Babel
Hephaestus
She didn't expect to be here today.
When whispers of Freya's takeover of Rivira reached the surface yesterday, she paid little mind to the political drama. She maintained a respectful relationship with the Goddess of Beauty and knew her own Familia's expeditions would remain unhindered.
Her attention belonged instead to a jagged stone Goibniu sent her that morning. The fellow smith god never shared how he acquired it, but she strongly suspected it was a fragment from whatever fortress Freya built in the dungeon. The material undeniably derived from a Dungeon wall, yet a foreign reinforcing agent laced throughout the rock multiplied its durability.
She was untying her leather apron, fully intending to march over to Goibniu's forge to demand answers, when Tsubaki burst into the workshop. Hephaestus initially thought her captain figured out the stone's composition, only for Tsubaki to place a metallic ring on the anvil between them.
"A rookie bought this from a pop-up store on the ninth floor," Tsubaki said, her eye gleaming. "He couldn't figure out what it was or how to open it. I know the mechanism, but—wait." She caught Hephaestus's hand as the goddess reached for her tools. "Don't open it yet. Just feel the casing."
Hephaestus raised an eyebrow but complied, pressing her bare fingers against the metal. Her heart skipped a beat.
Latent energy vibrated against her skin, carrying a distinct, biological resonance. "This is a carapace," Hephaestus murmured, her eye widening as she traced the metal's organic grain. "Hard Armored. But that's impossible. They dissolve into ash upon death."
Tsubaki gave a firm nod. "Exactly. Now watch this."
Her captain clamped the ring in a vice and brought a hammer down on it. A normal strike rang out, but the metal didn't budge. Grunting, Tsubaki adjusted her stance, increased her grip, and swung with more force. Under the crushing pressure, the metal didn't bend or warp inward as expected; it simply shriveled, condensing into itself. She was unsure why Tsubaki was wasting such unique metal, but she patiently waited. As if answering her concern, Tsubaki channeled a trace of mind into the deformed trinket. Instantly, a translucent blue shield flared to life, enveloping her in a protective dome despite the severe structural damage.
Hephaestus leaned in, her suspicion mounting. The mechanism was ruined, yet the magical output remained flawless. Something else powered it. She pulled another ring of the same color from Tsubaki's pouch, swiftly popped the casing open with a chisel, and peered inside. Nestled within the hollow band lay a stable blue gel acting as an independent magical conductor.
Driven by a need for answers, Hephaestus reached for her boots to track down the merchant. Before she could leave the forge, the emergency bells of Babel began to chime. Close on the heels of the ringing came her vice-captain, carrying urgent intelligence from the surface: Evilus had breached Twilight Manor.
While casualty reports remained clouded in the chaos, the reality of the attack made Hephaestus's chest tighten. As a goddess who lost her own children to the cruelty of this world, she understood the terror Loki must be experiencing. The violation of a Familia's home and the desperate fight to protect dependents was a nightmare Hephaestus knew intimately.
That shared empathy pulled her away from her work. The mysterious merchant would have to wait.
That decision brought her here, sitting in the tiered seating of the Denatus chamber on the 30th floor. The room was packed, with gods crowding into the aisles like moths to a flame. The air hung thick with tension, but Hephaestus quickly realized the majority of the deities around her sat in complete ignorance. They murmured about Freya's takeover of Rivira, assuming this emergency meeting was simply a political reckoning over the Middle Floors.
Hephaestus remained silent, her knowledge of the surface attack weighing on her shoulders.
On cue, the double doors opened. Loki entered, accompanied by Astraea, Ganesha, and surprisingly, Freya.
The dynamics of the group spoke volumes. They walked to the front row and took their seats, with Astraea serving as a physical buffer between Loki and Freya. Hephaestus watched them closely. Usually, the Trickster and the Goddess of Beauty sat on opposite sides of the chamber, their bitter rivalry dictating the room's entire seating arrangement.
Seeing them willingly occupy the same bench told Hephaestus that something much deeper—and far more dangerous—than a simple territory dispute was unfolding. Loki looked exhausted and furious, her playful demeanor stripped down to an exposed nerve. Freya, by contrast, sat with a relaxed posture, an unmistakable glint of predatory satisfaction swirling in her eyes.
For a few tense moments, the four deities leaned in, exchanging hushed whispers. Then, Ganesha gave a solemn nod, detached himself from the group, and strode with heavy steps toward the front dais.
The ignorant murmur of the pantheon threatened to drown out the proceedings until a booming voice commanded the room from the podium.
"I AM GANESHA!"
The elephant-masked deity roared, silencing every god present. He lowered his arms, taking a deep breath as if shedding his theatrical persona before addressing the chamber.
"As you all may have guessed from the summons, there is a critical matter for tonight's assembly." He paused, letting his gaze sweep over the unaware crowd. "Evilus has attacked Loki's home, Twilight Manor."
The collective gasp sucked the air from the room. Deities leaped to their feet in shock, knocking over wooden benches and spilling wine goblets across the stone floor. A cacophony of panicked shouts and frantic questions filled the air as dozens of heads snapped toward the Trickster Goddess, desperate to confirm the impossible news. Loki simply sat there with crossed arms, ignoring the chaos and allowing the room to process the audacity of a direct strike on Orario's premier Familia.
Ganesha gave them a few moments to vent their shock before his voice boomed once more, reasserting order.
"The Evilus forces have been neutralized. A quick-response force was deployed, and the immediate threat was over," Ganesha continued, his tone turning serious. "But the concerning matter is that a God was among the attackers leading the siege. It must be one of—"
Before the elephant-masked deity could finish his sentence, the atmospheric pressure in the center of the chamber warped violently, popping ears and sending a physical shockwave through the room.
An intricate purple magic circle bloomed out of thin air directly in front of the podium. Deities screamed, throwing their arms over their heads as if expecting an explosion. Those in the front rows scrambled backward in terror, tripping over their own robes and violently shoving their peers out of the way to escape the unauthorized magical intrusion.
Hephaestus didn't flinch. Her empathy vanished, entirely overridden by her craftsman's mind. She leaned forward, staring at the arcane geometry hungrily. Her fingers twitched, desperate for her sketchbook to etch every runic detail to study later. Without it, her eyes would have to suffice. Her brain raced, dissecting how this impossible matrix managed to bypass Babel's absolute anti-magic defenses.
Amidst the screaming, trampling crowd, a distinct lack of movement caught her peripheral vision. She glanced down toward the front row. Loki, Freya, and Astraea sat perfectly still on their bench. On the podium, Ganesha didn't even flinch. None of them blinked at the blinding flash of magic. They knew this was coming. Hephaestus narrowed her eye, her mind connecting the dots. If so, what exactly were they hiding?
As the purple light collapsed into nothingness, a heavy thud echoed across the floor.
A figure lay deposited on the polished stone in a pathetic heap. He was bruised, his clothes scorched, tightly bound in glowing magical restraints, and gagged.
The collective gaze of the Orario pantheon locked onto the battered deity. Hephaestus didn't know him, but that didn't deter the sheer intensity of dozens of divine stares that bore down on the center of the room. The once-proud God whimpered through his gag, physically shrinking into himself in terror under the crushing weight of their silent judgment.
Watching the bound intruder tremble before the unbothered leaders of Orario, Hephaestus pushed all thoughts of magical rings and mysterious merchants out of her mind. Things were changing far too fast for her liking. She leaned back in her seat, deciding right then to pay more attention to the dangerous game unfolding before her.
-◈ -
Grer
The air choked with pulverized stone and the thick copper stench of spilled blood, creating a chaotic symphony of battle that raged without pause. The screech of rending steel bled into the desperate shouts of dying men, only to be drowned out by the deafening crack of magic tearing through the corridor. With every wet thud of a body hitting the ground, more dust kicked up, hanging so heavily in the air that it coated Grer's tongue.
Piercing through that dust, a massive warhammer whistled directly toward his skull. Grer barely twisted aside in time, using the momentum of his dodge to bring his greatsword down in a full-powered overhead slash. The heavy metal slammed into the enemy's shoulder with enough force to split a normal adventurer in half.
But the blade sank barely an inch before the dwarf's stupidly thick armor stopped it cold. The sudden halt sent an explosion of sparks into the air and a jarring shockwave straight up Grer's arms. Before he could even recover his grip, the attacker—completely ignoring the blow without so much as a stagger—simply raised its oversized hammer and swung again.
Forced to rip his sword free and backpedal, Grer clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. This thing was a corpse pretending to be alive, and a dwarven one at that. Because the heavily armored body felt no pain and possessed none of a living adventurer's self-preservation instincts, its unblinking dead eyes stayed locked on him relentlessly.
Every time Grer tried to break through the enemy lines to reach his brothers, the dwarf threw its mangled bulk into his path like a living wall, forcing Grer back with another crushing arc of its ridiculous hammer. No matter how much strength he poured into each desperate blow, the plate refused to yield more than a shallow groove.
The living Evilus grunts took full advantage of this frustration, scurrying around the undead vanguard to jab their weapons from the flanks. Each thrust forced Grer to twist and parry, which only bought the dwarf another second to close the distance again. This unnatural persistence and the sheer futility of striking an unyielding target dragged Grer's mind straight back to the horrifying anomaly they had just encountered on the 37th floor.
The expedition had been a brutal, eye-opening experience for the brothers. They had severely underestimated the monster slime when they first laid eyes on it, viewing the translucent puddle as nothing more than an arrogant pig's pampered pet. But the true power of the beast was horrifying. It was strong, incredibly fast, uncomfortably smart, and most importantly—it could use Magic.
Grer could still vividly remember the monster horde that had ambushed them earlier on Floor 37. The sheer volume of beasts spawning from the White Palace's walls should have been overwhelming, yet the slime had effortlessly taken on a dozen Peludas simultaneously.
It absorbed their notoriously deadly poison-needle bullets with nonchalant ease, completely unaffected by the venom. Then, it fired its own gelatinous bullets back with similar velocity—only this time, the projectiles violently exploded upon impact, obliterating the Peludas instantly.
More stunning was its support capability. It possessed the ability to rapidly enlarge itself, forming an impenetrable barrier to shield the vanguard, while simultaneously swallowing all the monster corpses on the battlefield as if hoarding the most valuable gems in the world.
Seeing the beast's raw utility had left them stunned, though it did nothing to ease their lingering suspicions regarding the conditions that pervert Maximus had set. Before they even stepped foot in the dungeon, their beloved goddess had ordered them to sign magical parchments drafted by the man. That alone made them paranoid.
Hoping to gauge the slime's limits, Alfrigg had actively tried to rile the beast up on the 39th Floor, only for the slime to completely ignore them, sitting comfortably on that cowardly Hogni's shoulder as if it couldn't even hear their taunts.
They hadn't even been given time to fully process that anomaly before being teleported straight from that dungeon floor into the heart of Twilight Manor.
The second his boots hit solid ground, Grer was itching to tear the place apart. He wanted nothing more than to dig through every drawer to find the contingency plans that traitorous Braver would have prepared for a war between them and Loki Familia, but the situation never gave them that luxury.
The moment the front doors fell, their forces dispersed into formation without a single wasted breath. Hedin took the main corridor, blasting lightning left and right in blinding blue arcs that turned defenders into smoking husks, while he and his brothers split the floors between them to clear the rooms.
That cold efficiency was supposed to end with them regrouping in the courtyard, a plan that lasted less than ten minutes before these undead corpses appeared and ruined everything. Now, because this dwarf corpse refused to die properly, Grer was entirely cut off from Alfrigg, Dvalinn, and Berling.
The isolation was maddening, especially since the sounds of battle still echoed from deeper inside the manor. Somewhere farther in, the sharp crack of Allen's palm connecting with flesh echoed out, followed immediately by the catman's furious yell about a "weakling of a God." That noise pulled violently at Grer's curiosity, urging him to investigate whatever Allen had found.
But the armored dwarf and the flanking grunts gave him no opening, forcing him to keep his blade moving just to stay alive. Only when the numbers of living grunts around him finally began to thin did the reduced pressure allow Grer's tactical mind to work again.
He knew division made the Gulliver Brothers weaker—a painful lesson learned when Alfrigg faced Maximus—meaning he desperately needed a way past this walking fortress to reunite their Level 5 equivalent strength. Scanning the chaos for an out, his eyes caught a flash of brilliant blue light cutting through the thick curtain of smoke.
Hedin stood on the other side of the courtyard with both hands raised, rapidly charging his ultimate attack, Varian Hildr, with one hand while the other hand used his lightning arrows to pin the two undead corpses he was facing. The lethal magic humming around the elf instantly forged a plan in Grer's mind.
"Jump into the courtyard! Blast incoming!" he roared at the top of his lungs, hoping the shout would carry over the collapsing walls to his brothers.
Wasting no time waiting for a response, Grer sprinted straight at the armored dwarf. Knowing another direct strike would only bounce off that ridiculous plate, he changed tactics mid-stride by planting the heavy tip of his greatsword directly into the cracked paving stones. Using the weapon's massive shaft like a vaulting pole, he kicked off the ground, launching himself cleanly over the heads of the remaining grunts clustered behind the corpse.
He landed hard on his boots, ripping the sword free in one smooth motion that sent the startled living grunts scattering in every direction. The undead dwarf, however, possessed no such instinct; it turned instantly and gave chase, its short legs pounding after him with its hammer still raised.
This blind pursuit was exactly what Grer counted on. Because the other two pinned corpses weren't far, it took only seconds for Grer to lead his pursuer straight into Hedin's kill zone. At the last possible moment, he spun on his heel, but instead of wasting a blow against that impenetrable torso armor, he swung his greatsword in a low horizontal arc aimed directly at the unarmored joints.
The heavy blade finally found its mark, cleaving clean through both of the dwarf's knees, causing the upper half to drop heavily right beside its pinned brethren. With all three targets perfectly lined up, Grer didn't stay to watch; he abandoned the kill zone at full speed, throwing himself behind a half-collapsed wall of debris just as Hedin released the fully charged spell.
The air itself seemed to catch fire as Varian Hildr erupted. Blinding lightning swallowed the three corpses, instantly reducing them to ash before they could even twitch. The resulting shockwave hit Grer like a physical wall, forcing him to plant his boots and shield his face as it tore outward. The concussive force slammed into Twilight Manor's grand facade, causing the massive stone structure to groan under the pressure, buckle, and completely collapse in a deafening roar that rattled Grer's bones.
When the blinding flash faded, Grer lowered his arm to stare at the smoking crater left behind. The raw heat radiating from the scorched earth left a bitter taste in his mouth. As it always did. No matter how flawlessly the Gulliver Brothers synchronized their strikes or how many enemies they bled out, their physical mastery felt futile when standing next to a single spell like this that could erase even a First-class adventurer in seconds.
An ugly knot of rage tightened in his chest. Every other Executive in the Familia wielded magic. Ottar had that flashy attack, Hedin had his lightning, Allen his speed, Hogni his explosions. Even that arrogant pig's translucent pet slime could casually fire exploding magic. Everyone possessed that sheer destructive utility except them.
He gripped his greatsword until his knuckles popped through his gloves, wishing for the thousandth time that just one of them would awaken a magic. If even one brother broke that barrier, they could finally crack open the expensive Grimoire gathering dust in their quarters and acquire a spell to bridge this maddening gap in power.
But standing here envying an elf wouldn't kill the enemies in front of him. Spitting the grit and blood from his tongue, Grer forcefully swallowed the resentment. He adjusted his grip on the heavy iron and plunged straight into the settling dust of the collapsed manor, letting his battle instincts guide him through the rubble.
As he vaulted over a shattered stone pillar into the main courtyard, the smoke parted just enough to reveal them. Alfrigg, Dvalinn, and Berling stood backed against each other in a tight triangle, their weapons locked in a desperate clash with three new corpses. Ignoring the screaming and secondary blasts erupting around the perimeter, Grer didn't hesitate.
He leapt off the rubble and landed heavily, instantly stepping into the open gap to complete their formation. Together, the four of them shifted their stances, facing the undead monsters as a flawless unit.
For a split second, Grer saw the corpses physically falter, their dead movements stuttering as if facing the united brothers was a variable their puppet master hadn't calculated. At that same moment, a silent wave of relief washed through his brothers, and an involuntary, bloodthirsty grin stretched across Grer's face.
-◈ -
Kairu
As promised to Master, Kairu zoomed up the dark tunnels like a bright blue bullet, his wings beating furiously against the damp air.
Navigating the ascent was easy. He flew right over several monster hordes lingering in the corridors. The beasts were all clustered together, drawn by a sickly sweet aroma hanging heavy in the dungeon air.
For a second, Kairu's flight path wobbled. The scent was incredibly tasty. It made his core quiver with an instinctual, yummy yummy desire to drop down and join the feast. His brain screamed at him to stop for a quick snack.
But then Master's face popped into his mind. Master trusted him with this mission, and Master always gave him the best food anyway. Physically shaking his body to throw off the distraction, Kairu refocused on the trail. He pushed higher up the dungeon until he finally caught sight of his targets sprinting down a corridor on Floor 25.
As he zoomed closer, his core wobbled in confusion. There were only two sets of legs running! Where did the third one go?
Closing in, Kairu quickly figured out the missing piece. The no-fire guy was carrying the frail stick-weakling on its back like a sack of potatoes, allowing the two of them to sprint at their maximum speed.
He bubbled with a petty grudge. He wanted to squish that no-ice guy for running away earlier. Going immediately on the offensive, Kairu launched a barrage of Ice Grenades directly at their backs. He deliberately laced the explosives with his own thick gel, intending to freeze their boots to the stone so he could close the gap.
Instead of tripping them up, the duo completely disregarded the freezing gel clinging to their legs. They pushed themselves to sprint even faster. Highly annoyed by their stubbornness, Kairu intensified his bombardment, sacrificing more of his own biomass to weigh them down.
As if finally fed up with the relentless explosions, the no-ice adventurer abruptly stopped and turned around.
Kairu fired another volley of sharp ice, but the man simply ignored the dropping temperatures. Instead of counter-attacking, the adventurer gracefully stepped aside, effortlessly letting the projectiles shatter against the wall behind him.
As the adventurer moved, his mouth hung open at an unnatural angle. Kairu caught a glint of steel. Metallic brackets forcefully wedged the jaw open, with thick wires digging directly into the back of his head.
A sharp tingle vibrated straight through Kairu. That metal felt... special. It buzzed with a dense, foreign magic. Instantly, Kairu forgot all about his petty revenge. He wanted to taste that metal. He had to eat it!
Using his wings, the slime zipped through the air, bombarding the adventurer from every conceivable angle. He lashed out with sticky pseudopods, desperately trying to hook those metal brackets to pry them loose.
But the adventurer was too fast. Protected by his no-ice properties, he didn't even flinch at Kairu's freezing gel, effortlessly deflecting or dodging every single physical strike.
Kairu bubbled with frustration. This annoying game of tag was wasting precious time. If he stayed here to figure out how to crack open this metal-mouthed toy, the stick-weakling and the no-fire guy would get away completely, which meant he would fail his mission. Not wanting to let Master down, Kairu immediately pinged him through their mental link to take over the chase.
A moment later, Master materialized in the corridor with a soft VWOOM. Kairu didn't hesitate. He pointed a trembling pseudopod straight up the tunnel leading to Floor 24, indicating exactly where the stick-weakling and the other adventurer had fled.
Master, trusting him, gave a quick nod and vanished up the corridor to continue the pursuit. That left Kairu completely alone, giving him all the time he needed to handle the metal-mouthed dodger.
Since physical strikes missed and his favorite ice attacks were useless, Kairu knew he had to switch elements. Reaching into his core, words began to rapidly manifest across his translucent body, lighting up the dim corridor all at once:
Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man!
On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus. In the abyss of conflagration, wait at the far heavens.
"KI!" Kairu yelled, forcefully pushing his pseudopods forward.
Hadō #73. Sōren Sōkatsui!
A roaring torrent of blue flame exploded from his mass. The fire instantly engulfed the entire corridor. The intense heat forced the adventurer to leap backward into the air, but the target clearly underestimated Kairu's massive range. The blue fire easily caught up, washing completely over the airborne man.
Not wanting his metallic snack to turn to ash before he could eat it, Kairu rapidly manipulated the roaring flames, shaping them into a blazing dome around the target.
To ensure the adventurer couldn't just jump out, Kairu stretched his own gelatinous mass outward, forming a physical secondary wall completely around the fire. He didn't just tank the heat; using his super-smart tactics, Kairu coated the inner layer of his mass with a dense, thick shell of ice. The ice constantly melted into steam, but it perfectly insulated his vulnerable jelly from the roaring blue flames.
Slowly, Kairu compressed the entire dome inward. He shrank the inferno into a tight, suffocating ring of fire.
Trapped in the shrinking blaze, the adventurer finally ran out of room to dodge. If he wanted to keep living, he had no choice but to push through the flames and break through the physical gel wall blocking the exit.
As he expected, the adventurer tried to escape, lunging forward, bursting through the fire and pushing blindly into the freezing biomass layer, Kairu struck.
Navigating easily through his mass, Kairu slipped a thick pseudopod forward. He bypassed the adventurer's scorching arms, wrapped his gel securely around the metallic brackets jammed into the jaw, and violently ripped the entire contraption free as the adventurer stumbled past him.
With the metal forcefully removed, Kairu happily let the burning adventurer drop to the floor. He quickly ate the special metal contraption, swallowing the prize with a deeply satisfied jiggle.
It was even more yummy than he expected!
--> Devil in a Dungeon <--
AN:
Apologies for the long delay folks! Things didn't go as planned and I couldn't finish the chapter due to many reasons and you all have my sincere gratitude for your patience!
I know the Denatus might not be how you expected it, but it is high time to cover what was happening with other Familia's and Hephaestus happens to be in the prime spot. Looks like she is interested in the Rings, hmm.
Also we get a solo pov of Grer. I wanted to write a combined pov to cover what was happening at Twilight Manor, but it turned out into Grer's solo pov as the designated strategist of the brothers, he would be the first to break the deadlock they were forced into and we also see his full reaction to Varian Hildr. Nothing special, right? Just a Pallum with no magic cursing the world. ;)
And then there was Kairu. What can I say? He's becoming more and more gluttonous as days go by. Now he ate an unknown metal contraction... All is well, right?
In the next chapter, we will see the aftermath of the attack and the whole mess, Rudra's fate, possibly Loki Familia's expedition party's situation.
I have a question for you all and I want your opinions in the comments: I feel it won't be fitting for Gods to discuss on Aliases during the current Denatus taking the situation into account. Would you be fine if I postpone it to a later chapter or even completely skip it and simply make it official once his status get updated? Or if you want it written, I can add it as an extra scene to show how they deliberated.
Please share your feedback/suggestions on the above question in a comment/review.
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Next update will be on Friday.
Ben, Out.
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