Like usual for this dungeon, the next floor was vastly different from the previous one.

Normal dungeons generally followed some sort of theme. The floor style, the monsters, the treasures, they all followed some sort of theme.

The Hourai dungeon though, didn't really fall under any one theme. If pressed, one could say that it fell under several, and just cycled through them. But that was hardly much different from not having a theme considering the wide variety of styles the floors fell under.

Caves, volcanoes, ruins, forests, plains, and many other environments with their own set of monsters that suited them.

Some of them could be grouped together, especially considering that many of the terrain types were similar. Caves and volcanoes, as well as forests and plains were similar enough. After that, were ruins, cities, fortifications could all be taken as one, with snowy mountains, tundra, and ice formations being a fourth. There were also aquatic local as well, from wetlands to beaches as a fifth type.

That was basically it for the varieties of locals, but on the other hand, that basically described every possible type of terrain found in dungeons.

In the end, I really had no idea what to think, though this blizzard was a bit annoying with how difficult it was to see my surroundings.

The 143rd floor seemed to be some sort of tundra floor, but due to the constant barrage of snow, I basically couldn't see anything. The air itself was pretty thick in mana even, so [mana perception] wasn't helping at all. Everything was white. I couldn't even see my fingers when I stretched my hand out.

The wind was a bit of a hassle as well. It kept tugging and pulling on my robes, forcing me to be aware of how it was whipping around my body in case I accidentally pulled at it poorly and tore something. The way the wind also kept whipping my hair into my eyes was annoying, but it wasn't so bad that I felt the need to actually do something about it.

As I couldn't actually see nor sense anything, I strode through the waist high snow while shouldering my weapon. It was quite fortunate that my body resisted this cold so well though, as this obviously below zero temperature and near gale force winds would have turned any normal person into a popsicle in only a few minutes. But to me, it was just a bit strong, cool breeze.

Soon enough, my face ended up being pressed into something white, like everything else looked. It wasn't too hard, but it wasn't soft either. It felt like packed snow.

Stretching out my shadow, I felt around it. The snowy wall was surprisingly flat like a sheer cliff face, but was capped at the top with additional layers like a hat. I came to the conclusion that this was the boundary wall of the floor, and most likely shaped like a snow drift. Though not being able to actually see it clearly was a bit troublesome, it was hardly an issue.

Using my shadows to continue feeling around me, I made my way through the tundra themed floor.

A short while later, I felt a small presence moving towards me.

Obviously I couldn't see it, so I didn't know exactly what it was, but when it came within range, I swung my scythe. There was surprisingly little resistance, which made me curious.

Digging through the snow using my shadow like a shovel, I dug the monster up.

What came out was something fluffy, but invisible.

Or rather, it blended in to the snow so perfectly that to my eyes, no matter how closely I looked, it just looked like I was holding a pile of snow.

Giving it a quick [scan], I found that it was a monster called tundra stalker fox. It's highest level skill was [perception inhibition], which was a skill that reduced the effectiveness of [sense perception] and other forms of detection.

If my [sense presence] wasn't maxed out, there was a decent chance I wouldn't have even noticed the monster sneaking up at me.

The tactic itself was quite scary, but without [perception inhibition] maxed out, there was no way it could completely evade my [sense presence], and this monster only had it at rank seven. It was high, but unlikely I'd find one with its rank maxed out on this floor.

So for me, there wasn't really anything to worry about.

The fur was extremely soft and warm though, and when the monster finally despawned, I was able to get a nicely cleaned pelt.

While white wasn't exactly my something I wore normally, I could make an exception with something like this. Or rather, Alicia and Fate would be really cute if I got a few more and made scarves out of them. Or perhaps lined their hoods with this fur?

I could think of a lot of nice uses and the smiles this softness would bring made me was quite motivating to go hunt more. Though I would probably just end up with more than enough just clearing this floor, so there was no need to go out of my way.

By the way, the blood, once I extracted it with [blood magic], was sweet like a cinnamon roll.

The next monster I faced didn't even try to hide. It shoved aside all the snow on the ground like some kind of snow plow.

Aside from [sense presence], I heard the thing before I could see it as it gave a deep roar before charging towards me though the deep white.

Hopping back, something long and black at the end of something that was only a shade different from the snow swiped past my nose. Then with another hop, again it swiped just out of reach of me, but this time I swung my weapon and raked the length of my blade against the thing that was thrust against me.

But to my surprise, the scent of blood that reached my nose was strangely weak. Not because it wasn't the blood of something suitably powerful for a floor this deep in the dungeon, but because it seemed like I didn't do much damage. It felt like I had cut quite a bit of something though, despite it seeming that little of it was flesh.

(Some sort of ablative armour then?)

It wasn't really something so impossible. I've faced lion like monsters before in this dungeon, and the manes were next to impossible to cut through to reach its weak neck. Not because the fur that made up the mane was difficult to cut, but because of the quantity meant that most of the cutting power of your strike would be consumed by the mane before you reached the neck by slicing through the mane. It was like trying to cut through meat when you first had to cut through a thick sponge. The sponge wasn't hard to cut, but it was difficult to actually reach the meat with a single cut.

A third swipe came towards me barely without delay. It seemed like the monster had decided I wasn't much of a threat if that was all the damage I could do on a counter attack. But it wasn't like I was serious in my attempt in the first place.

Channelling some mana into my weapon, my orihalcum scythe separated from my adamantium scythe as I switched from holding one heavy weapon in my hands to dual wielding a pair of lighter weapons.

Hopping back lightly once again, I caught the outstretched limb with my adamantium scythe in my right hand. This time I put much more strength into my swing despite using only one hand. I felt the cut stop at something hard as the monster's roar changed from that of aggression to pain and pulled back without finishing its attack.

But I wasn't about to let it get away so easily, and with a light swing of my orihalcum scythe in my left hand, the spell I channelled through it condensed the thick snow all around us into a river of ice spikes.

The roar heightened in pitch as the scent of blood grew stronger in the wind and I felt that the monster had stopped moving around before its presence faded.

With a light swing of my orihalcum scythe, the icicles melted into a flat sheet of ice as I had a look at my handiwork.

Pushing out a bubble of still air so the billowing snow would stop blocking my sight, what came into view was the bloody corpse of a pure white bear, covered in red spots all over its body.

While its appearance was similar to that of a polar bear, the thing was at least twice the size and its shaggy coat stretched out from its form like a field of tall grass growing on a hill. Only its black nose and claws stood out from the thick fur that was only a few shades off from the snow all around us. Though its eyes would also stand out if they weren't closed most likely.

A tundra slaughter bear, it certainly was something that suited this floor. The effort it would take to kill it if I didn't have these scythes would've been quite a bit, once again making me thankful to Njordr and Aurae, as well as everyone who helped them make my weapons.

Eager to continue testing out my weapons, I channelled mana into the orihalcum scythe once again, merging the two weapons into one. But this time, I reversed their orientation, so instead of one heavy blade, I got two differing blades at the end of a long shaft.

Due the difference in size and weight, the balance was a bit off, but it wasn't so much to the point that it would be a problem. And there were several solutions I could think of that didn't even require me to actually adjust my grip on the weapons.

But it spinning around in my hands a couple of times, I found the point of balance. Unfortunately it was quite close to the base of the adamantium head, but this was interesting from an experimental perspective as well.

For now, I'd try using it like this.

Soon enough, another tundra slaughter bear appeared, and tried the exact same thing a the first one. I tried giving it a quick swipe with the orihalcum blade, but rather than a light scent of blood, all I got was a handful of white hairs on the wind.

As expected, the difference in cutting ability was quite large between the two blades. While I had figured that to be the case, it was good to experience it first hand in a place where the risks were low.

I tried a few more cuts, but even taking advantage of the leverage gained from the long shaft and using the adamantium blade as a counterweight, the effectiveness of the orihalcum scythe blade against this bear monster wasn't anything to write home about.

Instead, I shifted my grip on the monster's next swipe. Letting the shaft slide in my hands as I accelerated its rotation, I tightened my grip just before the bottom of my left hand reached the base of the orihalcum blade and threw my strength into the outstretched swing.

By reversing what I had been doing, the added strength and momentum into the hardened blade tore right through the white monster's ablative fur armour, its muscles, and even its bones.

The tundra slaughter bear roared in pain, but not giving it a chance to close the large opening I had created, I took a couple of steps in while continuing my swing. From over my left shoulder to under my right arm, the adamantium blade thrust up into the monster's gut, the pointed tip exiting out of its neck as its body took the entire weight of my weapon's momentum.

The sheer force of energy being transferred from my swing into its body caused the bear to lift off its legs a little before it crumpled in place.

I quickly pulled my weapon back before it could be caught under the massive body; a mistake I've made before during a fight against a group. One I'd rather never make again even in a one-on-one.

The results of this test was quite decent, and it felt like it could be used as part of my regular arsenal.

But there was a lot more experimenting needed to be done to be considered proficient with this unusual weapon. Skills alone weren't nearly enough to do that.

 

A while later, I was pushing open a gate made of solid ice.

I ended up facing against quiet a few different types of monsters on this floor, and the ones where strong monsters attacked from multiple sides while those sneakily little tundra stalker foxes going for my blind spots was a bit annoying, but not so impossible to deal with.

While the boss room of this floor was one of the few that wasn't indoors, most likely there were proper walls surrounding it boxing the arena in.

I couldn't see it due to the blizzard that continued unceasingly, but I could feel the presence of the boss.

To be exact, I could feel the presence of the boss, and quite a few other monsters in this boss room, all ready to attack once I got close enough to the boss.

There were a lot of monsters here, and unlike other boss rooms where they relied on numbers to supplement the boss's lower strength, this boss room didn't seem to have too many significant obstacles.

At least the floor was like that all the way. Only the occasional snow mound large enough to force the bears to go around. But they didn't stop the foxes from burrowing right through them.

Paying close attention to the monsters' presences, I confidently strode up towards the boss, my weapon held in one hand with the two scythe blades on either end of the long shaft, what had become my preferred form of wielding it.

As expected, once I crossed an invisible threshold, all the monsters started to move as one, though at differing paces.

The first to come within view were the tundra slaughter bears. Six of them forming a wall that blocked my front and sides. Without time to properly channel a spell powerful enough to deal with these quickly, I instead charged at the pair directly in front of me as they already were throwing their claws in my direction.

Side stepping the downward raking, I spun my scythe, the adamantium blade catching one of the bears under the arm. But rather than simply pull at my weapon at that point, I kicked off the solid ice underneath hidden by all the snow. Throwing my body in the same direction as my scythe's motion, the blade was forced to continue its trajectory despite the bear's attempt to resist. And while its fur did a credible job of reducing the damage to its arm, that tough fur didn't mean anything as the spike like end of my blade was forcefully thrust into its neck, parting the strong hairs rather than cutting through them.

As my body continued to spin and rise up while I held a firm grip on my weapon, the other end of the scythe, the orihalcum blade, rose up towards the chin of the other bear that was, just a few moments before, in front of me. But rather than simply let the blade do all the work for me, I channelled some mana into it, adding a spell to go along with the attack.

The rainbow sheen on the pearlescent blade faded as the light reflecting off of the metal became all white as steam started to billow off in droves.

Or rather, a thick white mist fell from the blade. The spell lowered the orihalcum scythe blade's temperature close to absolute zero, and what little humidity in the air condensed and hardened on its blade while the air itself turned into ice and fell away.

Pulling the blade up with my body, the blade arced up into the bear's jar. But rather than slicing through its hide, the blade broke through flash frozen flesh before shattering the monster's skull, raining red and white crystals all around.

Finishing my flip and landing past the two corpses as they slowly surrendered themselves to gravity, I channelled mana into my scythe once again, and slamming the orihalcum head into the permafrost, a new spell flowed out through the frozen ground.

Four large ice spikes rose up towards the remaining bears, though the quick activation meant that they were able to break them with a quick swipe of their claws.

But the spikes weren't supposed to be the ones dealing damage in the first place. Instead, I continued to channel mana, and the spikes continued to grow after breaking. It elongated and tendrils branched off like crystalline trees growing at high speeds.

The bears clawed at the magically growing ice, but it did little to dampen the magic's enthusiasm to reach their targets. And within a handful of seconds, the monsters were impaled with a multitude of crystal lances.

Raising my weapon from the ground, I quickly started to spin it in my hands until the dual headed scythe started to whine in the wind from cutting through the air at such high speeds. Once I was satisfied with the speed, I lowered my weapon and spun on one foot, giving my weapon a quick swing around while continuing the spinning motion.

Another handful of presences were erased in almost an instant as burrowing enemies were sliced into chunks of meat underneath the heavy layers of snow.

In just a few seconds after engaging, the large numbers disparity had been completely eliminated, and it was now a simple one-on-one.

Just as the last fox was defeated, long black claws reached out to touch me. I twisted my body and narrowly avoided the sudden thrust as more of what I was now facing revealed itself through the thick billowing snow.

The long claws were attached to a tight limb of a similar shade. The boss itself overall was humanoid in the broadest sense, but its entire body appeared like something in between a tightly bound mass of sinew and someone suffering from severe malnutrition. White fur covered much of its body, but the way it was attached made it difficult to tell if it was wearing a pelt, or that pelt was a part of its body.

And the most distinct feature of the boss was its head. Rather than a normal head, what lay there, glaring at me with empty sockets, was what looked like an oversized wolf skull, topped with antlers that resembled a dead tree.

Not quite sure what to make of this disturbing apparition, I quickly used [scan] as I created some distance between us.

The boss was called a terror wendigo.

The thing certainly looked terrifying, though not due to its strength.

But it wasn't the worst looking monster I had encountered in this dungeon, so while my skin crawled at the sight of it, my hand didn't stall.

The wendigo launched itself towards me and thrust out another claw, but with a quick swipe of my scythe, the attack was deflected.

*Ping!*

But the sound the back of the adamantium blade made when it came into contact with the creature's black hide wasn't exactly encouraging.

(That black hide, it's practically a type of armour.)

It was a bit annoying, but frankly that was about as far as things went. The defensive abilities of this wendigo wasn't really better than the adamantium knights I had already fought on previous levels.

That said, it was far faster than those automatae so it was more work to get solid hits in exchange.

With an opponent this fast, the options usually fell into two general points. The first was to send out lots of quick attacks to rack up damage. The weakness of this style was that it relied on actually doing worthwhile damage every time you hit, as their evasive capabilities meant that you weren't going to get that many despite throwing out a lot of attacks.

This wasn't viable, as the boss's defences were great enough that quick attacks like this wasn't going to do enough damage to wear it down.

In that case, the alternative was preferable.

I continued to swing my weapon as I sliced and parried its continuous barrage while I charged the mana for a new spell into the orihalcum portion of my scythe.

After a dozen, or even two dozen exchanges, my spell was ready.

Hopping back to create a moment of space, I thrust the orihalcum blade into the permafrost under our feet as I released my spell.

The sand and gravel below and in front of me turned white as the massive amount of mana soaked into it and converted into pure heat. The ice in between sublimated, not being given the opportunity to turn into a liquid due to how fast it was heated up as it instantly turned into a flash of white vapour as it expanded a thousand fold.

The meter of snow above, in only a fraction of a second, shot through the air as a silver cloud, shining as bright as the day's sun as the airy solid rushed up and out to make space for all the gasses that found itself suddenly brought into existence with nowhere else to go.

The sudden intense flash of super heated gasses that found itself rushing up from below the boss's feet forced the wendigo's body to rise up uncontrollably.

With such a great chance firmly in front of me, I charged into the maelstrom of heat, and ignoring the warmth that managed to get through the protective layers of my outfit, I pitched my weapon so that the tip of the adamantium scythe caught the boss's neck, then together with my rotating body, I brought the monster back down to the ground, grinding its skull for a head against the white hot liquefied ground as I continued to drive my blade through its body.

The terror wendigo struggled for a handful of seconds before a loud crack resounded through the boss arena and it ceased all movement.

"Phew."

I pulled my scythe out of the newly created orifice and the hole bored underneath it before taking a few steps back.

For what might have been the first time since starting my new life, I fanned myself with my hand as my breath refused to slow despite having finished the fight.

(As expected, this is hot even for me.)

The super heated gasses, even after they had dissipated and blown away by the strong winds, were still being generated by the intense heat that still remained on the ground.

But despite how hot I felt, my body was still not generating any sweat. I had suspected that my body wasn't capable of it, but it was odd to confirm it. At the very least, it was unlikely that I was capable of sweating, but didn't even in a situation like this.

Stepping away from the still glowing pool that was formerly composed of sand and pebbles, I relished in the coolness of the blizzard. At least this snow wasn't something like a hundred degrees below zero while the sand was still approaching the thousand degree range.

Once I felt my body was properly cooled off, I hooked the end of my weapon onto the wendigo's body and fished it out of the slowly solidifying puddle.

Drawing out its blood, I savoured its taste, even if it was still quite hot after the body was slowly sinking through the molten ground moments earlier.

My cheeks drew upwards before I knew it as I savoured the rich flavour of a butter laced chocolate croissant.