Mason's team had captured two experiments in the week since the search began. One was some kind of manufactured milk elemental, the other was a simple red slime. Any slimes were given smaller rewards, since apparently, two of the high-priority slime targets could produce smaller slimes of many kinds.
The only reason they hadn't captured more was due to the insistence of the twins that some big prize was somewhere. Mason was starting to wonder if they were crazy when, on the eighth day, the party found a cave.
Two goblins stood outside, one with a spear, the other with a sharpened flint axe. When the group of humans approached, they raised their weapons.
"Halt!" one of the goblins shouted. "You enter the master's territory! State your business or be gone!"
One of the twins leaned to Leo and muttered something. The powerfully built man's aura firmed, and he activated Taunt and Shield Charge.
The goblin on the left was turned into a red mist before the other could even process what was happening. The goblin on the right, still clutching his spear, backed to the mouth of the cave. Before he could shout for help, thick roots sprouted from the ground, ending in sharpened tips. They pierced his large eyes, and the goblin fell dead a moment later.
The twins exchanged a look before Izia turned to the party.
"Target AZ-087 is at the bottom of this dungeon, held by either its core or something else."
"And how do you know that?" Alabast asked.
"That's our business, not yours," Zinnia responded. Alabast groaned.
"Teams are supposed to share secrets."
"We're not a team, we're a married couple, a rogue mage, a nobleson, and two wandering druids. If you four want to team up, go for it, but we aren't part of it." Izia said flatly before pulling a giant axe from her inventory. Zinnia pulled a sword from her own, and the pair set into the dungeon.
Mason wasn't happy, but as Leo and Maria set out after them, he shrugged at Alabast and followed them down.
Azotreh spent a week in remission, their spiritual body not even leaving the little cabin inside their soul. During the week, the slime named itself Fuzem. The name only confirmed a desire for zs in the names of Aosteans to Nicholas.
Nicholas also discovered the name of the planet, Aostea. But that's the most he got before having to take control. He held on through that week as the goblin repeatedly tore apart their body to extract more slime.
But on the eighth day, the goblin did something none of them expected. It tried to stab Azotreh directly in the heart.
Nicholas couldn't do anything, since Azotreh's hands were bound and their abilities sealed. The knife pierced deep and eventually tapped something hard and cold.
Nicholas had long since figured out that their body didn't have organs, instead being one mass of slime. The slime could take on the appearance of organs, and even the function of a stomach, but was still slime. How it managed to replicate Azotreh's appearance was a mystery, but that's not what mattered.
What mattered was the object in their chest, because when the knife hit it, all three aware egos felt themselves jolt awake.
The knife was deep. Master was curious if the creature imitating a human child had a core. If it didn't, he would have stabbed into its forehead to find its mind.
He could tell the creature was amorphous, so not suitable for his school of undeath, but otherwise it would make for a suitable minion. As he tried to dig deeper, to break its core and use his dagger to pierce its very soul, he felt something different.
The goblin calling himself The Master looked up at the face glaring down at it, as purple curse energy fell like broken glass. Two eyes stared back, with tri-colored pupils.
He had long since discovered the odd feature in the creature's eyes, that it had three small dots that spun around its iris. But now he saw none of that, only pupils that reflected red, green, and blue light at him.
The creature's body melted into a pool on the floor, releasing itself from the restraints with a wet dripping sound. Then it reformed. It turned from a human boy to a true monster, snapping teeth and wide draconic eyes. It instinctively moved like a frightened animal.
The Master watched it as his knife fell to the floor, and was pulled into the creature's pocket space. His eyes didn't move from the creature as it bit at the walls and floor, until he realized it was far too late.
The last thing the necromantic goblin saw before his death was a large set of fangs open wide before his face. Even the 20% rank disparity bonus didn't help, as his face was simply eaten. In a single draconic bite, nothing was left in its wake.
[Killed Goblin]
[Base EXP: 50]
[Rank disparity EXP Bonus = +200%]
[Grade disparity EXP bonus = 40]
[Gained 270 EXP]
Nicholas's head hurt, and from the expression on Errazorrus's face, the dragon felt much the same. Even Fuzem wobbled warily at the odd pain. But pain didn't matter; they all felt what was going to happen.
[Lesser Core Damage sustained.]
They knew that if that goblin had gone deeper, or even managed to break their core, that was their end. Their body required magic of some kind to function, and they instinctively knew that without a core, there would be no magic. They couldn't die.
Like a trapped animal, all three began to rampage throughout the lab. The master was surprisingly easy to kill, though only Nicholas really noticed the kill. He felt his heart rate speed up, having killed another this soon.
While the other two essentially became panicked beasts, Nicholas went all-in on trying to remain rational. He pulled the master's body into their storage, along with that cursed knife.
With Fuzem returning their body to its properly slimy form, Nicholas had far more control than before. A normal body simply couldn't do what three people wanted to at the same time, but even as it strained their body, they could handle it.
Nicholas began to ransack the lab, taking the bookshelf, some remnant bone, the various tools, and anything else he could. Until their inventory was full, at which point the priority changed.
They needed to escape.
Slime tendrils slammed into walls, draconic teeth and scales burst open solid stone and crumpled dirt. Wings sprouted from random locations, and tails became more like flails. It was a chaotic mess of desperate action, created through the power of two sapient entities giving into their animalistic instincts. But Nicholas couldn't afford to let that happen to all of them.
So he began to slide the slimy body across the floor. He took control of some tendrils to drag the body into the next room, the one with all the cages. Two dragon scale-covered tendrils snaked around the inhabited cage and held it safe.
Nicholas kept it safe as the other tendrils went mad to try to escape. To break a way to the surface. But that wouldn't help. Nicholas could already feel the cave ceiling beginning to tremble from their constant beating. So instead, he slid them into the next room.
The final room held a horrific sphere of flesh, teeth, and large crystalline spines. At the bottom of its body, a massive mouth sat closed.
The flailing tendrils took no time before slamming into the core over and over. Flesh was carved away, eyes popped, blood spilled. But the flesh sphere refused to yield. All until Fuzem shivered. Her body projection in the soul realm grew a long mouth across her entire body.
In the real world, the main body grew massive ivory spines in the shape of teeth. They slashed out and didn't damage the core at all.
The fox and bat remained utterly still as the rampaging slime tried something impossible, and while the fox remained fearful of the tin rank terror, the bat watched with astonishment.
The teeth kept trying to bite, but without finding purchase, they eventually had to give up. Instead, they moved to the other side of the giant crystal and closed around it.
They swallowed the crystal whole, devouring all it was. Devour activated instinctively, and Nicholas' vision was covered in lines of text. Flashing lines in all colors covered his vision.
Then the next moment, the pain stopped, the flashing lights and loud sounds all quieted. Nicholas relinquished control of the body and collapsed in a heap on his chair. The body calmed as Errazorrus took control, with Fuzem on backup. Nicholas left the obelisk to go to his own room. In there, he passed out.
Errazorrus passed the new system notifications to Fuzem while he piloted the body outside through a suddenly appearing access tunnel to the surface. As if it had just spontaneously was carved, the tunnel was perfectly smooth.
When the slimy form and others emerged onto the surface, Errazorrus simply took a moment to admire the twilight sky. The tunnel closed behind them, and they didn't care. They let the natural wild around them cool their frayed nerves.
Errazorrus didn't have it nearly as bad as Nicholas or Azotreh, so he recovered much faster and set out. He went in search of shelter, for they all needed rest and a good place to do so.
Fuzem was instead looking through notifications.
[You have absorbed a Dungeon Nexus. Would you like to assimilate the core, or use it for other purposes?]
Fuzem chose to assimilate the core.
[Dungeon Nexus assimilating. Your body will enter hibernation in 19:59.]
[For adding another archetype to your existence, you have triggered the activation of a Tribulation of Power. As this is your first Tribulation of Power, it will occur in 6:23:59:59]
Fuzem didn't know what a tribulation of power was, but did know that hibernation would be best somewhere that wasn't an exposed field. So she forcefully took control from Errazorrus.
While the dragon had the greater willpower, the mechanical mind of the slime needed far less rest than its draconic counterpart. So she easily took control and scoped out the sound of running water.
Over the next ten minutes, she maneuvered their body as fast as their legless form would allow up the river. She knew that sometimes there were caves behind waterfalls, and that seemed ideal for their hibernation.
So when she found a waterfall, she moved their body around it. Unfortunately, there was no proper cave behind it. But that didn't really matter to them. Instead, they just began to melt into the solid stone with slimy acid, forcing a cave to exist where it absolutely shouldn't.
After making an area big enough for the cage still holding two trapped animals, she made some space for herself and then fell into it. Just two minutes until hibernation started.
As the world went dark, she sent a wish out to reality itself. A wish to not die while hibernating.
The cave rumbled. Mason looked up as some loose stones fell on his head. Izia quickly conjured some roots over their heads to block the falling stone. They were so close, the giant boss doors were just ahead of them.
Unfortunately, the cave seemed ready to cave in. On the good side, though, the nine-tailed kitsune skeleton guarding the door lost its animating energy a few seconds ago, so the party moved forward hurriedly. Leo slammed his tower shields into the door and bashed them open, only to find an empty throne room.
Skulls were the most common decor. Goblin skulls, human skulls, an orc skull or two. They all had flickering purple torches inside, sending purple light out through the eye sockets.
Across the floor were various bones of all kinds.
"Proper dungeon master, dungeon manifest, and a proper arena. Likely a necromancer with curse-based affliction powers as well." Alabast spoke.
"Then where's the boss?" Maria asked. She was already antsy from the few fights down here. Most of them had been rather easy, compared to how a proper dungeon should be. Just a lot of monster goblins and the occasional trap. There were also constant piles of bones on the way down.
"I think the boss was killed. Those bones we kept seeing were likely other undead. Maybe it was focusing on something else when we invaded and only kept the kitsune?" Alabast thought aloud.
"Probably." Zinnia responded, "Whatever the dungeon master was doing, it only thought it would use the kitsune as a last line of defense. So it didn't need other defenders."
Mason nodded. It was an odd strategy from a dungeon to be sure, but not an unheard one.
Then they all simultaneously got the dungeon clear message.
[Dungeon Succeeded! Rank: SS+, Core: Destroyed, Bosses: 5/5, minibosses 20/20, 'Master' slain: 1/1, time: 13:74:9:881. Rewards granted directly to inventories.]
They all looked at the notification, then to each other.
"Who broke the core?" Leo asked. Everyone else shrugged in response. They hadn't done it. Then, Alabast's eyes widened.
"Everyone, with me!" He shouted as he ran towards a room at the back of the boss chamber. The others exchanged glances but followed fast.
The six ran through the boss hall and through a small goblin village. The goblins had already left, making it a ghost town. But Mason couldn't look at that. Instead, they entered a large home at the end of the street.
This home's main hall was stripped bare of furniture, except for some scraps of a torn-up cart. Mason's heart sank; he knew the goblins had taken one of the carts on the route recently, but to think of all the deaths the little monsters had caused.
He sighed and kept running until they reached a much smaller room, this one with a chain leading to the ceiling, connected to two handcuffs. Along with them was another broken chain, though it wasn't connected to anything.
That room had massive chunks taken out of the walls. Rubble and debris were thrown across the floor. The same appeared in the next room, though it was empty. There were some holes in the floor, implying something was bolted down, but whatever it was was no longer present.
After that, there was one final room, perfectly spherical. Small bits of flesh were slowly dissolving into essence smoke in several spots around the room. On the other end was a perfectly cylindrical tunnel leading up. Alabast led them back to the surface in a hurry, only to find that the end of the tunnel had already collapsed. The collapse was moving closer and closer.
"Dammit," Alabast said as he retreated a bit. Then he stopped as Zinnia moved in front of him. She began to shape the earth into a much less neat tunnel, but one they could escape through. She cut and carved until they were free, only taking about ten minutes and a little mana.
They collapsed on the ground, dead tired after all that adrenaline was pumped through their systems.
"What was all that?" Mason asked.
"Dungeon collapsed on top of us. It only happens with manifested dungeons, so you won't see it unless you enter another one." Alabast replied.
"Fucked up little goblins…" Zinnia muttered as she remembered those experiment rooms. The other party members nodded in agreement.