207 – The answer is a Yappathon…

I was facing a sea of shadow monsters—a floating chorus of wails that attempted to cause instantaneous death, a tide of blurry creatures whose spells I had not yet seen, and a fog of tendrils that squirmed and wriggled toward me.

My options were limited.

The world is truly despicable sometimes—not Galeia herself, since she exists above value and is thus unmarriable to the concept of good and evil. Perhaps the circumstances at hand were the ones deserving of my anger.

I am a woman who enjoys silence, saying little, and letting actions speak for me when the moment calls for it. I am not one to grow uncomfortable when left alone with my thoughts. I truly enjoy life with a minimalist approach. I prefer coffee or lunch dates over dinner, a walk in the park over driving around the city, simple handcrafts over designer bags or shoes, having drinks at someone's house over clubbing, and go out to play in the snow over traveling to avoid the cold weather. That's not to say I won't do the latter once in a while, though.

Infernal had proven to be a very useful tool for dispelling spells, enchantments, most skills, and the like. A simple word could negate a fireball.

Then again, I’m not fond of talking much. I prefer listening, if I’m honest, though I’ll speak when asked a question. My silence isn’t stubbornness or a refusal to communicate—it’s just how I am.

So, slightly annoyed and scowling a little, I tried to think of something to say in Infernal as the monsters drew closer.

I don't know many mantras, I ruminated, walking backwards to gain a few more seconds. Prayers are too short. Maybe I could just speak to the monsters in Infernal... I considered, and an idea popped in my mind as I took a deep breath.

“Dear misguided creatures of this dungeon. Perhaps your crude, limited existence has left you tragically unaware of the reality in which you exist. Let us begin with the most basic truth of all: this world you cling to so desperately, these spells you wield so incompetently, is nothing but a poor, imperfect imitation of a higher, truer reality. Are you familiar with Plato's theory of forms? No? Of course, you're not. Let me explain, for your ignorance is profound, and your misunderstanding of existence even more so."

Chamberlains of Curses, Stewards of Death, Wraithbound Cohorts, and Wailing Major Domus rushed me the moment sound reached them.

The blurry creatures, the Wraithbound Cohorts, moved first, their forms vibrating with the function of shift before appearing mere centimeters around me. Around forty of them.

I gripped my spear and spun in a wide circle without activating any skill, swinging my spear around as fast and with as much force as I physically could.

My weapon crashed into their blurry bodies.

Some got cut in half, others got pushed back, and others broke under the sheer impact of the strike.

I took a stance from Overwhelming Violence, gripping the spear's bottom and the middle of the shaft, then took a flying step forward and swung around with the full intent of breaking my arms, back, legs, and feet in how much strength I put behind the attack.

The monsters hit got sliced apart, the blade leaving a wound of light in their blurry bodies.

A second flying step, an upwards left to right diagonal swipe.

The controlled explosion of violent force sliced through three monsters.

Limbs and shadows grabbed me from behind.

I pivoted in midair, sweeping around me with my spear in a wide arc again.

The attack cleaved through several shadowy and blurry forms, their shapes collapsing into mist that scattered like chaff in the wind.

A Steward of Death flew toward me, the mass of shadows around the skull at the core forming to large arms that joined overhead.

I flapped my wings and shot towards it spear first.

My weapon impaled the skull.

I dove down into the sea of monsters as fast as I possibly could, pushing my Eternal body to its limits.

We crashed down, flattening a few monsters to death beneath us.

I pulled my weapon out of the ground and the dead creature, transitioning the movement into a series of swipes at the nearest wall of monsters.

Hits and blows on my back and sides were negligible, my armor, wings, stats, and attributes not something a few hits would go through.

“You see, there is an ultimate reality beyond the veil of this dungeon, one that transcends this pitiful material realm. Every object you see, every trap you set, every spell you cast—these are but shadows. Shadows on the wall of a cave, projected by a dim and flickering firelight. Do you know why your traps fail to stop me? It is because they are not true traps. They are mere imitations of the Form of a Trap, the ideal, unchanging essence of all traps that could ever exist. What you wield here are nothing but pale, pathetic copies. Imperfect. Frail. Weak."

Blasts of shadow, E'er-charged sound waves, curses, gravity, fear, and other non-specific mind effects got dissolved, denied, corrupted, and unwound into nothing, dispelling the shape E'er took to have these effects the moment Infernal came out of my mouth.

The particles shook with displeasure, disgust, and rejection. Even those laying dormant and in waiting on the ground got affected, further preventing the appearance of the large shadowy tendrils from earlier.

As more and more monsters approached, the more I killed.

Even though I hadn't activated [Intimidate Prey], the creatures were throwing themselves at me with no apparent pattern nor reason, which was a bit odd but not something I'd complain about.

“Take, for instance, that shadow blast spell you so eagerly hurled at me earlier. A rather clumsy attempt, if I might say so. That shadow blast is not Shadow itself; it is a mere imitation of the true Form of Shadow, which exists only in the realm of the Ideal. Your little attempt at destruction failed because it lacks the purity, the perfection, of the true essence of shadow. And why? Because your understanding of reality is incomplete. You grasp at shadows without ever comprehending the light.”

The Wailing Major Domus did their pitch-increase skill or spell, increasing the pressure around me but not on me.

My [Heavenly Weapons of the Conquering Golden Suns] were spinning around me as fast as I could make them go, keeping a distance of thirty meters from me. Although the monsters didn't outright die with the first hit, they got sliced open, dismembered, or greatly injured instead, which helped the second weapon, and then the third killed them. It was a pretty good skill all things considered, since they completed six hundred orbits in one second.

With that in mind, I expanded their orbit around me while swinging and stabbing at the monsters closest to me and speaking in Infernal, making the ethereal spears attack the floating Wailing Major Domus far away.

Simple stabs didn't work, unfortunately, so the strategy shifted to have each spear pull in different directions once they impaled the noisy pale corpses, ripping them apart like frayed cloth.

It was a decent thirty kills every second.

"Plato would call this world a reflection—a copy of the Ideal. And just as reflections waver and distort in the ripples of a pond, so too does your magic falter when faced with the unyielding truth of the Ideal. What is the Ideal, you might ask? It is the Eternal, unchanging blueprint of all that is. Everything in this dungeon, from the walls to the creatures like you, is derived from these blueprints but falls short of their perfection. Even your very existence is but a pale imitation of true life, ephemeral and fleeting, a dim echo of what it means to truly be."

Bodies became piles, which in turn became hills. The monsters that left no corpse behind, only turning into misty dust of shadows, covered the ground and other monsters in dark soot.

My armor, Mythical in quality and enhanced with Celestial Solar power, burned the grime off.

The Stewards of Death, dark shadow masses surrounding skulls, morphed their bodies into limbs, tails, wings, and other body parts, but failed nonetheless to cause harm or stop my advance.

My fourth Class had given me too much power, it seemed.

Although I didn't exactly like the future of my power scaling when compared to the rest of life on Galeia, I understood things.

[Heavenly Punishment of the Conquering Golden Suns] trivialized the monsters around me, slaying countless with each activation. Monsters that, had I faced them before the Deathbound Interlopers, might have posed a modicum of challenge.

The excitement of delving a dungeon full of Undead and Cursed once had vanished during the first minutes of entering the second floor... but killing is never supposed to be fun or entertaining.

"You may wonder, then, how I know all this. How I stand here before you, speaking with such authority, while your magic disintegrates into nothingness. The answer, my pitiable foes, is simple: I walk closer to the Ideal than you ever could. My very being is aligned with the true Forms, unclouded by the shadows of this world. While you fumble about in the darkness of ignorance, casting spells like a child flailing at the wind, I stride forward with clarity and purpose, my actions aligned with the Higher Truth. You cannot harm me because your attacks are no more real than the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. And I, my dear creatures, am not bound by shadows."

The monsters chased me whenever i took flight, gathering below me if they couldn't fly or keeping up on the air if they could.

While killing them in droves with no loss of energy or health on my part was not entertaining in the slightest, it was educational to see how they used, interacted with, and reacted to E'er. The curses that made their bodies, the many ways shadow solidified in myriad forms, the process through which they affected sound to try and kill me, and the speed at which they shifted from one place to another.

Unlike Bonte's use of E'er to shift through shadows, achieving something similar to teleportation, the Wraithbound Cohorts simply advanced through space in a straight line, skipping the distance altogether.

Were it a mortal facing them, the surprise teleport attacks would have been a tough factor to face.

For me, who sensed the start and destination of the skill by how E'er shifted the moment it was intended to happen, it was a matter of waiting for the creatures to get closer to pierce, swipe, grab, kick, punch, or headbutt them.

"What is a dungeon if not a cave? A dark, narrow place where those who dwell within see only flickers of light and mistake them for reality. You are prisoners in this cave, chained by your ignorance, unable to turn your heads and see the true light of the Heavenly Suns. And I, my unfortunate little adversaries, am the one who has seen the light. I am the one who has stepped out of the cave, who has gazed upon the brilliance of the Ideal and returned to show you the way."

The Stewards of Death, unlike their name which implied something interesting, simply manipulated shadows. Bathed in my Eternal Glow, the only tool at their disposal was the masses around the floating skulls. A few hits were mildly amusing, striking my arms and making me miss once or twice, but nothing more. Bonte had a more creative use of Shadows.

"Do you not see how your existence is pitiable? You scuttle about in this cave, content to hurl your feeble spells and set your flimsy traps, never realizing that your lives are nothing but shadows cast by a greater, truer reality. And now, faced with one who understands the truth, who embodies the Higher Forms, you crumble. Your spells unravel, your traps fail, your very essence begins to fade. This is not because I am cruel, but because truth, by its very nature, dispels falsehood. The light of the Heavenly Suns dissolves the shadows, and I, aligned with that Heavenly Light, dissolve you."

The masses followed, died, and surged toward me.

I advanced unimpeded, leaving hills of bodies and soot-covered ground behind. Focusing on the pillars supporting the platforms, I activated the Campaigns of Eternal Conquest to shatter them and bring the monsters down to me.

The frecuency of level-ups was much slower than the first Dungeon Floor, however.

Heavenly Golden Sun of Eternal Conquest had gone up a mere 54 levels since I entered the dungeon, and nothing of note had changed other than my stats.

"What does it mean for you, dear monsters, to understand that you are mere shadows? Does it fill you with despair? Does it unsettle your fragile sense of self? Good. It should. For only in confronting the truth of your existence can you hope to transcend it. Though, I must admit, that is unlikely. Since, in order to transcend, you would need to abandon your chains, to step out of the cave and face the blinding light of the Ideal. But alas, you are creatures of the cave, bound by the ilusions of this world, incapable of rising to the higher reality. And so, your end is inevitable."

The platform fell and broke, bringing hundreds of thousands of monsters with it, all rushing around and towards me.

I took aim and activated [Heavenly Punishment of the Conquering Golden Suns] three times in a row. Two swipes and one thrust.

Almost all of them died in mere seconds, the power of the Suns too destructive.

"I almost pity you, you know? Almost. But pity, too, is a shadow... a reflection of the true Form of Compassion. And I have no time for shadows. Now, be unmade, as all falsehoods must be, and let the truth of the Ideal cleanse this dungeon of your illusions."

Right then.

Without warning.

Out of nowhere.

A portal near the ceiling opened and from it fell a statue of gargantuan size, crashing on the ground in the middle of the Dungeon Floor. Two kilometers tall and five hundred meters wide.

The sheer force of its landing made the ground tremble violently beneath my feet, more than anything I’d ever felt. The shockwave tore through the ground, sending chunks of stone flying and sending pillars shattering to the floor. Every platform collapsed with the force.

The monsters caught beneath it died, flattened under probably hundreds of thousands of tonnes.

Discolored green like oxidized copper, oozing shadows out of every crevice, crack, and seam.

The statue was shaped like me. Naked.

My eyebrows shot up at such an unceremonious arrival and display of my likeness. A hot, disorienting wave of anger washed over me, then I appraised the statue.

[Floor Guardian – The Doubt, Lvl 2103]