Aftermath
Styx's avatar had fallen unconscious and even his dungeon core was operating at low efficiency. This caused his monsters to become slower as they relied on him, whilst other functions in his core became limited.
The battle with the demons rapidly came to a conclusion though.
The Fifth Step balefire daemon had been their ultimate plan, or a Hail Mary so to speak.
The demons didn't scout ahead of their army to gather intelligence, they were simply like a train charging forward. Whilst the high rank demons may be more cunning than the mindless lower tier demon races, this was how they did war.
Victors feasted upon blood and flesh, losers died and had their power devoured.
With Dragon no longer occupied by the devil, he returned to the battlefield and the demons became the target of his wrath. Blood soaked the city walls and the demon army was finally defeated, the final stragglers fleeing away from the city.
It wasn't just demon blood on the walls either. It was also elf, orc, dwarf, and beastman blood
The Fourth Step succubus was bound by invisible threads and curled up on the bloodstained bricks of the wall beside Everest, who was carrying Styx's avatar in a princess carry. Not far away, almost forty other succubus of the Second and Third Step were struggling as Everest's threads restrained them too.
"Kill… Kill… Kill…" The Monster Lord looked at these Succubi with utter disgust and anger.
She would have sliced them into a hundred pieces with her webs if Styx hadn't expressly commanded her to catch them. The thought of defying Styx also ran through her mind more than once, but her attachment to him kept her sanity tethered and she restrained herself.
This didn't stop a terrifying display of her releasing highly poisonous baby spiders all over the succubi should they try to escape though.
Therina took down the hell knight demon commander, despite the difference in their strength. The fear and despair of the city residents allowed her to summon far more nightmare monsters than she would have otherwise.
The demon commander was a physical type with magic reinforcement. In human terms, he would have been a magic knight. The nightmare monsters were completely impervious to damage however, and attacked him in swarms.
He soon realized that attacking the monsters themselves was completely useless and targeted the summoner, Therina. She struggled to survive as he was far faster and stronger than her, who was still waiting to reach the Third Step.
With Styx currently in low power mode, she solely focused on protecting her vitals whilst dragging out time to give her nightmare monsters the chance to wear the demon commander down.
With blood dripping from her mouth as she was holding her body together with her regeneration, the Fourth Step demon finally collapse in a pool of his own blood. The nightmare monsters continued to tear at the body with teeth and claws until the corpse could no longer be recognized.
~~~~~
⠀
Styx awoke, fully recovered, two days later.
The battle was over. The demons had been repelled and recovery and restoration effects were being undertaken even without his direction. The city residents worked under the core guard's orders in clearing all the debris.
The giant ravine from the battle between Dragon and the devil was currently being repurposed into a part of the city's aqueduct. The temperature from Dragon's fireblast has crystallised the curved bed of the channel into a type of black obsidian that was somewhat glossy but also incredibly strong.
A channel from the aquaduct was being planned and the water supply to that section of the city would increase. Bridges also needed to be built, and all the surrounding houses repaired or otherwise rebuilt.
The western city wall and all the land halfway to the horizon was bloody and littered with corpses. Mages had been working together to conjure rain, but even that turned into rivers of blood in the end. It was an enormous task to collect all the bodies and process them.
There were those that could be turned into valuable materials, such as the horns of demons, demonic bezoars, scales, and many other items. Whilst unafraid of any attracted monsters, the remaining bodies and body parts still all had to be burnt to prevent plague from infesting the city.
This was a task that was expected to take at least another two weeks.
"Beatrice," Styx called out as his avatar sat up, the dark phenelf appearing alongside Irie from the room over.
Both of the dungeon wives were pregnant and had large, swelling stomachs. It had gotten to the point where their duties in the dungeon were on hold whilst others took care of them.
Beatrice already had large E cup breasts, but now they appeared even more 'full'. Irie was similar, but she was already getting closer to giving birth. Both of them had reached
"How time flies," Styx gently commented whilst looking at the two of them.
The dungeon wives kissed him before Beatrice asked, "We were worried about you. What happened? The succubus recovered yesterday, but she hasn't been making much sense."
"Hmm? How so?"
"She keeps saying you are her mate and she will never leave you. Also, apparently your child is in her stomach… When did you have sex with her?"
"That isn't that incomprehensible, is it?"
"This was condensed from about two hours of her blabbering."
"...I see. Let's go see her then."
Styx had automatically detected where the succubus was as soon as his dungeon senses came back online. She was being held captive deep in the prison at the lowest levels of the dungeon alongside the other succubi.
Whilst the usual guards wouldn't be able to stop the Fourth Step demon commander from escaping, Aura could.
This was under the condition she even tried to escape, something she did not show any intention of.
The other Second and Third Step succubi seemed to follow her lead and didn't try escape either, but they did throw some overtly flirtatious looks towards the guards.
One male guard had nearly been enticed to enter one of the cells and 'have some fun' before a whip .
Vivy was still the head prison warden. The two melons on her chest jiggled and ponytail swayed back and forth as she strut through the prison, inspecting the prisoners one by one with a keen eye.
This former dark elf, now evolved into an abyss demon, had remained in this position due to her lust towards men, which coincidentally filled at least 80 percent of the prisoner population. She had first pick amongst these men and would frequently beguile them with her natural charms and promises of better food and beds.
Styx strolled into the dungeon at this moment with Aura beside him. Everest was not to be seen, but her presence could still be felt by those keen enough.
The prisoners all looked at the dungeon lord warily, each and every one of them imprisoned for various reasons. They were all either exposed spies, captured foreign nationless exotic races, criminals who broke Styx's laws, or demon prisoners of war.
The dungeon residents were not above the law either, as there were plenty of those here under different term sentences for being destructive or harmful to either the dungeon or other dungeon residents.
"M'lord, are you here to ravish my body~?" Vivy flirtatiously said as she met Styx with her reverse harem in tow.
Seemingly oblivious to the jealous gazes behind her, the abyss demon threw her body into Styx's arms like a helpless maiden.
"I still refuse to share my women with other men," Styx coldly said before dropping her onto the ground, only for her to land on her feet like an agile cat.
"But I love you all so much~"
"You have truly gotten unrestrained, haven't you? You are simply indulging now."
"I am taking care of my men is all. They are just needy~"
"The problem is that you view all men as yours."
"Hmph! Only the pretty ones!"
"Anyway, I have other things to do currently than fend you off."
Styx took the prison keys off Vivy's waist without so much as asking for her opinion, not that she minded it either. In the deepest parts of the dungeon, where the worst criminals were kept, the Fourth Step succubus was locked up in her own cell.
Her clothing had been replaced with something more covering, but it still did little to hide her perfect skin and seductive figure. She wore a loose shirt and a basic cotton skirt, but even that looked good on her.
Currently, she was unrestrained and laying across a chair whilst tenderly rubbing her stomach, her shirt having been bulled up and tucked under her breasts.
Upon sensing the visitors she abruptly turned her head and looked at Styx with a mixture of love and lust.
"Sweetheart, you finally came~"
"Of course. You are my prisoner now, after all."
"I will be anything you want me to be~"
"Enough with the flirting," Styx glared at her and spoke in a cold voice. "Try anything and you will be killed before you can get up to any tricks."
Styx opened the cell and walked in, the seemingly weak succubus allowing the baggy shirt to drop back down as she turned her body to face towards him before invitingly opening her legs.
"I may already be pregnant, but you can use my body however you please, sweetheart~"
Styx rose a brow before looking closer at her stomach. In his vision, he could indeed see the incredible amount of mana congregating in her womb from her body, although she seemed almost completely unaffected by it. This amount was slowly, but consistently, increasing though, so this may not remain the case.
"You asked for my name," Styx ignored her enticement and grabbed her pitch black hair before pulling her up to stand before him. "But you never told me yours."
"It is rare for a succubus to give her name, for it holds power over her~" The demoness almost moaned at the rough and forceful treatment Styx subjected her to.
"Oh? I am unaware of such magic," Styx pinched her chin with his other hand, running his thumb over her soft lips before pinching it. "But are you not already mine, as you have said yourself?"
"Hehe, you can call me Ithrea~ That is the closest it can be spoken in the your common tongue. The control is not magical but instead stemming from our culture but yes, this succubus is all yours~"
Ithrea pressed her head forward and rubbed it against Styx's chest, her pointed ears scratching at his skin through his shirt. Aura glared at her, but the succubus seemingly didn't care for her own life and remained unaffected by the fear inducing pressure the Monster Lord emitted.
"Sweetheart, I carry our baby. She will be… incredible."
"Hmm? How can you be so sure you are pregnant?"
Styx was already convinced she was pregnant, and not overly surprised considering how much he released into her, but he understood very little about the succubi's reproductive cycle, nor how she knew she was pregnant immediately afterwards.
"It's a succubus thing, sweetheart. How do you think we reproduce? We absorb your seed for nutrients, not just for ourselves, but also for our offspring. The more we absorb, the stronger our children. There is a reason succubus l~o~v~e~ strong men~"
"And you, sweetheart, filled me to the point of overflowing~"
"You can absorb from multiple men to reach the same point, can't you?"
"No, no, no. That can be done, but the essence is all diluted and chaotic, resulting in stillbirth. We can seperate them, but only one person's seed can be used to make a child."
"So not only do you suck men dry of their vitality until even their lives are lost, but that in turn is used to make more succubus?"
"You do understand me, sweetheart~"
Whilst the child of a succubus was always a succubus, Styx held a soft spot deep within his core for his own children. He couldn't allow the succubus, nor the child she bore, to die.
"I had originally just intended to keep you around to fulfil my lust when nobody else was around, or too tired, but it turns out you had more value than I thought."
Ithrea blushed and wrapped her arms and legs around Styx.
"It may not be so easy…"
"Hmm?"
"This child… Sweetheart, I am giving all that I can to help it grow, but I fear it is not enough. If I can't carry it until it is ready for birth, we will both die. I have never heard of a succubus being filled with so much seed from a single man. Our daughter will be the strongest succubus to ever live, far more so than me or possibly any before me. This is only if I can survive. Until then, why don't you use my body as you please. Let me give you all my love, whilst you fill me up with yours."
Styx looked down at the succubus and actually felt sympathy for her. She was a true demon, through and through, her words designed to illicit specific responses from her targets. Despite this, Styx still felt himself caught in the honey trap that she was.
He still needed the other succubi, so it was currently a situation where Styx would simply be using her. She used him to reproduce after all, even intending on taking his life despite her 'love', so he held no sympathy for her. Once she gave birth to his child, he would ensure she obeyed him and never dared defy his order.
"Relax your body."
Styx commanded the succubus and singlehandedly held her in the air by her throat before extending mana threads out from his avatar and into the demoness' body.
Ithrea moaned in ecstasy as Styx filled up every one of her pores with himself. At least she tried to, except her voice was stuck in her throat due to Styx choking her. She didn't struggle nor writhe depsite being chocked, instead developing a small wet patch in her crotch.
Styx was simply surprised by how easily the mana threads slipped into her, the succubus offering up no resistance at all to him. She was completely receptive of everything he put inside of her, and his tendrils penetrated directly into the core of her mind before splitting off and leaving a small piece of himself deep within her.
Despite how twisted and categorically evil her mind felt to him, it rapidly swirled around and formed a protective cover over the piece of Styx within itself, protecting it from any outside threat.
"I will keep you alive until my child is born, Ithrea. Even though you get to keep your life, never forget your place, Ithrea..
Styx released the succubus who immediately fell to her knees and panted for breath, her large chest violently pushing out and in with her breathing.
"Haah… Haah… Haah… Don't worry, sweetheart, I wouldn't leave a human such as yourself even if you tried to throw me away~"
"I am a dungeon, not a human."
Ithrea abruptly opened her eyes wide in surprise this time, a completely new emotion bubbling to the surface of her mind.
"That's impossible."
"Why?"
"Dungeon's can't have children."