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Artifacts, special magical items that possessed unknown capabilities, sometimes, they could bring forth completely new powers and abilities to the battle and become deciding factors in a stalemate. And other times, they were able to bring new effects.

These powerful items made of magic were of incredible usefulness for the Hivemind, it had designed them for the sole reason of creating a special ritual that could potentially bring to it the power it required to attain the divinity it wanted to get so much…

These artifacts… how did the Hivemind even got them to begin with? This was unknown…

However, years ago they landed into the hands of his Cult, the Cult of the Dark Lord of the Depths.

The Cult of the Dark Lord of the Depths only had a single task, to

"revive

" their lord.

Although this revival… was it really just that?

…

Ervas, Veronica, and Aura quickly went back with their allies after canceling their fusion and separating one more.

They quickly began to burn the entire floor and made sure to annihilate every single infected creature they could find, to not leave behind any of these mysterious monsters… they couldn't possibly let them get away from the dungeon and cause any chaos in the surface.

"Well, that was that. It wasn't so hard… though the info we got is all over the place, but we got some clues.

" Said Veronica.

"Yeah… It seems that everyone got a lot of levels from this hunt as well, I guess destroying an entire floor that had turned into eldritch abominations do really give a nice amount of EXP…

" Said Ervas.

"It indeed does just that…

" said Aurora.

"Nonetheless, that thing was scary… To think that the damn Hivemind would come out and try to kill us through such stupid methods… is he okay in the head or something? did he actually thought such a thing would even work?

" wondered Yggdrasil.

"Indeed, it was very odd, well, he seemed desperate and ran away, he might had another plan with that body.

" Said Anastacia.

"Yeah, did you took any info from him?

" wondered Juliette.

"Yeah we were about to tell you guys about that…

" said Veronica.

"Mama, are you okay?

"

Kuro quickly rushed towards her mother, despite being over 15 years of age, she still called her mother as

"mama

" and had simply become even more clingy over the years.

"Yes, dear, it wasn't so hard. Although that monster might had thing might had become a real threat if we had let it escape… But things went fine… Even more than fine, actually…

" said Veronica.

"Oh? What happened?

" asked Shade.

"Did you managed to damage it?

" asked Anna.

"Ah, yeah, I guess you guessed it right, Anna. We indeed damaged the thing using our powers. We managed to inflict a large amount of damage into his soul, we even slightly shattered it, if we had been given a few more seconds, we could had ended it right there…

" sighed Veronica.

"Y-You did what?!

" asked Anastacia.

"Y-You almost killed it so casually when it took us so long…

" sighed Juliette.

"It is mostly thanks to Veronica, she grew into a powerful specializer of Dream, Illusion, and Death elements, she used them together to access the root of his mind and soul, and then using our power as an extra, she attempted to crush the soul without even directly engaging against him…

" said Ervas.

"It didn't ended well for him, his soul got even more damaged, but we didn't managed to get through it all…

" sighed Aurora, she was holding the spoiled little Violet in her arms who had rushed to her mama. Ditoyle was at her side as well, hearing everything attentively. She wasn't the best of talkers but always heard conversations to understand what was happening.

"But he pulled out at the end and destroyed the avatar, a smart move, I have to recognize it. And yes, we got some info, but this info is… Well, let's sit down for now to discuss it… I think we also ended killing the final boss while not realizing it, it was a giant manticore.

" Said Ervas.

"Oh, let's have that for dinner then!

" said Pekorina.

After everything was decided, the group quickly settled down while those that offered themselves to help began to cook while receiving the help of the split souls' phantom clones.

"What we learned from his memories is dim, he had made sure to save the important ones afar from our grasp, so what we got was a mishmash of a lot of stuff we don't get that right…

" sighed Veronica.

"But we do know he's planning to ascend into divinity, perhaps the whole plot he has over the cult he made on the surface is so he can get believers to pray for him… He somehow figured that out by himself.

" Said Ervas.

"If the Hivemind ascend into godhood… that would be bad… it would gain a lot of power from it… to the point that its soul might become more resistant to attacks, and that's without even counting his body turning into a divine body, he would become even more invincible…

" said Yggdrasil.

"We cannot let that possibly happen… Manationia… that girl, is she alright for this task?

" wondered Anastacia.

"I believe in her, but Octo is also our way to help her, we can use him and channel our power into him. We don't even have to intervene physically.

" Said Veronica.

"Yeah, she had been growing stronger… I think we can count on her; we had told her most of the things through Octo, and she knows about us by now.

" Said Ervas.

"I am sad that she was forced to grow this fast, but it is for the best… her magical power is also… ridiculously strong…

" said Aura.

"Yeah, I think that the apple we gave to her was way too much, if we eat it ourselves or our family, it barely does anything, but when a mortal with almost zero magic power eats it, it could be said that they evolve to the point they reach the pinnacle of magic within the mortal realm, and perhaps can even reach beyond it…

" sighed Veronica.

"We could make an army by giving this apple to people… But let's better not, it would make everything unbalanced…

" said Ervas.

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