Chapter 99 - A Dungeon within a Dungeon

‘That doesn’t look anything like a dungeon to me.’ Sithis echoed the thoughts of everyone else present as they looked out across the gigantic pit that surrounded their small platform.

“Everyone party up, it’ll be easier to monitor one another that way” ordered Trey as he willed invitations to everyone there. One by one the other people and their status bars appeared near his in his top left corner of vision.

The pit stretched about them on all sides for miles. A steep descent down the rocky spire led further in, and near the bottom was a sprawling mass of silky webs. The webbing covered nearly all of the pit with various rocky pieces jutting out from below. No living thing was seen anywhere, and five small red moons glowed down to tinge the land about them with their coloring amidst the dirty orange sky.

“This definitely doesn’t look like the Oblivion I remember. Five moons wasn’t a thing, last time it was two.” stated Trey confidently while scratching the back of his neck. “He said something about the 137th level?”

“There are many different dimensions to Oblivion, just as The Hells.” replied Ezdeath, her golden eyes casting about the barren wasteland surrounding the miles-long canyon that was encompassed in webbing. “This looks like a weaver nest. We should be careful…”

She took a look up at the red moons and then circled about to take in the rest of the scenery again. Her fingers clenched hard around her halberd, and she bit her lip while taking it all in. “”This… reminds me of home! It is… it’s so beautiful!”

True happiness sparked across her features as she giddily began to leap down from various ledges into the pit far below.

“Beautiful?” murmured Taen. The young necromancer frowned and exchanged a look with his heavily armored ghoul - Bann. “She really must have been in there for a long ass time to think THIS place is beautiful.”

“Agreed,” stated Bann promptly from beneath the armor, palming his broadsword as he did. “Let us follow her lead though. We must not split up.”

Without further ado, Trey catapulted off of the ledge and down into the pit hundreds of feet beneath them. The rocky spire soared past him as he accelerated, blurring near the end. He then landed in a cloud of shadows and materialized back to physical form upon impact, looking back up after inspecting the webs and giving a thumbs up to everyone else.

Ezdeath was the first to reach Trey at the bottom, followed by Atharost - who was carrying Juila, Jason, and then Taen. The others made their way down more carefully as the four at the bottom took a look into one of the web tunnels.

Trey gave a wary glance to his left and then right. Silky webs were everywhere. “Definitely not a dungeon. I agree with Sithis.”

Ezdeath chuckled as she came to a stop beside him, summoning her helmet to her via the trinket around her neck and putting it on her head. “You have much to learn, as does your symbiote. I thought your group had cleared dungeons before? ‘Dungeon’ can of course refer to a prison, but can also speak of a living lair with a dungeon core. ‘Dungeons’ in this regard are living entities born into an inanimate piece of material such as a rock, gem or fossil, almost like a regular spirit… but slightly different in the aspect that they’re tied down. They feed off of a particular area, trying to trap other creatures inside to prey on - absorbing their life force in the forms of HP, SP and MP. The dungeon can mutate and grow over time to the point of creating its own creatures that are then bound to it, giving them abilities or buffs that wouldn’t otherwise be available to them. Sometimes even items can be created by dungeons to lure in others - or the dungeon will collect valuables over time from its kills for the lure. The intruders will try to get away with the objects of power created there. The dungeon will try to kill them for their life force, souls, items and biomass. Many Oblivion tribes have formed pacts with dungeons for further protection, promising the dungeon core sacrifices - while other demon clans are even originally born from dungeons.”

Trey looked skeptical. “I knew the first part… but forming pacts with them? Really?”

“Yes!” retorted Ezdeath with a confident smile underneath the red adamantine visor. “The power around here resonates from the land itself, this is definitely a dungeon. Whatever lives here has likely made a pact with it.”

Trey frowned as his gaze was torn off the succubus and directed into the woven tunnels going downwards. “Are dungeons able to be killed?”

Ezdeath hesitated. “Yes… but you’d need to find the point of origin. It would likely be buried deep into the ground. And many like to keep them around even without a neutrality pact, because having a dungeon nearby means an area where you can go level up by killing spawns or collect items of power the dungeon uses as lures. Earlier I heard you speaking with Izumi about the dungeons you’d raided. What made you think they were dungeons?”

Trey shrugged. “I… guess I had just heard others in Ornthas classify them that way. I had known about the cores though. I just didn’t know much beyond the basics. You said it looks like a weaver nest? What’s a weaver?”

“Large intelligent spiders.”

“Oh.” Trey should have known that just by looking at the damn place. However he’d be hesitant to jump to conclusions… for all he knew, it could have been giant silkworms that’d created this nest.

But now that he knew they were spiders… he hoped his encounters with them would go as well as the ones that he’d last spoken with.

A thunderous boom shook the ground beneath them and the web along the entirety of the miles-long pit trembled. The four standing at the entrance immediately grabbed onto nearby strands of webbing and tried to maintain their balance before exchanging quick glances. Then it happened again.

“What the hell?” murmured Taen as he mentally ordered Butcher to pick him up. Butcher did exactly that, holding Taen up off the ground at a better vantage point with his large clawed hands of bone and flesh. “Any idea what that is… Ezdur?”

“My name is Ezdeath.”

“Sorry, Ezdeath. Any idea what that was?”

The succubus shook her head no. “Likely the dungeon reacting to something, but that’s just a guess.”

Rivia’s infernal halo bloomed to life beside them, and the priestess brazenly stepped forward to lead the way - hips swaying as she passed and gave Trey a meaningful look. “Whatever it is, we’ll put it into the grave.”

Some of the others raised their eyebrows or grinned upon hearing the dark priestess’ words, some stared at the outright obvious display of sexualtiy, and others simply followed. Ezdeath however, took note of her behavior… and the succubus lightly sighed before following the rest towards the den’s entrance with the horde of zombies trailing in the back.

Half an hour passed before all of their group was down from the steep pillar climb, staring into the entrance as yet another boom shuddered the thick sturdy webbing they stood upon.

“I’m picking up faint traces of magic from those shudders,” noted Coctim, and the scrawny mage fumbled with his pockets before pulling out a handkerchief to blow his nose.

Taen frowned from atop his perch on the living mountain of muscle - Butcher. “Really? I didn’t feel anything.”

There were no signs of life anywhere. There were no birds in the ashen sky above, the wind was soft and warm, and the webbing underfoot was like semi-hard mud that slightly gave with every step before rebounding upon taking the weight off.

“This is strange,” interrupted Ezdeath. “The entire nest seems to be… deserted. I was expecting to see at least a few of the weavers by now, but none have come to the surface from any of the entrances I see.”

“What’s a weaver?” asked Coctim hastily as he glanced back at the few of his men - sailors with cutlasses drawn while they too were nervously fidgeting with their clothes or weapons.

“Large intelligent spiders.” replied Jason with a scowl. “Weren’t you listening?”

Atharost coughed loudly from the rear, and the demon scowled as he and Napoleon poked at the webs underfoot. “I just hope I don’t burn this entire thing down if it comes to a fight. It may completely give way under out weight.”

“Under our weight weight!” Napoleon cackled, thinking the idea incredibly funny as the imp clapped his hands together rapidly.

Trey rolled his eyes and whirled a finger in the air signaling them to start moving. As one, the group began to move slowly into the tunnel and further down. Together their small army walked onwards, the faint light of the red suns seemed to penetrate through the webbing and into the pathways they took - though it refracted the light and gave off an eerie tone while they made their way through. Not more than five minutes into the trek, the circular tunnel branched out into a multitude of other tunnels: all of them big enough to drive a yacht through and all of them made out of webbing. Even Butcher wasn’t having a hard time walking around and he was on the enormous side.

“Sithis, can you remember the way out?” whispered Trey.

Sithis acknowledged his question with a quick answer: ‘I have already begun mapping the interior, master. You may continue on without hesitation.’

Yet again the webbing of the nest shook, but this time violently. A few of the party members fell to their knees and lost their balance while others held on to sides of the tunnel walls. Upon Trey’s back, Talsh’Noc’Un began to hum a low tone and vibrate gently. The others took note of it and looked curiously at Trey.

“Yo, Talshy, whatsup my dude? You cool?” Trey questioned his friend the greatsword curiously.

The sword continued to hum for another minute. “Master… the foe you seek… is beyond your current… form… we will require Sithis to unleash the ritual… if we are to survive…”

Trey paled and took a look over his shoulder at the weapon. “You’re talking about the possession? You sure about that? It’s a one time deal, we need to be careful about how we use it. And… I don’t like putting Sithis in harm’s way if we can avoid it. What if the possession doesn’t work like we want it to?”

Sithis laughed demonically as the greatsword replied: “Master… I guarantee… you will not survive this encounter otherwise… I can feel his presence… from here...”

“Even with Ezdeath?”

There was a long pause. “Yes… Even with the succubus…”

“What are you three talking about?” insisted Ashe from behind. Trey looked to see the others all listening in on their conversation with expressions ranging from fear to curiosity. Ashe in particular had her golden ears laid back and a scowl was evident upon her face.

“It’s nothing, Sithis just has an ace up his sleeve that we may need to use. Let’s keep going.”

“Trey...” Jason stepped in front of his newly formed friend with a hand up. “From that little discussion you just had I feel like we are owed an explanation.”

Trey adamantly shook his head. “I really don’t want to talk about it. Sithis has a backup plan that may end up getting him hurt or even dead, and it’s one that I don’t approve of. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“What about-”

“No more questions.” Trey cut off Jason and held up a hand to stop him from speaking. “Let’s go, I want to get this over with and so does everyone else.”

Jason let out a humph, and everyone else stared blankly back at him. “Fine. But I don’t like that you’re keeping something like this from us. Sithis is part of our family now too and we deserve to know.”

“It isn’t your business, nor is it anyone else’s other than mine.” Trey snapped definiantly back at Jason. “I don’t see what the problem is, and I’m not going to stay here and talk about it. Let’s move.”

The air about the two men was definitely awkward the next couple of moments. Trey and Jason recently had a good run in terms of not-arguing up until then, but before too much longer they were back to their normal selves and had taken up the leads at the front of the group. No one had any real idea where they were going, so the plan was to just keep exploring until they finally found this devil that Xil had talked to them about - and took his pendant to end the game.

***

“This is so weird,” muttered Taen as they continued to trek about the empty nest. He was smoking a pipe atop his flesh golem and occasionally glancing up to where his phantom - Coriana - was flying overhead. “Where the hell is everything? I thought this was supposed to be some hardcore event. Hell, even Xil said this was supposed to be harder than the others’ trial and they got killed nearly instantly while we just jerk each other off and trot back and forth.”

From far behind them, Juila let out a yelp as a loud crack snapped them all to attention. Turning, they found that it’d been Atharost just smacking her ass as they flirted with one another.

“Ugh, boys are so immature. And hey - Atharost! Juila is MINE!” Ashe looked to Izumi with a hopeless frown. “At least I have you with me, Izumi. I don’t know what I would have done all these months without you.”

“Ashe, you see anything yet?” Jason asked from her side.

Ashe had been scouring the area, keeping tabs with her enhanced vision as her first bow upgrade had given her a while back.

Bows^^^^ - Level 43

Upgrade 1> Your vision is crystal clear and able to zoom in by up to 100 yards Upgrade 2> Each projectile fired gains an additional +6 attack rating Upgrade 3> Dexterity is increased by 4% Upgrade 4> Piercing chance increased by 7%

Ashe shook her head and stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Nothing out in front.”

“OVER HERE!” shouted Claire from far behind the group. “I think you all need to take a look at this…”

One by one the others of the group made their way back to where Claire was standing. A small hole in the webbing had been left open, and they were able to see into the next room through it.

Taen stepped up as two of the others made way for him. He peered through and was perplexed by what he saw. The next ‘room’ over was really a much larger version of the webbed tunnels they had already been traveling through, with numerous passageways opening up into it. The Titanic itself could have fit through there, and a multitude of corpses lined the large hall.

There were many thousands of them present. Corpses of spiders ranging in magnitude from the size of a dog to the size of a monster-truck lay in pieces or curled up in death, and intermixed with them were corpses of two other species of demon or beast. Blue or green lizard-men wearing decorative armors, trinkets and tattoos had weapons laying beside many of the remnants of their corpses. The lizard-men were only slightly larger than humans, but were more muscular in appearance with shiny scales and rows of teeth inside their dinosaur-like jaws. Lastly a number of large winged gargoyles were also scattered about, showing quite a variety in shape, size and physical attributes. The largest of the gargoyle corpses dwarfed everything else within sight, easily larger than the biggest of the weaver spiders - while the smallest was only slightly bigger than the lizard men. Markings, cuts and other holes had been carved into the sides of the gigantic passage from the battle, and it was very likely that the hole Trey’s group stood looking through was a remnant of it as well.

Whipping out his beautifully crafted white and black longsword, Taen motioned for the others to stand back. He began swinging, trying to cut through the wall and into the next hallway. He had quite a hard time doing so as the webbing was very resilient, so the others began to follow suit and began chopping away together. Coriana looked on snidely from her position floating above the others, and only when Butcher began tearing away at it did they really start to make significant progress.

Ripping a big piece of the webbing away, Taen was able to finally fit himself through and into the other side. “I guess this answers the question of where all the enemies are. They’re already dead! What do you think did this to them?”

Control Limit Slots: 20.5 of 22 used.

Taen’s Minions:

Butcher, Flesh Golem, Level 16 (2 slots)(Neutral) Bann, Ghoul, level 86 (1 slot)(Neutral and Curious) Coriana, Phantom, Level 119 (2 slots)(Liked and Interested) 31 Zombies, Levels 7-42 (15.5 slots)(Not Sentient)

Create Lesser Undead^^^ (Necromancy) - Level 32

Zombie (Not Sentient) Skeleton (Not Sentient) Upgrade 1> +9% HP to all created lesser undead Upgrade 2> +15 speed to all created lesser undead Upgrade 3> All lesser undead now only cost 0.5 control slots each

Taen checked his status page, saw that he had room for three more corpses, and didn’t wait for an answer as he began raising three of the larger spider corpses as his new zombies. He would have tried for the gargoyles, but knew that demons couldn’t undergo any ability that’d turn them into undead. The giant corpses began to shift, shudder and glow with pale blue light as they slowly rose to turn and await further orders.

“You have acquired three new weaver zombies. Congratulations.” The All Spirit’s voice chimed into Taen’s ear as he grinned enthusiastically.

Ezdeath and Trey followed closely behind, with Ezdeath leaning down to examine a few of the corpses. Trey and many of the others took in the scene as they looked at the army of dead to both their left and right.

“They did this to one another, the markings and wounds match up.” Ezdeath got to her feet and turned around. “It looks to me like this was a three way battle between the gargoyles, weavers and lizard men.”

“Why would they be fighting each other? I thought they were supposed to be here to fight us?” Coctim said with confusion written across his features. “Not that I’m complaining though!”

“These wounds are fresh,” stated Bann as he shoved a finger into one of the weaver corpses, drawing back with fresh blood cached to his gauntlet. “The battle was not long ago. Maybe a couple hours at most.”

The world around them and webbing beneath them again shook, but this time more violently than before and Trey pointed down the main passage. “We have incoming.”

Far down the tunnel a lone gargoyle had burst forth from one of the smaller tunnels of webbing. It was bloodied with pieces of wing, arm and abdomen cut open and it was grappling with a similar sized weaver. The spider had wrapped its long legs around the demon and was currently trying to spin its web around the gargoyle’s legs as the gargoyle used its claws to strike out at the base of the spider’s abdomen. Behind the struggling pair a multitude of smaller spiders had emerged and were also trying to bring the great brute down. More and more weavers entered to set upon the giant, and in a mass of bodies the gargoyle let out a dying scream as it toppled to the floor.

Even from here, Trey could hear the mass of spiders chittering to one another… enthusiastically screaming out to one another about how they were going to feast on the gargoyle’s innards even as their comrades died underfoot. However, Trey was the only one to understand their language and kept it to himself.

He seriously doubted trying to talk down a mob that size would work and firmly put the thought behind him.

“Well… Might as well use that gargoyle as a distraction.” Trey pulled up Talsh’Noc’Un and grinned with a backwards glance. “Let’s not waste any time, shall we?”

Atharost exploded forwarded in a rain of fire that showered the unaware enemies just as Trey launched a series of chaos balls while charging headlong into the fray.

“Oh god damn it!” Jason yelled as he rushed forward to join his friend.

“WHAT IS HE DOING!?” screamed Coctim as he and the others ran forward to join in. “WE COULD HAVE JUST HID!”

Taen glanced up at Butcher warily as the others shot ahead. “I kinda doubt we could have hid.”

Izumi sprinted alongside him Coctim and gave him an apologetic sideways glance. “Sorry.”

Coctim didn’t have time to react before Izumi knelt down to unlatch her ripper cannon from her back. She hoisted it to rest on her left shoulder, unlatched the bipod and took aim. Firing, she slid back two inches with the impact as the gun boomed forth to unleash a bullet that ripped through a number of the spiders nearly eighty yards away.

Up ahead, Trey had thrown Talshy to impale one of the nearest arachnoids. He didn’t pause as he sped past to rip it from the corpse, annihilating two more with a loud scream and a swing of his sword. One of the large spiders rushed him only to be met with red claws buried deep in its skull - as his sleek tail whipped out to impale another.

A crash of black lightning past him only to be followed by a whirlwind of halberd attacks as Ezdeath used her wings to launch herself ahead and cut down seven more of the creatures in half a second. He’d taken time to go over her status page and knew full well that her quickstep sacred art, a low-cooldown speed-boosting ability, was responsible for how she moved around so fast.

It didn’t however explain how her weapon moved equally fast.

Arrows flew past them to bury deep into the thick hides of the creatures, with Napoleon’s green curse-imbued fireballs joining the fray.

The spiders continued to pour forth from the tunnel with loud screeches to follow in their wake, with many of them meeting Rivia’s pestilence explosions as fast-paced rot afflicted them by the dozens and spread at rapid rates. This in turn was amplified by Coriana, Taen’s phantom, who flew through the walls into the tunnel from whence the weavers were coming from and let off a ‘Scream of Decay’. With doubled affliction from two separate sources, the weavers in the first wave were dying in droves - some of them not even making it out of the tunnel’s entrance.

But hundreds more of the monsters were on their way, and despite repeated attempts to afflict rot - they still pushed onward over their piling dead.

Nightingale’s Homage: The Spinning Blades^^^^ (lvl. 41)(Dark) - Summon up to 4 spinning blades of dark magic to eviscerate your enemies with as homing missiles. Each blade is a separate summon and requires the mana cost of this spell. These blades are made of mana and have a durability stat, damage average, and may be destroyed. However, if they are not destroyed, they will continue to home in on targets that the caster views as enemies.

Coriana, Taen’s phantom, summoned her four spinning blades of darkness and went shrieking into the fight as the undead woman ripped the spiders apart - her ethereal trait making it literally impossible for the spiders to kill her with physical abilities and giving her absolute dominion over the battlefield without any magic or miracles to hinder her progress.

Butcher the flesh golem led Bann and the zombies to the forefront of the tunnel, trying to stave off the wave of impending carnage as the flesh golem smashed one after the other in quick brutal succession. Taen had cut down a number of them too and their dead littered the area around him, repeatedly setting off pale-blue soul bolts into the weavers who managed to overrun the entrance.

He spun his sword around to slice off three of the legs before impaling his next victims between the eyes and tried to monitor his minions from their HP bars in his HUD. Momentarily distracted, the necromancer would have been run-through by a nearby weaver if not for Napoleon rocketing into its face and tearing out its eyes as it chittered in a crazed display of pain.

From Taen’s right a mass of deep red hellfire shot out to decimate multiples of their enemies and other magics followed up. From further on he saw Ashe blur past him with insane speed, raining death directly into the tunnel’s entrance where the spiders were filing in after getting a good position further up the curved wall of the tunnel. Her hands worked crazy-fast reloading and unloading crossbow bolts, and Taen couldn’t help but wonder what the hell her speed and dexterity stats were. Surely no level 30-something rogue should be able to move that fast.

Screams, squeals, crushing sounds from Butcher’s pulverizing attacks and random blasts of magic echoed through the tunnel as the carnage continued.

Jason turned just a split second before one of the spiders came at him from the left and dropped an arrow into its face before bringing up his mace and smashing the head of the creature. Seven more spiders lurched forward at Jason as they rushed past the front line after ripping apart a good number of Taen’s zombies. Jason had to retreat backwards towards Izumi and two other archers from Coctim’s group, yelling out for assistance as he did. As he got nearer, Izumi pulled out her pistol and nailed two of them point blank as the archers focused on another - and it was Bann who stepped forward to impale a fourth with his broadsword after taking a hit to his kyte shield. Meeting them head on, the heavily armored ghoul blocked an incoming fang with his shield again but was swept aside with an undercut of a long arachnoid leg. His armor was soon punctured as the large weaver beat him repeatedly with that leg, shoving it through his shoddy chest plate and out his back. Bann cursed loudly and tried to rip out the sharp appendage, but was unable to do so until a cluster of bombs bombarded the spiders that had pinned him down - spilling their guts in splashes of bodily fluids all over the man.

Blood and corpses were everywhere amidst the clash of weapons, magic and screams of battle.

“GET UP!” screamed Izumi as she ran over to help the ghoul. She put out a hand and he pulled himself up with her help. Pulling out her pistol she sprayed a couple more bullets out into the oncoming hostiles as Bann pulled out the leg that had impaled him.

Out of the fray it was Ezdeath that came to save them from impending doom. Her armor glistened with the blood of the arachnids, tail impaling one weaver to throw it effortlessly over her head and bladed halberd tearing into the masses to easily slaughter all nearby foes with swift and practiced movements. Just pausing to watch Ezdeath work, Izumi momentarily gaped at how utterly pathetic their enemies seemed in comparison to the succubus warrior.

It was as if a teenage football star had decided to go and smash a bunch of toddlers into the ground - and this was only emphasized as Atharost’s booming flamingos tore into the waves in front of her - giving Ezdeath a reason to change course and intercept yet another group of the large arachnids to help Juila. Juila was smashing, tearing, and throwing the large spiders left and right - but they were piling on her in huge numbers that soon vanished as hellfire missiles bombarded heer and the things attached to her.

“I thought you’d be able to handle that… after our little scuffle earlier.” Ezdeath stated confidently with a grin underneath the blood-drenched helm. She extended a hand to the singed red-skinned demoness on the floor, and Juila just grunted to accept the help up before they joined forces in finishing off the enemies still living.

Down the passage: Taen, Coriana, Rivia and Trey had cleared up the remaining weavers there too. Butcher stood at the very entrance, picking a large weaver off his back and crushing it between bone claws before dropping it to the ground uncaringly. Claire was helping Coctim up from the ground, he had been attacked and bitten in the fighting. Bann was also consuming a corpse to heal from his puncture wound, and almost all of Taen’s zombies had been used as frontline cannon fodder, but otherwise the party had made it out completely unscathed.

“What… the HELL are you doing!” Coctim yelled angrily at the nearby summoner. Trey was closely examining a piece of abdomen he had ripped out of one of the weavers, and didn’t answer as he bit down into the flesh to devour it. Trey was covered in scratches and wounds, and his leather pants were torn at multiple areas.

Trey’s mind echoed with the voice of the All Spirit. “You have gained 1 level in the skill Aspect of the Devil: Mask. You have gained 1 level in the skill Aspect of the Devil: Tail. You have gained 1 level in the skill Blades. You have gained 1 level in the skill Light Armor. You have gained 3 strength for consuming kills you made. You have gained 2 overall combat levels.”

“I AM TALKING TO YOU!” Coctim yelled again as he broke away from Claire’s grasp and limped over to shove Trey as hard as he could. Trey didn’t budge at all, but looked up from his meal and smiled between his demonic jaws.

“I’M THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHITMOBILE!!!” Trey screamed back and laughed loudly with a demonic tone as he continued to eat away at the dripping piece of abdomen clutched in his claws.

Coctim didn’t know what to think or say, and turned questioningly to the others. Ezdeath, Claire and Taen wore similar expressions upon their faces.

“Sorry guys,” Jason murmured as he approached Trey to pat him on the back. Trey didn’t even seem to notice he was there. “Trey here… well something happened to him when he first arrived from Earth. He’s never really been the same since then, it only got worse after he got his new subclass, and he goes through episodes of… stuff like this. Especially recently.”

Ashe lightly nodded. “Yeah. The new subclass gave him an insanity stat, it increases his damage output but the rage bar he has causes him to lose his shit during fights. Sometimes even out of fights. He gets into moods like this and can’t really control himself sometimes. He’s not dangerous to us though so don’t worry. Very recently it’s when he starts fighting that triggers it, or when he sees an enemy. Previously he was just seeing visions. I think he’s at 7% insanity now? He’ll be back to normal soon though… or mostly normal.”

Coctim scoffed. “He’s insane then? THAT’S SOMETHING YOU COULD HAVE MENTIONED BEFORE WE AGREED TO THIS!” He tried to identify Trey to see what attributes he had but immediately was victimized by Ezdeath’s metal gauntlet as it slammed into the top of his head - causing him to clutch his head in agony with a severe migraine.

The succubus glared out at him through the visor in her helmet, and he quickly got the message. Atharost was coming to float overhead as well, blooming flames growing brighter as he glared just as threateningly. Then there was Juila, who was cracking her knuckles and Napoleon who was hissing the mage’s way.

“Alright… I get it…” Coctim muttered under his breath while avoiding the gazes of the demons under Trey’s command.

“Would you rather have gone with the other group then?” Taen retorted. Coctim fell silent, still clutching his throbbing skull.

Carefully Ezdeath approached her feasting master and cocked her head to one side in curiosity.

“Trey…?” Ezdeath said softly as she looked up into Trey’s face as he continued to eat. As she got closer, he stopped eating and glared at her through bright crimson eyes. They stared at one another for a while before he went back to eating. She took another step closer and pressed one open palm to the side of Trey’s skull.

Rivia scowled and pressed up against his shoulder while snorting in Ezdeath’s direction. “He’s fine.”

Ezdeath simply ignored the priestess.

“He will be fine…” Ezdeath eventually stated, removing her helmet temporarily to get a better look - and giving everyone else a spectacular view of her perfect features that competed with Rivia for prettiest female there. “Eventually he will be able to reel in his insanity, but only partially. He will need time to learn, but eventually he will adjust.”

“You mean that eventually this won’t happen anymore? How can you tell?” asked Ashe with a frown.

“Trust me on this. I have seen it before in another I was once close to.” Ezdeath narrowed her eyes and peered over to Coctim who still stood enraged and glaring at Trey. “I will not have you speak to my master like that again. If it does ever happen from this point forward, I will rip you open myself and feast on your insides. Mortal.”

Her beautiful features were set in a stone cold and serious gaze as she spoke, and Coctim went completely pale. No one dared challenged her on the subject, and followed her example in waiting patiently for Trey to come back from the depths of wherever it was his mind had gone.

It was the first time Rivia’s attitude towards the succubus had been friendly: “Well at least you have your priorities right, succubus.”