313. Goddess, and Empress (3)
313. Goddess, and Empress (3)
- 1 -
"Kuhk! You... bitch...!"
Saya's sword, swung like lightning, precisely pierced Botis's chest.
The sensation of the blade tearing flesh and shattering bone. That sensation alone was unmistakable.
But he didn't even bat an eye.
Instead, he laughed.
Cheolpeok—
A black slime oozed from his body, and dozens of sticky tentacles shot out in an instant.
His intent to ensnare her and do who knew what was clear.
「Salneung」
Shue stopped him.
From Shue's torn arm, streams of blood rose up, and a surge of crimson power erupted from Botis.
Pu-eok!!
"Keuk...!"
As his already unsightly form was further ruined, Botis's body twisted violently.
No matter that he was a Marquess of the Demon Tribe, when his blood and flesh writhed from inside, there was nothing he could do.
"「Samido Sahwa Sipja Yotongryeong」...!"
Yuran used a spell with noticeably lower power than before.
She had wiped it away, but bloodstains were still vivid around her lips.
Yet even under such strained circumstances, her control shone through.
Hwareuk!
Golden flames were summoned in a cross shape.
Though Yuran herself despised them, objectively they were the utterly beautiful flames of the White-faced Golden-furred Nine-tailed Fox—sweeping through the surroundings before tightening around Botis.
Following Yuran's outstretched hand, those flames bound Botis's body, adorning him with golden cords.
"Keuk...?!"
Botis's eyes, set in a contorted face, darted around.
Following Yuran and Shue, Saya had joined in.
Anyone could guess that she was on par with, or even stronger than, the two women.
And Botis himself was already having considerable difficulty handling just the two.
'This isn't the time to conserve strength.'
Reaching that conclusion was only natural.
He placed his hand on his own mask.
The moment the silver mask resembling the one Dantalion wore was stripped away—
Udeudeuk!!
His body began to swell grotesquely all over.
"Like we'd wait...!"
Saya's hair and entire body were bathed in a crimson glow.
The mask covering her shoulders distinctly displayed 'anger'.
Though it was customary to wait politely while someone transformed, they had no courtesy to spare for him.
「Jeokwonsimno - Yeolhwabyeokryeok」
Kwarureureung!!
Dozens of lightning-wreathed slashes poured down.
Each one was a swift killing sword that could carve out the neck and heart of an average demon.
Unfortunately, however, they severed not vitals but merely individual tentacles.
The attacks from Shue and Ran that followed suit were the same.
Chwarararak — !!
The scaled mouth hidden beneath the mask elongated forward.
And then...
Kwajik!
With a tearing sound, it split into four snouts.
From the wound in his abdomen, dark red tentacles gushed out like a waterfall.
They coiled around Botis's arms and legs.
In an instant, he was transforming into a mass of thicker, more numerous, and even more repulsive tentacles.
The stench of rotting meat wafted through the air.
"I never get used to that sight, no matter how many times I see it..."
Shue shuddered slightly, watching the dozens of eyes the mask had hidden spread across his face and forehead.
- This is the power my master bestowed upon me...!
The voice began to carry an inhuman resonance, and Botis's completed form was far more hideous than before.
It was as if hundreds of tentacles wrapped in scales oozing filthy oil had taken the shape of a human figure.
The dozens of eyes on his head rolled in all directions, searching for enemies and victims.
- Taste the power bestowed by Lord Dantalion...!
Kwakwakwang!!
The nearby floor shattered as his tentacles grew outward in all directions.
Teeth, claws, and eyes sprouted bizarrely at the ends of the grotesquely growing giant tentacles, trying to devour everything they touched.
Shue threw herself away urgently to rescue Ran, while Saya vanished into the shadows and reappeared far away.
At that moment, Yuran whispered quietly.
"Master has awakened. She's in a stabilization phase now."
Her sensitive senses hadn't missed what was happening beyond the door, even amidst the battle.
"We have to hold out."
"So that thing doesn't harm Master's retainers."
Shue and Saya looked at each other and spoke simultaneously.
Their eyes were filled with nothing but determination.
Amid the tremors shaking the entire dungeon, Botis's body grew even larger.
- 2 -
"There is definitely combat happening above."
Kallin raised his head and looked up at the ceiling.
Dust pattered down, covering his shoulders in white.
"Is this truly an elite-grade dungeon? The sounds we've been hearing..."
His face was full of anxiety.
'It's dangerous here. It'd be best to get out if we can.'
It was because the instincts of a 15-year veteran dungeon explorer had set off warning bells.
Even as the adventurers cautiously climbed and explored, the shocks and explosions from the stairs they were ascending never stopped.
They hadn't found a single monster, but they had found traces everywhere that the monsters had been living here.
All those monsters had already headed upward.
"The number of traces we've identified so far is considerable. Whatever battle is going on up there... well, if you're here, Lady Nix, surely there won't be a problem..."
"We keep going."
There wasn't a shred of hesitation in Jin Soha's voice.
Behind her, as she looked back at the other adventurers, a black shadow wriggled ominously.
"As you said, I'm here, so there shouldn't be a problem, right?"
'Fuck. You'd be fine, maybe...!'
Kallin cursed internally.
No matter how he thought about it, up there was dangerous.
An adventurer's instinct whispered to him. That this place could become his grave if he wasn't careful.
The other adventurers' eyes showed they agreed, but since Nix had taken the lead, they had no choice but to press on for now.
Because there was a 'hero' who said with her eyes that she would kill them if they mentioned retreating.
If a monarch-grade adventurer with wounded pride targeted them from behind, they would be dead with no way out.
"That is...?"
The scene that unfolded before the adventurers who had climbed up was one of monsters trying to kill each other.
"A sight I've seen in history books. It seems to be a war between dungeons."
Kallin spoke while raising the sword in his hand, but no one answered him.
It was a battlefield where distinguishing friend from foe was unclear.
Judging by appearance, one side was distinctly beautiful and refined, yet they were defending the dungeon rooms, while the attacking side clearly displayed appearances and abilities hostile to humans.
"Why hesitate. If they're monsters, we can just kill them all. But for now..."
Soha's eyes swept past the monsters and looked toward the entrance of the core room.
Whether due to the intensity of the battle, entangled among hundreds of monsters, no one was properly guarding the front of the core room.
If the function of that core was stopped, the dungeon's monsters would naturally weaken.
"We can seize the core first, then wait for both forces to weaken."
Kallin and the adventurers smiled in relief, gripping their weapons.
Luckily, the adventurers found themselves in a position where they stood only to gain.
But that dream couldn't be realized right away.
Because a single knight appeared before the adventurers.
'No, that's not right.'
Kallin's eyes went to the helmet she wore, adorned at the top with a decoration shaped like a tiara.
That helmet was an ornament carrying a shared meaning for both humans and monsters.
King. It was a queen.
A monster queen stood there, holding a large greatsword, her horned black helmet pressed low, staring at the adventurers with pitch-black eyes beneath.
Looking at her, Kallin swallowed his bewilderment.
She was extraordinary at first glance.
Her power was hard to gauge, but it was clear she was, at minimum, a monster possessing abilities similar to his own.
But such an entity wasn't alone.
The door behind the queen opened wider, and dozens of elite monsters filed out, standing before the adventurers.
Stepping forward before them were three more queens.
Cheolkeong!
The Harpy Queen stepped forward, wielding a crimson glaive shaped like a sharply torn moon.
"We have more guests."
The Alraune Queen of some unknown black flower, her flowers and body shimmering with seven-colored light.
"So many are looking for a grave."
The White Lamia Queen glared at them, coiled on her eerily thick, white-scaled tail.
"Wait. That Lamia, could she be from Arilit's...?"
"Shut up, boy. Why would that countess be here."
Among them, adventurers who vaguely recognized the Lamia Countess's appearance entertained the possibility, but it was dismissed immediately.
"Isn't this too much no matter how you look at it...?"
The thirteen heroes: it was said that with two, one could contend with a Demon Realm Archduke, and if three gathered, victory was certain.
That story applied to the ranks below as well.
Even for a monarch-grade adventurer, dealing with more than two high-ranked monsters at once wasn't easy.
Even if Kallin himself took on one, if two others stalled Nix, one queen would remain.
What if that remaining one actively moved around to kill the other adventurers?
'Even if we win, it'll be a Pyrrhic victory!'
As the other adventurers hesitated in the face of such overwhelming odds.
"You wouldn't just step aside quietly anyway, would you."
One person had already begun to act.
Pu-eok!!!
"What...?"
The queens who had been raising their fighting spirit before the enemy lost that momentum and stared at the adventurers in bewilderment.
It was because something unbelievable had just happened before their eyes.
"My fingers must have dulled. I couldn't kill you all in one blow."
Jin Soha, the continent's greatest adventurer known by the alias 'Nix', the 'Empress of the Night'.
The shadow that rose from beneath her feet had struck down and killed all of her followers and every adventurer except one in a single blow.
"... Cough! Why... why on earth...?"
Only Kallin, who had barely twisted his body at the last moment, survived.
He was sprawled on the floor, his stomach completely pierced through.
The pool of blood gradually widened.
His eyes were filled with betrayal, terror, and despair.
All his comrades were dead. Only he had survived.
But even that would only be for a moment.
- 3 -
Kurureung...!!
The moment my words ended, the entire 'world' shook as if an earthquake had struck.
『...It seems we only have a short time left.』
The veil draped over 'Mother's form wavered for a moment.
I couldn't tell if she had stirred because of my question, or if there was another reason.
『You had deduced the self-completeness of transcendent beings.』
'Mother' casually read my past thoughts.
The gravity in her voice pressed down upon the space.
A starlight-like smile briefly flickered.
『That is correct. The end I foresaw had drawn near, and so I gave birth to you. To prepare for what came after me. But... my world had no means to nourish a young soul. More precisely, it had disappeared.』
But that smile vanished as quickly as it had formed.
It was pain. Mother's pain.
『So I had no choice but to send you to various places. For the final one, I sent you to the most peaceful world, the most tranquil nation. So you could survive on your own, if need be. To protect you from my competitors.』
I swallowed a bitter smile as I listened to those words. 'Peaceful'... there was no greater delusion than this.
Though the patterns differed from this world, and the forms varied by the nations of that place, everyone there had been carrying their own chaos.
But that was from my perspective. To her, it might have been different.
『But you did not fit into that world. No, our kind did not fit there. So I brought you here, to rearrange your final life.』
- Brought me... you say.
『For you and I began here.』
'Mother' nodded at my words, and her giant hand gently caressed my head.
I tried to keep my eyes open, but I felt them closing naturally.
A comfortable cradle. Those words and the concept came to mind naturally.
『But when you returned, there was no suitable body for you. I had to arrange a new body for you.』
Her fingertip pointed between my breasts.
『The immense dignity of your soul granted you power matching that world, as it always had... but you were never 'lucky'. For you were always a foreign substance in those worlds.』
'Luck,' she said.
I recalled my family back on Earth.
It wasn't something to be dismissed as mere 'luck', but I decided to let it go.
It was a matter long past, and resolved...
And her standards and mine would be vastly different.
『So this time, I prepared a proper 'anchor'. Your current body.』
Her fingertip rose again and stroked my chin.
That touch was sorrowful.
『You are, after all, my child. After all. However, what I didn't expect was...』
Beneath the face momentarily concealed by a drawn veil, her lips curved into an arc.
Starlight clung to those lips and sparkled.
『That the moment I gave birth to you, the moment I laid eyes on you, I would want to delay my own self-completion.』
Those words were steeped in an intense 'love'.
- This is...
『Something you should enjoy.』
The touch she conveyed to me unraveled 'something' within my inner self.
It was a kind of 'essence'.
『Please, grow. My child. Grow even more. Doing everything you wish to do.』
In that moment, the world around me shook even more violently.
She was still graceful, but she opened her mouth with a slightly hurried air.
『It is time to go. Your retainers are about to collapse. Listen. My name is ...』
The final moment with 'Mother'.
I focused all my attention on her words.