Chapter 23

"Raaahhh. The roaring of the crowd was almost deafening as thousands of people watched the Ganesha Familia make the tamed monsters do tricks and the actual taming of the monsters.

Yeah, monsters are correctly titled as such because the taming process from a more modern standpoint was pretty damn brutal as the only way to actually tame a monster was to literally beat the shit out of them till they submit, and after the taming sets in the monster will lose their trademarked red eyes denoting their connection to the dungeon and turn a glowing blue showing their connection to their tamer.

And if said tamer actually had the taming skill for one the taming is much easier but more importantly, they are able to train the monster and keep it loyal even if it should mutate and become stronger than their peers.

Now I know what you are thinking 'Why don't they bring up Valgang dragons and other strong big monsters.' Well, the thing is for one the strongest member of the Ganesha Familia is only level four so if she were to try to tame a monster from the deep floors well, she would likely die in the attempt. And most of the bigger monsters can't be taken physically out of the dungeon as the ceilings in the first nine floors are simply too short.

We were currently watching the captain of the Ganesha Familia, Shakti Varma giving the closing act as she used her whips to pummel a Bug Bear into submission much to the applause of the coliseum.

"No Jake you may not get a monster pet..." Hestia groused as we left making me and Lili chuckle at how Hestia was clearly not all that enthused at the thought of me getting a monster pet.

"Come on Hestia a man needs his best friend."

Hestia snorted. "And I must assume that said best friend would be a dog of course?" Her eyes twitched as I gleefully nodded. "Isn't it funny enough that the only monsters in the dungeon are Hellhounds that are walking flamethrowers..."

I paused and realized literally all the magic weapons I have made are literal flamethrowers in some way or another. "Are you saying you are a cat person and would accept a Ligerfang?" I evaded her judging look. Honestly, it's not my fault, it's her domain's inclination to fire....

"I would like a monster to ride and shoot my crossbow on." Lili muttered and my mind popped up the image of Lili wearing Mongolian armor and trying to burn down villages, but the thing was with her height she had to ride a miniature pony, so people were able to outrun her...

"Pfft. Me and Hestia both snorted at the thought of Lili trying to be a valiant archer riding into battle.

"Hey don't laugh at me!" She yelled and seeing her so worked up at me made my imagination go back to the prior scene of her riding her horse but as she shot that huge bow gun the recoil threw her off the horse.

"HAHA! I howled at the mental image and Lili seethed at seeing me lose my composure but Hestia didnt understand why I was laughing so much till I explained my daydream making her laugh so hard she had to hold her stomach as she bent over Lili got the last laugh when she kicked me in the shins with her steel-toed boots.

"Ass." Lili said dryly as I held my throbbing shin hopping in place.

"Yeah, it's going to be your ass I fuck next..." I said as threatening as a man hopping on a single leg and holding their own obviously in pain could.

"Pfft." More than one person coughed in surprise as we were passing as this was happening in a busy street.

"Boom, a loud explosion rang out on the other side of the coliseum, ending our conversation and I gave Hestia a 'I told you so look' making her roll her eyes.

"Ok girls let's get the fuck out of here," I said gleefully taking them by the waist and starting steering them towards one of the side streets so we could start heading towards home and the safety of the wards.

"Crack. Fuck...

Just as I was planning on gleefully staying home and not dealing with divine shenanigans the very ground beneath us started cracking and quickly large vines started to push themselves through the floor.

"Lili get Hestia out of here!" I yelled as I pulled the charge blade off my back and as the vines started to combine into their larger forms, I saw the ones reaching towards the girls whirl back on me as I ignited the flames on the weapon, and I was reminded that the Violas are attracted to magic.

I didnt want to play hero but the entire alleyway we were into was a hotbed of the vines as they combined and eventually several large flowers formed lined with matching large teeth on the petals but they didnt look as big as I remembered seeing in the anime about Ais's adventures, so I just assumed the dungeon was keeping the majority of their strength back or something.

I chopped my massive axe down to cut through the stalk of one of the lunging violas but I could barely cut through half of it as I dodged, and as several more lunged at me from different angles, I used the immunity I had to the flames I create to smash my weapon into the ground and create a large pillar of flame that swallowed me and the surrounding violas in a rotating pillar of flames that reached into the sky and most importantly scorched the ground I was on black killing the vines trying to combine into more violas.

'I am not able to cut through the violas with my current strength but thank the gods that they seem especially weak to fire.' I thought

I looked up and saw Hestia hiding behind Lili as they watched me kill the vast majority of the Violas and there were only a couple of yellow monster stones lying beside them as Lili obviously used her bow gun to deal with them as I was cosplaying Sephiroth with my pillar of fire.

As I was surveying the battlefield, I saw more vines slowly climbing through the burnt ground around us.

"Boom. 'Whelp were fucked'. Was my only thought as at the front of the alley, a full-sized viola shattered the ground and stretched to its full size of a dozen meters tall worse, I could see from behind us was a pile of vines slowly combining into another one but was obviously slowed and hurt by the smoking hot ground.

The sight made me grimace as I had zero delusions at the thought, that I was going to be able to kill that full-sized one as easily as its brethren.

I swung my axe and smashed open the wall beside us and I could see it led to an uninhabited home's living room and picked up Hestia to make sure she didnt burn her feet on the hot ground and Lili followed me as we sprinted in through the building.

"Crash. The building started to collapse with us within as the large voila showed its rage at us fleeing, by slamming thick vines onto the building, and just as I kicked open the front door leading us outside the building collapsed and the viola almost slithered over the wreckage and reared over us.

I literally tossed Hestia into Lili's arms as I locked my shield into the road breaking through the paved brick road and we were thrown back several meters as the viola crashed through my shield but thankfully, I was able to use my shield instead of taking the blow head on, use the force to propel us away from it even though my arms were definitely hurting from taking the likes of a bull smashing into me.

I groaned as I rolled to my feet, and I saw the viola slithering towards Hestia and Lili, so I staggered to my feet and sent a solid blade of fire with my sword that cut slightly into the stalk of the viola and then exploded blackening the surrounding vines making it hiss in agony and turn on me.

Seeing as I lost my shield and thus my axe form to my charge blade, I readied myself to fight with just the sword form as it lunged at me.

"Gorgon's entrapment!" A voice cried out, and several dozen shining chains bloomed out of a large magic circle and entrapped the raging viola.

I looked up to see Medusa standing on a roof overlooking our battle and I could see the pressure she was under binding the monster before I could just freeze up torn between running away with my girls and leaving her, I sprinted forward and after sticking my sword into its mouth that was larger than my whole body, I repeated my prior fire trick and made fire explode into existence and start spinning around me burning everything around me as I focused on rather than a more detailed construct fire. I just poured all my mind into making this ball flame as hot as I could.

I learned one disadvantage of this tactic though. The flames were so thick and bright I couldn't see more than a few inches away, especially seeing as the temperature of the fire continued to rise into a bright evanescent blue flame and I could no longer even hear the monster's hissing as the roar of the flames burning everything around us took over and as I noticed I was literally starting to sink into the ground as it softened from the heat, I cut it off.

I looked around and saw several adventures staring at me shocked as I slowly walked out of the glowing circle of molten ground almost casually and almost stumbled as I saw a familiar face as I grabbed my shield from Lili.

I saw Riveria Alf of the Loki Familia walking towards me with steady steps as she eyed me and the circle of still-smoking ground.

"I thought your talents laid in the kitchens, Jake." She said with an easy smile and after looking at all the gawking adventurers, she continued. "I believe my Goddess would be very interested to hear where you got such a weapon... Hmm not that us taking it would do much as I can clearly see only a spirit could bless it to such an extent. Don't worry would be worthless in other people's hands if it didnt break at an opportune moment and get the thief killed in retaliation." She added seeing my fear of her stealing it.

'Actually, my fear was more along the lines of trying to convince Hestia to give up more blood should she steal it haha' I thought.

"Well, if your goddess would like the tale, I wouldn't mind telling it, but I imagine the Loki Familia is going to be busy for the next while dealing with all this."

Riveria nodded but then froze as she took in Lili's bow gun. "Interesting how that little ballista." She snorted and I could almost see within her mind Finn wielding the weapon. "Has the same mana signature as your weapon combination... Yes, I think my goddess would be very interested in learning which Spirit Lord is so free with its blessings. So, looks forward to us paying a visit." She said with a small smile.

She started walking in the direction of where the Loki Familia's manor was, as I stood there thinking 'FUCK! We've been found out!!!'

I turned to Hestia. "So do we flee Orario now?"

Hestia choked at my sudden question and slapped me in the stomach at scaring her. "No dammit Jake we aren't running just uhhh maybe you could just make her weapons or something..." She said weakly.

"Let's just take it one day at a time. Either way the top families are going to be busy for the next few days at least meeting up about this." Lili said as the voice of reason.

I on the other hand was looking around but I sadly couldn't see Medusa anywhere as she seems to have left when I was impersonating a sun. "Alright let's just get home." I said absentminded.

Little did we know our morning wakeup call would be Bete attacking our wards with massive blades of red magic and a cheeky Loki standing there grinning like a loon as the wards threw the werewolf like a little bitch getting drop kicked by a giant in Skyrim into the sky and a blond beauty watching the werewolf fly away blandly.