Book 1: Chapter 30: The Truth Behind the Mysterious Cave

Lisha hadn’t been hit by Grisbane’s chains, she had been transported to a strange forest just seconds before she was hit by one. Various unidentified sticky fluids covered much of the forest, giving Lisha the feel of being in a corrupted world.

Much of the forest floor was covered in semi-dissolved branches and sticks, the forest also reeked of rotting flesh but there were no bodies to be seen. Lisha had no idea where her mount, the [Gold Dragon] had gone, and it seemed like she was the only person left in the world. Lisha was even a little worried that she may have transmigrated again.

After walking for a while, Lisha finally spotted another human being, one of the members of the Gabriel Empire’s(Swordsmen) expeditionary army, however, the soldier was already dead. Lisha saw several dozen more corpses as she continued, who all seemed to have been sprayed by a strong acid and were some state of dissolution.

“Lisha, thank god you’re safe!”

“Lola, you’re alright too? Where is that giant spider?!”

“That Yuly… that spider just disappeared.”

While Lisha was in a state of unrest, her female assassin companion Lola suddenly appeared behind her. While Lisha did not suspect the sudden appearance of her companion, the real Lola had already been captured by Yulysses and the ‘Lola’ present here was evidently not the true one.

“Lisha-sama, we should leave here immediately, those two evil beings will get come very soon. We can look for your mount later, after its safe.”

Although Lisha was a little curious as to why Lola addressed her with such formality, as they were basically best friends and were on a first name basis with each other, Lisha did not ask why. There was no one else here, she felt more comforted and relaxed with Lola around.

___

Not longer after ‘Lola’ led Lisha deeper into the strange forest, a loli with demon’s wings fell out of the sky, this loli was Hadias who had just ‘escaped from the clutches’ of Bella earlier. After Hadias had flown over this forest, her wings seemed to have been stuck together by something, forcing her into an emergency landing.

“What happened, this forest… eh, slimes?”

The grounded Hadias was wondering why her wings refused to work when she saw countless slimes converging on her from all sides.

“Such inferior existences, get out of my way!”

Hadias couldn’t be bothered to deal with such ‘low-leveled’ evil beings, sending an arc of blood-red energy that bisected all the slimes in front of her. However, what happened to the slimes after shocked Hadias, the slimes that were cut into two seemed to be completely unaffected and instead both pieces continued towards her.

As Hadias was still in shock, the ground beneath her feet suddenly softened, sinking her feet into the ground, depriving her of any hopes to fly out of here. The slimes closest to her took advantage of this to spray a viscous fluid at her, and several dozen streams of thick fluid struck Hadias’ armour.

“What the! My armour… what are these slimes?”

The acidic attacks of normal slimes shouldn’t be able to damage Hadias’ armour at all, these slimes however, had completely dissolved her armour as well as her clothes underneath and it wasn’t long before Hadias was left awkwardly in the nude.

Hadias was now in a complete panic, even as a princess of the demon world, she wasn’t brave and shameless enough to run around naked on the surface world. If she had known that this would happen, she never would have ran in the first place, staying with Bella was at least safer than being here. The slimes’ fluids didn’t seem to hurt or affect her body in any way, as if its only purpose was to dissolver her clothes and equipment.

Hadias still wasn’t about to give up struggling but the slimes around her suddenly jumped her, entrapping her and turning Hadias into what appeared a human shaped and sized jello. As a princess of the demon world, Hadias could only watch without being able to fight her fate. She was still able to breath after being enveloped, but the fluid seemed to have some sort of sedative component to it and it wasn’t long before Hadias lost consciousness.

“Heheh, the demon world’s princesses sure have great bodies, even a loli has such great figure. What a great gift for Bella-sama, heh, even if any of this world’s goddesses were still alive, they wouldn’t be able to escape their fate after meeting me.”

After seeing Hadias getting captured, a blurry figure appeared. While this figure’s facial features were indistinct, but seemed to definitely be female just by looking. This figure was Skryme, one of two amongst the Dark Sanctuary’s 6 void monarchs that truly had the ability to destroy worlds, the other four were only able to reach the level of ‘Cataclysmic’.

“I see you haven’t changed your… peculiar interests even after becoming female, Skryme, what a perverted slime.”

“You’re complaining about me? Medusyr you stupid snake, all I do is kill people painfully, you straight up petrify their body and spirit, depriving them of the ability to reincarnate you’re not any less messed up than I am. Anyways, my gender changes with whoever has a blood-contract with me, it’s not like you didn’t know that. Damn snake!”

Skryme looked back, a giant gorgon had appeared. At a height of 16 metres, 【Eye of Petrification】Medusyr was the largest in size among the Dark Sanctuary’s void monarchs, apart from 【Disaster of the Seas】 Krakent of course. Medusyr’s eyes were firmly shut, its two hands clutching a giant shield as well as a serpent shaped staff. Having a human-like upper body, if it wasn’t that Medusyr couldn’t change her lower body to the legs of a human she would have been able to call herself a void demon king.{1}

“What are you doing Skryme? Oh, and wasn’t there another girl here earlier, did you let her go!?”

“Packaging my prey before gifting her to Bella-sama of course! The girl earlier was too dangerous, not one I could capture by force. The girl’s power is hidden pretty deep, she herself might not even realize how strong she truly is. I’ve sent one of my avatars to lead her into a trap.”

While talking, Skryme commanded its subordinate slimes to carry Hadias away, to be delivered to Bella after cleaning. Medusyr didn’t bother asking further about Skryme’s bad taste, she too was here to look for her owner, Bella.

The other void monarchs were too efficient, not giving Medusyr any chance to utilise her true abilities. Especially Skryme who could basically be considered a ‘janitor’ as it had ‘mopped up’ all the small parties that had escaped from the fighting, letting none get past.

It was fortunate for Hadias that she was female, if she was male she would probably have ended up as Skryme’s food long ago.

Medusyr had also not been able to find Bella, who had long left the area where the void monarchs last received her location. The only thing that remained around the river was a bunch of petrified dinosaur-type monsters, all of Medusyr’s doing. Not even the numerous S+ class monsters mixed in were able to escape.

___

Back at the central area of the Unnamed Forest, Bella was currently leading the strongest party of adventurers in history, preparing to explore the mysterious cave. The party was completely filled with cheat existences, apart from the four demon kings and three demon god-level lolis, the party also included five creator gods. It was fortunate that Creators weren’t able to kill each other, or else even if this dimension’s Creator appeared in front of this party, they would be unable to escape the quick fate of death.

Apart from the three creators who had followed from earlier, Vianna, Mystica, and Alfreia; Bella also made Noesha call Andrea and Bethia over, telling them that it was the will of their leader, Vianne. The two loli creator gods didn’t suspect anything and had quickly appeared.

The one that felt the most out of place in the party was Kriss, she had really wanted to return to her human form but Bella and all the other demon kings and gods present were in their dark forms, if she were to return to human form it would be bad if anyone were to see and then return to spread rumours back in the empire, it wouldn’t be hard to spin it into a narrative about how she, a hero, had betrayed humanity and joined forces with demons. She might as well stay in her demon king form, at least outsiders might not recognize her this way.

On the way, Bella’s party had ran into quite a few wandering evil beings, which all seemed to be those of the Dark Sanctuary, Bella didn’t stop to ask any of them why exactly they were here in such numbers, she had no clue that this region had been thrown into intense and chaotic fighting.

After returning to the mysterious cave, Bella could feel that familiar pull, but none of her party was affected by it at all. Their current party was basically invincible, it would make no sense if any of them were pulled into the cave by the mysterious power.

“I feel uncomfortable just looking at this cave, can I blow it up?” Andrea took out what looked like a rocket launcher and said excitedly, the weapon contained a miniature nuclear bomb and would probably destroy the entire Unnamed Forest if Andrea pressed the trigger.

“No need to be so violent, I can just send this cave to another realm.”

After hearing the Creators who were making more and more perverse suggestions, Bella turned her gaze towards Vianne, seeking her aid. Bella hoped that the strongest Creator would have a more reasonable idea.

“Stop arguing, let me solve this. It’s really something, I’ve exiled that guy to the edge of the universe already, seems that he’s not giving up just yet. Appearing here and causing such trouble.”

Vianne took out a bright orb that radiated a gentle light, she then casually lobbed it into the depths of the cave, immediately lighting up the entire cave that had been completely devoid of light. After a staccato of wretched cries, the strange pulling force of the cave completely disappeared.

“Just this degree of darkness is unable to stand up to the light. Let’s enter, shall we?”

Under the lead of Vianne, Bella and the others entered the mysterious cave. The cave that had been so dark and sinister previously was now completely bathed in light, dispersing the mysterious and terrifying aura that it originally had.

The cave’s tunnel was very deep, the cave originally had an eerie and cold draft but after being purified by Vianne’s orb of light, the wind had became a warm summer breeze. Bella was pretty sure that if Vianne had thrown that orb into the Dark Sanctuary, it wouldn’t be able to escape the fate that this cave had suffered.

Currently, Bella had already formulated a set of plans to ‘buy out’ Vianne to her side. This 【Light Creator】 was much more dangerous than Kriss and the other transmigrated heroes, after finishing business here, Bella planned to invite these Creators back to her house as guests.

Throughout their path into the cave were puddles of black blood, probably the only remnants of the evil beings who had been purifying by the light. After a while, the party arrived at a large room, where Bella was able to meet this cave’s owner. A giant zombie was collapsed on the ground, its body dissolving at a rate visible to the naked eye, it had evidently not been able to escape that fate of being purified.

Bella looked around the room and what she saw shocked her, countless pillars of ice, each containing a girl that had evidently been captured by this monster. There clothes and equipment were nowhere to be seen, probably stripped away by the strange pulling force when they were captured. Apart from being frozen, the girls had all been bound by peculiar chains made from a dark metal, so even if the ice were to melt somehow, they would not be able to escape.

Bella realized how fortunate it was that she and Kriss were smart enough to not have entered this cave the first time, or else they would have shared the same fate as these girls. Apart from Bella, the other girls all had an unnatural look on their faces, after all, Bella was the only one that hadn’t always been a girl amongst them. It would be uneasy for any ‘real’ girls to see the sight inside this room.

Beside the dissolving zombie was a strange magic formation, the design at the centre shared some resemblance to that of Noesha’s transportation formation. Around the formation were several dozen pillars which were engraved with strange runes as well as having chains similar to those on the kidnapped girls.

Bella did a count of the pillars and discovered that they were similar in number with the captured girls, only having 3 or 4 more pillars.

“This is a ritual formation of sorts, an evil one that offers the body and soul of the sacrifices. Its purpose is to open a permanent passage to another dimension.”

Mia was able to identify this magic formation’s origins, apart from the strange magic formation there was a dark blue orb floating above it. This orb seemed to have a life of its own, it was currently darting around but it had been suppressed by the orb of light that Vianne had thrown into the cave earlier, trapping it within an invisible barrier.

“So it’s you again, I thought that you might have reflected on your mistakes after I exiled you.”

A familiar scene played out in front of Bella’s eyes, Vianne easily grabbed this blue orb that was trying to escape. This orb was the source of the mysterious pulling force, it was also the culprit that had dragged all these girls into the cave.

“It’s you again, Vianne, haven’t you gone far enough? You’ve already exiled me to an outside dimension, and now you’re here to ruin my business again! I just want this dimension, it doesn’t even have its own Creator anymore, why do you care?”

“This dimension already has a new owner, you might as well give up!”

“Don’t try and convince me, Creators can’t kill each other, can you guard this dimension forever? Next time…”

After a crisp sound, the blue orb was crushed by Vianne. Bella, who was watching from the back, felt a little heartache at this. This orb was evidently a Creator’s treasure, it would have been nice if Vianne was kind enough to leave it for her.

“Bella, I’m going to leave the cleanup here to you girls. Me and the other Creators need to go back and discuss what’s been going on recently, I’ll come looking for you in a few days.”

After dealing with the blue orb, Vianne led the other four Creators and left. As Bella didn’t have any gifts handy, she could only watch as Vianne and the others left. Oh well, Bella would be more prepared to ‘bribe’ her in the future.

“Bella, I recognize all the girls here, they’re all members of various renowned adventurer guilds, they had all gone missing in recent years. I didn’t know that they had all been captured and brought here.”

Kriss quickly recognized the identities of the captured girls, after thinking for a while Bella decided to let these girls go. Letting Kriss take them back to the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen), also serving the purpose of increasing Kriss’ prestige among the empire’s populous.

According to what Mia told Bella, the memory of these girls had been frozen at the second that they were captured. As they had not yet awakened, the wouldn’t remember anything that had happened here, including the fact that Bella and the others were demon kings.

___

Back in the mysterious and strange forest, Lisha had followed Lola to a small lake with crystal clear water. It was just that the fog above the lake was quite heavy, making it hard to see how large the lake truly was.

“Lola, this is?”

“Lisha-sama, we’ve been on the run for so long already, aren’t you tired? We should clean ourselves off in this lake hear before continuing! It shouldn’t get in the way of anything, those two evil beings probably won’t catch up any time soon.”

“This…alright, I do feel a little filthy.”

Lisha couldn’t find anything wrong with Lola’s ‘reasonable suggestion’, she was a bit tired after the day’s events anyways.

After Lisha finished stripping from her clothes and equipment and entered the water, she looked back and saw no sign of Lola at all. What was even stranger was that everything that she had just stripped out of has disappeared as well.

“What is Lola doing, taking all my clothes and equipment! Eh, is that Lola over there?”

Lisha was barely able to make out the blurry figure of what seemed to be a girl through the thick mist lingering above the water’s surface.

Lisha walked closer to the figure and realized from a glance of the blood-red hair that this wasn’t Lola at all, but another girl. Looking at the loli with blood-red hair who seemed to have passed out, Lisha was about to wake her up and ask a few questions when the originally calm water beneath her seemed to come to life.

Lisha could only feel countless invisible hands reaching up from the water beneath her, pulling her under. As all her equipment had disappeared, Lisha didn’t have the ability to resist and sunk beneath the surface.

Skryme appeared near the lake, Lisha’s equipment in its hands, a jet-black ring stood out even amongst the entire set of god-tier equipment that Lisha had been equipped with. This ring wasn’t among the pile that Lisha had stripped from and left on the ground before entering the lake, Skryme had taken it off her finger in the lake. The ring seemed to have sealed a terrifying power, Skryme was able to feel a intense curse entwined with the ring just by holding it.

“Seems that I was right, that girl herself probably doesn’t know how to use this invisible ring, she might not even have known that it existed! I should give this ring to Bella-sama, I didn’t expect that this ring was able to transmigrate with this girl so many times. It must have been hard for her, being followed by a cursed ring for so many lifetimes, I wonder what kind of secrets this ring holds?”

—TL NOTES—

{1} I guess I can refer to Medusyr with female pronouns because she has distinct features, raws interchange between ‘her’ and ‘it’, while only using ‘it’ for Skryme.

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