After reaching the 28th floor resting zone, Sol sat down on a stone chair he had made and pondered the strange occurrences happening.
Most of Sol's knowledge regarding dungeons didn't come from personal experience but from the books he had read on the subject back in Initium, before he even obtained his first talent. It was stated that dungeons tended to have their own quirks and tendencies, but that mostly had to do with the types of monsters encountered, layouts, and overall themes. The Osuga dungeon in Kerman, for example, consisted of earth element enemies, while Necropolis featured undead and dark magic. But it didn't even have to be related to a specific element. Some dungeons had only certain types of animals, like avians or mammals, and could even go more specific, to something like deer monsters only. It didn't even have to be monsters. A very small number of dungeons don't even create monsters but instead only make traps. However, those tend to be ignored by adventurers, as going through countless traps for a few resources the dungeon produced was simply not worth it. It wasn't like there were unique weapons locked away in chests or gold, but usually ores, certain plants, or elemental essences. They didn't even level up in the process, so only those without any other option would go to those dungeons.
Sol leaned back on his chair pensively. 'But this doesn't seem part of the dungeon's theme… I've never heard of a dungeon where monsters would retreat, and much less in such a manner.'
The first disappearance could be chalked up to maybe an extremely rare occurrence that they witnessed because the monster was unaware of their presence, but the second time, they couldn't ignore it.
'Dungeon monsters don't run away.'
It was an absolute rule of dungeons; even if they had absolutely no chance of winning, a slime would charge headfirst into a group of a hundred adventurers without any fear or hesitation. Even in these later floors where the monsters had much more awareness and could react to their attacks and create countermeasures, they never ran away, even when Sol disabled their strongest ability and took out a legendary weapon.
Sol sighed as he realized maybe the rule wasn't as absolute as he thought.
'It wouldn't be the first time the dungeon guide contained misinformation. Maybe I should've run this through with the Commander beforehand.'
The reason he didn't do so was to keep his relationship with Amber a secret. There were many reasons to do so, but the main one was simply to keep her away from any mess he could potentially create. If he screwed up a mission and made a powerful enemy, whether in the palace or some noble family, it was entirely possible they would target those around him. Luckily, he wasn't incompetent and didn't go around antagonizing others, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Thinking it might just be another case of hidden information, Sol continued on with his evening. He ate food with Amber, had a quick chat with Annabel, and then rested for the night.
…
The next day, they went out to conquer the 28th floor.
Three Laughing Skulls laughed maniacally as two chanted endless [Grim Flames] while the other one protected its allies with its own body, literally. Every attack they sent out that would surely land on one of the two chanting skulls would cause a ripple right before impact, transferring the damage to the protecting skull.
"Ack! Oh! Ouch!" the skull comically yelped every time it received an attack for its allies.
Originally, when the duo saw this occur, they didn't mind it as it just meant that one would perish first. But they were incredibly wrong. The skull lived even after a hundred various attacks, ranging from magic, chromas, sand, distorted slashes, and much more. The only difference was the different ways it yelled in pain.
When Sol checked its health, his jaw dropped in shock.
[Health: 1543/1750]
'It's basically in peak condition!'
At the start of the battle, Sol targeted the other two skulls that had incomplete law techniques branching off their talent skills. Thinking those were more dangerous, he disabled them first. Little did he know that the skull with an incomplete law technique in the passive skill [Comedic Agony] would be the one to give him the biggest headache.
He considered disabling it and ending the fight then and there, but he was curious about what could possibly be its weakness. However, before he could do that, he needed to finish off the other two Laughing Skulls first.
Without hesitation, Sol took out the Tynamo Cannon and pointed it at the chanting skull on the left. He smirked as he said under his breath, "I'd like to see you take this."
He pulled the trigger and shot a beam of void energy that used 20% of the total reserve. It was significantly weaker than the one used on the humongous Tomb Hulk, but for the small flying skulls, what mattered most was accuracy. The beam pierced through multiple black flames that stood between him and the skull, and before it could react, it was shot straight through the middle of its forehead.
[You have slain a Lv 122 Laughing Skull! Gained 87,618,603 Exp (420%)]
Unlike all previous attacks, the void beam wasn't even transferred to the other skull, and the poor Laughing Skull, thinking it would be safe from all harm, was killed in one shot.
The remaining skull froze upon seeing the protection fail, and for the first time since the battle started, it began to move as Sol pointed the cannon towards it next. Previously, it stayed in one spot spamming spells, but it couldn't afford to do so when such a weapon was about to be pointed at it. The other skull that had been taking the hits the whole time also joined it in moving around and began casting [Grim Flames]. They both flew rapidly, trying to make it as hard as possible for Sol to land a good shot.
Sol kept trying to line up the shot, but the skulls' nonstop [Grim Flames] forced him to dodge out of the way or keep repositioning. During this exchange, while Sol was trying to line up a shot, a distorted slash cut the back of the second skull's head.
[You have slain a Lv 122 Laughing Skull! Gained 87,618,603 Exp (420%)]
Surprisingly, this attack by Amber didn't get transferred, leading to the direct death of the skull, which was unable to react to the instant attack.
'Why didn't that one get transferred?' Sol thought to himself. He glanced at the remaining skull flying around, making sure he didn't accidentally mix the two up. But seeing it was the one with the incomplete law technique, he could only think of one reason.
'Was it because it can't maintain the technique while casting spells, or does it simply not work while they are in motion? Is that why they didn't bother moving before?'
If that's the case, he could understand why they began to move now. After all, the void beam broke through the technique, so there was no point in staying in one spot like sitting ducks.
"Don't kill it, Amber. I want to see something."
Amber nodded, lowering her daggers and focusing only on dodging the black flames that kept spewing out of the Laughing Skull's mouth.
To find out the truth, Sol summoned all ten hands to chase down the flying skull. Though the skull was faster than the hands, it could not dodge them forever. Eventually, it was cornered as four hands brought it down to the ground while two held its mouth shut. The remaining hands hovered nearby, ready to move if needed.
Sol disabled its [Advanced Dark Magic] to prevent any accidents and approached to inspect its [Comedic Agony] skill. He didn't use [Analysis] as that only showed the skull's status page. What he used was the vision provided by [Aggregate]. Closer to the lines flowing out of the skull, he could view the skill in detail without acquiring it himself. As for why he didn't siphon it to begin with, it's because he had already done so, and when he found out what it did, he immediately deleted it from within himself.
[[Comedic Agony] Lv MAX: Curse of the Laughing Skulls. You are death's greatest joke. When not casting spells, one is subjected to constant laughter. Proficiency in dark magic increased by 200%.]
This was truly a skill only Laughing Skulls could use. When he siphoned it, he had to, while constantly laughing to the point it hurt, will the skill's string to break. He only had it for a few minutes, but that was more than enough for him to feel pity for all the Laughing Skulls in the world.
Inspecting the skull's incomplete law skill, he soon understood what it did and felt even more pity for this specific skull.
'If I had to name this ability, it would be [Butt of the Joke],' Sol thought to himself.
The incomplete law technique was rather straightforward; it could designate allies to join the "joke." Once it did, all damage the allies received would be redirected to the skull, which would comedically react after every attack. The only downside was that it couldn't move nor retaliate. The allies were less restricted, being able to attack but not move from their spot. While the skull receiving the damage would take next to no damage, the pain would be multiplied tenfold. Even as an undead who were supposed to be immune to pain, it would still feel half of the multiplied pain.
Knowing what it could do, it was easy to identify many ways to counter it, such as running away. The undead skulls would have to give chase and, in doing so, would cancel the skill.
Having satisfied his curiosity, Sol disabled the skull's incomplete law technique and chanted, "[Light Spear]."
His magic hands made way for the three spears that rained down on the skull.
[You have slain a Lv 122 Laughing Skull! Gained 87,618,603 Exp (420%)]
Done with his little investigation, the duo continued on their way. They didn't encounter any more Zomest, but on the bright side, Sol managed to max out a few of his newer skills. After maxing out those skills, he changed his focus to upgrading his aggregated ones, especially [Perfect Balance], [Superior Mana Control], and [Invincible Body]. These skills were formed from at least five other skills each, causing their growth to be extremely slow compared to other skills, but nonetheless were a great investment to level.