The Illicitous Dungeon

The main executives of the local branch of the underground organisation, Hand, were trapped and tied up within subspace.

They all looked at Everest with eyes full of fear, the spider Monster Lord not restraining her aura in the slightest.

"Y-you… You are breaking the Treaty of Gods," One of the members mustered all the courage he could and tried to threaten Everest.

The giantess didn't even bother bickering, the invisible webs tying him up immediately contracting and slicing him up into a mush of flesh and blood.

The others immediately sealed their mouths out of fear that this would be their fates too.

~~~~~

⠀

"They were my prey!"

Within the Euklid Manor in the heart of Whitecliff City, Aura flared up at Everest with all her hair bristled up. The amount of killing intent she was releasing was a staggering amount. Even without it directed at them, all the guards around the mansion felt like they had cold blades pressed up against their throat.

Everest was unwilling to simply be on the receiving end and her temper also flared up.

"I got them first, pig-eater."

The two Monster Lords had always had animosity towards one another and were constantly at odds end. This was just the most recent conflict, but it didn't seem that way to the people around them who were at risk of being unintentional collateral.

Calling a temporary truce due to Styx speaking into their minds to calm them, the two asked about the enemy Monster Lord.

"It is beyond the Earth Scar ravines south of the city. The entire area is a forbidden zone because of the monster. I don't know much about it, but it has the ability to split the earth open into giant ravines and causes earthquakes."

The Monster Lord was truly a cautious one. It had distanced itself far enough from the city that even Aura and Everest's senses couldn't reach it. Perhaps Dragon would be able to sense that far, but without the Monster Lord releasing its strength, they would have a lot of difficulty finding it.

"I will kill it," Aura immediately declared before vanishing through her Phantasmagoria.

Everest wasn't to be outdone and she too folded space around her and vanished into subspace without saying a word.

Rebecca was left standing in an empty room all of a sudden and was taken by surprise at how fast they vanished.

~~~~~

⠀

South of Whitecliff City, beyond the craggy mountain peaks and seemingly endless landscape of bottomless ravines snaking across the earth, Aura and Everest were hunting the Monster Lord.

They had to either subdue it and bring it into Styx's forces, or kill it if it refused to surrender. The former was the likely situation given the pride Fifth Step existences, especially monsters, had.

Aura used her leg strength and leaped over the great ravines as if she was flying. She would vanish in and out of the phantasm realm too, making it difficult to keep track of her figure. Everest remained out of sight, but Aura could feel her presence when she was nearby.

Whenever Everest got near, Aura would attack and vice versa. This wasn't to kill one another, but just them competing to find the Monster Lord and kill it first. Styx tried reminding them that they needed to work together, but their cooperation between one another was absolutely abysmal.

Everest was the first to locate the Monster Lord, a giant beast that was some strange combination of turtle and a black obsidian like stone. Just one look at it and one could tell that its defences were impenetrable.

Due to her rushed attack, the turtle Monster Lord detected Aura before she could land the first blow. It was instantly enraged as threads of space wrapped its neck and tried to sever its head.

*GROARRRR*

The Monster Lord emitted a roar that caused the entire valley it was in to start shaking. Even the air shook with such a ferocity that a human below the Third Step would simply be shaken into mush by the vibrations.

The earth quaked under its steps and landslides of stone and dust poured down from the nearby mountains. The old, seemingly dead trees within the valley also collapsed into splinters under the immense forces.

Everest was unharmed by the force, but it did destabilise her space webs and make them difficult to control.

The turtle's neck shone with a black lustre that prevented the space thread from cutting its skin.

"I found you," A deep voice echoed through the valley as the Monster Lord exerted more of its power.

Much to her surprise and shock, Everest found her subspace was compressed to the point she was forced to escape or be squashed inside of it. The moment she exited, she found the gravity to be at least a thousand times more than normal, causing her body to fall crashing onto the ground.

"Be careful," Styx's voice rang with calmness inside her mind. "Your greatest strength lies in traps and ambushes, don't get over your head and fight head on, no matter the rush."

Whilst she was indeed taken by surprise, the Spider Monster Lord was by no means helpless. Everest turned into her giant spider form and spat toxic venom at the Monster Lord like a cannonball.

An earth wall abruptly shot up from the ground and blocked the shot just in time before it melted into slag and toxic fumes.

The Monster Lord was deeply shocked by how potent the poison was, especially as just the fumes alone made its head spin.

Everest used this opportunity to escape into subspace again while the tortoise adopted a new found sense of caution towards her.

She erased her presence so it couldn't locate her to launch another targeted gravity attack at her subspace, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. The tortoise sat perfectly still, the land under its feet throbbing like a heartbeat as its senses were pushed to its maximum.

'I can't let that poison hit me. It may actually be able to penetrate my stone skin,' The tortoise thought to itself as it built its armor even thicker around its skin.

It was at this moment that Aura arrived. The wolf girl and leaped at the Monster Lord from the distant mountain and fell like a meteorite.

Her Phantasmal Claws shone in a multicolored radiance, like oil on water, and stuck with enough force that a crater was formed beneath the tortoise.

Its defence was so powerful that even this absurd attack by Aura had only punch several holes through the armor but barely scratched its skin. This was enough though the give the tortoise a stronger sense of apprehension though as it immediately perceived Aura as a fellow Monster Lord that could pose a threat to it.

"Two… Why are you teaming up? Are you trying to start a war?" The tortoise' deep voice echoed within the valley, its power building up deep within its core as it circulated an enormous amount of mana through its body.

Aura looked at it without a change of expression, her eyes like that of a hunter looking at its prey.

"Surrender or die," The wolf girl blatantly stated the ultimatum Styx had dictated.

"Hmm? Do you not fear the goddess? Or are you planning on leaving these lands for new ones?"

The tortoise tried to buy some time to analyse the situation, but several space strings latched onto it and tried to cut through its skin again whilst Aura also attacked.

Phantoms of giant wolves attacked, their teeth glowing ominously as if there was nothing they couldn't bite through. Aura also traversed through Phantasmagoria and attacked with her own body.

Gravity changed and attacked Aura, but Everest still remained hidden. The wolf girl was unfazed by this, dropping to all fours as her mouth opened wide and a small mountain sized phantom of a wolf appeared behind her with its mouth agape.

The world seemed to be absorbed into her mouth as she activated Sin of Gluttony. What she swallowed was in fact gravity itself. Aura's fingers were dug deep into the ground, causing her to remain stable, but the tortoise on the other hand started to irresistibly float up into the air.

With its connection to the earth severed, its power weakened significantly and its control over the earth became much more subdued.

"You bastards! Let's talk about this! We can make a deal, give me some humans for food, and I will help you!" The tortoise didn't dare defy the goddess behind the Maple Dragon Kingdom, but it had no qualms using others to defy her. If they were killed by the goddess too, it would only be happier.

"Surrender or die," Aura repeated once more, parroting Styx's words to it. "There is no other option."

"Do you really think there is nothing I can do about the two of you!!?"

The tortoise Monster Lord released all its powers, reinstating gravity and causing the earth itself to erupt into seismic waves that whipped and sent Aura flying into the distant mountain. The space strings were broken once again too, but Aura kept moving her location to prevent her from being trapped the same as last time.

Aura immediately healed her body and flashed back to the battlefield that was being destroyed more and more the longer the fight went.

~~~~~

⠀

Space was torn and fractured and chaotic energies ran rampant across the battlefield. Aura devoured earth and magic without distinction whilst attacking the weakened Monster Lord, whilst Everest spread fatal poison and deadly spatial threads.

Everest had adopted to incorporating the Monster Lords vibration attacks according to Styx's guidance in her head. He couldn't follow most of the battle as their senses operated at too fast a pace, but he could still understand many things.

He had the spider Monster Lord allow her strings to vibrate whilst strengthening their core. This didn't stop them from breaking apart, but it did momentarily increase their severing power several fold momentarily.

She then whipped these threads at the Monster Lord and cut off chunks of flesh. As the battle dragged on, Aura and Everest targeted each other too, preventing one another from taking home the achievement of killing the Monster Lord.

"S-stop," The tortoise Monster Lord weakly said as he regenerated a leg Aura had bitten off and devoured, his voice no longer as grandiose as it once was. "Let's talk about this…"

"You have no choice. Do you surrender?"

"To that dungeon you call master? I surrender to you, but I shall not bow before someone weaker than me."

"Then you will die." Aura was unrelenting, immediately declaring it's life forfeit.

The Monster Lord wouldn't surrender to Styx as this was beyond its bottom line. It was incredibly powerful to begin with, so it surrendering to Aura and Everest was the greatest it could do.

"Kill it," Styx decisively and without hesitation commanded both Aura and Everest in their mind.

The two immediately released the entirety of their killing intent, flooding the valley and causing any surviving monsters nearby from the battle to cower in fear.

The tortoise also knew this was the end, he had lost too much flesh and mana, his regeneration no longer able to keep up. Everest appeared and bit into the back of the tortoise, her giant spider fangs piercing straight through the weakened shell that no longer held its black lustre. The most fatal poison she housed in her body was injected directly into its body, causing it to rot from the inside out at a rapid pace.

With the enemy's life aura rapidly fading, Aura unleashed her devouring powers. With Mana Burst, Time Stagnation, Hyperspeed, and Sloth activated to further bolster her strength, a giant phantom of her true form appeared behind her and used Sin of Gluttony.

The giant maws of the phantasmal wolf opened and tore a hole in the world is it ripped the tortoise's head, along with half its neck, clean off its body and devoured it.

The gigantic body of the Monster Lord collapsed on the ground as Aura smugly claimed the kill for herself, a massive influx of experience going to her as well and even causing her to fill the final amount required to level up. Her information panel flashed before her eyes which Styx also saw through her vision.

As it was a Fifth Step existence, the same as her, she received no penalty on the experience gained. The amount from one kill alone caused Styx's core to be filled with envy.

The boost in her skill levels, whilst nowhere near as grand as last time, showed that she was not slouching at all and was training them very diligently.

⠀

[

World Core Stonebeast <Lv. 89> killed!

+ 247,864 exp

]

⠀

[

Experience threshold met. Level Up!

Lv. 84 -> Lv. 85

⠀

Accumulated skill experience bonus:

Polymorph <Lv. 27> -> <Lv. 29>

Impenetrable Skin <Lv. 74> -> <Lv. 75>

Phantasmal Fangs <Lv. 42> -> <Lv. 43>

Phantasmagoria <Lv. 29> -> <Lv. 32>

⠀

All Stats(Excluding Luck): +16

Class bonus: Str +4, Dex +6, End +4, Vit +2 Int +1

Mana: 45,134 -> 47,280

]

⠀

[

Species: Phantom World Devouring Wolf

Name: Aura

Age: 348

⠀

Mana: 21,028/47,280

Exp: 0/1,217,759

Level: 85

⠀

Str: 667

Dex: 704

End: 620

Vit: 639

Int: 514

Mnd: 465

Lck: 23

⠀

Skills:

Sin of Gluttony <Lv. 1>

Hyperspeed <Lv. 78>

Sloth <Lv. 50>

Instant Regeneration <Lv. 85>

Presence Erasure <Lv. 49>

Mana Burst <Lv. 50>

Polymorph <Lv. 29>

Spatial Movement <Lv. 99>

Time Stagnation <Lv. 63>

Impenetrable Skin <Lv. 75>

Phantasmal Fangs <Lv. 43>

World Devourer <Lv. 8>

Phantasmagoria <Lv. 32>

⠀

Titles:

Kin Eater, Invader, Human Enemy, Human Nemesis, Human Calamity, Elf Enemy, Elf Nemesis, Consumer of All, World Devourer, Monster Lord, Forbidden Zone Ruler, God Defier, Phantasm Ruler, Fate Defier, Limit Breaker, Dungeon Guardian, Queen of Gluttony

]