Rex looked over the desolate field before his eyes, all a result of his making. "Coming of Vlad" and "Tribute to Vlad" did more than just impale, killed in a horrifying manner and then drained the dead bodies of the targeted enemies, it also drained most of the plant and other organic life within the field. Rex would have to put in extra focus to not affect any ally with the collateral drain, should one be present within the field and even then he was not hundred percent sure he could safeguard said allies entirely. That was one of the reasons he did not have any of his women or the dragonkin allies anywhere near the slaughter zone, with Rex well aware of the possible friendly casualities was that not the case.
With only few thousand tigermen remaining, Rex decided it was rather important to secure at least thsoe hearts, thus he opened a gate to Elysium, summoning one of the thunderbirds, and once it was present, he mounted it and directed it towards the few remaining groups on the outskirts of the dragonkin territories. As his mount flew towards his next destination, Rex inspected his growth from Vlads tribute, and he was quite pleased to note that he had grown stronger. And not just a drop in an ocean type stronger, like most of his recent drains had been, but this was a rather large lake, or perhaps even a very small sea added to his words ocean. Small, when compared to the total entity, sure, but much greater than anything recently.
It took Rex the remainder of the day to reach other groups he was aiming at, slaughter and harvest their hearts. It was just a bit after midnight that he entered Elysion for the night, both Xersia and Mora already awaiting him there, with expressions that conveyed both pride of their man, decent amount of smugness, and a decent amount of playfulness.
"The big, Bad wolf finally returns home I see." smirked Xersia, as she closed in on Rex, and for the first time leaned forward, wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him quite deeply. Rex, while a bit suprised by the action, leaned in and enjoyed the unexpected reward, seperating from the woman only after a few minutes, both drawing back for a breath.
"It is only right for me to start to fulfill our end of the deal, since you have filfilled yours, Husband" Xersia spoke, slightly whispering the last word, quite a bit of seduction and desire laced on it, Rex's raised brow and inquisite gaze towards her asking what had brought that pleasant action.
"Dont forget the faces the council made when talking to us afterwards." added Mora, who giggled as she recalled the memory.
"Whats that you said dear?"
"Ow, jes, you might not be aware, but dragonkin mages have this niffty scrying spell that allows us to peer quite the distance away, so long we know who we want to find. And they used said spell to track your 'groups' fight with the main horde, assuming that you would be a part of said assault."
"Ahh, so that was them watching. I was wondering who could be peaking on my little entertainment. Did not guess it was them, dragonkin mages had left me less than impressed so far." Rex spoke, and seeing the raised brow of Xersia, added "You can blame me, I measure them with standarts of my own and that of my mage girls. Their mana pools are just that pitifull, and as casters they neglect their physical might, the one thing that is going for the combat classes of your race."
Xersia just sighed, shrugging her shoulders. Rex had spoken truth after all, so she could not trully fault him for that. Besides, after witnessing that unreasonable display of power, the sisters were in arather aroused state, their dragon bloodline reacting to a great display of dominance and power.
"Come, come. lest get you washed up. Youclearly woule like a proper bath after all that hard work." Mora couldn't hold back anyomore, as she rubbed her thighs together, then grabbed Rex by the hand and started to drag him to the bath. Xersia did not fall behind much, only momentary suprised by the forwardness of her sister. Though she could clearly understand Moras position, as she herself was in a similar boat.
Rex was dragged to one of the larger baths, the place already set up and prepeared, both sisters had clearly thought it all over. Rex, rather intrigued by the forwardness and innitiative of the two sisters, went along with their plans, smiling and enjoying the attention and the occasion lewd touch coming from Xersia, clearly indicating how the night would end. And while Rex was lavished with quite the service once they were in the shower before the bath, with both sisters using their well endowed and naked bodies to both entice and wash him before entring the bath itself, both sisters engaging in sessions of rather passionate kissing with him. It was in the bath that both dragonkin ladies finally trully consumated their marriage, their wanton moans resounding for a few hours. Though in the end, they were both exausted, just like any other lover of Rex, and just like any other lover, they too had a blissfull smile adorning their faces. Rex very carefully brough both of them to one of the bedrooms and laid them on the bed there, allowing them to enjoy the pleasant dreams they no doubt were having. Then, with a smile on his face, he quietly slipped out of the room, spending the next few hours visiting a few more groups of his lovers who were in the mansion, expecting a visit from him, though in the end of his rounds he returned to the dragonkin sisters, slipping into the bed, pulling the two in his embrace as he closed his eyes to rest for a while. It would take a few more hours before the dawn after all, and the duo would surely be quite pleased with waking up in his embrace.
Rex was indeed not wrong when he asumed that the sisters would be happy waking in his arms, though he did not expect Mora would take the innitiative, sliding under the blanket and thanking him eagerly. And while she did lack the neccessary skills, she more than made it up with enthusiasm, and was in the end rewarded for her efforts. And like the warrior she was, she took it all, not wasting even a drop.
The breakfast was quite lively, the rest of Rex's girls congratulating Xersia and Mora with their first time with Rex. While they had been quite friendly before, now they all felt that the sisters had properly joined the family, even if Rex had stated that they already were a part of it. With the breakfast coming to the end, Rex noted that he will head towards the gate he noticed behind the tigermen horde, requestin Xersia to warn the councils to not allow their scouts and hunter groups to delve into tigermen lands, some potential danger still being quite the possibility.
"Do you think there is something else on the other side of the gate?" Mora asked, a slight concern in her voice.
"Besides dungeon core? Oh sure. There must be some sort of a guardian, though I doubt it has much stronger netities than the chieftain of the tigermen, so it should be a breeze for me. Still, as i said, possibly quite dangerous for dragonkin."
"Understood. We will inform them as soon as we head back to Dragoncliff."
"Thanks love."
With that resolved and off of Rex's mind, he once again left Elysion, returning to the battlefield of yesterday, a rather desolate field once again coming into his view. Rex kneeled down, taking a palm of sand in his hand, sifting it through his fingers.
"A couple of years at most, should not take much longer. Way better than I expected." he said to himself, after calculating the time it would take for the negative energy in the soil to dissipate, allowing for plants to once again grow and flourish in the place. After using tribute to Vlad and seeing the state of the place he feared it would take decades, if not centuries for the negative energy to dissipate, making the skill much less apealing and more 'evil', restricting its use even more than Rex's had already decided to. Now though, it was a much more acceptable choice in quite a few possible scenarios he could think off.
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Without his thunderbird mount at his side, it would take longer for him to reach the gate, but since he was not in a true rush, he could use the time traveling to contemplate and ponder over things, clearly quite a bit of knowledge regarding dungeon cores missing from his repository of knowledge. It took him a couple of hours to reach the gate, with Rex stopping more than once to enjoy the view he saw after he had left the desolate field his skill had created. He could do nothing but apreciate the magnificent nature that surrounded him, especially when he came upon the valley that housed the gate he was walking towards, though it was much more beautifull than what he saw from the eyes of his cosmic crows. It gave a slight sense of insignificance to Rex as he stood there on the ground, the view before him taking his breath away. He stood there for a couple minutes, taking it all in, and only then did he moved forward, the large opened gate standing solemnly in the very center of the valley.
As Rex aproached the black, light devouring gate, he saw, more and more clearly, numerous engraved runes , glowing in faint red color, littering the enourmous gate, a small supression field pressing on his being, though with the mana and aura at his diposal, the pressure exuded on him might as well not exist.
"What have you prepeared for me on the other side, I wonder?" he spoke, a small smile adorning his face as he stepped through the gate, a small curtain like cover seperating the two sides. once through, what greeted him was quite peculiar sight. He stood on a small realized stone platform, a small, yet stable path unvinding before him, stretching off into the disrance, though with his sharpened sight he could just barely make out another, slightly larger platform. The other platform housed an entity that was made of a flickering material, though as of now, he could not sense much else about it.
Everywhere else he moved his gaze towards, the barest outlines, like a sketch of an artist, covered everything, creating what seemed to be the baseline of the topography of the next floor to be. Every now and then a pulse of mana left the central platform, either making the sketches more completed, or erasing some parts of it, said part being replaced with something else in its stead. Now that he was sure he was on the last floor and that it seemed there would be no last boss, or maybee the horde was supposed to be it, Rex leisurly walked towards the central platform, its target clearly in no desire to play hide and seek with him, something Rex apreciated, all the while appraising the scenario being developed. From what Rex could see, this floor was being developed into some sort of desert enviroment, endless fields of sand all around him, with a couple of mountain peaks stretching into the heaven, far off into distance.
"A smart choice, as far as a propper buffer zones go." Rex mused, noting the strategical pivot in the design of the dungeon. The core clearly had grown much and would was reaching the limit of its capability, clearly not many floors remaining to be ever built here. "It would not only be filled with ferocious and bloodthirsty monsters, but the envoroment itself is quite the hurdle for any would be explorer to tackle."
A few dozen of minutes later, and Rex stood at the end of the stone path, the other platform right before his eyes, with a lone shadovy, orb like figure floating just above the ground, still releasing said pulses every now and then. And while the entity before his eyes had neither face, nor limbs, Rex somewhat could feel, or perhaps read from it, a profound feeling of sadness, loss and dejection. What Rex saw was a broken creature, finally stopped struggling against the impending doom, deciding to spend the last few moments it had in furthering the goal it had been working on for the most, if not all of its long existance.
Rex eyes unraveled the entity before him, digging deep into the processes that kept it going, the way energy flowed within, and many other minute aspects of the entity. He stood there for what seemed like hours, analyzing and noting down each and every peculiarity. It was then, that the entity spoke, using common it had picked up from observing dragonkin.
"What are you waiting for? Just come, absorb my essence and end this miserable state of mine. No need to gloat and make it any worse."
"Hmm? I did not expect a conscious entity, to be fair. Besides, I dont see the point in consuming you.After all, there seems to be a seed of something within you, though it would take thousands of years still for it to be fully grown and ready for consumption, whatever it may be." Rex replied, clearly sensing the faintest presence of a divine law, though since the seed had barely taken its root, he could not even begin to guess what kind of law it was.
And the information regarding the laws and their origin sparks, just surfaced in his mind, clearly knowledge imbedded deep within his dragonic bloodline. Knowledge so far beyond the realms of mortals even Rex was impressed with its depth, and he was a human who had read quite the ludicrous amount of fantasy and fiction, making few things beyond ones imagination, even if most of what he had in his mind was supposedly only that- someones imagination. Though here, it all could be real, allowing the shock factor to be rather shallow on him, whenever something new and unexpected appeared.
"You would not consume me? Why? It would allow you to grow in power." the entity asked confusedly, not quite understanding the reasoning of the man before it.
"Am I not strong enough already? Besides the fact that you are sentient, as well as growing a spark of divine within you, even if in the early stages of its development. Say, once it is formed, could you give it up without the consumption of your core essence?"
"Yes, that would be prefferable, my desire and need to debvelop this place must continiue."
"Growth and evolution." Rex exclaimed, an understanding suddenly coming to his mind. "The spark of growth and evolution. Thats whats forming within you." He added, his mere existence in the presence of the seed of said law, providing him with quite the unique persective on his own journey and life in this new world of his.
Rex looked over his short, but rather pleasant time in this world. How he had assumed it to be nothing more than just a lucid dream, how he indulged in the bad guys role due to it. How he came to a realization that it was more than just that. How he found a new home, a new life in this strange and quite barbaric world. How he carved a place for himself, through grind and even more grind. How he carved fear and respect into those around him, be it friend or foe. How he indulged in his carnal desires, be it sexual or otherwise, clearly remembering all the slaughter he had brought upon the Echlisiarchy. He stood by his decision even now, that place was long overdue a serving of justice, even if he might have gone quite a bit overboard in serving said justice. A stray though crossed his mind, noting down the need to visit 'Neos Holy Whores', who had been running for a short while now, earning quite the popularity among all who visited, and could afford a round with the now enslaved oracles and holy 'maidens' of the now deceased nation.
Rex also realised he should pay a bit more attention to Soriana and her efforts of rebuilding Echlisiarchy into a decent nation, with all the noble cancer being cut down. He also should pay a visit to his Svergi friends, who had been expanding and repurposing the old capital of Echlisiarchy into their own Capital outside the dungeon. There were quite a few things to revisit, things he had undoubtedly changed and affected with his presence and actions. Not to mention the auction of Blythe that was just around the corner. he could even bring in an innitial stage SS class creature from a dungeon to parade around, indicating that such a creature could be auctioned off during the third ever Blythe's grand auction, ensuring never before seen presence and bidding once it arrives.
And yet, for all that he still had to do, each and every task related to his past, there was a couple of things that he had to take care off, a rather profound understanding illunimated in his mind. With that, he turned to the entity besides him.
"I do belive that, because of the law growing within you, you have developed sentience and as such, I would like to see said spark to mature, possibly allowing you to grow into a full fledged god. No doubt the ones now perched in their own heavenly domains had all been heaven defying prodigies, monsters in their own right. And each adn every one of them must have conquered a dungeon and consumed a fully formed spark of divine law, allowing them to ascend. That would probably make you the first god trully born on its own, unless the primordial god of this world was the same, which should be the case." Rex shook his head "Nevertheless, such an event would be quite the sight to experience. So, allow me to place my mark at your place, and call upon me should your existance come into danger. In return, I want to see your ascention. Do we have a deal?"
"Is that trully all you wish of me? I can continie with my task? Trully?"
"Yes, so, what say you?"
"Yes. I see no reason to not agree."
"Magnificent. Dont mind me then. I will be off of your neck in no time."
Rex spent the next few hours warding the platform, ensuring his wards would not interfere with the creation process of the entity. Once he was done with that, he explained the process with which he would be alerted and afterwards left the final floor of the dungeon. As he walked away, he laughed and spoke in a normal tone, the words meant for no one but him.
"Ha, ha ha ha ha. I have Enjoyed my new life, like playing in a sandbox, with no goal for myself. What path have I walked. What purpose of my own have I pursued. Ha ha ha ha. FOOL. A path to nowhere I have walked. NO LONGER!"
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