(MC POV)
The feeling of vertigo overwhelmed me as I fell within the darkness. I prepared to land on something solid but all I got was something extremely soft and fluffy.
Yes, no need to tell me, I know what I landed on.
"Ma… Master?!"
I looked up to see the giant head of a red fox staring back at me.
"Did… Did Master get captured too?! Oh no! What… What should we do?! We… We need to get out of here or–"
A paw with white coloured fur smacked her on the head, "Be quiet sister. Really… I haven't seen you for a few millennia and you become like this… I really wonder what happened with you…"
The red fox whined, ducking her head.
The white fox turned her attention to me, "Divine One, it's been awhile. I had hoped our reunion could've been under much better circumstances, but I suppose it could be worse."
I nodded at her, "Likewise. My only regret was that I was not fast enough to stop your captures before it happened."
She shook her head, "No… For a Divine Being like you, even if you had fallen, to risk yourself for us is an honour more than we can ask for."
The red fox perked up, "Divine Being? Sister… I think you are mistaken, Master isn't–"
She got smacked on the head again, her white furred sister shushing her, "I said quiet, you. You did not bear witness to what he did with a Great One. So show him a little more respect."
"But I do show him respect…" the red one mumbled under her breath.
"Do forgive my sister, Divine One. She is rather… Excitable."
I waved my hand, "It's no problem. The real issue now is, where are we?"
The younger fox's ears perked up again, "Oh, I know, I know! We're inside a sealing orb that the annoying dark sect guy was carrying all along! I heard him say something about controlling all the monsters to create an army!"
"Indeed," The white fox added. "It seems like they plan to use a monster army to assault a city."
Well that doesn't sound good. We got the country of Dong planning to invade from the Death Mountains behind us and then we have the Dark Sect planning their own schemes within.
"Ok, where are these monsters?" I asked.
"Right below you, Master!" The red fox informed me energetically.
I raised an eyebrow, "What? Were their plans to use the two of you to attack some far off city? Not to belittle you, but I think taking over the capital city with just the two of you might be a bit of a stretch, even with me out of the picture."
"Ehehehe~ Master, I didn't mean us," she giggled. "Just look below!"
Curious, I stepped towards the edge of her body, peering down to see the largest gathering of monsters I have ever laid eyes on.
Correction, largest gathering of monsters in the Earthen Plane at least. I've seen much bigger numbers but I definitely don't remember seeing this many back down here.
Ah, but then again, I've mostly just kept myself inside my room for most of my time in the Earthen Plane anyway. So even if this event happened before I ascended, I wouldn't have known about it either.
But this is still a rather impressive collection of them though.
There were the standard few monsters that were basically mutated animals like bears, wolves and even lizard monsters, but some of them were the rare ones that I didn't think would get captured here nor have seen before.
There's a giant floating eyeball with eyestalks all around its body and a wide gaping mouth just below its iris. Right next to it was a humanoid figure that had a squid's face complete with tentacles at where its mouth should be.
A short distance away from them was a group of armored skeletons that surrounded a skeleton that was hovering slightly above the ground protectively. That particular skeleton was wearing a set of intricate robes with a book held in its hand, signifying its status as a lich.
There were even a few orcs scattered around, mingling with a small group of kobolds and what I can only assume to be a giant bear with the head of an owl hovering near them.
And if I am not mistaken, there's also a hydra that was curled up and sleeping all the way at the far end of the mass.
Right beside that hydra was a monster just as large, if not bigger. It had purplish skin and a reddish mane on the top of its head. Two bullish horns curved wickedly out from within that mane, looking just as menacing as it is deadly.
As big as these monsters are, the two foxes still had them beat in terms of size by a very big margin.
"Alright… I recognise a number of them that would happily tear each other apart while in here. Any reason why they didn't?"
"We've asked around," The white fox remarked, her tails swaying lazily. "It seems that nothing can die while in here and anything you try to do to anyone else just gets nullified immediately. You won't feel the want of sustenance while you are here too, so no one starves."
I raised my eyebrow, "Must mean they've been here a long time already if they already stopped trying."
"Oh yep! That hydra has been here for at least five decades or so, same goes for the behemoth beside it," the younger fox chipped in merrily. "Seems like the Dark Sect have been working on this plan for a very long time!"
Five decades? Damn… I would have been bored out of my mind if I even went into closed door cultivation for five years, let alone decades.
"I see then… What do you girls say about busting out of here?"
The two foxes looked at each other before back to me, the red one curling one of her tails around me.
"Oh Master~ We have tried to. Even after getting everyone here to unleash their powers was not enough to break us out of here. It seems like the sealing orb is unbreakable from the inside."
"But if we were to break out of here, I would like to help these monsters as well," the white fox added.
I thought for a while before stepping up to the edge again to look down at the monsters gathered before me.
"All you monsters down there listen here!"
Most of them looked up but many showed little interest in me, turning away almost immediately.
"You guys have been trapped here for an incredibly long time, now we can break out of here! Will you fight back against the damned Dark Sect that locked you in here?!"
The lich floated a little closer, speaking in an unmistakably feminine voice, "If you are here to suggest all of us pour our energy together and focus at a single point to break out, you can save your breath, human."
The white fox hissed at the lich in irritation, "You are standing before a Divine Being! I will watch your tongue if I were you."
The lich scoffed, "What are you going to do? Kill me? Not like you can while we're here and that's not considering the fact that I am already dead."
"If anyone can get us out, then he can."
"Oh really? Why would someone that great get sent here in the first place?"
The white fox was about to argue back again but I raised a hand for her to stop.
"There is no need for you to help me, I can break us out of here myself. But before that, I need to know who you guys will turn your weapons against once we are out? Will it be us, each other or the damn bastards who got you guys here in the first place?"
The floating eyeball drifted closer, speaking in a surprisingly calm manner, "You need not worry about infighting, we have already grown tired of it over the years… If you can truly get us out of this forsaken, maddening place, I will follow you for life. For something like me to actually see darkness… This place is unnatural."
"As will we!" One of the orcs stepped forward, waving his giant axe, "If 'da great white fox speaks truth, me an ma Boyz will follow yer! Yer enemiez are our enemiez!"
A kobold stepped up beside him, "Yeah, this place is boring! We wanna run free again! Get us out of 'ere and we'll hunt for you, we do!"
One of the hydra's heads lifted up, "We have been sssuffering inssside here for more than five decadesss, waiting for sssomething, anything to happen… We have already forgotten the kisss of the sssun'sss rays… Divine One… Grant usss freedom we bessseech of you…"
A large group of the beast type monsters growled in approval.
I turned back to the foxes, "Ok, why can they speak so well? And why is everyone so cooperative aside from the lich?"
"You have both the lich and I to thank for their fluency," The squid face monster explained, floated forward to stop beside said lich. "Years of idleness has persuaded us to try and teach to pass the time. As for why the lich is being such an ungrateful thing, you have to understand she was once human."
The lich snorted at his words but made no comment.
Ok, I never even knew that his race could speak, this is quite a discovery.
"Very well then, know that if any of you harbour thoughts of betrayal…" I infused Pure Elemental Quarks into my killing intent and sent it out in a wave.
For this one, I allowed it to be more concentrated as compared to the one I did when I first met Lian Li. They are rather powerful monsters so this should be necessary to at least intimidate them.
And of course, somehow even with this level something just had to go wrong…
Except for the foxes that I specifically left out of targeting, everyone else spasmed and dropped to the floor in crumpled heaps, all of them unconscious and foaming at the mouth. Even the hydra and behemoth had rolled over on their backs, the whites of their eyes showing.
What.
