Author’s Corner: Here’s another chapter for you guys! Sorry for those that were looking forward to immediately doing the time baby experiments, but right now he doesn’t have enough information to even get started on that!

So, our group was currently at the entrance to the demon dungeon. With me was Sharon, Celeste, Yin, and Yo, all equipped with their best gear, and ready to conquer this series of caves. Well, that was the plan at least, and we knew that the first two floors would be easy for us. During this last week, Nathan and his group had gone into the dungeon twice, and the reports from it gave us quite a bit of information about the dungeon, even though they were stopped at the third floor.

Now entering the Seven Circles of Sin

That was the name of this dungeon, and it had some unique characteristics. The dungeon itself was arranged in a complex spiral leading down, and each layer had a theme. For the first layer, the enemies were berserk imps, who seemed to grow stronger the more of their kind were killed. This was referred to as the ‘Wrath’ circle.

The second layer was a bit more complicated, because the enemies used magic attacks to drain stamina, earning it the title of the ‘Sloth’ circle. Nathan’s group easily passed through this one because of Sam’s inexhaustible stamina. Being a skeleton did have some advantages.

The third layer, which was the deepest layer we had information on, was more troublesome for Nathan’s group. This was the ‘Greed’ circle, where enemies would steal directly from your inventory and use what was in there against you. For Nathan, that rendered him practically useless, but it shouldn’t be so much of a problem for us.

“We going to do this, or just sit around all day?” Celeste asked with a wide grin as she walked into the first circle.

“Let’s go!” Yo ran in behind her happily, while the rest of us followed. In order to train her telekinesis, Yin chose to remain in her human form inside this dungeon. After all, there was only limited room to fly in a cave, and she could not use weather magic to help in there. In her hands, she held a long leather whip that seemed to crackle with static energy every time it moved.

Celeste, getting ready for the battles ahead, called out her mechanical cat minions. It had been a long time since I had seen these, but I knew they would likely be enough for the first few floors. Like Sam, Celeste and her minions wouldn’t have to worry about stamina being an issue. She countered the second floor perfectly, while we could counter the first due to overwhelming power.

For now, Sharon did not call out any of her companions, nor did she use her transformation power. “Let’s use our area attacks on this floor. Kill the imps before they have the chance to power up.”

I nodded at the suggestion, getting ready to use my magic. From the information we had obtained, demons have a decent resistance to both fire and darkness, so I won’t be using those elements much. Instead, I planned to use mostly the Gravity element, as I had not had a chance to test it in battle yet.

Our first encounter occurred roughly five minutes after we had entered the red caves. Ten humanoids were flying in a dense swarm ahead, each one red skinned and no more than two feet tall. Upon seeing us, they let out a chittering screech and flew at us in a fury.

Sending out a ripple of mana, I controlled the gravity around the imps to increase, sending them crashing into the ground. Their tiny wings could no longer support their weight, so when Yin grabbed them with her mind and ripped them in half, there was almost no resistance. “That was easy.” I then looked over at Yin, making sure that she was okay from the telekinetic exertion. These were only small creatures, so the amount of force her mind was using was less than normal, at least.

“Yeah, well, they start coming in groups of over fifty before the end of the level, according to the reports.” Celeste said with a shrug, continuing on past the bodies of the imps. And sure enough, she was right. We already had the map of this floor, so we were able to quickly make it through. The only real surprise was that every now and then, there would be a second type of demon mixed in with the imps.

This second type appeared to command the imps, standing at seven feet tall with a muscular build. In their hands they would either wield a sword or spear made of a black material. Unlike the imps, these demons seemed to have a language that they spoke in, although it was not one I understood. It seemed like Celeste didn’t know the language either, so it may have been one they themselves created.

The second demons, which I’ll call ‘demon captains’ because of their ability to command the imps, were actually pretty strong. The first time we fought one, it commanded a group of twenty imps. Like the previous battles, I intended to simply end the fight by increasing the gravity and letting the others deal with them. However… the demon captain was not fazed at all, even when his weight tripled.

With my effort focused on restraining the imp horde, I could do little to stop the demon’s advance. And as it saw that I was the one behind its minions being held down, it charged at me with its black sword. In response, Yin whipped at it with her own weapon, which shot lightning at the demon’s chest when it struck. Still, it refused to go down. It wasn’t until Sharon intercepted it with her armor’s blades and stabbed its neck that it finally died.

“What are those things, and why don’t we have any information about them?” I glanced to the fallen demon captain. If it spawned on this floor, or even the floor below, then we should have information on it with the terminal in my lab. However, this type of demon was not listed there.

“Well, they were mentioned in Team B’s reports, but my guess is that they spawn on a lower floor.” Celeste spoke up, though she hadn’t had the chance to attack. Just one of those things was able to resist my gravity effects and Yin’s lightning, so I was a bit worried about what would happen if we fought a whole group of them.

However, my fears were unfounded, as this type of demon never appeared in the same group twice, at least on this floor. The one exception was the floor’s boss, which had two of them. However, unlike the reports we had read, there was not a giant swarm of imps to accompany the boss, only the two demon captains.

The boss of the first floor was… well, there’s really no way around saying it. It was a cerberus. Not THE Cerberus, just a three headed hellhound. The strange thing was that the demon captains were treating it like a pet, rather than being its minions. Well, that made fighting it easy enough.

“Yo, would you mind?” I stepped back to let the slime girl go. Although the cerberus was bigger than we were, it was not necessarily stronger. From what we heard, its level was just a bit under fifty, so it wasn’t hard for Yo to deal with it in a physical confrontation.

“Alright, dad.” Yo spoke with a smile, taking large steps forward and forming her spear with her slime. She eyed the three headed dog for a long moment as it approached her, before turning back to me. “Can I eat it?”

“....Uhm… okay?” I had nearly forgotten about her ability to consume and copy other creatures, as she had only used it shortly after she evolved. But, hearing my answer, she happily returned to the fight. Seeing that she was charging it, the three heads of the hellhound all released a black flame breath, a move which the reports had taken to calling balefire.

The balefire wasn’t a true flame, but a magical construct that ate away at the soul of the person it hit. That’s why I chose for Yo to fight it, because as a fighter class she has the most buffer aura out of any of us. Even if it decreases her experience, it won’t hurt her skills to be hit by it. The problem with the balefire was that it was not easily put out, and continued to burn whoever was hit by it.

To my surprise, Yo actually attempted to dodge the blast, rather than absorb it like she would most other attacks. Though she was not fast enough to dodge all three fire breaths at once, she did reduce the damage to only one side of her body. “Eww… that feels weird.” She groaned, before a thick puddle of goo fell off of her, taking the flame with it.

That was… one way of getting rid of the balefire, I guess? Though, I probably would not have cut off my own arm to do so. However, Yo took a stance with her spear, pulling it back as if to prepare for a thrust. She was still about ten meters away from the cerberus, so there was no way her spear could normally reach, even with the enchantments I put on it. But again she surprised me.

When Yo made the thrust with her spear, her entire body shook from the force, and she even let out a low shout. And following that shout, her spear… grew. The tip of the spear stretched out faster than the hellhound could react, and pierced straight through its middle head. And then, as if that head had become an anchor, Yo’s body launched towards it, being pulled by the spear. “Now… get in my belly!”

Just before she reached the floor boss, her body seemed to explode, the various fragments all twisting through the air to wrap around the cerberus, earning pitiful wails as it tried to struggle free. Slimes are scary.

Seeing that their pet had failed to fight off the intruders, the two demon captains finally took action, charging at us with their swords out. Though, this time Celeste had a turn to take action, and shot each one once with her arm cannon, creating large holes in their bodies. She can be scary, too…

Anyways, with that, we were able to charge straight into the second floor. Here, we met the sloth demons. These were thin, black-skinned demons with long arms and legs. Their face had no eyes or ears, just a large mouth that would emit a yawn every time they did their attacks, which were beams of black energy fired from their hands.

For this floor, we just had Celeste take care of everything. She was immune to their stamina draining attacks, as were her mechanical pets, so she was able to clear them out without any problem. On this floor, there actually were not any demon captains.

“Why do you keep calling them demon captains? Sharon already identified them.” Celeste spoke up in my head, interrupting my silent monologue. And I call them that because demon captain totally sounds cooler than lesser devil. “No, it doesn’t.”

Well, fine. There were no lesser devils on this floor. Happy, Celeste? “Yes.”

Anyways! Where was I? Oh right, we were able to quickly proceed through this floor with Celeste killing everything, right up until the boss. The boss of this floor changes in shape, but the powers it has been reported using are generally the same. This time, it appeared as a black skinned man in a suit.

I’d go into a dramatic reveal of its powers, but really it’s--and Celeste already blew a hole in its chest. Yeah, this boss is pretty weak against people like her. It has practically no defenses, but being in close proximity of it renders living creatures unconscious.

Now, for the third layer! This is the one we had to specially prepare for, since having anything in our inventories would just give these demons weapons to use against us. Greed demons are five feet tall, golden skinned with twin tails, and a pair of long horns coming from their foreheads. Their offensive power is not that great, but their ability to steal objects from their enemies, even out of their inventory made them a problem. Well… all of our gear was bound to us with the soul grafts, so they couldn’t be stolen so easily.

Or, that’s what I thought anyways. Our first encounter on this floor was a pair of greed demons. They began chittering excitedly upon seeing us, and made grabbing motions with their hands. Yo was obviously not affected because everything she uses is a part of her own body. I would guess that Celeste grafted all of her own equipment onto her soul, since she knows she can upgrade it whenever she needs to. The same thing applies to Sharon and myself.

Nonetheless, something appeared in the greed demon’s hands. I wouldn’t call it a weapon, really… However, there were two very angry women all of the sudden. In the left demon’s hands was a long green dress, which had suddenly vanished from Yin’s body. In the other demon’s hands were… Do I really have to say it?

Panty thief demons!

I hate you too, Malthan. But yes, the other demon was holding Sharon’s underwear. The only items not bound to us… our clothes. I could only silently pray for the souls of these demons as they were torn to shreds by the two angry girls.