Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-244

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Reaching floor 64, we encountered a long passage that was surrounded by small rooms, the rooms were covered on mummified corals of various colors. The beautiful azure, pink, green, and orange of the corals contrasted heavily with the dungeon massive walls made of old-looking clay bricks. The monsters that walked around the long hall were humanoid Chimeras named Chimera Fishmen. Now instead of representing one species of fish, these fishmen were a combination of various unrelated species, generating disgusting-looking monsters. Some had the head of a long Eel but claws of a Crab, others had massive shells, tentacles, and free menacing shark heads, and others had the head of crabs and the tail of a fish, wearing a shelled armor.

After taking a whole day to rest, my family was enthusiastic about fighting and killing monsters, and my children were allowed to take on the first groups that we encountered while we explored the rooms at a fast pace. I was quite worried about the traps scattered around, but I now had a new ability that I developed using my Aura when I had all of those armors, which seemed to stay permanently.

Infusing Thunder Magic on my Aura, I was able to expand it over five hundred meters, covering the entirety of the Dungeon, and while manipulating my Aura, I created powerful yet small Thunder Shocks that targeted each Trap Artifact that entered on my domain, easily blasting these Artifacts to pieces without much effort. My Slime Clones were now given the task to gather the loot in each room instead, and also the pieces of the destroyed Trap Artifacts, as I saw some value even in the small bits.

After my children took around six groups of around twenty to thirty Chimera Fishmen, my wives and the Fire Onis also entered the fight. The Fire Onis were having a lot of hardships as even an individual Chimera Fishmen could easily fight against Oga and overpower her in some things. These Fishmen had amazing magic manipulation but weren't separated in classes, all Chimeras had a magic affinity, being mostly Water, Earth, and the occasional Thunder, who were mostly part Eel.

The rest of my wives didn't have many hardships, even when fighting alone, they had polished their strength a lot lately, they were more than ready to take on big groups of monsters by themselves, even with the powerful Magic and Physical power of the Chimera Fishmen, they needed big groups to even put a fight against my wives, even against the weakest, who was Ismena, they were having hardships. Ismena was easily evading their attacks with her light armor while releasing powerful Spells based on Monster's Skills. She also gained some Spells from these Chimeras and her Grimoire shined brightly, seemingly close to a qualitative change.

I joined in when we encountered a big group of over eighty Chimera Fishmen, everyone had fought a lot so I had these eighty for myself. I devastated them with my Aura alone, frying them with powerful Dark Thunders. I also learned how to devour with my Aura without the need of using the Armor as a catalyst. The method had become deeply engraved on my mind after doing it so many times before. By devouring beings with my Aura, I would receive energy almost automatically into my Physique and Soul, which I used to nourish them passively. This was indeed something that only someone with [Devour] and a Spiritual Aura like myself could even accomplish. Amiphossia and Valentia had tried to eat with their Auras, but it was useless, they couldn't do it.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 194.509.503 EXP (Includes EXP gave from her party members like Family)]

[LEVEL 042/250 EXP 650.528.822/890.000.0000 EXP]

Although I devoured around a hundred, no Skills were obtained, perhaps because I had already eaten a Chimera Boss three times. I also tried to use [Assimilation] on them, but although I assimilated a ton of their parts, nothing was obtained either.

Having looted the rooms, we found plenty of equipment of [Mythical+] rarity, Gold, and precious gemstones or minerals. There were also different types of potions, some having strange effects like the [Crazed Plant Potion], which literally makes plants become monsters for whatever reason.

Other potions were more beneficial, like [Subclass EXP Potions], which were very rare, I gave some to Rimuru and she quickly gained some knowledge on her Alchemist Subclass, if someone has various subclasses, it gives EXP at random between these fields, she luckily got the most EXP into [Novice Alchemist] and ended up "promoting" her Subclass into [Alchemist Scholar].

Demi-Humans or Monsters like Rimuru cannot evolve Classes or Subclasses like Humans, but we can "promote" classes, which just replace our class with a better one but it doesn't come with the amazing benefits of Class Evolution.

I was looking through the chests and found some [EXP Potions], these gave 50000 and 300000 EXP each, although I could drink them, the EXP that I need to level up it's absurd and these potions would be wasted, I just saved them for now, I could feed them to a newborn child of mine, perhaps.

We swiftly reached floor 65 through the long stairs. Stairs this time were filled with traps as well, but I quickly destroyed all of them with my Thunder Shocks generated from my Aura. Monsters appeared in big waves but were killed easily with my Aura as well, devouring them and nourishing my Physique and Psyche.

Floor 65 was a breeze, the monsters weren't different from the previous floor and the rooms were scattered around in areas, we decided to just ignore the treasures and keep on moving. On our way towards the next floor, we found a group of ten Chimera Fishmen Mini-Bosses. They held quite the punch and were good practice dummies for my children, who still were developing their Auras. However, through the training yesterday, I could easily feel that Ryo and Amiphossia had increased their strength a lot, they were at least three times as stronger than before.

Ryo also practiced with his Transformation Skill, turning into a powerful and muscular eight-armed red Ashura. He noticed that he could hold his transformation for way longer without any burdens to his body, realizing that this was most likely due to his control over his energy and Aura, as he had learned how to passively garner his Aura inside of his body, permanently increasing his physical capabilities beyond superhuman.

Amiphossia changed positions from time to time but used her new Magic Pool to generate stronger Spells and powerful combinations of techniques with her dual Icy Swords. She was even able to release Phantasmagoric Slashes that could freeze a whole Chimera Fishmen Mini-Boss of over fifteen meters tall. She also used her Aura in various ways, one of them was by adding Heavenly Medicine Magic, and expanding it to heal her siblings and boost their abilities. She was very flexible and could control the whole battlefield with her capabilities.

Valentia on the other side was learning more about how to use her Dominating Aura and was now enhancing her muscles to bulge immensely, this created qualitative change son her body, increasing her size, transforming into a Titan of over ten meters tall.

When she transformed into this Titan, her [Monster Hand] also reacted to this, expanding its deep black scales through her entire arm and reaching her shoulder, it transformed into a powerful Shadow Wyvern head, in the shoulder part there were its wings as well, and if Valentia could manage to transform extend to her other shoulders, she would be able to fly, even with her massive size. The Wyvern Overlord's children were way bigger than her and could easily fly without any problems. Also, as her transformation became better, her Dominating Aura would fuse with a Shadow Aura from her arm, becoming more intense and aggressive.

While they practiced, more armies of Fishmen would appear from time to time, which I would get rid of with my wives. When we reached floor 66, I took around two hundred Chimera Fishmen with my Aura alone. Although I ate most of them with my Aura, I still snacked on some with my mouth too, they were quite good if grilled, the flavors varied a lot of because of the different types of meats, but it was like eating something new with each Fishmen due to their variety. A nice Soy Sauce would come amazingly well with them, sadly, there isn't anything similar to that in here.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 227.192.120 EXP (Includes EXP gave from her party members like Family)]

[LEVEL 042/250 EXP 877.720.942/890.000.0000 EXP]

Just like floor 65, floor 66 was filled with monsters like Chimeras, this time Fishmen weren't the only thing, as the monsters were just crazed beast instead of organized humanoids. The beast would charge at us whenever they felt our presence, and it was getting normal for the Chimera Beast to be Giants of over ten meters tall.

Groups of around ten to twenty were common through all of the floors, but we quickly disposed of them with overwhelming strength and cooperation. My children gained the most EXP here and also learned more about their powers. Valentia seemed to be on a rampage as she destroyed anything on her way, her [Monster Hand] expanded its black scales through her back and breast, reaching her belly and then her other shoulder. When this happened, she obtained another Shadow Wyvern Wing, but she didn't know how to use them.

Valentia was getting stronger but her personality also became wilder, due to this, and with Amiphossia's help, we created a "tranquilizing mist" that calmed her down. It didn't hinder her at all, but made her nature more composed, she actually thanked us for this afterward, saying that her [Monster Arm] forces her to act like a beast. Hm… I wonder how could I deal with this… Perhaps an accessory of some kind could work.

After killing the Desert-Adapted Fish Chimera Beasts, another group tried to block us from going down the stairs, and suddenly various Spawn Artifacts appeared inside of small rooms surrounding us, which we ignored. However, unlike other times I wasn't going to sit and watch how an army came our way. In a second, I blasted the Spawn Artifacts with my Thunder Shocks using my Aura, and then fried the Chimera Beasts in front of us alive, they were around thirty, not so much.

Going down through the stairs, we easily reached floor 67.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 232.542.338 EXP (Includes EXP gave from her party members like Family)]

[Kireina] gained one level!]

[LEVEL 043/250 EXP 220.263.280/1.100.000.000 EXP]

Oh damn, I already need over a billion EXP?! This is getting out of hand. If it wasn't for the various EXP bonus from my blessings coupled with my buffing skills, I would never gain as much EXP as I am gaining here.

At floor 67 the Chimera Beast became very common and now were around ten to twelve meters of size, big groups of behemoths blocked our way all the time, and some even had Thunder Immunity all out of the sudden, so I had to use something else than Thunder to kill them. Then I used Fire. Although I used the Thunder to destroy the Traps, I enhanced my Aura with the Fire Attribute and created powerful spirals of fire with ease.

Using my Aura to do elemental attacks similar to Spells was even easier than casting spells themselves, I also had better control, as my Spells tend to be chaotic. Maybe when I learn the arts of Refined Magic like Zehe and Rimuru, I could use my Magic more majestically.

The Chimera Beast came in big groups, but were all roasted, the ones that survived, were turned into massive piles of minced meat and shattered bones. The big beasts were delicious and their big bodies contained amazing quantities of meat, I happily devoured many of them with both my body and Aura.

We explored some rooms with treasures and traps and then went towards floor 68 through the stairs.

On floor 68, the amount of Chimera Beast increased and their forms were more horrifying and mutant-like. There was also a lot of giant eggs that contained hundreds of small Chimeras inside. I detected that such eggs weren't produced naturally by the Dungeon Monsters and that at some time in the past a Monster was born here with the capacity of laying eggs. We mostly massacred this floor with a quick showcase of magic spells. It was quite a dull floor with a straight corridor, we ignored most of the small rooms and keep descending to the next floor…

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 271.982.130 EXP (Includes EXP gave from her party members like Family)]

[LEVEL 043/250 EXP 492.245.410/1.100.000.000 EXP]

When we reached floor 69, we found something quite disturbing, but interesting. A massive fleshy being was residing there instead of the Boss, its body had hundreds of tentacles and crab claws, thousands of eyes and mouths. The fleshy Chimera was sticking on the Dungeon, passively absorbing the delicious Dungeon Energy and nourishing itself while creating Chimera Beasts Eggs. The Boss Floor Door was wide open as hundreds of fleshy tentacles spread through the walls, tightly engraved in the bricks.

The monster was named [Demonic Mother of the Sea Chimera]. It seemed like it couldn't move at all on its own, and was just laying eggs while absorbing energy when it noticed us, it yelled in a horrible screech as she commanded hundreds of Chimera Beast to kill us.

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