Sul'Azar lifted himself off the ground in the middle of the Treasury, after having been killed once again by that abominable rabbit-creature. This made it the 306’th time that he had “died” and had been subsequently resurrected because of his Treasury-Phylactery ever since the Blood Cultists had summoned that damned white-haired pest into his catacombs. He was currently deeply regretting that he had not killed all of them in one fell swoop, when the chance had presented itself.
Because as soon as he got resurrected once again, the Geas that made him guard the Treasury and bound him to the whole building would instantly activate and then force him to attack the White Rabbit even against his own will, as for some unknown whimsical reason the infernal creature had decided to take residence right inside the Treasury itself and was triggering the defense protocols with its continued existence within the confines of the building.
Sul'Azar barely got to cast a couple of spells each time he got up before getting smashed into tiny skeletal pieces again by the beast. After that, he would then forcibly get resurrected by his Treasury-Phylactery once more, only to repeat the process over and over again. The whole floor was now littered with his former skeletal bodies, as the Bunny kept munching on them with a smirk on its face like they were some sort of cracker-sticks pastries.
After eating him a bunch of times, the beast had even gained all of his Skills including his passives for some unknown reason, and was now unwittingly reanimating everything around its body own for miles. All of the Saints and Arhats that had been entombed down here on the 16’th level were now “up and running”, even though they weren't actually doing anything in particular except maybe wobble around in place, as the beast did not actually possess the knowledge of how to actually command them, which wasn't exactly a [Skill] as much as it was a general ability that was based on one's experience and self-education.
Still, it irked Sul'Azar nonetheless, as those were his “golden boys”, as he sympathetically called all of the deceased Monks that had been buried down here because of the golden-like metal shine of their ancestral bones, and they weren’t just some toys for a mindless beast to play around with! Even after he had directed all of the dead Monks to attack the bunny together with him, they had all been smashed to pieces, only to strangely reappear intact in their former tombs one day later, looking like nobody had even disturbed them for aeons, armors and weapons included.
Sul'Azar had immediately realized then that this was probably the work of that Dungeon Core which the beast had swallowed, and that this whole fight was absolutely pointless, as everything that existed in this Dungeon Floor would simply get respawned over and over again, at least until someone finally got down here and vanquished that damn creature once and for all then recovered the Dungeon Core and stopped it from resetting everything.
Without a care in the world, the bunny simply kept eating either his former bones or those of his “golden boys”, and was now filling the whole landscape with those disgusting egg-sacks of hers that kept on spawning those horrible skinless rabbits, turning the whole place into a large mess of oozing placenta and discarded egg shells.
[Deathbolt]
[Deathbolt]
[Curse of Ago…
*MUNCH*CRUNCH*SMASH*
...
"AH...YES...RIGHT THERE! DEEPER! DEEPER! AAAAAHHYEAAAH!*OrgasmSound*" The face of a strangely familiar woman suddenly came into Sul'Azar mind, as his soul was waiting for his body to respawn.
...
*Violent Magic Respawn Sound*
"Ok, that’s 307 times." The Lich complained.
The damn rabbit-thing seemed impervious to his magic! His Maxed-out [Deathbolt] spell that would have been able to one-shot even a geared adventurer under proper conditions, was now getting ignored by the animal like it wasn’t even hitting it. Any curses he put on her vanished in a matter of seconds too, so it was rather disconcerting how powerless he felt.
And the most HORRIBLE, ANNOYING, and outright DISTURBING thing was that every time he died, whenever he remained in his soul-form outside of the body, strange flashbacks would continuously arrive inside of his mind, and he somehow knew that they were all memories from his former life, memories that he used to assume had been lost forever. Slowly but surely, with every death, Sul'Azar was now remembering more and more about who he used to be, and it was a strange experience to say the least.
Because in all of his memories, if he wasn’t having hot steaming intercourse with some random good-looking chick, he was instead bravely fighting-off some fierce-looking monster or was charming other people out of their money with his singing.
Had he been some sort of an adventurer or a similar profession? Was Sul'Azar even his real name? He did not think so anymore, but he still could not remember his denomination yet.
[Deathbolt]
[Deathbolt]
[Curse of Slo…
*CRUNCH*SMASH*THUMP*BASH*
…
"Seriously man? You fucked the QUEEN? The QUEEN-QUEEN, not the Songstress Queen or the Queen of Tailors, right?" A man he recognized as his best friend was asking Sul'Azar while laughing, inside of his memories."Yes...And the Princesses too..." Sul'Azar felt himself answer back with a smirk of pride on his face.
...
*Violent Magic Respawn Sound*
"GAH! 308! What the hells was that? What Queen? And why is everybody talking in the Western Common Tongue?" The Lich screamed at the ceiling after picking himself back up from the floor again.
[Deathbolt]
[Degeneration]
[Curse of Blo…
*SMASH*BASH*CRACK*CRUNCH*
...
"Congratulations, Dear!" A sweet looking woman with huge MILF assets and dressed in a stylish Noble dress was seemingly clapping her hands in happiness towards him, as he held the most coveted “prize” in his hands in front of a large audience.
The Golden Crown was heavier than he had expected...
…
*Violent Magic Respawn Sound*
"309! A CROWN? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL! I USED TO BE A KING OR SOME SORT OF PRINCE? WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT BACKGROUND STORY IS THAT !?!" The Lich yelled at nobody in particular, as he unwillingly engaged the irritating white bunny in combat once again.
[Deathbolt]
[Syphon Buffs]
[Curse of St…
*CRACK*CRUNCH*SMASH*CRACK*
…
"AAAARGH! AAHH! AYEAAA! AYEAAA! MMMPPHFF!" *Wiggle*Wiggle*Bounce*Bounce* The very large and very naked White-furred girl with long bunny ears moaned as she kept pleasuring herself against him. "YES DADDY! I’VE BEEN A NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY GIRL! PLOW ME LIKE THE EMPTY CORN FIELDS! YES! YES! YES! RIGHT THERE! AAAAAARGHHH!!!" *Moan* The girl kept yelling in some unknown language that sounded rather melodic, while dancing up and down on his manhood like a pro.
…
*Violent Magic Respawn Sound*
"310! HOLY JEEZDRASSIL! OH MY GODS! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FLASHBACK! DO I ACTUALLY KNOW THIS CREATURE FROM SOMEWHERE? AND I EVEN FUCKED IT? SOMEONE EXPLAAAAAAAIN! RAARGH!" Sul'Azar raged after the latest disturbing flashback that had caused him to remember keeping the Bunny-Girl some rather intimate company during his previous life.
[Deathbolt]
[Deathbolt]
[Deathb...
*CRACK*SMASH*PLONG*THRONG*THUD*
…
*Screams of agony from the outside of the window, as the city was burning into ashes*
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"The whole Kingdom is done for! The DRAGON cannot be stopped! At least YOU have to get away from here! Take the girls and the Treasury, then run away from here! Go East, and tell the Templars of the Sun about what has happened during this day! I love you!" The MILF Queen that was now dressed in full plate armor suddenly handed him a rather strange magic-cube, then kissed him on his cheek.
"NO! I CAN’T LEAVE YOU BEHIND! NOT IN A MILLION YE…" *FLAMES ALL CONSUMING*
...
*Violent Magic Respawn Sound*
"311! AINE...NOOOO!!!" If Sul'Azar still had a heart, it would have stopped in his chest from the sudden pain. Because even if he was dead, it still somehow HURT! His beloved...his whole Kingdom...his dreams...all put to the flames by the whims of some angry Ancient Dragon. What was the point of having survived with the whole Kingdom’s Treasury, if everyone he ever loved had become dead in the process?
Still, the Lich wondered how the hell he had reached so far into the Eastern Lands together with the Treasury-Cube, when his whole Kingdom had been in the Western world. Maybe if he died a few more times, he would remember that as well...
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Meanwhile, somewhere between the First and Second floors of the Old Monastery, in a crack in the walls.
Fung was still chuckling at what had happened a few days ago during the morning hours at the Temple. After some arguing and rank-pulling by Lord Jaden, since he WAS indeed the next Magistrate-to-be of the entire Province-region after his father had vanished and was presumably dead, a Dungeon Delve “timeslot” had been assigned to the “idiot group”, as Trina called them, and they had been given two Senior Guardsmen as bodyguard-escorts to keep them safe. The men picked for the job had been some of the best-skilled fighters which knew how to handle themselves, and had joined Lord Jaden with the aim of filling the missing spots to reach the 5-man cap for the optimal XP gains.
The whole group had then gone down into the Dungeon, but only after about a couple of hours, a completely fuming Huntress that smelled like burnt hair and singed flesh had come back up to the surface, swearing to the Gods that she would never join those incompetents ever again. Following her, the two Senior Guardsmen had each come out carrying the unconscious bodies of Jin and Jaden, who now had a few extra arrows sticking from some very uncomfortable places on their backsides.
After asking the Huntress what had happened, she had proceeded to recount for Fung how the idiots had kept aggroing everything in sight and had also consistently kept jumping in front of her arrows, hence the resulting friendly-fire. They had also kept triggering all of the Dungeon traps in their way, even after she had warned them about the mechanisms, and they had continuously complained that she shot slower and less accurately than Trina, that “Trina would have dodged those flames”, that she did not know how to heal or bandage like Trina did, that TRINA THIS, TRINA THAT, EVERYTHING TRINA!
Getting pissed at being negatively compared to the bald monk girl that had knocked her out and had stolen her clothes, the Huntress had simply had enough of them and had instantly ragequit after the morons had jumped in front of her arrows one more time, and had left them to get knocked out by the Dungeon mobs with the tacit approval of the other two Senior Guardsmen.
That had obviously led to the “natural” dissolution of the entire “idiot group”, and Fung had felt like he had to give bonus points to Trina once again for her successful mental manipulations. She had probably planned for all of this to happen, Fung was almost certain about the whole thing.
After that day, “Jaden Duty” had become the feared punishment phrase that would become administered to those Guardsmen and Warring-Monks that misbehaved or failed to perform their tasks adequately, as they would get assigned to Jaden’s group the very next day, and they would have to put up with the moron instead. As the “J Group” was the “slowest-to-clear-a-level” and the most “prone to accidents” out of all of the Parties in queue for the Dungeon, nobody wanted to land inside of it, so it had become a veritable bogey-group for scaring-off the Guardsmen and the Warring-Monks into compliance.
Since Jin had now basically been “fired”, he had rejoined Fung’s group after begging on his knees for a while, and because he had been backed by what was obviously a love-struck Liliam, Fung had been forced to accept him back into the fold as a result. Since Trina was still currently indisposed, the second-in-command position had become Fung’s by default, since he had both the seniority and the actual Rank, leaving him as the de-facto Party-Leader while Trina was still recovering, and it was a new experience for him to be the person calling all of the shots.
As for the temporary fifth-person slot that was still empty, they had taken the Warring-Monk Quan Jiao to fill it, which had been tutored during the last few days by Lingfeng in the way of casting and had begun grasping a healing spell similar to Trina's own Regeneration, even if he was failing to execute it properly a lot more often than she ever did. A partial healer was better than NO healer.
Fung had also banned Jin from using his flames as part of the agreement that let him rejoin the party, unless he was specifically being told to use them during certain situations which absolutely required them. Therefore, Jin was now also stuck swinging a Sanctified mace just like everybody else, since those weapons had become the bread-and-butter arsenal that was being used in the Dungeon by all of the Guardsmen and the Warring-Monks, since the maces did that extra-damage to “unnatural” creatures, which was basically every creature in the Dungeon so far, and had proven to be very effective Demon Mashers and Skeleton Obliterators.
Carmine had been churning a truckload of those weapons every day by smelting the Dungeon-recovered materials, and their damage, design and durability had kept getting better and better, as she was regaining her lost Smithing skills. The Guardsmen were basically worshiping her, since they were all weapon fanatics, and were able to fully appreciate her upgrades from one “version” to the next.
As the entire party was making steady progress towards the second strata, the whole conversation that was going on between the other members of his party behind Fung had suddenly drifted towards the boy's rights of succession, and was getting a little bit heated up.
"Why the hell do you even HAVE to be Emperor? Can’t you just keep on pretending that you’re dead? I mean, nobody at the Capital even knows that you’re still alive, right?" Jin asked.
"Because I’m probably the best “legitimate” choice that can show up during this period of turmoil and insanity." Fung replied back. "In a certain way, it is my duty as the last male heir of my family tree, even if I hated most of them. I can't simply deny the blood that flows through my veins! Look...I’m not going to pretend like I’m some sort of a saintly figure and say that “It’s all for the good of the people” or some other shit like Trina would say. I probably don’t care THAT much about everybody like she does. But I most certainly have grown to care a lot more about the plight of the common-folk than those Noble douchebags who are currently vying for the Throne at this very moment.
"Those people will never give a damn about the peasants in their entire lives. I can definitely say that after meeting Trina, my eyes have been opened! She always said that a TRUE leader needs to lead by example, and be at the forefront of his “tribe”, be it a village or an entire Empire, and I think that she’s right. It’s why I still follow her. It’s why ALL OF YOU follow her, for that matter, and you all know it! If I had a choice, I would toss all of that Emperorship crap away, and just remain by her side.
"But if I leave the Throne out in the open, I KNOW that another idiot Noble, or worse, a Puppet-Emperor of some clan or another will rise into that position, and that’s the worst thing that can happen during these troubled times! Instead of having that occur, it would be ideal if we could find some way to legitimately regain the Throne, but that's not going to happen without some very deep power struggles and a lot of actual fighting! If there was anybody else out there that was even remotely half-competent to do the right thing for the common folk, I wouldn't hesitate to abandon the Emperor position in the blink of an eye, but I KNOW ALL OF THE PEOPLE AT THE COURT! I KNOW THE NOBLE HOUSES!
"Those are only a bunch of egomaniacs hell-bent on accumulating even more power, wealth and extra lands for their own clans, and they will stop at nothing to acquire everything. If they could, they would even claim the moons from the sky with their own grubby paws as their personal territories! So yeah, I'm not going to aim for the Emperor position because I WANT to, but because I HAVE to! Now shut up and pay attention, this entire area is filled with that disgusting slippery substance, so we are probably closing in on that Hell-Slug creature which Lingfeng has warned us about! I can hear the sounds of a water stream somewhere ahead of us!"
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Back on the surface:
The Rooster was fuming. He had been unable to move for the last few days, as he had been imprisoned in the damn annoying contraption that kept repeatedly tickling him. It was that Orange-Eyed bug who was at fault once again! The rooster would have his vengeance against the creature someday, the bird swore inside its own poultry mind.
Suddenly, the Orange-Eye freak burst into the room, and then freed him from his restraints. What the hell did the bug want now?
After being dragged away through the streets and then into another building that smelled like stone, oil, metal, and monkeysweat, the Rooster found himself in the arms of another of those upright-walking monkeys, albeit one that seemed to be missing its head-plumage for some reason and was currently nesting in a roost made of many fluffy things. The Rooster sort-of recognized it, but was unsure if it was the same being, as the previous one had displayed a whole lot more feathers on its head than this current one.
The plume-less creature then gently grabbed the Rooster, and began caressing it in a strange way. At first, the Rooster had frozen in panic, not knowing what new torture he would get subjected to, but strangely, nobody had shown up to stab, shoot, decapitate, or pluck its feathers away. The treatment was actually...kind of nice.
She kept scratching him along his back feathers, and even below the waddle, making him gurgle in pleasure like one of those damn cats at the caress. This kept going on for a while, and the Rooster was almost ready to fall asleep, until he was hit by the smell of his heart’s desire that had somehow wafted into the room.
Through the doorway of the chamber, a smaller monkey who had a lot of red feathers on its face came inside carrying some sort of a steaming container, and the Rooster knew immediately that the Nectar of the Gods was somehow contained inside of that. Oh, sweet glorious TEA, the Rooster had missed that certain substance like a part of himself!
Immediately, the Rooster dashed away from the bed and flew to a yelping Carmine, then simply dunked its head inside the whole steaming kettle, ignoring even the fact that it was getting boiled alive by doing that. Gulping away with a sinful greed at the colored water, the Rooster began getting high on the black Tea-blend like it was the most important treasure in the world. The two girls were looking with befuddled and amused eyes at the chicken which now had its whole head stuffed inside of the kettle opening, and was wiggling its legs in the air from the sheer pleasure it was receiving from drinking its favourite beverage.
By Jove, the rooster had missed the taste SOOO much! Even if this particular blend was far from ideal, it still was enough to somewhat extinguish the bird’s everburning desire for the best substance in the world!
After getting bloated and looking like a veritable balloon, the bird finally fell on its ass while burping, and fell asleep with its legs sticking upwards towards the ceiling from the sudden Tea-Infusion. Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad day after all!
Cluck-System: You have unlocked the passive Skill [Tea-Infused Body]
Description:
Your current body will get infused with the wonderful properties of any Tea-Blend you consume, and you will permanently retain those statistics for as long you live.
Dying and getting resurrected resets the effects though, but that’s just another good excuse to have even more Tea!