Chapter 743 - The Exploration Continues
-----
Out of nowhere the group had reached the marshlands and were halfway through their way to Floor 2, but then massive mutant wild beasts emerged. Much like in Kritias, it seems that wild animals can also end up evolving or mutating into Monsters if they're exposed to Miasma for prolonged periods of time!
This large group of a dozen of Titanosquids were all evolved into these gigantic and monstrous versions of themselves, at least three times their former size, and even were able to wield lightning from the spikes over their shells.
They rushed towards the party in front of them mostly out of murderous intent, it wasn't clear if they were territorial or not, but they clearly just wanted to kill them.
The thunder they unleashed from their shells was quite deadly, if someone were to be hit by that, it would certainly kill them…
ZAP!
BOOM!
A massive combination of a dozen thunderbolts attacks suddenly fell over Veronica, as she was electrified!
"Abababababababababahhh…!"
"Veronica!!!" cried Yggdrasil.
"No!" cried Anastacia.
"Wait!" said Juliette.
"D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Don't worry-y-y-y-y-y-y… I am fine-e-e-e-e-e…" said Veronica, giving a thumbs up as she was being electrified and her voice distorted a bit.
The Titanosquid Monsters suddenly realized their strong lightning attack was not as effective! The monstrous Veronica shrugged it off rather easily…
"Let's see… Summon! Elemental Explosive Ghost Kings!"
Veronica unleashed the power of her Job Medal and summoned a few entities from another dimension in an instant, they were monstrous and spectral non-corporeal undead, ghosts capable of exploding and that were infused with various elements…! They flew towards their targets and suddenly exploded one after another in constant succession while laughing mockingly and rather insanely…!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"GRUUOOHH…!"
The Titanosquid Monsters were suddenly blown away out of the ground with loud elemental explosions, the power of such explosions was incredibly strong, easily tearing them apart into pieces… it was easier than crushing ants for Veronica's powerful summons, and she wasn't even going all out yet…
A rush of EXP reached Veronica and it was also shared a bit by everyone that watched over the massacre, the threatening army of creatures was slain in seconds.
Veronica quickly realized her level went up.
"Eh?! I really leveled up with this low-rank monster… Amazing, this world we made is really good at handling out the nice EXP!" laughed Veronica.
"Indeed, I was able to see the EXP as well, this is very generous, like a bonus stage or something." said Ervas.
"Bonus stage?" wondered Yggdrasil.
"They're talking about video game nonsense, ignore them, don't take it seriously." Said Aurora.
The group went to pick up the corpse pieces and found out there were big magic crystals inside of the Titanosquid.
"These magic crystals would be worth a lot of money in the people of the surface's society…" said Yggdrasil.
"Hm, they seem to also come charged with this world's energy…" said Veronica, as she quickly absorbed a few into her body through her Material Assimilation Skill. She didn't gained anything new, but suddenly gained a bit more of EXP by converting the energy of the magic crystals.
"Oooh! If you can eat the magic crystals, you can convert the energy into more EXP." She said.
"Hmmm…" Ervas looked at one of the crystals and stuffed it inside his mouth.
Crunch…
"How is it?" asked Gaia who seemed interested in the flavor.
"Crunchy." Said Ervas. He quickly felt a bit of EXP rushing into his soul.
"Oh, yeah, it worked." He said.
"Interesting… But I don't know if I can eat a magic crystals like you guys do…" said Pekorina.
"Yeah, that might be a thing that only monsters like you can do easily." Sighed Anna.
"Aren't we Gods? Shouldn't our teeth be pretty strong though?" asked Acathea.
"I don't know but I am not in the mood to munch on rocks." Sighed Shade.
"Alright you guys, hurry up and let's continue." Said Veronica.
The party continued moving forward across the beautiful marshlands, they went around the ponds of water and lakes, and quickly found some aquatic monsters or water-dwelling monsters…!
Massive fishes with legs emerged, a species that wasn't usually present in the surface, with azure scales and long whiskers, resembling smiling catfish, but each one was around five meter big.
They seemed to be ambush predators like alligators, jumping out of the water and using their large maws to devour anything that passed through.
Of course, they were easily slain by my group, Gaia and Shade decided to act after asking the split souls, so they wanted to stretch a bit, Gaia ended massacring over half of them by piercing them with her simplest attack, spears made of wood.
Meanwhile Shade used a more specific move as she used the monsters' own shadows against them, controlling them and forcing them to entangle the monsters tightly until they… well, were crushed.
The cries of these fishes were loud and annoying, quickly after this massacre, the entire group found themselves in a territory dominated by a mildly large Goblin Settlement, and almost a hundred Goblins attacked everyone in a massive army. They were holding primitive weapons, but some even had the power to conjure deadly magic.
Others had even stolen things they got from Adventurers, and they were being led by Goblin Generals and Goblin Chieftains.
The fight was arduous but many of them ended being massacred with ease, while a few of them tried to escape but were chased down by the little kids, Violet, Aura, Kuro, and the other Half Blood-Human kids, who were no longer kids actually, chased them down and slain them with their wonderful techniques and abilities, using mere blood as slicing blades was one of such methods, others poisoned them to death, and a few used sheer strength to body slam them into the ground and flattened them like pancakes…
At long last, they reached the stairs to Floor 2 after roughly three hours of having gotten here, and they all walked downstairs, being greeted by Floor 2, which was a very big jungle…
-----