The ashen winds howled across the barren expanse of Floor Seven, scattering the remains of shattered stone and scorched earth.
This was not a battlefield. It was a graveyard in the making, and the storm was just beginning.
The corrupted minotaurs stood like titans, their bodies bulging with miasmic mutations, thick black veins pulsating beneath their rough, armored hides. Their jagged horns shimmered faintly with unnatural red light. Even as gaping wounds tore across their torsos from earlier skirmishes, the flesh beneath writhed—reknitting itself with dark regeneration.
They weren't simply surviving. They were evolving.
And yet, in the face of towering monstrosities, one girl stood at the heart of the storm.
Belle.
Her silver hair whipped violently in the storm-churned air, dancing in rhythm with the static that coiled around her like a living serpent. Her stance was calm and still, almost serene amidst the chaos.
With a slow inhale, she lifted her arms outward. Lightning crackled to life, threading down from the heavens like divine threads seeking a conductor.
And they found one.
Her.
Torrents of energy surged through her veins. Her skin shimmered with arcs of silver and blue, patterns of crackling light crawling across her arms, etching runes of raw power into the air itself. The storm was no longer above her. It was her.
The very moment she clenched her fists, the ground beneath her erupted, splintering into a crater as a shockwave exploded outward.
She vanished. Only a thunderclap remained.
In the blink of an eye, she reappeared beneath the belly of one of the minotaurs. Her fist, wreathed in coiled lightning, arced upward.
BOOM.
Her punch connected like a thunderbolt crashing into the heart of a mountain. Sparks exploded from the impact point, ripping through the beast's hide in crackling waves. The electric current raced through its body, painting its muscles in jagged streaks of light.
But the beast didn't stagger. It turned its head slowly toward her—those burning, soulless eyes narrowing.
Not in agony. But in recognition.
It moved. Its colossal arm descended like a falling monolith, trailing miasma and wind.
Belle twisted, barely escaping the impact as the minotaur's fist cratered the earth, hurling boulders and debris into the sky. The land screamed beneath its strength, cracks spiderwebbing through stone like fractured glass.
Belle landed softly, skidding back across the jagged terrain, lightning still crackling from her heels. She looked up through the haze of dust, her breathing sharp but steady.
"It absorbed that… without flinching huh."
Kai's voice drifted in from the sideline, calm but tense. "So much for overwhelming it in one go."
But Belle wasn't discouraged.
Her eyes narrowed with resolve. If one hit wasn't enough—she'd break the limit. Her aura flared anew. The air shimmered with electric distortion as she ramped the output. The lightning coiling around her arms thickened, growing more feral and erratic. Sparks arced between her legs and the ground, ionizing the very air she breathed.
The next movement was invisible.
A second burst of sound tore through the field as she shot forward again. This time, she struck the minotaur from the flank, slamming a crackling uppercut into the side of its knee. A deep, jarring tremor rolled through its leg, and this time it reacted—a slow shift in balance, its foot skidding a centimeter across the dirt.
Belle didn't wait. She was already behind it, twisting her hips and unleashing a spinning kick to its side—lightning whips trailing behind her leg like comet tails.
Another thunderous crash. The minotaur reeled slightly, its massive form teetering. Not much. But enough.
Belle's teeth clenched.
Still not enough.
Her fists ignited again, energy building faster now. Each strike feeding into the next like a feedback loop, the storm inside her reaching new heights. The voltage was becoming volatile, her skin glowing like a live wire.
She moved faster. Her third strike slammed straight into its gut. The minotaur lurched, muscles twitching beneath its thick hide. A strangled noise left its throat—not a roar, not a grunt. A sound of instinctual alarm.
It finally felt that.
Then came the counter.
The beast bellowed, swinging with a massive, sweeping arm. Belle ducked, pivoting to avoid the crushing blow, lightning trailing behind her like a scarf of fury.
She didn't stop. She couldn't stop. The energy surging through her needed to be released, and this beast was going to take every volt of it.
In a split moment—she saw it. Between the overlapping strikes and surging power, the constant barrage had ruptured something deep in the creature's core. A fissure in the miasmic layer—just beneath the ribs, where the unnatural healing struggled to keep up.
A weakness.
Belle's heart pounded. Her vision narrowed.
This was her moment.
Her body lit up as she unleashed every ounce of power she had. Lightning spiraled upward around her like a cyclone, warping the air itself. Pebbles and dust lifted from the ground, caught in the updraft of her energy. The storm had found its eye.
She let out a cry—not of rage, but of resolve, and launched forward one final time. Her fists became twin comets, streaking with blinding blue-white light as they zeroed in on the exposed core.
The impact shattered the silence.
A massive shockwave exploded outward, throwing debris across the battlefield like shrapnel.
Kai shielded his eyes as wind and light surged outward in a violent sphere. The minotaur's body arched as the voltage coursed through it, the electricity short-circuiting its miasmic regeneration. Its limbs spasmed, the red glow in its eyes faltering.
Belle didn't stop. With a final breath, she twisted her body and launched a lightning-infused uppercut directly into its jaw. The blow lifted the beast—its full weight launched into the air.
Time slowed.
The minotaur's body twisted as it sailed backward in a wide arc, the trail of blue lightning still clinging to its chest like veins of judgment. Then—it crashed, hard enough to shake the plateau, stone erupting around it in a pillar of dust and fractured earth.
Silence.
Then a twitch. One. Two. And finally nothing.
The corrupted flesh hissed, miasma spilling from ruptured wounds. The creature gave one last shudder—and collapsed into ash, disintegrating into the dry wind like a forgotten shadow.
Belle landed on one knee, her body trembling slightly from the release. Small arcs of lightning still danced across her arms, vanishing slowly into the air. She stood tall, her silhouette outlined in the dying stormlight.
One down.
Her gaze turned to the remaining two minotaurs. They stood still, unnaturally so—watching. Their eyes burned brighter now, unnerving in their focus. The pulse of miasma around them began to shift, the energy condensing, warping their frames.
Belle's jaw tightened. "They're… learning again."
A new ripple of pressure spread across the battlefield, the miasmic tide growing deeper, darker, as if the dungeon itself was responding to the fall of one of its guardians.
Kai stepped forward at her side, his katana wreathed in flickering flame. "Guess that means they're next."
Belle didn't take her eyes off the two evolving threats. Her voice was calm. "Then let's not give them time to adapt."
The wasteland quaked beneath their feet as the two surviving corrupted minotaurs roared to the heavens—an earth-shattering, primal scream that shook the very air. Their voices echoed through the twisted skies, vibrating with fury and unholy strength.
Darkness surged in waves. The miasma thickened, congealing into violent, black tendrils that snaked across the battlefield like sentient smoke. It wrapped around the beasts, fusing with flesh and bone, distorting their forms into something even more monstrous.
They grew. Muscles bulged unnaturally. Their massive arms ballooned with sinew and dark energy. Spines burst through their backs in jagged, obsidian arcs. Their horns elongated into wicked, saw-edged blades, pulsing with molten crimson light. Their veins glowed with lava-like heat, as if their blood had turned to fire.
The dungeon was no longer just empowering them. It was transforming them into avatars of destruction.
Belle stood still. Her silver hair whipped around her in the gusting wind. Her eyes glinted like polished steel, unblinking, unfazed. But inside, her mind calculated every movement, every breath.
The left minotaur slammed both fists into the cracked earth with enough force to rupture the terrain. The ground split apart in a radial pattern, massive chunks of stone exploding upward. A wave of corrupted energy rippled through the land, turning the very earth black with decay.
The right one charged forward. But this time, it was no mere bull rush. Its entire body ignited—black fire surging from its limbs, horns, and back like a wildfire fueled by hatred. The very air shimmered around it, heat distorting the light into chaotic warps as it barreled toward them like a volcanic eruption on legs.
Kai clicked his tongue, lowering into a stance. His katana flared with heat, the blade engulfed in a roaring flame that crackled with anticipation.
"Well… that's new."
Belle didn't answer. She vanished.
A thunderous boom rang out as the earth shattered beneath her. In an instant, she was mid-air—lightning spiraling around her like a divine halo. Each step she took on the broken terrain left behind glowing scorch marks and spirals of static discharge.
The minotaur's eyes widened. But it didn't stop. It swung. The incoming fist was like a meteor, a wall of muscle and molten fire aimed to obliterate everything in its path.
Belle twisted, tucking in her limbs mid-air and spinning past the blow with barely a hair's breadth to spare. Even so, the sheer force of the swing displaced the wind around her, buffeting her with shockwaves that sent a tremor through her bones.
Too close.
Before she could recover, the second minotaur descended like a guillotine from above, both hooves crashing down toward her position.
Belle launched herself backward with a pulse of electricity, flipping mid-air as the impact obliterated the ground where she'd just stood. Debris shot skyward in a burst of molten rock and corruption, filling the air with burning ash and stone shrapnel.
And then it charged again. The fire-juggernaut roared as it closed the distance, its horns lowering—flames trailing behind it like a comet of destruction.
Belle's body tensed. Lightning detonated from her limbs as she propelled herself forward, fists glowing like stars being born.
Their collision lit up the sky. Her punch met its armored chest with a resounding crack—only for the beast's flaming fist to crash into her side in the same heartbeat.
BOOM.
A cataclysmic shockwave tore through the battlefield. Belle was launched like a comet, skimming across the ground, carving trenches in the stone until she finally caught herself mid-slide, slamming her palm into the earth and using her lightning to brake.
Smoke curled from her limbs. Her skin was scorched. Blood trickled from the edge of her lip. She winced. That one hurt. But the minotaur?
It was still standing… barely. Its chest was glowing with chaotic lightning. The delayed reaction from Belle's initial strike now surged through its insides, paralyzing its limbs mid-roar. Electricity spiderwebbed across its torso, locking its massive arms in place.
Belle narrowed her eyes and moved again. She became a streak of silver and light—blinding, fast and deadly. She appeared above the beast in less than a blink.
THUNDERCLAP.
Her fists crashed down like judgment, her entire body channeling the storm. Blow after blow rained down, each one timed perfectly, each one cracking the beast's miasmic armor further.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The last strike came from below. A crackling knee drove straight into its core. The force of it imploded the minotaur's ribcage—lightning exploding out the back in a violent spear of divine energy.
Its roar died mid-throat. Its body fractured. Miasma bled from every crevice like black fire. In the next breath, it exploded into ash and shards of corrupted energy.
Belle dropped to one knee, breathing hard, her skin steaming from the effort.
One left.
The moment she turned—CRACK!
The final minotaur's hoof came crashing down like a meteor.
A direct hit.
The ground collapsed. A plume of debris and fire erupted from the impact zone, engulfing her.
"BELLE!"
Kai's shout echoed, rage boiling to the surface. His blade ignited into an inferno, the heat distorting reality itself. He stepped forward and vanished.
A sonic boom followed.
When he reappeared, he was above the minotaur, katana poised behind his back. Flames curled around the blade in a spiral vortex, forming the shape of a coiled dragon.
His eyes glinted like burning coals.
"Crimson Fang—Severing Sky."
He struck. The air screamed as the blade cut through space itself. A flaming arc, brilliant and curved like a crescent moon, exploded across the battlefield.
SLAAASH.
The minotaur's arm went flying, trailing fire and gore. It howled in pain, staggering.
Just as the earth beneath it erupted.
BOOM!
A blinding streak of lightning shot upward.
Belle.
Her body was encased in radiant energy, her silver hair whipping violently around her as she shot out of the crater like a cannon. Her silver eyes glowing faintly in ethereal blue. Her palm struck the beast's face.
A whisper, calm and absolute: "Discharge."
The world turned white. Lightning obliterated everything in its path. A bolt of divine fury exploded outward in a sphere of annihilation, engulfing the minotaur, the battlefield, the skies themselves. The blast radius stretched for miles—scorching the land into glass.
When the light finally faded… There was only silence.
No more footsteps. No more roars. Only scorched stone, flickering flames, and rising smoke.
Kai landed beside her, katana resting across his shoulders. He glanced at the battlefield, then smirked.
"That…" he muttered, "was epic as hell."
Belle stood, lightning still dancing around her fingertips. Her body ached. Her skin was marked with bruises, burns, and cuts.
But the dungeon was not finished with them yet.
End of Chapter 56