Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-225

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After my children killed the fifty Desert Tunas that attacked us, we explored some rooms and found plenty of treasure chest, they were filled with new materials, and various gemstones related to water and the ocean. The gold inside was no longer just plain golden gold, but there were new variations of gold ingots and coins, made of Aquamarine Gold, a special type of Gold infused with the Water Element. There were also Ocean Sapphires, Azure Dragon Scales, Megalodon Tooth, and more items inside of the chests, that could make excellent equipment of at least [Unique+] quality!

As we descended further, we encountered an area filled with more than thirty rooms on one single floor, each room was filled with deadly traps that I quickly disarmed in time. The monsters inside varied between Desert Floating Tunas and the Desert Floating Sharks, alongside a new species of Octopus. These monsters had one hundred tentacles and were covered on rough and hard skin, their tentacles had hundreds of small and incredibly sharp blades that they used to capture their prey and rip them to shreds.

Because there were so many rooms filled with monsters, we momentarily separated our group between the floor as we explored the rooms. I made sure to bring some Slime Clones in each member of my group as well.

The rooms I explored accompanied by some of my wives (Brontes, Ismena, Acelina, and Adelle) were filled with this new Octopus, who could throw a powerful ink from their mouth, capable of blinding whatever it hit, the ink also had the properties of making a person vulnerable to fire and becoming inflammable, this beneficed the damned Octopus as their next attack was always fireballs. These monsters not only had their powerful slicing tentacles but could grill someone alive if they wanted to.

However, we didn't let them do anything to us before we completely smashed their gelatinous bodies to the ground, using our overwhelming strength, I and my wives annihilated any monster that came our way. I even grilled some of them alive so they could know how it felt, and then devoured it right there. After grilling the tentacles, the meat inside becomes fatty and tender, dripping delicious salty juices. The saltiness of the tender white meat went well with a sweet sauce and the occasional cup of spicy grain wine.

Brontes and Adelle enjoyed the delicious monster with me right there, however, Ismena and Acelina seemed a little bit grossed out by eating something that was one second ago alive, the tentacles were in fact still moving and struggling while being grilled alive, oh well, I bet they also ate plenty of living victims like this, so no remorse, they were also delicious. The two royal girls still ended up eating the grilled tentacles with a small chopstick and fell in love with the refined salty flavor, the two voraciously ate the tentacles even if they moved and struggled disgustingly. They also praised my choice of sweet sauce and spicy grain wine; the combination of flavors really went well!

After opening some of the chests and gathering more Aquamarine Gold, Ocean Sapphires, Low-Rank Equipment, and other materials, we proceeded through more rooms. On our way to our fifth room, I sensed a small hint of danger, it seems that one of my children was in some struggle!

I quickly expanded my Aura around the entire floor and quickly detected the problem, it was Ailine who had fallen on another trap, just like Vudia before. These damned teleportation traps were getting pretty boring and old, dungeons.

I rushed to save her as I found her a little bit tired, she had already annihilated all the monster that surrounded her and now there was only a pile of minced flesh and shattered bones. The monsters were barely recognizable, around twenty Desert Sharks and five Octopus. Ailine just expanded her magic domain and blasted them away with her amazingly potent magic, nothing to fear I suppose. Her Azure Gemstone Tattoo had activated and her barriers were getting shattered though, so the monsters on this dungeon were already able to damage this type of barrier with their raw attacks.

Due to this I decided to leave three magic barriers over Ailine's body, she then devoured all the mushy of flesh on the floor, expanding her body like slime and digesting everything in a matter of seconds, afterward I carried her on my arms out of the room, she liked to be treated like a princess so she didn't complain about my treatment.

When I regrouped with my family, I decided to completely clean the floor off traps so things like these wouldn't happen again. It took roughly half an hour but it was done. My Slime Clones came back with thousands of different traps devices, I was quite shocked but saved it all on my Item Box. This dungeon has a serious obsession with traps and not the cute kind of trap.

Finally having this issue over with, everyone went once again on their respective explorations. Ailine liked to be with me so I added her to our party and with her powerful magic I didn't even need to act at all, we just walked as she blasted everything. Even the high defense Scaled Desert Sharks needed just a few more magic attacks to explode into pieces.

As we sweep through the floor, we gathered plenty of treasures and new equipment, and coincidently enough a lot of it was [Unique++] Mage equipment, from accessories to dresses, hats, boots and more, so I gave them to Ailine, she was always wearing her own personal equipment that came from her [Slime Core]. Although she didn't want to wear something new, I taught her how to assimilate equipment into her own [Organic Equipment].

Because she was so talented it took her less than half an hour, her entire set of Mage Equipment was enhanced with the new assimilated items. It had now a beautiful silver luster with small Aquamarine Gold decorations, her entire robes emitted a new aura that resembled that of a calming Ocean, it seems that through this method, [Organic Equipment] can evolve. I had already spectated this with the Demon Trio, but seeing it in much detail with Ailine was very interesting.

This new equipment brought to Ailine even stronger magic power and new resistances and other stats like Speed and even Charisma. She was a very charismatic girl anyways.

I also let Ismena and Acelina practice their new spells and skills on the monsters, as they were still rather weak compared to my other wives, like Brontes who was just at my side chatting and playing around with Ailine. Ailine liked Brontes a lot and Brontes treated her as another of her children, letting her sit on her strong and sturdy muscular shoulders, Ailine had a small obsession over being on high heights and liked to be carried around like this.

Ismena made sure to [Record] a lot of the monster's skills using her [Grimoire of Wisdom and Judgement], she was getting stronger as she accumulated more and more skills from different places. Her Grimoire was a [Phantasmal] class item that was connected to her soul in a powerful Life and Death contract if Ismene dies so will her Grimoire, this connection also meant that Ismene could draw the Grimoire's power easily, and become stronger faster as well.

Every time Ismene absorbed Skills with the Skill [Record], a small description of the skill would appear in her Grimoire alongside other letters written with magic, she was able to read through her Grimoire and select any Skill she wanted to attack. If the skills were from wild monsters, the Grimoire would summon the phantom of the monster, who would release the powerful attack to the direction Ismene wanted.

For example, Ismene had recently recorded the Skill [Ferocious Bloody Bite of the Sand Shark] from the Desert Sharks. Every time she cast the Skill, it would work more like a Spell and summon the phantom of a big Sand Shark that would voraciously bite its target without missing. Other Skills were also the ability to spit flammable Ink and Fireballs from the Desert Octopus.

Acelina on the other side, developed her movements and speed, boosting it with her new Heavenly Gold Wind Magic, she increased the speed of her body and was slowly learning how to fly with it even. Her combat style has been shifting into a more aggressive one, forming Spears, Swords or Axes made of the Heavenly Gold Wind to attack her enemies, making them fall like a deadly rain of sharp weapons.

Although both Acelina and Ismene had similar looks with azure blue and long silky hair alongside shiny golden eyes, they had different fighting styles and ages. Ismene was younger and more youthful while having a distinct "grace" on her movements, like a majestic princess. Meanwhile, Acelina was older than her, of around 30+ years, however, her beauty made her resemble a young woman in her twenties, she had a more refined and cocky attitude, while always wearing a smug on her face whenever she triumphed over her adversaries.

As two more hours went by, we meet once again with my family and found Oga's group who was incredibly tired, they went with Zehe's group funnily enough, and Zehe still didn't forgive her for her insolence some days ago, so she probably made Oga overwork to the bone.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 87.849.120 EXP] [Demonic Concubines], [Chaos Bringer Children], [Fire Red Oni] Parties gained lots of EXP]

[Kireina] gained one level!] [LEVEL 039/250 EXP 005.429.370/580.000.0000 EXP]

We decided to have a slight lunch with the monsters captured, the Desert Tuna, Sharks and Octopus were incredibly delicious, so they made a meal by themselves, without needing anything more than some liquor to make it perfect.

After devouring the big pile of desert-adapted sea monsters as if it was nothing, we proceeded through the labyrinth's lower floors with expectations of what to devour next. Not long after descending to the floor 50, we encountered a group of new monsters in the form of Giant Lobsters.

These Lobsters shined in bright rainbow colors, being of red, blue, green, yellow, and purple. They had massive claws and long bodies with several sections covered on a thick exoskeleton that resembled armor. They had two claws although one seemed small and atrophied, the other one was massive and held the ability to shoot bullets made of air pressure that could easily penetrate through flesh and leave massive bloody holes, these monsters were named Giant Rainbow Lobster Gunner.

The trick to defeating such deadly enemies was to just obviously kill them before they could kill us with their incredibly fast air pressured bullets. There was plenty of layers of defense on my group so even if the Azure Gemstone Tattoos didn't work, the barriers I left would take effect, and even if that didn't their own shields could help them, and if that didn't help I could just cast a new shield over them or even use my Azure Sand as improvised protection.

I saw as Charlotte blasted most of the Lobsters with her Magic Cannon from afar, making most of the ones who were charging at them stop. Charlotte then proceeded to inspect her Magic Cannon and reload her bullets; she was very attentive to her weapon performance and didn't care about the reactions of my family over her ruining the fun. Anyways, another group appeared accompanied by a Giant Six-Clawed Crabs as well, this time we didn't let Charlotte kill everything.

Amiphossia charged in the front of my children group, using her powerful rapier-like longswords, one was the combination of the Shortsword [Basilisk Tongue] and the [Ice Fairy Empress Rapier] and the other was a [Legendary] relic, the [Cold Winter Empress Long Sword; Fjorm]. With both of these weapons, Amiphossia danced around with her long snake tail, giving powerful and agile jumps while releasing a strong storm of ice that released small and sharp ice needles, penetrating the sturdy defenses of the crustacean monsters.

Then, the monsters suddenly were completely frozen and Amiphossia finished them off by slicing their bodies in half. Amiphossia had been training with swords since she was born, alongside her powerful and particular magic she had become a strong Spell Knight giving her the ability to infuse her swords with magic and releasing strong strokes and slashes. Alongside this, she is a wonderful healer as well, and an even stronger Phantasmal Manipulator, she is just very talented and by working hard, her talents flourish even more.

I saw my other children exuding their strengths and working together, forming an amazing party. Also, Valentia was now showcasing new strengths and abilities that were surprising to her siblings. However, just as she was smashing a Giant Lobster, her [Monster Hand] Shadow Wyvern's head increased in size as it devoured the entire Lobster!

Afterward, Valentia's [Monster Hand] shapeshifted into a massive Shadow Lobster Claw that was able to shoot compressed Shadow bullets as well… To think that she has an assimilation ability tied to her hand, this girl was full of surprises.

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