Babel Tower rose like a divine spear from the heart of Orario—its black, crystalline spire stabbing the heavens with indifferent majesty.
It didn't belong to the world around it. Where the rest of the city buzzed with life—wooden stalls, tiled roofs, muddy boots—Babel stood as a monument to something far older and alien..
Zamasu stood before its colossal base, silent as the windless dusk.
Crowds swirled around him. Merchants hawked gear, children mimicked adventurers with sticks, and warriors of all shapes filed in and out of the Dungeon's massive archway.
Steel clattered, laughter rang out, shouts of warning and boasting filled the air.
And amidst it all, Zamasu remained a pale island of stillness, the white of his toga untouched by dust or shadow.
His eyes, cold and ancient despite his youthful form, watched the procession with a quiet, dissecting intensity.
They stared at him in return—adventurers old and green alike, their curiosity sharpened by suspicion. A child with calm bearing, no visible weapons, no armor, and yet… only calmness .
He heard them whisper behind cupped hands and lowered helms.
"Is he a god?"
"Looks like one."
"He's gonna get himself killed."
The last made him pause—not in offense, but in curiosity.
A nearby party of adventurers adjusted their gear in preparation. Their leader, a burly woman with a jagged scar across her cheek, growled at her comrades, "Watch for frog shooters on the sixth floor—spit acid if you let 'em. We lost Brik to one last week."
Zamasu filed the warning away without acknowledgment. Frog shooters. Acid. So the Dungeon had layers—ecologies. Patterns. Like a living organism.
His eyes swept toward the yawning entrance. From it came a draft of cold, damp air—earthy, heavy, and alive.
He stepped forward.
And descended.
The Upper Floors—
The Dungeon greeted him like a gaping throat. The first floor was dimly lit by phosphorescent moss that clung to stone like an infection. The scent was loam and death, and the distant echoes of steel and shrieks drifted in waves through the tunnels.
The walls were jagged and organic, pulsing faintly with some hidden energy. They were not shaped by hand. They were born—alive, if not truly living.
Adventurers fought scattered battles across the twisting corridors—kobolds with rusted weapons, goblins with maddened eyes and broken claws. Their shrieks filled the air like a symphony of decay.
Zamasu passed them all like a phantom.
He did not run. He did not hide. He walked.
A kobold's eyes caught his visage and lunged from the shadows with a snarl, dagger poised.
Zamasu reacted without thought.
His fist met the kobold's face mid-leap. He hadn't braced himself. Hadn't aimed. It was instinctive—a casual swat, as one might brush away an insect.
The result was catastrophic.
CRACK.
The kobold's head snapped violently, spinning a full three-hundred-sixty degrees on its spine before the force of the blow tore it clean off. It flew backward, trailing dark arterial spray, and struck the wall with a wet crunch.
Its body remained upright for a half-second longer, then collapsed into smoke.
Zamasu blinked. The headless corpse vanished with a puff, and in its place, a faint glimmer caught his eye.
A small, glowing crystal lay on the stone floor—about the size of a marble, shimmering with faint iridescence.
He knelt, inspecting it with clinical curiosity. A monster core.
Garron had spoken of them—used for crafting, trade, and currency. A kind of universal prize for slaying monsters. Power condensed.
He slipped it into his toga. He would need more.
And so he went deeper
On the second and third floors, the Dungeon grew tighter—labyrinthine. The walls closed in, tunnels twisted back upon themselves like intestines.
Goblins attacked in swarms here, leaping from blind corners and high ledges.
He didn't need techniques.
He just needed to move.
One such goblin pack descended on a cornered mage—a teenage girl whose staff trembled in her white-knuckled grip. They shrieked with glee, their claws extended.
Zamasu blurred past them like wind through grass.
One punch caved in a goblin's face. Another sent a second crumpling to the floor, its ribcage inverted. The third didn't even realize it was dead before it dissolved into mist.
The mage dropped her staff in shock, her mouth opening to speak—but he was already gone, deeper into the maze.
Humidity settled like a film on his skin as he stepped into the sixth floor. The air tasted of stagnant water and bitter mold.
He occasionally encountered goblins, some kobolds and some birds, but they were dealt with as swiftly.
Croaking sounds echoed across the cavern, punctuated by wet splats and hissing acid. Bulbous frog-like creatures sat perched along the walls and ceilings—their throats inflating grotesquely.
Frog shooters.
One fired.
A glob of acid arced toward him. He moved—easily, casually—and the acid splashed against the stone behind him with a sizzle. A new scar hissed into the wall.
Zamasu did not flinch.
The creature opened its mouth to fire again—too slow.
He surged forward, and his fist met the frog's grotesque maw mid-gape.
The impact shattered its jaw, ruptured the throat, and drove through the back of its skull in one seamless motion.
Its body convulsed, tongue flopping obscenely, then burst into smoke.
Another core.
Two more frog shooters croaked in alarm, repositioning to attack.
Zamasu darted between them like lightning. One was dead before it realized he'd moved. The other tried to leap—but his foot lashed out midair, catching its bloated belly and exploding it into green mist.
More cores. They piled in his toga, their faint glow peeking from the folds.
A group of adventurers arrived too late. They stopped in their tracks at the sight: a pale green child kneeling amidst the remains of battle, surrounded by cores like fallen fruit.
One muttered, "What the hell…"
Zamasu didn't answer.
He was thinking.
They're weak. All of them.
Is this all?
The Mid Floors—
He didn't slow down.
Floor eight. Floor nine. Floor ten. He crushed his way through creatures with barely a twitch. Armor meant nothing.
He encountered some freaky shadows, their claws shattered on his skin. His bare fists broke stone, broke bones, broke bodies.
Yet something nagged at him.
He wouldn't call this fighting. Not really. It's more like he was reacting.
Each punch was overkill. Every movement wasted energy. He lacked efficiency.
He lacked control.
He was not using his power. He was unleashing it.
And worst of all, he was calm.
Why was he calm?
Even when facing down an orc on floor twelve—towering, furious, wielding a jagged club twice his size—he felt nothing. No adrenaline. No hesitation. Not even irritation.
The orc roared and charged. Zamasu stepped aside. The club missed him by a hair, and in return, he drove a punch into the creature's ribs.
Its entire torso exploded in a mist of blood and meat.
The club clattered to the ground.
Another core.
Zamasu stared at his fist. No injury. No pain. No fatigue.
'This is too easy.'
Yet he couldn't escape the disquiet building inside him.
By floor fifteen, the dungeon had changed again. The air was heavy with pressure. Monsters were larger now—wolf beasts, armored insects, armadillo-like creatures.
They died just as easily.
But their cores… they were larger. And there were too many.
Zamasu's toga bulged awkwardly with them, the cloth straining against the weight. Smaller cores slipped free as he walked, clinking faintly on the stone.
He considered tearing a strip from the hem to create a makeshift pouch—but it was his only clothing. He dismissed the idea.
Instead, he began sorting—tossing aside the smallest cores, keeping only the largest. The most radiant.
Wealth, he realized, meant little to him—but resources meant everything.
Some adventurers passed him, wide-eyed.
"Look at all those cores—he's throwing them away!"
"He's insane! That's a fortune!"
"Or a god," another whispered.
Zamasu ignored them all.
Descent to Sixteen
The staircase leading to floor sixteen spiraled downward into darkness. The stone pulsed faintly—alive, almost. As if the Dungeon sensed him. As if it was waiting.
He descended slowly, not from caution, but from contemplation.
Why was he so calm?
From the moment he'd awoken in this world, there had been no panic. No grief. No hunger. No fear.
Not even when monsters leapt at him. Not even when his fists tore through flesh.
He remembered his old life—his human life. That version of himself would've screamed. Would've run.
But this body—the one he now inhabited—felt nothing.
Was it his new biology? This "Saioshin" body? A fusion of two divine races? Had it altered his emotions? Blunted his senses?
Or was something else at work?
He paused halfway down the steps, his hand resting against the wall. It pulsed beneath his palm.
He focused—not outward, but inward.
There it was.
A current.
A pulse.
Ki.
Not magic. Not strength. But something deeper. Purer. The very essence of being. He could feel it, faint but unmistakable—thrumming beneath his skin like lightning caged in blood.
He had to learn to control it.
To shape it.
To master it.
For now, his power was raw—a bludgeon.
He created a mental list of things to accomplish—the first thing is martial arts.
The shadows at the bottom of the stairs shifted. Floor sixteen awaited.
But he decided against descending… there was no space left in his toga to hold more.
He would have to be satisfied for now and try again another time.
End of Chapter 7
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Sorry for the late chapter. Community service is a must do or no graduation
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