Chapter 335: The Sunken Belfry
The entrance appeared the next morning inside a wall of bare stone.
Without the Unanswered Bell Fragment, the cliff face held nothing but a shallow recess. Cassandra raised the fragment. Silver light spread across its dark surface, and two enormous metal doors emerged from the cliff face.
No handles interrupted the carvings of bells, wings, and crowded city streets.
The doors opened without making a sound.
[You have entered the Level 60 Hidden Dungeon: Sunken Belfry.]
Martin crossed first with his Breakwater Aegis raised. Angel followed, the blue glow of her shell filling the passage behind him. The others entered in a loose formation. Rias, still using her Flash Fang handle, watched the upper walkways while Martin led.
The corridor ended after twenty steps.
Beyond it waited an underground district large enough to swallow Slatewind Basin above. Giant bells hung between stone towers. Suspended walkways crossed open air, linking balconies, workshops, and silent plazas at different heights. Old foundries lined the lowest level, their furnaces dark beneath bronze pipes wider than houses.
Elisebeth stared upward. "Someone hid a city inside a dungeon."
"Or the dungeon formed around the city," Katherine said.
A silver pulse passed through the nearest bell.
Dark stains opened across the plaza floor.
Cassandra readied the Nightglass Longbow but did not fire. Through the Hunter path, each shape became distinct as it pulled itself from the stains. Black cores appeared first, followed by bodies formed from old metal, dust, and condensed darkness. The silver resonance touched only their outer edges.
[Bellhide Brute (Monster) Lv. 60]
[Muteclaw Stalker (Monster) Lv. 60]
[Echojaw Carrion (Monster) Lv. 60]
"Monsters," Cassandra confirmed. "The same silver aura is directing them."
Martin looked toward the silent balconies.
"Then we clear the monsters and wait before attacking anything else."
The Bellhide Brute charged.
Its shoulders carried layers of warped bronze, while the hollow cavity inside its chest gathered sound. Martin met the first charge with the Breakwater Aegis and held his ground on the plaza stones as the Brute rebounded.
He summoned the Galehook Trident and hurled it beneath the Brute’s arm. The prongs struck, and Cast the Line marked the monster.
As the Brute staggered away, the mark quickened Martin’s pursuit.
Muteclaw Stalkers dropped from the bridges above him. Rias intercepted one with both daggers. Alexandra and Kumoe met another together, the three heads dividing its attention from different angles until Alexandra cut through the opening Kumoe created.
The Echojaw Carrion remained overhead and opened a mouth too wide for its narrow body.
Its scream carried no sound. The pressure beneath it cracked stone.
"I know this trick now," Elisebeth said.
Spellweaver threads shone around her fingers. She formed Fire Shield across the party’s upper flank, caught the descending pressure, and sent Arcane Bolt through the barrier. Fire followed the path she wove for it instead of bursting loose.
The focused strike pierced the Carrion’s Dark Force core, and it dissolved before reaching the ground.
Kinnami raced across the plaza and renewed Martin’s barrier as the Bellhide Brute swung again.
Martin blocked, switched to the Rainwarden Sword, and used Measured Answer to cut through the joint Cassandra had marked with an arrow. When the bronze protection opened, the Riftbell Warhammer replaced the sword.
Faultnote rang once.
The Brute’s armor fractured. Angel slammed her shell into its exposed side and sent it through the remains of an old worktable.
Martin finished the Dark Force core with the next heavy swing.
The remaining monsters fell soon afterward. Their bodies returned to the dark stains that had produced them, but the stains did not disappear. Silver resonance passed over each one, quieting the spawn points instead.
Cassandra watched the silver current settle over the stains. "It touched the spawn points and redirected what emerged, but I can’t tell whether whoever shaped it can command them."
The first-floor gate opened across the plaza.
No one moved toward it.
Figures stood along the balconies above.
They had human faces and bodies. Their hands held bows, hooked spears, and short curved blades. Long bat ears rose through hair in shades of blue-black, silver, and violet. Silver rings surrounded their nocturnal pupils. Small fangs showed behind tense lips.
Thin wing membranes extended from their forearms to their sides. Folded against their clothing, the wings resembled dark cloaks edged in silver thread.
One woman descended from the highest balcony.
She spread her wings, caught the air without a sound, and landed on the plaza opposite Martin. Messy blue-black hair fell around her long ears. Her layered gray clothes left her forearms free, so the folded membranes could rest against her sides without catching.
A red marker appeared above her.
[Mireva, Sairren Route-Warden (Intelligent Beast)]
More red markers appeared across the balconies.
[Optional Dungeon Objective: Defeat the Belfry Wardens.]
Martin lowered the Riftbell Warhammer.
Cassandra lowered her bow at the same moment. Alexandra let both swords hang beside her legs, and Rias reversed her daggers before sheathing them. Elisebeth dismissed the spell gathering around her fingers. Katherine closed her tome while Kinnami returned to her side.
Angel and Kumoe watched the balconies without advancing.
The red markers remained.
Mireva raised her hooked spear and pointed it at Cassandra.
"You carry the mark of someone who hunts beasts."
The interface showed other players only [Condemned], but Mireva had sensed what the generic marker concealed. Cassandra made no attempt to deny it.
"I do. That is why you decide whether I take another step."
The route-warden’s silver-ringed eyes shifted toward Martin.
The Worldshell Carapace pulsed. Its unfinished Arm Stage reacted to the unbonded intelligent beasts around him, but the trial did not advance. They had not chosen to stand beside Martin, and he would not pretend otherwise just to satisfy the armor.
"We came here following the Dark Force," he said. "We’ll fight the monsters. We won’t fight the people living here. If entering the next chamber requires harming any of you, we’ll leave."
"Your system named us an objective," Mireva said.
Martin dismissed the window. "Then the system can be disappointed."
A surprised chirp escaped someone on the balcony. Another Sairren silenced it with a sharp click.
Kumoe’s curious head answered with a bark. The middle copied her at a lower pitch, and the right added one irritated note of her own. The three calls traveled through the foundry and returned from every bell.
Dozens of Sairren ears turned toward her.
Elisebeth whispered, "I think she introduced herself."
Her whisper crossed the entire silent plaza.
Mireva’s ears twitched. "You are very loud."
Elisebeth pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze to the plaza stones.
Mireva did not lower her spear, but she looked toward the open gate behind her.
"Our resonance does not create the monsters or bind them to our will," she said. "The bells wake the spawn points already poisoned by the Dark Force. Our aura hides our people and turns the monsters’ hunger toward intruders. If the pattern breaks, they attack everything."
Something vast rang far beneath the first floor.
Every Sairren on the balconies went still.
"The monsters above still follow our resonance," Mireva said. "The ones below no longer do."