As Rex was speedruning the early levels of the dungeon, leaving a deathly silent zoneof pure snow and random splatters of blood on the eternaly white land, he suddenly stoped, and sneezed.
"Which one of the vixens is badmouthing me right now?" He asked to himself, slight smirk on his face. "Focus man! Keep your eyes on the prize." he admonished himself and restarted his mad dash towards the deeper levels. luckaly for him, since this was a higher grade dungeon than the one in Blythe, the deep floors would start earlier as well. If he was correct in his asumptions, they should start somewhere around floor twenty, making his descent much faster, eliciting a light smile on his face. Sure, he loved his grind, but he had come to enjoy the time he spends with his grils more and more, and both to his joy and detriment, the new happiness he was feeling motivated to push harder and grind more to grow stronger and stronger so he could protect what was becoming more and more dear to him.
As he hacked through all manner of snow monsters like ice elementals, huge bison or yak like creatures covered in thick fur, odd crystaline like snakes that burrowed through the frozen ground and attacked him from below to catch him off guard, or predators with a mamoths body and huge flytrap like mouth, that would swallow its prey whole, he had crossed quite a few levels. Now, he reckoned he was already at the seventh floor, so there was a chance he would start encountering svergi people, if he did not focus on actively avoiding them. Then he quickly weighted the pros and cons of such an action, he came to the conclusion that not avoiding them was the correct choice. he would keep going as he was, primarily focused on delving deeper, and if he encountered the svergi, he would ignore them, and if attacked he would just take out the agressors. He was no pacifist, plus a more terrifying legend should help him when he would be uniting multiple tribes.
And so, as he traversed the next three floors, reaching the tenth, he could only marvel at the flimsiness of ones luck. He had been quite unlucky, and the svergi on the contrary lucky, since during the few hours he spent he had yet to encounter a single person of their ranks. From what he heard from Diana, svergi had their tribal villages spread throughout floors seven to fifteen., so he had nothing but confusion regarding his current state. He had blasted through half of their inhabited floors and yet not met a single soul. Rex frwoned a little, his playfull spirit never trully resting, and asked himself yet another retorical question.
"Do I smell a conspiracy?" With his remark out there, he once again delved in the hunt, not caring too much for his possible oposition. As he continiued his unrestrained path of carnage, leaving only splashe of blood behind him, draining every single quarry of his, since he was not deep enough to consider butchering any of them due to the low quality ingridients. And while the growth from these monsters was miniscule at best, it was still there. With enough drops even the ocean will consume more land with time, since in this case, the ocan was not evaporating no water, thus only growth was an option.
Some while later, once he had descended into the thirtheenth floor he finally encountered his first wild svergi group. Said group consisted of ten individuals, all male. The strongest one was mid A class, and the rest were low A class entities, so needless to say they were of absolutely no threat to him, so in his own fashion Rex would let them go if they did not annoy him too much. As Rex was joking to himself, their fates were in their own hands, thus they can blame no one else but themselves for any disaster they invite due to their stupidity. And all he could do was facepalm himself as he saw the actiosn of said group as soon as they noticed him.
"A NEW SLAVE! HELL YEA!" yelled one of the men, quickly grabbing a rope that was hanging by his waist and charging at Rex. The rest of his companions had similar smirks on their faces as they tried to catch up to the frontrunner.
"Morrons." Rex sighed, and slowly drew his blade from its sheath. They were so pittifully weak and stupid Rex almost considered sparing them and just going on his way, but the poor spark of mercy was extinguished as soon as it appeared by the enourmous tide of annoyance that the advancing group caused within him. had they showed any amount of cautiosness, or tactical thinking, the result might be different, but none of it was there. These specimens were as stupid as they came, making the relatively easy decision making process even more so, by eliminating quite a few factors that could ensure their survival.
As soon as the leading man wit his rope was within the range, the enthusiastic man started to swing his rope lasso over his head, as if prepearing to catch some wild animal with a lasso. Now that was a step too far even for Rex, and so, in the next moment Rex was in front of the rlasso swinging fool with his sword swing motion finished, and said svergi mans upper torso sliding of his lower part, thanks to the perfectly clean cut seperating the body in two. Limitless was sharp enough to cut through the man like a hot knife through butter, and the ensuing frantic stop of the rest of the group as well at the deathly silence that followed was quite hilarious in Rex's eyes.
"Where is all that bravado and smirk now? Where you not gonna capture a new slave?" Rex ridiculed the remaining group, then he clicked his tonge, asking another question, this time targeted at himself.
"Tch. Why do I even ask questions to corpses? That is just a waste of time." And with that, the remaining group experienced the same face as their earlier departed friend as their bodies were split in two in just moments time. With the first fools out of the way, Rex continiued on, betting against himself on the percentages of stupid svergi groups he would encounter and subsequently have to kill. And since he spent this entire night rushing froward, since he had left Viviamd and Diana just a bit after midday, he had already reached the nineteenth floor, and was crossing into the twentieth. Funnily enough, he was not well enough familiar with said people, and as expected, he way overshot with his bet against himself. Rex forgot to take into an account the obvious fact that the more experienced and smart parties would work the deeper floors, and thus the deeper he rushed, the more defensive and carefull svergi became when they noticed a solo adventurer gooing deeper and deeper.
Those parties led by experienced hunter who had brushed with death many times over could practically hear their instincts screaming at them to not get any closer to said man, or better yet to run with their all and not look back. 'Survive enough deadly situations and you will smell death aproaching' was a saying that was often spoken among the greatest of hunters and trackers, and for them, Rex was a walking avatar of death. As Rex shot through the twentieth, killing and draining monster in droves, he was thinking of his next night off, and the time he would spend with the girls, either in a large group or individually with any of them.
By the time he reached the entrance to his current goal- a rather ancient looking stairs leading upwards, into a decorated cave.
"Val and Mel should be given some special treatment once I am back. Those girls have been working hard to manage the home in my absences. Aisha also should be added to the priority list. The rest of the girls would deffinetly agree." Rex talked to himself as he walked through the cave, passing a magicla barrier of sorts that did not inhibit his movement, but clearly separated two different worlds. Rex had crossed sucha barrier a few times already, so he did no even need to consider the logical explanation, since he was well aware already. Rex streched his hands to the sides and spoke with light excitement in his voice.
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"Raid tier once again. HONEY I'M HOME!" Rex exclaimed as he exited the cave to enjoy the even more unforgiving cold alongside the powerfull and rich ambient mana in the air. He had to admit, he had been thinking more and more of making some sort of a forward base in one dungeon. All he wanted was to catch either a few more ultimate predators like Tigress or wait untill snow reaches maturity, since a proper Byako would be more than enough to watch over and protect both the camp as well as the girls who would eventually reach the level necessary to grind in raid zones. It is precisely because there are no safe places in the deep floors that the raids are so rare and expensive, alongside the fact that the organization, as well as the necessary returns require prolonged stay down there to justify the danger. As such, not many risk their lives on the rare few raids that are organized to hunt at those levels.
Now that Rex was at the level he was willing, ready and looking forward to hunt at, he activated his mana senses, as well as aura pulse, and as soon as he felt any creature appearing in his search range he would dash towardshis targets and hunt them down. He needed to create quite the mess and vacuum of monsters to create a ripple large enough to rouse his target from its sleep or den or whatever dark hole it was lounging at.
Rex also had enough time to get himself familiar with the monsters that roamed this frozen wasteland, First were the few mutated beasts who served as the lower level of the food chain here. Due to the abundant mana, as in every other dungeon in these levels, there were a few dozen different subspecies of arctic hares, reindeers, elks and boars. All being sustained with the raw mana and unique ice crystals that were seeped in the rich mana. Even with the fact they were the bottom barrel of the food chain here, they still could force B class or low A class adventurer to run around quite a lot to actually kill one. No wonder raids were needed normaly to hunt for the predators at the top of this echosystems food chain. For the most part, Rex left these ones alive, since they would either carefully look in his dirrection or would just run away, startled by the unknown entity walking through their habitat.
Then there came the lower lever predators, that Rex happily hunted down whenever he would encounter any. All manner and sizes of wolves, ranging from ones in the size of a large house cat, to ones the size of a small car. Wolves, as expected, always hunted in packs, providing a unique challenge, for anyone but Rex, to experience a skillfully coordinated attacks coming from a multiple opponents. Just like his first experience with a pack of wolves in the deep floors of the Blythe dungeon.
Then there were a monkey of sorts. Said monkey were loners for the most part, most likely a result of their rather agressive behaviour. The beasts were up to four meters high when standing on their hind legs, heavily musculated and with quite white and fluffy fur covering their insane physique. The monkeys had a stone like knuckle guards attached to their hands, as well as large and very sharp looking nails. The over roided silverbacks could be classified as tank buster in Rex book, since they would employ a rather savage ground and pound technique that would turn to pulp most front line fighters. Rex reasoned that due to their somewhat limited speed, they should be kited, an action much more difficult in the snowy terrain of this particular dungeon.
Then he finaly encountered some of the better loot of the current lineup. Half drakes and vyverns of the frost variant. Half drakes reminded Rex of comodo dragons the size of a horse, with thicker, near crocodile like skin. They were almost as strong as the monster silverback, while being as fast as the wolves. An opponent that would need quite the teamwork and tactics to deal with for normal raiders.
Vyverns hunted in packs, and unlike the guardian of Limitless, these were notably smaller, unlike the five meter height that he remembered the creature while standing on all four, these reached three meters or so, with the lenght of their body surpassing four meters as well, not incluing the tails and necks. Rex calculated they could be easily used by a person or two as mount, but since he already had the eagle, and if he was going to havea reptile mount, he will get something much more awesome, like sky serpent, or as many would call them- chinese dragon. That is if such dragons existed in this world. Rex had no rush, so he was willing to take that task slow. The vyvern also had quite rpnounced white color with slight blueish shades appearing here and there on their bodies. Powerfull chill also exuded from their mouths, indicating an impressive level of adaptability to the cold and harsh weather here.
Still none of these monsters could create problems for Rex. The most annoying were the vyverns, since they could just stay in the air and circle him for a while. However, there was one other monster that Rex prioritized over any other the moment he encountered and killed his first sample. A large, stag like creature with wings attacked to its back like a pegassus and head of a bear. The creature was also the size of a buss. As for why Rex prioritized hunting any and all creatures of this kinds was simple. It was the first creature in this floor who had heaven grade meat, and with its size, Rex had enourmous amount of meat to harvest and store. So, as a diligent and loving man of the house, it was his job to ensure that his girls would always have the best ingridients for their food. So, his aura and maan sensors worked on full capacity, making him into a living bullet the second he picked up another ping with similar features as his previous kill.
Rex also had another theory he wanted to test, so the carcases of the butchered heaven grade monsters he dragged together, creating a pile of high quality carcases that was slowly growing in its size. Rex had spent more than half a day, managing to kill almost a dozen of the heaven grade beasts, when he sensed a shift in his surroundings. And soon after, his sensors picked up the most likely culprit.
What was aproaching him was a monster of a specimen. Almost ten meter high sixteen meters long beast. The creature reminded him a furrless cat with powerfull and lean limbs, shiny and somewhat oiled looking skin, with the head of a beawer, and large mammoth like tusks sprouting from its mouth as it would for a mammoth, The monster had just as pronounced upper beawer teeth as well. It also had a couple of weird looking tentacles sprouting from shoulderplates, propably used to tear apart or straigh up trow its prey into the huge mouth. When the beast roared, a few dozen rows of sharp teeth were exposed, clearly indicating the fate of anyone that falls in its clutches.
"I was right. Just stack the carcases of the most valuabe prey in the dungeon and once you have enough, the target will appear." A smirk sneaked its way on his face, awakening his instincts for combat and desire to murder, and absorb this apex predator. And no, Rex would not even consider adding this raging beast to his personal mansion guards. While undoubtedly powerfull, Rex did not like this creature astethic looks nor would his cats enjoy its presence. And the oily looking skin spelled a lot of annoyance in maintaining the gardens nice and clean as they were right now.
Rex was standing there, next to the pile of carcases that had atracted the ultimate predator of this floor, waiting for the beast to come closer before engaging it in quick and brutal dismantling. Rex an important mission to achieve. He had collected quite a few of the choker teeth from the many beasts he had hunted, As it turned out, almost all of the predators withing this dungeon had a couple of very unique teeth in their mouths. No matter the size of the beast, they all had two pinkie sized (from the fingertip to the first joint) kanine teeth of a rather unique blue and white color. Rex had also noticed that they had a unique pattern that was different for each of the predator species. Another small change regarding these kanines happened one he started to go full wild in the deep floors. here the special kanine lenght changed to be the lenght from fingertip to the second joint. The patterns remained the same for the base types of the monsters. Wolves and bears remained the same, even maintaining the proportions in the patterns of their lesser bretheren. Of course creature that appeared only here had unique patterns as well.
It was quite a pain the first few times Rex was looking for them due to their small size and quite akward location, but once he had found his first set, finding said teeth in other quarries was quite easy, since said teeth were located in teh same aproximate position for every predator species within the dungeon.