293. Job's Done
Ben decides to let Mira fight the 3 Etheriouses first. She is quite pissed by them, after all, because they were the ones that sent those annoying small fries. Ben had his fun though, so he likes them a bit.
Mira transforms into her Satan Soul form and rushes at the adult female, Zoe, first. Some weak Etheriouses appear in front of Zoe to block Mira. But she kills them easily using her claws to rip their bodies.
Zoe is panicking and runs away, so Mira chases her. Then some Beetles attack Mira, Neo the teen male Etherious has released all the Beetles inside the transparent eggs. They all attack Mira and they can withstand her physical attacks.
"Annoying bugs," says Mira as she creates a big dark orb.
She shoots many big dark bullets at the bugs and destroys them. Now Neo starts to get panicked too and runs to the old man alongside Zoe. Both of them don't really have great combat ability so they retreat after seeing Mira destroy their troops easily.
The old man sighs and then he puts his hands on the floor. Suddenly, the floor in front of Mira moves and many metal spikes shot from it. Mira jumps to evade them, but then many longer spikes come out of the ceiling, trapping her between them.
She doesn't have time to evade so Ben moves to save her. He flashes and catches her, then he breaks all the spikes using his gravity magic. Mira sighs because now Ben will take over the battle after she needed to be rescued.
Ben grins as he flashes to the 3 Etheriouses, while Mira flies back. He appears between Neo & Zoe who hide behind the old man. He grabs their heads and burns the 2 of them using his Sun Devil Slayer Magic's red solar energy, which kills them instantly.
The old man widens his eyes as he turns around, only to get caught in the neck by Ben. Ben lifts him as the old man struggles to release himself from Ben's grasp. But he is too weak to even make Ben's hands move.
The old man tries to use his curse to attack Ben. Some metal pipes suddenly appear on the ceiling and they release a massive amount of flame. The flame only touches Ben though, the old man doesn't get touched at all.
He smirks, but then that smirk stiffens when the flame disappears. Ben is fine, after all, without a single bit of damage. Furthermore, Ben sucks all the flame and replenishes some of the magic power he lost before.
"Using flame against a Sun Devil Slayer like me, what a foolish move," says Ben while smirking.
The old man gets even more surprised when he hears that. "I know that you are immune to flame. But I thought it only applies to magic, not Curse like what I used. Wait! Don't tell me you can use Curse too."
Now Ben gets confused, "I have learned it, but I can't really use it yet. Besides, even if I can use Curse, I won't be immune to it, right?"
The old man also gets confused, but he can't think about that now. He is still being held by Ben and he can't free himself. Ben also doesn't want to think about it for now, so he kills the old man immediately using his Sun Devil Slayer's red solar energy.
"Job's done, time to go home," says Ben while cleaning the ash on his hands.
"Has this really ended?" asks Mira.
Ben nods and says, "Surely-."
"Not," replies the old man, but there's only his voice, while he is nowhere to be seen.
Ben & Mira get alerted and look around to find the old man. But no matter where they search, he is nowhere to be found. Luckily for them, the old man is stupid enough to reveal his position, just like how he explained the other 2 Etheriouses' Curses before.
"Hahaha, where are you looking at? I am here, around you, I am this place itself, I am this dungeon," says the old man.
The 2 want to ask what nonsense that this old Etherious is saying. But their answer comes before they can even ask. The room suddenly gets smaller and smaller, as if it wants to crush them. Now they understand that the old Etherious is this dungeon itself.
"Hahaha, after that damn Witch sealed us in this place, I merge myself with this dungeon. She made a mistake by leaving our leader half-dead. It gave me the chance to devour him and get control of this dungeon. Now I can control this place as I like, not just setting up traps. This whole place is under my rule, HAHAHA," says the old Etherious maniacally.
"Woah, so you have 2 kinds of Curses now? And leader? So he was far stronger than the 3 of you?" asks Ben without a hint of fear in his voice, just pure curiosity.
"That's right, I have the Curse of Trap, and Curse of Transmutation. Our leader was very strong, he might be the strongest one after E.N.D, HAHAHA," explains the old Etherious happily.
"I don't know who this E.N.D is, so I can't judge how strong your boss is. But I can say that he was pretty strong. Also, the only way to defeat you is by destroying this whole place, right?" asks Ben again.
"You are very ignorant to not know about E.N.D, he is the strongest Etherious that Lord Zeref has ever created. But you are still smarter than I thought because you can find the method to defeat me," says the old Etherious.
"Well, I can always try to find out about this E.N.D later, so it's not a problem. Although you are just as stupid as I thought. Confirming the weakness that your opponent found isn't a good move," says Ben while smirking.
"Hmph, it won't change anything because you can't do anything about it," says the old Etherious smugly.
"Then, let's find out," says Ben before teleporting Mira to the outside.
Ben suddenly covers his whole body with red solar energy. He doesn't hold his power back anymore and releases all his Sun Devil Slayer power. The room becomes very bright and hot in an instant.
The area around Ben starts to melt because of the heat that he generates. In a short time, the heat also spread to the other rooms. All the remaining Etherious that haven't been killed by Ben & Mira now die because of the heat that dries them and melts their bodies.
The old Etherious who has merged with the dungeon also suffers a lot because the place is melting now. All the hard walls, floors, ceilings, and everything there are melting because of the super high temperature that Ben generates.
Ben has become a miniature red sun that eats away everything around him. With his current power, Ben can melt this entire mountain if he goes all out. But he limits his power to just melt this dungeon without destroying the mountain itself.
His control over his magic is very good, so he can make that possible. Still, the heat wave will spread to the surrounding area. It even comes out of the dungeon, forcing Mira who has been sent outside to get away from the entrance.
Some minutes later, the heat stops increasing, so Mira knows that Ben has finished his job. Then the heat starts to disappear and the temperature returns to normal. Ben removes the heat after making sure that every Etherious in this place has been obliterated, including the old Etherious that has become the dungeon itself.
His Sun Devil Slayer Magic gets strengthened a lot after slaying all these artificial demons. He can even feel a strange change, but he can't check it now. It's not the time to do that because this dungeon will collapse, so he teleports out of it, and then the dungeon really collapses.
On the outside, Mira is standing with her arms spread, and her eyes are closed. Ben can see many souls entering her body. Those are the souls of the dead Etheriouses and she absorbs them all.
She finished after a minute and Ben can feel her magic power increase. He asks her if she gets a new form, but she doesn't. She only gets her magic strengthened like Ben, but that's good enough because that means all her abilities have increased.
Ben & Mira are satisfied with the result of this job and they can go home now. 10 Years Quest is better than they thought, although it might be because they are compatible to do this job. But they want to take one again next time.
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