Inside the maze-like tunnels inside the Volcanic island, Theodore, Ann and the entire Von Weise family’s main team were heading toward the boss room at a hastened pace, slaying all kinds of bizarre monsters in the process.

The deeper they got, the more strange and bizarre the monsters became. It was as if they were becoming more and more corroded, like something that had long been decayed and then reconstructed, losing a few parts in the process.

They also quickly find out why Zed looked like a slime. Apparently, in his escape earlier, he had to crawl through no less than 10 swamp-like pits that interrupted the tunnels every half a mile or so. Those holes were filled by a strange green slimy liquid that splashed everywhere.

“What is this matter?” Mike asked.

“It doesn’t seem to be poisonous, but we better avoid it!” Theodore said as they walked around the pits one by one.

“Are you sure Zola and the others were with you?” Octavia asked Zed as they walked. They have already been walking for 4 hours but they found nothing.

“They were here!” Zed said.

“This place is like a maze… We can’t just walk aimlessly!” Primous commented.

“Then let’s just follow these pits… They seem to follow a certain path…” Ann said. “And who's knows, we might find something interesting…

…

It didn’t take Rita a long time to finally reach the main island. She used her superhuman strength to paddle there, so it was super fast!

Once she reached the familiar docks, she left the boat to one of the servants there, by throwing the boat's rope at him. Then, acting arrogant and snobbish as one of the heirs should, she slipped past the patrolling guards without letting them inspect her. Thankfully with all the monsters around, they had no time to check every individual thoroughly, she just had to flash her elite token and then ignore them.

Now that they were inside the dungeon, technology didn’t work, so the token recording function would not log her being there! And no sane guard would dare question an elite heir.

Making sure she found an abandoned corner, Rita quickly changed her clothes into a sneaking outfit and then activated a hiding talisman before going out again.

She headed to the main ancestral temple in the middle of the island. According to the message Victor left her with Liam, that place had a secret passage toward the center of the island.

To tell the truth, Sneaking around like this made her a little nervous.

The last time in the Von Zwei base, she had Victor guiding and reassuring her at every step, but here, she had to do it all by herself. She also missed that shadow-shifting ability Victor granted her. It was super convenient!

Now she had to wonder alone…

Reaching the familiar ancestral temple, she quickly went past a lonely guard and sneaked inside.

Thankfully, due to all the trouble on the island earlier, no one was taking care of this place either! And the guard they left here was kinda an idiot… He was just standing there picking his nose while looking at the gray sky.

Was he in love or something? He was totally bewitched…

Rita paused.

She turned back and headed toward the stupid guard, inspecting him for five minutes she frowned. He seemed totally clueless… Was he really a guard?

“Hey…” she poked at him after removing her disguise. She was ready to strike him unconscious if he troubled her.

He didn’t even reply. It was as if he was in a trance.

“Hey!” she shouted this time as she grabbed him and forced him to face her.

Still, the guard only laughed like a village idiot.

Rita slapped his face.

He laughed, totally ignoring his now crooked nose and the blood dripping from it.

“Shit!” Rita cursed as she looked around. There was nothing out of order except for this guy…

After thinking for a moment and throwing a healing pill into the guard’s mouth, she hurried into the building.

Something was very wrong here, however, her mission had not changed. And it had to be done.

She just needed to ruin the isolation formation then hide and wait until the dungeon got conquered before grabbing that heart. She just needed to follow Victor’s instructions…

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She kept telling herself that as she walked inside, making sure not to trip on something or raise any alarm in the darkness.

Yes, the entire building was pitch dark as it was constructed without windows for security reasons and the creation of the dungeon seemed to have knocked out all the electricity.

Thankfully, thanks to the body modification she suffered, she could see somehow, but it was not 100% clear. That's why she was very careful.

BAM!

She bumped into a guard… Not her fault, he was the one running around. She was using a disguise talisman so this must have been an accident. Just bad luck.

She readied her weapon to knock him out, but she quickly lowered it. There was no need as the guard looked around and then began to laugh like an idiot.

Even here?

Damn it! If only she had an appraisal skill or something to know what was wrong with him!

She was really missing Victor giving her instructions.

Pushing the guard away and letting him continue his aimless wandering, she continued to walk, making sure to be extra wary around corners.

So slowly, as she crossed multiple checkpoints in which the guards were all acting like idiots she was finally sure that whoever did this to the guards was heading in the same direction she did.

Shit…. Shit… Shit…

As she kept cursing, something she rarely did before meeting Victor, Rita slowly began approaching the hidden Zone deep inside the mountain.

One gate after another, and one flight of stairs after another it was the same. The guards were acting like idiots. Somewhere even doing obscene things, forcing her to hurry away upon noticing them.

Finally, she found herself in the middle of the mountain, in front of Secret Zone’s giant gate that should have been shut firmly.

According to what Lily told her, the isolation formation should have been inside this gate… Her mission was to destroy the gate…. But why was the gate already destroyed?

In front of her, the entirety of the gate was melting as if it was made of chocolate and some bad kid left it in the sun… No… A more accurate description would be someone splashing acid over it. She could smell the rancid smell and acid smell all around.

Behind the now-open door, she could only see a dark corridor.

Should she consider her mission accomplished and just go home? She wondered.

No.. .Something was really fishy here, and if Victor was in her place, he would definitely go and check to protect the family!

She couldn’t have been more wrong, but she decided to carefully check the situation.

SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…

Suddenly, just as she took two steps, she felt it. As if her entire body ordered her to stop. It was as if something was about to lock onto her.

There was something very dangerous here… It reminded her of how she felt when she faced that demon that possessed her in the von Zwei base.

Unconsciously she began to employ the same method Victor taught her to hide her soul…

…

…

Strangely enough, despite it being in her physical body, the technique seemed to have worked as she felt her existence began to disappear and the pressure earlier vanished.…

Instinctively, she knew why VictorI did explain this thing before… With her body now turning into that of a corpse warrior due to the demon’s possession. Now, if she hid her soul, her body would not appear to be alive at all.

All of that with the disguise talisman on top of it, made her pretty much disappear.

Should she continue?

She pondered… It might be very dangerous.

Click… Click.. Click…

The sound of footsteps of someone wearing high heels sounded in the corridor behind her, forcing her to slowly step back with her back to the wall as someone quickly passed by her without noticing.

It was someone she knew. A friend of her grandfather.

Grand Elder Tolin. The vice head of the secrets hall. According to what Kai told her, this woman was the one behind all the trouble on the island at the moment.

Squinting her eyes, Rita decided to quickly follow, making sure to stay by the wall and watch her steps.

Like that, it didn’t take them long to finally reach a large room, that in contrast with the tunnels, was well-lit by strange crystals in its center where a handsome young man was standing between the corpses of four giant wivern-like creatures.

In his hand, he held a beating heart. The same one she was ordered to grab!

…

“What the hell is going on in here?” Theodore asked.

After following the pits for another hour, they finally found themselves in a strange large hall where in its center there was a giant pond of that same disgusting matter.

All around it, corpses of all kinds of monsters floated, their bodies melted into strange shapes.

“Look there!” Zed said, pointing to the center of the pond where a giant dead tree stood, forming a small island with its intertwining giant roots going deep under.

On it, there was a throne… An empty wooden throne to be exact. It was as if someone carved it out of the tree itself.

“Number 3,” Ann said, making one of her shadow guards appear out of thin air, then with one jump she reached the tree and began to check it.

“Someone was sitting here lately…, the throne is clean… There are even boot marks on the floor near it!” the shadow guard said, careful not to touch a thing.

“An Elite Monster?” Primous asked with a frown. Elite Monsters were those who were sentient like High demons and Vampire lords. Dealing with those guys was usually very hard and tricky as they were not only very powerful but also very sneaky.

“Let’s be careful…” Ann said, ordering her guards to inspect the room, “Can you follow the traces?” she asked the shadow guard who knelt down to inspect the tree thoroughly.

“Yes…” she touched the throne with her knee. “Ah….” she gasped, not knowing what was happening as she turned into a green goo, melting into the pond.

“WHAT!” Everyone gasped before they quickly began to duck to the ground and look around with their weapons drawn.

“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Zed who finally grasped what he just saw squeaked like a woman.

“SHUT UP!” Ann scolded, directly kicking his balls and making him fall to the ground in pain. “EVERYONE, WATCH YOUR STEPS AND STEP BACK SLOWLY!” she ordered as she knelt on the ground and began to look around.

“Was it a sneak attack?” Octavia asked, as she also bent down and hurried to check on her son. Ann had just saved his life as if there was a sniper here, getting low to the ground was the best action.

“CHECK!” Primous ordered.

“Clear…”

“Clear…”

…

Quickly all the guards performed their duty and checked their perimeter using various artifacts to identify hidden enemies.

“All Clear… No enemies in sight…” Mike declared.

“There might have been poison there… Some really potent stuff!” Theodore who also checked her perimeter suggested.

“Maybe…” Ann said as everyone began to warily stand back up. Ready to defend at any moment.

“Since there is nothing else here, I think we should leave this place for now…” Theodore said nervously as he looked around. He didn’t like places like this and his intuition was telling him that he should not be here. “We can always return and check after conquering the dungeon!”

“Yes, let’s go find…” Ann didn't get to continue.

BANG

In the hall, one of the side walls exploded in a ball of fire, filling the hall with dust and smoke on top of sending debris all over the place, making the pit splash around and hitting everyone who was focused on dodging the giant stones.

BANG!

BANG!

TRANK…

BANG!

FSSSSSSSS….

BAM!

Everyone ducked again and prepared their weapons as the sound of fighting began to ring around the hall.

Slowly as the dust settled, the family team could see what was going on.

Beyond the hole in the wall, there was a giant arena with thousands and thousands of empty seats.

Down in its center, a giant chained corpse dragon was busy fighting four exhausted brave girls, whose bodies were riddled with injuries.

Alice, Zoe, Zola, and Kuu!