Blowing Up the Fish Pond (2)

This two-kilometer-diameter ‘pit’ serves as the interface between the Sandra Abyss and the material world.

Mercenaries pass through specific channels, protective barriers, and the Grand Seal before arriving at the pit’s edge, where they descend approximately three hundred meters via a large elevator to reach the bottom.

Only upon reaching the bottom does the true exploration of the abyss begin.

To draw a comparison to an RPG dungeon, the three-hundred-meter-deep pit is merely the entrance; the bottom marks the first layer of the labyrinth.

This was a world of blue-black.

Blue-black ground, blue-black walls, rugged paths, utterly devoid of any light source.

Numerous stalagmite-like protrusions dotted the ground, yet they felt nothing like stone.

Instead, they resembled non-reflective crystal, and the ground’s very material seemed more akin to a carbon compound than rock.

Occasionally, narrow streams snaked across the surface.

These weren’t composed of pure water, of course, but a viscous, repulsive substance that looked like a mixture of ink and paint.

The sight of the first layer alone was this oppressive, and the deeper layers promised to be even more so.

The Sandra Abyss comprised six layers in total.

Beyond the sixth layer lay the ‘Deep Abyss,’ a realm of an alien world where the deepest point of the sixth layer typically represented the limit of human exploration.

Now, in the second layer of the Abyss—

[ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!!!!]

A massive Abyssal Beast was wreaking havoc.

Its form was grotesquely distorted, exceeding ten meters in length.

Its giant lizard-like body was supported by four pairs of legs, its skin covered in thick, constantly wriggling hairs resembling earthworms.

Dozens of tentacles sprouted from its pitch-black torso, each base adorned with spiraling eyes.

Its head was a masterpiece of unsettling filth, a hybrid monstrosity seemingly born from a fly’s forced union with a blob fish, its face riddled with countless tiny eyes.

Before it stood a well-equipped small mercenary group: a physically enhanced leader in a burgundy suit, a vice-leader clutching a grimoire, two power-armored warriors wielding RGB greatswords, a divine healer who couldn’t activate ‘Princess Mode’, an elven magic archer, and a rookie mechanic boy providing support.

“It’s attacking!”

“Watch out!”

The leader roared, using his body to endure the Abyssal Beast’s lashing tentacles.

Beneath his torn clothes, bronzed muscles flexed.

“Leader, what are you doing?! You’re a damage dealer, not a tank!”

“Cough… Protecting my team is… my…”

“You’re full of it, get out of the way!”

The vice-leader flipped through their grimoire, casting a shield over the leader, then unleashed a skill upon the Abyssal Beast, which had begun spraying corrosive liquid from its tentacles.

“Lightning Orb! Grenade Burst!”

The purple explosion momentarily halted the Abyssal Beast’s movements.

Under the vice-leader’s command, the healer buffed the two warriors, who, with a sword each, severed two tentacles.

The pained Abyssal Beast recoiled significantly, a moment the long-prepared archer had been waiting for.

“Pashupata!!! Stella!!!!!!!!!!!”

She fired two arrows in quick succession, one striking its torso, the other its head.

The Abyssal Beast let out a deafening roar, its severe injuries sending it into a berserk frenzy.

“Hey! Rookie, it’s your turn to shine! Control it!”

“Y-yes, sir!”

At the vice-leader’s command, the young mechanic released two futuristic-looking small drones.

First, they dropped bombs to distract the Abyssal Beast.

Then, like centrosomes in cellular mitosis, they flew to either side of the creature, unleashing dazzling electric arcs that formed an electric net, trapping it in the center.

“Well done! Now, watch this!”

The leader leaped up, pulled down his bangs—which resembled an ice blade—and flung them at the Abyssal Beast like a boomerang.

“Take this—Izka Ice Axe!!!”

Though initially comical, the attack proved astonishingly powerful.

The Abyssal Beast’s head, already heavily wounded by arrows, was directly cleaved in two by his bangs, taking a good portion of its torso with it.

“Done!”

The leader caught his returning bangs, placed them back on his head, and chuckled.

“With that, the mission’s complete. Let’s count heads and head back!”

“Don’t get too relaxed,” the vice-leader sighed. “Abyssal Beast activity is very frequent now. It’s best to be careful on the way back.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. It just means more beasts are emerging from the deeper layers. Their strength is still quite ordinary~”

“Don’t let your guard down either… Speaking of which, this area is really quiet. We haven’t seen any other mercenary groups; it’s a stark contrast to the first layer.”

“Maybe they’re active on other layers today…”

The young mechanic, engrossed in packing his equipment, casually replied.

Relieved that the battle was over, he felt he had performed quite well in his first fight since joining the group.

“My first battle felt pretty good… I’ll have to work even harder from now on, right, Leader—Leader?”

Silence suddenly fell around them.

He looked up—only to see the leader collapsed in a pool of blood.

“L-leader? Leader, what are you doing, Leader!”

“Run… quickly… don’t… stop…”

The leader only managed to utter those words before losing consciousness.

Before anyone else could react, an asphalt-like black viscous liquid dripped from above.

It was saliva.

The boy trembled, looking up.

It was a colossal creature, easily four stories tall.

Shaped like an enlarged moray eel, its limbs were indiscernible.

Only its gargantuan maw, large enough to swallow a train car, stood out with chilling clarity.

Inside, there were no teeth, no tongue, only a dense cluster of wildly spinning eyeballs and an incessant drip of black saliva.

This size.

This oppressive aura.

This was absolutely not an Abyssal Beast that should appear on the second layer.

At least a fourth-layer… possibly even a fifth-layer creature.

“Don’t just stand there, run—”

BOOM!!!!!!!!

A single, small drop of saliva from the Abyssal Beast’s mouth exploded, gouging a crater over thirty meters in radius into the ground.

The vice-leader’s shield had barely saved them from that blast, but it was only a temporary reprieve.

The very next instant, a tentacle extending from the monster’s surface pierced straight through the vice-leader’s stomach.

The tentacle was incredibly slender and moved with terrifying speed; in its rapid extension and retraction, five individuals were already sprawled in pools of blood.

[Hiss……………….]

It seemed to be testing the mercenary group’s combat capabilities, a clear sign of some intelligence.

When the test concluded, and it determined these humans were utterly insignificant, the one-sided massacre began.

A dense, inky blackness brewed within its mouth.

Those still able to move turned to flee, but it was already too late—

RUMBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

This black breath attack tore through the second layer’s ground, leaving behind scars as if scorched by lava.

The shockwave unleashed by the breath’s explosion caused even more severe secondary damage.

After the chaos, only the young mechanic remained conscious.

He was utterly bewildered.

The monster’s myriad eyes, swirling within its maw, swept across the ground, finally converging on the boy.

“Ah… ahhh… AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

The boy let out a despairing scream, collapsing to his knees with his head in his hands—

“Hey, kid.”

“Huh?”

Suddenly, someone tapped his shoulder from behind.

He instinctively turned his head—

“Sleep. That’s an order.”

And then, in 0.01 seconds, he fell into a deep slumber.

…

…

…

…

“…Hey… wake up… wake up!”

“……………?”

“Wake up, Space Superman, I’m Formalin!”

“What the???”

After an unknown amount of time, the boy was roused by his companions.

He groggily got up, stunned for a few seconds—then realized that his companions, who should have been lying dead on the ground, were all awake, looking just as surprised.

The leader, who had been covered in blood and collapsed, now seemed fine.

The vice-leader’s pierced stomach wound had healed.

Though all were covered in dust and grime, none were in mortal danger; a bright future awaited them all.

“Where… where’s that ridiculously huge Abyssal Beast?”

“Over there…”

The boy followed the healer’s pointing finger, utterly astonished.

The Abyssal Beast that had suddenly attacked them—the one whose single breath could cause a massive explosion, whose tentacles could reap a swath of lives with one sweep, and which could effortlessly defeat an experienced mercenary group—

Was now shattered into a pulpy mess.

Blue-black flesh was scattered across the ground, and the foul black abyssal energy dissipated on its own.

Furthermore, judging by the direction the mangled remains were spread, it had been instantly killed by an incredibly powerful external force, its death resembling that of a seventeen-year-old high school student run over by a road roller.

“You killed this beast? That amazing?” the leader whispered to the boy.

“Ah… huh? N-no, I didn’t…”

“But you were the last one standing! It was already dead when we woke up!”

“But…”

“Hey! Are you… Leader Oreo Izka of the Dove Mercenary Group?”

“Eh?”

At that moment, another mercenary group approached, seemingly drawn by the commotion.

The leaders of both groups recognized each other.

“It’s me… you guys came too?”

“More importantly, this… My goodness, this thing must have climbed up from at least the fourth layer, right? Did you kill it?”

“No, it was already dead when we woke up.”

“What a coincidence. Ahead of us, well… we found something similar. Care to take a look?”

Less than two minutes later—

Just five hundred meters away, within the illuminated range of a flare, more monster corpses appeared.

A large group of mushroom-shaped Abyssal Beasts with insect legs and human eyeballs—smashed into a pulp.

Further in, an ugly Abyssal Beast with a primate-like upper body and an octopus-like lower body—smashed into a pulp.

A spherical Abyssal Beast resembling a cluster of eye-covered vines—smashed into a pulp.

A bird-shaped Abyssal Beast with insect wings and tentacles emerging from its mouth—still smashed into a pulp.

Pulp, pulp, pulp, pulp—in short, nothing but pulp.

Their bodies were so utterly annihilated that it was impossible to analyze the specific attack methods.

All mercenary groups in the area were utterly perplexed.

Their experiences were remarkably similar.

They inexplicably lost consciousness, only to wake up and find the Abyssal Beasts dead.

Even in the deeper layers, the same phenomenon occurred.

“When we came to, high-risk Abyssal Beasts that would normally require multiple mercenary groups to fight were simply gone”—similar reports flooded in from mercenary groups operating on the second, third, and fourth layers.

Moreover, the Abyssal Beasts’ demise was uniformly gruesome, without exception: “instantly killed by an incredibly powerful external force, sustaining damage far beyond their regenerative limits.”

What exactly had happened?