Epic of Caterpillar

.

.

.

[Certain conditions have been accomplished]

[A solution to both conflicting Epic Skills users have been found]

[You have unlocked a special section of the Unique Skill: [Epic of Caterpillar]

[The Necromancer Downfall]

"Hmm?"

[Epic of Caterpillar; Chapter 3: The Necromancer Downfall]

[Kireina's triumph over the Necromancer Redgaria Bitefrost has granted her the total dominion over the Grand Forest. With an expanding Kingdom, what will Kireina do now?]

[Your control over your destiny increases by 10%]

"This again…"

[Certain conditions have been accomplished]

[Because the user of your conflicting Epic has joined you, your primary Epic has devoured Redgaria Bitefrost Epic]

[Both characters destiny has been merged into one]

[Certain conditions have been accomplished]

[Due to both characters destiny merging into one, you have been granted the dominating destiny]

[Redgaria Bitefrost has become a side character on your respective Epic: 21/50]

[Certain conditions have been accomplished]

[System Master: ######## and Supreme Goddess of ####: ###### have granted you a special Title]

[You obtained a new Title: Realm Menace: Lust]

"E-Eeeeeehh?! C-Check that Title right now! What the heck did those mysterious people gave me this time?!"

[Title: Realm Menace: Lust: A Title given to a powerful being that has become a menace to any living being on the Realm, representing the Lust sin]

[Primary Effect: Increases EXP gained by 30% and every stat growth by 100% per level]

[Secondary Effect: You are considered an enemy to the entire Realm. After certain events occur involving different Epic users across the Realm, you will be hunted down by said Epic users]

"…No way… I bet those two assholes are exploding in laughter! You can laugh all you want for now! But I will hunt you down when the time comes! Mark my words!"

.

.

.

[Day 38]

After the events last night, I couldn't keep sleeping and stayed awake until the sun raised on the horizon.

"Why these things always happen to me… Did I get strong too fast…?"

If what the Title is saying is true, then I will get hunted down by Epic users in the future. I can already imagine these guys being equally or even stronger than Redgaria.

"There is no point in complaining… I will just keep getting stronger, stronger than anyone. So strong than even gods will doubt before toying with my life anymore"

I felt as a strong desire for power grew inside my heart and soul.

While I patiently waited for my wives to wake up, I inspected my skills and experimented with some. There were some new skills I got yesterday that I wanted to check.

The first one is [Wyvern Overlord Pure Fire Heart], after activating it, I felt a strong burning feeling all over my heart as if it were being turned into ash. However, after some minutes the pain slowly dissipated as I felt a new heart palpitating inside my chest.

[You have changed your heart to Wyvern Overlord Pure Fire Heart]

Thanks to this new heart, I could feel as my heart slowly changed my blood, cleaning it from impurities while making it way stronger. Not so long after, I got a new notification.

[You gained +20 Blood Strength]

This new Blood Strength came quite nice, as I felt my blood quickly reinforce itself, maybe consuming some new blood will finally make it evolve again.

The other skills that made confused yesterday were the [Soul Core] skills. If I am not wrong, Soul Cores are just a thing to store souls, so why did I get a skill that was a Soul Core?

Without thinking it too much, I activated the [Undead Warrior Soul Core] skill.

Fluosh

Suddenly, a bright red gem appeared on my shoulder, incrusted inside my flesh, even when I tried to pull it out, I felt an extreme pain, so unless I wanted to lose blood I didn't continue.

This mysterious gem was a Soul Core, which contained a small soul inside, the soul was clean and it seemed to be newborn. I could confirm that it wasn't created with a piece of my soul, as I didn't feel any change on mine. It was just a new and small soul.

"I have two souls now?"

Maybe because it didn't grant any power, having two souls wouldn't be so much help for a normal warrior. But for me, who wanted as much Soul Energy as I could to cast my powerful Soul Magic and Phantom Form. It came right in time. It also granted me a small increase in Soul Stats, which stacked with my main soul.

Afterward, I used [Undead Mage Soul Core] and [Undead Giant Warrior Soul Core] and two new gems appeared on my body. The Undead Mage Soul Core was on my other shoulder, while the Giant Soul Core on my belly. Now I officially had four souls, although the other ones were too small to be called a real soul.

After trying to infuse magic into the Soul Cores for a while, I discovered that I was able to accumulate power in them, and even certain spells. With this, I was able to accumulate MP and Spells to use later, spending the MP now when I don't need to use it and being able to save MP on the next battles.

I quickly attached certain spells on them, the strongest I had. I attached strong buffing and armor spells on each one. So, by the time I get into a sticky situation, I can use these buffs as a last resort. Going all out. I wonder what would happen if all these buffing and armor skills activated at the same time, will they overlap or combine? I didn't want to waste all the MP I just used to attach them so I just calmed my curiosity over it.

The next skill that I wanted to check was [Flaming Overlord Magic Core Sphere], this one was pretty much a Soul Core but without the extra soul. It let me attach more skills and spells on it, so after activating it, it appeared in the front of my chest, unlike the other Soul Cores, this Magic Core Sphere was bright orange. I could even see some flaming luster coming from it.

I drank two MP Potions and attached even more buffing skills, I noticed that its storage was wider than the others, so I even put some offensive magic like [Divine Punishment], [Fourth Elements Chaos Storm], [Red Beam of Annihilation], [Dark Shadow Blast], etc.

After finishing these preparations, I could feel a strong magic aura all over my body, waiting to be unleashed to destroy everything on sight. My own body had become a weapon now.

The next skills were those weird ones that the Undead King gave me. [Gift of Training] Increases my EXP gained even more while boosting my stats growth. [Royal Bloodline] grants easy magic control and even more, EXP gained (those royals really have it easy, huh?). [Prince Blessing] and [King Blessing] were some small blessing that gave me more power over my servants, and even granted them some bonuses on EXP gained and stats growth per level up.

The Undead Archer gave me [Wind Step] which let me walk in the air while infusing my feet with MP, this was useless anyway because I can already fly with my natural wings. [Quick Feet] was better, it gave me a small passive boost in Speed (20%).

And lastly, from the Undead Knight I got [Overpowering Willpower] which increased my defenses on dangerous situations of life and death (Having lower HP than 10%). [Pain Tolerance] give the ability to tolerate pain so it wouldn't distract me so much, it still could feel the pain, it only helps me not be distracted by it. [Heart of Iron] grants a big defense buff to any of my allies that are on a dangerous situation, with a cooldown of one day. And [Walking Fortress] gives me the ability to wear super heavy armor without having my speed lowered by it, it will come handy while using my magic armors.

While I was looking over the shiny gems encrusted on my body, my wives slowly woke up and greeted me with happy smiles. They quickly undressed themselves and dragged me towards the bathroom. We took a nice and relaxing warm bath, which made all my worries go away. They even noticed the new gems on my body and told me that they were beautiful, enhancing my natural beauty.

I think that my wives are the only ones I allow to praise my beauty as a woman, hahaha.

.

.

.

After carefully washing the backs of all my wives, we quickly dressed and went for a nice breakfast. We found the Slime Family on the way, so I ended up eating on a table with a very lively atmosphere.

Just by a glance, I could feel how strong these Slimes had become already, thanks to their Demigoddess blessing, their growth has skyrocketed. After some days, our current training methods won't be enough for my strong servants, so I considered the idea of sending them in small "exploring" squads across the forest, discovering new areas and monsters.

Thanks to my flesh minions, I already know that there are several small dungeons around the fourth and fifth layers of the forest, at least more than five. They would be ideal for my strongest servants to train and become even stronger, surpassing their limits and obtaining rewards in the process.

After finishing a delicious breakfast, I wanted to try out some skills on the training grounds and came across my favorite redhead Shark girl, Gaby.

Gaby seems to have made some friends already and was having her fun practicing her new sword techniques, but after seeing me, she rushed towards me and jumped over my body.

"Master Kireina! I haven't seen you in a while! I need to show you my new power! I've come far in the path of the Sharkman!"

I didn't want to disappoint Gaby, so I took a simple silver sword from my Item Box and spared with her right there.

The result was obvious, I won. However, Gaby has increased her strength to a considerable degree and leveled quite a lot since I left her here. She obtained a new Class named "Rampaging Shark Warrior", which specialized in explosive strokes with her sword, using light armor. She had been using the skills she obtained from her food quite well along with her Class skills, slowly forming a path towards a Combat System. She was also quite adept at Blade Energy Techniques, which were devastating.

Even after defeat, Gaby stood up not too long after and was excited over my power, seeing me as her goal as a warrior.

While I left her training with my wives, I tried these new skills I was really curious about.

The one I was the most curious about was [Forbidden Ritual Summoning Magic: Summon Giant Undead Warrior].

When I tried to use it, it happened just as I expected, I managed to summon a big Undead Giant without the need to do any ritual or sacrifices! It cost quite a lot of MP, with a popping 200 MP cost. But with [MP Share] it would be a breeze to summon a bunch.

Most of my servants thought that it was the new training dummy, but I had other plans for these. Using [MP Share] with tons of my servants, we summoned around 30 Giant Undead, and I assigned them on the construction and expansion of our Kingdom. With these big boys around, the construction speed will surely skyrocket. I also put some on guarding the entire town, standing almost motionless as guarding sentinels.

Redgaria who was passing by noticed such a big amount of Giant Undead and almost fell off his Undead Servant arms.

"H-How did you do that?! Even I need thousands of small Undead for sacrifices!"

After some testing, I found out that I was able to summon the Giant Undead on smaller sizes, but they would still keep their destructive power and magic defenses. This smaller Undead will also be assigned to the construction team, as every size can do something.

Seeing me summon so many Undead, Redgaria began to watch me with resentment.

"It's not fair… I am the necromancer here…"

.

.

.

Afterward, I called on my strongest servants and decided to set squads of around 6-8 members each that would go explore the fourth and fifth layer of the Grand Forest. I also told them to immediately come back here if they even find a dangerous monster that they cannot handle.

The team was as follows.

First team; Empress Team, it contained my wives (Rimuru, Zehe, Nesiphae, and Brontes), Gaby and myself.

Second team; Slime Team, it contained the entire Slime Family (Milim, Ranga, Benimaru, Shion, Luminous and Aloysious), with Milim as leader.

Third team; Troll Team, it contained Celica and Truhan as leaders alongside four of the strongest Trolls, they were unnamed yet but had strong classes (A Defender, Mage, Swordsman, and Healer). Maybe I should name them after they're back.

Fourth team; Monkey and Wolves team 1, it contained Wagyu as leader, Kage, Nonkina, Kizuato, Yukan, Goruden and two of the newborn monkeys that had already reached their adult state, they were both a mage and a healer.

Fifth team; Monkey and Wolves team 2, it contained Kekensha as leader, Chikyū, Iwa, Kurimo, Jinsoku, Oni, Odayakana and two more newborns monkeys. They really wanted to polish their strength in these explorations.

Sixth team; Wyverns and Spirits team 1, it contained Abellona as leader, Aine, Adena, Pygmy, Artio, Boreas, Sylph and Nereid. I forced these lazy fairies to move, and Abellona told me that he would make sure that they would get their training done. I decided to add two more promising monkey rookies.

Seventh team; Wyverns and Spirits team 2, it contained Meiji as leader, Aether, Hypnos, Vulcanus, Kjata, Eshne, Titus and Nymph. I added two promising monkey rookies on this team too.

Eighth team; Blood Ladies team; it contained Serious as the leader, with Weird, Clumsy, and four promising Goblin rookies. These Goblins had powerful classes and I could feel they would evolve into something strong (Warrior, Berserker, Healer, and Mage).

Ninth team; Spiders, Squirrels, and Alligators team, it contained the strongest Slaves. Jorogumo as the leader, Ganjo, Kuraen, Kaguya and four more Goblin rookies.

After creating all the teams, all of them began to get their preparations ready, packing tons of food, weapons, potions, and armors. The sales increased today in the town. I made sure that each team had a wealthy leader

I left the Wyvern Overlord and Redgaria on the Kingdom, they would be able to take care of it alongside the Rin Sisters. I left those two alone so they can get better together.

While waiting for the teams to get ready, I felt a small shock through my head as I glanced at the blue sky. My flesh minion bats were back with big news.

I quickly merged with them again regaining some mass, as countless images came rushing across my brain.

According to them, it seems that there are more than ten dungeons around the fourth and fifth layers of the Grand Forest. I can't even understand how there are so many dungeons in this place.

Two bats inspected two dungeons, and it seems that they were both old shrines were people and monsters used to visit the spirits of this forest. However, after the humans sealed the spirits there, they slowly became corrupted by the corrosive magic energy overflowing the place and became dungeons.

They also explored pretty far through the Vast Plains, and found out there was a big mountain on the middle of it, these mountains were quite similar to the Rocky Mountains we are right now, but were filled with strong monsters that I have never seen before. I can't wait to eat them all.

Going forward, crossing the mountains, they finally found a small village. After further inspecting, it was filled with humans. But all of them were quite weak, the strongest human was a bandit leader at Mid Emperor level.

However, even further, there was a big human town filled with strong adventurers, there were a lot of strong auras, and I even noticed some humans blessed by gods, having super rare classes.

On the center of the town, there was a big facility that seemed to be a guild, this guild administrated most of the quest given to these adventures. It seems that the guild was being administrated by a very strong seasoned adventure alongside some nobles.

I wonder if I should approach this place disguised as a human myself or just wreck it entirely and eat all the humans inside.

I guess I should just pretend to be a human. With Illusion Magic and my Mana manipulation mastery, it won't be hard to change my appearance and fool those humans.

I'm interested in what benefits of being in a guild give. Or just knowing a bit more about the modern human culture on this continent.

After this point, my bats decided to head back as they were starving. But using one of my skills, [Mystic Eyes], they were able to see that further to the west there was a big human city, and probably a Kingdom.

Using my new knowledge, I assigned each exploration team to go to a different dungeon, so they wouldn't compete for the rewards and killing the bosses. They also didn't need to give me back any reward or riches they obtained, which hyped up some money-hungry rookies.

Now that I recall, I remember meeting with a human when I was still a Caterpillar, I wonder who she was and where is she? Did she die here? Was she an adventurer? It would be interesting to meet with her again, maybe she would never believe that I was that Caterpillar that she ignored on her way.

As I saw all the groups move outside the town towards their respective dungeons, I also prepared myself on going to one of those dungeons, I decided to take the one that seemed to be the biggest one, with more than ten floors.

Packing food, potions, clothes and even a whole house inside my Item Box, we said our goodbyes to Redgaria, the Wyvern Overlord and the Rin Sisters.

Gaby was coming too, she seemed to be embarrassed after I invited her to the "Empress" team, as she was still a rookie, she didn't find herself worthy. But I think that her cuteness alone is worthy to be at my side!

.

.

.

It took us around 50 minutes to reach the third layer of the forest, and in this time, no monsters at all attacked us, even when we deactivated all our skills and pretended to be defenseless.

Gaby was very talkative as she talked a lot with my wives and made good friends with all of them. They seemed to like her personality and goals on becoming the strongest warrior.

After 40 minutes, we finally reached the fourth layer and we were greeted by a different sighting, it was a weird forest made out of big mushrooms, the smallest ones being as big as ten meters.

We encountered some new monsters. Some big walking mushrooms had big mouths filled with sharp teeth, they were quite ferocious and didn't run from us like the previous monsters.

I decided to practice my Archery skills and used the Wind Bow: Mercedes while flying, shooting down countless of these walking mushrooms. Due to the bow proficiency skills, I felt as if I always knew how to use a bow.

We left some of those walking mushrooms to Gaby as she slew them with her sword while channeling Blade Energy. The EXP gained was better than I expected, probably because of all these bonuses I obtained with the recent Demon Blessings and my new Title. We killed around 20.

[You gained 127360 EXP] [The rest of your party gained tons of EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 15/70 EXP 75622/78000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels]

After obtaining such a big amount of EXP, Gaby couldn't contain her emotions as she yelled at the sky while raising her sword.

"Level up!!!"

Even on her clumsiness, she is very adorable.

"Master Kireina! I am very close to level 150 now! I can already feel my evolution coming! I will become the strongest Shark Warrior!"

I glanced at Gaby with a challenging smile.

"Oh? I want to see that! After you evolve, I might let you fight me again. How's that?"

After my offer, Gaby eyes sparkled in excitement.

"Ooooh! Really, Master? I can't wait!"

My wives also looked at me with sparkling eyes.

"Honey, can we fight you too?"

"Master! I really want to test my strength!"

"Guuuuuu! Let's fight!"

"Big sister, I want to see how strong you are"

It seems that I got myself into a dangerous situation. We will have to do a tournament when we are back in the Kingdom. Well, I was already planning that. It a good way to test everyone's progress.

As we sat down to rest for a moment, I took a big cooking pot and using my new [Cooking] skill, I put on some ingredients as I masterfully seasoned them. I chopped around ten walking mushrooms and put them on the pot. After 30 minutes on a hot temperature. The food was ready. It smelled delicious.

[Walking Forest Mushroom Delicious Hot Pot: A comforting hot pot made with forest veggies, ice rabbit meat and walking mushrooms. It smells delicious. Goes well with cold beer]

[Grants +3 to all stats for the next 24 hours]

[Heals 60 MP and 80 Stamina]

The walking mushrooms had a very concentrated mushroom flavor, almost as delicious as the Shitake mushroom from Earth, that I once tasted on a hotpot on a trip to Japan. My wives and Gaby seemed to love it as they quickly ate the whole hot pot in less than 10 minutes.

[You obtained a new Title: Merciless Fungi Killer]

[You and your servants learned the following Skills]

[Poisonous Mushroom Attack]

[Poisonous Spore Cloud]

[Poisonous Curse Glare]

[High Poison Resistance]

Not so many skills, but you can't expect much from some simple walking mushrooms, they might be big, but they're just walking mushrooms at the end. Oh, yeah, they were actually all poisonous, but it didn't seem to affect my wives, not even Gaby. It's obvious that it wouldn't affect me as I have [Poison Immunity], but what about the rest?

After I asked them, they told me that they had developed ways to resist poison long ago. With the [Belly] related skills, which make their user immune to most toxins. These mushrooms had a very subtle poison so they were fine.

We kept walking ahead and after an hour, we found even more walking mushrooms and even some slimes. These new walking mushrooms had skulls painted on their heads and were of purple color unlike the earth brown from the last ones, and the slimes were of a deep green color, showing their strong toxic substance.

Although these monsters were not intelligent, I enslaved two Green Slimes as we killed the rest that came after us. I put to sleep the green slimes with my Illusion and Hypnosis magic and stored them on my Item Box. Perhaps they can develop intelligence by leveling up, or they could become pets in the future too. We killed 15 Skull Walking Mushrooms and 10 Green Slimes.

[You successfully made a Blood Pact with two: Toxic Green Slime] [53/120]

[You gained 140966 EXP] [The rest of your servants gained tons of EXP]

[You gained two levels!] [LEVEL 17/70 EXP 58588/82000]

[Your servants gained tons of levels]

We decided to eat these monsters on the way because we didn't want to waste time cooking each new monster we find. The Skull Walking Mushrooms tasted quite sweet with a bitter aftertaste. While the Green Slimes were very sour, they had a small core on their center that tasted like a lemon candy.

[You and your servants learned the following Skills]

[Deadly Poison Spore Cloud]

[Corrosive Poison Secretion]

[Poison Manipulation]

[Green Toxic Slime Core]

[Acid Toxic Secretion]

[Acid Poison Resistance]

[Toxic Slime Secretion]

I also assimilated the normal Walking Mushroom alongside the Skull Walking Mushroom and the Green Toxic Slime. For some reason, assimilating beings that weren't made of flesh was extremely painful, if it wasn't for my [Pain Tolerance] I would have probably screamed like a crying baby.

[You learned the following Assimilation Skills]

[Walking Mushroom Poison Body]

[Skull Walking Mushroom Corrosive Poison Body]

[Green Toxic Slime Body Shapeshifting]

"Oh?"

The Assimilation skill that the Slime gave me made me curious. As I tried using it, I felt that I could transform part of my body into a true Slime, molding my hands and even feet. It was a really weird sensation, feeling my cells restructure into a Slime.

I found out that using my skill [Fairy Vampire Body Division: Flesh Minion Creation] while using the assimilation skill of the Green Toxic Slime. I could make Slime Minions instead, which were way flexible and resistant, and could even be used to kill other people with their strong poison. I could use them to easily infiltrate into human houses and such.

As we kept advancing, we came across a new group of slimes, this time they were bigger and stronger. Of various colors, from blue, purple, green and pink. Unlike Rimuru and the other Slimes I've summoned, all these "wild" Slimes had cores inside their bodies.

Suddenly, while Gaby was slaying the slimes, she screamed and came rushing towards me.

As I glanced at her back, a massive monster slime came rolling at fast speed. I could feel a powerful aura from its core.

"An Emperor Slime?"

.

.

.