Malmiere was pleasantly surprised with Gnart's and Virtus's arrival in the expedition, the reason they had come here was a bit worrying, especially considering that they planned on doing it with only the both of them.
However, Malmiere couldn't object to the decision of the saint and of a paladin of greater rank than himself.
The member of the expedition were able to witness great holy magic as Virtus shot right through the eye, at the last moment, the eye stared directly at shore were the expedition was before dispelling into the air, the subsequent rush of monster wasn't nearly as bad as it should have went, Gnart sent waves monsters flying through the air with swings of his mace.
They were able to quickly progress to the next floor, the forty-fifth floor, there the ocean was calm aand serene and no monsters were to be felt anywhere, there were the remains of many small boats, all seemed to have been shattered, absolutely unusable.
It didn't matter however as they could just make a boat with what appeared to be their infinite boat parts, Malmiere didn't know who but someone was making a ton of money out of this.
This floor was certainly strange, no monsters had shown up at all and their seemed to be a sort of sleeping gas in the air as they all felt the need to sleep but Virtus was able to alleviate this and they were able to find the exit after a few days of sailing around, it was strange as they had already searched the sides of the floor first and had not found anything and yet this was where they had ended up finding the exit.
Going through the mysteriously appearing exit, they found themselves in swamp pupulated with abyssals and monsters that were arguably just animals, this floor would usually be very easy but with the affliction, everything was willing to attack.
When they arrived EOTHO-1A immediately made a beeline to a certain area in the swamp and plunged his hands into the mud, pulling the corpse of a knight dressed in an armor similar to his.
EOTHO-1A searched the corpse and pulled out a small note that had been folded multiple times.
"The exit is hidden, most likely in the mud" he read out loud, how this ruin knight had perished was unknown, the fauna of this floor wouldn't have been able to kill him and supplies weren't much of an issue to ruin knights, EOTHO-1A barely ate or drank anything.
Virtus walked straigth into the mud, uncaring that his white robe would be stained at all and started reciting something for a bit, in a language most couldn't understand and after a bit, it was as if the mud was alive and started moving away, taking everything in its way alongside it, the mud of the swamp was removed and finding the exit was exceptionally easy.
"This hatch is only wide enough for one person, maybe two if you squeeze in a bit" remarked Gnart.
"Very well, listen here, I and Gnart will go through the entrance to the next floor, wait here until you receive a sign from me" spoke Virtus, he could feel that the heretic's presence was strong around here.
The both of them jumped through one after the other and they ended up on pillars in the sky or rather in a sky.
"It seems like he left a little bit before we got here" spoke Virtus nearly immediately after arriving.
"Either that or maybe he simply descended toward the ground" he corrected himself as he looked down the pillar they were on.
"How large is this floor? Have we entered a different space?" wondered Gnart, the old man was currently looking like an actual paladin, garbed in heavy armor from head to toe.
"Most likely a different space, the world dungeon is supposedly able to use any dungeon abilities after all" answered Virtus before looking to the side.
"Looks like we've got some company" spoke Virtus as a bright orange shape appeared, seemingly pulling itself from the ground as it did so it shined even more brilliantly, taking the attention of a monster that had been far away.
The orange invader seemingly pulled a spear made of the same thing as it was out of its own chest as a sort of giant bird started circling around their pillar.
Gnart already had his arm reeled back, he had wrapped holy magic around his mace and his wrist, he flung his mace in an arc at the flying monster, before it could demonstrate its abilities the mace smashed through its head, exploding it like a watermelon before the paladin pulled on the holy rope and recalled his mace.
Virtus simply casted a spell that made the invader disappear bit by bit, the orange shapes that appeared weren't that difficult to defeat, especially so for a holy magic user as proficient as Virtus, he couldn't tell what this orange energy was but it was antithesis to holy and were both weak to the other, the invader being entirely made of it and not much of a challenge in general meant that Virtus had no way of losing to it.
"Now I am certain, the heretic is not on this floor anymore" spoke Virtus as he sent the signal for the expedition to come down.
"Gnart, how long do you think the descent toward the ground is?" questioned the saint.
"Long" responded the old paladin and they both stared at each other for a good minute.
"Gnart" said Virtus.
"Yes?" spoke the one being called.
"Shut up" uttered the saint.
"Fair enough"
Soon the members of the expeditions started dropping down, all covered in mud, indeed when Virtus left his incantation had worn off and they had been covered in mud and also had had to traverse the hatch when it was full of mud.
Virtus casted a cleaning spell on them and started explaining what they would do.
"This floor has a wyvern with feathers has a monster and it may reappear at anytime, so let's hurry down, Imiril, you go first" spoke the saint, Imiril didn't object, she was the most agile here and started climbing down.