Chapter 36: 401-410
"Hah rent! Right…." Trinity said mockingly. "Isn't it more like you are the one who owes me rent? Originally you were me. You are just a part of me that was released from the seal to keep going with the soul that belongs to me. You keep saying we are not the same, but it is the truth whether you like it or not!" 𝒊𝒏𝒏𝙧𝗲𝓪𝙙. c𝒐𝙢
"If that is the case, why would you do such stupid things!? You have so much power, but you do not seem to care about anything!" I yelled out. I did not want to bring this conversation back to this, but it seemed Trinity was not going to let me change the subject so easily.
"Heh…. Why should I care?" Trinity asked with her lips curled up. "Little Faith, you are too naive. You think the world can be won over with good deeds, but this is not the case! Any world, no matter which one you live on is filled with strife. The people that you wish to save, how many actually give a shit about you? Which one of them would actually spend time running to your aid when you are in danger? None! They would rather save themselves and leave you to your death than try to help you because they only care about saving their own lives.
"You may be the empress of this empire. You may care for the people of your land, but why must you sacrifice yourself for them? Why must you care for the lives of others when you are already doing so much for them? You are lucky Azengrade backed down. You are lucky that, combined with you still wearing my armor and your time magic that you were able to make him feel wary of you. If you even knew he had been tricked, not only you but every living being in this empire you so love would have died. Your loved ones, your friends and family, all of them. All of them would have died because of how naive you are.
"The Altorians are not what you think they are. They are not a race that you can easily deal with. They are parasites that will eat their way into a sentient being's brain and control them and make them do things against their will. They take over whole planets and grow and spread. Then when there is no one left to infect, they will move on to another world. They are a plague. They will consume and consume.
"I have lived my life hunting them down. Every last one of them must die! You do not know what it is like to watch your family being consumed and turned into an Altorian. They retain their memories, but they have no feelings for anyone but their own race. So they will not care for your people. To them, it is all a game. So I made it my life's work to kill them. I spent years growing stronger and stronger. Picking them off one at a time. I have destroyed countless of planets one after the other to get rid of those disgusting things.
"You want to save your people, I understand, but you are still naive. It only takes a single infection, and in a span of days, there will multiply, and soon your billions of citizens will turn on you and try to kill you. Hahahaha!" Trinity paused as she looked at me with crazed eyes.
"Think about it, your lovers all of a sudden having their skin split and showing glowing lines on them. Each one showing their disgust for you. No longer loving you. Wanting to kill you. Think about it! You naive bitch! Do you know what it is like to watch your parents go from a loving mother and father to people who are trying to shove this disgusting worm down your throat to make you one of them? Do you know what it is like to have no choice but to kill your own parents to escape with your life? Huh!? Hahaha…." Trinity tilted her head. Her lips curled up into a smile. "Life is not what it seems. You are happy now, but now that the Altorians are here, you will suffer the same fate as I have. You will become someone who has no choice but to rely on me, the one you deny. We will relive what I have lived through in my past life. We will see it all. We will watch as we have no choice but to kill the ones we love.
"You do not seem to understand what it means for the Altorians to show up. Whether you believe me or not is up to you. Now that you know what they are and how they act let's see how you are able to break free from this mess. You had your chance to kill five of them, and you gave that chance up." Trinity snorted and sat on the ground, crossing her hands across her chest.
I was shaken by her words. I was unsure if I should believe them or not. I was unsure if she was telling the truth. But the look in her eyes. Although they looked crazy, deep down, I saw sorrow. Pain that still lingered inside her to this very day.
"Then I just have to get stronger. Stronger than even you. They sealed you because you were a threat to them, so I just have to be sure to be stronger than you to show you that there is always a way." Yes. Strength. I just needed to level more. If I level more, then I might be able to win this fight. But the question was, did I have the time?
"Heh…. You do have one thing going for you. This world seems to like you. While those Altorians seem to have a bit of control over the dungeons you have visited, you have that system. This is something I did not have. I have nothing. I could only use my blood, sweat, and tears to grow stronger, even though it took me millions of years only to be sealed off and forced to watch a part of my soul live many lives. But don't get me wrong. I will not give you any more of my power. You stole enough already. Until the day you realize you need me, I will no longer surface. From this moment on, whether we live or die will be up to you. To be honest, I am tired of it all…. Let's see what the great Faith can do." With these words, Trinity suddenly disappeared. The blood red side of my spirit domain stayed, but she was nowhere to be seen.
I don't know what brought about this change in attitude. But maybe deep down. Trinity was actually a good girl who just longed to take revenge for all she had lost. Maybe her outburst was something she needed to do all this time….. Of course, this is my own speculation, and she could just be lying low until I was at my weakest once more…..
--AN) Sorry all, power kept going on, so chapters are late.--
When I woke up next, I found everyone huddled around me, looking at me nervously. I could see the care and concern in their eyes. "It's me…." I spoke softly as I slowly got up. Luckily my armor spell was still active, or else I might not be able to handle what I needed to do next.
"Is it really you?" Adel looked at me suspiciously, causing me to grin slyly as I said: "On our trip back to the capital from when I first left home, you had to pee really badly, but because we were not in a spot we could stop you…."
"Stop! Okay, it's you!" Adel yelled out while covering my mouth. Everyone gave her strange looks as her face turned bright red. She glared at me and punched my chest lightly as I laughed. "You asked~."
"I didn't ask you to reveal an embarrassing moment!" Adel yelled out as she for up and stomped her feet.
"So what happened to this Trinity" Sophie asked, getting on point.
"She yelled at me and called me naive before disappearing. But I now know what we are up against, and it is not good. I told you about my dreams. And one of them had us all fighting against people with purple lines on their bodies. Well, these people are Altorians, Azangrade's race, and they are parasites at that. They take over worlds and infect the citizens to give rise to more of their kind. And they are powerful at that. We can probably assume they are already infecting some of the kingdoms of this world. We need to push things forward. Adel, I want you to talk to Runa and ask her to bring more people from the elven kingdom. Get Annie to find all the craftsmen in the empire and have them come to the capital. You can take my seal to make sure it gets done in a timely fashion. Also, tell your father he needs to come sit on the throne for a bit to deal with the daily things. Let him know what is going on as well. Sophie, you will help her with this. Go now because every second counts."
"On it! Sophie, let's go!" Adel grabbed Sophie's hand, and they ran out of the room.
After they left I looked at Iena, Diablo, and Freidinia: "Iena, you will guard my house with Sally and Sei. Fill them in on everything that has happened. And please protect everyone there. My house is currently our only hope at this time since it has all our operations going on underneath it."
"I will protect it with my life. But Faith, please be careful." Iena gave me a worried look before running off.
"Diablo, Freidinia, you two will come with me to the Undead Kingdom. No matter what, we must investigate what is going on. I am not sure if Altorians can change undead, but we can at least find out. Either way, we need an answer to this invasion." Although mostly everyone was unharmed, there were still a few who were affected by their life force being sucked out of them. Please visit inn𝘳e𝑎𝘥. co𝐦
"Master, are you sure you want to do this? We can go and investigate for ourselves." Freidinia asked.
"Yes, I need to hear with my own ears the reason for this sudden attack," I answered as I stood up.
"Let me at least send some shadows. There is no reason not to, right?" Diablo's words made sense, so I nodded my head. It was not a bad idea to know what we were walking into.
"Alright." With this, Diablo summoned multiple shadows that quickly disappeared. Only then did we fly out of the castle and head to the undead kingdom.
Because We had Diablo there pulling us along, we reached the border in just a few hours. There was an entire kingdom between us and the undead kingdom, which I made sure to use my detection magic on to see if I could see anything out of place, and sure enough, there was nothing. This meant that the Cyrilia Empire was their target from the start. Why this was, I do not know, unless they were wary of me.
I had a lot of questions but no answers at this time. When we reached the border, the kingdom that bordered it, the Rosen Kingdom, had a massive fortified fortress wall that spanned the entire border. There was also a dull gray barrier around the entire undead kingdom as well. There was only one entrance if you wished to go to the kingdom by foot, but I did not plan to be nice about my entry as I flew straight to the barrier and transformed my hand into a huge fist, and slammed it into the barrier shattering it into dust.
They came to my kingdom in the same manner. I will do the same to them. "Let's head to their castle."
Diablo and Freidinia nodded as he continued forward. "Faith, the shadows are finding something strange about the undead here…. Normally undead are like the living and are living out their daily lives, but these are just wandering around mindlessly… Like they have lost all their intelligence."
"Ignore it for now. Either way, we will need to head to the capital. We will see if the undead there are in the same boat." I only wanted an answer for the attack by the undead. Because to dig such a long tunnel to our kingdom would have taken a lot of time, even with earth magic. At least, I think, anyway.
As we continued flying over the undead towns and cities that were not much different from our own, I noticed right away the aimless wandering around as if they had really lost all their intelligence. Somewhere even walking into walls and other things falling over and then getting back up as if nothing had happened.
"The capital city is just head. The shadows are already there, and there seems to be some kind of battle going on there." Diablo explained. I nodded as I saw the smoke rising overhead. It was then that a thought came to mind. "Diablo, if Azengrade used earth magic, how quickly could he move to our empire?"
"If all five of them worked together with their power in just an hour or so." Diablo answered and then asked: "Are you thinking Azengrade did something to the undead to make them the way they are now?"
"Yeah, it would only make sense. If there is a massive battle going on at the capital, then that only means something has happened in this kingdom. Luckily I did not act on my earlier words…." Now that things seemed to be falling into place, I couldn't help but curse myself for having such thoughts before. But then again, if this was not the case, then what would I have done? Would my emotions take over? Would I have really annihilated the undead kingdom?
When we arrived at the capital, undead were fighting undead. But there was a distinct difference in the organization. The ones attacking the city seemed to be in a berserk type state, while the undead within the city was organized. But the thing about the berserker undead as they seemed to have something protecting them from damage.
"Diablo, I am going to teleport us in." I grabbed both Diablo's and Freidinia's hands and used dimensional transfer to move inside the barrier without destroying it. I then waved my hand and put another barrier around the kingdom of the undead.
"Who are you!?" A skeleton with thick black armor yelled out as he stepped on air and came over to us.
"I am the Empress of the Cyrilia Empire. Earlier, millions of your undead attacked my empire with the Altorians, or should I say the people with purple lines." I explained.
"Those bastards!" The skeleton seemed truly angered. Even his bones were shaking. "Your highness, on behalf of the undead Kingdom, I apologize. My name is General Tur. I will bring you to his Majesty. As you can see, we have a crisis on our hands."
"Thank you. And I now know it is not your kingdom's fault, so do not worry about it. I should apologize for destroying your kingdom's barrier. I put a new one up to replace it." I scratched my chin. I destroyed it out of anger but now…. Well, I guess this makes us even a bit….
"It's fine. His Majesty will not hold it against you. Please, this way." General Tur did not seem upset at all over my action.
We followed General Tur to the castle. The castle looked like a giant church. I can tell now why they call it the citadel. It was very grand and gothic looking. It had tall peaks on the towers and large stained glass windows with strange depictions on them.
We were led right to the throne room, where many other undead were in a meeting. "General Tur, what is the…. Who is this?"
"Your Majesty, this is the new Empress of The Cyrilia Empire. Our…. People attacked her empire…." General Tur answered.
I looked up at the man, that had gray skin and long white hair, and nodded my head. This man was what was called a Lich. He was the ruler of the undead kingdom. "I am Empress Cyrilia, Undead King. I came to find out why your people had attacked my lands with the Altorians, but it seems I might have let my anger get to me now that I see what is happening in your kingdom."
"It is my pleasure, and I am truly sorry for what my people have done. As their leader, I am ashamed to say I have no control over the actions of the undead outside my citadel." By citadel, I guess the entire capital was considered his citadel, which made since the main building resided in the middle of the city. "I am the Lich King Drandla. If I may ask, who are these Altorians?" 𝓲𝓃𝐧𝓇𝗲𝒂d. 𝑐𝐨ｍ
"They are the people with the purple lines on their bodies. A parasitic race that invades worlds and takes over their people." I explained lightly. "May I ask if you have come in contact with such people?"
The lich king sighed as he nodded his head. "As you know, we Lich are immortal. I built this kingdom in order to allow other liches like myself to have a place where they will not be shunned or killed. At first, when the Altorians, as you call them, showed up and offered us an incentive to trade, I thought it was time to try to open our doors to the outside world after so many years. And I hoped that the world would accept us, but I never thought…..
"I spoke with someone named Azengrade who wanted to trade and suggested we test it out on one of the border towns first to see if the living and the Lich could coexist. I felt like this was a good plan, and so I allowed it, but…. It was only a few days later that reports began coming in about the humans having their life force sucked away. It was then that things spiraled out of control. Every soldier we sent was turned into a mindless undead. They were no different from the scourge. They were brainless and only seemed to follow a single command. I am not sure what happened to them, but as you can see, the result is the war outside." The lich king had a bitter smile on his face. He seemed helpless in this situation.
"Hmmm… I wonder why Azengrade decided to use your people in such a way. The same goes for the way Teladeadja was trying to control the dwarves. If they only need to produce more parasites and inject them into their host, why are they going about things in a roundabout way? Is it some kind of game?" I really did not understand their actions. The only action I know makes sense is their attack on the capital because they seemed to have noticed Trinity. But I am still confused as to why they are playing games, I guess you can say, with the other kingdoms.
"They may be experimenting." The lich king spoke up. He folded his hands in his lap and let out a long sigh. "He originally came here to try to allow my kind and the living to get along but look what happened. He used them, and in the end….. I do apologize for this. And I do not blame you for their deaths. As you can see, even now we are fighting our own."
"Experimenting huh?" I frowned. If that was the case, then what if he found a more powerful race? One that is strong enough to take over the entire world with little effort but not strong enough to resist the parasites…. If I had only pushed Trinity for more answers, then maybe…. "Do you know which race on this planet is the strongest even if they are in seclusion?"
"The strongest? Besides the dragons…. I would say the one stronger than them might not exist anymore. At one point, there was a race of beings that were known as the Nolights. They were named that because they hid in the darkness. They did not come out during the day and only walked around at night. They were just like you humans, only they were long lived and had magic powers stronger than dragons. But they were a race that was closed off. I only know this because I have met them myself once and was even almost killed by them. I took my everything to escape. But if these Nolights were to be taken over then we might not have any chance of survival." The lich king answered.
I never knew of such a race on this planet. So this was a first for me. But what concerned me was not this race but the other continents. "Was this only on this continent?" Please visit 𝙞𝚗n𝓇𝘦аd.＆nbsp;𝗰𝘰𝚖
"Yes… Sadly I can not speak about other lands. I only know what we have on this continent. But if there are the Nolights, then maybe… just maybe there are even more stronger races out there on other continents that we do not know about." The lich king let out a heavy sigh, and so did I.
"Then I guess we will have no choice but to send an expedition out…." I still had to continue leveling up. The Altorians needed to be tracked. We also needed to check the other continents. It was not going to be an easy task.
"I will send shadows out. It will take them a while to reach the other places, but I can at least have them all over this continent within a few hours." Diablo spoke up as he placed his hand on my head.
"Then we will do that. It is our only option, for now, to try to keep track of things. I will talk to the dwarves and the elves and see if we can create something that will be able to track everyone on this planet who has a proper mana signature." I was thinking if we were to create a satellite and I flew it up into space, we could easily keep track of things over the whole planet. Well, I would need a few satellites, but it would be worth it.
"Track the mana signatures?" The lick king asked out of curiosity.
"Mmm… the world we live in all has mana. Everything has mana in it. But living organisms have a different sort of mana signature, and it is different per species. But if we narrow things down to those who are of the races, we can easily keep track of them since there is one thing that every race has, and that is its mana spark in their hearts. It is strange to say, and I only realized it myself not too long ago, but when I use detection magic, I know who is who based on their mana spark. Like I can tell a monster compared to a human just by their mana spark. While I am not sure if all the sentient races on this planet can be cidered the same in this aspect, I do know that most are. So…. If we can track them, we can check for any strangeness in their being. Like I noticed a weird fluctuation in the undead outside that you are fighting against. This fluctuation might not seem much, but it is very different from those who have not gone crazy." I explained.
"Then…. If you can really do as you say, you might be able to tell who the Altorians have infected or done something to?" The lich king asked.
"It's a theory, but it is worth putting to a test. But I will need to have the elves and dwarves work on such a device first. As of now, we do not know if we can even reverse what is done. Or if every being will react in the same way. We still have a lot we need to figure out, so we can only work on this one step at a time. Lich King, I do hope you can work with my Empire on this. I wonder, do you mind capturing a few of the berserker undead?" We were starting to formulate a plan, so if we could use both magic and technology and make use of things this world has never seen before to our advantage, we may just be able to keep ourselves from being overrun.
"Of course. I have, in fact, already many at my disposal. But I must ask….." The lich king's voice went soft: "Can you take care of my current problem?"
"Mm… I was about to offer this. I can use an area heal on those infected. It will cleanse them and turn them to ash…." I know this was not the nicest way to go for undead, but it was the quickest.
"I will leave that to you then. As for the ones we already have captured. We will prepare them to be ready to leave with you." The lich king gave me his thanks before giving out orders to his men.
In no time at all, I was already standing out at the entrance of the city again with the Lich King at my side. He wanted to see for himself the end of his people's lives. "Are you sure? I can put them in a barrier for the time being if you wish. We can then wait and see if the effects can be reversed…."
"Will the barrier be able to hold them?" The lich king asked. I smiled and nodded my head as I said: "Move your people back. I will put up a ten layer barrier for the time being. If this doesn't hold them, then I need to train more."
Luckily I thought of this before killing them all off. Because if we were able to turn them back then it would be a huge loss and more blood on my hand than I really want. When his people retreated behind their city barrier, I quickly set up another barrier which surrounded the berserker undead. It went underground as well, so nothing could escape easily. As a final touch, I also added an eleventh barrier that spun for added protection. This was a just in case barrier.
When I was done, I returned to the throne room where a berserker undead was being held. It was flailing about as three undead soldiers held it down with magic. The lich king kindly explained why this was. " We can not go near it, or we will be infected, so we can only use magic to keep it from spreading anything to us."
"I see…. So it can be restrained with magic…." I looked at the skeleton and used appraisal on it.
[Undead Skeleton]
[Level: 467]
[Status Effect: Parasitic Invasion]
"Oh?" I had yet to use appraisal on the skeletons, so I was quite surprised that they showed they were actually controlled by something. I scanned the entire body and found a small worm in the skull. It was latching on to the skeletons' source of life. "Appraisal."
[Infant Altorian]
[Level: 1]
[Will only mature once it has consumed enough lifeforce.]
"Hmmm…. Let's try this." My eyes lit up as I used dragon speak: "Stop!" I did not use it on the skeleton but on the worm in its head. I smiled when I saw that the worm had actually stopped feeding. "Move out through the nose…."
At my command, it did as I said and slowly made its way to the nose of the skeleton. But just as it was about to exit it, the entire skeleton suddenly combusted into a blaze of blue flames. The skeleton kicked and screamed as it burned into nothing but ash, the same with the worm as well… "A fail safe?"
"Empress Cyrilia, this? What was what?" The lich king asked.
"That was some kind of self induced combustion of the worm inside the skeleton's head. I was using one of my powers to control the worm and was trying to remove it so we could study it. If we can remove it this way, it might return the host back to normal. I never thought it would have some kind of fail safe…" As I explained this, another idea came to mind. I looked at Freidinia and asked: "Did you notice anything?"
"It seemed to trigger once it came into contact with air. But it might not be the case if we can transfer it into a new host we can dissect and examine the worm. The worms themselves do not have much mana or life force, so they can not survive outside the host body for even a few seconds." Freidinia answered. I was quite surprised she got all his information just from a single observation.
"What if we moved it to a monster or something?" I asked.
"This may be possible, but it might need an undead. I might not be correct on this assumption, but I think these worms evolve with the host they first latch on to." Freidinia's assumption may be right. We all began thinking, trying to figure out what to do next. 𝐢n𝑛rℯ𝒶𝚍. 𝑐o𝘮
"Alright, let's get an undead monster here, and we will use them to test if we can move them from one host to another." I felt it was worth a try. If it didn't work, we could always try some other things out.
"Quickly bring an undead monster here!" The lich king did not seem to mind my not asking his permission for things as he gave orders right away. I know I was being rude by not asking her permission, but I felt this was really worth testing out. It could save all of the berserker undead outside.
But one thing did bother me. "Freidinia, you said it combusted when it came in contact with air, but….. This was a skeleton…."
"Undead have a membrane inside their skulls, especially skeletons. This is how they keep their mana and everything inside them." Freidinia's answer was still confusing since I do not know the undead race all that much, so I will just learn as I go.
Not long later, a skeleton monster was brought back along with another berserker skeleton. "Okay, this time, I will order it to move to a new host. This might be a better command."
"It is worth a try. It may just work out better and keep it from combusting on instinct." Freidinia agreed with my idea. I took a deep breath and said: "Stop and move to the new host!"
The worm inside the skull wiggled before slowly crawling toward the nose. It was slow, but it did eventually arrive at the nose. The two skeletons were face to face as the worm hesitated a moment before suddenly rushing out of its current host and into the other. It was so fast that one would have missed it if one had blinked.
"It worked!" We all cheered and looked at the original host. The skeleton shook its head and sat up, and looked around in confusion… When it saw the lich king, it began to panic and quickly bowed its head. "Your highness!"
"No need to bow. Stand up. We need to ask you questions." The lich king's lips curled up into a smile. With this, we had a way to move the worms to a new host and saving his people. I couldn't help but fist pump on the inside, knowing we had actually made progress.
"How many is this?" I asked as I sat down. This was a very tedious process, but we needed many test subjects.
"This makes over one hundred," Diablo answered.
"Okay, and how are the trials going?" While we were exchanging hosts, we were also testing how to extract the worms in different ways as well.
"I might have been able to figure out a method that we can do on a mass scale," Freidinia replied as she held a jar up with a bit of energy in it and a worm. "I recreated the conditions of the undead in a simplistic state. It's basically just a ball of mana, but it has the characteristics of the undead without any sentience. It's just that the worms do not seem to realize it."
My eyes lit up. Finally! "Do you think this same method can be used for the living as well?"
"I am not sure. Until we can grab hold of a few turned Altorians I do not think I will be able to do much. The brain of a living being is much different. I would need to know what they are feeding off of and what their commands are. They might be race specific as well, which will make things harder. The reason these are easier to do is because they are in a berserker state. If they were more conscious, like Azengrade and the rest it might be hard to get them to leave the host, and if they do, the host might be brain dead as well." Freidinia explained.
"Either way, it is still worth the try. If they are infected we can only test them. Even if they end up brain dead, it is better than doing things against their will or out of their control altogether. For all, we know, the Altorians could be eating the consciousness of the beings they take over so they might no longer be who they once were." I hated to use people as test subjects, but if we are able to somehow save those who become hosts for the Altorians, we can at least turn the tides and build up a bigger force to fight against them.
"When we are able to get a few test subjects, we can then test from there. For now, I will need all the jars we can get. As long as they can fit a worm inside, they will do. I don't even care if they are dirty." Freidinia gave out her order, and the lich king could only be at our beck and call since we were the ones saving his people. He quickly did as we asked, and soon the room was being filled with bottles.
Hour after hour, we worked day and night non stop. Until we finally turned the berserker undead back to normal. I let out a sigh of relief as I sat down. I was very tired, but this was needed in order to get a better understanding of these worms, and now we have billions of them that can be used to experiment on. "Empress Cyrilia. You have my thanks. You not only did not hold it against my people for the invasion of your empire, but you also saved my people."
"It wasn't your fault, to begin with. Anyway, if you truly wish to thank me, then form an open alliance with my Empire. It will allow trade of specific goods between our nations and also provide assistance as well when needed. This will also keep my people from harming yours and vice versa." I was too tired to really explain things in detail. So Diablo did it for me.
And within the same day, a new light flashed throughout both our nations allowing the Undead Kingdom and the Cyrilia Empire to be allies without bounds. This also applied to the elven kingdom as well.
"I am sure you have much to straighten out with your people. The teleport that I created will be linked to an embassy that I will set up for you in the coming days. I will send notice over the crystal orb I provided for you. " I explained as I held Diablo's and Freidinia's hands.
"Then I will speak to you then." The lich king smiled and waved goodbye as we disappeared.
The past few days were trying, but even so, I made a report to our officials. And set up a secluded lab where all the worms were to be stored. These worms were to be locked in a special barrier that Freidinia had created that would keep their aura sealed away. Although the jars already had such a seal, it was still something that needed to be done just in case. 𝓲n𝑛𝓻ℯ𝗮d.＆nbsp;𝚌o𝒎
Once I was done, I wandered to my bedroom, where Sophie, Adel, and Iena were all waiting for me. They helped me undress and allowed me to curl up in their embrace and fall into a deep sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I was hugging Sophie like a body pillow, unwilling to let go. Her fluff was just too amazing. "It's not fair that Sophie gets all the cuddles…."
"Then grow some fluff…." I muttered as I sank into the fluff and wrapped my arms and legs around Sophie.
"I would if I could!" Adel whined, but she did not seem mad at all. Sophie, on the other hand, seemed very happy as she hugged my arms. Iena was still sound. The girls all had a busy day the past few days as well. "That's it I am joining too!" Adel gave up and hugged me from the back. In the end, all three of us fell asleep like this.
When I woke up next, the sun was high in the sky, and only Sophie was left in bed with me. Not that she could slip out of my fluff death grip. "Good morning, sleepy head."
"Mmm… Morning…. Kiss…." I mumbled. Sophie rolled over and kissed my lips, making me smile before I clung on to her once more and buried my head into her neck, and sunk my teeth in. The sensation of sucking blood was strange to me. I still feel hungry a few times a day, but I do not need to eat all the time. I could probably go a week without eating, but I still couldn't resist. Sophie's soft voice as I sucked on her blood also tingled my ears. You can say that we did more than just a feeding session after that.
But that did put me in a good mood. Stress relief was very important, after all. When I walked downstairs, Adel was already organizing some things. She looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. "Where is Sophie?"
"Sleeping still. I wore her out just now after I ate." I said while sticking my tongue out. Adel chuckled and walked over, and hugged me. "You can't be biased."
"I know. You and Iena are tonight." I said as I hugged her back. "At least as long as nothing big happens."
"We will prepare." Adel licked her lips before kissing me and then putting her fingers to her chin and asking: "When do you plan to dungeon dive? The whole team is already waiting for this."
"I was thinking about next week after I finish a few things here. I want to run a few dungeons. But it will not be just with our team. We will be splitting up into groups. Everyone will have a team they will lead as we begin building our military levels. Mass recruitment of soldiers will need to begin as well. I was thinking of having General Briggs handle this. We will need all soldiers to jump into dungeons and make their way as far as they can. No one is allowed to die. If they can't push forward or are uncertain of the fight, they must retreat." Of course, I know people will still die in the dungeons. It is something that will happen no matter how prepared you are unless you are above the dungeon's level. But this was just a kind of thought that I wanted to instill in everyone's mind.
"So, does that mean we will all be splitting up?" Adel asked. She seemed a bit anxious.
"No. Not all the way. Sally, Sei, Sophie, and you will be on my team. Iena and Diablo will lead the other teams. We need those of higher levels to lead our elites. We can get more experience in smaller teams, so if we split up, we can gain experience faster. There is a dungeon in the elven capital that seems to be an instanced dungeon, so we can all go to the same place. The elven king has given me full access to it to the point that we now have a teleport to and from the dungeon." I explained. I did not want to split up like this, but the smaller teams would mean more experience. It has already been said among the mercenaries that many were leveling up faster in smaller teams rather than bigger teams.
"I see… Well, as long as I am with you since I really do not want to be split up from you." Adel pursed her lips. I reached up and ruffled her hair and smiled: "I know this. This is why I made the teams as they are. Diablo and Iena are both ways over my level and are perfect for power-leveling the others. I will do my best to do the same for you as well."
A month later, I found myself standing outside the entrance to a new dungeon. In front of me were not my teammates but an army of slimes! With Mr. Blobs jiggling in the front. I paced back and forth a few times with my hands behind my back. When I walked right, the slimes shifted to look at me. When I walked left, they shifted again to look at me. They were all very good little slimes. "Today is an important mission for all of you. You will be heading into this dungeon in teams! I want you all to work together and take down the enemy and level up as much as you can. Mr. Blobs will be forming his own team, while team leaders will also be forming teams as well. You are to work hard and level, level, level. If you can pick up skills, do so! Our future to survive will be left in your hands! You will have many missions and important tasks soon! I can not leave these tasks to the weak! So Work hard, and work together. I want all of you to come back fastly! What do you all say!?"
<strong>*Jiggle!*</strong>
Seeing them all jiggling and bouncing up and down, I smiled. My slimes are truly the best! A felt a tear well up in my eye as I quickly wiped it. "Good! Then go forth! And make the most of your time. If you complete the dungeon, then do it again! Keep going until you are all at least level 2000!"
<strong>*Jiggle!*</strong>
"Mmmm! Now go! " I watched as each team was quickly formed. This was thousands of slimes, all going into the dungeon in groups. My current slimes were now so many I lost count. The meter seems to be broken in the system. Not that it matters! Because they will only keep growing bigger over time! I turned and looked at the few girls behind me, who all had strange expressions on their faces, and ignored them! I don't care if I seem weird. My slimes will be the best!
In the past month, all my stats have finally been updated with the trickle. I now have some crazy stats:
[Name]: Faith Cyrilia
[Age] 17
[Level] 1428
[Race] Drakani Demigoddess
[HP] 1052500/1052500(3052500)
[MP] ∞
[Attack Power] 1584950
[Magic Power] 584950
[Status Points] 5850
[Strength] 158495
[Vitality] 105250
[Intelligence] 58495
[Mind] ∞
[Agility] 58495
[Skill Points] 1341
[Limit Break( 1/3)]
Total Domination
[Skills]
[Appraisal (LVL 10(MAX))] [Military Command (LVL 10(MAX))] [Military Tactics (LVL 10(MAX))] [Business Tycoon (LVL 10(MAX))] [Acting (LVL 1(MAX))] [Enslave Demon (LVL 10)] [Charm(LVL 10(MAX))] [Dimensional Transfer(LVL 10(Max))] [Blood Frenzy(LVL 1(MAX))] [Blood Manipulation(LvL 10(MAX))] [Shadow Meld (LVL 1)] [Shadow Clone(LVL 1)] [Blood Enhance(LVL 1(MAX))] [The Starry Night Sky (LVL 1)][Armor of Infinity(LVL 1)]
The strange thing is that my dragon form no longer raises my stats any more, which is kind of annoying. I was hoping it would make me stronger, but it doesn't. I guess this has something to do with the new race….
Either way, I guess it is okay. I can still use the weight of my partial transformation to my advantage by using the weight of my transformed limbs as a means of adding more damage which is useful. Not to mention my attack power and health now are much more than what they used to be in dragon form. It would just be nice if it stayed that way…..
But I guess such a bulky body is hard to fight in as well. So I am not too sad about it as I hardly use my dragon form. One good thing is that my new Armor of Infinity will shape shift with my partial transformations, which makes things easier. I can now cast it on me with just my underwear on and not have to worry about anything else. Like I can use my feet now as well instead of just my hands. The sword I picked up before seems to be a bit strange. It says it is a growth item, but it does not grow. In fact, it fused into my new armor of infinity spell and can now be called forth from that. Its name was Athena's Promise, but it really did not keep its promise and just stayed at normal stats. But having a sword that can now be summoned at will from any place on my body was quite neat.
"Faith, I may be seeing things but are you sending you slimes into the dungeon to level up?" Adel asked. 𝙞𝒏𝒏𝑟e𝗮𝘥. c𝒐m
I turned and looked at her and smiled. "Hehe…."
"This… doesn't this mean you will also gain experience points!?" Now that Adel was saying something, this is very true! If the slimes kill things, I will gain experience from it, and in turn, so will those in my team. This was just….
"We should be much stronger after doing these dungeons a few times." And I mean very strong! I had forgotten that my slimes were basically my pets which were a part of me. I only know they can go into different instances of the dungeon because I had already checked. But now, this was a huge amazing thing! If they all cleared the dungeon, that was millions upon millions of free experience points!
"I never thought such a way of leveling up would be possible. If we can become stronger, we can easily become a match for the Altorians!" Sophie became excited, as did the other girls.
"I hope I can finally be of some use…." Sally looked depressed. I can see why though, since it had been hard on her to sit by and do nothing all this time.
"I know how you feel! It's not fair to use people who have not had a chance to do anything as of late to be left behind like this. At one point, I might have been a match for Faith, but now I feel like one flick of her finger will send me flying into the abyss." Sei was just as depressed as Sally for different reasons, though.
"Then let's put you to work and start leveling, shall we?"
Upon entering the dungeon, we all looked around in awe at the strange landscape in front of us. Tall trees with colorful leaves, along with mushrooms taller than my head. "Faith, what kind of monsters should we expect to be facing here?"
"Plants…." Runa had told me that this place was filled with plant monsters, and it was hard to distinguish them from the regular plants and the ones that were monsters. But from what I was told, the plants here were on a high level, so I can hopefully get some experience myself.
One thing I hate about leveling is that I never get any experience points for monsters of a lower level. It is annoying since there are not many high level monsters to fight. While we have run into some strong monsters, things are now different due to my level. I can only hope the bosses will give me something at the very least on our first few run throughs.
"Plants!?" Adel seemed shocked, but then confusion filled her face as she began looking around. "Umm… Where is Grace?" Please visit 𝒾𝒏n𝗿𝒆а𝑑. 𝘤𝘰m
"I only said it would be the few of us. Grace is helping take care of things back at the capital with Freidinia. She is also now connected to me, so her level will also rise. Did you not realize she is much more powerful now?" I asked, which caused the girls to all frown.
"No fair! Why does Grace get it easy while we suffer? Quick turn me into your slave too!" Sei yelled out. She was always one to try to find the easy way out of things. She was also the one who slept in the most!
"No, go. Plus, if I did, I would probably make your work like a horse since all you do is laze around." I replied while sticking my tongue out at her.
,m "Then never mind. I have a feeling you would do such a thing!" Sei quickly retreated, causing us all to laugh.
"Getting back on point. The plants here are dangerous right now. I can see three, and they are all level 500." Sadly they were too low level for me to even be considered worth wild for me to gain experience from, but there was nothing I could do about that. The reason why I picked this dungeon in the first place was because of one thing I heard from Runa. The level of the dungeon seems to be based on party mid point. So with the girls in the level 100s and me at level 1000 plus, this means the mid point would be closer to their levels as I am the only one here at a high level. This is why I can say that we can run this multiple times. Because eventually, the mid point will get to a spot where I can start gaining experience as well.
Although this is all well and good for us all, there is one person who is actually slacking but complaining about not having a vacation, and that was my father in law who is now stuck running the empire for me.
I did say that he would need to do such things while I was gone. Luckily if anything happens because he is in team he can tell me right away. He will be getting free experience as well. But because he can tell me what is going on quickly, I can rest assured that I can appear there when needed and summon everyone back in under a minute with my dimensional transfer. I have checked, and my skill does work in this dungeon.
"What level five hundred!?" Sophie cried out. She seemed slightly frightened since her face paled a little.
"Don't worry. This is why I am here. For the time being, I will be helping you through the dungeon killing things. This is called power leveling. I will power level you all until you are able to fight on your own. But as we raise in level, the monsters will also become harder as well, so we have to be careful." Power leveling was invented in MMORPGs back on Earth. It was when you have a higher level tow you along and kill higher level monster for you to leech experience from. It allowed lower levels to level quickly.
"Oh…." Sophie nodded and let out a small sigh of relief. I think she was trying to hide the sigh, but I still heard it.
At any rate, the monsters in this dungeon were not all that hard from what I heard, at least the ones on the first floor. The second floor monsters were a bit harder, but that seems to be a trend for this dungeon. Although Runa did say that this dungeon had many floors and she was unsure what the floors were like past the fourth one since her people had yet to reach that level.
"Stay here. I will go see if I can round up a bunch of monsters." The key to a proper power leveling session was to round up as many monsters as possible and then kill them all! So with a wave of my hand, I put up a barrier around the girls, who were very confused at this moment, and took off to gather as many monsters as possible.
Luckily even though I was a higher level, these monsters were not shy about attacking me, but I did find something a little annoying. About half of them were rooted in place. Making it hard for them to chase after me. This was not what I really wanted, but this was not too bad. I still gathered up a hundred or so monsters all around level 400 to level 600. I then returned to where the girls were and cast an area of effect fire spell called: ring of fire. The monsters all caught on fire and died within a few seconds. With this, the power leveling session was underway!
The first batch of monsters I rounded up easily gave the girls ten levels which was nice. And for me, I got zilch… No experience whatsoever. But that was fine. As long as we continue like this, the girls will level up quickly. Some of the experience points even came from the slimes, who were doing well in leveling up as well.
"Alright, we will now go in and fight the ones who can't move. Be careful and watch your surroundings. There are many vine type monsters." I had to give this warning because when I was running around collecting a batch of monsters, I was almost tripped up a few times in the process.
This is why I have always disliked plant monsters. Even in novels, they were always the most annoying. Because it is hard to distinguish a plant monster from a real plant, after all, in a sense they are still plants.
A flower monster might be the same flower you sniffed not too long ago. You stop and sniff the same kind of flower only to have it suddenly open up and show razor sharp teeth that bite your head off and then consume you slowly. And that is if you are lucky to have a quick death by the plant. From what I know from Runa's explanation, some of the plants will slowly devour you within their bodies using a special acid their bodies produce.
It is not the best of ways to go, that is for sure. Runa had told me that many had died when they first entered the dungeon before they figure out what was what for monsters. One thing I have to say is lucky for her is that the monsters here are level based, so it enables her people to level properly without worrying about taking on monsters way too strong for them.
Although maybe plant monsters are kind of horrifying. When they attacked, they looked quite grotesque and even alien like. But now that I am thinking about it, there were some grotesque plants back on Earth as well.
If life on Earth evolved in even a slightly different manner, the plants of that planet could have grown legs and run around chasing after early humans. Maybe it would have never become so advanced and would have been more of a tribal planet. But who knows? Maybe humans would not have been able to evolve at all, and the me of that world, would never have been born. It is a strange thing to think about, but it is a possibility.
"Faith, watch out!" Sophie snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see a large brown vine lashing out at me. I snorted and raised my sword, and slashed down, slicing it in two.
I pursed my lips, looking at the purple ooze coming from the cut parts. It was fizzling and melting the ground. If that had landed on any of us, we probably would have melted too. Luckily we all have barriers up, so that will not happen, but still. These kinds of plants are indeed scary if you are not careful.
"Faith, are you okay?" Adel asked as she came to my side.
"Mm… Just in my own world." I had to kinda be out in my own world to do power leveling. Killing monsters was not all that fun, to begin with. It was a big grind, and I was one to hate the grind.
I liked leveling up, but only if it was fruitful, so fighting monsters with no true reward was not very fun to me. The girls were leveling up, which was my intention, but still, it was very tedious and boring. And we just started! I did not plan to stop our leveling mission until everyone was at least level 1000 plus. We needed at least this strength for the time being. But even if I do have this kind of goal in mind, it was still boring as can be!
It took us three hours to clear the first floor. When we found the set of stairs leading down it was surrounded by strange pink glowing mushrooms that wiggled back and forth. Luckily, they were small, and if you stepped on them, they would squish instantly. They were not monsters at all, and according to appraisal, they tasted sweet, but….. They were hallucinogenic. This meant if you ate one, you would really be in for some freaky things.
When we reached the second floor it was much like the previous floor. I once again rounded up all the monsters that could roman around before killing the stationary ones after. This time the girls even helped with fighting.
Each floor was the same until we reached the fifth floor. This was a mini boss I guess you could call it, as it was just a big room that was sealed off once we all entered the room. And in the middle was a large Mushroom that was level 1034. "Careful."
"Is this a boss?" Sei asked as she looked at the huge pink and blue mushroom. It looked very ominous if you asked me.
"Yes…."
[Boss: Mutated Mush]
[Level 1034]
[Health 2000000/2000000]
[Mana 500000/500000]
It did not have the best of names, but I do wonder what makes this different from the other floors. But I did worry. The blue on the mushroom kind of stuck out to me as troublesome. I had not seen any blue mushrooms besides the mini mushrooms that were on the stairs leading down to each floor, so if it was mutated with parts of those little mushrooms, then we might be in trouble.
"I suggest that everyone use the spell I made to filter air…." Luckily I had made a special magic spell just for this that I had everyone learn. When you think of plants, there are kinds that have spores. And some novels also had these spores be used as poisonous attacks. The girls quickly cast their spells without a second thought. I also did the same. As we slowly entered the boss room from the stairwell, the boss that was slumbering suddenly shook, and spores really did fly through the air. It was just that….
"Ummm...." I touched my head to feel a small mushroom on top of it. I took a deep breath and tried to pull on it. "Ouch!"
"Faith! We all got mushrooms growing on our heads!" Sei yelled out. She seemed to be panicking.
"Relax. I will cast appraisal on us." I turned and looked at everyone. Each one of us had an identical mushroom growing out of our heads. "Appraisal...."
"A mimic mushroom?" I looked at the status effect on us and was a bit confused. I did not understand what it meant by mimic mushroom. There was no explanation....
"Ummm.... Should we try to attack the mushroom?" Sally asked, she seemed confused as to what to do. 𝙞𝒏𝒏𝑟e𝗮𝘥. c𝒐m
"I am not sure...." Thinking for a moment, I decided to have Adel attack since she was the one with the lowest attack power. So if she used a sword to attack, it would not do much damage. My only issue was the mimic part which was why I was being so cautious. "Adel you will come with me. I want you to poke the boss with a sword. Do not attack but just poke it."
"Okay?" Adel gave me a confused look but it was still hard for me to explain since I was not one hundred percent sure this was correct or not.
We both walked towards the mushroom. I had my sword drawn just in case, but even when we stood right in front of the boss it did not move. "Okay, poke it gently."
"Like this?" Adel poked the mushroom with the sword I handed her, and as soon as it touched the mushroom, the mushroom wigged, and Adel let out a pained cry. "Ouch!"
"I figured this would happen...." I said as I rubbed my chin.
"If you knew this would happen, why did you ask me to poke it!?" Adel gave me an aggrieved expression. I gave a cheeky smile as I kissed her lips. "I choose you because you have the least amount of attack power. If I did that I would end up with most of my health gone. The same goes for the others."
"No fair!" Adel pouted. She explained that she felt pain throughout her entire body. It was as if she was struck by electricity. She even lost two points of health as well. But this allowed me to understand one thing. This first floor boss was no joke. The mushrooms on our heads acted as a transmitter. It transmitted the damage from the big guy to the little guys, which meant these little mushrooms were basically a parasitic type of mushroom that would then transfer that damage to the user.
"No one is to attack...." I said as I gazed at the stupid mushrooms on our heads. A thought came to mind, but I was not sure if it would work or not. Since the big mushroom was connected to these little mushrooms, would the big mushroom take damage if the little ones took damage?
"Don't be alarmed if I suddenly cry out in pain. I am testing something." I warned before taking my sword and stabbing it at the mushroom on my head. And sure enough, my guess was completely and utterly..... Wrong! "Ouch! Heal! Heal!"
My poor health! Even my heals were doing nothing! These damn little mushrooms are like the root of all evil! "Faith! What happened!?"
"Do not attack the little mushrooms, and do not get hurt. We need to figure out how to deal with this. I just took off five hundred health by attacking the mushroom on my head, and all my heals seemed to be transferred to the boss!" I cried out. There was no visible injury, but the shock you get from harming the little mushroom was intense!
"What should we do then? We can't just sit here doing nothing...." Sei seemed to be very worried about our situation.
"I am not sure we will just need to figure things out. For the time being, let's try to see if we can find anything unusual in the room. If you do, yell out." The girls nodded, and we all began searching the room. What we were looking for, I had no idea, but we had to look around for some kind of means to beat the boss.
As of now, we only knew two things. The boss would send a physical attack back at its user. The mimic mushroom on our heads would do the same. My heals seemed to be ineffective when trying to heal myself. But we had yet to use magic on the boss. I was a bit afraid to do so and would only do so if we could not find anything to deal with our current situation.
We looked around our room all over the place and could not really find anything worth mentioning. There were glow mushrooms, but even if you stepped on them, they did nothing. I know this because I tried, just in case. I kicked all the rocks, and seven stabbed the walls of the room, but nothing seemed to have any effect.
"There has to be something!" I looked around and only saw the boss mushroom silently sitting there doing absolutely nothing amusing.
If we could just figure out how this boss works, everything would be fine. But I am afraid if we do something wrong, one of us might die. If this happens, I would not be able to live with myself knowing I caused a friend's or lover's death. But then again, this could be the meaning behind it. What if the pain we are feeling is a means to defeating the boss? I know it sounds crazy, and it could be that this boss needs one of us to die to move on, which I can not allow. It makes me wonder if I can jump out of the dungeon and then bring back a monster or something to test this theory.... I guess I will leave this thought to be a last case scenario....
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone