The Martial Unity

He froze.

Not just because of what he saw.

But also what he saw exerted so much pressure on his mind that it took actual physical effort to push his body forward.

Not because there was a forcefield pushing back against him, no. But because his subconscious instinct to run away from the grave sense of danger was extremely high. He knew that he had to get away from there as soon as possible.

Yet what he saw was shocking.

He was unable to turn away.

What pushed him away from it with fear also pulled him towards it with shock.

It was as though these two emotions pulling and pushing at his mind were crushing his mind. It was painful on a psychological level.

('What… is that?') Rui wondered with horror as he stared at the center of the mining floor.

It was a giant messy blob of wood and bark.

Its upper half was connected to a multitude of roots coming from up above.

Its lower half consisted of more roots than consisted of the one that Rui saw earlier, reaching for the esoteric raw ores across the entire mine.

In between its upper half and lower half was a separation that opened up as the tentacles tossed large unrefined ore deposits into the opening that shut close after the ore deposit fell in. Rui sensed a liquid sloshing around inside the mouth once it closed, slowly dissolving the unrefined ore boulder.

They feed it to that… root mouth that absorbs the unrefined ore deposits, refines it, then sends

utterly bewildered by this discovery. ('The vegetation mutated not just in size but also mutated to be able to absorb unrefined ore deposits faster

by a mountain range of a mine. It made him sick just to look at it. It was grotesque and sickening. Yet he couldn't help but watch in awe as it lifted esoteric ore deposits the size of a small city block with each

that thing head-on… That's beyond the Squire Realm in

Chairman Deacon had

fact, he found it hard to hard to picture himself not getting annihilated by it. The most rational choice was to simply ignore it

I ignore all this treasure? This is basically a floor, and will be treated as such

slogging in the dungeon. He hadn't even experienced it for more than ten seconds

just needed to

to stay around

across some profound discoveries that changed his view of the Shionel

the dungeon

Or was this perhaps like a carnivorous plant that could consume

He didn't entirely know.

dungeon was like this at its Root? Perhaps it was necessary for dungeons to develop such a mutation to accelerate

feeling for him. He normally felt quite comfortable in the Shionel Dungeon because he knew that every

being in the dungeon with the new insights that he had made from

several hours back on the journey as he navigated through the dungeon,

greeted him

hadn't put it in the ring yet because he didn't know when

Kane raised an eyebrow. "Given the long face, I'm guessing you didn't find a