Laughter

After Reduvia had disappeared for a few minutes, Axiolypito's facade came off, his face twisted and shaped itself into a disgustingly awful toothy grin.

As soon as it appeared, he began laughing wholeheartedly, grasping at his stomach area while while starting to walk forward and out of the room.

His castle, currently much less demented than he was, was free of any other noise that wasn't his loud amusement.

"Aah, ahahah... Oh... That was great" he cleared his throat, sneered a bit again before clapping his hands.

The sound of his two palms intershocking echoed throughout the pointlessly long hallways of his castle.

Axio hadn't decided to take over the city for no reason, nor was it to stroke his ego by owning land and having a grand castle for himself, or too sit in a throne and have servants serve him.

There was that, but Axia was much more than this.

So much more.

It was a crucial part of his plan even.

In the eyes of others, Axia was a formidable fortress, the city was filled with needled monsters and spawners, as well as a large circle around it, the whole thing encased in Faceless Lord's domain.

It was a death trap for certain, only a fool would willingly approach Axia.

The truth was much more insidious.

After all, Axio had always been hoping to one day rise up against the Obsidian Queen, Axia was only meant as a way to achieve this goal.

Having gone silent just like the castle, Axio walked straight to the right, a direction in which there was no hallway or door, yet, he walked without a care.

Without meeting any resistance, he walked straight through the wall, arriving into a spiraling staircase.

Anyone discovering that managed to find out about the illusory wall, which was already a remarkable feat, for Axio had been busy strengthening this illusion for a long while now and also because the illusion didn't cover a regular doorway but a small space carved specifically for Axiolypito's measurements.

Most would just hit a wall regardless.

Now, the staircase went deep into the earth and led to a complex maze filled with traps, spawners and needled monsters, all abyssals in nature.

It was only natural to expect some sort of secret or treasure to be hidden at the end of all of this.

This was Axiolypito's castle however, it was all a trick, solely to blindside any trespasser.

Axio looked up at the ceiling and began scaling the wall, his hands and feets sticking to the stone surface, arriving on the ceiling, the moved to a seemingly random spot.

Of course, another layer of illusion was present there but covering even less surface, even slimes would find difficulty in getting through this tiny hole.

His body wrung itself up and condensed itself like a towel as he slid into the crevass.

Now, the path wasn't so simple, it got even narrower at certain points, split into multiple paths and was filled with other illusions.

After this, Axio had put even more obstacles and tricks, which he quickly went through before finally reaching his destination.

It was a gigantic room, in the center of it, a chasm cradling one of Axio's greatest achievements.

The titanic spawner emitted no flames for the moment, this gargantuan construct had been fueled for years now, ever since Axio had taken over the city, even at this moment, needled monsters could be seen throwing armfuls of spawners of all sizes without stop.

Axio had made sure to produce an egregious amount of spawners so that not even a single second was wasted, even single moments was spent reinforcing the spawner for the fated day.

This all took up a big portion of the room but there was still plenty of space alloted to other activities.

One of which revealing the hidden nature of Axio's dreadful bastion.

Indeed, the castle at the center of Axia was unnecessarily large and built in bizarre fashion, as though multiple castles had been stitched together through some failed experiments.

It may have been the case at first but it had changed at some point, Axiolypito had spent much time on this particular thing, but it would all be worth it in the end.

At least he hoped so, creating a singular, amorphous offspring and sliding him in between the walls hadn't been easy, not to mention all of the other abilities he had had to pour into that one, it had taken an abundance of attempts and fusions to reach perfection.

Thanks to this, the castle was pretty much a living entity subject to his will.

It was all, those two projects were what he had hidden behind a series of complex passages and traps, only two hidden trump cards were in his deck, but he was still confident.

He also had his other offsprings, which was a something he did in broad daylight, he regularly sent offsprings to go fight in the armies of the Obsidian Queen.

He accumulated many species to reproduce with and the amounts were growing in quantity and quality each day.

He felt unstoppable, invincible.

'Who can stop me?' he wondered with a smile.

______________________

The monstrous, donkey-like creature brayed out in infuriation, he couldn't speak but he could understand.

Being called a donkey was an offense no other could compare!

"Hee-haw!" he bellowed, the sound was exactly like that of an actual donkey, only louder and more intimidating for it was accompanied by the pressure of a monster of his stature as well as shockwave of pure force, pushing the regular folks to the ground.

Striking the ground, he moved forward, his jaw wide open, ready to deliver pain like a real donkey would.

He could already imagine the sensation of Superstes's head popping under the pressure and the sweat taste of brain juice flowing onto his tongue.

He tried to outspeed his opponent and put his all into this first attack, feeling confident that even this powerful woman wouldn't be able to react to it.

His confidence didn't mean much however, and instead of biting down on her head, he went straight through a shield that was shining a brilliant gold.

He didn't have time to feel anything as his maw disappeared in the radiance and due to his momentum, his entire head followed, leaving only a headless corpse, the wound cauterised but without any sign of smoke or heat.

Superstes sighed.