"Our top priority now is to get this to the Loki Familia and Freya Familia—immediately. At this point, you all alone won't be enough."
Takumi laid it out with a grave expression, and the girls nodded without hesitation. Then he casually whipped up another batch of temporary Rabbit Talismans on the spot and tossed them over.
"Move. Right now. I'll check other floors and hunt down the Evilus remnants—shut their plan down at the source."
"Got it!"
"We're counting on you, Takumi-san!"
"Takumi-sama, be careful!"
…
As he announced he'd be moving solo, the girls couldn't hide their concern. To Ryuu and the others, Takumi was basically "the light of justice" now.
Meanwhile, Takumi was doing the real math in his head—how much he could farm his progress bar off this whole mess.
Evilus remnants, a city still reeling, his fame already at peak levels… if he played this right and flipped the table in one sweep, his attention value would explode. That meant a massive harvest for the World-Crossing Gate progress meter.
Just thinking about getting closer to the hundred-thousand mark made him hum under his breath.
Alise and the others didn't waste a second. They activated the Rabbit Talismans and blasted off toward Orario, their figures vanishing in an instant—reduced to streaks of afterimages.
"After this, we have to buy a bunch of these magic items from Takumi," Alise muttered, already making the decision. "A one-time tool like this is a straight-up life saver."
If they'd had something like this earlier, even a situation like that Juggernaut could've turned into run, live, regroup… maybe even a counterkill.
While Alise was thinking that, Takumi turned his gaze to the handful of Rudra Familia grunts left behind.
Because the situation was urgent, Alise and the others hadn't brought them along. Besides—those guys had already spilled everything they knew. They were worthless now.
Takumi gave them one indifferent glance.
A terrifying pressure slammed down.
Pshk!
In the blink of an eye, the men were crushed into pulp. Their souls drifted free at once—only for Takumi to lift a hand and activate Soul Devour. Every last wisp was swallowed clean.
"Not much," he muttered, the feeling like chewing a mint—cold and refreshing. "But it's still something."
Then he set off.
Because of the Dungeon's special nature, he didn't use telekinesis or mental power for a wide-area sweep. If he pushed that too hard, it could provoke the Dungeon itself into fighting back. And if that escalated into something truly ugly, even he wouldn't feel like dealing with the fallout.
So instead, he simply boosted his five senses to the limit and sprinted upward.
This was a gamble on luck.
His [Protagonist Halo (Blue)] wasn't decoration—if the universe loved one thing, it was dumping "bad stuff" directly into the main character's path. Statistically, his odds of running into trouble were excellent.
When he hit Floor 27, a thick stench of blood punched into his nose.
"There it is."
Takumi didn't hesitate—he shot toward the source.
Floor 27 fell within the region known as the Great Falls. The waterways down here ran toward Orario's neighboring trade harbor, Melen, so there were always plenty of adventurers around.
And today, this place had received a gift.
A Monster Parade.
The Evilus remnants had triggered an abnormally massive monster stampede through suicide tactics, forcing an oversized surge. The monsters gathering here had already turned into a full-blown charge.
Blood soaked the air—so thick it felt like it coated the entire floor.
"This happened after Alise and the others left," Takumi judged, clicking his tongue. "Damn, the timing is tight."
Or more likely: Alise and the others arriving had forced the remnants to accelerate their schedule.
He sifted through broken fragments of the grunts' memories and caught extra details: the remnants had pre-arranged their trigger conditions. If one squad started their operation, the others would initiate immediately—no matter the cost.
Rudra Familia's Firestone blast had been massive.
That noise alone was enough to kick every other cell into motion.
And down here on Floor 27, the remnants had chosen Monster Parade.
A tide of monsters—so dense you couldn't see the end—poured forward like a living ocean.
"Aaaah!!"
"Help!!"
…
Hundreds—no, thousands—of screams echoed through the floor.
"Everyone, stay calm! Stronger adventurers, form a line—don't break formation!"
Inside the chaos, an elf girl in shrine maiden robes raised her voice, forcing order into the panic. She was the captain of the Dionysus Familia—Filvis Challia.
Filvis led her members to hold back the monster wave while pulling stranded adventurers out of death's reach, but against a stampede that seemed endless, her efforts were a drop of water against a wildfire.
And then—something that shoved the entire floor into despair appeared within the flood.
The Monster Rex of the Labyrinth.
The two-headed dragon, Amphisbaena, rose from the lake near the trade harbor, lifting both heads high as its vicious eyes looked down on the fleeing adventurers like prey.
Amphisbaena's raw strength was comparable to a Level 5 adventurer—and if you factored in the terrain advantage it had here, it climbed to something closer to Level 6.
Even Filvis—only Level 3, yet already among the strongest present—felt a wave of despair wash over her face.
The others didn't even have the right to hope. The moment they saw it, their minds snapped.
And the monsters didn't waste that opening.
Claws and fangs lunged in, aiming to tear the fleeing adventurers apart.
"Become a shield, holy grail of crushing evil!"
"Dio Grail!"
Filvis steadied herself and chanted. A barrier flared into existence.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Physical strikes and monster magic slammed into it—only to be blocked.
But her shield couldn't last long. After only a few seconds of sustained impact, cracks began to spiderweb across it.
"Hold on!" Filvis shouted, even as despair tried to crush her lungs. "We live—we wait for Orario's reinforcements!"
Even if she herself was already bordering on hopeless, Filvis forced strength into her voice for everyone else.
And it worked.
"Maenads!"
"Yeah—we can still make it!"
Filvis carried real reputation among adventurers as the Maenad. With her protection and her cry, many people clawed their way back to reason.
She pushed herself to the limit—white barriers flaring, thunder roaring, magic detonating again and again.
And in the shadows—a god watched calmly.
Dionysus, the head of the Dionysus Familia—another wine god, like Soma.
Back in Heaven, he'd loved chaos. He'd whispered poison into divine ears, urged gods toward mutual slaughter, and savored fear and despair.
But gods didn't truly die.
Even if they were killed, they would revive, laughing it off like a game. Some would duel to the death one moment, then clap each other on the back the next.
Dionysus had grown bored of it.
Then he descended to the Lower World—and rediscovered the taste he'd been missing.
Here, mortals broke. Here, fear was real. Despair was honest.
Outwardly, Dionysus wore the mask of a gentle, refined god. In truth, he had long since sunk into the same filth as Evilus.
And this Monster Parade on Floor 27… carried his fingerprints.