On the forty-second floor, the expedition had just finished building yet another boat, Malmiere was starting to wonder where they got all these boat parts in the first place, the first few times he had not questionned it as it was known that the dungeon had watery floors, however, it was getting a bit absurd.
Not many had went this far and come back, after traversing even one of the ocean floors, most wouldn't be able to come back, especially considering what the first ocean floor was about.
The expedition was able to sail without much difficulty toward the next floor, with the knowledge that islands could be traps, they avoided to stop on any of the ones present on the forty-third floor, they spent quite some time trying to find the exit as the floor was much larger but they eventually found their ways after a few days.
No monsters had shown up at all and their had been no sign of that strange individual at all, while it was good thing that he had not shown up but it was worrying has not having him in sight could mean that he was preparing something.
Malmiere had been spot on with that thought as on the forty-fourth floor a gigantic eye made of the flame that was present on all monsters, stared at them the moment they stepped on this floor and immediately, abyssal watchers popped out of the water by dozens and started to stare at them too and soon abyssals stepped out of the water to attack them.
Keeping sight of every single abyssal watchers was difficult and soon some started attacking too, revealing their appearance to the expedition, as they rose into the air, supported by their absurdly long bodies, they toward the expedition without actually moving the base of their bodies at all, their bodies that until then had remained submerged in the filthy water were covered in tentacles with what seemed like claws protruding from them, they attacked from a greater height than the abyssals but despite this the expedition still had the advantage and the large eye dilated, the monsters stopped coming as it did so, it seemed to focus it gaze further away from the expedition.
With the wave of monsters stopping for the moment, the expedition went on to do what they had been doing the most these past few floors, building a boat, they would easily be able to reconvert if they wanted to.
While, many were busy building the next boat, Imiril and EOTHO-1A were looking at the place the eye was focusing upon, even though the filthy water usually blocked them from sensing anything, the monster congregation didn't escape their notice, clearly, wherever the eye was looking at, the monsters would go, they didn't know if that was exactly how it worked but it seemed correct enough for now.
They both knew that the moment the eye would move its gaze upon them, the monsters would all rush toward them, all at once and if they were in the middle of the ocean when it happened, they would be in for a difficult fight.
What the both of them had failed to notice, was that compared to when they first arrived, the eye seemed to be focusing much more to make the monsters assemble right now than when it was staring directly at the expedition.
Saying what they expected to Malmiere, he decided that they would wait for the eye to stare back at them while staying on the coast, risking an attack of this many monsters while sailing on the water was way too risky, on the shore at least, some monsters would be unable to get to them easily and they would only be able to come from one direction, the expedition was in no hurry anyways.
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Vlasfimia, who was now on the forty-sixth floor could see through the eye he had left behind what they were doing.
The eye of fire was controlled by the fire in Vlasfimia's left eye and since they both thought similarly and could cummunicate he knew that it was waiting for them to sail away before unleashing the monsters, however, the eye made by Vlas couldn't last eternally when focusing on luring the monsters for so long, it would eventually disperse and if it happened, the fire would let the monsters attack even if they were still on dry ground, they had chosen the right strategy.
While, having them fight a compact horde of monsters while on a boat would have been pretty nice, Vlas would settle with just making them lose their time, he had to figure some things out about the floor he was on too.
This one wasn't an ocean, Vlas would have expected the ocean floors to go on for a while just like the cave floors before but apparently it was going on another recipe for this one, they were still abyssals, although less adapted to life in the depth of the ocean as this floor was a swamp with various houses in it, supported by pillars.
The monster kind were pretty simple, abyssals, swamp gavials and swamp Sagittariuses, they weren't especially dangerous to humans even for the abyssals and really only the abyssals would attack normally but as the fire had spread even here, they would all do their best to infect anyone.
Finding loot in the world dungeon wasn't very common, as was commonly known among adventurers with some brain, meaning a very small group of people, dungeons that had the most loot were usually recent dungeons or rarely visited ones, most dungeon used the energy of both live and dead invaders to grow and the weakest thus needed to attract as many as possible, for the world dungeon no such thing were necessary, the amount of people that entered it everyday was enormous, it only rewarded people when they killed a boss, went though a little challenge or solved a riddle or something, as such finding loot, even of crappy, was strange.
Also, another thing that was a bit of a wonder for Vlas was the location of the exit, this floor was ridiculously small compared to any other and yet their were no sign of the exit, he guessed that it was hidden beneath the mud that reached up to a bit below his knees but finding it in there without knowing what he was looking for exactly was going to be difficult, thankfully, he had some time before him.