I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck from side to side. The nap I had taken after climbing into a pair of forked branches up a large tree had been quite nice. Surprisingly nice in fact. Truthfully, I was somewhat surprised I still had all my fingers and toes after spending four hours sleeping out in the cold with nothing but a thermal sleeping bag. I wasn't sure what to attribute it to: the general durability of higher level Rankers, or my various regeneration effects? There was no way of knowing, but I was certainly appreciative. A slow glance at my surroundings revealed the dungeon entrance chamber, same as ever. Same grey stone walls, same blue flame torches casting their eerie light over the room.

  No ready explanation for the sudden sinking sensation in my gut.

  It wasn't the same as the sensation I got from the Vish, or the dungeons that were being empowered by Vish's mana accumulators. This was something different. Not a sense of wrongness but of an environment that wasn't hospitable, perhaps? I whipped out my phone to double-check the data file I'd been sent for this particular dungeon. The Banner had happily provided me with dozens of files for all the dungeons they knew of in the area when I had decided to head this way. Fortunately, I had the files themselves rather than just an uplink to a Banner run server. That wouldn't have been nearly as useful, given that signals generally struggled to enter or exit a dungeon. With the notable exception being the Banner's magitech drones. I looked for anything that might explain the oppressive disquiet that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere.

  Nothing there either, just a note that the mana levels are higher than normal. Not anywhere near high enough for there to be any accumulators here, but still higher than normal.

  [All-Seeing Eye] flickered through various spectrums as I attempted to gather information, until I found what I was looking for, at least in part. Seeing things that weren't naturally available to the human eye could be a bit of a trip at times, but for the most part, I had found that things tended to make sense, relatively speaking. Heat waves were red to my eyes and tended to form cones as the waves expanded from the source; cold and light were similar. As were most things near the visible spectrum, normal people were familiar with. Gravity was a bit of a trip the first time, almost like a gray blanket that lay over top of everything, constantly pushing downwards towards the planet's core. It rarely fluctuated at all, and when it did, it was mostly a gradual thing as one approached higher or lower altitudes, or the moon came directly overhead.

  What I was seeing now was not the familiar grey blanket I was used to. Instead, deeper in the dungeon, I could see currents, waves and eddies shifting and moving, crashing against the walls of individual chambers like a strange mixture of gas and liquid in a confined space. Worse, I could sense whole chambers rotating and shifting, anchored only by the entrances and exits as if those points were locked in space.

  "Like a damn demented carnival fun house…" I muttered. A brief shake of my head, and I headed down the corridor. There was nothing for it; I had a job to do, and standing around staring at the mess further in wouldn't get it done any faster. Admittedly, I was a little interested to see what the rest of the dungeon looked like. It was shaping up to be like nothing I had ever seen before.

  I left the entrance chamber and was greeted by the sight of a large twisting chamber that seemed to be formed of a dark gold glass. Crystal-like structures dotted the room, twisting and spinning as they followed the walls and floor of the chamber, though it was impossible to tell which was which with the way they twisted to and fro. Golden light spilled from random facets, flickering from every angle around the strange crystalline jungle. The light revealed the creatures waiting within as well. Strange, almost gem-like quadrupedal monsters leapt from wall to wall with ease, twisting through the air at ninety degree angels at times, navigating the gravity currents as if they were born to it. In a strange way, I supposed they were. Their similarity to the chamber I found them in wasn't lost on me; the creatures seemed to be formed from the same dark gold that made up the chamber itself.

  One of the creatures twisted from above me and looked up at me from where it was. The monster had no head or eyes that I could see, only a torso; its thick limbs sprouted from at odd right angles. A crack split the air as the monster let out a hideous shriek, mouth snapping open along some hidden fault line at the front of its torso; it sounded like nails on a chalkboard, and grinding glass. The worst high-pitched sounds I could remember, with an added dose of vibrato to make it extra enjoyable. I grit my teeth and fired and [Edge Glare] at the monster. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than for it to be quiet. The Spell raced off towards the monster at the speed of thought. It should have carved through the gem-like monster with little issue. Instead, the Spell seemingly began to lose power as it approached the monster, then the force construct broke apart entirely when it made contact with the crystalline beast. The facets that covered its body glowed along the edges that connected the flat planes of its surface.

  I cursed internally while [All-Seeing Eye] flickered on, trying to determine what had happened. My Spells had failed before, but not like that. Not like the Spell itself broke apart before doing anything at all. As if there were no energy to it. [All-Seeing Eye] had no answers for me, just motes of remnant mana floating in the air, all that remained of the Spell that should have carved the monster apart. The next step was [Insight Analysis]. If these monsters were immune to my Spells I needed to know now, before I got any further in. There was only a token resistance to the Skill.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Well, isn't that just peachy? Looks like Spells won't be very useful here. Explains my Spell breaking apart the way it did, too. One Skill to break it apart, and the other to absorb the leftovers. A bit of a double whammy there.

  This dungeon was already looking to be something new and interesting. I could already tell relative positioning was going to be a nightmare in this twisting place where up could just as easily be down, and they could change in a heartbeat. The enemy is down, like bugs underfoot. I suddenly remembered the line from an old movie I had enjoyed, eyes fixed on the exit on the far side of the chamber, this was going to get interesting rapidly.

  Then I was out of time for my ruminations.

  The monster below me surged upwards, black constructs forming around it, limned in purple. The constructs hovered around it like drones bobbing slightly in the air around the monster, like spears ready and waiting to be thrown.

  Careful, Aiden, gravity constructs tend to either hit hard or impart their gravity on the target. Vipera warned as I shifted from man to spider. If I couldn't rely on my Spells I could at least rely on my physical strength and mass. If anything, it might actually be more effective here. I launched myself into the open air of the chamber. This was going to be something like an aerial battle since I didn't think my footing would be reliable. I spiralled through the air towards the approaching monster, watching through [All-Seeing Eye], the CorFleder seemed to ride the gravity currents, slipping easily from one eddy to another as it flew through the air towards me. It seemed as if it was only affected by gravity at all when it wanted to be.

  I let my trajectory carry me just off the monster’s projected path, knowing it would have to adjust to pursue me, and it did. The hovering spears snapped to attention, several launching in my direction with a snap like breaking ice. The first missed by a foot as I twisted in freefall, but the second one clipped a leg, and the sensation was a thudding, straight-to-the-bone ache. The spear itself disintegrated on impact, but the real hazard was the sudden wrench in gravity itself that followed, yanking my entire mass sideways and back towards the wall of the chamber. It wasn’t quite like being caught in a riptide—more like the universe decided to change its mind about which way was down, just for me.

  I hit the wall at an oblique angle, all eight legs splaying wide to brace and take the impact. Thankfully, it didn't last long, but already I could see how it would be a problem if I got hit with more of those. The CorFleder didn't hesitate; it had already rebounded off a cluster of golden crystals and came at me again, trailing a wake of those damn gravity constructs. Every time it turned or shifted direction, it left a spiral of black and purple haze, like ink bleeding in water. Haze that rapidly formed into more gravity constructs. No time to analyze, I blasted off from the wall to get back into the air. I could play games with gravity, too.

  I weaved around a massive golden crystal pillar, leaving webs hanging in the air in my wake. The CorFleder came around the corner and tumbled into the webs, their pull shifting how it flew in the gravity, yanking it away from the eddy it was raiding. On a web line, I came flying around on an accelerating collision course, one that would see us meet in a dense patch of gravity. One that pointed directly at the nearby wall. I summoned my [Auric Armour] before I slammed into the monster with a bone jarring crunch. It screeched its broken glass howl. Even with the protection offered by my chitin and [Auric Armour], I still felt a little rattled by the impact. Then we slammed into the wall. With my mass and momentum acting as the driving force, I plowed the monster into the wall, fully intending to bury it under my bulk. I saw stars for a moment while I bounced away from the wall thanks to good old Newtonian physics. It took a moment for the stars to fade from my vision and for me to be able to think past the ringing in my ears. It'd been a while since I'd been hit that hard, even though it was my own fault.

  “Remind me not to do that again, owww.” I hissed out loud, shaking my limbs as I tried to get feeling back in them.

  I don't think that's what was meant by 'Use your head,' Dear.

  "That's enough out of the peanut gallery, unless you're getting out here to help," I grunted, looking back to the wall where I'd made impact. In a sizable crater was the shattered remains of the CorFleeder, dozens of smaller pieces floating in the gravity swell around it as it shifted. It was good to know that while they were as durable as their Endurance stat would suggest, they were also still brittle. Somewhat like diamonds in a way. Hard as all hell and durable, but struck from the right angle, or constricted hard enough, and they would crack and shatter. I imagined Vipera could do some damage if she got one in her coils.

  "Because there isn't just one of them," I muttered as I felt several more monsters enter the range of my aura senses, moving towards me rapidly. The crossed entire chambers in a single leap or bounced between walls like pin-balls. The longer I watched them, the more it became clear that these monsters were masters of the environment here. I was like a clumsy interloper stumbling around in the dark, well, not quite, I had already turned on the metaphorical light switch.

  "Well, I suppose I could help out. Just a little bit." Vipera appeared coiled around one of my forelegs as we prepared to face the rest of the monsters.