We made our way through the snowfield unmolested this time. The Akhlut packs were seemingly in retreat after the death of their Alpha. It was an odd thing for me. I'd never seen a monster behave that way before. Normally, they just kept coming no matter the circumstances; that was the universal experience. Maybe it was similar to completing a chamber objective when the System offered one. It was rare to be bothered in a chamber where you had finished a System given objective, as far as the Banner archives were aware. The chamber was never totally safe, but certainly safer than anywhere else in an active dungeon.

  The exit to the next chamber turned out to be a burrow, seemingly dug into the side of the basalt ridge where I'd battled the Akhlut Alpha. The journey didn't take long at the steady distance, eating lope of Rankers. Yet we could all feel the sense of time running out, pressing down on us. We had only been in the dungeon for a couple of hours at this point, but every hour spent battling through the dungeon was an hour closer to the worst possible outcome: Dungeon Breach.

  We passed through another stone corridor lit by the same blue flame torches that seemed to be a constant between dungeons. Almost as if the System itself had some sort of fondness for them. We marched on in relative silence until we reached the end of the corridor and emerged into the next chamber.

  "What the shit…" Felix's harsh whisper summed up what we were all thinking quite well. We had gone from an open snow field to what looked like icy tunnels. "It's too large. There's something wrong here." We all remained silent as Felix muttered from the back of the group. My senses expanded, taking in our surroundings. I expected my aura to brush up against the nothingness I knew surrounded dungeons, as if they were some floating room lost in the endless void. That was not what I found.

  Instead, I got a sense of a maze of twisting tunnels winding their way through an icy mountain deep underground. We were presently in a tunnel that would barely be large enough to contain my spider form, though that varied as far as I could tell. A mixture of [Aura Manipulation] and [All-Seeing Eye] allowed me to map out my surroundings to a surprising degree. There seemed to be some variance in tunnel size, but never enough that I'd be able to fight comfortably in my spider form. On its own, my spider body would take up half of even the largest tunnel I could sense.

  While I'd been focused on my senses and what they could tell me about the area, the group around me had been talking amongst themselves. "I'm telling you, it's too big. Dungeons with field-type areas are supposed to have fewer chambers, not more." Felix explained, hands flying about in exclamation. "It's supposed to take more mana to create larger environments, hence larger chambers, fewer chambers. There is something deeply wrong in this dungeon to be this large."

  I nodded, privately mirroring Felix's sentiments. In theory, he was right—larger dungeons should be short and brutal, not sprawling like this. All the lore and data the Banner had collected told us that the System always balanced energy in, energy out. No such thing as a free lunch, even in a magical death trap. In this dungeon, though, every chamber so far was as big as the last, and by the feel of it, there were more still to come. That shouldn't be able to happen; the dungeon should have a finite pool of energy to build from, to create monsters from. It shouldn't be able to create multiple chambers the size it was and have monsters as strong as it did. I had the distinct feeling we hadn't seen the worst this dungeon had to offer us yet, either.

  "Enough, Felix." Kels ground out, voice echoing softly in the icy confines of the tunnel. "We all know there's something not right here." Angus placed a hand on the smaller man's shoulder reassuringly.

  “We’ll figure it out, we always do.” He nodded in my direction, “Plus this time we can’t just sic ‘Eight legs’ over there on the problem.”

  "Hey, I resemble that remark." I grinned easily. I had my own concerns about the dungeon and what we would find going forward. I did not doubt my ability to deal with whatever it threw at me, though. I would struggle onward the same way I always did, no matter what this particular dungeon decided to throw at me. Felix nodded quietly, and we resumed our advance, somewhat slower now that we were in a newer environment. Presumably, one that had new dangers.

  We continued on down the iced tunnel until we reached an intersecting point, and a flicker of [All-Seeing Eye] revealed the path easily. All I had to do was follow the mana wash that bubbled up from deeper in the dungeon, the same as the previous chambers. Mana was an odd mix of liquid and gas traits. It always sought to spread out and fill whatever container it was in, but also sought its own level the way water did. It flowed between areas of higher pressure and lower pressure, which led to phenomena like the mana wash, rushing out from the lowest parts of the dungeon to the higher areas where there was less density.

  Our footsteps echoed against the icy walls of the tunnel as we crossed the intersection.

  A sharp, metallic scrape—like a serrated blade dragged across glass—sliced through the tunnel, followed by a low, rattling growl that vibrated the ice beneath our boots. Everyone went still. The sound came again, closer, louder, metal on metal on frozen bone, a staccato shriek that dug under my skin and set nerves jangling. My pulse hammered in rhythm with the echoes.

  I hadn't learned my lesson with the Akhlut on the previous floor. These monsters could hide themselves in the mana, which grew denser the deeper we went. I dropped into a crouch, eyes darting around as the other followed suit, getting ready for battle. Flat, fat strips of ice peeled themselves off the tunnel walls around us, clear and crystalline. With hungry screeching mouths that had been latched to the icy walls of the tunnel, now bared and screeching at us. I triggered [Analyze] on instinct, demanding information on the icy tapeworm abominations that unfurled themselves all around us.

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  [Snow Wyrm][Dungeon-born]

  Level: 29

  Species: Icy Tunnel Aberration

  Strength: 71

  Dexterity: 30

  Endurance: 82

  Intelligence: 5

  Perception: 25

  Charisma: 1

  Species Skills:

  [Icy Camouflage]

  [Stealth]

  [Lunge]

  [Devour]

  It was a comedy of errors and tragic competence, brewed into a perfect storm. These were the perfect monsters to ambush someone like me in this environment. The combination of [Stealth] itself plus what I was certain was an environment specific stealth type Skill in [Icy Camouflage], in addition to the mana wash, was enough to hide them from my senses.

  "Don't let them grab you!" I called out to the team. These were ambush predators, that much was clear. [Lunge] to close the distance from the cover provided by [Stealth] and [Icy Camouflage]. Then grab and wrap the prey to use [Devour], best guess the ending was a form of drain Skill. That would suit the stat line these monsters had almost too well with their large pool of Endurance. Once they latched on and wrapped something up, it was probably over; the likely drain from [Devour] would kick in. Then the target would have to overcome the Snow Wyrm Endurance and the healing it got from the drain.

  It was a deadly combination.

  I whirled, driving my dagger into the skull of a lunging snow wyrm. Long hours of practice with Vipera ensured I knew exactly how the [Lunge] Skill worked, and its limitations. After all, it had been one of her principal skills since the moment we'd met for the first time. Ripping my dagger free, I slashed at the monster's neck. I wasn't sure a head wound would be enough to kill it outright with their monstrous Endurance stat. The Wyrm's head tumbled free of its body, and the rest of it fell limply to the ground.

  I turned to see another wyrm on a collision course with Felix, who was supporting Angus. He wasn't going to be able to turn and fire in time. I grit my teeth and cast [Edge Glare] even as pain flared behind my eye. Too much strain, but the Spell made it. The colourless force blade sliced the wyrm's head from its body, sending its bulk flopping to the floor like a limp noodle.

  "Decapitate them if you can; hacking at their bodies will take too long!" I called out, watching as Angus and Kels switched strategies. Where previously they had engaged in striking any available part of the monster they could reach. I watched as Angus' hammer splattered the skull of his wyrm against the tunnel wall.

  I followed up with another couple of strikes to another wyrm slithering out from the ceiling. It scythed downward, mouth splitting into three obscene petals ringing a pit of serrated cartilage. I let it close the distance, then sidestepped the lunge, slashing my dagger through its chorded neck as I pivoted away. The blow nearly tore the head clean off, but not quite—so I grabbed the limp neck while still sidestepping, twisted, and finished the job, flinging the head down the tunnel. It skittered away, leaving a black smear on the blue-white ice.

  Vipera snapped out beside me, barely visible as a shadow against the icy wall. She caught a wyrm stalking up on Kels and buried her fangs at the base of its skull as she latched on. The hard edges of her scales became like a series of whirling blades on a chainsaw as she uncoiled. The move saw the head of the wrym ground off and hurled down the tunnel. The adrenaline spike from Vipera's joy nearly made me laugh—I couldn't help myself, I barked out a feral whoop as the serpent whipped the wyrm's severed head down the tunnel. Her joy was infectious. We fought a running advance through the tunnel as more and more wyrms emerged, unravelling themselves from the tunnel walls. We made good progress working as a cohesive unit, covering each other's blind spots.

  Angus and Kels lead the way deeper into the tunnel, while Signe and Felix supported them from the center of the formation. I brought up the rear with Vipera weaving around us, striking at will at any wyrm that got too close. She was taking great feral joy in dragging the wyrms away from the walls and tearing off their heads. Soon enough, though, things began to go wrong. We had been through too many fights in too short a time. Too much fatigue built up with no rest in between. We were balanced on the edge, and the dungeon was ready to give us another push to see if we would stumble.

  Shards of ice whistled past my head and shattered against the tunnel wall behind me, some missing by centimetres. One splintered on my armoured arm, scoring a shallow groove even through the dense scales of my vambraces. My eyes flicked back along the path of the ice shards, following their path back to their source. I found a new monster looking in my direction from an interesting position. Hanging partway out of the wall as if it were in the middle of phasing through it. The monster vaguely reminded me of an eel, if an eel were nothing but animated bones made of crystalline ice and glowing yellow eyes filled with the familiar monster malevolence. On instinct alone, I triggered my [Analyze] just as the monster retreated directly into the ice of the tunnel wall.

  [Ice Wraith][Dungeon-born]

  Level: 31

  Species: Frostbound Revenant

  Strength: 49

  Dexterity: 84

  Endurance: 31

  Intelligence: 9

  Perception: 51

  Charisma: 7

  Species Skills:

  [Fangs of Winter]

  [Frost Walk]

  [Icy Breath]

  [Icy Camouflage]

  [Permafrost]

  I battered aside the monster's meagre charisma, demanding more information on its Skills. I ignored [Icy Camouflage]; its purpose was obvious enough, since this monster shared the Skill with the Snow Wyrms we had already been battling. What worried me were the other Skills. Like the Akhlut Alpha, this monster was also over the level thirty threshold, which meant it had an additional Skill over the Snow wyrms.

  [Fangs of Winter] - Physical attacks are imbued with cold. Successful strikes inflict additional ice damage and have a chance to slow or freeze the target, reducing their movement and reaction speed.

  [Frost Walk] - Ice is no impediment, pass through icy surfaces as if they were immaterial. This Skill is unable to accept passengers.

  [Permafrost] - Radiate an aura of cold, steadily lowering the temperature in a wide radius. Enemies within the aura suffer reaction speed and stamina reductions.

  [Icy Breath] - Exhale cold in an area or condensed into projectiles.

  I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. This fight was becoming a much riskier proposition than it had been when the Snow Wyrms had first emerged.

  Not good. Not good at all.