On the day of the invasion into the dungeon known as the Emerald Cavern, the dungeon was closed to the public. A number of warriors, male and female, human, half-elf, deity, and from other species as well, carefully prepared themselves for the dangerous journey into the depths. One warrior, one of the two deities in the expedition, stood at the edge of the stairwell that led into the dungeon's first floor.
The warrior who stood at the edge of the stairwell was not facing the stairwell. Instead, he was gazing at the warriors who had entrusted him with their lives. There was a calm smile on his face, and unbeknownst to him, he was radiating a potent and invisible aura.
Raul, as a grand adonis, was a powerful type of god and like other gods, he had a number of passive powers. Passive powers were potent abilities wielded by divinities and other higher beings that didn't require conscious activation and were sometimes unknown even to those who wielded them. Some types of auric abilities were passive ones, and those included a number of Raul's own auric abilities such as his aura of joy, but the current power of his which was affecting people was not an aura of joy. It was an aura of love and beauty.
Raul's growth in power, due to his acquisition of worshipers, was affecting him in strange ways thanks to his nature as a multi-tiered higher being. At this moment where so many eyes were on him, he was unconsciously activating a new power; an aura of love and beauty that caused all who beheld him to be unable to resist his influence.
He was a vision of impossible, almost soul-searing beauty as he began to speak. The sort of beauty which made people fall in love with him and which made even the most resistant and skeptical souls feel awe.
"Before we brave the depths of this dungeon... I want to thank you all for your courage. Today we embark on a journey that may well alter history. If this works then we will know it is possible for us to tame and domesticate dungeons. We will be able to forever use these places and we will be able to bring about an end to an age characterized by violence. By joining our hands and trusting in each other we are changing the world. And now... There's only one thing left to do." He said, before pausing and turning to face the depths.
"Trust in me, trust in those around you, and trust in yourselves. Let's do this. Together." He whispered, before taking his first steps into the dungeon. Behind him, the guards who had opted to join him, and the faction of warriors he had gathered to his side, also took their first steps into the depths of the dungeon.
We made our way down the stairs, slowly and carefully. Our caution was motivated by the fact that dungeons tended to react weirdly to large groups of people invading them all at once but thanks to my power we weren't extremely scared. I had the power to undo a lot of the damage that the dungeon could inflict, provided my allies and I weren't overwhelmed all at once.
When we found ourselves at the bottom of the stairwell we found the wide-open area just beyond it thankfully empty. I used telepathy to link the minds of everyone on this mission together and commanded us to remain silent. My allies all nodded at me, and I felt my mind fill with messages from my allies. I turned and faced Alpha, before smiling silently as I studied the strange young woman.
Alpha was, for one of the first times since I had met her, not naked. She wore a skin-colored bodysuit and was inside of a strange machine. Alpha was inside of a mecha that more than doubled the amount of space she took up.
She was inside of a robotic exoskeleton that had lengthy and powerful arms and legs and the part of it from which she was piloting the thing was visible to those of us outside of it thanks to a transparent force field that protected her and was where a head and metallic torso would have been otherwise. I could see a number of buttons, switches, and knobs in front of her that she was constantly fiddling with as she ushered her mecha forward. Her strange and highly personalized piece of equipment had two long, customizable arms.
Both of her machine's arms currently ended in hands that had nozzles attached to them that could fire grenades or rockets but I also knew that they could be swapped out with shields, swords, flamethrowers, and a number of other handy tools. Just like her customizable arms, her legs could be changed but at the moment they were just large, comparatively normal metal legs that gave her a powerful kick and an impressive sprinting speed. Right now she had optimized her machine for heavy-duty combat and so the thing was prepared for serious combat against determined enemies.
Everyone else in our party, including our backup guards who had volunteered to be the first guards stationed in the dungeon once we cleared and pacified the first floor, had special equipment as well. Each of the guards wore special armor that was magically augmented to raise their defense and had a number of magically sharp blades at their sides.
Aster and his more martially inclined cousin wore powerful armor that allowed their muscles to be on full display while covering their most sensitive places. Fara wielded her axe, which I had taken, repaired, and sharpened, and Aster had a pair of knuckle-dusters that were divinely empowered to be especially devastating to enemies weak to blunt trauma.
Zaria also held a magical staff but hers was designed to optimize and boost her ability to strengthen and heal her allies. Her armor was light and combined modern craftsmanship with high-tech optimization provided by Alpha which boosted her ability to regenerate magical energy. She wasn't as fully divine as I was, so she still had many of the burdens that mortals had. I had considered removing them from her in advanced, but I knew that doing that too early would only spoil her.
Riezel and Sofia both had equipment that was highly specialized for themselves. Sofia was using a potent staff made from the branch of a tree whose spirit I had seduced and asked for aid, and Riezel had a plasma rifle made by Alpha. They both also had armor that had been made by expert blacksmiths from Jasper, which I had bolstered both through "Seduce the world" and then through layering with my own potent divine power.
Even I was wearing custom equipment. I wore a pair of high-tech trousers, designed by Alpha, that covered my upper body in a thin, flexible, highly regenerative force field and thus allowed me to not wear any armor on my upper body without sacrificing safety. I was also doing this entirely for the sake of not raising suspicions, I was invulnerable to anything I suspected I might encounter in the dungeon, even quite possibly in its depths.
I held a prototype sword and shield made by Alpha, both of which were highly unique things made possible through her usage of "Creation". My shield combined magic and technology to give me the power to both stop enemy attacks and also burn them using the light which my shield, which was itself little more than a baton I could grip until I activated it, upon activation it'd protect me with solid light. My sword was also a light weapon, and when in an unactivated state was a little more than a hilt made of some synthetic material. When I activated it though, it became a potent and hefty claymore of light that illuminated the area around me.
My party and I made our way past the stairwell that had led us down here and we began to actually step well and truly into the dungeon. As we did, Riezel and I kept our eyes open since the two of us were the warriors with the ability to see the furthest. Off in the distance, I could hear the faint sound of enemies and I began to smile. As we stepped fully into the first area of the dungeon where enemies could actually attack in significant numbers I warned our ranged attackers, Sofia, Riezel, and Alpha to be ready. I heard the sound of metal in motion as Alpha readied her mech.
Dungeons were adaptive things that had long memories and the Emerald Cavern was an especially ancient dungeon. They sensed everything that took place inside of themselves and reacted accordingly.
Some dungeons were known for being especially reactive and malicious towards dungeon invasions. A dungeon invasion wasn't just a lone adventurer or a party of adventures, but rather a large number of individuals making their way inside of a dungeon with clear coordination and intent to work together to strike down a dungeon. Elves and dwarves were well-known dungeon-invaders who had stricken down several dungeons that had made the mistake of emerging in their territories.
The Emerald Cavern had not experienced a dungeon invasion in a very long time. Humans were too individualistic to be capable of using such tactics unless led by a particularly charismatic or intelligent leader. The dungeon felt a twinge of curiosity when it detected the group of almost twenty-five individuals making their way into it, and so it sent out a message to its creations to be ready to fight.
The last time the Emerald Cavern had been especially challenged and faced a serious enemy capable of ending its life it had not come in the form of a dungeon invasion but instead in the form of an especially dangerous party that had dove into its depths before being defeated. In fact, the dungeon had repelled the few invasions it had faced without tremendous difficulty in the past and so it felt that it could handle such invasions without much difficulty. It had no way of knowing of the strange nature of the secret weapon its enemies wielded in the form of the Grand Adonis, beings whose power over love was so powerful it could affect concepts and inanimate objects, determined to purify it.
The dungeon watched the invaders curiously, and then eventually decided to test their skill and the strange weapons they were wielding. It ordered some of the guardians of the first floor to engage and test its foes.
I chuckled when I heard the skittering sound of the feet of countless ants beginning to dash across the stone floor of the dungeon. When I did I silently glanced at Riezel and Alpha who had the longest range of us all and nodded. The two of them grinned, and several gasps could be heard when Riezel aimed her rifle and began to unleash numerous rounds of speedy, accurate, and dangerous plasma bolts on the distant ants.
Riezel's range with her real rifle, modified by Alpha, was further than my own ability to see with my naked eyes. A few moments later we began to hear faint and loud roars of insectoid rage, and the distant footsteps began to increase in volume. Alpha stepped forward until she was in front of me and began to fire rockets that exploded out of her mech's arms and sailed into the distance. When they eventually hit their targets, I could see the faint and distant bodies of ants get sent soaring through the air.
Ants continued to race towards us, and as they began to make some headway I chuckled. I silently altered my form to give myself burning wings and behind me I sensed my allies gaze at me in awe. My wings increased the ambient temperature in the area directly around me, and a split second after I gave them to myself I closed my eyes and unleashed numerous lasers from my wings, lasers that shot out of me and then raced in front of me, speeding off at the speed of light and illuminating the area they passed by.
I watched as they sailed across the wide-open area that my party found itself in. They streaked through the air, until they collided with distant ant guards, something which only I could visually see thanks to my ultra sensitive senses. When they hit the ants roared in pain and were sent sailing through the air before crashing, hard onto the floor where they quickly stopped moving altogether. I began to smile and readied myself for more combat.
From here on out every step we took into the dungeon would be one where we'd be met with fierce opposition.
