The environment of the deep area was markedly different from that of the shallow and middle layers.
While the overall structure remained that of an underground cave, the space here was vastly wider and taller.
The ceiling rose at least twenty to thirty meters above the ground, making it feel as if one were standing inside a massive underground cavern, the vast expanse instilling a humbling sense of insignificance.
The rock walls on either side no longer formed narrow passages, instead fanning out into open stretches. In places, natural rock ledges and slopes formed, while small forests of stalactites hung from above, echoing the stalagmites rising from below.
Through this expansive deep maze, three battered figures were stumbling in a desperate run.
They wore the signature uniforms of Glory Cael Academy, but their attire was now in tattered ruins—caked in mud, moss, dark stains that looked suspiciously like blood, and holes burned through by some kind of acid.
Two young men and a young woman, their faces etched with utter exhaustion, bone-deep terror, and a despair bordering on collapse.
“Quick! This way! Hide inside!”
A young man with short brown hair and fresh scrapes across his face hissed in a hushed roar. His left arm hung at an unnatural angle, swaying limply as he ran—he was clearly badly injured.
He took the lead, rushing toward an unusually dense patch of low shrubs near the rock wall, their leaves a deep, near-black purple.
The other young man and woman threw themselves in behind him with the last of their strength. Flustered, all three squeezed into the deepest part of the bush, curling their bodies up tight against the cold, damp rock wall.
The moment they were hidden, they held their breath tightly, their hearts nearly stopping. Only their eyes darted around in terror, staring intently through the gaps between the leaves.
Heavy footsteps approached from the distance. Each step sent a faint tremor through the soft ground, causing their limbs to go numb where they pressed into the fallen leaves.
A colossal, twisted shadow emitting a nauseating stench moved slowly along the path, less than five meters from where they hid.
In the faint glow of a cluster of eerie blue fungi further off, one could barely make out a humanoid monster standing over three meters tall. Its skin was a stony gray-black, covered in tumor-like lumps and deep cracks.
The shadow halted right beside the bush.
Time seemed to freeze.
Cold sweat instantly drenched their thin, tattered clothes. The icy chill made them tremble uncontrollably, yet they dared not make a sound.
The only girl buried her face in her hands, holding her nose and mouth so tightly her nails nearly dug into her cheeks, her blue eyes brimming with tears of horror.
The two young men were equally deathly pale, gritting their teeth so hard their muscles strained, not even daring to blink.
The monster lingered outside the bush for five or six seconds, but to the three hiding inside, it felt as long as several centuries.
Its crimson eyes seemed to fixate on the bush for a moment, its heavy snorts puffing onto the outermost leaves.
Finally, failing to detect any clear target, it let out a low growl and resumed its heavy steps, heading deeper into the darkness at the other end of the passage.
Only after the footsteps had faded entirely into the cave’s depths, and after waiting a while longer to ensure no further sound, did the three slump completely onto the decaying leaves and mud, as if all their bones had been removed.
They greedily gulped in the cold, damp air, their chests heaving violently like swimmers coming up for air after a long dive.
“Ha... ha... We... we avoided another one...”
The short-brown-haired boy, Alvin, leaned his back against the rock wall and wiped away the mixture of cold sweat and grime on his face. His voice was raspy, trembling with the relief of having survived.
“Avoided it? How much longer can we keep hiding?!”
The other boy, Leonard—with curly blond hair and large scrapes and bruises on his face—jerked his head around. In his bloodshot eyes, suppressed terror exploded into a twisted rage:
“It’s all your fault, Alvin! If you hadn’t sworn up and down that the reward was huge, the risk was manageable, and that finishing this job would turn our lives around, why would we have lost our minds and taken a godforsaken commission where we didn’t even see the client's face and the contract terms were clear as mud?!”
“Blame me?! Leonard, your fucking eyes were popping out of your head when you saw the number on that contract! Who was the one saying, ‘With this money, I can pay off most of my family’s debts and secure my sister’s dowry’?!”
Alvin growled back, refusing to back down. His injured arm twitched from his excitement, making him grimace in pain.
“Now that things went sideways, you throw all the blame on me? You weren't acting so high and mighty when you nodded along!”
“Enough! Stop fighting!!”
The only girl among the three, Leah, shrieked through tearful sobs, her voice sharp despite her attempt to keep it hushed.
Her pale blond hair clung damply to her paper-white face. Her blue eyes were swollen and red, tears spilling down non-stop and smearing through the dirt on her skin.
“What's the point of fighting... Will fighting help us find our way back? Will it get rid of those monsters?! We lost the magic conduit... we lost the map... We don't even know where we are anymore... sob sob...”
Her words were like a bucket of icy water poured over Alvin and Leonard's heads, instantly dousing their flared tempers and leaving behind only a colder, heavier despair in everyone's chest.
Right now, not only were they being pursued across the vast deep area by at least three or four ferocious monsters like the one just now, but they had also completely lost their sense of direction, blundering through this vast, complex underground labyrinth like headless chickens.
This deep cavern, consumed by darkness and danger, had transformed from an exploration ground into a deadly cage from which they could not break free.
This also served to prove just how absurdly deceptive the difficulty setting of the Academy Dungeon's first layer really was.
The official recommended entry level was LV20, but any student naive enough to believe that reaching LV20 guaranteed smooth sailing through the first layer would eventually learn a bloody lesson about what it meant to "walk in on two feet and leave on a stretcher."
In truth, the level of danger in the deep area of the first layer far exceeded anything suggested by stats on paper.
And as for Alvin, Leonard, and Leah, all three belonged to fallen, financially strapped, minor noble families who could barely hold their heads up in aristocratic circles.
If their families had any strength left to spare, or if they themselves could easily acquire cultivation resources or generous allowances, why would they ever have taken such a risk for a reward high enough to solve their family troubles, agreeing to a contract whose issuer's true identity was shrouded in mystery?
Poverty and a desperate urge to change their circumstances had blinded their judgment, driving them into this abyss.
As third-year students, their average level was only around LV21, which was already the limit of what they could achieve given their scarce resources.
With such power, they lacked any leverage to face deep-area monsters head-on—creatures that were typically around LV25 or higher and possessed various troublesome abilities.
During their previous encounters, they had managed to escape by pure luck, recklessly overexerting their physical stamina and burning through their mana without restraint.
Now, however, their stamina, mana, and mental resilience were pushed past their absolute limits.
Despair gnawed away at what remained of their willpower like a lingering curse.
“Are we... really going to... die here...?”
Leah's weeping gradually quieted into intermittent sobs, her hollow eyes staring up at the cavern ceiling engulfed in darkness.
Alvin and Leonard fell silent as well.
Their earlier argument seemed so feeble, even ridiculous, in the face of this irreversible crisis.
Leaning against the cold, slick rock wall, they sat slumped in the decaying leaves, eyes losing focus as they stared blankly into the endless darkness ahead.
It was as if they had already accepted the brutal fate awaiting them, their strength to struggle entirely drained away.
However, their heated argument and muffled sobs had already radiated outward like flickering sparks in the night.
Rate on N.U.
