Chapter 34: 034. Road To The Hidden Floor!

"Gyaaaa-kikikiki!"

A goblin scout cried out with its raspy grating voice echoing through the damp cavern walls.

It stood near the mouth of a massive jagged tunnel, pointing a filthy clawed finger into the distance.

It could see one of its very own kind sprinting frantically toward the safety of the nest, its green skin glistening with sweat.

The scout threw its head back and began laughing with a vile clicking sound. "Kekekekeke..."

However, that fleeing goblin abruptly exploded into a shower of dark crimson blood before it could even reach the tunnel entrance.

Before the scout could blink... before its tiny primitive brain could even process the sudden eruption of gore, something sparkled violently in the dark air.

A steel longsword sailed through the gloom with terrifying velocity, burying itself right through the center of the scout’s head.

The creature crumpled to the rocky ground instantly. The moment the hilt slammed against its skull, a jagged blue rune etched into the flat of the blade flared to life.

BZZZT!

A surge of untamed electricity blasted outward from the rune, violently electrifying the goblin’s corpse.

The intense heat fried its internal organs in a fraction of a second, reducing its flesh to a blackened, smoking crisp. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The creature’s chest cavity cracked open under the extreme temperature, allowing a small glowing green core to spill out and glitter on the scorched earth.

Footsteps crunched against the loose grave as a hand reached down, grasping the leather-wrapped hilt, and effortlessly pulled the sword free from the charred skull.

The man lifted the steel over his shoulder with a few residual sparks of blue lightning crackling down his arm.

It was Ren.

He stood there, sliding his free hand into the pocket of his trousers, and let out a long bored sigh as he looked at the yawning cavern up front.

"So this is a Goblin Nest, huh?" Ren muttered under his breath with his eyes tracing the glowing luminescent fungi that clung to the jagged ceiling of the cave entrance.

A full day had already passed since they first stepped through the World Dungeon portal. By all metrics, a party with their combat output could have easily cleared the first set of stairs and advanced to the second or even the third floor by now but Ren had no intention of doing that.

He wasn’t going to miss a massive, highly lucrative opportunity just to speedrun the lower levels like a generic adventurer...

He was here for a very specific reason. He was going to enter the Hidden Floor that Jace had stumbled upon in the web novel during his time in Astelvern, and he was going to steal the exact item that lay buried within it.

’There are more than enough monsters on the ground floor to farm anyway. Besides, they respawn, don’t they? Or they repopulate rapidly from the ambient dungeon mana?’ Ren thought, running a hand through his damp black hair.

He couldn’t remember the exact lore of the dungeon fodder, and frankly, he didn’t care. They were just walking sacks of experience points to him.

"I told them to come meet me here in about five minutes..." Ren said to the empty tunnel.

Sure, he thoroughly enjoyed being lazy and making his subordinates do all the bloody, exhausting work. It was the privilege of nobility but it was also time to personally test out his own combat rhythm in a live-fire scenario.

A fully populated Goblin Nest was the perfect testing ground, especially since the specific entrance to the Hidden Floor lay buried at the very back of this exact cavern.

He began walking forward with the dark steel of his weapon resting casually on his shoulder.

As he strolled into the encroaching darkness, he took a moment to mentally project his thoughts upward.

’Thank you, Goddess, for teaching me the fundamental applications of lightning runes this morning. It made throwing my sword much more entertaining.’

He waited for the familiar warm golden brackets of her reply but his mind remained silent.

He remembered that during his morning meditation, he had praised her so extensively and called her so flawlessly beautiful that she had literally overheated.

The divine connection had temporarily disconnected once again because she was blushing too hard to maintain the telepathic frequency.

Ren smirked.

’Cute.’

As he ventured deeper, the stench of rotting meat and excrement grew stronger. Two goblin sentries, hiding in the crevices of the walls, suddenly shrieked.

They lunged from the shadows, thrusting rusted jagged spears toward his ribs.

Ren didn’t break his stride. He simply shifted his shoulder, letting the sword drop into a one-handed grip and swung it in a lazy horizontal arc.

The steel sliced cleanly through their crude wooden spears and continued straight through their torsos. As the blade made contact, Ren pushed a fraction of his mana into the metal and the lightning runes flared.

The two goblins were instantly electrified, their bodies convulsing violently before turning to smoking, gray dust before they even hit the floor. Two green cores clattered against the stone.

Ren stepped over them and entered the main chamber.

It was a sprawling subterranean cavern illuminated by a massive, roaring bonfire in the center. The sheer scale of the infestation was staggering.

There were probably a hundred of goblins swarming the area.

Surrounding the fire were the larger, vastly more dangerous variants: Hobgoblins, standing nearly seven feet tall with bulging, disproportionate muscles officially classified as D-Rank monsters and scattered among them were Goblin Shamans, wearing twisted necklaces of human teeth and clutching staves topped with glowing red crystals.

Ren stopped at the edge of the firelight as he lowered his sword, letting the tip rest against the stone floor.

"Hey," Ren said and the entire cavern froze as a hundred of bulbous yellow eyes snapped toward the lone human standing at the entrance then, the cavern erupted into an absolute frenzy.

"Gyaaaa-kikikiki!" The horde shrieked in unison, a deafening cacophony of bloodlust and rage.

In the chaos, one smaller, unusually fast goblin managed to pace quickly around the perimeter. It possessed a surprisingly intact human shortsword, likely scavenged from a dead adventurer.

Its eyes glowed with glee as it closed the distance from Ren’s blind spot.

"Kekekakakaka!" the creature cackled, lunging forward and viciously stabbing the shortsword directly into Ren’s stomach.

The tip of the iron blade struck Ren’s dark shirt.

SNAP.

The human sword shattered into a dozen jagged metallic fragments, bouncing harmlessly off Ren’s skin. The goblin’s manic cackle died instantly with its eyes bulging as it stared at the broken hilt in its hands.

Ren hadn’t even flinched. His passive mana reinforcement made his flesh harder than cheap iron and the Villain looked down at the trembling creature as a wide grin stretched across his face.

The goblin realized its fatal mistake and desperately tried to step backward.

It was far too late.

The physical impact against Ren’s body had successfully triggered the B-Rank failsafe he had been dying to test.

Electricity had already began crackling violently around Ren’s body, hissing like a nest of vipers as Static Discharge activated.

The ambient mana in the cavern was violently sucked into his core, converted, and instantly expelled.

BOOM!

A devastating shockwave of raw, blinding blue voltage erupted outward from Ren in a perfect, expanding sphere.

It was like a miniature thunderstorm detonating underground. The shockwave completely engulfed the retreating goblin, instantly vaporizing it into a mist of blood and ash.

The expanding dome of electricity surged across the cavern floor, slamming into several clusters of Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Shamans.

The sheer voltage overloaded their primitive nervous systems. The smaller goblins and the fragile Shamans were utterly destroyed, their bodies rupturing under the intense heat leaving behind only smoking craters and a scattering of green cores.

However, the Hobgoblins were vastly more durable. Though heavily charred and smoking from the blast, several of the massive D-Rank beasts managed to survive the initial discharge.

One of them, a towering monstrosity wielding a massive club carved from a stalactite, charged at Ren with a furious spit-flying roar.

"Gyaaaa-kikikiki!"

Its massive feet stomped against the cavern floor, shaking the loose gravel with every stride but Ren’s grin didn’t falter as he gripped his sword with both hands.

Ren triggered Thunderclap Step.

The stone beneath Ren’s boots spiderwebbed as he vanished with a deafening sonic boom, moving faster than the Hobgoblin’s eyes could possibly track.

He reappeared directly behind the charging beast, suspended mid-air at the nape of its thick neck.

With a brutal, flawless swing, Ren cut through the Hobgoblin completely. The blade sheared through its dense spinal column, cleanly detaching its massive head from its shoulders.

Gravity took hold, and Ren landed gracefully on his feet amidst the spray of dark blood.

The remaining horde realized the terrifying reality of the monster that had just walked into their home but they were cornered, and their primal instincts demanded a fight so they swarmed him from all sides.

Ren stepped into the chaos, and the slaughter truly began.

It was a masterclass in violence.

He ducked under a wildly swinging rusted axe, channeling mana into his free hand. He activated Voltaic Arc, a crackling whip of solid lightning snapping out from his palm.

He whipped it forward, wrapping the lethal cord of electricity around the throat of a chanting Shaman fifty feet away and with a sharp yank, he tore the Shaman’s head off, sending the glowing red staff clattering to the floor.

He pivoted, driving his sword through the chest of another Hobgoblin, letting the lightning runes fry its heart before ripping the blade out horizontally to disembowel two smaller goblins attempting to flank him.

He flowed through the horde like water, but his strikes were like crashing thunder.

He was entirely untouchable and every time a weapon managed to graze him, Static Discharge would detonate, blasting his attackers away with broken bones and charred flesh.

He utilized the precise footwork of a master swordsman, combined with the overwhelming, destructive output of a high-tier mage to carve a path of pure devastation straight through the center of the cavern, climbing over the mounting piles of corpses until he reached the elevated stone dais at the very back of the room.

Cowering behind a crude throne made of bone and leather was the Goblin King.

Despite its grandiose title, the Goblin King was actually the smallest and physically weakest creature in the entire nest.

It survived solely on its supreme intellect and ability to command the horde and the goblin was currently wearing a makeshift crown constructed from the cracked ribs of fallen adventurers.

The King squeaked in terror, dropping to its knees and raising its hands in a pathetic gesture of surrender as Ren approached but Ren didn’t say a word.

He simply reached out, plucked the bone crown off the creature’s head, and casually drove his sword straight down through the top of the King’s skull, pinning it to the stone floor before retrieving his sword.

The cavern descended into dead silence, save for the crackling of the bonfire and the hiss of cooling blood and a few minutes later, Eternia and Mandy walked into the cavern.

They froze at the entrance and their eyes went wide as they took in the sheer scale of the damage. There were no intact bodies left.

One could only see a sea of glittering green cores, piles of gray ash, and completely destroyed insides painting the walls in abstract gruesome strokes.

Eternia’s golden eyes scanned the charnel house until she found him.

Ren was sitting comfortably on a large flat rock near the back of the cavern that had somehow managed to remain undamaged through the whole ordeal.

He had one leg crossed over the other, his sword resting across his lap and he was currently wearing the jagged bone crown on his head looking like a demonic monarch presiding over a dead kingdom.

He looked at them as they approached.

"About time."

He stood up. The bone crown slid off his head and fell to the stone floor, shattering into dozens of useless pieces.

Mandy swallowed a lump of bile rising in his throat staring at a bisected Hobgoblin near his boots. "Uhm... my Lord, what happened here?"

Ren sighed, brushing a speck of ash off his otherwise pristine armor.

"I just massacred a nest of goblins. What else does it look like?"

Mandy snapped his mouth shut, realizing it was a stupid question.

"Gather all of the cores," Ren ordered, gesturing to the glittering floor.

It took them nearly twenty minutes of sifting through the gore to collect everything. Once they finished, they piled the massive haul into the center of the room.

Ren looked at his Vanguard. "Eternia. What’s our current status?"

She eagerly tallied the amount of cores they had gathered, her eyes darting across the massive pile.

"Master, including the ones from the first wave outside, we have acquired over two hundred standard cores, thirty Shaman cores, and twelve D-Rank Hobgoblin cores."

She looked up at him, her chest swelling with pride.

"It would be more than enough for us to easily become D-ranks, and we are currently halfway to fulfilling the quota for C-Rank."

Ren smiled with a genuine ambitious look in his eyes. "Good. We are going to get enough cores to promote to C-rank without ever stepping foot on Floor 2."

Mandy’s jaw dropped. "My Lord, that’s... that’s quite a feat. The sheer volume required is insane. Are there even enough monsters left in this sector?"

"I believe you, Master..." Eternia said instantly, cutting off the butler’s doubts.

Ren didn’t explain his methods.

He simply walked past the massive bonfire, stepping over the pinned corpse of the Goblin King, and approached the far wall of the cave. It looked like solid, impenetrable stone covered in damp moss and deep cracks.

Ren placed his bare hand directly against the cold rock and the wall glowed.

A deep vibrant purple light traced along the hidden seams of the rock as the cavern began trembling violently.

Loose gravel fell from the ceiling, and it felt almost like the cavern was going to completely cave in on top of them. Mandy panicked, shielding his head, but the destruction never came.

Instead, the solid stone wall merely ceased to exist, dissolving into a blinding, ethereal light that washed outward, illuminating the dark cavern.

『 You have discovered a Hidden Floor! Please proceed to reap your rewards! 』

This was a phenomenon that both Eternia and Mandy were fundamentally aware could happen in a World Dungeon, though neither had ever seen one in person. It was a Hidden Floor.

Hidden Floors were essentially anomalous pocket dimensions trapped within the standard architecture of the World Dungeon.

They defied the established floor hierarchy... You could be on Floor 1, step through a hidden tear in reality, and suddenly find yourself in a hyper-compressed biome featuring monsters and loot typically reserved for Floor 30.

They were incredibly rare, usually requiring absurd, highly specific conditions to unlock, and they were notoriously dangerous.

"Come on..." Ren said casually, without a shred of hesitation as he stepped directly into the blinding light.

Eternia and Mandy shared a single glance before rushing forward, following their Master through the threshold.

As they crossed the barrier, the light vanished instantly.

They appeared on the other side, engulfed in complete suffocating darkness. The air here was drastically different.

Eternia’s slit-pupils rapidly dilated, trying to adjust to the pitch black.

"Master," Eternia whispered, her hand hovering over her hilt. "What do we do no—"

WHOOSH!

The sharp violent sound of an object tearing through the air cut through the darkness, aimed directly at her chest.

Eternia didn’t think; she reacted. She drew her curved sword in a flash of silver, slashing upward with blinding speed as she struck the dense iron spear out of the air, sending it clattering loudly against the unseen floor.

As the metal echoed, the darkness abruptly receded.

Massive braziers lit up in a sequential ring, illuminating a cavern vastly larger than the goblin nest but it wasn’t empty.

Standing in perfect, militaristic formation before them was an army. It was a brutal mix of standard Goblins, but they were heavily armored.

Standing among them were massive, green-skinned Orcs clutching enormous battleaxes. There were dozens of Goblin Riders mounted on armored Direwolves and lining the elevated ridges of the cavern were countless Goblin Archers with their bows already drawn tight.

It wasn’t a nest... It was an entrenched war camp.

"You asked me what to do, right?" Ren asked.

He stepped forward, placing himself at the front of his party. The ambient mana in the room immediately warped around him as crackling blue lightning began to surge violently with each step he took, illuminating the terrified faces of the frontline orcs in a harsh strobing light.

He raised his dark steel sword, pointing the tip directly at the biggest, most heavily armored Orc commander standing in the center of the Hidden Floor.

"We simply massacre everything standing in our paths."