Chapter 415: Head or Tail
The enemy wasn’t attacking us. They were fixated on one single purpose, completely ignoring our attacks.
Kill them, and they dropped massive amounts of experience and magic stones. Some, apparently still in larval form, seemed to yield somewhat less experience, but a high-level, non-resistant, easy-to-kill enemy was an absolute goldmine for leveling.
Crunch, crunch.
And those lovely creatures just had to start gnawing away at the far more valuable Imugilaim.
The slime dragons that had ingested the yellow fluids, which induced arousal on contact, were gradually turning orange. Naturally, every time we killed one of those, we had to use more and more force.
"Kill them all at full power! We HAVE to protect Imugilaim’s fluids!"
When would we ever get to hunt another high-level aphrodisiac... no, a slime like this again?
The corpses of the now-orange slime dragons would certainly make fine aphrodisiacs too, but dilution was unavoidable. So to protect Imugilaim’s fluids, we had to kill the slime dragons with everything we had.
To protect the fluids.
And to protect the core of Imugilaim: its high-grade magic stone.
"It might even be highest-grade! We just need to find it! Just find it!"
We tore through the shell layer by layer from the outside. Imugilaim’s body would naturally split open as we went.
From the outside, the corpses controlled by the Ghoul Mages ate their way in. From the inside, baby slimes awakened from their long sleep ate their way out. When the two sides met in the middle, they’d devour each other until the corpse slime self-destructed.
That alone had been going on for an hour.
We diligently cut, chopped, and blasted our way through Imugilaim’s body, pushing steadily inward. The most likely location for the creature’s core was, of course, the head that had lunged at Shaitan again and again.
If Imugilaim had a brain, the magic stone would surely be inside it.
"Lune, how many layers have we peeled off?!"
"Four so far!!!"
"Damn it, we need at least three more?!"
Since the creature had nosedived into the ground while still coiled in a spiral, its body on the ground wasn’t much different from its original shape. We pushed toward the center, toward where the head should be, with thoroughly specialized teamwork as we poured everything into slime extermination.
I carved a deep wound with the seax. Rastujad’s ghoul slimes rushed forward.
Lune punched holes into the body bursting open on either side with wind arrows. The Twelve Apostles’ ghoul slimes dove directly into the passages, devouring the slime dragons crawling out from inside.
The number of slime dragons killed over the course of that hour must have been at least 300.
We couldn’t even track who had hit max level and was losing experience, let alone properly collect the magic stones scattered on the ground. But one thing was certain: we were definitely making progress toward Imugilaim’s head.
But more than anything, the most agonizing part was...
Spurt!!
Yellow slime splattered across my face. Of all moments, my mouth was open, and I accidentally swallowed some.
And then.
Spluurt!!
The instant I swallowed it, I came.
My dick, already rock-hard and dripping with pre-cum, ejaculated on its own without any sexual stimulation. Despite having no sex magic active, the volume of semen spraying forward was clearly several times more than usual.
’After this is over, I still need to go deposit some inside Levis Ann!’
There was no telling where my semen might be needed now that the dungeon had changed. But after prolonged exposure to Imugilaim’s aphrodisiac-saturated fluids, I’d ejaculated more times than I could count, and the inside of my robe was disgustingly thick with sticky semen.
"Hah, hah. Master, I think I’m literally going to lose my mind."
"Just hang on a little longer, please!"
"How am I supposed to hold back when your scent is pouring off you like this...!"
"Hold back anyway! Trust me, I want nothing more than to rail you and cum while I fight too!"
Just as I was in heat, ejaculating while fighting, Lune had also completely lost it.
Her ears were already flushed bright red with blood, and beneath her skirt she was soaked through as if she’d taken a dip in water. The battlefield was a maddening harmony of musky scent wafting off me and Lune’s sweet peach fragrance, all swirled together.
"D-damn it..."
Imugilaim, what a terrifying existence.
We’d passed the point where physical and mental endurance could hold out. The combined forces of Rastujad and the Twelve Apostles were no longer enough.
"We can’t keep going like this...!"
The slower Lune and I worked, the more drastically the ghouls’ hunting speed dropped.
The slime dragons were devouring Imugilaim’s body far faster than we could cut through the body and push forward. Part of it was us slowing down, but the deeper we went, the more slime dragons came pouring out.
"We’re almost there...!"
They knew it on instinct. That the most delicious thing lay at the center of the coil, in the head hidden within the body. That was why they wriggled through Imugilaim’s insides and pushed upstream, like sperm swimming through a uterus, racing toward the egg to devour the magic stone.
"Am I... being greedy?"
Was this truly hopeless? If I’d known it would come to this, I should have at least kept half the orcs or elves back at the main base.
All kinds of regrets ran through my mind, but the situation was what it was. I scooped up Lune just as she was about to collapse to the floor.
Squelch.
I slid her directly onto my dick. Lune, who had been in agony just a moment before, let out a sigh of relief as if she’d been placed in a cradle, and pulled me close.
"I feel like I can breathe again."
"And I feel like I can cum again. For now... let’s fall back."
At my signal, Gray, along with Harpuia, who had regained consciousness and been ripping slime dragons apart, retreated. Both Gray and Harpuia were in a considerably aroused state as well.
"You two should head back too. This is as far as we go."
"But then what about Imugilaim’s magic stone...?"
"...We’ll have to let it go. I’d push through if I could."
I pointed at my thoroughly shriveled balls. The semen tank was completely dry, and the inside of my robe was so sticky that I wanted nothing more than to rip it off.
"I’ve got stamina and willpower left. But my virility is spent."
"If we’d fought any longer, I might have seriously jumped you, Master."
Sliding inside Lune wasn’t about getting off. It was purely a tension release, a way to satisfy the overwhelming urge to have sex flooding our heads, to press our bodies together for a moment of stability.
"So the strongest tactic of all really is strength in numbers and human wave attacks, huh..."
A moderate number of enemies was one thing, but this many was exhausting even mid-fight.
"I concede. This is my defeat, Imugilaim, soon to be devoured by your own children."
This disaster was born from my excessive anxiety, which had led me to deploy all my forces away from the main base. Thoughts of "what if" and "maybe" ran deep, but I decided to accept my mistake and the situation gracefully.
"Next time something like you shows up, I’ll slaughter it without hesitation. Tch, and that face just like Forneus really pisses me off..."
I spat the remaining yellow slime out of my mouth onto the ground.
"Commander, what will you do now?"
"We’re temporarily retreating. The slime dragons will consume their mother and turn orange. No matter how strong they get, they still won’t be as strong as Imugilaim, so we’ll come back with reinforcements and wipe them out."
I stomped on the head of a slime dragon rolling around on the floor. Its head popped like a balloon, and a small magic stone bounced out.
"In the meantime, let’s collect what magic stones we can. Good work, today’s fight is ov...?"
Rumble, rumble.
Suddenly the ground beneath my feet began to shake. I thought it might be an earthquake, but my gut told me the entire dungeon was resonating.
"What... in the world?"
"Master! Above!"
Lune pointed her finger at the ceiling. I followed her finger and looked up.
"Son of a bitch."
The slime dragons were crawling upward from below, scaling toward the tail embedded in the ceiling.
Like a boy from a fairy tale climbing a beanstalk, they looked as if they were risking their lives to reach some colossal treasure hidden above.
"The head... was actually the tail?"
It had gaped its mouth so convincingly that I’d assumed the part that crashed to the ground was the head. But if that thin appendage still embedded in the ceiling was actually the head where the magic stone resided, then I’d been thinking about the creature backwards this entire time.
"Shit, what kind of creature looks like THAT?!"
The tail wasn’t the part that had been stuck to the ceiling; the tail was what fell to the ground, and the head was still lodged up above.
"Lune, it’s up there! Snipe it for me!"
"M-Master! If you pull out that fast, EEEEEK!!"
Spurt.
Lune squirted and went limp when I tried to hastily lift her off me. Thanks to the aphrodisiac multiplying her sensitivity several times over, she’d climaxed hard.
Lune, removed from combat effectiveness. Reason: orgasm.
"D-damn it...! Rastujad, intercept those things!"
[Impossible... There’s no way to reach up there. We’d be far more likely to get devoured by the slime dragons before we even got close.]
"Commander, I’ll fly up and cut it down. The power within me is whispering. It says now is the time to spread my majestic wings...!"
"Should I scream again...? I can do it even better this time."
"Nnngh...!"
Lune had passed out while still clamped around my dick, making it extremely awkward to exert any real force. Why did the target have to reveal itself at the exact moment I’d decided to give up?
"Damn it. Nothing is going right."
It was hopeless. I decided to accept the outcome cleanly.
The game of chicken to secure Imugilaim’s magic stone before the slime dragons could eat it had ended in defeat.
"Now that we know the enemy’s strength and the dungeon layout, let’s go home and screw. As for the ones at the portal... well, they’re probably all dead, crushed under Imugilaim’s body."
I turned away without a shred of hesitation. Then I brushed the dust off the head of Lune, who was nestled against my collarbone, sound asleep with soft, steady breathing.
"Let’s just chalk today up to bad luck. ...Hm?"
Patter, patter.
The pebbles and sand falling from above grew steadily worse. The moment I looked up, sensing something was wrong, rage surged through me so intensely I ejaculated involuntarily.
"Is that bastard seriously screwing me over?"
Rumble, rumble.
"It wants us ALL to die together, nice and friendly?!"
After dropping monsters from the ceiling, it was now trying to bring the ceiling itself crashing down. If the ceiling collapsed, it would endanger not only us but its own offspring and its own body. What the hell was that thing thinking?
Crunch, crunch.
"...I get it; your own kids eating your body alive is enough to make anyone snap. But this is crossing the line!!"
This dungeon was mine. Who gave it permission to remodel as it pleased?
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
[This is dangerous, Legion Commander. Now is the time to regroup.]
"No, Rastujad. This is... a real retreat."
With our current strength, I couldn’t see any way to handle this. I turned back toward the corridor.
But Imugilaim acted faster.
KRABOOOM!!
With a deafening blast, the ceiling came crashing down. Like a circular disc dropping onto a tall pole, the ceiling collapsed at the speed of light.
I threw myself flat on the ground with Lune beneath me. No matter what method I tried, it was too late to escape. In a flash of panic, I turned my head toward Harpuia; Gray had climbed on top of her and was shielding her body.
Let there be a miracle without pain. I prayed to the Goddess, the Demon King, and the God of Ras.
"Dad, why are you mating with Mom Lune there?"
"Oh."
I lifted my head at the familiar voice. Standing there was a woman with pink hair, holding an enormous Watermelon Popsicle: the Hero of the Holy Sword.
"I know you want to, but still... Sheesh."
Words surged up to the tip of my chin, but I held them back. I squeezed my eyes shut at the pink energy gathering around the Watermelon Popsicle.
"I’ll block it for now."
ROOOAR!
A pink, elliptical shield formed above me. The broad shield looked large enough and solid enough to protect Gray and Harpuia, Rastujad and the Twelve Apostles, all of them.
"...That, that shape?"
"Virginium Shield. ...I didn’t name it, okay? Previous heroes named it."
...The massive, elliptical shield shimmering in pink light blocked the collapsing ceiling flawlessly.
***
"...What kind of fight is this?"
Belial, a member of Andromalius’s dungeon who had been imprisoned in slime as monster feed, could only stare in dumbfounded disbelief at the pink shield floating in midair.
"Anyone can see what that is. It’s obviously... that."
The shape was too embarrassing for Belial to put into words, and he nearly fainted.
"A Genital Shield... imbued with divine power..."
The pink energy stinging his skin was not magic power; it was divine power.
The Genital Shield, which had perfectly blocked the collapsing ceiling and disintegrated everything it touched, was now aimed precisely at the ceiling, right where Imugilaim’s tail was embedded.
Click. Click.
The pink-haired woman stood on both feet beneath the Genital Shield, holding a sword like a cavalry lance forged from hardened red slime. Standing resolute and wordless, she thrust the red sword into the Genital Shield.
ROOOAR.
Energy gathered around the Genital Shield, and then:
KRAAAAAASH!!
A blinding light of divine power erupted upward, engulfing the ceiling. Belial lost consciousness at the sight, which seemed to sear his very optic nerves.
"...This is the Holy Sword’s ultimate technique, usable only by a pure virgin. To put it simply: Virgin Breath."
I didn’t want to know that.