The figures of the Knight Commanders shrank farther away. The sky stretched endlessly above, and my body began to plummet downward.
The monsters on the bridge below attempted to prepare for battle at the sight of my descent, but before they could make a move, I was already much lower. Whether it was arrows or spears, it didn’t matter.
This was the fastest way to clear the Abyss Dungeon I mentioned. Aligning the angle and position perfectly, I would jump straight down to the ground.
At first glance, it seemed like an easy action, but in reality, it was far from it.
The creators must have thought things through; they had increased the base health of the monsters on the bridge and adjusted their height to ensure that dropping attacks wouldn’t work.
Doing damage with a falling attack was only possible when the target could die. If the monster survived, it was guaranteed that the player would end up a lonely falling death.
Moreover, most of the monsters were placed in blind spots, meticulously calculated so that players wouldn’t accidentally fall onto them.
So, from the moment I fell from the bridge, a death was inevitable. That’s what everyone thought.
‘It was a method discovered by sheer accident, though.’
Everything started with some unlucky guy who improperly used a roll, tumbled off the bridge, and fell to his death at the dungeon’s lowest level.
What started as a ridiculously unfortunate situation turned into a laughingstock, and the words “Can we skip the middle process by falling to the bottom and landing an attack?” popped up.
With nothing else to do, the undead performing various crazy feats jumped on the bait and began to try it out. I was one of them.
There were only two conditions, but each was incredibly tough.
First, one had to jump straight down without hitting anything until reaching the dungeon’s bottom, and second, there needed to be monsters at the spot they landed to execute a falling attack.
The second condition was unreasonably cruel. Monsters would usually loiter around unless they spotted a player, meaning it required perfect timing to succeed.
But who were we? We were the kind of people that when told to play bonsai, would beat each other senselessly with bonsai trees, finding a way to climb just a bit higher than the opponent if a competitive element was involved.
After lengthy attempts, we finally succeeded. From the moment we entered this dungeon area, we calculated the movement range of the monsters and figured out where and how to jump.
And this was the result.
Countless bridges and branches whisked past me. I thought that if I miscalculated my position even slightly, I would definitely crash into one of them and die.
Occasionally, some would shoot arrows, but they were utterly ineffective against me. The thunk of arrows embedding into walls could only be heard from up above.
‘Ah, that was really tough.’
Seeing the monster that brushed past me, which was easily three to four times larger than a human, sent shivers down my spine. That was the mid-boss of this dungeon.
Having to fight on a narrow bridge was already excruciatingly hard, and with mercilessness characteristic of the Darkness Mod, archers fired arrows from nearby cliffs, making it even tougher.
I was relieved to not have to fight that guy. If it weren’t for the terrain and arrows, he would have been at the mob level; he was obnoxiously formidable.
I continued to fall well past the mid-boss. There was still no sign of hitting the ground.
Naturally. Rather than releasing this dungeon as is, they had introduced it in lieu of adding new regions in the DLC, so there had to be enough playtime in this dungeon to match an ordinary new area.
It was the process of skipping through the middle while traversing from one end of such a place to the other. It wouldn’t be done in a few minutes.
As time passed, the appearance of the monsters on the bridge gradually changed.
While the monsters at the entrance wielded crude weapons and wooden shields or bows, as I descended, more rugged-looking creatures appeared.
Shields were replaced with sturdy armor, spears became sharp claws and teeth, and bows were transformed into black liquid spit from their mouths. They were also much larger than ordinary humans.
Of course, since I passed by all of those, it meant nothing now.
‘It’s about time to arrive.’
Before I knew it, everything—the walls of the dungeon and the bridges spanning across it—had turned to black. That meant I was almost at the center of the Rune Dungeon.
Soon, I could see the bottom of the dungeon far ahead. The ground, looking like a swamp, writhed as if it were alive.
I scanned for a place to land. A monster was waddling around nearby.
‘Thank goodness.’
I let out a sigh of relief inwardly. I had jumped in confidently, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t tense. A part of me was worried.
I was grateful my ominous premonition didn’t come true.
I raised the Blood-Stained Sword. Buffing attack power was meaningless. The crux of the falling attack damage wasn’t the weapon’s own damage but rather additional damage that scaled with the distance fallen.
Falling from such a height would end even a boss in one hit.
The distance between the monster and me closed rapidly. I pulled my right shoulder slightly back and landed directly on top of the monster’s head.
Crack!
“Graaaah!”
The monster shrieked in agony, bearing the brunt of the impact I should have taken. I immediately grasped its neck and spun around.
Its upper body twisted to the side and slammed into the ground. An eerie thud echoed, as if its back had burst open.
We rolled on the ground, tangled together several times. When it was underneath and I was on top, the rolling finally stopped. I stabbed the Blood-Stained Sword into its head.
The monster trembled as if struck by lightning, then fell silent. I checked it wasn’t moving before slowly withdrawing my sword and rising.
In stark contrast to the monster’s pitiful form sprawled on the ground, I was unscathed.
Success.
I glanced up. Surely there was a straight path to the entrance, but instead of seeing the sky, it was all dark and dreary. Branches and bridges crowded the space.
The number of bridges in my line of sight easily exceeded a hundred. I was suddenly hit with the realization of just how deep this dungeon was.
I lowered my head. There were still tasks to finish. I had to deal with more monsters that looked just like the one I had just used for my falling attack.
Without hesitation, I thrust the Blood-Stained Sword into its gut. This dungeon was fairly late-game material in terms of the main storyline. Without an attack power buff, it would take ages to take one of them down.
As I drew the sword from its belly, I walked towards the nearest monster’s detection range. Its head creaked as it turned around and its glowing red eyes fixed on me.
Thud, it took a step.
The last monster fell to the ground. With a splash, the black liquid sprayed everywhere.
“Ugh, disgusting.”
I wiped the black liquid from my face with the back of my hand. I hadn’t expected it to splatter onto my face. Although it might be harmless to the human body, it left a bad feeling.
The Blood-Stained Sword had already returned to its original color. It took a bit longer to finish off the last one because the buff had worn off, but it more or less aligned with the planned timing.
I moved forward with determination through the sticky black muck. With every step I took, my legs sank into it to my calves.
This was exactly why I hated this place. It forced players to walk and even restricted rolling.
While areas categorized as swamps had a similar effect, this was even worse. In a swamp, I could at least perform the heaviest kind of roll, but on this black muck, rolling was completely sealed, leaving me with only walking.
Grumbling about how this was the perfect area to raise blood pressure, I stepped out to find a narrow alley extending between the walls, along with a sculpture-like something next to it.
It was a statue that allowed players to rapidly save and fast travel, but it wasn’t much use to me right now.
I couldn’t use it since I hadn’t met the activation conditions yet, and even if I did unlock it, it wouldn’t help much.
‘What would I do using it alone while leaving the Knight Commanders behind?’
How often would I be in a situation to use it by myself? Moreover, even if I activated it, I probably wouldn’t ever return here.
If this were a game, I would have activated that statue to replenish potions or take a short rest before challenging the boss, but it was different here. I ignored the statue and continued walking along the path.
Not long after, I arrived at a massive door.
Behind this door lay the boss of the Abyss Dungeon. I briefly sheathed the Blood-Stained Sword, placed my hand on the door, and slowly pushed it forward with strength.
With a creak, the door began to slowly open to the sides. The view inside gradually became visible. At least the boss room looked just as I remembered.
“Ugh… Huhuh… Huh…”
I thought I could hear the sound of a woman weeping from inside.
It was a sorrowful yet eerie sob that sent chills down the spine of the listener. I fully opened the door and stepped into the boss room. The door closed automatically with a thud.
In the center of the room knelt a woman, hands clasped in prayer before her mouth, sobbing. She wore the outfit typical of the battle nuns of the Raphael Holy Kingdom.
Nearly all of it was torn and rotten, barely leaving fabric on her body. If I guessed right, the remaining fabric was probably less than 10% of what the original outfit had been.
With such an atrociously revealing nun’s outfit, the little that remained barely counted as clothing.
“Ugh… Huh…”
As I stepped inside, the nun continued her weeping. Black liquid streamed down from her shut eyelids.
Plop.
The moment my foot hit the marsh, her sobbing came to an end.
My site has received a lot of DMCA notices, lol. From now on, I will update the MTL on https://darkmtl.com/.
The site is fast and lightweight because there are no ads yet. However, the theme is different from Cybor-TL, so take some time to familiarize yourself.
Support me by donating at least $10, and you'll have the right to request any novel from Novelpia (excluding 19+ content) using a newly developed tool.