He had been prepared to reassure Kane when the pressure set in, but was surprised when Kane claimed he didn't even feel any pressure.
Rui turned towards the pythons as he observed their body language and demeanor. Given his Fauna Flow technique, he was able to easily read the pythons even if they didn't have any facial expressions whatsoever.
It was clear that none of them were exhibiting any of the behavioral patterns that they would if they felt as though their lives were under threat.
('Neither Kane nor the pythons feel this pressure…?') He frowned, incredibly confused. ('Did they conspire to pull a prank on me, or am I losing my mind?')
He wasn't quite sure why they were unable to sense them.
('Especially pythons they should have a strong sense for survi-') He paused as realization dawned on him. ('It's the Shionel Dungeon's sensory jamming.')
It made sense. However, it wasn't the case that the Shionel Dungeon's sensory jamming traits were jamming the pressure that the Root was exerting on everybody.
No.
Rui often had to remind himself that the pressure that he exerted and experienced wasn't real. It wasn't real in the same way that atmospheric or water pressure was.
It was psychological pressure that the mind experienced when the subconscious evolutionary ability to evaluate risk and danger, evaluated a being to be extremely dangerous. This pressure was not some energy radiated by the dangerous being that traveled through the air and entered the mind. It was pressure generated by the subconscious fear that the mind produced.
However, if the mind was unable to even perceive the existence of the dangerous being and thus unable to evaluate the danger of the being, one's mind would not generate the feat or the pressure.
That was what was happening right now.
Rui was experiencing the pressure because he possessed the ability to actually evaluate the risks and danger that dangerous beings pose to him, the Root, in this case. The inability of the pythons and Kane to sense the Root at all meant they couldn't experience the pressure.
('That's great,') Rui's eyes lit up.
He was quite happy that this was the case. His biggest concern was that he would be unable to lure the pythons into the Root Floor due to them backing out in instinctual fear of the Root, but he was glad that that was not a problem in the first place.
"Let's keep going," Rui began working with a renewed vigor when he knew that the biggest hurdle of his plan was not there in the first place.
Within an hour, they had finally arrived at the entrance to the Root Floor.
"So this is where it is huh?" Kane peered down the tunnel leading to a large hole. "I still can't feel any pressure, and that's honestly scarier."
Rui and Kane put some distance between them and the tunnel leading down as he heated the tunnel walls with his technique and the hot air pipe.
Rui grinned as the pythons did not even hesitate to slip down the tunnel into the floor one by one.
He even spewed more hot air from the edge of the hole leading into the floor in the direction of the grotesque Root, which was still actively engaging in mining the mine that the dungeon was based on.
He was grateful that the Shionel Dungeon was so good at hampering senses, otherwise, there was no way the pythons would have willingly jumped into that tunnel and hole.
"Now what?" Kane asked.
"Sshh," Rui was fully focused on what was about to unfold. He completely ignored Kane as he focused all his attention on the Root Floor. He had spent quite a lot of time waiting for what was about to happen, he did not want to even blink his eyes in fear of missing what was about to happen. Even though he wasn't using his eyes to observe the battle.
('They're moving closer to the Root from the edge of the floor, I wonder when the Root will attac-`) The furthest bunch of pythons suddenly got flattened into a gigantic crater faster than Rui could even react.
He had been paying extremely sharp attention to them, but they died before he could react nonetheless.
He sharpened his focus even more, focusing only on the Root floor and nothing else.
The deaths of the pythons did indeed confirm that the Root did not tolerate what it perceived as a living creature or any motion in general.
A split second later a huge wave of pythons was absolutely flattened by devastating impacts.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The roots of the Root ruthlessly flattened the pythons, leaving the latter unable to resist the brutality of the former. They were unable to even mount up an opposition due to how quickly they died. They didn't even know they had an opponent on this floor.
They simply died in droves like they were insects.
It didn't take too long.
Soon enough, the Root returned back to its business while an entire floor's worth of python monster flattened corpses had left a pool of blood in their area.
"It's done," Rui sighed.
"That quickly?!" Kane cocked his head back in surprise. "That's absurd! It's only been thirty seconds."
"Yeah," Rui sighed.
"You're telling me the Root did all of them in half a minute?"
"Yep,"
"And you intend to fight this thing?"
"Yeah," Rui shrugged. "If it chooses to fight back, anyway."
"…" Kane stared at Rui with a concerned expression. "Well, good luck."
He bit back a lot of things he wanted to say, and Rui appreciated that.
"Don't be so pensive," Rui told him. "It may have lasted only half a minute, but I did manage to get a lot of important necessary data."
Rui smiled. Even thirty seconds was more than enough time for a Martial Squire like Rui, and for the Root as well. A lot had been accomplished in that time and a lot had been observed in that time.
