The goliath wasn't dead even with it's head gone though that was fine since it gave me time to refine it's drops before I kill it. I quickly refined its hide and bones before slashing open it's chest and pulling at the large magic stone there.
"BOOM!" the monster burst into smoke that immediately got sucked into my body.
I didn't even need Hestia to tell me that I qualified to level up, I could feel it in my gut that I was good to go in all but stats.-
My gut also told me that I needed more smoke to max out my stats so I unblocked the crystal wall I made after storing away my loot from the boss kill and headed to floor nineteen. I wasn't here for training, drops or exploration this time but pure smoky goodness and that meant everything burned. Add on my weapon getting used in addition to my flames and no monster I met in the great tree labyrinth lived more than about a minute after I found them. Even when I got down to the Twenty fourth floor that was the deepest of the great tree labyrinth that had level three monsters much more commonly they didn't survive my murder happy frolicking.-
'Gut says I got enough to max out so it's time to head back topside.' I thought satisfied after killing a moss huge.
Pulling out my communications coin I reported my return to Hestia before whistling as I casually started walking back up.
"Keep the circle tight! We don't want this one getting away like the last one!" I heard a female voice yell from the distance as I walked and decided to check it out.
As I rounded a tree following the sounds of screeches and yells and saw a confusing sight. There were about six adventurers encircling a battered looking Deadly hornet that was unusual looking. Unlike most Deadly hornets that were black with red eyes and band on their thoraxes this one was bright blue with a white band and eyes as well as bigger than normal by a not small amount. It was also clearly not trying to fight so much as escape but that might be explained by the most ridiculous thing of all, it had a soul.-
It wasn't very strong, no in fact I believe even a childs soul was brighter and larger than the soul of this wasp but it DID have a soul. My gaze could be really damn annoying sometimes but it never said that something with a soul didn't have one or that things without a soul like monsters had one. This left me with one conclusion, Special grade spirits. Or at the very least the dungeons version of the things though the soul was innocent and not as sinful like I would think a monsters soul would be. After all cursed spirits and monsters were inherently evil or evil aligned that is so their souls should naturally be covered in sin.-
"Pl-Please.. h-help!" words came from the hornet when it noticed me approaching.
"Tch! Now you need to die, can't let word of this get out. Nothing personal." A muscular amazoness said as she stepped out of the circle and towards me with her spear brandished.
"So much sin, none will mourn your losses." I said calmly after looking at the entire groups souls, not one was innocent.
"Hmph you think that just because you took down that trash level three from the Apollo familia that a mere level two like you can handle a true elite level three? Ridiculous!" the amazon yelled as she went to stab me but I casually side stepped and back handed her with my weapon.
"CRUNCH!" her skull was crushed instantly killing her.
I withdrew my weapon and black flame sparked to life on it's head happily devouring the mess as I walked calmly towards the group.
"FUCK! Forget the freak we can catch it later but this guy is a bigger threat!" A human man yelled and the group stopped encircling the hornet and focused on me. The monster immediately flew away clearly exhausted.
"I hope you live better lives if you are ever reborn." I said calmly as I waved my weapon and the flames surged forth like a flood of black water seeking to drown the world.
My cursed energy was depleting rapidly but that was fine as there was no defending from this attack and all that awaited them was death. They tried to of course but the moment even a spark of the flames licked them they were doomed unless they could pull an Orochimaru and shed their skin.
'Now that I think of it that would be a pretty cool way to fuck with an enemy. Like can you imagine a dude thinking he stabbed your ass only to discover it was a loose skin suit?' I thought with a chuckle as the adventurers scream their last.
I waved my hand and the flames retracted and returned to me obediently before sinking below my skin ever eager to await their next meal. I looked around for the hornet but couldn't find it so simply shrugged and left. Sure I was dying from curiosity to know what the fuck was going on with that particular monster but if it was gone it was gone so I wasn't going to search all over the place for it if I had no guarantee it was even still on this floor.-
I got the feeling I was being watched the entire time I was in the grand tree labyrinth but it vanished when I got to floor eighteen and higher. I didn't go to the guild this time to turn in my magic stones since the Goliath stone was taking up the vast majority of the space in my big bag and I REALLY didn't want to have to explain how I got it.-
It also helped that I had a project in mind that would require either a fuckton of small cursed stones or one REALLY big one and maybe some smaller ones as stabilizers. I want to take care of that sea of dormant cursed energy over the city. My gut told me that if I left it there at some point it's going to become a problem and not just for me. I knew for a fact it reacted when I leveled up before going dormant again but if that happened EVERY time I leveled up it may in fact at some point just not go dormant again and introduce cursed spirits to the world, violently most likely.-
Rather than risk that I wanted to create a sort of cursed energy siphon that would draw the dormant energy in and store it in a nice safe manner, that I will then use to put a big ass forcefield over the Hestia property. Okay so admittedly not exactly a super noble or grand goal but it pissed me off when Apollo's people just set fire to my home and there was nothing stopping them from doing so.