170 Setback and Summoning

Styx sat in his throne room in silence, various blue, white and orange light orbs sized from tennis balls to fireflies drifting atop the seemingly endless lake that filled the cavern whilst the pink and white spider lilies on the water surface seemed to sway in discomfort.

"Darling…" Therina began but trailed off as she looked at her husband.

Styx released a long sigh and waved his hand.

"No, this situation is to be expected. I have always known taking over the kingdom would not be so easy, and it appears their dire situation has forced them to develop faster than anticipated."

The situation that Styx and the others were referring to was the sudden loss of one of their cities. Having just recently encroached into the inner regions of the kingdom, Styx found the resources there much more abundant and was deeply excited to lay footholds there.

Alas, the Maple Dragon Kingdom had counterattacked not long after taking the city.

This wasn't the usual elf, dwarf and other exotic races but predominantly human army that they usually used, but one formed from an enormous number of doped soldiers and monsters.

The kingdom had adapted to Styx's battle tactics and formed their own monster armies. Whilst they were not as coordinated or controlled as Styx's own, they were still a very effective monster wave. Styx's forces had been spread too thinly in ensuring the safety of his territory whilst the kingdom launched a pinpoint attack, resulting in him losing the city and all its resources.

The citizens also suffered under the hands of the poorly controlled monster army and doped soldiers who were all but emotionless. A quarter of the city population became collateral during the battle.

Styx used this as propaganda to reinforce his current citizens' loyalty in him, but this loss after countless victories had placed caution and uncertainty in not just his, but everyone's heart on his side.

Having experienced countless wars over his life, several of which he participated in, Styx knew that the playing field had begun to level and pushing forward would be a much slower process.

"Dear," Hilda, former bar waitress and now both a dungeon wife and the Lagoon Porter City administrator, spoke evasively, "Irie has been saying how much she missed you and wanted to come back. She also wants to spend more time with Ottar, your son."

Styx couldn't help but chuckle at this.

"She has been complaining to me everyday about that, but she was the one who recommended herself due to her skills. We have very few informants in the royal capital, and nobody we could trust to undertake this task."

"But… working as a spy in the royal castle itself. That is just too dangerous for a sister of ours."

"There is no need to worry. Whilst Beatrice would have been a better choice, Irie will be able to accomplish the task. Anyway, Therina is supporting her from the dream realm and can also pull her out of reality in an emergency, so the risk is little. She is strong enough that not even the princess will be able to easily beat her."

"Eh, really? That monster princess has been a giant pain. Everest, can you please go kill her?" The newest dungeon wife, Piri, complained with a sour expression, inciting one of the two Monster Lords of the dungeon to go take care of her.

Piri's shadow shifted and moved as her shadow beast felt and mimicked her annoyance. She had clashed with the kingdom's princess on several occasions, but the dragon blooded princess proved to be a difficult opponent even when her spiritual beast companion was killed in its infancy.

Everest, the spider Monster Lord, was crouched behind Styx and continued looking down on him from above with an unhealthy amount of affection towards him.

She didn't mind going to kill the princess, but Styx rose his hand and stopped her.

"It's best not to have any Fifth Step existence interfere. Whilst it may be different for defense and a few battles, the Treaty of Gods is still in place. If that is blatantly ignored, it may irritate people in the heavenly realm and allow the Maple Dragon Kingdom to get an unexpected godly backer."

"Does that matter? We have Anthea, don't we?"

"She… has been ignoring me more often than not. I don't think she will be able to save us again, so it's best not to rely on her. We will reinforce our front line and slowly progress, we have many years of growth ahead of us."

~~~~~

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Irie, under the false name of Irene, had altered her appearance and was constantly using a cognition blocking magic to prevent people from recognizing her. She also had not become as well known as several of the other dungeon wives due to being pregnant at the start of the war and not partaking in battles.

With Therina manipulating people during their sleep, she managed to insert herself into the king's castle in the capital as a royal maid.

This all came about under news that the kingdom was planning to summon heroes from another world. They didn't try to hide this information either, instead using it as propaganda towards their efforts to repelling the demons and evil dungeon lord eating away at the kingdom.

The people on the streets all held high hopes, as there were countless tales of heroes saving princesses, kingdoms, and being symbols of victory.

Irie personally wouldn't have cared as hero summoning wasn't anything otherworldly, so to speak, but Styx was deeply interested in the heroes, and especially where they were summoned from.

There was a chance they would be summoned from his former world, and would be able to provide valuable information on the current state of the world. Styx also received some knowledge from heaven about hero summoning, reverse summoning, and particularly using a person's existence to build a bridge to where they came from.

Styx had tried using himself to build a dimensional bridge back to his former world, but it merely looped in on itself and pointed back towards the dungeon before collapsing on itself.

Her concern greatly increased once the summoning took place and she heard rumors about the cost. Whilst it was common for a god to provide most of the energy to form the dimensional bridge for the summoning, it was possible to supplement that with divine artifacts or other items holding immense power.

For a kingdom, that was easy. Most wouldn't do that however, as it was far more efficient to simply train several tens of thousands of more soldiers with the same investment.

What was not normal was that according to rumors, the kingdom had spent over a third of its national treasury on this summoning.

'What the hell are they summoning? Gods from another world?' Irie helplessly thought to herself whilst watching the magic flow through the main summoning circle, to the supplementary ones built on the below levels, before opening the bridge and ejecting an entire group of heroes.

~~~~~

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Irie had found herself with a deep interest in the heroes, as had Styx. They had come from a world that sounded exactly like his, only in the past from his memory. Either way, Styx wanted to question one of the heroes in near desperation.

Irie on the other hand was interested in what humans from Styx's world were like. She could see the mana flowing through the heroes bodies and it was anything but normal.

With the help of Therina, she had singled out a hero who seemed to be an outcast in the group and secretly increased that divide whilst bringing his affection closer to her. She inspected his body down to its finest detail and was even going to touch him if it weren't for Styx's extremely grave voice that threatened to imprison her for several decades if she continued.

Even Therina and the other dungeon wives chastised her for that, calling her unfaithful even when it had nothing to do with love or affection from her end. She also came to be ashamed of her actions and quickly corrected herself.

In order to separate that hero without being overly suspicious or alerting the hidden forces supervising them, she manipulated the hero she was in charge of to feel unwelcome by the other heroes. Therina also implemented thoughts during his dreams for him to escape.

If the hero escaped on his own, especially while he was still weak, it wouldn't cause the kingdom to panic and would instead give her an opportunity to snatch him away and bring him back into the dungeon's territory and to Styx.

With Therina tracking him through his sleep, Irie successfully managed to coincidentally meet up with him and form an adventurous team. She slowly guided and tested him under Styx's commands and was just about to bring have them go on a long quest that would take them into Styx's territory when she was discovered by the princess.

Irie didn't expect the princess to have such a strong reaction though. Her hero fanaticism was well known, but it enraged her to the point that it caused her ancestral bloodline to go out of control and start taking over her body as she drew an unsafe amount of strength from it.

Leaving the princess who now had permanent dragon horns and reptilian eyes, she escaped with the young hero and returned to Styx.

The first thing she did upon returning was throw the hero into the dungeons under the supervision of Vivy and her reverse harem. Not long after, she threw her clothes aside and attacked Styx with her built up lust that fingers simply couldn't solve.

~~~~~

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- The Treaty of Gods -

In the distant past, Fifth Step existences were the most valuable forces in a kingdom, a single individual holding so much power they could annihilate armies and weak kingdoms singlehandedly.

Fearing these Fifth Step existences becoming gods and bolstering enemy factions, the gods would often descend and assassinate these existences before they could undergo apotheosis.

This lead to a great shortage of gods being created and was counterproductive to certain forces' plans. Thus, the Treaty of Gods was created and enforced eventually by all forces.

Gods were forbidden from descending and targeting Fifth Step existences, whilst the protected Fifth Step existences were also forbidden from taking direct part in wars. The only exception to this rule is under defense when their forces are in dire circumstances.

Any who are found to be in violation this treaty would be unilaterally exiled from the protection of the treaty and executed.