My Dungeon Daddy System: Raising Monsters and Waifus Underground-Chapter 82 – Into the Deep (Part 1)

The sound of the world ending was apparently a C-Major chord played on a chainsaw.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Reed gritted his teeth, the vibration rattling his skull inside the exo-harness. The "Weed Whacker Mk 1" wasn’t just cutting the wall of thorns; it was having a violent, screaming argument with it.

The massive, Void-infused obsidian chains spun at 4,000 RPM, tearing into the thick, pulsing weave of the blockage. It wasn’t like cutting wood. It was like cutting frozen meat. The wall resisted. It writhed. It bled.

Thick, neon-pink sap sprayed across Reed’s [Void Shield], sizzling as it hit the energy barrier. The smell was atrocious, a mix of burning, rot, and caramelized sugar that made his stomach turn.

"Torque is holding at 98%!" Grika yelled over the roar of the engine, her voice tinny through the comms crystal in Reed’s ear. She was clinging to the back of Terra’s shoulder like a parrot, her goggles reflecting the shower of violet sparks. "Push, Boss! Make it hurt!"

"I am pushing!" Reed shouted back.

He leaned his weight into the harness. The backpack engine whined, a high-pitched keen that drew directly from the Void Shard in his chest. He felt the drain immediately, a cold, parasitic suction near his heart, but the [Thermal Equilibrium] buff from the spa kicked in, turning the lethal chill into a manageable, cool breeze.

Snap. Crunch. Hiss.

The saws bit deeper. The Void-oil coating the blades flashed with entropy magic. Where the teeth touched the plant matter, the vines didn’t just sever; they turned grey, then black, then disintegrated into ash. The cauterization was instant. The wall tried to knit itself back together, the pink sap reaching out like tendrils, but there was nothing to grab onto. The biomass had been deleted.

"OPEN THE DOOR!" Reed roared, channeling a burst of [Overlord Strength].

He ripped the gauntlets apart in a lateral tearing motion.

CRACK-BOOM.

The wall of thorns shattered.

The blockage collapsed inward, leaving a jagged, glowing hole leading into the darkness below.

Reed killed the engine. The chains spun down with a menacing whir-click-click.

Silence rushed back into the Iron Works, heavy and sudden.

"Clear," Seraphine announced, stepping up beside him. Her Magma Lance cast a dull, angry orange glow on the floor. She peered into the breach. "It smells... wet."

"Form up," Reed ordered, wiping sap off his faceplate. "Terra, rear guard. Seraphine, point. Grika, stay between the rocks. I’m heavy support."

They stepped through the breach.

The transition was jarring. One moment, they were in the dry, industrial heat of the factory floor. The next, they were standing on a ledge overlooking an alien abyss.

Floor 4 wasn’t a dungeon level. It was a hollow earth biome.

The ceiling was lost in the darkness hundreds of feet above, covered in stalactites that dripped glowing nectar. The floor, miles below them, it seemed, was a dense, writhing carpet of bioluminescent jungle. Giant mushrooms the size of houses glowed in neon blues and poisonous greens. Vines as thick as subway trains coiled around massive pillars of ancient rock.

The air was heavy, humid, and thick. It felt like walking into a mouth.

"By the scales," Seraphine whispered, her tail twitching in agitation. "This is not a cave. This is a stomach."

"How does this place exist?" Reed said confused, checking his HUD.

"Dungeons dont exactly follow the laws of physics." Grika chimed in."its confusing, how we can enter our dungeon normally but cores are a mystery. A small hole in the wall can hide miles of floors, its basically a different reality."

[LOCATION DISCOVERED: THE ROTTING GARDEN]

[Atmosphere: TOXIC]

[Visibility: LOW]

"Okay," Reed said, his voice echoing in the vast space. "We need to find a path down to the..."

He stopped. He coughed.

It started as a tickle in his throat. Then it burned.

" Cough... System..." Reed hacked, covering his mouth.

Around them, the air was shimmering. It wasn’t just humidity. A fine, golden dust was drifting down from the giant mushrooms above.

"Spores!" Grika yelped, pulling her leather breathing mask up. "Neurotoxins! Boss, the filters on the harness aren’t rated for this density!"

Reed’s vision swam. The neon colors of the jungle began to blur and streak. He saw movement in the corners of his eyes. shadows that weren’t there.

[STATUS EFFECT: SPORE DELIRIUM]

[Stacking: 1... 2... 3...]

"I feel... funny," Seraphine murmured. She swayed, her tail uncoiling lazily. She looked at Reed, her eyes dilating. "My Lord... you look like a mouse. A warm, tasty mouse."

"Sera, focus!" Reed snapped, though his own knees felt weak. "Terra! Now!"

The Golem stepped forward.

"BAD DUST," Terra rumbled. "I FIX."

She didn’t punch anything. She simply existed harder.

Terra clenched her fists. The magma veins running through her granite body flared bright white. The air around her began to shimmer with heat haze.

[SKILL: GEO-THERMAL VENT]

The temperature around the party skyrocketed. 100 degrees. 200. 400.

The moisture in the air flash-boiled into steam.

WHOOSH.

A massive updraft was created. The heat rising from Terra pushed the air upward with the force of a wind tunnel. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The golden spore cloud didn’t stand a chance. The thermal pressure pushed the toxins away, creating a clear, shimmering bubble of superheated air around the team.

Reed took a breath. The air was hot, desert hot, but it was clean. The dizziness faded.

"Thermal barrier established," Reed panted, sweating instantly inside his suit. "Good job, Terra. Keep it up. We walk in the bubble."

"I AM TOASTER," Terra agreed, glowing like a miniature sun.

"Stay close," Reed commanded, revving the chainsaws to a low idle. "If you step out of the heat, you hallucinate. And we don’t have a healer to fix your brain if it melts."

They began the descent.

A massive root system formed a natural ramp spiraling down into the jungle floor. The path was slick with moss and pulsating with bioluminescent veins.

As they walked, the jungle watched.

Flowers with eyeballs in their centers turned to track them. Vines slithered silently across the path behind them, tasting their footprints.

"Grika," Reed muttered, eyeing a cluster of ferns that looked like they had teeth. "Tell me again why we didn’t just burn this whole floor from the top down?"

"Because of the loot, Boss!" Grika chirped, protected by Terra’s heat shadow. "And because if you burn it, the spores explode! We’d turn the whole mountain into a bomb!"

"Right," Reed grimaced. "No fire. Just chainsaws."

They reached the jungle floor. The canopy of giant mushrooms blocked out the view of the ceiling, plunging them into a world of deep shadows and neon highlights.

It was beautiful. In a horrific, "I will eat your face" kind of way.

Seraphine took the vanguard position. Her tactical lingerie, black dragon scales and lace, gleamed in the low light. She moved with a fluid, hypnotic grace, her spear held ready. The heat from Terra seemed to energize her, keeping her Void sickness at bay.

"Movement," Seraphine hissed, holding up a hand.

She pointed her spear at a grove of tall, elegant flowers about fifty yards ahead. They looked like lilies, but they were six feet tall, with petals the color of bruised flesh.

"They’re just flowers," Grika whispered.

"No," Reed said, his dungeon sense tingling. "They’re tracking us."

The lilies swiveled. The petals peeled back, revealing a central stamen that looked suspiciously like a rifle barrel.

THWIP.