Chapter 130: [BONUS] - Intel Sharing

Thank you all so much for your incredible support this week!

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

August and Lili crossed the rubble, making their way back to their base.

The Xenos relaxed in the corners, enjoying the afternoon sun. When August came back, they quickly stood up and greeted him.

"Yo." August waved back, entirely at ease.

Lili watched, both amazed and unsure. It hadn't been long, but August was already acting like the Xenos were old neighbors.

"Only you could pull that off," she muttered. "If it were me, I'd still be covered in goosebumps."

Lili had grown up in Orario and knew her own limits. Standing near the Xenos without panicking was a big step for her... But August? He was already talking with them through casual glances and nods, seamlessly bridging the gap.

August chuckled. He reached the doors of their ruined church and pushed them open, only to find a crowd of young women sitting inside, waiting for him.

"Yo," he greeted them, keeping the same casual tone.

"Mr. August!" they chimed in unison.

Their eyes were bright with a mix of deep reverence and gratitude. The moment he walked in, every single one of them stood up and offered a deep bow.

"Alright, take it easy."

August looked around the room. Everything was set. He didn't need to control every detail. These women were his first group of cross-dimensional adventurers. They might not be the strongest, but for his plan, they were enough.

He saw that they were holding small gifts. Nearby, two Goddesses sat together, giving their last pieces of advice.

Demeter, especially, was emotional. She had just made contracts with these girls, and now she watched them get ready to leave. Tears ran down her face.

Demeter looked gentle and kind, but everyone knew her stories. She loved her children deeply, and nothing mattered more to her. Seeing her Familia members leave was breaking her heart.

Hephaestus, on the other hand, played it much cooler.

She sat with her arms crossed, looking serious and dignified like an experienced Goddess. She didn't cry, but it was clear she didn't want to say goodbye. She kept looking at her children, wanting to speak but staying silent. She was struggling with her own goodbyes.

Naturally, both Goddesses directed all their pent-up frustration straight at August.

"August, you'd better take good care of my children," Demeter warned, her tone dead serious. "If even one of them gets hurt... I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF."

Before August could respond, another voice chimed in.

"Isn't that the speech you're supposed to give the groom?" Takemikazuchi said flatly from his seat in the corner. "August isn't the one getting married."

The War God had a point. Dumping the overprotective-parent routine on August seemed a bit misplaced.

"Makes you wonder what they'll do when they finally get married," Miach added with a soft chuckle.

The two male Gods didn't understand all the emotion. As long as the girls found a better life and were happy, they were fine with letting them go. They didn't see a reason to cry.

"Heartless!"

"So insensitive!"

"Men really have no conscience!!"

The girls from the Artemis, Takemikazuchi, and Miach Familias quickly glared at the two male Gods. Outnumbered by the angry group, Miach and Takemikazuchi stayed quiet.

August stood nearby and nodded in agreement with the male Gods. Lili quickly kicked him in the shin.

He rubbed his leg and coughed, trying to break the awkward silence.

"Alright, ladies. Let's head out."

He signaled the recruits to wrap things up.

"Yes, sir."

After receiving their Patrons' final blessings, the women stood up. They were determined. Back on Earth, the men they loved were probably waiting anxiously for them.

Right in front of the assembled Gods, August summoned the dimensional portal.

"Ooooh, so this is the door?"

Demeter stopped crying and became curious as she looked at the shining portal. It was her first time seeing it up close. To a God, the portal didn't exist—there was no mana or divine sign.

Still, it was clearly there. It was strange and interesting.

Miach and Takemikazuchi studied the gateway. They harbored no ill intent, they were just trying to figure out its mechanics.

"Visible to the eye, but invisible to divine perception. Artifacts from other worlds truly are bizarre," Miach noted.

"I suspect forcing our way through would just tear us apart and scatter us into the void," Takemikazuchi reasoned.

They were kind Gods and not foolish. Risking their immortal lives just to satisfy curiosity was not worth it.

The portal possessed an inherent safety mechanism designed to protect its master. If an unauthorized entity tried to cross, the chaotic spatial turbulence within the void would assimilate them. Even a God's consciousness would be shredded and integrated into the dimensional fabric. They would simply cease to be.

Seeing something so alien and dangerous reminded the Gods that the universe was much bigger than Orario.

Miach suddenly remembered his actual reason for being there.

"August, the supplies you requisitioned are ready."

He pointed to Naaza Erisuis, who brought out several large crates of new healing potions. This was the latest delivery in their trade deal.

"Appreciate it." August nodded.

He waved his hand and stored the crates in his [Spatial Backpack]. Then he turned to the portal, led the women through, and returned to modern Earth.

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

Lili didn't follow them through.

She was exhausted. As soon as August was gone, she dropped into a chair and closed her eyes.

"Lili, where exactly did you guys go?"

Hestia walked over to check on her tired Supporter. Lili looked like she had been through a rough time, covered in dirt and ash.

"Ah... Lord August and I went hunting for the Daedalus family," Lili mumbled, staring at the ceiling. "It didn't go smoothly."

She gave a straight report. They had gone out on business. Bloody, violent business.

"Daedalus."

Hestia frowned when Lili dropped the name.

Daedalus was a legendary architect from a thousand years ago who built the foundation of Orario. No one would have expected his descendants to become the main target of the Hestia Familia so many years later.

The real problem was all the political red tape. The Daedalus bloodline had strong historical ties to Ouranos. Finding a clear, legal reason to take them out would not be easy.

Then again, Hestia shrugged it off. She didn't need to overthink it. August called the shots, and she supported him.

"So? How did the investigation go?" Hestia asked.

"Don't even get me started," Lili groaned, forcing herself to sit up.

She explained the whole frustrating situation. Their first plan was simple: an eye for an eye. They would put a huge bounty on the Daedalus family and let the underworld handle it. But every assassin guild turned down the job.

August reacted by storming in and starting a war. Only after pressuring some brokers at the Hostess of Fertility did they learn the truth: the Daedalus family literally funded the syndicate.

No assassin would kill their own financial backers. They weren't that foolish.

With the bounty plan ruined, August switched to a scorched-earth approach.

By the time they reached the fourth base, they had to stop. The assassins had figured it out and escaped. No one was going to wait around in a dark room for a tank shell to blast through the wall.

And just like that, the trail disappeared.

Lili rubbed her temples. All they had done was leave behind burning buildings. They were no closer to finding out who was really in charge of the Daedalus family. They had no names and no targets.

"Hephaestus, do you know anything about this?" Hestia asked her friend. She was still new to the lower world and didn't have much historical background.

"The Daedalus family?" Hephaestus shook her head. "I know next to nothing."

She motioned to Demeter. Hephaestus had only been in Orario for less than a century, but Demeter had been here for two or three hundred years. If anyone knew old rumors, it was her.

"Don't look at me," Demeter defended herself, holding her hands up. "The original Daedalus went insane a thousand years ago. Mathematically, his soul has been recycled through reincarnation dozens of times by now."

"I've never interacted with his modern descendants. If you want to know who is running in those circles, you'd have to ask the Gods of the Evilus factions. They're the ones who operate in the dark."

Demeter was only the Goddess of Agriculture. Secret underworld plots were not her area of expertise.

"Besides, going after the Daedalus family puts you in direct conflict with Ouranos," Demeter said, pointing out the huge political risk Hestia was ignoring. The old pact between Ouranos and the architect was still technically in place.

"But let me ask you something, Hestia." Demeter's tone turned grim. "These rumors about people being forced into artificial monster experiments... are they actually true?"

Demeter couldn't believe anyone could be that cruel. An Evil God doing something like that for fun? Maybe. But mortals doing it to each other?

Hestia didn't answer. Instead, she looked directly at Lili.

Lili pulled out her heavy leather notebook and flipped it open.

"Over the last few years, a string of massacres has plagued the deep floors. Nobody knows the exact identity of the hostiles, so the Guild chalked it up to irregular monster spawns."

"However, based on intel gathered from Bors over in Rivira on the eighteenth floor, we confirmed the Adventurers were ripped apart by something monstrous—but the attack patterns didn't match any known species."

She tapped a circled name on the page. "Furthermore, several years ago, there were reports of specific Adventurers faking their own deaths. Evilus members. We strongly suspect they used that cover to volunteer for the mutation project."

"The experiments are real, and they have successfully weaponized human-monster hybrids."

"I also cross-referenced intel bought from the underground brokers," Lili continued. "During the Dark Ages, Evilus had a terrifying hallmark: they kidnapped people, implanted explosive magical cores inside them, and deployed them as suicide bombers."

"That proves they mastered the biological integration of foreign magical elements decades ago."

Lili hadn't made up this theory. The terrible history of human bombs was a proven fact, confirmed by both the black market and Shakti Varma.

If they could turn people into living bombs before, then making living monsters now was the next logical step. The groundwork had been set years ago.

"It goes deeper..." Lili flipped to the next page. "Years ago, the Astraea Familia was annihilated. We confirmed that Evilus manipulated the Dungeon to spawn an anomaly—an irregular monster of catastrophic power that wiped them out."

"Based on environmental data Lord August collected recently, Evilus has been trying to replicate that exact incident. Their method? Deliberately causing severe, unrepairable structural damage to the Labyrinth."

"When a Dungeon room takes critical damage it cannot heal, the Labyrinth's defense mechanism spawns an apex predator to purge the threat. That was what slaughtered the Astraea Familia."

"Lately, the number of newly generated rooms in the upper floors has spiked. Evilus is actively destroying the infrastructure to force the Dungeon to birth another apex anomaly."

"..." Hephaestus, Takemikazuchi, Miach, and Demeter sat in dumb silence.

All of this had been happening right under their noses?

"That's... a lot to process," Takemikazuchi muttered, rubbing his temples.

"It seems the Gods of the Dark Ages left behind a massive, ticking time bomb. Or rather, they were the architects pulling the strings the entire time."

The War God felt a creeping sense of dread. This was the first time he had heard a full threat assessment of the Dungeon's deeper workings. Artificial monsters, biological experiments, and manipulating the Dungeon's core spawn logic?

These were not just random events. If they were not careful, the remains of Evilus could pull all of Orario into disaster.

"And then there is Knossos—the Artificial Labyrinth," Lili pulled out a final, heavily classified dossier.

"Using localized sensor equipment deployed by Lord August, we scanned the underground network."

"The radar picked up a biological signature of absurd proportions inside the artificial tunnels. Based on the thermal and magical feedback, the entity's baseline power dwarfs that of Finn Deimne."

"We are looking at a Level 7-class threat currently hiding in the upper-middle strata. Exterminating a target of that caliber requires a full mobilization from a raid faction."

The existence of Knossos was something the Gods had learned the day before.

When you publicly capture and torture an Ikelos executive, the origin point of the ambush becomes obvious. Standing before divine authority, Gran couldn't lie even if he tried. He had spilled everything he knew.

Because of that interrogation, the secret of the Artificial Labyrinth had effectively been confirmed within their trusted circle.

But finding out that August's technology had detected a Level 7-class anomaly inside that structure was a whole new nightmare.

A monster that strong should not exist outside the deepest floors—yet here it was, hiding in a man-made tunnel right under the city.

If that intelligence leaked to the general public, it would cause mass panic. It was the kind of news that could drive the Guild to chaos.

"Lili. Who else knows about this radar ping?" Hestia asked.

This wasn't something they could casually pass to the Guild. The implications were too dangerous.

"Just us. And presumably, the architects of Evilus," Lili answered flatly.

"I see."

A heavy silence spread over the Gods. The size of the conspiracy was staggering, and the presence of a Level 7-class apex predator sitting right beneath their feet was a chilling reality check.

"We bury this intel for now," Hestia decided. "Nobody outside this room hears a word."

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

BULK UPLOAD OF 6 CHAPTERS IF WE HIT 1100 POWERSTONES THIS WEEK!!

—•——•——•——•——•——•—

~ Every 200 Power Stones = Bonus chapter!

~ 20 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon

https://p-atreon.com/dragonnx

(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)

If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.