victory

Alex slowly uncovers his ears while rising from his crouched position. His ears still ringing from the dangerously near blast, he took a second to steady himself before looking around.

The sight he witnesses wasn't pretty at all. All around him remains of splattered fleshes, burning corpses and disfigured monsters were bare from his eyes. The scene was akin to the aftermath of an artillery shell amid the battlefield.

Alex scans the surrounding, searching for survivors, but none seems to appears. The few who haven't blasted apart from the initial blast had their organ crushed under the explosion or peppered from the bones shards, if not burned to death by the thrown runestones.

He tried not to be affected by the squishing sound of his steps on the floor full of guts, shredded meat and burn the corpse. Out of the blast range, Alex stored the three undamaged hobgoblins, along with the Monster gem, before climbing down the stair, leaving the dungeon clean the aftermatch.

CS, who remain silent until then, made himself know after the vanish from the floor.

-Better be ready, we don't know if they're still some underneath.-

'Mn.' Hummed Alex back, his mind still on the slaughter who just happen.

Thankfully for both, the previous genocide he was the culprit on the goblin clan helped him cope with the situation. It didn't mean he wasn't affected, just that he could see further than the nightmarish sight.

He had no doubt that any rookie adventurer would be puking their guts out at sight, but Alex kept in mind that this could have happened to the settlement people, had he not struck first. The fact that they were monsters also helped, even if he wasn't against a reconstitution, should it was humans who assault him.

~~~

He didn't stop to sniff the air during the short descent, trying to ascertain the numbers of the monsters inside.

The first indication that the floor was still being terra-formate was the lack of this habitual root-like structure on the walls as he neared the floor, only rock remain. Seeing the flat ground, Alex took out his pair of guns.

Finally landing on the ground, Alex arrives in another empty room. The first room's structure was still incomplete in the centre, as roots descended halfway to the floor. The set-up allowed him to witness the first real Dungeon core of his life. Unlike the pulsing, blue waves he saw in the previous one, the core was continually bleeding large among particles.

The amount was so large that it formed a semi-translucent cloud. Alex could physically see the particles pouring in the roots above.

The second thing he saw was the larger frame of two hob-goblins, each on the side of the core.

'You were right; they left some guards behind.' Said Alex, as he charges a three-second shoot before firing at the two unaware monsters.

The soundless bullet tore through their heads nearly at the same time, killing both before they understand that the threat wasn't deal with and react. Alex store both of the corpses in, bringing the number to fifty-five.

~~~

Walking inside the eighth floor, Alex trots to the centre room.

One of the difference, though, was the one at the centre. Slightly crooked, as if ready to drill in the lower layer of rock, the root was the only one going from roof to the ground directly. From the shape of the ones spreading all over, it seems to be the point of origin, not a far-fetched idea, from what they saw before.

At the centre of the root, was a blue gem, the size of Alex's head. In looking closer, he could see four layers surrounding a bright core inside.

'The number of layers seems odd; do you have an idea from what it means?'

-From the objective, I would say the numbers of nest connected to it.-

'Mn seems legit.' Alex nodded.

Looking around, Alex winced, now knowing what happened to the adventurer. Tethered on the central root, behind the jutting core, were the three females. Their hands were held by a thick root, as their arms supported all their weight. Their armour and clothes were inexistent, torn apart, letting the sign of abuse they receive clearly evident. All three women sport large bugle on their stomach. Their appearance was beaten and bruised. Their arms and legs snapped, with bones jutting from the flesh and Alex suspect that it wasn't virginal blood leaking and crusting on their crotch.

Looking at their gaze, he couldn't see any light in them, even the pain that their wounds should inflict them didn't make them flinch. The women, like their expression, were already dead inside. The last time he sees them, was ten days prior and from their appearance, they seem to have been caught not long after.

Left to the hobgoblins mercy for such a long time, Alex wasn't surprised that they lost their will to live.

~~~

Giving a last look at the women, Alex put their misery to end with a knife each to their head. Taking one of his long knives, Alex inserts it in their bruised vagina, cutting the fleshes upward, to the navel. Without the muscle to keep the developing baby in the uterus, the baby falls to the ground, killed before they react.

Processing in a similar fashion with the two other, he barely looked at Marron's gnawed skeleton, before looking through their remaining equipment. Other than clothes, shredded to tatters by the goblins, Alex found a pouch of cores on each of them.

The swords weren't in useful shapes, bent and lightly chipped. Knitting back the burst backpacks, Alex filled them with everything he could, not looking at it, before storing them.

Once sure he had everything, he approached the Dungeon core. The second he tried to remove it, Alex was harshly zapped with a bolt of wild magic, who made him stubbles few feet behind.

"What the?!" Shouted Alex in pain and surprise, while shaking his numbs limb.

The second the bolt runs through him, he had felt two other sources of power shielding the DUngeon core to be retrieved.

"This fucking core is protected by the subsidiaries?!" Angrily snarled Alex at the realisation that he had to clear and remove all the other cores from the remaining nests before took off the Mother core.

-I didn't expect that.- Darkly commented CS, not too happy with how things were evolving. -Thankfully, this will also make things simpler. While it was only a flash, I know were the two others are located.-

~~~

Alex wasn't a happy camper after the last surprise of the Dungeon but mollified that it brought them closer to their goal inadvertently.

-I just thought of it, but, wouldn't conquer Orario' labyrinth, near impossible?- Suddenly Asked CS. -I mean, if you have to extract all nest cores before attempting to remove the Mother one, wouldn't be that impossible to do?- Asked him puzzled at the news.

'No, I ... Oh, shit! Your right, but you forget a little detail. The nest seems to turn into Mother Dungeon on their own, after a time, what if they kept the same patterns, and need...

- .. to be cleared of their subsidiaries, before dealing with them, then the nest of the mother Dungeon, before tackling it, this could be without end!- Shouted CS at the new dimension the problem seems to take. -If that true, I doubt that short of sending all Adventurer level per level, they would never clear the Dungeon.- Deflated him at the Titianesque task.

'You forget that the adventurers spread through diffrent Familias, I doubt the gods would willingly work with others to achieve it. You could say that the gods had become themselves a part of the dungeon, dividing the rank of adventurer to making it forever impossible to clear it.'

-I don't like it.-

'And you're not supposed too, but me neither. I will not throw away my life and go out of my way to help peoples unwilling to help themselves. I don't know what the Freya Familia plot, but I don't like it.'

-You better be careful if you ever deal with them, buddy, I could smell crazy on them, and I don't like it one bit.-

'I know.' Sight Alex. Ever since he came here, the situation had always turned more and more dangerous. The happy go lucky animation he has seen now far away, and he started to regret it, there at least he knew what he was facing.

~~~

Now that he knows he needs to take off the other two nest cores before taking out this one, Alex Sit on the floor, his back against one of the protruding root, and took a bit.

'What time do you think is it outside?'

-Night most likely. You needed hours to craft those guns, along with the clearing of the Dungeon. I would say tens of hours. You should take a quick nap, without the monster gem, the Dungeon is nothing more than a toothless tiger. Even if it made news one, it wouldn't pop any monster in time.-

Taking on CS advise, Alex took some rest, rapidly slipping in a must needed break.

~~~

Waking naturally a few hours after shutting his eyes, Alex stretch before raising and climbing the stair back to the floor above.

With the hours he leaves the Dungeon to work, the previous desolation scene had been purged, returning the floor to its pristine state. Waving his hand, Alex summoned all the cores, spears and runestones.

Sending treads of craft magic on the floor, he rapidly locates the formed Monster cores in the central room. Bursting the roots open, Alex gathers the six hobgoblin-sized Monster cores.

-That much and here?- Said CS, surprised to see so much gathered on one point.

'Seems to me that the Dungeon know I was near its core, it probably gathered all the energy from the slay monsters and send it here, like from the first floor.'

-Make sense.-

{[Monster gem detected, would you like to integrate the Monster gem with the Pocket space? Y/N]}

Pocketing the cores, Alex accepted the popping message. Closing his eyes, he saw eight of his twelve hobgoblin Monster cores flee to the eight corners of his pocket space, before merging in and widen it.

The first time he accepted, the goblin Monster cores had doubled the pocket space. The second time, the variant one had tripled the o,80 metre edges of the cube, bringing them to 2,4 metre, or 13,84 metre square. The trend wasn't lost as the hobgoblin Monster cores quadruple it.

Alex had a pocket space of 884,7 metre square of space from the 9.6 metre long edges. As he had a tenth of say space with stopped time, Alex transferred all the corpse in the 88 metres square plus time frozen space.

Nodding happily at the large gain in space, Alex started to climb out of the Dungeon, making sure to gather any leftover cores and weapons he could have left behind.