After a quiet night of rest at the oasis I set off for the stairs heading down into the thirty seventh floor. The stone walls and steps of those stairs were all a pale chalky white which was the reason the floor got it's name apparently. The floor itself was shaped in a series of circles with maze like paths all through it leading both to and from the center of the floor where Udeaus waited. Even just stepping out onto the floor there was eight or nine paths I could choose from with one of them being marked by adventurers as the "main" path to and from the center.-
The dungeon tended to leave signs like this alone for some reason as even monsters ignored them. I didn't follow that path though as I was here to gather as much smoke as the dungeon would allow me before moving on and with Udeaus dead from the Loki familia murdering it that meant these small fry would have to do. My first batch of prey consisted of three skull sheep and two barbarians. I didn't bother fighting them as there'd be no challenge in it for me. -
I simple looked at them and flexed my energy. The next second the entire "hallway" was covered in ice with five new frozen sculptures standing in it. I casually walked over to them and refined the choice bits on them, the sheep cloaks, barbarian horns and eyes before shattering the sculptures with a casual wave of my hand. I collected my spoils and smoke before continuing on my way. I spent the next five hours slaughtering the monsters of this floor with a numb boredom. There was no challenge here, no worthy opponent to make my blood boil.-
I even considered forcefully creating a variant just for some excitement but knew it wouldn't work as variants born on this floor all die from overwhelming numbers before they can grow strong enough to be entertaining. Not to mention I honestly wasn't impressed with these monsters in any regard enough to deem them worth spending the time and effort needed to manually grow them out. At best it might be interesting to create a variant slime but even that would be laughably easy to kill. Slimes were simple creatures where size determined their power.-
A variant slime would likely be just a massive slow moving target with a weakness to magic. The second option was the golems but those were only interesting because they excelled as tanks. They weakened magic and could take hits but that was frankly it. They were all besides their slightly differing shapes a copy of each other with near identical strength and speed. My smoke and material stockpile rose continually but I felt no real joy from it as the process was just boring. I only felt a tiny flicker of excitement when I reached the colosseum battleground with the army of Spartoi killing each other but after wiping it out with a wave of my hand that died.-
Even with the vast amount of smoke that slaughter earned me there was just nothing to be excited about, this outcome was no surprise. As I thought however the dungeon gave me a slight warning with it's "gaze" after I cleared out the battleground around the colosseum. To my surprise however it chose to compromise rather than just shoo me deeper into it. From the colosseum's floor a massive white skeleton rose with two ram-like horns curled at the side of it's skull. In it's right hand a colossal black longsword that was actually quite elegant in it's design was held.-
It was all one piece of material with the blade being shaped like four long ovals being joined end to end with the final of them having a pointed end. There was no guard either almost making the sword look like a giant ornate needle. For the first time in this entire trip through this floor I grinned in eagerness as I blasted towards the mutant monster rex. I drew my weapon mid flight as the Udeaus swung it's blade fiercely at me.
"BOOM!"
The air shook as our weapons clashed and I was even slightly pushed back from the extra oomph the Udeaus had due to it's size. Otherwise we were roughly equal in terms of pure strength. I didn't turn to my flames or ice yet though as I wanted to know if this thing was skilled with that blade or brute forcing it. I land on the floor of the colosseum and leaned forward as I charged the boney giant with my weapon held ready in a sideways stance for a swing. -
The Udeaus didn't disappoint and lashed out with the blades tip in an even perfect horizontal swipe exactly at the three feet height needed to bisect me, not an inch more or less. Once more our weapons clashed and I lost again from the extra momentum pushing me back. I didn't forget my cursed techniques but chose to clash a few more times with the monster rex physically just to get my blood warmed up. Still if I actually wanted to win I needed to use my techniques as well. On the next clash of our weapons I sent ice rapidly creeping down the blade of the sword and onto the wrist and arm of the monster. -
To my surprise however the monster roared and crimson energy rose from it's bones shattering my ice and sending me flying into the colosseum wall with a loud "BOOM!". I repaired the damage to my body from that unexpected and sudden jump in force sending me into the now very much crumbling wall. The dust cleared as wind pressure from the roiling energy of the monster rex blasted it away and I saw it fully. The white bones seemed almost metallic as they gleamed and crimson bloodlike misty energy radiated off them.