Arpious of the Planes

I chuckled to myself even in my final moments… or so I thought.

The hands and feet that pressured my maids suddenly started to fall apart, lightening the weight that made the maids' legs shake.

And once the pieces of the limbs started to fall apart, upon hitting the ground, they instantly turned into dust, making my maids breathe a sigh of relief.

They were gone. The limbs had disappeared, but I was in a fatal state.

[HP: 1/700  MP: 0/500  SP: 12/500]

Shit… I survived, but I'm actually going to bleed to death? How unfortunate…

[Day 76]

[21900 XP gained]

[You have leveled up (x4)]

I'm alive?

Sitting up, I see my maids preparing some more gargoyle soup and neatly folding my clothes right next to them.

[HP: 598/700  MP: 381/500  SP: 395/500]

"How am I still alive?" I mutter to myself, but it seems my maids heard me as they snap their heads in my direction and immediately dash over to me.

"Mistress, I have healed you with a new skill that I got while fighting the gargoyles… [Fire of Life]. I received a special title that came with a skill, and as it had 'life' in its name, I assumed it might heal you.

Please forgive me for using this on you without permission," Bella says, kowtowing right before me.

"Nah, you saved my life, so you don't need to feel bad. If it wasn't for you, I might've already been on my way to hell," I responded, gesturing for her to raise her head and body.

"Thank you very much, Mistress," Bella says, but before she stood up, she helped me up despite me feeling refreshed and ready to fight again.

There was just a little bit of stress leftover from yesterday's fight.

"Mistress, please have a bath before you eat as we have already prepared your clothes," Amelia says, gesturing for the massive bath, which I didn't get rid of yesterday.

Thankfully it didn't get in my way during the fight… that would be pretty embarrassing if I tripped over it.

"I don't need a massage right now, so you girls continue with making the food," I say, waving them off, but as soon as I go to take off my clothes… I realized I didn't have any clothes on.

"We didn't want to touch your body without permission, and your black dress which you had summoned lasted for a while after I used [Fire of Life]," Bella responds after seeing my face, which had crumpled in disgust.

Aren't they like opposites? Unless my dress started to feed off of the [Fire of Life]... I swear I'm not an exhibitionist.

Walking over to the bath, I then dipped my slender white foot into the warm water, filling me with a sense of relief. There was still a bit of lingering stress from many near-death experiences yesterday, so bathing in a nice relaxing bath by myself was the best.

"Mistress, we found this yesterday after you passed out, and we've deemed it a Nether Stone," Anna says, walking over to the bath and presenting me with a dark gray orb that gave off an eerie light gray mist.

"Where did you find this?" I responded.

"We're currently not sure but assume it dropped from the massive gargoyle leader that Mistress has slain,"

Did I get a reward for slaying that thing? I'm not complaining…

"Give it," I say, putting out my hand, which Anna immediately follows, placing the eerie gray orb in the center of my palm.

[Would you like to use the Nether Stone?]

"Did you get the same notification?" I asked Anna who was about to walk away.

"Did Mistress's notification say 'Would you like to use the Nether Stone?'" Anna asks.

"Indeed,"

"Then yes, it is the same notification… But I must warn Mistress that we don't know much about these Nether and Aether Stones yet, so please be careful and maybe wait until we have more information on them," Anna pleads while bowing deeply.

I decided to follow her plea and give the gray orb back to her.

I guess I can try and contact Yin to try and find out information on this subject…

Before we even ran into gargoyles for the first time, I tried contacting all my pets as I could sense them and know where they were with the collars, but for some reason, it didn't work.

Something was interfering with my [Grand Mind Magic], and I could only assume it was due to these special walls, which I guess aren't indestructible anymore.

'Hello, hello- YES! LET'S GO!'

I pumped my fists into the air as I finally got through, and only one reason for this flooded through my mind: the gargoyles inside the room were gone.

It was definitely a plausible hypothesis as I could finally get through as soon as I had killed them all.

As my pets didn't have [Telepathy], I could only have a one-sided conversation, which I immediately started again.

'Can you girls get my wives as I'm in a bit of a predicament? Oh, and also bring Mia so you can contact me,' I say before deactivating [Grand Mind Magic].

Hopefully, they follow my orders…

I didn't want to stay here any longer as everything was so unpredictable. It was like we stumbled into the center of a massive castle, and we couldn't find our way out.

The guards were the gargoyles, and the massive and almost direction desensitizing pathways made my feelings even stronger.

Though the pathways are straight, that's what makes it terrifying. Every pathway is straight, and if you turn around and lose track once, you will forget which way you're supposed to go.

Everything looks the same, and the distance between each room is extremely long, causing mental fatigue and stress to build up.

… Wait for a second… how are they supposed to find where I am when I don't even know where I am… Shit… and if they find that massive ravine in the ground and enter it, they'll no doubt have the same fate as I, putting them into this same room as me…

[Grand Mind Magic]

'Wait, never mind, don't tell my wives and Mia, and that's an order,' I order my pets as if they end up telling my wives, they'll no doubt try and find me whether I say to try or not.

I then deactivate [Grand Mind Magic] and exit the bath after scrubbing my skin with my hands just once more.

Tup Tup Tup

"Anna, can you dry me?" I asked Anna, who seemed not to be doing anything.

"Of course," She replies before blasting a gust of wind right at me.

After changing into my washed dress, I then sit down next to Amelia as she hands me a bowl of grotesque gargoyle soup. And it even seemed to be leftovers from yesterday, so I immediately turned off my godly senses as I didn't want to enhance my taste.

Shoving a spoonful of the soup into my mouth, I gag slightly from texture and bland taste before forcing it down. I then proceeded to do this about 25 times until the bowl of soup was gone.

It wasn't nice, but I had to do it otherwise; I'd suffer from starvation again.

"What should we talk about now… Oh yeah, you didn't tell me about your experience after we split up," I say as we finish talking about the state of the Uxtan Kingdom.

"Mistress would like to know?" Bella asks.

"Yes,"

"As you wish… So after we all fainted in the thick fog, Amelia and I woke up in the middle of a room similar to this one with the invisible barrier and river of clear liquid, but the only clear difference was that we had 2 smaller archways with hallways in different spaces as this room.

We were baffled at how beautiful and creepy the room was and panicked greatly after not finding Mistress. But after calming down, we decided to dash down the first hallway, which was one to the left.

After about half a day of running at top speed, we ran into a wave of gargoyles which held close to 10,000 in total. We immediately ran back to our original room with very bare cuts, and thanks to me bringing some supplies, and we were able to recover just as the day ended,"

"Huh? You managed to escape from 10,000 gargoyles?" I ask.

"Yes, but those gargoyles were much weaker than the ones you ran into both times," Amelia clarifies.

"I see... continue,"

"As you wish… After resting in the morning, we ate up all the extra food I had placed in my bag, so we were forced to make our way down the other hallway, which took about a day to get through before running into only a thousand gargoyles.

These were extremely weak, so we were able to blast our way through with only one major injury, which actually didn't heal until I used [Fire of Life] on it yesterday.

We used most of my remaining medical supplies on that wound which was on myself, before seeing thousands of gargoyles burst from the ceiling. We thought our doom had come, but the gargoyles didn't even bat an eye against us before making their way down one of the 3 hallways in the room.

We decided to follow them as we inferred somebody was down that hallway… and that was when we found you," Bella explains.

"I see… well, I'm glad you all are alive,"