Epic Of Caterpillar

Chapter 234 - [Forsaken Labyrinth Conquest] 27/69; Walking Cactus Empress

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As we had breakfast, we enjoyed the delicious dishes made with the Chimera Boss meat. Due to being a Chimera, its body had different types of meat, fish, octopus, eel, shark, and crustaceans, it was truly a varied and delicious meal. It also came with some sweeter preparations like Slime Jelly, Walking Cactus Fruit, Cakes, and so on.

After everyone had their fill, we packed things up as we proceeded through the next floors. We were currently on floor 58, and the boss had just respawned again, but just as it appeared, it disappeared in half an hour as my family ganged on it mercilessly. Some interesting Drop Items were left like an [Mythical++] [Shark Head Chimera Scale Armor] and other accessories and equipment like this. I distributed them through my family, due to the equipment having a high affinity with Water and Earth, I gave them to Lilith, Valentia, Aarae and Gaby.

There was also the entire corpse, but because we were moving now, I quickly chopped the corpse into pieces and saved them on my Item Box.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 125.500.000 EXP]

[LEVEL 040/250 EXP 566.460.462/670.000.0000 EXP]

This Boss respawned every ten hours, so we could only kill it two times after I killed it once. Perhaps the next Bosses will also take a lot to respawn and this may be tied with their strength. The Final Boss may take weeks to respawn by this logic.

As we reached floor 59, nothing much changed from the previous eleven floors, the arid tower made of bricks alongside the mummified water life and massive bones laying around, which seemed to be the theme of the second half of the Dungeon.

After thoroughly exploring, we found several spawn points of a new type of monster, who were inside of several massive rooms. These monsters had the form of giant statues towering over ten meters tall. Each statue was made of a gray stone which was incredibly sturdy. The statues had fishmen bodies of various species and held colossal weapons made of pure gold and decorated with Spirit Stones of different types.

The statues stay calm as long as we donʼt enter the rooms, but the moment we put our feet in these rooms floor, they immediately begin to move at incredible speed, trying to kill us right away. The spawn points usually stay calm as well until we enter the room, where they begin to summon countless smaller statues that move at a slower pace but seem to be designed to support the bigger statues.

After killing a few myself I noticed that just like Golems, these statues held Magic Cores inside of them, where they accumulated the necessary magic power to move on their own. The Giant Fishmen Statues had strong and sturdy bodies and could take on various hits without worry, however, whenever they were attacked with magic, they would begin to tear apart immediately, showing the glaring weakness.

And then, because pretty much everyone is proficient with magic on my family, we swiftly killed all the statues that came our way. There were a lot of them though, and it took us some time to advance properly. I had to destroy various spawn points so they could stop bothering us. Their weapons werenʼt infused with much magic and even though they were massive and filled with Spirit Stones, these weapons were bare of [Rare++] rank. I decided to save them for now as I could convert them into ingots or dismantle them in the Kingdom.

I devoured over a hundred of the Giant and Small Statues Cores, they held quite a lot of magical power and storage capacity. They didnʼt have any taste and resembled spherical red gemstones. After devouring another few hundred I got some skills.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 73.932.182 EXP]

[LEVEL 040/250 EXP 640.392.644/670.000.0000 EXP]

[Kireina] learned the following Skills]

[Scarlet Fishmen Statue Golem Core]

[Earth Molding Magic; Fishmen Statue Golem Summoning]

The Core skill was simple, and much like a lot of the previous ones, it let me create a small Core on my body that I could use to store magic and enhance my capabilities. I decided to save it for now and perhaps fuse more of these Skills until I am about to evolve, then use them on my body so they can get upgraded like the previous time.

The Golem Summoning was like the other Golem Summoning Skill I have, by gathering a lot of Rocks I can use the skill, which will generate a small Golem Core that will manipulate the rocks into forming a Fishmen Statue, it doesnʼt include the massive weapons though so that it most likely generated by the Dungeon.

When we reached the stairs towards floor 60, we were once again ambushed by more statues, however, this time they were more aggressive and didnʼt wait for us to enter their rooms, swarming us like a group of ants. My children and wives showcased their strength and destroyed most of the wave while I used my [Azure Sapphire Dragon Armor] which I enhanced with the Wind Attribute using my Orbs on my forehead and chest.

The changes came quickly as the armor became incredibly thin and refined, with a slight light green coloration and several small emeralds as decorations, the helmet turned into an eastern dragon head while a long metallic tail grew on my back, the wings also became gigantic, resembling that of a Phoenix species of monster, the biggest bird monsters.

I flew at an incredible speed as I manipulated the currents of wind around me, which shined in emerald light. Like a burst of air, I clashed over several rooms blasting away the Spawn Points while making sure to destroy the entire rooms as well. My aura became vast like the wind and I could sense the slight disturbance around me, giving me an even greater avoid chance than the [Thunder Dragon Armor]. I thought for a moment about inducing Thunder Attribute alongside Wind Attribute, and see how fast I could become.

Putting my intent and magic flow inside of my Orbs, I quickly draw all of the Thunder Magic I had accumulated inside and infused in my armor, using my Aura to keep it from dissipating into thin air.

Clash!

A sudden burst of thunder filled my body as both Thunder and Wind fused together, my verdant green armor obtained golden tones as the shoulders, wings, and tail became sharper. My six arms became even thinner and gained blades over the wrists. The eastern dragon head suddenly became furious as it grew two horns that fused with I own, coiling to the heavens. Even my hair turned golden-colored as I noticed some change son my flesh body. I was slowly changing once again, attaining something new.

Thunder and Wind fused around me in constant chaos as they generated a furious thunderstorm. I flew at unimaginable speeds as in less than a split second I destroyed more than five spawn points; time seemed to stop as I was able to fly as fast as I wanted. However, the moment I surpassed one second, my body suddenly stopped. It seemed that such speed had some kind of cooldown tied to it. Perhaps my own body wasnʼt prepared to fly to such high speeds. I too felt the same as when I flew in that small lapse, my mind was in chaos, even when infusing thunder inside of my brain, the process needed to see everything in that speed was incredible, even to the point of using my Soul Energy to maintain itself.

Deciding to only use a small glimpse of such power, I flew and in two seconds, the rest of the spawn points were devastated. My Aura expanded itself like a raging storm, destroying any Statue near me and devouring their cores like voracious hydras made of the ethereal phantom. My Aura expanded with every Core ingested as my armor and body once again melted into a mutation, increasing my capabilities. My Armor turned wilder and started to resemble a realm dragon made out of metal.

Seeing that no more Spawn Artifacts remained, I helped out my family for a bit and in a minute all of the statues were devastated. My children celebrated our victory as Ailine and Vudia wondered about my new state.

”Mama, you look like a shin dragon!”

”Mommy can transform into so many ways, so cool!”

Whenever I talked on these transformations with my armor, my voice would sound louder and more menacing, but my family didnʼt seem to be intimidated as they only were more amazed.

”Indeed, your mama can transform a lot! So, I can always protect my precious family~”

Ailine and Vudia eyes shined brightly in admiration, afterward my other children caught up with them as they asked in unison, except Ryo.

”Ooh! Mommy, can we mount your back?”

Ryo didnʼt seem to want this, but he was forced to come by Amiphossia. Then my wives also joined as they mounted on my metallic dragon back. As we flew at max speed towards floor 60.

In less than a minute, like an emerald flash we appeared on floor 60, we explored and looted some of the empty rooms but not long after arriving here we meet with more monsters. This time it was a small group of evolved Walking Cactuses named ”Imperial Cactus Knights”, these beings now wore strong and sturdy armor with powerful weapons and had several techniques and spells at their disposal. They still had the same appearance as the other Walking Cactuses but seemed way more intelligent, they also had a small flower on top of their heads, which was the thing that distinguished these monsters form their pre-evolution forms.

I vaporized the small group of six with a strong thunderstorm that I created manipulating my Aura. Then we followed their traces and found a hidden lair in several interconnected rooms. There, they lived inside of small camps with the Empress ordering them around. I think their unevolved forms had the same type of hierarchy.

This time I didnʼt want to eat them all, so I saved enslaved around a hundred and fifty and saved them inside of my Item Box after inducing them into a forced sleep state. The evolved Empress was a beauty, unlike the ”plain-looking” Walking Cactuses with a cactus head and three holes acting as eyes and mouth, the Imperial Cactus Empress had a beautiful humanoid body. Her skin was pale green with a beautiful and large pink flower on the top of her head.

She didnʼt have any spikes but could create them at will if she wanted. Her eyes were emerald and shined brightly, her hair seemed to be made of green cactus fiber and just increased her verdant beauty. She had a voluptuous body with large breasts and hips, she wore a large white dress and some golden ornaments on her body.

She wasnʼt able to speak much and only yelled at us. After my children played around with her for some time, she exhausted her magic and wasnʼt able to shoot more spells, she was about to use a suicidal attack but I sealed her magic with an [Anti-Magic Seal] and bind her body with my golden threads. With an Empress, we will be able to create more Cactuses as she produces their seeds, so I just induced asleep on the green beauty as I saved her on my Item Box.

After eating a ton of Cactuses, we continued our exploration. Floor 60 didnʼt have any more menacing monsters and the waves were successfully stopped by my fast-acting, so we had a smooth trip around as we looted the empty rooms until reaching the stairs to floor 61, where I rushed at a max speed completely ignoring the incoming monster waves, leaving them far behind without a clue of what happened.

[Calculating EXP gained…]

[Kireina] gained 86.912.483 EXP]

[Kireina] gained one level!] [LEVEL 041/250 EXP 057.305.127/770.000.0000 EXP]

Reaching floor 61 we were greeted with a massive group of over one hundred Mini-Bosses! They were all giant Golems that had Cactuses growing in their rocky bodies, they were named Ancient Desert Guardians. The entire group was made of Mini-Bosses as each Ancient Desert Guardian was classified as one. It seems that the Dungeon played dumb on the previous floor just to take us off-guard now with a massive army. However, I was getting quite bored so it was a perfect time to warm up some more while practicing the different transformations of my Armor coupled with my Aura.

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