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Veronica who was in the form of a small, lobster-shaped clone, dived into the depths of the coast of the Seashore Town, as she glanced at the chaos unfold underwater.

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An enormous mass of blue slime moved its formless body, shaping it into countless tentacles and using them to entangle a giant Sea Snake, a Rank 6 Monster who was roaming the deep waters in search of large prey to satiate its giant body's hunger.

"GRRRYYAAAARR…!"

"GUUUBOOO!"

The Slime, Aqua, who had become a fierce underwater predator, entangled the Sea Snake until it could no longer move, crushing its bones until it released its last roar.

Then, Aqua began to consume it by putting it inside of her body, slowly digesting it into tiny pieces.

If normal people were to see that such a type of Slime existed, they would all go in a panic.

Not only because Aqua was a fierce predator, but because she was able to absorb the water around her and increase her size several times, as of now, she was simply suppressing such power so she could not drain the entire coast out of resources and water, but Veronica knew very well that such a thing was within Aqua's insane capabilities.

Although she thought that she might not be capable of assimilating the entire oceans, as she might burst.

She was, after all, still a Rank 9 Giant Grand Ocean Water Slime High Princess, and her capabilities were still limited to her Rank.

Although such capabilities increased by the power of Guidance, doubling her original strength, and perhaps even multiplying it by 3.

Much like Ervas and Veronica, and the rest of the high-ranked tamed monsters, Aqua had reached a progression wall, she was already as strong as a Rank 11 monster while being Rank 9, so it was understandable that she could not simply progress endlessly in less than a year.

If Ervas and Veronica were not capable of easily crossing through this progression wall, she was not an exception to this.

Nonetheless, Aqua was not as worried about such things as leveling up, as she was happy by hunting and eating delicious monsters, and had been hunting the big monsters roaming in the deep dark waters near the coast, evading the smaller animals or monsters that the fishmen usually harvested from the sea, so she did not have much of an economic impact, in fact, she was helping out the people by getting rid of these invasive species of monsters that came from the deep seas.

"Good job Aqua-chan, but I guess it would be time to go rest a bit, you've been hunting for way too long, we don't want to make people begin to suspect weird things, right?" asked Veronica, as she dived near Aqua.

"Okay!" said Aqua, as she slowly shapeshifted her body size, becoming smaller, and jumping out of the ocean, inside a large cave within the areas of the coast that most people never visited.

There, Aqua began to eat the rest of her prize, as Veronica sat down near her.

"Oh, it's finally time, we are getting that restaurant to open!" she said.

"Is it ready? So nice… Gubo. I which I could visit it, gubo!" said Aqua.

"Well, you now acquired the Mimicry Skill, right? It should be possible for you to shapeshift into some kind of humanoid form, imitating one of our friends, so you could get in… Of course, you will have to make your size smaller," said Veronica.

"I see, guubo… Maybe after I finish my meal!" said Aqua, eating her large Sea Snake with more enthusiasm.

Veronica then noticed as another titanic and intimidating creature emerged from the water… in fact, two of them!

One was a long snake-like beast, covered in dark, metallic-like draconic scales, it had an enormous open jaw with spiraling razor-sharp teeth and a long slimy tongue that dripped with deadly poison.

It had around six crimson eyes in lines around its jaw, and it seemed to be capable of destroying the entire Seashore Town in an instant by just releasing its monstrous spectral poison breath or waving its tail around, a living calamity, similar to Aqua.

And the other was a large furry beast, resembling a giant demonic rat from hell, its fur was dark as the night, but it was also covered in long porcupine-like spines that released electrifying sparks, its tail was long and spear-shaped, and it three bigger spikes atop its head, resembling horns.

These two creatures that seemed capable of wiping out the entire town without effort were in fact Rank 8 monsters, one rank lower than Aqua, Nidhogg, and Kyuu.

"AH, you guys are back, how was the underwater exploration?" asked Veronica, as she was greeted with gentle roars from Nidhogg and small shrieks from Kyuu.

"Grrooooaaaaarrr…" said Nidhogg, nodding as Veronica noticed that it had swallowed a giant creature and was digesting it now.

Nidhogg was now a Giant Armored Poisonous Specter Dark Dragon Worm King, an enormous name, but the fitting of such a beast that has not even been reported before in the history of this continent.

Rank 8 and above monsters were already creatures of myths and legends… although Veronica and her party constantly killed Dragons near these Ranks by invading their territories in the sky.

However, compared to a wild Rank 8 dragon, Nidhogg could be said to be several times stronger, even more thanks to the several skills it had polished, and the double guidance from Veronica and Ervas.

And at his side, there was a giant rat with the ability to power up an entire city with its electricity-producing capabilities, if it were to unleash its complete thunder in the sea, most of the weak fauna would surely die fried alive, thankfully, Kyuu was a prudent rat pet.

Kyuu was now a Rank 8 High-Voltage Grand Giant Thunderous Rat King, a large name for a beast, and whenever an Adventure knew that a monster had such a long name, it usually meant that it was deadly enough to take over a country by itself.

Having started as a Rank 1 Demon Rat, Kyuu quickly raised its Rank to 8 after undergoing several trials, fighting powerful monsters way above its Rank always helped, but now that he was Rank 8, finding such monsters were rare, and even the Dragons he sometimes hunted did not give enough EXP…

However, untroubled by such things, the two monsters were happily fishing large prey and eating to their heart's content, it was the first time they were swimming in the sea and were pretty excited about it.

At first, Nidhogg had been a bit terrified, but after some time, it quickly adopted a way to swim through the water by using its large serpentine body, just like a sea serpent would swim.

And Kyuu had already practiced swimming inside large lakes found in the dungeons surrounding the Devil Forest and did not had too much of a hard time adapting to do so in sea.

"Oh, you got a pretty big catch! That's… a Rank 5 Giant Scaled Shark!" said Veronica in amazement, glancing at Kyuu's prey, a large shark the size of a small whale.

"Chuuu! Chu, chu, chu!" said Kyuu happily.

However, this was not the end of the group of terrifying monsters, as another group of entities began to swim out of the sea…

It was as large as Nidhogg, surpassing the fifty meters of long, made entirely out of countless entwined vines as hard as steel, covered in spikes and beautiful red roses, the head resembled that of a snake, with two crimson eyes glowing eerily, the Rank 9 Giant Grand Gluttonous Constrictor Poisonous Spectral Thorny Vine Boa Empress, Ivy, which was carrying one of Ervas Phantom Clones atop its head.

At its side, a mass of countless vines and grass, making a formless entity covered in several types of plants, flowers, and more emerged, walking with its gigantic and long serpentine roots and vines, this was an agglomeration of several high ranked monsters that once began as simple sticky vines, and now reached the size of Nidhogg, they were the sisters of Gwendolyn, the Rank 8 Giant Grand Demonic Dark Parasitic Spiky Vine Great Colony Empress, who had fused to become a single entity, perhaps a Legion version of living plants.

And from another side, three enormous trees, the size of skyscrapers from earth emerged out of the water, expanding their roots over the land, and resting as the water moved away. The wood was as hard as mithril, and they contained an enormous quantity of mana within their cores, their branches ere gigantic and beautiful, and they were covered in beautiful green leaves and flowers, although the wood color was almost black, and the gigantic trees released a spectral presence… oh, and they were all mildly shaped in humanoid forms, they were the Rank 8 Giant Grand Spectral Cursed Tree Ent, Ainsley, Alder, Anna, who had once started as small Devil Tree Sprouts, and leveled all the way into the titans they were now.

And alongside the colossal beings, a smaller figure emerged, a large, almost two meters tall human-like man packed with muscles and a heroic smile, a handsome face, and long brown hair with glowing golden eyes, wearing an armor made of gold, truly like a heroic human, however, a beautiful elf-shaped woman made entirely out of vines and plants was sitting on his large shoulders with a gentle smile, they were Nick and Gwendolyn, who had fused into a single entity, a Rank 8 Parasitized Live-Undead Royal Magic Knight Champion Warrior.

"Ah, you guys are back!" said Veronica, greeting the enormous titanic monsters and Ervas Phantom Clone atop the head of Ivy.

"They were enjoying exploring the sea, although it is too salty and it might damage them in the long run, so I brought them up to rest," said Ervas' phantom clone.

"Good plan! Oh, the restaurant is about to open!" said Veronica's clone.

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