Epic Of Caterpillar

Chapter 226 - [Forsaken Labyrinth Conquest] 19/69; Sentient Dungeon

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Valentia charged to the front lines while wielding her massive Shadow Lobster Claw, she threw several Shadow Bullets that blasted tremendous holes inside of the monsters, these bullets were indeed stronger than the Lobsters ones, as they had properties of Shadow and Dark Magic, they resembled the Black Holes Spheres that Zehe was able to create with her strong magic.

In a whim, the Lobster group was completely annihilated and my children jumped on to taste the giant crustaceans. I helped out using [Pirokinesis], while Ailine used Fire Magic as well, although she ended up burning the lobsters because of her powerful magic, I need to teach her how to control her magic power better, her infusion of MP is too great, creating spells that are too devastating, even when she wanted to grill a claw of Lobster, it burned to a crisp until it became ashes in less than five seconds.

After grilling the pieces of Lobster with my natural fire created using the very useful [Pirokinesis], obtained from [Marchosias Blessing], the rainbow-colored exoskeleton turned into a bright red color, as I sliced their now tender exoskeleton, claws, and legs, exposing the delicious, juicy and tender white meat. Suddenly, a delectable smell filled the floor as we devoured the Lobsters within seconds. The Butter made using the Giant Ice Rabbits Milk was very delicious and creamy, going excellently well with the Lobsterʼs tender white meat.

After the snack we proceeded through the dungeon floors, descending even further while making sure to clear all of the dangerous traps that this Dungeon was so obsessed with making us go through. Floors were getting quite large and it was taking longer for us to explore them completely. However, we decided to skip some treasure rooms and we proceeded with more haste. On floor 58 there should be the fifth boss of this dungeon, and I really wanted to eat it today.

Reaching floor 51 we encountered several more monster groups as if the dungeon was really trying its hardest to stop our steady exploration. These monsters were massive eels named Sticky Desert Eel, and as the name suggested, they were indeed sticky. My children had some hardships while trying to catch them.

Their sticky coverture wasnʼt something normal, as it was even able to make sharp blade weapons slice off, punches also did very little damage and even giant boulders would slip off these monsters. Thanks to their sizes, being over twenty meters long each, they could easily tank giant hits from various types of physical damage, for a moment I thought that this stickiness made them almost immune to physical damage. To top it all, they were able to release strong electricity attacks that could grill to the crisp even a mammoth.

With their almost immunity to physical damage and electric attacks and their massive bodies with strong jaws, these monsters were deadly enemies, even more, if paired in big groups of over fifty like we were fighting now. However, although they were strong and resilient, my children and wives had to just infuse other elements to their attacks to find a way to beat them. Even the ones with primary Thunder Element like Vudia, Brontes, and Alice were able to kill them as they all infused their attacks with other elements. In Vudiaʼs case, she infused her Thunder with Fire and found out that the sticky goo of the eels was inflammable! Meanwhile, Brontes just used her overwhelming strength to bypass the eelʼs viscosity with incredibly fast and strong attacks with her club. Alice on the other hand used her Blood Magic to generate small needles that penetrated the monster defenses with ease.

Half an hour later, this ”threat” was already being grilled and enjoyed once again. The tenderness of the grilled Desert Eels was incredible, and it went extremely well with boiled grains as rice and some sweet and spicy sauce. A strong wine also went well with it.

Moving on, to not waste much time I left around thirty small Slime Clones around the floor, taking up the treasures for us while we used our time to descend to floor 52.

Thankfully the Slime Clones that I sent in advance had already disarmed most traps, leaving an easy road for us to walk in. After another half an hour of walking, we came across a massive room that blocked our way, we had no other choice than to enter it without wasting much time. The moment we entered we found three spawning points in the same room! From these Eels, Lobsters and Sharks appeared in massive waves of over fifty, and they were being steadily produced, making ten every second!

The monsters of these spawning points were awfully intelligent this time, being able to do interesting tactics and working together between different species. The Giant Sharks and Sturdy Lobsters protected the frail Eels as they shoot Thunder attacks from the backline. The Lobsters used their air bullets as well, shooting from the frontlines while leaving some of the tank work to the Sharks. Although this wasnʼt the first time that we went through such a scene, because of the strength of these monsters compared to the first floors, it was certainly a tad bit overwhelming.

Well, overwhelming for my children group and us if we take things easy… However, now that there was a decent challenge, we armed ourselves and began to use a part of our full strength against these desert-adapted marine beasts.

I decided to charge to the frontline while wearing my [Ancient Sand Wyvern Armor] infusing it with the Wind Attribute stored on the Orbs of my Forehead and Chest, the sturdy and tank armor suddenly turned slimmer but retaining its massive size, while also gaining a clear green color and some wing-like decorations. Several emerald-like gemstones covered my armor and gave me the ability to absorb Wind Attribute with ease, the same way I did with the Hero of Raging Winds on our boring confrontation. The Lobsterʼs Air Bullets were true of the Wind Attribute and were instantly absorbed by my armor, taking no damage and even reinforcing my strength.

Without realizing at first, the beasts kept shooting more bullets pointlessly, as they increased my powers and a sudden Green Aura was generated from my armor, intimidating the monsters. Strong winds were released from such aura that transformed into powerful slicing winds, similar to the ones the Wind Hero once used. My Slicing Winds went through the monsterʼs front line with incredible easiness. Smoothly slicing them into shreds, the Lobster and Sharks in the front had heavy casualties by the second.

As I opened the way, my children and wives came right after me, showcasing their powers and magic. The ”frontline army” of Sharks and Lobsters was already getting massacred helplessly, and their only saving grace was that they could spawn almost ”endlessly” through the spawning points.

Although we would have accepted the grind fest in the past, I realized that such ambushes were made exclusively by the dungeon to stop us in place to advance so fast. I donʼt what is this God of Sand and Earth thinking but delaying the inevitable wonʼt help at all, your dungeon will be mine sooner or later. Because we were in a hurry, we decided to destroy the spawn points.

I used my [Dungeon Assimilation] and grabbed the artifact that created the spawn point in the middle, releasing hundreds of wind currents, the artifact was quickly sliced in thousands of pieces and stopped creating Eels.

Brontes rushed to the frontlines and destroyed the left side spawn artifact, using her herculean strength she only needed to charge her muscles with strong electricity and release a powerful blow with her club to blast the artifact to shreds.

Lastly, Nesiphae jumped over the right side spawn artifact and clashed her massive ax over it, destroying it in one easy blow. Afterward, she began to kill the remaining monsters while giving a mischievous smile.

Even though the spawning was finally done, the remaining monsters were still over the thousands, so we spent the next forty minutes massacring them until the room was filled with corpses. Deciding to leave these corpses for later, I saved most of them while some of my family took some and snacked on them on the way to the floor 53.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

I was gaining a lot of EXP through all of these small battles, but I decided for it to accumulate first so I could jump on some levels with ease.

Coming to the floor 53 we went through various interconnected staircases, a lot of them went nowhere as they were small tricks. However, I used my [Dungeon Assimilation] and manipulated a staircase to form a clear road to the next floor. Although it was as well filled with more small rooms, hundreds of them.

We didnʼt even need to open the rooms for the monsters to pop out of them crazily. Giant Lobsters and evolved Sharks that possessed massive and scaled bodies with several fins showed up in groups of twenty. Once again I released my Armor, this time I decided to use the [Fallen Winged Demon Armor], which took a beautiful black luster and a slim figure with sharp and spiky ends, it had six long arms and my two fairy wings were covered in an armor that transformed them into ten meters wide black metallic wings. The power of this armor was its magic enhancement and mobility, with little defense.

Using this new armor and some of my speedy wives in the frontlines, like Brontes, Rimuru, and Zehe, we sweep the entire groups of giant monsters coming our way. I released thousands of Dark Lances that flew through the air, impaling the beasts without mercy. Brontes released several coiling dragons made of thunder that electrified the giant Lobsters and Sharks. Rimuru used her multi-elemental magic to form shining arrows that exploded the moment they touched a target, leaving the monsters into pieces. Lastly, Zehe floated around while commanding hundreds of shadow tentacles and massive hands that ripped the monsterʼs limbs, crushed them, or blasted them away.

When we reached the stairs to the floor 54 there was already a massive trail of giant beastsʼ corpses that were quickly collected by some of my wives in the backlines and the Red Oni Group, who were more like assistants by now while gaining EXP passively.

While quickly descending through the stairs to the next floor at the ridiculous speed that my family could go, I suddenly felt a strong presence within my Aura domain, it seems that the dungeon had already prepared some surprises for us in floor 54.

I detected the powerful presence as a Mini-Boss, a strong and massive Giant Lobster, it had a giant body towering over one hundred meters, a long body divided into sections and six giant claws. Its exoskeleton wasnʼt rainbow but golden, also, on its head, there were four massive jaws filled with sharp fangs. The Mini Bossʼs antennae moved as it traced our position and its two massive eyes filled with tiny pupils traced our movements. Around one hundred Giant Lobsters were accompanying this Mini-Boss as well, which he commanded to do different strategies and moves.

Seeing the tasty treat that the dungeon prepared for us, I was a little bit happy. I enhanced my Demon Armor with my two Orbs and infused in Fire and Wind Attributes to it, the deep black colored armor quickly turned into a crimson red, the six hands became sharp and stronger, while my wings released powerful flames and my tail became thicker, my horns fused with the armor and coiled to the heavens on a highly demonic-appearance. My strong flaming aura intimidated the Mini-Boss for a moment, making it fall back and command his troops to defend him as he shoots massive Air Bullets.

I flew at max speed leaving a trace of flames in the air, using my hands I wiped the air and released hundreds of small blazing storms made of Fire and Wind, which burned the Lobsters who dared stop me. While using a strong centrifugal force from my feet, I jumped from the air itself and reached the Mini Bossʼs head instantly, using my sharp six hands I began to massacre its sturdy golden head while it tried to rip me to shreds with its six claws.

To his misfortune, the powerful Air Bullets were only absorbed by my armor, increasing my speed as I smashed its head until the exoskeleton cracked. I then infused my arms with strong and potent flames and filled the boss with these flames. Suddenly the Massive Golden Lobster was filled with blazing fires from the inside as it inflated and yelled in pain, two seconds later the massive monster exploded, leaving hundreds of pieces of its body everywhere.

However, just as I was about to celebrate the new meal, two more Golden Lobsters appeared from the inside of a room, and not long after two more of them appeared behind them. I suddenly realized that the dungeon created spawning points for Mini-Bosses… It really doesnʼt want me to keep ongoing.

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