The Illicitous Dungeon

Ursula and the other angel's wings weren't capable of performing flight without the use of mana. In fact, their wings were natural conduits for mana and contained their own mana networks that gave them the Flight and other skills depending on the type of angel and heritage, not that Styx had the opportunity to investigate this so far.

Because of this, they were currently grounded and couldn't fly, but Styx's monsters were different. He had provided five hell gryphons, a red-feathered Second Step monster that had large powerful wings and flew on their muscle strength alone.

The only issue was with Aura. Despite being virtually entirely under his control, the hell gryphons wouldn't carry her. Her presence supressed them on a biological scale and their bodies refused to listen to the order Styx was giving them.

In order to avoid being surrounded by anything unexpected, Styx had the new expedition team start off where the previous one left off.

Upon landing, Styx saw through Aura, Vivy, and several others that the entire front of the giant cathedral, the one which the fallen god had emerged from, had collapsed into rubble and scattered along the silent street, further damaging the already ruined urban area.

Aura's nose twitched as dust and ash lingered in the air from the collapse of the megastructure. The air was stale with rot and decay and even as powerful as her body was, it was an uncomfortable feeling that penetrated to her core.

"We should head deeper inside of the city," Ursula stated after alighting the hell gryphon, having already observed the surrounding areas on the way over.

Styx gave his affirmative to Aura and the others to follow their lead. He too wanted to see what other secrets this city held.

The expedition party effortlessly and dexterously jumped between giant pieces of rubble, advancing into the cathedral with giant leaps. Whilst they were incapable of flight without mana, the angel's used their wings to stabilise themselves in the air and increase their leaping distance with a glide.

Whatever husks that remained within the area appeared to have gone into hiding, no longer showing themselves to attack the mana rich intruders. The only sound within the cathedral was the footsteps of the expedition party echoing through hollow and dead corridors, their footprints leaving clear and distinct tracks on the ash and dust laden floors.

"It looks like these people were once human," Styx stated into Aura and Vivy's minds, but more so just speaking to himself.

Whilst most of the furniture had been destroyed by time, there were large marble statues which remained whole, albeit covered in a thick layer of ash.

They were humans, each in valiant armors and wielding powerful weapons. There was some text engraved in the base of the statues too, but it had eroded to the point Styx wouldn't be able to read it even if he knew the language.

~~~~~

⠀

Styx was busying himself with testing the new magic engravings on the armor by inserting mana into them. They lit up briefly upon activation, but only several appeared to be in a functional state.

'Aura… Couldn't you have been a little gentler?' He mentally complained to himself whilst testing out what magic inscriptions were working.

These were arrays for automatic defenses, empowering, and even weapon skills. One particular array Styx found could help him throw a giant fireball.

"But how do they work!" He shouted in frustration as each one appeared completely unique and without relation to the other.

It was as if each ran on its own magic system, but the dungeon lord knew they had to be some form of connection between them. He just couldn't understand the underlying principles of it yet.

Before he could go any further, his attention was taken away by the expedition party in the ashworld, as he started calling it, whom had just entered a giant library,

Ursula stood at the forefront of the group as she led everyone into an enormous library with a ceiling forty feet high. Bookcases were arranged in a circular outlay that had a dozen layers until it reached the center of the room.

At the center was a giant open area where desks and other equipment once stood, but was now just another empty area with nothing but traces left in the ash on the floor.

The ceiling was completely open above this place, revealing six more floors of similarly full floors. This library was an extensive source of knowledge, more than anyone could have imagined.

"This mirrors some of the great libraries of heaven, only below our grand arcanums," Ursula maintained a stony expression and observed everything much like a soldier. "The layout is a bit different, but it should also have a management system."

For whatever reason, the books had been protected from the passage time somewhat, large tomes and scrolls of all sizes crowding the shelves. Ursula and the angels flapped their wings and blew away the ash on the ground, revealing some faint lines remaining on the ground of a grand array that covered the library.

Several of the expedition party member tried to grab some of the books and scrolls under Styx's command, but they were unable to retrieve them. It was as if the shelves and the books were all one entity.

Ursula looked at them and simply stated, "It is pointless. All the books are protected, even if there is no mana applied. They are locked in an existential state and cannot be removed or read. You can destroy them along with the bookshelf though, which you will do if you try to force it any more."

Styx investigated and found it interesting. After a few more questions, he understood this protection to be similar to encrypting a computer's files. Even without power, they would stay encrypted, and would require power to start the decrypting process.

"Can we use mana to power it?" The four-winged angel respectfully asked Aura and the others, fully aware that Styx could hear her through them.

"Investigate the surroundings first and make sure no husks or anything is nearby, I don't want the use of mana waking anything else up."

Hearing his response, Ursula didn't argue and instead went scouting alongside the others. Aura's nose was useless as the husks smelt the same as everything else around. Even though all of Styx's girls could see mana too, they didn't have any mana to be seen in the first place.

The expedition team found several groups of hibernating husks, which woke up as soon as they got near, but were easily dispatched. Ursula and the angels displayed divine weapon skills as their pure white blades cut them down instantly, whilst Vivy silently beheaded several and Aura effortlessly dismembered them with her claws.

"I think that is all of them, any others are too far away to be disturbed. We can now turn on this array and retrieve some of the books… if it works."

Ursula placed her hand on the floor where one of the nodes of the array was located and extended her wings out. The girls, and Styx via their proxy, watched as mana flowed through her wings as it shifted and changed, eventually passing through her body and entering the array directly.

The library thumped as if it had a heartbeat. Spreading out from where the angel was crouched, blue lines and inscriptions lit up. Styx recognized this as being the same type of magic system which was the basis of the armor enchantments.

This was infinitely more complex though, even neither Ursula or the other angels appearing to understand it.

At the center of the room, a glowing hologram made of Ursula's mana was created. It was a giant face of a prim looking, yet beautiful, woman with long flowing hair.

The inscriptions protecting the shelves and books within them also lit up. Not only did it serve as their protection, it also served as the means of searching for and automatic retrieval of the books and scrolls.

The mouth on the giant face moved, but the entire hologram flickered and distorted, a clear sign of deeply rooted damage to the array.

"Bring me all books related to the history of this kingdom," Ursula tried communicating with the hologram.

Before anything could happen, a powerful suction emerged from deep within the earth and sucked all the mana out of the array from a backdoor without leaving a single drop behind. The entire holographic construct collapsed and vanished as the array died.

As it was in the process of lowering the protection over the books, it caused a large number of them to collapse with it. Some books exploded out of the shelves in bursts of paper, but most simply became free for the angels and dungeon residents to stat pulling off several books.

Vivy looked around in interest before stating, "Styx said not to activate it again. Whatever it was that absorbed all the mana, it doesn't appear to be heading this way or alerted of our presence. It is best not to do anything that will attract its attention.

The angels solemnly nodded as they too were surprised by how fast the mana was absorbed. It wasn't a small amount of mana that was injected into the formation, but it was all sucked out in the blink of an eye.

Instead, they all travelled around the library to see what books they could recover.

~~~~~

⠀

"Can you understand it?" Aura relayed Styx's question to Ursula whilst looking through some of the books.

"...No, I haven't seen a language quite like this before. It feels ancient and tribal, but is clearly used in an extraordinary way."

Styx maintained his silence as he was in an advantageous position, He also couldn't read it, but he noticed similarities in the language. It was very reminiscent to the antiquated Mayan script.

It was almost like this language was based off of it.