That moment when a car flips on the highway in front of you, that moment you as a human see a catastrophe in front of you and you remain spellbound to the sight. That was the reality to the adventurer's that were watching me and Tina and that other group interact.
Sure they themselves weren't all to happy I was interfering with their own farming of monsters, but it was clear I wanted the sap and that's it. I was literally leaving so they weren't going to look for trouble...
But when that other group threw Killer Ant pheromones and I in turn threw several enhanced monster baits... For calling a horde onto us of course.
Those other groups were forced into the situation as the dungeon itself seemingly groaned with the walls in unison cracking and seemingly molted as the dungeon began literally flooding its tunnels with the monsters of these floors.
"Get fucked assholes!" I called out as I threw Tina onto my shoulders and almost as though we had practiced this at some point. Tina stuck her feet around my side to give herself leverage as she began using her spear to do short jabs on monsters while sitting on my shoulders.
Meanwhile, I switched from River's of Blood due to running out of Mind, and took out the general growth spear we had made from the monsters of the seventh floor. Whereas Tina liked her spears extra long with a strong point to stab the monsters to death.
I liked my own spears closer to a halberd with a sort of axe head or just the spearhead having a good blade on it.
And that large crescent axe head on the end of my spear did amazing with sweeping blows as I used my enhanced strength to carve through two maybe even monsters at once before I would need to wind up another wide sweeping blow. The monsters that got past my blow and either ducked under the swing or just dodged it, would then be jabbed with Tina's lance of a spear that would go through the killer ant's carapace that was focusing us.
'A few more meters' I thought as I batted aside an errant sticky tongue from a frog shooter that sought to take me down. 'Almost there!' I thought with excitement coming to me as we got closer to the hallway that would be so much easier to hold from these monsters.
But as though in answer to my prayers. The gods made a mockery of my desire for safety. From the hallway we came in through originally, now there was a group of five war shadows clearly here to eat the dungeon sap from the Pantry pool. But seeing us, sentient surface dwelling life, they abandoned their desire for the Sap and even as a horde of Killer Ant's nipped at our heels. We now had literally five War Shadows standing in front of us cutting off the exit to the Pantry.
So once again I switched weapons with merely a thought, my spear disappearing from my hands, and now within my hands were the Farron Greatsword and its parrying dagger. The Greatsword glowed with a dark fiery glow as it came to life at seemingly sensing the nearby pure darkness attributed monsters of the War Shadows.
And like before, the War Shadows hissed in anger or maybe fear at the sight of the Greatsword that was anathema to their being. But I didn't waste time for introspection, even as the War Shadows reeled back I dashed forward with my form cindering with sparks, and as I swung the one-handed great sword to cut through two of the War Shadows. I grimaced feeling the mana drain as the sword left an afterimage of flames that exploded hatefully with black-tinged flames roiling across the War Shadows.
Thankfully with the Farron Greatsword, I was able to cut through those two War Shadows, and even better I realized the flames did nothing to harm me and judging from how Tina didn't curse or anything as she rode on my shoulders. The clearly cursed flames didn't touch her either or didn't harm her with how she was literally riding on my shoulders... So maybe the sword considered her a part of myself like my clothes?
Either way, I felt another War Shadow clawing at my side as we ran past, but due to my Hard Armored, scale armor, the claw didn't find purchase within my flesh. But we were home free! And doing far better than those other assholes apparently due to their screams.
"Keep going Jake, the ants won't stop coming until we leave the floors they spawn!" Tina said and then rolled off my shoulders so she could land and allow me to run better.
I mentally grumbled but thankfully the path from the Pantry to the upper floors was simple enough as the Pantry was basically just a straight right from the entrance to the sixth-floor staircase tunnel... Well a good couple miles away with the dungeons tunnels being weird and sorta maze-like.
And Tina's warning proved true. The damned Killer Ant's just literally wouldn't stop spawning due to the pheromones that were on us. War Shadows were called rookie killers due to their nature in liking to hide in the shadows to get the drop on people with their ultra-sharp claws.
But Killer Ants were known as the hidden party killers. As they were an endless plague that if engaged would only summon more and more of them if you hurt them and made them scream. And the pheromones literally made the Killer Ant's scream at the sight of us which would summon more ants which would then scream at the sight of us.
Such a tactic if you had the strength and a good hammer to farm the monsters made for a stupendous method of filling your Familia coffers as Killer Ant's chitin were good items for low-level adventurers and even middle-tier ones to be used in imbuing into knives or more disposable things like arrows.
So once we got to the sixth floor... Tina and I both just collapsed to the edge of the staircase that was free of monsters as no monsters would ever spawn on the staircase between floors.
"Jake... The ant's are coming up the stairs." Tina said wryly and I looked down past the dimly lit staircase and deadpanned seeing the dozens if not a couple hundred killer ants screeching as they uncomfortably made their way up to the next floor.
I took a breath and muttered. "They cannot spawn anymore on this floor... Lets try to just grind them out for our spear." This was complete bullshit, but at least we could do with the Killer Ant part of our growth spears.
Had to find the silver linings in life. "Oh yeah can we even eat the dungeon Sap?" I asked wondering if it was used like Maple Syrup or something.
Tina just side-eyed me and said dully. "No Jake... Eating it, is like eating literal monster stones. It's extremely toxic for surface dwellers for some reason." Well, there goes my idea of making Dungeon Maple Syrup I guess.