Moving downward
Hiro's POV:
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The next day we woke up in a much better mood. Feeling each other's embrace always made us happy. There was another group of beastmen that reached this place not long after we woke up. Although we cleared out the bodies, but we still felt the smell of blood and the newcomers weren't different on that either.
The ground too was destroyed at some parts which clearly showed that a battle has taken place here. It would automatically recover by time, but it was still visible for now. They warily sat on the ground and tried to rest, but they couldn’t calm down. The murderous aura was still lingering around us. Two of them were at the seventh stage while three of them were at the sixth stage.
But our auras still scared them. “Don’t worry we aren’t going to hurt any of you if you aren’t going to try doing something- funny like those two teams before you. We only killed them because they didn’t know where to hold their dicks so we have helped them out.” Alice said with a venomous voice and a cold face as she put her hands on her hips.
[Haha if you call that ‘helping out’ then I really don’t want to be helped out by you!] I remarked upon hearing her sentence jokingly, which caused a small smile to slip on her face. [Fufu, don’t worry you are going to be helped out in an entirely different way.] She continued my thoughts in the same manner with a happier tone.
[Seems like you have a better mood now.] I said, feeling happy that she doesn't feel down anymore. I want to see her happy every time I look at her. I don't want to see her unhappy even for a single moment. [*sigh* Yes, though I’m still annoyed a bit. I guess this won’t go away so easily.] She said with a small sigh as she turned her back on the newcomers and hugged me, then she continued her thoughts.
[Ever since I was born this was the first time when someone tried to do something like this and I know that as we are progressing there are going to be even more people who are full of themselves and think that they can get anything. They are going to suffer by our hands.] Alice said as I felt her arms stiffen for a moment as she hugged me stronger and tighter than before.
Before I could put my arm around her, she turned around as she said in her mind. [I’m curious about how they are going to react so I’m not going to hide.] Alice pulled off her hood, but the expected reaction didn’t happen. They saw her beauty, but they weren’t in the mood to woo her. They felt a terrifying aura lingering around her.
“W-We wouldn’t dare to be presumptuous like them. Miss, you don’t have to worry about us, and it’s not like every beastmen are like them...” One of them said fearfully as his face became pale. “I know, if they would be then you would be dead by now. Now we are leaving so have a good rest.” Alice said as we turned around to leave.
As we stepped through the doorway, I heard the whole group let out a sigh of relief. It seems like the last night came with a reward too. Our auras and bloodlust became much more powerful making even these powerful beastmen this scared!
After a few hours probably they too are going to realize that they weren't their own self! Their personalities changed and they were like scared chickens! We went on our way, slaughtering through the dungeon.
After three days we reached the fifteenth floor. Our speed of progression was truly incredible. In these three days, we were also getting closer to the seventh stage, but it was still further away. Before we entered the fifteenth floor, we rested for a bit and then went inside.
Just as we were notified the fifteenth floor was indeed a world of desert, but this time not to our dismay like when we were in the mortal world... If we were to become thirsty, then we could just use water magic to drink or even take a bath. Although since this was a desert the water element was scarcer, it was still enough for such purposes.
Yes. The environment did influence the abundance of elements, but even if an element was scarce, it was still present everywhere. Since we were mostly in forests, nature element was the most powerful, but interestingly enough in these forests, EVERY element was abundant. We entered through the doorway which had a barrier on it, preventing monsters from entering the resting area.
On the upper floors when you descended, you didn’t know where you were going because there were stone doors, but here it was only separated from the resting place by these translucent barriers. When we entered, we were immediately ambushed by a scorpion at the eighth stage, that jumped out of the sand and this was only a normal monster! We had to be careful if we wanted to live.
After killing the monster, we went towards the sun. It was said that the gate was in that way. The map we bought didn’t help much here. It showed some big stones, a few oases as a marking, but nothing more. Naturally, since this was a low-level dungeon it couldn’t create huge worlds. We could actually walk it through in a few hours at most.
But this day became an irritating one. We were continuously ambushed by sand scorpions, sand worms, and sand snakes. There even came a sandstorm... After it was gone, we stood there like a sand statue. We were covered in a thick layer of sand from head to toe...
“Th-*blergh* *cough*-this.is.fucking.awesome.FOR FUCK'S SAKE!” Alice shouted wrathfully, but the sand went into her mouth so she started coughing it out. We were really annoyed by this world. Even our mouths were full with sand.
[I’m not going to talk, who knows what would happen? Maybe I’d cough up some sand too!] I said through our bond, fearing that I'd get on the same fate as Alice. [You aren’t supposed to hold it in your body-*cough*-yes like that, cough it up hehe.] As she said so, she controlled my body and made me cough. I could resist it, but I'd never resist her.
[Should we build a sand castle? I’ve never been to the seaside even in my past life so I couldn’t play too much with sand...] I thought after I cleaned my body with my Space Energy. [Ooh~ poor thing. This is really sad. So sad that my heart is breaking for you. Poor thing couldn’t enjoy playing with sand!] Alice started ridiculing me while she kept laughing.
[You couldn’t either... And what’s with that sarcasm. It seems like that I’ll have to punish someone again, I still remember how you couldn’t even stand up.] I retorted upon hearing her words and reminded her of her place. I went close to her ears as I whispered into them. "You lustful succubus. You are getting wet just by thinking about it."
Her body shuddered, but we stopped chatting and started moving. There was night in this desert, which was quite weird... When the moon was still creeping up on the sky, we reached the end of this world and saw the ‘boss’. We have killed many monsters on the way here. Although this travel was supposed to take a few hours, but it took a day!
We were ambushed on our way here non-stop, so we had to stop so many times that I don't even dare to count it. This boss had the body of a scorpion but it had a snake-like tail, with poisonous fangs.
The tail could move completely alone as if it would be a completely different life form which was quite creepy... This monster was at the ninth stage of Space Founding Realm, but it wasn’t too much for us. Still, the coming fight is still going to be harder than usual.
When the scorpion saw us, it roared then charged at us. Upon seeing this, we spread out and stood in a defensive position, waiting for the monster to reach us. As it was nearing us, we unleashed powerful elemental magic to slow down its movement speed.
The scorpion dodged most of these attacks with incredible agility, then used its pincers to defend against the remaining magical attacks. Its pincer was very hard so it was enough to block them, but it was in for a surprise because as the smoke cleared out it had to see both of us flying towards it, with raised weapons.
When we shot our attacks before, we also ran towards the monster, so it was caught unprepared upon seeing our speed, but it was still an agile monster, so it used its pincers to block us and its tail was also already shooting towards us.
I took on the pincers by trying to swing my blade, right at the base of it. Although its pincers were hard and dangerous, but I knew that pincers were probably quite weak at its base, so if I could cut it down, then it would be much easier to kill this monster.
As it saw the direction of my sword, it raised its pincer and blocked it. It was indeed a clever monster, but I didn't have two swords for a show. As the first one was blocked, I spun in the air and attacked with my other sword from below. My attack reached the base of its pincer... Meanwhile, Alice was attacked by the snake-like tail.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The tail opened widely its mouth and with a lightning fast speed, it bit towards her. She barely had enough time to jump to the side clearly showing how fast that tail actually was. It was more like fighting two different kinds of monsters and although we could use magic to create better footholds, but the sand was making it harder for them to move as freely as we wanted. Using magic continuously for such a thing would be burdensome.
If we would have been on a stone ground, then considering our powerful weapons, we probably would have killed it by now, but this monster was holding the environmental advantage. As I cut off one of its pincers, Alice used the moment it was distracted to roar out in pain, to cut off its snake-like tail.
It roared again and wanted to snap me into two halves with its remaining pincer, but it was for naught as Alice jumped on its back and pierced it right through its head. Its head fell off and its blood sprayed on the ground. Maybe other weapons would struggle to pierce or cut the armored body of this scorpion, but it was an easy feat for our weapons.
As the scorpion died, its body swirled and all of its blood and body parts started flowing and turning into a flowing energy-like stream which in the end condensed into the shape of two dark brown colored scorpion-looking tiny pills.
These were really weird shaped pills. Pills were supposed to be round little balls usually. There was also a note right next to them. Most likely the dungeon added it so that we would know what it is. It’s very likely that the dungeon liked our performance and didn’t ‘drop’ only a single pill. Though this may not be the case every time, but right now we were lucky.
This is how monsters that dropped items changed from their bodies into something else. The note said:
This is an earth element pill which would increase the earth attribute of your elemental bodies to a complete state meaning that you could skip on cultivating that element in the future.
(AN:\ If some of you forgot then to reach the 5th level they have to cultivate and understand the elements perfectly and also integrate them into their bodies making it into ‘Elemental Bodies’. If they take this pill, then they don’t have to spend time on cultivating Earth element.)
Both of us immediately took it into our mouth and we felt as a dirt like energy was flowing through our bodies. It was quite a weird feeling, but we knew that even if it was like this, it was still a good thing. The pill integrated into our cells one by one making our earth/sand/dirt element more powerful than the other ones.
Now we could use stone spears made which were as strong as my hand made weapons. This also meant a new trump card. For example, we could charge at someone and while that person would look out for the incoming sword attack, he would be pierced from behind by an equally powerful magical attack.
The integration process took about fifteen minutes. When it was done we didn’t have to walk for long before we found the entrance to the next floor. We descended the stairs and reached the next restroom. Since it has been a day they, we up the tent and after indulging in our desires, we went to sleep.
The next day we woke up and descended to the sixteenth level, which was a world of greenery. It was a jungle which was actually not much different than the world outside. It was said that we had to complete some quests here and kill the boss monster to go to the next floor.
Before we entered this world on the wall of the resting room right next to the door it was stated that we have to collect four wooden keys, which were placed in little stone temples in the four corners of the world. This text also stated that these wooden keys were protected by powerful monsters. Most likely all of them were at the ninth stage.
We didn’t wait and entered the sixteenth floor. It was going to be harder than before since the number of higher level monsters were becoming more and more abundant. After about five minutes, we started encountering monsters at the ninth stage in almost every half an hour.
When we reached the first stone temple, we found two monsters at the ninth stage, guarding it at the same time. They were a bit weaker than the sand scorpion, but even these mini bosses were almost as powerful as the boss of the fifteenth level.
This indeed foreshadowed that what Evan said is most likely true. This dungeon is probably very close to growing into the next realm, or maybe it has already done so. Even if we can’t finish this dungeon with our current strength, I’m sure that with our battle forms and a bit of training, we will be able to.
Cultivators at the first stage of Domain Space Realm had a shocking strength of two hundred golems which meant one and half million kilograms! Although normal cultivators had a hundred and thirty-five golems of strength at the peak of ninth stage, but the case was different with us.
We would have a hundred and seventy golems of strength, while in our battle forms, we would have a hundred and ninety-five. Adding to that our weapons, tough defenses and mind powers, we could easily kill a monster at the first stage of Domain Space Realm, even if we consider its domain.
Considering how the levels progressed, it was likely that the boss on the last floor was a monster like that, or maybe even stronger. After we slowly trod our way through the jungle and slowly collected the four wooden keys, we went towards the middle of the jungle where we found the boss. It was a white, black striped tiger which had a huge body reaching six meters!
This monster was at the ninth stage too, but considering its huge body it probably had the power of about a hundred and thirty golems, which meant that taking this beast head on wasn’t a wise choice even in our battle forms. We activated our battle forms and sneaked up on the beast. Even if it was more powerful, it still didn’t have mind power.
This made it so that it could use only its Space Energy to scan the surroundings, which is a crude way to acquire information, while mind power was much more powerful and it also performed better at things like these. This meant that if we could hide our presences and smell well enough, then we could sneak up even on a beast of this level!
[I'll go in frontally. I don't want to smear mud on myself.] Alice protested in her mind while she was shaking her head sideways while looking at me. Her draconic instincts flared up and denied even the thought of dirtying her body with mud, which would be disgraceful for her proud race.
I- I wanted to dirty her! My face turned into an evil smile as I used a bit of magic to create a muddy pool behind her. Just as I raised my arms, she shouted in her mind. [D- Don't you dare! No! Absolutely no! I'm a dragon and a girl at that! You can bathe in mud for all I care, but you can't force me into that! If our life would depend on it, then I wouldn't mind, but when we can kill it quite easily anyway, then why would I dirty myself!?]
Alice explained her reasons through our bond while she took a defensive position against me, fearing that I'd push her into the mud. She stood in a karate position!? I couldn't stop myself from letting out a small chuckle, which was heard by the tiger... Such a noob mistake!? We were in our battle forms and when I looked to the side to look at the charging tiger, Alice used her tail for an underhanded method!
She coiled it around my arm and with a smirking face, she pulled on it. Our tails were powerful and they were perfect for sudden and underhanded attacks. My body was propelled forward and I landed face first in the mud. The tiger ran past my original place as it shut its mouth on air. Of course, I saw this through Alice's eyes as I don't have eyes on my back...
Alice kicked the tiger's side, making it fly in the air. [Ah~ My dragoness is so awesome! A beautiful, blonde dragon with horns, wings and a tail is standing in front of me! And she is completely mine!!!] I felt elated upon seeing her from behind. I swear that even her scales only made her sexier. If only she would pull back her scales at a few parts...
We will have to try this out in the future! Thanks to her kick, it changed its target to Alice. Out of that reason, it didn’t look out for its back that much, so I quickly jumped out of the mud, onto its back and wounded it on its left and right front shoulders. Thanks to the runes and enchantments on our weapons, it wasn't hard to wound the tiger, even though it had thick fur.
Originally I wanted to attack its head and go for the kill, but this was a powerful monster so it reacted quickly. If I would have tried to reach for its head, I'd have been bitten! So all I could do was to wound it on its front shoulders. But this was good enough. Now it would be considerably slower making it easier for us to attack it!
We didn’t have to fight for a long time before we finally beheaded the huge monster. It fell to the ground lifeless and headless, then it soon turned into a stream of energy, then this stream of energy compressed into a pair of earrings.
[It’s yours! I’d never put on an earring. It even has a girly design. I’d rather go to hell than to wear this!] I quickly denied even the thought of it as I felt a shudder run through my back. I don't understand why did even guys start wearing earrings... It's creepy and...
[You clearly hate earrings fufu~] Alice remarked with a small laugh as she cleaned my body of mud with her energy. [No it’s okay for girls, but I’m not a girl...] I thought grudgingly as I handed over to her the earrings. Since I was the one to behead the monster, it was in my hands.
[That, I KNOW! Women can’t make me feel as good as you~] Alice complimented me as she pressed her body against mine. She was just trying to escape her punishment! I wanted to jump to the side, but she propelled me into the mud instead! I wanted to pinch into her buttocks, but her scales protected them, so in the end, I bit on her nose.
She rubbed it with her scaly fingers as she also grabbed onto the tip of my tail as a revenge... doing such a thing, felt as if she would have put her finger into my asshole! My whole body stiffened as I jumped forward and looked back at her grudgingly. "Just you wait, you little succubus! You will pay for this, hahaha-" I said with an evil laugh.
"Eh? C- Can't you just forget it? You were the one who wanted to push me into the mud! I- It was your fault!" She said while she started backing away as her eyes were darting all over the place. I moved towards her with an evil smile. In the end, she stumbled on a rock and she fell into the mud behind her. I laughed at her misfortune loudly.
She made a pouting face and after grabbing onto a ball of mud, she threw it at my face. I quickly tilted my head to the side to dodge it, but she also used her tail and the second one hit my face. "Let's play, you stupid dragoness!" I said as I cleaned my face. We played for a few minutes before stopping. Both of us were dirty and sat next to each other while embracing each other.
We used our energies to clean ourselves. Alice's spotless white skin and her beautiful blonde hair were once again the same. Even her scales and clothes were completely clean, just like mine. I stood up as I extended my hand out and helped her up. "Shall we go? My dragoness~" I questioned her happily
She gave a kiss on my face and coiled her tail around my arms as she started pulling on me, and I naturally, followed after her. This time there wasn’t any kind of explanation or note about the treasure, but when I touched it, knowledge flowed into my mind about it and naturally, Alice too learned of it, through our connected minds.
It looked like two tiny white crystals and it increased the regeneration speed of the wearer's mind power. [I'll do something like this for you. It's not too hard anyway.] Alice offered up while we were walking towards the resting room. [Yaay~Alice’s handjob is wonderful!] I thought, thinking about her handmade jewelry for me.
[This could be totally misinterpreted. But most certainly it would be true in both ways! Hehe~] Alice remarked, which made me realize the weight of my words. I didn't even notice... [And you are even proudly posing. What a lustful succubus, always thinking of perverted things. Whatever I’m leaving.] I remarked upon seeing her sticking out her chest, proudly.
[...] She didn't say anything with her widely opened eyes. She stood there for a moment and I left her there as if I had no relation to this whole thing. It was funny to see her face. "Just you wait. Being cocky? I’ll see about this later!” Alice shouted after me, with a threatening hand movement, while one of his hands were on her hips.
We have never argued seriously, nor do we intend to. The most we did were such little joking banterings, which we would simply laugh at. I really love this girl!