"No, we are already in the heart" said Yunan "it"s like getting close to the control room with each floor, the heart of Tartarus is a miniature universe" Yunan was speaking with disbelief. He knew why he felt the change in this place, he was creation as it was intended, the blood of a phoenix and the blood of a dragon, and he could feel the power of creation in this place. Hephaestus was a master craftsman indeed, if he could craft a pocket universe simply by watching what the creator G.o.d made, there was no end to his talent, and that same guy was just in Yunan"s own wedding drinking tea like an ordinary human."We also met the hearts before, we can tell we are closer to the heart of Tartarus, how come you can tell we are inside it?" Asked Leader, she didn"t fuss about what Yunan said or the implications of Tartarus being a fully functional pocket universe. "It"s the bloodlines inside me, i have the origin of creation coursing through me, i can tell when something has that energy, and this place feels more like a beating heart than just any planet or pocket dimension". Leader nodded her head, she was in the outside world enough times to know the feel of an ordinary planet in an ordinary system, and she had lived in Yunan"s dimension long enough to know the difference between it and a real universe.
This place felt off, but that was not the main point to an explorer, the closest to the lowest floor was the winner, this new information added by Yunan was a bit of a head scratcher, thus Leader dropped this line of questioning, whether Yunan was correct or not, it had nothing to do with their current position, they were here to fight and help Yunan try his luck at surviving in a place too strong for him, the rest of Debauchery did the same, there was no need to waste mental energy on something that was of no use nor worth anything to them.
"Forget about the trivial things, since you can already tell that this floor can change scenery just like the outside world, there is no need to linger here for you to witness it, let"s move down to the next floor and see how it goes" Lucian took the lead to walk down the stairs that linked the floors with each other, he was followed by Dustan and Balin, Fae then Anne, Leader, Yunan and Bai brought the rear, the biome they landed on was similar to the one they just left, the only difference was a tiny little bird that was waiting for them, it seems the little thing still had a grudge and was now warning other monsters who have made nests in the open from the approaching Debauchery.
The bird flew to Yunan"s shoulder and chirped at him, it was thanks to Yunan that it got its revenge on Debauchery and it took him for a good friend from then on, especially after Yunan advocated for its release back home. Debauchery were heaving sighs of relief when they saw the bird land on Yunan"s shoulder and immediately started complaining about how this little bird unintentionally made their lives harder because it alerted monsters to them, making it harder for them to sneak by or ambush anything, it also did not help that monsters tended to attack them more frequently when this bird was leading the way.
Yunan brought out Sapphira, Drogon and Ignis to play and left them for the bird to show them around, when the four monsters left the group, Balin and Dustan were on their knees thanking every deity they could name, with the little b.u.g.g.e.r staying out of their way, they had much easier time fulfilling the bet, and they could act a bit more relaxed now that there was no beacon pointing all monsters to their location. The party of eight marched in a direction, slowly but surely, Lucian was far ahead leaving marks for them to follow and scouting the way. Balin and Dustan took out their shields and led the rest, Bai disappeared somewhere, Fae and Anne walked in the back while Yunan and Leader took the center of the formation, Yunan was already applying buffs and resistance as much as he could stack them.
After walking for about half an hour Lucian and Bai arrived at the same time, and a chill in the air came with them, "a nasty piece of monster is heading to this location, I reckon we can kill it if all goes well". 50 km away, Yunan detected a monster and immediately understood why Lucian called it nasty, it was oozing bloodl.u.s.t, it was looking for a kill, there was no hunger or thirst, this one was just like a mad beast, it was just looking to kill and it was coming for them.
Yunan cast his mana Syphon at the maximum range, and started to drain the ma.s.sive reserve bit by bit, he allocated the majority of the stolen mana to help his teammates and the rest was sent to the private dimension to become a part of its storage. He injected the mana to his teammates through the rings in their hands, he then sent a message to his pets not to seek them out and be carefull, it was the first time Yunan met such a bloodthirsty monster in the dungeon, he realised that these floors were much more than just planets, they had the variety of one too.