Once we stepped into the fourth floor, we were greeted with a large hall with no additional rooms. However, the hall itself was full of Divine Soul Beasts, but of a particular shape. They were fully armored on metallic black armor made of dark dragon scales, with phantasmal, humanoid and draconic bodies beneath. They also wielded weapons made of this black metal refined from dark dragon scales. Mostly long swords, but some also had hammers and axes.
The hall was surprisingly wide when no rooms were added at all, enough for over two hundred of these Divine Soul Beasts to fit inside. Their appearances weren't the only alarming thing, their size easily surpassed ten meters of height, and although they were much smaller, I was fairly sure their strength laid on their cooperative abilities.
"Prepare yourself, I prepared some more unique challenges in the Fourth and Fifth Floor, heheh!" My grandmother was giggling behind us, deciding to let her "dungeon" explain us the rules as the "knights" remained in silence, standing together as a huge army. I noticed, however, as messages started popping up, that there was a small throne behind all the hundreds of "knights", it was made of dark dragon scales, and sitting over such throne was the floor's boss. It was like four times as big as the other "knights", wearing much bulkier dark armor, and holding a gigantic sword. It glared directly at me with its sharp crimson eyes.
[Welcome to the Fourth Floor of the [Phantom Dragon's Abandoned Castle], challenger!]
[Unlike previous floors, things have become fairly different on the Fourth Floor onwards.]
[In front of you there is now a silent army of over two hundred Phantom Dragonoid Dark Knights, powerful Soul Beasts with both intelligence and strength.]
[However, as Knights, they possess honor and etiquette, and they desire a good battle fair and square!]
[The Knight General sitting behind them will not confront you until you defeat at least half his army. And without defeating him, you won't be able to climb further in the Castle.]
[There's a catch, naturally! To play fair and square, all foes will be divided evenly across all of your active party members.]
[Therefore, to get to the Boss and gain the privilege of fighting him, defeat a minimum of 50% of his soldiers by evenly fighting all knights based on the amount of active party members.]
[Based on how many foes are slain, the rewards increase.]
"Oh, things got a bit spicier now." Said Miranda, rubbing her scaled chin. "But I'm worried about Drakda, can we exclude him from this?"
"Yes it is possible, to register as "Active member" you simply have to step into the red carpet in the between all the knights. Once that is done, the knight general will quickly nod and the battles begin." Said Grandmother. "Drakda can stay with me in the meantime! Come here honey."
"Raarr?" Drakda looked back at his mother with his three heads, and then back at me.
"Yes, stay with your great grandmother for now, Drakda." I patted his three heads.
"Go on, we'll be fine." Miranda smiled, patting his scaled back.
"Raarr…!" However, Drakda didn't want to go. "RAAR! NAM!" He was wagging his tail and showing us his teeth.
"Does he want to fight?" I wondered.
"Yeah, he's being really stubborn!" Miranda sighed. "Come on dear, don't be stubborn! Or do you want your daddy to enclose you inside a cage made of ice or something?"
Drakda was a fairly strong Divine Dragon already, and he was at the peak of Rank 8 the last time I checked, right? Maybe he's already a bit stronger? I checked Drakda's Status to be sure, and I found out he had indeed grown even stronger now.
[Name]: [Drakda] [Race]: [Demonic Chaos Spirit Frost Dragon]
[Main Divinities]: [Divinity: Chaos Incarnate (SSS)] [Divinity: Demon Prince (SS)] [Divinity: Dark Void (SS)] (New!)
[Auxiliary Divinities]: [Divinity: Darkness Shade (SS)] [Divinity: Blood Dominion (SS)] [Divinity: Soul Protection (SS)] (New!)
[Divine Core]: [Rank 8 (Upper Stage)] -> [Rank 9 (Initial Stage)]
[Divine Power]: [1.000.000.000]
[Soul Ether]: [S+++] [Fortune]: [S+++] -> [SS-]
[Physical Strength]: [S+++] -> [SS]
[Magical Power]: [S+++] -> [SS]
[Dexterity and Agility]: [S+++] -> [SS-]
[Dragon Bloodlines]: [Ice Dragon (SS) (Awakened)] [Dark Dragon (SS) (Awakened)] [Blood Dragon (SS) (Awakened)] [Chaos Dragon (SSS) (Awakened)] [Magical Affinities]: [Ice (SS)] [Darkness (SS)] [Blood (SS)] [Spirit (SS)] [Demon (SS)] [Chaos (SSS)]
[Divine Abilities]: [Demonic Chaos Dragon Prince Physique (SSS)] [Demonic Chaos Dragon Scales (SS)] [Vampiric Chaos Dragon Claws (SS)] [Demonic Dragon's Chaotic Breath Of Annihilation (SS)] [Chaos Manipulation (SS)] [True Divine Dragon Transformation (SS)] [Dark Void Manipulation (SS)] (New!) [Chaos Soul Ether Armor (SS)] (New!) [Divine Blood Arts (S)] (New!)
His stats had increased very decently! And he was already Rank 9 Initial Stage?! Above all, he got like three new Divine Abilities and two new Divinities in all this time? It seems I've been looking down on my son, his growth is very fast.
Some of the things that intrigue me are his unique abilities, Dark Void Manipulation and Chaos Soul Ether Armor! Where did these even come from? It feels like he developed an even stronger version of the dark dragon's Darkness Abilities. And even a protective armor made out of chaotic soul? Maybe he got this recently as a method of defense against Soul Beasts.
I did hear from my mother that when Divine Dragons are on their state of pups, they develop many abilities quickly to adapt, so it is also one of the reasons why Dragon Parents might often drop their newborns inside of monster-infested places so they can get a lot of abilities out of surviving in the wild before maturing and having their growth slowed down.
"Looks like our son simply wants to show us what he's made of." I smiled. "Alright, Drakda, you can fight!"
"RAAR!" Drakda got very excited, licking my face with his three heads. "Are you crazy?! What if his poor soul gets damaged?!" Miranda panicked.
"Don't worry, he's strong, right?" I smiled. "He has developed many abilities, so I am sure he'll figure out a way to win. And if not, we can simply step out and just cancel the challenge and restart later."
"…Fine then." Miranda nodded, sighing. "Let's do this!"
