft flesh underneath. The monster hissed in pain, slowing its charge, but it wasn't enough to kill it.
"That was a ranging shot," Kyouya thought coldly.
He didn't aim the next volley at the monster. He aimed straight up.
Kyouya fired dozens of heavy, jagged stone projectiles directly into the cavern ceiling above the Arachnid. The explosive shockwave from earlier had already compromised the structural integrity of the cavern roof. Kyouya's stone bullets hit the exact stress points his infinite intelligence had calculated.
CRACK.
The Arachnid looked up, just as the entire ceiling gave way.
Hundreds of tons of massive, razor-sharp stalactites plummeted from the darkness like a rain of divine execution.
The monster didn't even have time to scream. The falling mountain of rock slammed into the Arachnid with apocalyptic force, crushing its exoskeleton, impaling its vital organs, and burying it beneath a mountain of unyielding stone.
The cavern shook violently, a massive cloud of dust rolling over Kyouya.
Silence descended upon Floor 100.
A flurry of blue System windows erupted in Kyouya's mind.
[Target Defeated: S-Class Abyssal Arachnid.]
[Massive Experience differential detected. Calculating...]
[Level Up: 21 ➔ 45]
[Skill Acquired: Acid Secretion (Level B)]
[Skill Acquired: Thread Manipulation (Level C)]
Kyouya slumped his jelly body against the floor, mentally exhausted but completely unscathed.
For a long moment, the AI in his head was completely silent. Then, softly, she spoke.
"I... miscalculated."
"What?" Kyouya asked weakly.
"I assessed your psychological profile based on your history," the AI admitted, her tone lacking any of its previous condescension. "You were a slacker. You exhibited zero ambition, zero drive, and zero tactical initiative in your previous life. I calculated a 99% probability that you would panic and die here."
Kyouya chuckled mentally. "I wasn't lazy back there because I was stupid, AI. I was lazy because my old world was boring. There was no point in trying."
"Noted," the AI replied. "I will update my behavioral models. You are... remarkably competent when your life is on the line, Host."
Kyouya felt a strange sense of pride. He had killed an S-Class monster as a Rank D Slime.
Far above them, safely hidden behind her scrying screen, Sofia Vileblood threw her head back and let out a rich, echoing laugh of pure delight, her neon red eyes completely obsessed with the little dark slime.
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