C67: Great Charge, Chimera Monsters. Dense Forest Ravine

C67: Great Charge, Chimera Monsters. Dense Forest Ravine

Word count = 2278 on 4/15/2024

Once the group had entered the dungeon, Axel enhanced everyone with anti gravity magic and the plan was explained to. With their new Ten defenses, everyone would simply bulldoze through every monster they encountered until they reached the 10th floor for a break and then progressed further until Rivira where everyone would double check their equipment and rest for the day.

Axel would have his parasyte shade cover their back and collect all the stones and materials that dropped. With a plan in hand, they are let inside. They all coat themselves in nen of Ten form and begin a mad dash forward.

The 1st and 2nd floors are done within minutes. In the third the meet a group of goblins in their way but they just continue running and the goblins fall over on collision with Axel and Aisha in the lead. The goblins are then stopped to death before Migi (parasyte shade) collects their stones.

Crushed limbs, broken necks, Shattered ribs, an uncountable number of injuries arose in the various monsters that came within their path.

The 3rd, 4th 5th and 6th floors provide no trouble though the war shadows did attempt to dodge and run alongside the group to attack Lily but Migi protected her. The shade also protected the group against clusters of frog shooter tongues or purple moth spores.

The group met their first real obstacle 'within' orcs on the 10th floor. It wasn't so much of a problem as it was emotional trauma when Mikoto crushed the stomach of the orc for the first time which sent its guts and intestines all over her and Chigusa. The shy bow user was able to quickly summon her guardian to block the guts but that just meant more fun for Mikoto. The result ended with Mikoto proclaiming an undying revenge against all orcs. Their journey was delayed as Mikoto dragged Ouka and Chigusa to slay every currently living orc on this floor before she calmed down.

They had made sure to take a break at the end of the 10th floor after the incident with the orcs, this was extended a bit due to Mikotos vengeance arc.

After that they made sure to properly kill any bigger monsters that were human sized or bigger. Which means minotaurs, infant dragons, Silverbacks, Wyverns and a few other larger monsters from the late upper floors to early middle floors were decapitated by Aisha or punched to their death under Axel's fist.

Al-miraj, ligerfangs, dungeon worms, all were crushed under their feet before they arrived at the Goliaths boss room. They deactivated their nen barriers as the Goliath is set to respawn in another 2 weeks as someone had gotten around to killing it before them. Otherwise Axel would have slayed it to see if that would have been enough to raise his stats to the max or close to the max and level up. Yet it is not meant to be.

They reach Rivira and Axel tells them. "Alright, sharpen your weapons, double check your armors. And resupply if you're a glutton. Tomorrow, we are traveling until we get past the Water City." They nod with Lily complaining offhandedly in the back about being treated as slaves before Bell tries to reassure her and her tone changes to admiration.

Shaking his head at their antics, Axel leads the group to Rivira where he books a few rooms for them to settle down for the night. Of course he and Aisha arent tired and thus charge forth deeper for some quick extra cash. Bugbears, Battle Boars, and Lizardmen perished under Aisha's curved blade and Axel's fist. They did this for 3 hours before Axel saw a group of other adventurers grouped together and exploring the 20th floor for a while. Axel overheard something about a Vouivre being lost or having escaped from them.

Unfortunately, Axel already has his hands full so he cant take down this obvious group of smugglers as their practice is deemed illegal and threatening by the guild. It would be acceptable if they were part of the Ganesha familia to showcase monsters during events like Monsterphilia but outside selling of living monsters is deemed harmful and illegal.

The duo soon return while at least reporting their actions to the local guild members of Rivira. The guild inside the dungeon is mostly in charge of emergency supply management for Rivira, Serving as messengers for the guild up top or assisting in transactions between adventurers who try to use monster stones/cores instead of Vali. Though they do charge for their services and others are better off not meeting with them at all.

It has to be noted that they are not officially members of the guild and thus have to have a low profile. They are actually members of various smaller familias who take up administrative missions or wish to settle down a bit for office work but possessing level 2 or 3 stats makes them slightly overqualified for most basic jobs like chefs, bartenders or anything else like that. Mia Grande is the sole exception as she serves an adventurer based diner whilst also serving civilians.

The duo give the report but when asked to give their names, they say.

"Axel Gram, Titan."

"Aisha Belka, Antianeira"

The duo give their names and titles and the small group of guild employees rush to ensure the letter is delivered properly and safely. During their report, Axel had given the description of the emblems he had seen on the cart that the smugglers had. He is sure that the guild would need a moment to find the god or company that it is related to.

The duo then join the others in relaxing for the rest of the day before restarting their journey early the next morning. They rush off into the next floors, taking care of the larger monsters while smaller and weaker groups monster like imps are crushed like normal or with a tiny bit more force. The group is overall being more active to slay the monsters instead of outright charging past them. They wish to retain their adventurer senses and not dull out by just relying on Axel's shades.

Overall their speed drastically decreases as they enter the Large Tree Labyrinth but they are still able to make it to the next floor and the floor after in record time as they soon reach the Water City. The group rested a bit before walking down to the Great Falls at the 25th floor. Once they do, they are shocked at the lack of monsters popping up randomly or charging at them. Even when they go by the water, they are not attacked by a giant blue crab or anything. It's weird.

It is only halfway through the 25th floor that Chigusa points out a monster off the main path. It seems relatively large as it is hunched over and seemingly eating something if the jerking actions and growls are any indicator. Haruhime, Chigusa, Lily and Bell all have shivers run down their spines from the strangeness of the situation. The monsters soon shifts and the quad of hard working monster killers almost shriek in terror. Even Axel, Aisha and Ouka are perturbed by the sight before them.

It's as if A Dark Fungus from the large tree labyrinth came down and set down roots within a group of merfolk and crabs, their appendages added to it's own and then swapped around so a crab has the merman arms while the merman has the crab pincers.Multiple Aqua Serpent heads are adorned around the central mushroom head as if a necklace but the blinking eyes of the fish says that they are not dead. The front, around the various claws and hands are small chunks of shell from the crystal turtles. The mushroom and various fish heads have the blue haired mane of the kelpie. The most weird is the large assortment of legs that are bent or folded through a mix of knee joints from the various monsters that allow it to be partially hidden.

(If anyone decided to skip the previous paragraph then just know: 7-8 monsters mixed into one, a single sizable mushroom monster for the central body with the rest being various seafolk monsters. All have their hips merged and a giant gathering of their legs which half are folded up like a person in the fetal position. At each gathering or where the legs are, there are tons of sutures or mushroom roots holding it together)

ROOOOAAARRR. The group steps back in trepidation. They don't know what to make of this until Axel realizes that it's body is slightly similar to what the Dis sisters and other Evilus members are like except more extreme. The monster then let's out a unified roar before charging at them as the huddle set of legs are let down to add to their speed. The water city is typically the limit for most adventurers since level 3s and 4s are required to be here but this amalgamation of monsters easily has level 5 speed as it closes the distance to the group.

Aisha steps in front of the group to be the first line of defense as she warily observes the monster while Axel rushes forward as well to meet the monster head on. He summons a two set of arms onto himself as gluttony and shades are overlapped onto him. At the last moment, he changes his own gravity to be enhanced as he punches out. His strike blasts chunks of monster flesh, yet it survives and moves to hug Axel. One the giant pincers surround him, he is assaulted by the various mouths, pincers and claws grab or bite into him.

Haruhime screams in terror before Aisha calms her down as they see that the various appendages do not come into actual contact with Axel's body due to the Ten Barrier around him. Though Axel can still tell that the monster has mid to high level 5 strength but with all his abilities he can easily match that. So with a burst of Ren, he knocks all the claws and body parts off him before his aura concentrates into a state of Gyo around his 6 fists that then lash out to break the monster apart into 6 individual chunks. The central mushroom is then burned to death and the whole thing disappears into dust before a single amalgamation style crystal appears.

"It looks like an ore if I'm to be honest" Axel says as he passes the strange monster core to Welf who examines it and does say, "yea it looks like something you would see from mined chunks of silver or something" The core is then stored with Lily as usual.

As they travel through the dungeon, they encounter plenty more of these every few feet. Since Axel knew the limits of it, He tried to absorb them a few different times to no avail. It's not that they are too weak to be absorbed like goblins but that a foreign energy is inhabiting the chimera monster's bodies which resists his energy and causes it to rapidly break down until they just die from gluttony without him absorbing anything.

He tried on the cores as well but those from the 'living' monster attempts were all shattered into normal sized crystals while the normal ones also broke apart. It's as if the foreign energy he senses resides in their cores and breaks itself down to stop his attempts to kill the monster before he can get anything.

The most ridiculous monster amongst these chimeras was a super sized giant Hornet with roughly 50 other normal sized giant hornets attached to its body with A Viola holding the chimera together. The Viola itself is already a resident of the deep floors (don't confuse it with lower floors which are in the early half of it right now).

It's funny because it's simpler than other chimeras due to only really using giant hornets for it but it's also strong because the penetrative power of the hornets is enhanced by the chimera core (variant monster core) which includes the Viola itself. This showcases that whoever it was that made these beasties has enough influence to go through the deep floors and not just the Dense forest Ravine which is the 2nd half of the lower floor.

Throughout the various fights, Axel has learned and shared his observations that using fire against the plant part of the chimeras is their weak point. Luckily, everyone has already been outfitted in various magic items courtesy of Axel and updated in tune with all his magic knowledge.

On one hand, they are the beta testers but on the other hand, they also have the best magic items his store sells and even unrevealed artifacts.This allows them to easily bombard various monsters whenever they grow annoyed with a certain monster just not dying even when it's limbs are cut off as they can be reattached the moving various roots of the central plant/fungal monsters. It is only when the limbs are broken down into chunks like how Axel does it that prevents the monsters from reattaching the limbs. This is due to the limb itself being nothing more than a meat sack held together by various chitin and carapace from various other monsters.

After hours of encountering these chimeras randomly, they finally get to Amphisbaenas' empty room and proceed further into the 28th floor which is where they rest once more.