Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-212

[Day 164]

Today in the morning I woke quite late compared to the rest, when I opened my eyes I and got outside of the portable house, I found my family already awake. The "cooking team" on my group of wives, which is composed of Rimuru as the leader, with Mady, Gaby, and Adelle as her assistants were making a delicious feast for breakfast, two massive pots were boiling with ingredients, herbs, mushrooms, meat and so on.

A pot was full of Desert Rabbit Meat, Mushrooms, and other vegetables while the other pot was boiling Girtablilu claws and legs, turning them into a bright red color while creating a delicious broth. On the other side, Nixephine and Nesiphae were grilling big pieces of meat, that were from the Giant Worm Boss, Humanoid Shadow Crows, and summoned Familiars. The delicious smell of warm and aromatic soup and the juicy grilled meat made me drool in hunger.

I found my children helping their mothers out mostly, Amiphossia and Valentia were helping with cooking. Surprisingly, Valentia was interested in something else than just fighting, and seeing her enjoy cooking really made me happy if she can concentrate on more things other than fighting, she can become a better girl in the future and not a crazed beast girl.

Brontes and Zehe were actually forging and crafting while repairing some of my other wives' equipment that got broken or in bad condition. They brought most of their workshops on their Item Box, it was very convenient. Vudia was at Brontes's side crafting her own Gold accessories, she was gifting them away to everyone, and was also equipping various herself over her cute and small body. She was also reinforcing her Golems and made some interesting designs other than floating hands and weapons.

I also noticed Altani and Acelina practicing their magic and spells. After receiving the [Legendary Hero Seed; Apheliotes] on their bodies, their strength has increased by a tenfold in the latest days and they were now showcasing new types of magic attributes. Altani Starlight magic was combined with her new Emerald Wind magic, creating a strange and dazzling Light Wind that she was able to manipulate around, she was now discovering how to use it better, even creating a few new spells in the process.

Acelina in the other hand had her Heavenly Gold magic, which after combining with Emerald Wind magic created a beautiful golden burst of winds, not as dazzling as Altani but way denser, casting her old spells to become even easier now with this new type of wind around her, and it offered extra protection on her as well.

In the end, the two sparred for a moment before breakfast, it was an interesting fight. Altani showcased incredible agility and sharp movements, mostly techniques and fighting styles learned in her Nomad Tribe, while Acelina was way more defensive and liked to stay in one single place, manipulating her new Gold Winds, she slashed around and created countless of powerful shields and weapons that attacked Altani everywhere she went.

Altani used her Dazzling Starlight Winds to evade most attacks as she enhanced her lance with powerful magic and released a strong barrage of consecutive attacks that created hundreds of afterimages, Acelina was able to block most damage with her Gold Winds Shields but ended up losing due to being easily overwhelmed, she really needed to work that body and become more agility-oriented, being defensive wasn't her thing now, and with her new Wind attribute, her agility will be cultivated with more ease.

Although both of them were completely unrelated outside of being my concubines, they learned from each other and became good friends afterward. Ismene, Lilith, and Charlotte were at the sides watching the fight as well and were amazed by their impressive performances. I wondered how it was in the case of Lilith and Charlotte, as both of them received a seed as well, the [Legendary Hero Seed; Aureola], related to Light and Holy magic.

As if she heard what I thought, Lilith a Charlotte was next on the sparring, obviously, it was a friendly fight so Lilith only used her [Unique+] Axe while Charlotte her Gunblade instead of the massive Magic Cannon. Just like the previous fight, they wanted to see their growth regarding their new magic attributes.

After awakening her hidden Half-Dwarf blood, Lilith obtained a powerful Earth Magic affinity and swiftly learned several spells related to manipulating the ground or creating powerful walls of rocks and such. After obtaining the [Legendary hero Seed; Aureola], Lilith's already strong body was reinforced even more and gained a strong growth on his Magic and Resistance stats.

Alongside this, she obtained Holy Light Magic, which after combining itself with her Earth Magic created beautiful and shining Gemstones of yellow, light brown, and white colors. She was able to mold these gemstones in different ways, similar to the Elemental Knight of Gemstones, she could create powerful barriers, projectiles, and explosive gemstones. The gemstones she created shined brightly as they attacked Charlotte without mercy, she gained a gemstone armor as well while her weapon was covered in yellow and white gemstones. Without realizing, Lilith had suddenly transformed into a beautiful and dazzling gemstone princess.

Meanwhile, Charlotte gained a strong boost on her parameters thanks to this seed and was able to break her limits and poor physique. She was able to enhance her Gunblade with her new Holy Light Magic and attack with powerful slashes of blinding lights. She was also able to throw Light arrows and powerful Light bombs, disrupting Lilith's movements. Unlike Lilith, Charlotte didn't have another element to fuse her Holy Light magic, which made her specialize in the abilities that the magic possessed.

She figured ways to increase her speed to even greater levels than Lilith and create powerful Light Shields to protect herself whenever she could, although not as strong as Lilith's gemstone shields, they were good enough for Charlotte to manage, as her nimble movements were able to give her a high evasion rate, complementing those gaps on her fighting style. However, in the end, Lilith overwhelmed Charlotte with her strength and attacks and cornered her. I'm sure things would have been different if Charlotte had used her Magic Cannon, and it may have ended up in a tie at best.

When the sparring finished everyone was called for breakfast and I joined my family. Everyone greeted me with gentle smiles while Vudia and Ailine jumped over me.

"Mama! Good morning!"

"Mommy, good morning, let's eat!"

"Good morning, my little princesses"

They were very affectionate today and both of my daughters ended up eating breakfast while sitting on my lap, it was very cute, both of them had a sweet and intoxicating scent very similar to their mothers. Although Ailine was more of a citric sweetness while Vudia had a more salty and earthy scent, it wasn't a bad one, it was quite comforting, petting their little heads would sometimes intensify this scent. I wondered if this was produced because of them having a high concentration of magic, although all my children have always smelt good, Ailine and Vudia were somewhat unique on the intensity of this scent.

After having a fulfilling meal to start the day, we packed things up and quickly resumed our exploration of the lower floors, starting from floor 24th down to the 34th floor.

Just like on our previous exploration, these floors began to converge into multiple "fake" staircases that would constantly move automatically, mixing up roads and the mental map that I make using [Mental Mapping]. The number of rooms had also increased exponentially, now going up to twenty and fifty, each one filled with treasures or ambushing and terrifying beasts awaiting easy prey.

After an hour of walking around through the different stairs while I assimilated the dungeon to make straight routes towards the lower floors, we encountered our first group of monsters, these being the walking cactuses. After the increase in power of the dungeon, these beings became even more intelligent and cunning and were awaiting us with several strategies and tactics. They even could set their own traps or modify already existing ones. Aside from this, these cactuses possessed advanced weapons and could cast strong magic.

However, even after the buff in the strength of these monsters, my family was just too much and easily massacred any groups that came our way. Even my youngest children were able to take them, big groups, by themselves as if it were a breeze, and thanks to the Guardian Tattoos, they had perfect defenses and could relax and kill to their heart's content.

Ailine and Vudia even found a massive lair of Walking Cactuses were several hundreds of them lived inside and massacred everything without leaving anything alive, there happened to be a Walking Cactus Empress, which was a massive cactus with a humanoid form and a crown of flowers, it really didn't have any human features outside of their basic body shape and their eyes and mouths were just holes, although I wondered how would it be to have sex with her, my children had already ripped her to shreds and quickly ate her sweet and juicy fruit-like interior, it was quite a delicacy.

Due to this sudden delicacy, I decided to save every corpse left to make some delicious desserts, later on, things like cakes, jelly, juices, and more would come out as refreshing snacks on this arid dungeon. I wondered if there could be a way to produce these monsters in my Kingdom, and found that inside of their bodies they had an inner core that was filled with small black seeds. I decided to save these "Seed Cores" in another place while eating a few, they were crunchy and a little bit oily, but no Skills were obtained.

As we wandered around the plentiful of rooms, we made sure to loot everything if possible, most of my wives were constantly saving several riches like big piles of gold, gemstones, and equipment, alongside interesting items like Potions, Antidotes, Totems and more.

When we came around floor 31th we encountered a couple of Giant Two-Headed Mantises which held quite the punch in strength after the dungeon buff. Their exoskeletons were as hard as steel and very hard to penetrate with normal means, even Vudia's gold projectiles did very little damage, while their massive heads spit powerful corrosive poison and their giant's scythes sliced through anything near them.

However as much as they resisted, they were quickly taken care of by some of my wives who were itching for battle like Brontes, who was bored of waiting and jumped over the two Mantises, ravaging their bodies with her Club and thundering techniques until an unrecognizable pile of pulp was left.

The moment these two Mantises died, suddenly more than fifty more appeared behind us, probably sensing the smell of their diseased comrades, they came rushing at us while showcasing strong Earth Magic and Slicing Skills. Due to the sheer amount, everyone got their time to fight and enjoy the massacre.

Nesiphae swung her massive ax as she cut through anyone who dared come to her, Nixephine crushed them with her six golden weapons and her massive scorpion tail, Rimuru used her Omni Elemental Spirit Magic to throw powerful rainbow rays that made the resilient Mantises explode in a show of colors, Zehe used her Shadow and Dark Magic to entrap the monsters in black holes putting pressure on their bodies until they died crushed by the strong gravity, Gaby danced and jumped around the battlefield swinging her two blades as she released strong water currents that transformed into giant sharks, eating the monsters with ease.

Mady stayed in the backlines while using her new Illusion Magic to disrupt the Mantises movements and making them enter in a world of nightmares until their heads literally exploded, Adelle flew like a ray of shining light as she used her thin rapier to slice the Mantises into tiny bits in less than a second, Altani manipulated Dazzling Starlight Winds to protect herself while swinging her lance into countless flashy techniques, resembling a rain of stars.

Alice ran through like a crazed lady, using her scarlet sparks and her cursed lance to slice and stab anything that came her way, Lilith tried out her new Gemstone abilities, protecting herself into a shining blinding armor while rushing through smashing anything with her Hammer and Axe and shooting gemstone projectiles, Charlotte used her Magic Cannon enhanced with her chemicals and Holy Light Magic to shoot devastating Photon Mana Rays, Ismena held her Grimoire as she invoked countless of different spells and skills that she had accumulated administrating judgment to those who dared to attack her.

Acelina created countless of lances and shields using the Heavenly Gold Winds that protected her and countered any damage they took while her lances penetrated the strong exoskeleton of the beasts without any troubles, Nanako used her powerful eyes to shoot vaporizing lasers to anything near her while manipulating her Psychic Aura into giant arms, smashing the ones who dared to closer to her and Kaguya sat calmly in the floor while conjuring countless of powerful fireballs that landed in the big groups of Mantises, burning them to a crisp, and if they ever survived the flames would shapeshift into different animals and finish the job for good.

I noticed that as the massacre kept going, the Mantises never stopped coming as their spawn points were all concentrated in one single room, bringing an almost endless wave of EXP for everyone to train and gain levels, I decided not to destroy the spawn points as I joined in the massacre with everyone, changing into my Fire and Lava Wyvern Armor, I flew around throwing powerful flames and fireballs while conjuring waves of lava over the masses and masses of beasts. For several hours we didn't do anything more than to grind EXP, indulged in the thrill of battle while letting go loose of our abilities and skills…

[Kireina] gained 214.812.939 EXP] [Demonic Concubines] and [Chaos Bringer Children] Parties gained lots of EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 035/250 EXP 023.079.711/300.000.0000 EXP]

After around nine hours of the endless massacre, the spawn points ended up malfunctioning and exploded by themselves, leaving the last wave of Mantises that was taken without much difficulty. In the end, there were countless piles of Mantises scattered everywhere, I quickly commanded my wives and my Slime Clones to gather everything for dinner, while I smacked with my children into the piles of corpses.

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