Since it wasn't a monster, then it had to be some kind of skill or magic.
As always, the Dungeon had its rules—nothing could simply be conjured out of thin air. Everything had to have a basis. And so—
Where was it?
Together with Teardrop Big Bro, he kept fending off the endless waves of skeletal adventurers.
Isagi swept his gaze across the surroundings. The space before him was terribly "narrow," because it was being crushed so violently from above and below.
The heavens overhead were murky, like dusk-clouds hanging low across the sky.
As the rain of sand poured down without cease, the earth beneath his feet was constantly sinking, exposing more of the swords and armor hidden below—or the bleached bones of adventurers and monsters.
And yet, even so, his vision could not extend outward. Whether above or below, it was as if some kind of obstruction had appeared, compressing the entire scene into some sort of "box."
And if he looked forward…
"Ah."
Isagi finally noticed it.
Far off in the distance stood a lone figure.
She simply stood there, and then, she loosed an arrow straight at him.
"?"
This arrow was no ordinary thing!
Thunderclouds came rolling in, as though they meant to tear this whole world utterly apart.
It was magic.
That surging magical power even made Isagi think for a moment of Lefiya's explosive magic. But compared to pure, chaotic magic, the sheer, unwavering resolve wrapped within it sent a chill straight through his heart!
In an instant, Teardrop Big Bro had already thrown himself in front of him as a shield.
But there was no need. Because the very moment the enemy loosed that arrow, Isagi, borrowing the instinct of [Wolf's Devouring Feast], had already forcibly wrenched his own body around and hurled himself to the side.
He hadn't forgotten to grab Teardrop Big Bro and drag him along, too.
And so.
The lightning bolt grazed past him, instantly carbonizing one side of his faceguard. The armor, which should have repaired itself even when destroyed, this time grew no more of those sticky, writhing threads it once did—instead, it had already completely "died."
That "lightning" was not a pure lightning-attribute magic—at least, not the lightning magic he understood.
Something very complicated had been mixed into it.
It was a "Skill" or "Magic" born from the adventurer's own experiences and epiphanies, bound at the deepest level to their very soul—and thus it possessed a special power that was impossible to comprehend.
Isagi couldn't speak, because that single instant just now had, in a purely physical sense, made his heart stop for several seconds.
[Almost died just now.]
This was the intuition of one who had long ventured through the Dungeon.
He couldn't even manage to breathe.
His body needed time to adapt to a change like this—needed his heart to start beating again, his blood to flow once more, and then to breathe, breathe, breathe!
He needed to see clearly, to hear clearly all around him, and then let his senses return to reality.
But the Dungeon never gave him time.
Never mind the skeletal adventurers still crawling up from everywhere—far in the distance, another arrow was already coming.
The Dungeon has no sky.
And yet, even so, in this moment he could hear thunder rolling and rumbling, wreathed in mist and cloud, as if to tear apart every single thing that existed before his eyes.
[Furnace of Myriad Forms].
Golden wings swiftly hauled his body upward, and he began to move rapidly and erratically through this expanse of yellow sand.
A target in flight is always harder to "hit" than a target on the ground.
That was something the Goddess Artemis had said.
For some reason, Isagi found himself thinking of that goddess of the moon—of the time during a vacation when he, along with Lefiya, Ryuu-senpai, and the others, had gone "hunting" up in the mountains.
[Birds are harder to catch than rabbits, fawns, or even wild boars. It's not just a matter of how fast they are—it's about direction, too!]
[Uh, come again?] [Huh?]
Naturally, when it came to hunting and the like, none of them could hold a candle to the goddess.
And that maiden deity, who normally seemed a touch aloof and cold, became positively vibrant the moment she started talking about her own interests and hobbies.
[Land animals can really only move in two directions—left and right. Sure, to an ordinary archer, near and far are two different concepts, but to a truly skilled one, so long as the target is within range, that distinction is meaningless.]
[I get it! In the sky you can move not just left and right, but up and down too! That's why they're so hard to shoot!!]
[Wrong!!]
Artemis shook her head this way and that, pointing out the mistake of Lefiya, that elf girl who knew absolutely nothing about archery!
[It's not just up, down, left, and right. There's up-left, up-right, down-left, down-right, and… many more irregular directions still.]
It was just like drawing.
Sketching on a flat plane is fundamentally different from sketching along a single line.
Because you simply cannot draw on a "line."
And as for Isagi.
Sprouting wings in this moment was merely a stopgap measure. He had a far better trick up his sleeve, and that was—
[Change into Anything].
The distant figure still stood firm amid the wind and sand. One arrow missed, then another followed—unhurried and unrushed, neither arrogant nor rash, looking utterly undisturbed by anything at all.
And on the other side.
Isagi at times sprouted golden wings and soared like a bird; at times he suddenly dropped to the earth, becoming like a horse, a deer, a ram, hooves flashing gold as he galloped headlong; and at times fins grew from his back, and he plunged straight into the sea of sand, gliding and swimming beneath it.
Everything was for the sake of drawing closer to that distant figure.
She was the BOSS here.
So.
Who was "she"?
Along the way, countless skeletal adventurers and monsters still kept appearing. Thankfully, Teardrop Big Bro had been clearing obstacles for him the whole time. Even when his body was utterly obliterated by that lightning arrow, not long after, he could use magic to split himself out from within Isagi's body once more.
Only, as a magic, it naturally drained an enormous amount of mental strength, and couldn't be sustained for long.
But it didn't matter.
Because he hadn't come here to fight, either.
He only wanted to test and probe this BOSS before him—to see just what level she really was.
Hmm—
Judging by these hurtling lightning arrows alone, she was at least Lv. 8.
Because he could clearly feel that they carried an aura far more dangerous than even Alfia's.
But Isagi was simply curious.
This one—was she an adventurer, or a monster?
If she was an adventurer, then she ought to be a "Necromancer," right?
Otherwise, how could she command so many adventurers and monsters reduced to white bones? Surely it couldn't be a power the Dungeon had granted her after she became a BOSS?
Isagi thought that seemed rather unlikely.
If the Dungeon truly possessed that kind of strength, then the previous [Alfia] wouldn't have been so simple a matter as merely becoming a dual-BOSS alongside that "Greatest Evil."
In that battle back then.
Apart from the magic and skills the woman had originally possessed, she really hadn't unleashed any new power.
So the "she" before him now shouldn't be capable of it either.
This was Soul Lock—she wasn't merely a Necromancer, but also an archer and a sorceress?
Isagi understood archery too, so naturally he could see that his opponent's skill was extraordinary—faintly carrying even the bearing of a hunting goddess like Artemis. That was the mark of one who had already touched the "pinnacle of technique."
And that immense, surging magical power went without saying.
Even without a bow as a medium, purely gathering magical power to condense a lightning orb like that—there was no way she could be someone with poor [Magic].
But whether "Necromancer," "Archer," or "Sorceress"—
none of them were good at close combat…
[Probably?]
Thinking this, Isagi finally broke through the rain of sand and arrived before her.
Before him stood a woman of exquisite, exquisite beauty.
No less than a goddess.
Black hair, red eyes, a tall and slender frame, her skin a supremely healthy wheat-brown hue, her figure perfectly proportioned and powerful—she was flawless to the point of some extreme.
There wasn't much fabric on her—just a crude cloth wrap bound over her full, towering bosom, and below, a very plain gray loincloth.
Barefoot. Though her clothing was crude, at her ears, her neck, her hands, and her ankles were nothing but exceedingly gorgeous and intricate golden ornaments.
And the great bow in her hand.
It too shone with golden light, carved with complex runes and demonic masks.
The moment she caught sight of him, those eyes—which had held no particular light before—suddenly blazed with a kind of intensely fervent gaze.
It was almost frightening.
[So familiar.]
The woman's appearance was truly all too familiar—because in Orario, the Amazon women were almost all like this, including Tiona. Except that idiot girl's chest was nowhere near that of the woman before him. Even her well-developed sister couldn't compare.
So, she was an Amazon.
Thinking this, Isagi tentatively drew his longsword and slashed it down toward her.
And then, he saw the corners of her mouth curl into a smile.
[I'm done for—guessed wrong.]
How could an Amazon possibly be bad at close-quarters combat?
So, the one before him was a "Necromancer," an "Archer," a "Sorceress"—and even more, a "Martial Artist."
She raised her leg, sweeping it across.
That long, slender leg was like a cannon shell, letting out an unbearably piercing shriek the very instant it made contact.
In the moment his armor and body collapsed as one.
Isagi could only see, in his mind's eye, five great words looming before him—
["Amazon Empress."]
____
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