The Martial Unity

It was probably unwise for Rui to stray too much further into the dungeon as the danger levels constantly rose. Even in the Beast Domain, the two of them never went so far as to completely drain their Martial Hearts. Who knew what could attack them in their incapacitated states?

Luckily, Rui still had a decent amount of stamina left. Thus, he could afford to stray a bit deeper to take a good look at what was going on. Thankfully, given how small the manifold was, it wasn't too far in.

"ROOOOOAAAARRRRR!"

Rui's eyes widened as he saw a slew of emerald dragons launching an assault on a region, lighting it up with their fire breaths. Yet, it was the residents of the region that surprised him.

Angels.

An overwhelming majority of them were weaker than the one he faced, with only three pairs of wings or less. They struggled under the wrath of powerful apex monsters led by a tyrannically large dragon the size of a hill.

"ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"

The mighty dragon scorched the angels alive, setting them on fire. Not even their powerful heaven-bending could entirely abate the infernos and conflagrations that it released into the world.

While the angels were able to match the weaker dragons under it, it was the sole dragon that allowed what would have been a stalemate to fall in their favor. The angels did not have a leader with the power to match a creature, exceeding the Senior Realm.

"No…" Rui's impassive eyes widened as realization dawned on him. "They had a leader capable of that, but now it's dead."

It had challenged Rui and had not lived to tell the tale. However, the timing of the attack was too suspicious. The moment Rui killed the angel, the dragons coincidentally launched an attack on the angel colony?

"…It was because I killed the angel leader." His tone was sharp. "But why are they fighting?"

As far as he could tell, there was nothing in the region that was of particularly high value. There was no real reason that the Mellow Dungeon ought to allow the species to fight unless there was something to be gained.

Soon enough, the answer became clear.

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP

The mighty dragon feasted upon the angels as pleasure flashed through its eyes. Meanwhile, the same creature ignored the countless larger creatures in the dungeon that were not only larger but weaker.

It flew away, satisfied with feasting on a few dozen angels.

"…I see." Rui closed his eyes as he headed back to the coast of the Mellow dungeon.

He had understood everything that he needed. This was part of the Darwinian filtering process.

Powerful beasts required powerful prey to sustain their power. Normally, apex predators did not find themselves at odds with each other. After all, there was an extremely extensive ecosystem and food chain below them at their disposal that could supply them with the nutrients they needed without requiring them to fight other apex species.

"But the Mellow Dungeon is a place where they are deprived of satisfactory prey," Rui noted calmly, adding to his understanding of the dungeon.

After all, the place was only a hundred kilometers in diameter. On top of that, the power gradient was quite steep, such that most of the creatures of the Mellow Dungeon were too weak for the apex predators to even bother preying on.

In other words, the most nutritious sources of food were their own peers.

This caused predators to prey on each other, leaving only the strongest of the strongest alive. Then, the Mellow Dungeon would probably swoop in and cause a mass mating season, leading to a lot of offspring, which, when mature, would go through the same process, leaving only the strongest alive.

Over a span of one hundred and forty-four millennia, Rui could understand how the creatures of the Mellow had gotten so powerful.

"Rui!" Kane waved at him in the distance on the shore.

STEP

"Kane." Rui impassively acknowledged him.

"Man am I glad you beat that angel." He grinned. "I've never seen one before."

"There's not a single known nest of angels in the Human Domain, at least," Rui informed him. "I didn't think we would run into one here. More importantly, I've learned more about how the dungeon functions. Its shortcomings and limitations. I think I have an idea of how we're going to break out of this place."

Kane's eyes lit up with optimism. "Really?!"

Rui nodded. "It's rather simple; we draw the Master-level creature away from the core of the dungeon using a distraction or a red herring and then uproot the core source of the Mellow Manifold while it is away."

Kane frowned. "I was expecting an extraordinarily complex plan with a hundred different stages and your plan is the most basic strategy ever?"

"Complexity is neither a virtue nor an objective," Rui replied impassively. "Only a fool who thinks he is a genius would choose complexity over simplicity if all else were equal."

"…OK, but why exactly did you come up with this plan specifically?"

"The dungeon…cannot move," Rui replied. "Be it roots or branches. It painstakingly hypnotizes creatures to get them to do its bidding. It's an incredibly cumbersome means of going about it that really cannot be justified by anything other than an inability to move."

"…Ok? That doesn't answer my question."

Rui closed his eyes. "You remember what dungeons when they sense a threat they deem dangerous?"

"They attack it with their branches and roots, right?"

"And how would the Mellow Dungeon do that if it cannot move?"

"…Oh," Kane's lit up with understanding. "The Master-level beast…"

"Correct." Rui nodded. "This dungeon is immobile. Thus, it is highly likely it would deploy the Master-level beast in its stead. Especially if it senses a particularly powerful threat. Just like it uses its slave creatures to do everything else that mobile roots or branches would do."

"Wait a minute…"Kane froze as his mind caught onto something. "…How do you plan to trick the Mellow Dungeon into thinking that there is a Master-level threat on the other side of the manifold?"

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