322 The Dungeon's Core Vengeful Soul
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Red veins spread through the dungeon walls as the moist of grease and the miasmic goo produced by the wailing souls of the sacrifices permeated through the bottom of the dungeon. The Dungeon’s Core resonated with such enormous power as it continued to produce deathly monsters. Its desire since it was born has been the same, to grow and grow endlessly, devour and continue devouring. It is a monster just as much as the ones it creates.
The flesh it began to spread through the walls was its growth, and it would merely continue growing as long as there are more meals to take. Enormous semi-transparent and soft-shelled eggs break out, as monstrous creatures begin to crawl upstairs. Within the flesh and the veiny walls permeated in mutagenic and toxic miasma, the bones of a certain dragon lay behind. Not all of them were used to remake him and create a vessel to the original soul, some were left behind.
The bones of such a powerful Dragon, filled with resentment and negative emotions became a strong and wonderful catalyzer for the dungeon to create strong monsters. Using the magic within the bones of the former Dragon King, alongside all the rich energy it had accumulated over time, the monstrous Dungeon Core began to combine it, creating an abomination beyond human comprehension. Although not only that was added to the ingredients, as the mysterious benefactors had left large black crystals in the formerly empty bottom floor of the dungeon, such crystals were the secretions of the Evil God Fragment that once was held sealed by the family of Maria.
Now, merged within the bony remains of Lucifer, the miasma and energy of the Dungeon, and the Dungeon’s desire to grow endlessly, a monstrous aberration had begun to spread through the walls, floor, and ceiling of the bottom floor of the dungeon. Fleshy veins and oozing, greasy miasma continued flow like rivers, as the groans of an abomination continued to spread out, emanating more and more darkness than anybody within the surface could ever bear to witness… Within the eggs it laid, monstrous lizard draconic beasts continued to emerge and move to the surface.
The Dungeon Core had quickly realized something had entered the Dungeon, a group of four powerful beings accompanied by many stronger ones. They were all emanating a lot of rich essence and mana which it could feed on. But oddly enough, some of them held a very similar essence and presence than the ones that once defeated the Dungeon and left it with almost no energy to sustain itself… Dungeon Cores were sentient and living beings, they remember and learn, and this Dungeon Core had clearly remembered such malicious resentment. It also felt joy… this time around, it would finally be able to fight back and beat them, devour them, and grow… grow… and grow…
“I must grow… Grow… I shall… Expand… the world… I shall become the world…”
Dungeon Cores were greedy and simplistic entities, growth was everything for them, and they needed to continue growing endlessly, it was the basic instincts of their very souls… They desire to take over the world. They desire the world… and everything within it.
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(Maria’s POV)
In front of us there was an army of lizards. The smallest one was about two meters tall and the biggest ones reached five meters tall. Some of the biggest ones resembled full blown dinosaur rexes, and they were terrifying! Well, not for us and my newly raised Slime Companion though, they were still C+ Rank at most. And that meant easy peasy! Also, they were way less than the slimes, less coordinated and were not swarming us as easily either. They were not so flexible nor they packed the power to dissolve things with acidic bodies.
“They all emanate draconic essence… What is the meaning of this? Who has given birth to these abominations?!” Roared Lucifer in anger. It seemed that something down there had been raising these creatures through eggs… I think the Dungeon is doing some nasty stuff with his remains. I hope it is not something lewd.
“Alright! Let’s get to it!” I roared, as this time we decided to not create barriers and fight on our own. The lizards were big and menacing, yes, but they were not the fastest out there, and after our insane leveling, we can easily out speed them!
I commanded my Undead to fight first, Mercury immediately decided to show off her might as she began to divide into hundreds of smaller clones, and all of them together formed an army with a single mind, making them cooperate and work together amazingly well. They quickly began to unleash elemental attacks, as they were made out of mostly elemental slimes and the metal slime king. They were both durable like the metal slime king and also had amazing magic power and elemental coverage by inheriting their skills. This was by far the strongest Undead I’ve risen, stronger than Darkbound!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The armies of Slimes began to unleash fireballs combined with winds and rocks, generating storms of lava everywhere, burning through the lizards and even firing meteors by fusing these elements together like nobody’s business. And even when they were hit and attacked by the lizards, they lost very little HP as their defense was insane, they were both durable and powerful. Many lizards quickly began to fall to their demise one after the other in no time.
I quickly ordered Pyro and the spiders to fight like a group as well, with the support of the Slimes, they quickly began to surround many of the biggest lizards out there and used their spiderwebs to get them to fall into the ground and lose their momentum.
Pyro used his monstrously strong new [Hell Fire] Skill to burn through the weakened or bound lizards, devastating them and spreading flames through the fifth floor, where we were confronting all the lizards. Meanwhile, Mercury was doing a wonderful job at distracting the lizards and push them back while we leisurely began to slay them one by one. It was yet another EXP fest… but that wasn’t all, the presence of the creature at the bottom of the dungeon is continuing to grow stronger. Whatever the Dungeon is making, that’s surely a living disaster we gotta stop before things get way too sticky!
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