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.

as he realized what was going on. ('The roots don't directly absorb the esoteric unrefined ore deposits themselves. They feed it to that… root mouth that absorbs the unrefined ore deposits, refines it, then sends it across the rest of the dungeon through the roots

in size but also mutated to be able to absorb unrefined ore deposits faster

size of a small mountain, surrounded 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

Martial Squire… No Martial Squires can beat that thing head-on… That's beyond the

many Martial Squires that Chairman Deacon had gathered taking

it hard to hard to picture himself not getting annihilated by it. The most rational choice was to

is basically a floor, and

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

he just needed

did not want to stay around

that changed his view

the dungeon actually

was literally a mouth that swallowed and digested food? Or was this perhaps like a carnivorous plant that could consume despite not possessing

He didn't entirely know.

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

normally felt quite comfortable in the Shionel Dungeon because he knew that every other creature wasn't. Thus it was quite relaxing, to the point that he could

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

hours back on the journey as he

Kane greeted him

gathered. He hadn't put it in the ring yet because he didn't know when Rui would return and in all likelihood he would run out of cells if he kept

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