Danmachi: The Focalors Familia Starting from the Dungeon

”Robin, watch out!”

Jeanne stood firmly in front of Robin, her holy flag planted in the ground.

A scorching pillar of fire rained down from above, slamming heavily into Jeanne with a loud sizzle. Yet, it failed to produce even a single ripple.

Like water hitting an impassable dam, the flames scattered harmlessly to the sides.

In the face of [Magic Resistance], pure magical attacks like this were completely nullified.

On the other side, Tifa’s figure darted nimbly between the crisscrossing branches.

She kicked off a trunk hard, her body drawing a fierce trajectory through the air. With a devastating, heavy sweeping kick, she slammed into the flank of a Firebird.

Bang!

The heavy impact forced a wail from the Firebird, the crisp sound of shattering bones echoing clearly.

Using the recoil, Tifa twisted in mid-air like a dancing butterfly, launching herself straight toward another Firebird that had just flown over her head.

With their fluid, flawless coordination, the Firebirds in the immediate vicinity were swiftly eradicated.

After easily clearing the nearby swarm, Aiden and the group didn’t linger. They pushed deeper into the Large Tree Labyrinth in search of new targets.

However, they hadn’t gone far before they stumbled into a wide, hollowed-out tree cavity and encountered a monster they had never seen before.

”What is that thing? I’ve never seen anything like it. Don’t tell me it’s another anomaly.”

Daphne’s face practically turned green.

She couldn’t help but complain internally. Ever since joining the Focalors Familia, the odds of them running into ”version updates” and ”sudden events” were absurdly high.

Floating in the air before them were several bizarre constructs.

Their main bodies resembled round, fish-shaped paper lanterns, with a light source swaying like a candle flame at their core.

Complex, gilded and cyan engravings covered their exteriors, and flowing mechanical structures resembling fish fins adorned their sides, the edges glowing with a fluid golden light.

These things didn’t look like monsters. They looked like exquisite pieces of art straight out of a deity’s workshop.

But a second later, the ”art pieces” opened their invisible ”mouths” and violently spewed a torrent of scorching fire straight at the group.

”Look out!”

Jeanne reacted instantly, her holy flag sweeping through the air to shield everyone.

Her [Magic Resistance] activated silently. A barely visible luminescence shrouded her body, effortlessly blocking the surging flames.

Although Daphne, Cassandra, and the others were wearing their Salamander Wool robes, the intense heat from the passing flames still caused a fine sheen of sweat to break out on their foreheads. Emerging completely unscathed was a miracle.

This sudden, newly discovered monster had terrified them.

”Be careful, these are Illumination Dragonfish. They self-destruct.”

A faint golden light flickered in Jeanne’s eyes. Her [True Name Discernment] skill had already activated, instantly seeing through the monster’s name and core abilities.

Previously, when facing the Level 5 Dead End Butcher on the 17th Floor, the gap in their tiers was too massive for her skill to take effect.

But these things floating in front of them were clearly just regular monsters. She saw right through them in an instant.

”They self-destruct?!”

Daphne and Cassandra both knew Jeanne possessed this incredibly rare intelligence-gathering skill. After all, there was no reason to hide it; warning your comrades was standard procedure.

”Let me test it!”

Aiden didn’t hesitate. He raised his hand and fired off a sonic blast.

The invisible sonic shell accurately struck one of the Illumination Dragonfish, severely wounding it in an instant.

But it didn’t die immediately. Instead, its entire body rapidly inflated like a balloon, and the light at its core became violently unstable.

BOOM!

With a deafening roar, the Illumination Dragonfish violently detonated. The berserk shockwave of fire rippled outward, scorching the surrounding wooden walls black.

At the epicenter of the explosion, a smoking crater had been blasted into the floor.

Seeing this, a cold sweat broke out on Daphne’s back.

If Jeanne hadn’t warned them, and they had rashly charged in for close-quarters combat, even if they managed to land a one-hit kill, they would have absolutely been caught in that point-blank explosion.

Even with the durability of a high-level adventurer, they would have lost a layer of skin, if not their lives.

”What a vicious monster.”

She couldn’t help but curse.

Just then, the sound of panicked, stumbling footsteps echoed from a nearby path.

Bors ran over from a branching corridor with his squad of adventurers. They were all covered in dirt, sporting obvious scorch marks. Clearly, they had also run into these monsters and been caught completely off guard.

”Flamescion, this is bad! It’s an anomaly. There are monsters that self-destruct!”

Bors approached quickly, his face dark.

”We know.”

Aiden nodded and gestured to Jeanne beside him. ”My companion has an analysis skill. Those self-destructing monsters are called Illumination Dragonfish. Their primary attack is breathing fire, followed by self-destruction. As long as you don’t let them get close and attack from a distance, they aren’t hard to deal with.”

He had no intention of hiding Jeanne’s ability. In this kind of situation, sharing intelligence was the optimal move.

”Really? That’s fantastic!”

Bors was overjoyed. ”We actually ran into two other types of monsters we’ve never seen before. We didn’t dare attack them blindly. Could Miss Jeanne take a look at them for us?”

The unknown was the most terrifying enemy in the Dungeon.

As long as they had the intel, no matter how bizarre a monster’s abilities were, veteran adventurers would always find a way to counter them.

”Sure.” Aiden nodded flatly.

Led by Bors, they soon discovered the two other brand-new monsters a short distance away.

One was round, thick, and chubby, resembling a golden-bronze toad censer. Cloud patterns were carved into its surface, and its glowing furnace core was located in its belly. It floated in mid-air, looking both archaic and delicate.

The other was a hybrid of a lion and a bell. Its gilded brass, bell-shaped body was carved with beast-face reliefs, topped with a small mechanical lion’s head. Its eyes burned with fire.

Jeanne activated [True Name Discernment] once more and quickly relayed the intel.

”The chubby one is called a Golden Cloud Toad. It spits a poisonous fog imbued with a curse that drastically lowers an adventurer’s agility.”

”The other is an Obedient Dracolion. Its roar inflicts a weakness curse. Adventurers without [Abnormal Resistance] will rapidly lose all their strength.”

These three newly spawned monsters didn’t have high stats—they were roughly Level 2, just like the Firebirds. But their abilities were incredibly insidious.

One played with self-destruction, one nerfed agility, and the last inflicted weakness. If a squad of uninformed adventurers blindly charged into them, they’d probably get completely wiped out before they even realized what hit them.

Upon learning the specifics, Bors and his men beamed with joy.

Insidious abilities didn’t matter. The Dungeon had no shortage of tricky monsters. As long as they had the intel, they owned the battlefield.

After receiving the data on the monsters, Bors and his squad departed to spread the word to the other adventurers hunting Firebirds on the 19th Floor.

Aiden and his group resumed their commission, searching for more Firebirds to hunt.

”Movement ahead.”

Tifa, walking at the very front, suddenly halted and assumed a combat stance.

Following her gaze, they saw several ’lanterns’ emitting bright candlelight, drifting leisurely in mid-air within a spacious tree cavity ahead.

Before anyone could speak, the ’lanterns’ seemed to detect the intruders. The light sources at their cores flared brightly, and they opened their ’mouths’, spewing a wide, fan-shaped barrage of flames.

”I hate enemies that blow up the second you touch them.”

Tifa swiftly retreated, voicing her complaint. Enemies like this rendered her masterful close-quarters combat skills completely useless.

”Leave it to us.”

Aiden, Robin, and Hyacine were already lined up, moving in perfect sync.

”Gospel.” Aiden chanted softly. Several highly compressed sonic shells screamed through the air.

”Let the music play.” Robin tapped her finger gracefully. An invisible sonic shockwave struck one of the Dragonfish dead on.

”Little Ica, please.”

Hyacine patted the companion in her arms. Little Ica let out a crisp whinny and flapped its wings, sending several sharp blades of wind slicing toward the remaining monsters.

Under the concentrated ranged fire of the trio, the glowing lights on the Illumination Dragonfish flickered wildly before they detonated in unison, popping like overinflated balloons.

The chain of explosions kicked up a fierce shockwave of heat and fire, scorching the surrounding wooden walls black.

”Art is Patrick Star.”

Watching the spectacular display, Hyacine quietly muttered a bizarre meme she had learned from Aiden.

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