Oddly, despite the frenzy the past few days within Abys halls, the number of invaders seemed to be decreasing lately, where once Aby had been dealing with dozens every hour, not counting the groups, that number has become dozens every day, and then even less. The core felt that there was something going on, but was unsure of what. Sela had said that it could be over-hunting and had killed everything in the area, and Aby understood that concept. It would leave its entrance as a beacon for whoever may catch wind of it, but it seemed that the frenzy in the halls over the past week or two had ended.
That was fine to the core, however. It now had the opportunity to rest, thankfully, and to consolidate its growth. It had finalized the eleventh and twelfth floors soon before the slowing down of invaders, and could finally take the time necessary to adjust their ecosystems.
The eleventh was a system of halls similar to the majority of its floors, but the waters of the floors were lower, and the floor wasn’t simply limestone covered in coral, rather, it was a thick layer of sand. In fact, some of the floor was entirely above water, creating a maze of coastal conditions.
The twelfth floor was a wide floor, and only three meters from top to bottom, which meant it felt rather cramped. The water level itself was roughly a meter entirely, and hard corals could be seen poking out of the waters, illuminating the air and water in two varying shows of playful, prismatic lights.
Both these floors could be considered coastal, and their inhabitants reflected this. In fact, it finally gave Aby a chance to use some of the creatures it had only acquired by chance, the ones that had wound up in its halls through ways it neither knew nor cared to learn.
Some of these were different types of crustaceans, or more specifically, crabs. It had things ranging from tiny fiddler crabs, and all of their colorful variants, to monstrous coconut crabs making themselves at home in the shallow waters, and exposed sands of the floors. Hermit crabs, too, seemed more at home on these two floors than elsewhere, so long as they were provided with adequate shells, that is.
Burrowing creatures were finally employed on this floor, and things like stingrays and flounder that had been caught in the craze were making themselves at home. Aby had also gotten over its distaste for the bobbit worm, the creature that almost killed Sela, and allowed two to exist within its halls, one on the eleventh and another on the twelfth floor. These acted as small gate-guards, as it were, and would position themselves to strike at anything that wandered over them as they entered the paths they were guarding.
Some of the biggest news, however, was the moving of the coastal kobolds tribal grounds, and the replenishment of their numbers. The first, eleventh, and tewfth floors now had a hidden passage connecting the floors, passages lined with rifle shrimp as a friendly reminder to not take shortcuts for any invaders, and the kobolds, now seven strong, were relocated to a portion of the eleventh floor. They were pleased by this, they not only had a space to live that actually conformed to their race, but they weren’t stuck living in the dark. The original trio were ecstatic, and the new quartet found this enthusiasm rubbing off on them, too.
These two floors added variety to Abys dungeon, finally giving a true roadblock to aquatic races that it hadn’t had prior. This is the first group of floors that it had created that necessitated being completely outside the water for any period of time, should one want to continue forward.
There was more growth beyond just Abys halls, however. The two reptiles had finally grown out of their infant stages, and could be considered adolescents. The wyvern was now known as simply “Lesser Oceanic Wyvern” and with that change in name came a truly startling change in capability. He could move at speeds that were unnaturally fast, almost tripling the former two hundred fifty kilometers per hour, and Aby had to increase the size of his floor to roughly two kilometers in diameter, and forty meters deep. The sailfish Aby had initially had on this floor were deemed unnecessary, both by Aby, and by the wyvern himself, and they weren’t fast enough to escape this judgement.
With his maturation, came changes. His body became roughly five and a half meters in length, and nearly radiated a streamlined grace. His two forelimbs now took on a wing-like appearance, though they were very much for swimming. It still lacked any form of hind-limb, and its green scales had taken on a blue tint. The pink trim on his head deepened, becoming a vibrant purple, and the rose-gold horns had elongated, but pressed closer to his head, sticking nearly straight back. Obviously, this was to reduce the drag he experienced, but the ornate violet-gold coloration still seemed to give him a kingly air.
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His tail had lost all barbs, instead being ended with a flexible blade over a meter in length. Both the top and bottom were razor sharp, and could shear apart meters of hard coral, something that they had tested, without even appearing to dull. While he'd be considered a dangerous creature previously, he now truly appeared to be an apex predator. In fact, he could even be considered slightly stronger than the dragonkin-eel duo, and the brittle star, on their own floors. This meant, that on the wide open space he called home, he represented an enormous threat.
The wyrmling too had grown up, simply called a “Lesser Wyrm”. Head to tail, she measured ten meters in length, and was larger around than that invader had been in his transformation. Just as it had to do with the wyvern, the wyrm required more space. Only, this time, the floor was reduced to half a kilometer wide, but sixty meters deep, at its deepest. Aby also had to make specialized tunnels exclusively for the wyrm to escape through, should the need arise. Like the rest of its passageways, there were measures in place to keep out those who would try and circumvent the normal routes.
Of course, Aby had little expectations of this happening, the wyrm was the only thing in the dungeon that could stand up to the wyvern in a direct, open confrontation. Rather than outspeeding him, the wyrm is very sturdy. It can take hits from the wyvern and shrug them off, before biting at, thrashing at, or however else she decides to respond. Of course, the wyvern was flitting about too fast by this point to be harmed by any of these responses, but the point remained.
The wyrm also changed visually apart from being just big. While indeed, she was large, her ocean-blue scales had deepened in color, becoming a midnight hue. The scales of her body too, were trimmed by a brilliant platinum coloration, one that colored the majority of her hood in a brilliant, blinding display when she flared it outward. Her entire body seemed to exude an air of superiority, and the snakes and kraits of Abys dungeon had even started to congregate on the fourth floor. It seemed that she was truly the ruler. Again, in much the same way as the wyvern, she decided that the grouper sharing her residence were more of a hindrance by now, and consumed them, turning the entire floor into one populated entirely by snakes, and their ruler.
There were more insignificant changes recently too, and a lot of that came in the form of changing floors to better stop or allow invaders forward, depending on the circumstances. Furthermore, it learned that, despite the sheer numbers it was subjected to, its layout seems pretty effective. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, which made it to the tenth floor. The closest anything came was when there was a massive increase in numbers just before they started dwindling down, and a shoal of invading baitfish which was uncharacteristically close to the reef swarmed into the halls in huge numbers.
On every floor they passed, their numbers were ravaged, and yet, they never seemed to be losing huge amounts. They were given the most trouble on the third and seventh floors, mainly due to any floor having rifle shrimp being able to thin them splendidly. The freshly minted wyrm had simply opened her mouth and devoured multitudes, the wyvern dashing to and fro consuming them in huge amounts. The kobolds and brittle star had a much worse time of it, being adept at fighting single opponents, or at least groups of opponents that were of similar size to themselves, they barely managed to even dent the numbers. The siren had her own luck and troubles. While her Song managed to cause mass amounts to go into a frenzy, it also meant that she was at risk if anything managed to come upon her location. Luckily, she remained relatively unharmed as baitfish are not what can be termed as damage dealers, but she was nipped a few times, and found it rather upsetting.
The real cause of the shoals demise, was the ninth floor, and the fact that everything in the ninth floor was meant to hunt exactly them. Their numbers had already been massively reduced by some means or another, so when the creatures of the ninth had their turn, they went wild.
Sailfish and the newly spawned dolphin were working together to herd them, barracudas and tuna picking off the stragglers. The man-o-wars had managed to float directly over the path to floor ten, and caught what few fish managed to escape the open ocean hunters. What made the defense, if one could call it that, so much more effective, was the fact that this was exactly how these animals hunted in the wild, it was truly instinctual, rather than needing to be taught by Aby. The core had thought this would be the case, but was still pleasantly surprised to find out just how right its conjecture was.
So, by this point, Aby had wound up with a greatly increased amount of diversity, new floors, and having two new creatures that are more effective even than its bosses. So, when three groups of five sapients filed into its depths, it felt ready, and even eager to truly pit itself against them. It told Sela about the visitors, however, and she immediately went to its core room, having to share some, what she called urgent, information about this very situation.