When Exedra passed through the portal, the first thing that hit him was the cold.
Then the darkness.
He appeared to be in some sort of large cavern, surrounded by nothing but stone and ice.
Suddenly, Bekka appeared right next to him and seemed to be unbothered by their current surroundings.
"Are you ready husband?" She asked with a warm smile on her face.
Exedra immediately frowned.
Bekka didn't seem to be too bothered by the fact that she had put the woman outside in serious mortal danger.
She who felt guilty just from harming a fly was smiling warmly at her husband like nothing had even happened.
"My love... Are you alright?"
"Hm? I'm a little cold but my fur is keeping me pretty warm for the most part. Why do you ask?"
Just as Exedra was about to delve deeper into his wife's mental state, an alarm from the system went off in his head.
< Notice : Time given to conquer dungeon is now in effect.
< 47 hours and 59 minutes remaining.
Realizing he was on a countdown, Exedra pledged to check on Bekka more later but for right now he absolutely had to clear this dungeon before the time ran out.
"No reason, my love. Shall we go?"
"Yes!"
The two began their track into the cold and unfriendly space, warily looking around every corner for potential enemies.
Eventually, Exedra remember that he had yet to see Bekka's evolution conditions and thought this would be the perfect time to help her work on them.
Lailah had already begun the process of completing hers, when Exedra told her about his ability to see evolution conditions, she was visibly shocked but considering his other recent feats, she did not question it.
He just hoped that Bekka would believe him just as easily.
'Show me Bekka's evolution conditions.'
< Bekka Osa Draven >
< Evolution Path : Tiangou of The Black End & Eternal Void (Forbidden Species)
< First stage conditions :
- Take the life of 100 enemies. (0/100)
- Visit the abyss and return with your soul intact.
- Awaken the void element.
When he read the word 'Tiangou', Exedra once again had that strange feeling like he was on the cusp of remembering something, yet couldn't quite grasp it.
It was an unsettling feeling to say the least.
Once he began to read her evolution conditions, he realized that hers were going to be even more of a headache than Lailah's.
While her first condition was relatively straightforward, it's morbid sounding nature made him worry that she would have to almost die.
The dragon was torn.
On one hand, he wanted his wives to be as strong as possible but having them face mortal danger purposely felt like too big of a risk.
'But if I prevent it from happening then aren't I just holding her back...?'
As someone who had never been in a relationship before, he was largely unsure of what was the right decision to make.
He prepared to spend the rest of the day contemplating this dilemma, but when he glanced her third condition, his eyes nearly freed themselves from their sockets.
'What the hell is this about the void element?!'
The void element is the rarest and strangest element of all and hasn't appeared in the last 1,200 years.
No one knows exactly what it can do, but the stories are all wild and varied, each being more exaggerated than the last.
The last person who held it was the vampire king, but they say he died or vanished and now his oldest daughter leads the vampire race.
The original Exedra had met her a few times before and the two had a relationship similar to that of an auntie and a nephew.
'If I were the one to ask, would she give me an answer?' He wondered.
No matter who has asked, Queen Audrina has never once answered a question about her father.
After a while people just stopped asking altogether.
Though there were of course, some who were more persistent than others and came up missing.
While Exedra didn't think she would kill him out of annoyance, he couldn't say that she wouldn't either.
ROOOOAAAARRR
Suddenly, a bone chilling roar resounded off the walls of the cavern and both Exedra and Bekka drew their weapons.
About 50 yards away, several large humanoid like monsters were slowly approaching.
They were horribly deformed with rotting gray skin.
Their bodies had chunks of flesh missing like they'd been eaten either by themselves or by other members of their race.
Their faces were the stuff of nightmares and only contained black empty eyes and an overly large mouth filled with yellow teeth.
"Chenoos, huh? " Bekka wore an exhausted expression.
"Not a fan?"
"They give me the creeps."
Exedra chuckled at this before stepping forward and twirling a battle axe that was as large as he was. "Leave them to me then."
Before he could rush forward and clear the area, Bekka grabbed him by the wrist and looked at him with her cheeks puffed out.
"I thought you weren't gonna treat me like I was frail!"
"I..." After realizing his mistake, the dragon nodded apologetically.
"You're right. I'm sorry."
Accepting his apology, she then pulled him backwards while drawing her own weapon. "Good, now YOU step back pretty boy and leave them to me!"
Before Exedra could say anything, she was already changing.
Her body that was already very well defined, exploded with muscles that were packed with power. Her teeth and claws lengthened and sharpened drastically.
She grew to match Exedra's height of 6'3 and her waist length black hair grew down to her knees.
Faced with his wife in her most beautiful and primal state, the dragon finally understood the term, 'muscle mommy.'
'I wonder if she could keep that form up during sex?…'
"AWWOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
Bekka let forth a fierce howl that shook the walls of the cave.
Not needing to use her hammer for enemies that didn't bleed, she placed it on the ground with a thud before leaping high into the air.
She landed in the center of the horde of beasts like a black meteor and sent out a pulse of dark energy on impact.
BOOOM!
Immediately after she landed, she dashed towards the monsters closest to her who were still stunned by the energy she'd released and with a single slash of her claws, she decapitated five of the monsters and sent their heads rolling on the ground.
Her claws easily ripped through the flesh of the monsters like they were made of paper.
"Umbral Movement!"
With her movement technique activated along with her transformation, she became so fast even Exedra was having a hard time keeping up with her.
All he could see were black streaks flashing across the battlefield and chunks of flesh flying into the air.
Heads rolled, limbs were ripped off, and the monster's bodies dropped to the ground one by one.
It was then that Exedra realized his wife ever did get over her fear of blood and killing, she would be quite the monster.
GROOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
With one last pain fueled scream, a group of over forty chenoo died in under ten minutes.
'I never wanna hear any of the guards complain about Bekka being too rough on them again...'
She happily trounced up to her husband while slightly sweaty with a proud look on her face. "So? How'd I do?? Your wife's pretty awesome right?!"
If her tone didn't indicate that she wanted to be praised, her tail wagging certainly did.
'She's so cute when she's like this. Should I tease her a little?' He thought mischievously.
"Hmm it was alright I guess, a little slow though."
"Eh? You bully! Apologize! I'm five times faster in this form!" She pouted.
"Why should I have to apologize? I saw slow, so I said slow. That ain't bullying, that's an astute observation!"
Her cheeks puffed out and she looked like she was on the verge of erupting when I finally couldn't hold it anymore and burst out laughing.
"Pffft…HAHAHAHAHA!"
She seemed to finally realize that her husband was joking and started attacking him with 'light' punches that cracked a few ribs.
After apologizing for his bad joke, Exedra and Bekka continued their trek through the first floor of the dungeon.
Bekka said she wanted to handle the first floor alone, and Exedra agreed halfheartedly.
This was supposed to be a date after all, and not just another way for him to evolve.
So naturally, he had to ensure that Bekka would have the best time possible.
While watching Bekka decimate another pack of chenoo, Exedra came to the conclusion that his own battle prowess was severely lacking.
'While my wish for mastery over all weapons was granted, that's not the same as mastery over combat...' he realized.
Bekka's instincts, reactions, and technique all eclipsed my own by a wide margin.
The dragon knew that he needed experience.. and a lot of it.
'Dungeons are good but.. maybe a proper teacher would be good as well?'
"Hey! Were you watching?" Bekka suddenly called.
Exedra looked up to find his cute and furry wife waving madly atop a mountain of dead chenoo.
"Of course, you were incredible." he said with a smile.
Blowing him a flirty kiss, she dismounted from the corpses of her foes and the two continued on their journey until they reached the end of a long corridor where a wooden door with glowing blue runes was waiting for them.
Realizing they'd hit the boss floor, the two gave each other a reassuring nod before pushing in the door.
As soon as it was opened, a terrible icy pressure descended upon their shoulders.