Chapter 452: Ripped Her Out of the Beast

A flower is a reproductive organ.

It may look beautiful to human eyes, but biologically speaking, nature's design is that flowers exist for the sake of breeding.

And within them, the stamen and the pistil are, you could say, the flower's genitals worn on the outside.

"Still, even so, this particular flower is a bit much."

The roots are thick. The ones driven down beneath the floor spread far enough to cover the entire dungeon floor. Faces of elves and incubi surfaced all over them.

And then the trunk.

A plant dog's petals were at least pretty on the outside.

The problem was that inside those petals, the tentacle cocks that served as stamens stood upright toward the ceiling, well over six feet long, swaying limply.

And that the dryad serving as the pistil, Asmodine, Seal of Lust, hung there naked and motionless, like something had her under a spell.

"A Seal is ultimately nothing more than a special subordinate. How I use one is entirely up to me."

Astaroth leapt down from the monster. Wearing a dark elf's face, she stuck her tongue out at me and waved.

"So have fun playing with her. I'll be running along."

"What did you say?"

"I'll admit you guys are strong. This one's my loss~ I lost, so go play with her all you want."

Astaroth snapped her fingers. Every face embedded in the roots opened its mouth wide, weeping a slime that looked like tears of blood.

Aaaaaaah

It was as if a scream of agony had burst out. There was no sound, but the pressure crushed down on my mind. It was like their souls were screaming.

"Astaroth. Let me ask you one thing."

"Ask me anything you like. Hehe."

"What does a legion mean to you?"

"A legion?"

Astaroth snorted and answered in a voice completely devoid of feeling.

"Nothing at all."

"...Good. That's the answer I wanted."

The last twinge of conscience vanished. I gripped the mace. The tattoo that had gone dim after I put everything into that floor strike started throwing off red light again.

"If it means nothing to you, then I'll take it. From this moment, the Lust Legion is mine."

"Oh my, you think you can beat that? A monster I made to go berserk beyond even my own control?"

Aaaaaaaah

The roots began to churn. The tree monster, a small hill easily more than sixteen feet tall, began to give off a sinister aura. It was the aura of death, the kind that shaved away your mind and gnawed at your soul just by touching you.

"Sweetie, since I'm your senior at this dungeon master thing, let me share. If you run more than a hundred monsters through synthesis on top of synthesis like this, you get a truly magnificent creature. And I threw every magic stone in the dungeon into it too. Plus I used a Demon King's daughter as the base at the center. Hohoho."

Astaroth backed toward the passage on the far side.

"Running toward the humans won't do you any good."

"Who cares? I'll just hide out a while and avoid the pervert orcs. You'd be better off worrying about how you're going to handle that thing."

Rumble rumble.

Tears of blood began to run from the dryad's eyes. At the same time, the roots buried in the floor lifted the trunk, one after another. The movement was like a kraken from the deep sea.

"So the so-called dungeon master, the so-called Legion Commander, fuses every one of her subordinates into a single thing and then hides herself..."

They say when a person gets angry all the way to the top of their head, they actually turn cold and rational instead. Before I could even feel rage at Astaroth, all I felt was pity for Asmodine and those subordinates.

"You people risked your lives over and over for a master like that. Amazing. Lune, come here."

Lune, who had come down with me, gripped her bow with a cold look on her face. I grabbed her and hurled her up toward the hole we'd come down through.

"Master?!"

"Get Lime and the Slamias and come straight back. Tell Meri to reopen the entrance, then punch through the maze and get here."

There was no time to fly people up through the ceiling one by one. Lune reached a hand out toward me, but Lime caught her by the waist from above and pulled.

"But!"

"The faster you move, the sooner I get help from our people."

"...You'd better survive! Don't you dare make me a widow!!"

Lune disappeared into the ceiling passage. Lime nodded at me and immediately followed after her.

Aaaaaaah

One of Asmodine's roots began reaching toward the hole we'd bored in the ceiling. It was moving on instinct to chase the enemy that was fleeing.

Thwoooock!!

I hurled the mace at the ceiling. Thrown with everything I had, it ripped off about a quarter of the root's outer layer and pulped roughly seven of the faces.

"Well... synthesized is synthesized, I guess. But the Seal's still there in the belly, right? Let's see..."

I picked the mace back up off the floor. Luckily the slope running up from the root along the trunk to the pistil was fairly gentle. Asmodine, her root freshly scraped, glared down at me with a contorted face.

"Oof, I know I'm handsome, but staring like that is embarrassing. You've got well over two hundred eyeballs there, and having all of them look at once is downright humiliating."

Whoosh, whoosh. The mace was still in one piece. So was my body.

"Hey, actually, I'm a little curious. Looks like at least a hundred of you got mixed together in there."

I walked forward. My steps were leisurely at first, but they started picking up speed.

"So if I screw you, does that count as one on one or an orgy?!"

Aaaaaaaah!!

I charged forward and swung the mace hard into a root.

***

[Meanwhile, before the sealed door on the first floor above ground.]

"All cleared, Your Excellency."

"Well done, Sir Anthonius."

The sealed door opened. The magic circle, which had lit up another quarter with each sector they took, revealed what lay beyond the moment all four were cleared.

Shhhh.

Beyond the door there was nothing but a single magic circle set into the floor. The cluster of light rising from it shimmered in a cylinder.

"What is this?"

"It's what they call a transfer portal. A facility for crossing to another sector inside the dungeon. It most likely leads downward."

"...Then couldn't we just dig down with shovels?"

At Andaihal's question, Anthonius closed his eyes for a moment. A few of the knights twisted their mouths, barely holding back laughter.

"Your Excellency. There's a limit to how far you can conquer a dungeon by physical means. This place is a space carved out by magic, and it defies natural law. From the moment we stepped inside, we were effectively in another world."

"No, what I'm saying is, if we'd known that, we wouldn't have needed to clear four sectors; we could have just dug through and..."

Vweeeeen.

The magic circle began to shimmer. Anthonius stepped in front of Andaihal and raised his sword.

"Everyone, on guard..."

Thump.

The instant the magic circle opened, some dark elf collapsed onto the floor. She was the first dark elf whose ears hadn't been cut off, and Andaihal stepped forward and helped support her. Her clothes were little more than rags.

"Are you all right?"

"Ah... humans..."

The dark elf looked up at Andaihal with clouded teal eyes and managed a strained smile.

"Finally... saved..."

Thump. She lost consciousness in Andaihal's arms. Tears ran down the cheek of the dark elf who had closed her eyes with a relieved smile.

"..."

Andaihal squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then lifted her up himself.

"Sir Anthonius, I will carry this woman back to the rear personally."

"Yes, Your Excellency. Shall we..."

"Go down below. Go and... save the rest of them."

The front of the knight order rode the portal down. Andaihal looked at the dark elf unconscious in his arms and swallowed hard.

"...Damn it. Now I understand why everyone goes on and on about elves..."

Andaihal turned and headed for the center of the first floor with two escort knights.

Smirk.

Where no one could see it, the dark elf's lips curled.

***

Crack, cruunch!!

I knock away the bark. I scrape it off with the sharp end of the mace. It looked like tree bark from the outside, but it was harder than steel.

Screeeech.

Steel grinds against steel. The steel feathers of a 3-star Harpy Aello are harder and sharper than heavy armor, but they were weaker than the bark of a monster that had the entire Lust Legion packed into it.

"Ah, my seax is going to break again."

Vwoooooosh!!

An enormous root swung around like a baseball bat. I brought the mace down on it and jumped.

"Aaargh, my poor seax!!"

Crunch!! The root dropped to the floor. But the seax couldn't take any more either. With a sharp 'snap,' it shattered. The outside, woven from steel feathers, was intact, but the Stone Golem frame inside had been smashed to pieces by the repeated impacts.

"Haaah. Do you know how much trouble I went through to get that thing made?"

A deep sigh came out on its own. The seax, which the slimes had shaped so beautifully by devouring a Stone Golem, was destroyed from the inside out. All that rattled inside the layered steel feathers now was gravel and sand.

"Hey, Asmodine. If you break somebody's property, shouldn't you compensate them for it?"

I glanced around. Broken as it was, the seax had done its job well. Three of the enemy's roots had been crushed through and severed by it, and two more had been stripped completely bare of bark and were oozing a bloodlike slime.

Four roots left. From the wreckage of the seax on the floor, I grabbed a feather fragment in each hand.

"It hurts my feelings when you look down at me from all the way up there. Don't you know you have to meet a person at eye level to talk to them?"

I bend my knees. I lower my stance slightly and gather strength in both legs. Asmodine, weeping blood, looked down at me and opened her mouth wide.

Aaaaaaah!!

A scream that stabbed straight into the soul rang out. My vision swam for an instant, but I jabbed the tip of a feather into my inner thigh.

"Hoooagh!!"

Along with the sharp pain, the sinister aura trying to bind me was thrown off. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. The Nightmares that had come out of Asmodine, now pure spirit, were trying to violate my body.

"You really are set on absorbing other people's stuff!! Sorry, but there's only one thing of mine you can absorb!!"

I gripped the steel feather in a reverse hold. Then I sprang forward and drove it down into a root.

"My semen!!"

Skrrrtch!!! The feather raked across a face in the bark. I scored the elf faces in long vertical lines and slashed the Incubus faces into X shapes. When a feather's tip wore out, I picked up another one off the floor and kept stabbing.

"You crammed your way to level 95! What good are the stats! Your body can't back up the number!!"

Aaaaaaah!!

When trying to dominate my body through the spirit didn't work, Asmodine went for beating me to death physically instead. She raised every remaining root to trap me. The incubi in the roots gaped their mouths at me with dying faces.

"Heh heh heh, you want a man that badly?! Sorry, but I'm not interested in you!"

There was only one thing I was interested in. I ran forward. I stepped onto the root whose middle had been pulped by the mace and climbed up onto the tree.

Crunch! My left foot comes down on a Cambion's forehead. My right foot grinds an Incubus's teeth. I shove my gauntlet into the mouth of an elf gaping at me.

"Ahh, this is what they call climbing!!"

I hauled myself up by the elf's jaw and jumped high. My upstretched hand caught a Nightmare's head, and I planted both feet on Incubus foreheads.

"If you won't come down, I'll come up myself!!"

Asmodine's expression twisted in alarm. The roots couldn't reach me anymore. The petals started pouring out slime to make me slip.

Riiip! I grabbed the petals with both hands and tore them apart. Through the gap, reeking of rotten meat, the cock-shaped tentacles reached to wrap around me.

"Damn it, I'm really steeling myself for this!"

I hauled myself up by the base of a stamen tentacle. Its glans-shaped tip thrashed in every direction, spraying white powder. I took it full in the face and made it up onto the petals.

"Hello there, pistil."

Aaah

The dryad and I locked eyes. She, Asmodine, had lost her reason, and yet she recognized my presence perfectly.

"In exchange for breaking my seax, I'm taking you."

I drove my hands in toward Asmodine's crotch. One hand toward the front, the other down around her backside, and I laced my fingers together underneath.

Crrrunch!!

The stamens started coiling around my whole body. Arms, legs, even my neck, squeezing me to protect the pistil. Fitting for a monster at level 95, the strength was outrageous, enough to start crumpling my armor.

"Hooaaargh!!"

I stomped down between her thighs. As the petals crushed, Asmodine's body slowly began to rise. I crossed the backs of my laced hands and detonated every ounce of strength in my body.

"Father-in-law, are you watching?! If you are watching!!"

Squirm, squirm. The stamen tentacles started worming in through the gaps in my armor. The revolting sensation of cocks writhed around under the plates. A few of them even crawled along my backside like they were stroking it, going after my man-hymen.

"Please help me screw your daughter!!"

Crrrack.

With the sound of something tearing loose, my hands shot upward.

"...Huh?"

Something soft settled over my face. The two rounded shapes were unmistakably breasts, and just below my eyes the Seal of Lust glowed more vividly than ever.

"Ha, hahaha! I pulled her..."

Below the thighs of the Asmodine I'd hoisted up by the crotch... a torn stem hung limply down.

"Ah, sorry about that. Your legs were just decoration."

Kyaaaaaaaah!!

Dark red sap began pouring from every face on the monster tree that had been Asmodine. In the instant the stamen tentacles wrapped around me went slack.

"Eject!!"

I gathered every bit of strength into both legs, stomped off the monster tree's petals, and jumped backward. Even if I landed wrong and cracked my skull open, I kept a firm grip on the Asmodine I'd torn out of it.

"You're mine now, Seal of Lust."

Enduring the humiliation of having my entire body massaged by cocks, I had successfully extracted the Seal of Lust.

Kiyaaaaahaaalalr-el-b-il-i

...Though the monster tree was still very much alive.