Danmachi – Infinite Mana System

[Chapter Size: 2348 Words.]
Lucius POV
Dungeon, Eighteenth Floor.

...

...

The cracks were increasing on the ceiling, and everyone was frightened by the sudden events. I was already aware that something like this would happen, but I couldn't help but ask, "Isn't this floor trembling too much?" I said, looking at the unstable landscape in front of me that was vibrating much more than I saw in the anime.

"What's happening?"
"Ahh, I'm scared."

Adventurers' screams were heard from all corners as the cracks continued to grow. Suddenly, the ceiling showed a shadow of 30 meters and exploded the next moment, breaking along its cracks and hurling a colossal and dark humanoid figure directly onto our floor.

That thing began to fall near the forest we were in, making everyone look wide-eyed at the thing the dungeon threw at us.
*CRACK*
The ground exploded with the figure when it reached the floor.
"Hey hey! Isn't that Goliath?"
"What the hell is happening here!?"
"How is this possible!"
"This floor should be safe! How can the boss from the seventeenth floor be here?"

Questioning voices were heard throughout the crowd. Once they were our enemies, now they forgot any fights we had with the fear of the unknown.

I sighed, seeing the dust smoke rising with the mutant Goliath in the middle. This was a dungeon defense mechanism after Hestia used her divine form, and it detected three gods here.

Yes, and the chosen one to kill us was Goliath, the monster Rex I killed alone a few days ago, but this one is different from the normal.

*ROAAAAAAAAAAAR*

The titan's voice exploded; now, instead of 15 meters like the one I fought, this one had 30 meters, its skin much darker, like pitch. Its regeneration abilities are unbelievable too. Not even Ryuu and Alfi, the strongest here, can fight alone. Even a level 5 will have great difficulty facing this thing alone.

But this was the figure that Bell would destroy, and I would watch, maybe I would help a little, but just a little...

The monster appeared in the smoke after it emitted its sound, further startling the onlookers with the strange Goliath. Smaller monsters from the early intermediate floors began to emerge on the floor and hunt adventurers who were scattered in the forest below the cliff.

The floor began to darken as well, creating a sinister scene.

Meanwhile, our group was watching what was happening on top of the cliff.

"What should we do?"
"Should we help them?" Someone from us asked, seeing adventurers being cornered by the monsters that began to appear and Goliath breaking the ground with every step towards them.

"We should help them!" Bell spoke, gaining everyone's attention.

"Do you really want that, Bell? They tried to harm you..." Ryuu questioned.

"Yes, let's help them!" Bell, a boy with a pure heart, agreed, and I sighed, already foreseeing this scenario.

However, something more happened, something that shouldn't have!
*CRAAAAAACK*

My attention shifted with the sound of more cracks, and it went directly to the ceiling again as more cracks began to appear like it happened with the mutant Goliath.

"What the hell is this? This shouldn't be happening!" I shouted a little surprised and cautious, trying to understand why the ceiling is breaking again?!

Then the ceiling starts to break again, and another figure exploded and came falling to the ground. My eyes were stunned by the next events. It wasn't one Goliath now but two! This was nothing like what I witnessed in my past life!

"How did this happen? Why are there 2 Goliaths?" I wondered, frightened. Things had gotten really bad now; dealing with one mutant Goliath was already difficult, with two, everyone could die here.

Lucius didn't know, but he is the most important cause for this. When he used magical aura with the energy of the greater God and exploded, the dungeon's consciousness sensed the divine energy as arcanum, a very powerful one, indeed. However, the dungeon couldn't see the origin of the magical explosion at that moment. And with Hestia in her divine form, it made the dungeon believe that this powerful divine force was also on the eighteenth floor. Along with the presence of three gods, the dungeon, instead of creating 1, released 2 Goliaths at a great cost of energy. (I like to say that the dungeon has a great cost to do these things or the juggernaut, because if it were the opposite, why wouldn't the dungeon make a bunch of these types of monsters to kill everyone?)

"Shit, this changes everything... Bell and the others won't survive against 2 of them," I said quietly.

"What are we going to do?" Aphrodite asked me at my side.

*CRACK*

The burst of the second Goliath was heard as it fell to the ground.

"Listen!" I said loudly, making everyone snap out of their daze.

"I'll lure the second Goliath away; you guys take care of this first one!" I gave a command, not caring that I was a level 2 and giving orders to people, be they the captain of my family or the level four adventurers from other families, even to the present gods.

"Are you crazy? You're going to fight one of those things alone?" Hestia asked anxiously.

"If there are two in the same location, we'll never be able to defeat either of them. We're talking about a variant Monster Rex here. If I lure another to the opposite side, I can hold him until you finish this one..." I pointed to the nearest black Goliath.

"...after that, you can come to me for support!" I finally said and didn't waste any more time.

"Don't worry; I won't die. You all need to focus on that Goliath until you defeat it, then come where I am!" I didn't let them protest, and I jumped off the cliff.

"I'm doing something that could be classified as suicide, but we'd never survive if we tried to escape from these two monsters." I thought, frustrated, seeing the second Goliath that was getting up after falling.

*ROOOOAAAR*

When I landed in the forest, I started running towards the second Goliath, passing by the first without bothering with my presence; it was walking towards where more adventurers were gathered.

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Boom*

While I ran, I launched firebolts at the monsters that the adventurers were fighting on the way.

"Thanks!"

"Thanks for the help!"

At least they had the sense to thank me, but I didn't stop to listen as I ran ahead without stopping.

After passing the first Goliath that ignored me, the second one wasn't far away.

When I reached in front of it, I realized it was a variant just like the one I had just passed.

"HEY! Butt-face Colossus!" I shouted at him and gained his attention as he groaned in my direction.

*ROAAAAAAAAAAAR*

His roar near me made me cover my ears with force, cursing him while my eardrums almost burst.

"Damn it, that annoying noise!" I exclaimed to myself as I cast a healing spell on my ears to recover from that irritating scream.

"Let's see how you react to this!" I said as I prepared to test it.

I raised my hands and began to launch fire at his head.

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Boom*

*ROAAAAAAAAAAAR*

Well, that annoyed him quite a bit. He started stomping in my direction, and I began to run away from my friends while casting firebolts at him to divert his attention from the other fight and focus solely on me, who was moving away from the scene.

*Crack*

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Crack*

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Crack*

*Boom*

*Boom*

Basically, it was a cat and mouse game here. He walked while I ran away and threw fire at him. I knew I couldn't defeat this thing, not without a charged skill like Bell's Argonaut combined with a Crozzo magical sword. My spells didn't even affect him, making me wish I had some super powerful spell here, but I couldn't demand anything.

It's impossible for me right now, I recognize that, but I could distract him, and with the help of everyone else after they defeated the first Goliath, there was a chance we could win the second one too. I didn't ask for help, not because I didn't want to, but I knew they needed everyone focusing on that first mutant Goliath if they wanted to beat him.

*Boom*

*Crack*

The damn thing was quite persistent, even for its slow reaction speed.

*Craaaack*

While running, I heard a strange noise suddenly and looked back to see the damn thing ripping a giant tree out of the ground like a human picking up a cat.

"HEY, you've got to be kidding me!" I shouted frustrated. One thing is to run from him trying to crush you with his feet; now he has something in his hands, large enough to hit me. This changes things, and I'm in danger now.

*Boom*

*Boom*

First, I thought he would use the tree as a club, so I shot the tree to see it burn in his hands, but that only worsened my situation because he did something I didn't expect. In the midst of the fire that inflated in the wood and leaves, the goal was thrown at me after leaning and throwing. The flaming tree came at a speed I couldn't react to in time.

"Shit...!" I could only think as I watched that thing flying towards me.

*hit*

*CRAAACK*

"AHHHH!" I was hit and thrown away through the forest by a flaming tree at that moment.

*crack*

After hitting trees and rocks in my flight, I stopped as soon as I hit a large rock, making it crack.

"...*cough*...*cough*" I knelt with the impact after flying like a puppet 50 meters away. Besides the lack of air and coughing up blood with various organs damaged by the impact, I had first and second-degree burns from my own flames, a not-so-intelligent move on my part while my clothes were damaged.

I'm only conscious because I have iron skin activated, which helped me with the impact along with the increased resistance from the buff.

[- Minor Heal]

I cast a healing spell to alleviate the pain and start healing myself.

"That was horrible..." I muttered as I got up, hearing the steps of the mutant Goliath approaching me. I grabbed a potion, one of the few I had in my pocket, and drank it to help with the healing.

*Boom*

*Boom*

Taking some of the mutant Goliath's attention away from me, I wanted to see how the others were doing in their fight while I healed and waited for this damn thing to approach. Other explosions echoed in the air in the distance; Bell's group started fighting against the monsters and that Goliath on that side, and the fight seemed to be still in its early stages too.

"If I get hit like this a few more times, I'll be dead for sure. Healing wouldn't completely heal me from an attack like that, and my potions are running out," I thought frustrated.

*Crack*

*Crack*

Seeing the titan approaching, I took a deep breath, trying to heal as much as I could before our confrontation.

[- Gravitational Spell, Gravitational Field!]

I cast it in the space 20 meters in front of my opponent, and Goliath in the middle of this field knelt, surprised by the increased gravity. It wouldn't hold the colossus, but it would greatly restrict its movements, giving me more time to recover.

I grabbed another of the few healing potions that didn't break with the impact of the tree and drank it, recovering better from the damage. Even with my minor healing spell and that potion, they weren't effective enough to completely heal me yet.

Raising a hand, a magic circle formed in front of me, and a creature emerged from it.

As I had become unconscious due to Riviera, my summoning was canceled with Riekling, making him disappear a day before.

"HEEEEEEEEEEE!" Riekling, who appeared, was startled when faced with the humanoid monster of 30 meters in front of him.

"Riekling! I need your help here!" I told him. It wouldn't be very effective, but every extra second that this Goliath was distracted was a chance to heal faster and have time to think about how to get out of this situation.

'How am I going to face this thing...?' I wondered as I saw that Goliath was struggling to approach due to my spell. Once again, he grabbed a tree, not as large as the last one, and I didn't make the same mistake of setting it on fire as last time. When he started preparing to throw it at me, I ran to dodge and protected myself at a distance, as the increased gravity slowed down that throw a bit.

The effect of the gravitational spell was still working, but it wouldn't last long because I couldn't feed it with mana from this distance.

Riekling approached the colossus, knowing he would die and waited for the gravity spell to stop to throw small stones. This would give me a few seconds of distraction, something I would be very grateful for if I survived this.

Knowing that I didn't have any spells to destroy this thing, not with its surreal self-regeneration, I started looking around to see if there was anything in the environment that could help me in the fight.

After being hit for the first time, I knew I had underestimated this thing and almost paid with my life at that moment. I could still die before my companions and family reached me with Goliath throwing trees or even rocks at me.

That's when I looked at the cracked ceiling and realized something. I couldn't break the crystals in the ceiling, but the cracks made by the Black Goliaths had significantly weakened the crystals!

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