Epic of Caterpillar

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When Lazuli was finally 'freed', her soul went into slumber to recuperate for now, as she had been sealed for so many years, her mind and consciousness were fragmenting, and now that she had been finally freed, her mind was finally recovering at an outstanding pace, but she needed to rest for it to recover properly.

And about her physical body, I got a few words from her before she went to sleep.

"My physical body? It was sealed into a mortal body… it was killed and… butchered by the humans that defeated me for the first time…" she said.

Due to her words, it seemed that the body generated by the dungeon was not the original body… I began to think of a way to replace it so the boss could keep respawning.

What I did was a bit complicated, but it seemed to work.

I scanned Lazuli's soul with my Mirage Magic combined with my soul and aura, and created a small copy of it, which I inserted into an area of my soul, I split it from my main soul and inserted it into the body.

What I did was using Mirage Attribute Magic to scan through the mind and the experiences and copy that 'information' into a new existence, I could call this a 'primitive soul copy'.

I made this 'soul copy' similar to how it happened to Athos and the sword Athos, but it was way simpler and more rudimentary, as it was similar to a simple computer archive copy than a whole new being.

It was similar to an AI of an enemy foe in a game than anything, it contained most of Lazuli's attacks and patterns, and it was a good replacement.

Nyzzet was bewildered by the many abilities that I showcased.

"Kireina-sama, you can copy a soul?! That's… that is something that only the very rare Soul Attribute Gods, children of the Supreme Goddess of Souls and Reincarnation can do… If this information were to be leaked, many other gods would lose their minds… And it is even more impressive when it is considered that you did it with the Divine Soul of Lazuli, who is a Living Deity of Rank 1, a being already above mortals…" muttered Nyzzet.

"I doubt I am as good as those gods, I just 'scanned' her soul through Illusion Attribute Magic, then used Phantom Magic to insert this information copied into a part of my soul and then separated that part into a soul copy… it could be said that it is not a true soul copy," I said.

"Even then… although the method might have some extra steps… it is still… well, I should get used to these things happening," said Nyzzet.

As Nyzzet muttered those words, my children were having a bit of fun by slaying the new High Ice Fairy Empress, which was now, perhaps even better than when Lazuli was inside of its body. It moved fast and it seemed to be rather strong, being of a sizable challenge for the younglings. But for the eldest children, it was no one at all, and for my wives even less.

"How is Lazuli doing, mama?" asked Belle while flying at my side.

"She is currently resting; she needs to recover her mind and soul from the slow fragmentation she was suffering," I said.

"It must have been very boring to be a dungeon boss for so long!" said Nirah at my other side.

"Poor Lazuli-san… let's cheer her up when she wakes up!" said Vudia with a gentle and innocent smile.

"Yeah! Let us do that!" said Ailine.

"We can also show her Nereid and the other spirit girls, they're kind of like her, right?" asked Belle.

"Good idea, Belle-chan!" said Ailine.

"Yeah, Nereid-chan is also a fairy!" said Vudia.

"What about Blaze-san?" asked Nirah.

"She's also similar, so we will gather everyone!" said Belle.

The little girls were scheming a small meet up for Lazuli so she could cheer up after waking up… they were indeed very pure girls…

After this new Ice Fairy Empress was killed, the Marduk, Nammu, and Nanshe, alongside the seven harpy babies devoured it entirely… and after a few hours, a new one appeared, which was also promptly devoured by the voracious appetite of the babies.

Nyzzet helped in the rapid respawn of the bosses, and the babies even fought the other two bosses, the Ice-Cold Tyrant Ape, and the Three-Headed Ice Basilisk.

Also, it seems that you can only get system rewards once per dungeon boss floor, so even if I were to beat the Ice-Cold Tyrant Ape and the Three-Headed Ice Basilisk, I wouldn't get anything as I had acquired something in my previous visit.

Going into a dungeon exploration was a good idea for a relaxing and carefree trip while the younglings gather more skills through eating the monsters and boss monsters, I was sure that I wouldn't get anything from it as I got many already in the previous visit, so after a few minutes where we cleansed the babies, as they were drenched with blood, we continued through the stairs towards the next set of ten floors.

As this dungeon had around one hundred floors, we had reached almost the midway point, reaching floor 41, which would lead us to floor 50 where yet another boss was awaiting.

The next ten floors were like an extension of the damp and saltwater pond biomes of the previous floors before the ones that the Ice Bosses governed.

The monsters in these floors were all types of aquatic beings, there was a large variety of flying fish and sharks, which roamed around the dense and colorful forests made out of coral and seaweed.

The walls and ceilings were made out of azure bricks, which had many types of aquatic plant life growing in them, there were also many types of small aquatic animals living inside of these forests.

The ponds of saltwater were deeper than they seemed, and most of them would lead to traps where the ones that fell over would be attacked by many monsters at the same time.

The overall atmosphere was damp and foggy, with the smell of saltwater filling our nostrils, but without the refreshing feeling of the sea when we went to the coastal regions of the continent.

I grabbed a book that I once bought to lead us through some of the floors in this dungeon, and according to it, we were on a floor that we previously visited, named 'Ocean Guardian Grotto'.

Reading through the book for a second time to refresh my memory, the monsters on this floor are the Scaled Koi Warriors and Leader, Ocean Slime, Ocean Slime King, Coral Beast, Aquatic Demon Spider, Floating Shark Snake, and many other types of monsters similarly to these, such as Flying Piranhas.

Because compared to the previous time, the monsters in this place were too weak for most of us, if we were to unleash our attacks without care, most of them would be annihilated within seconds, so we decided to only work as support for the younglings so they could have their fun without us ruining all the challenge.

I made sure to enhance them with my many buffs and so did the rest.

I noticed that Nirah was slowly developing more of her abilities, awakening her innate powers inherited from Megusan, which slumbered within her soul.

She had been showing the ability to naturally release a dark and purple-colored poisonous Aura from her body, which she uses to cover her whip and throwing daggers to attack monsters and poison them.

Her poison was not as deadly and corrosive as the original Megusan, and it needed a lot of development and level ups for her to one day get back such power, but for now, the poison was enough to weaken monsters and slowly kill them.

Her poison had a similar effect to curses, slowing down the affected monsters, lowering their stats, and making it easier for her physical attacks to do more damage.

She was also learning how to materialize the liquid poison secreted from her claws and fangs into projectiles, and the snake-headed tip of her tail was also working with her as a strong weapon, biting and reaping small monsters, and even straight-up gulping them down.

"Mama! Look what I can do!" said Nirah.

Nirah rushed through the damp floor and raised her six arms as she secreted a liquid, and slimy, purple-colored ooze, her poison, which she used to entangle a whole group of Aquatic Demon Spiders, and then slowly poison them. It seems that she was imitating my threads with her own poison, she was a rather intelligent girl.

"Did you see mama? Did you see?" asked Nirah with a bright smile as her purple and scarlet eyes shined brightly.

"I did my dear, you're growing so strong!" I said.

"Now I am going to eat them! Thanks for the meal!" she said, as her snake-headed tail tip suddenly increased three times in size, expanding its jaw to even greater size and devouring the whole pack of aquatic spiders in a single gulp.

Nirah's lower half suddenly bulged a lot, but it slowly went back to her original size, showing how quickly her metabolism and digestion was.

She quickly her hunt across the corridors and the small rooms that we encountered around, which were filled with small amounts of riches, but nothing of exceptional value.

The weapons encountered in such chests were eaten by the younglings as they were nothing impressive to be kept, some god skills out of them and some not, as it was all random.

Nirah was quite lucky as she ate a ton of swords and spears, and managed to get their skills, acquiring summonable weapons for the rest of her arms, as she had six but only one main weapons being her whip, while the other five only held throwing daggers.

She was now able to use these summonable weapons to slash her enemies easily while coating them with her poison or her aura. If the weapons were to be broken, she was capable of summoning them back with more mana and she could even use them as more effective throwing weapons.

Belle was also progressing through the foggy and damp corridors with her siblings, she wasn't a very physical girl like Nirah, who enjoyed using many weapons at the same time, as Belle had a more mage-like approach, using her Divine Aura of Dawn and Eclipses to conjure multiple types of spells of different magnitudes towards her enemies.

She used her butterfly wings, which she had already mastered on their use, to fly around the air while throwing spheres of darkness and light. She also imitated her siblings and created daggers and swords made out of these elements, alongside reflective coatings of light, armors, and more.

Her magic capabilities seemed to blossom at every second, and it could be said that she was just as talented magic-wise as Ailine, although she didn't have as many affinities to play around with, she did a lot with what she had.

As we were walking around with the younglings at the front, a large wave of monsters appeared rushing towards us, who seemed to have spawned through a spawn point artifact.

It was the perfect opportunity for the younglings to do some small power leveling.

Large spiders that were covered in the blue exoskeleton and had slim and flexible claws similar to crabs, but had over eight eyes, Aquatic Demon Spiders led by an Aquatic Demon Spider Sea King, masses of bluish slime filled with crystalline cores that brought for large amounts of sea torrents, Sea Slimes led by a Sea Slime Emperor, house cat-sized flying Koi Fish wearing armor and long spears led by a larger one that had gold armor, a crown, and a sword, Scaled Koi Warriors and the Scaled Koi Warrior Leader King, and many other monsters of all shapes and sizes rushed towards the younglings.

However the children didn't feel scared at all, but embraced the challenge and jumped towards it, the seven harpy siblings in specific worked stupendously together, unleashing their distinct abilities and magic spells to create combined attacks, many of them, even when having small bodies, moved with great agility and coordination, and showcased techniques that I didn't remember teaching them nor any of my family members…

At some point, the seven fused again in a blast of rainbow light and colors, becoming a single child of a greater size of them, nearing one meter and a half, it was as if they had all maturated when fused, and the single fused harpy flew around the masses of monsters while unleashing countless explosions of all colors through firing its feathers like missiles.

It also created swords, spears, and gauntlets out of this rainbow energy, destroying anything that dared to think that they would put a dent on them by going into close quarters.

The only images that could come to my mind when seeing the fight separately were the Super Sentai or the Power Rangers from Earth… And when they fused into a bigger harpy it reminded me of Ultraman.

Would they one day get an ability to summon giant robots in the form of animals to fuse into a greater robot?

Maybe I am fantasizing too much?

Well, if Charlotte and everyone else in the Empire continue developing Magic Technology… there are already many new prototypes of transformation rings and bracelets, so I should give them some perhaps, fitting of each of their colors… a-and then, a giant robot golem!

"Why is Kireina-sama doing that weird face?" asked Nephiana.

"She seems to be a big fan of the harpies… I have to admit that they remind me of… never mind," said Altani.

"Eh? Of whom?" asked Nephiana.

"It seems that she must be thinking the same thing as me! Kireina, I will make the rings right now!" said Charlotte at my side, completely reading my mind.

"Wait for a second, what's going on, chupii?!" asked Nephiana.

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