Chapter 839: Nightmare Tower 3.
Upon entering the room similar to Ruby's, Violet began to explore. Unlike Ruby, who went straight for the door, Violet looked into every corner of the room. She even pressed her ear against the wall and started tapping as if she were searching for a hidden door or something of the sort.
To everyone's surprise, she actually found one.
A complete room with equipment of better quality than the main room.
"... Victor, what is this?" Scathach asked after returning from a very serious conversation with Aphrodite, Morgana, and Jeanne.
"The tower values the curious," Victor shrugged and didn't provide many details.
"Although, as they say... Curiosity killed the cat."
The moment Violet touched a steel sword, the sword transformed into a tentacle monster.
"FU---!" Violet quickly ignited her body. "I've seen enough Hentai to know where this is going, and I won't be your victim!"
"....." The girls looked at Victor.
"It wasn't my plan to create tentacle monsters," Victor looked at Nyx and Gaia, who assisted him in creating the tower's challenges.
Gaia just glanced at Nyx since she was in charge of managing the 'mimic' soulless beings that were essentially golems.
"In my defense, I wanted a monster like Cthulhu or something, not this little creature!" Nyx exclaimed.
"...." Instead of being impressed, everyone looked at her horrified. Why on earth would she want a cosmic horror? Is she tired of living?
If such beings existed, the scale of nonsense that would be thrown at them wouldn't even be funny.
"Anyway, setting aside the monster's design, they are just mimics. Violet was lucky to encounter a mimic with a water-based monster; if it were another element, she'd have had a bit of trouble."
"Why the heck would you create a secret room in the safe area? Isn't that against the rules?" Pepper grumbled.
"... Who said that room is a safe area?" Victor smiled kindly at Pepper.
Pepper swallowed hard when she saw Victor's kind smile; for some reason, that smile now seemed very sadistic to her.
"There's no such thing as rules. Nowhere in this tower is safe; the safe area has its own built-in trap that will test the girls."
"Although there are no rules, the tower has a pattern; it will react depending on the actions of the beings within it," Victor said but didn't elaborate further.
"... Yes, I shouldn't have expected anything different. We're talking about Victor here, a man obsessed with training; he definitely planned some sort of nonsense in that room," Siena pointed out.
"You've misunderstood, my daughter," Scathach began to speak.
"... What?"
"Everything."
"Huh?"
"Just watch; you'll understand eventually. And if you don't understand, you'll learn when you enter the tower."
"... Since when did I say I was going to enter the tower?" Siena pursed her lips.
"Eh~? Do you think you had a choice from the beginning?" Scathach 'kindly' smiled at Siena.
Siena was old enough to understand what that smile meant; from the beginning, she never had a choice!
"...Fuck."
"Give it up Siena, you know how our family works, and tell me honestly, do you really not want to enter this tower?" Lacus asked.
Siena looked at Ruby, who was evidently getting 'stronger,' even if slowly. With each confrontation and situation she faced, Ruby's senses sharpened, making her even deadlier.
For some girls like Ruby, Sasha, Violet, Pepper, Lacus, and Siena, they only need combat experience to blossom into something deadlier.
There is a limit to how much training can help you get stronger, which is why this tower is essential for all.
Victor remained silent as he listened to this discussion. To him, whether the other girls entered or not didn't make a difference; he would still do his job, but...
"I won't let anyone enter the tower until I judge them strong enough and determined enough."
These words awakened the girls from their illusions, and they looked at Victor.
"Why, Victor?" Agnes asked.
"Seeking strength without motivation or determination will only weaken your mindset and make you vulnerable. The tower is not a kind place for those who are not resolute."
The proof of Victor's words happened in the next scene when Violet stopped exploring and walked toward the room's door, holding a steel sword.
Upon entering the door, Violet found herself in an ice cavern with eight different passages leading to unknown places.
"Hmm, an ice environment..." Violet looked around at the passages, then looked up, checking the icy ceiling. She licked her finger and pointed it upward.
"... To the left."
"....." Some girls were left speechless by what they had just witnessed. Wasn't she being too random? How did she make that decision based on something so absurd?
"Hahahaha, she's really something else, isn't she?" Scathach remarked.
"Indeed."
"Comparing the three girls among themselves, Violet seems to be someone who follows her instincts more," Helena said.
"She's the opposite of Ruby, who seems to overthink things," Lily added.
"It's not that she blindly follows her instincts; there's a bit of logical thinking behind her actions," Victor began to explain.
"You're stuck in a location that is clearly an ice cavern; how do you find the exit if you don't have eyes like mine?"
"... Look for an air current and follow it," Helena answered.
"And that's what she did," Victor nodded. "In an environment where you know nothing, the best way to get out of that situation is to assess the surroundings and make a decision based on that assessment."
"Will that be the correct answer? Probably not, but it's better to act than to stand still waiting for death," Victor concluded his explanation.
And then Scathach chimed in:
"Of course, the answer to this situation can vary greatly depending on who is in the cavern currently. If it were Eleonor instead of Violet, she would just need to 'read' the earth to understand her surroundings like a sonar."
"If it were Victor, he would just see everything around with my eyes."
"If it were my former self, I would simply use my runes."
Victor suddenly said, "... If it were Pepper, she would carve a new path without thinking much."
"Oyy! You make it sound like I'm a fool who only thinks about punching things... I mean, you're not wrong about the theory you mentioned, but the way you put it is wrong!"
Victor just laughed and patted Pepper's head, which brought a big smile to the red-haired girl, and she hugged him even tighter.
At that moment, something began to happen to Violet.
The ground started shaking as if there was an earthquake, and in the next moment, roars were heard.
Hearing this roar, Violet didn't waste any time. She jumped into the air, and her whole body burst into flames. A pillar of fire shot into the sky, piercing the cave in the middle.
Soon, Violet appeared in her Level 2 Vampire Count form. She didn't even bother looking down; she just flew into the hole her transformation had caused.
When she exited the cave, she found herself in a snowy world with snowstorms raging. In this vast whiteness, Violet looked like a tiny fire particle.
Suddenly, giant blue eyes began to open on the horizon, followed by various noises that cleared the snowstorm. Soon, five giant creatures appeared on the horizon.
These giants were unlike anything she had ever seen. For a moment, she even thought it might be a Yeti on steroids or something, but the creatures' tails and reptilian eyes indicated otherwise.
"What the hell are these!?"
That was indeed a valid question, and being a valid question, the girls looked at Victor.
Instead of answering again, he said, "Violet has a peculiarity when hunting or killing an enemy."
"If possible, she will use all her power from the start."
"Unlike Ruby, who thinks more about conserving her energy and managing it correctly."
"Violet doesn't care... She will burn everything."
"Therefore, the tower sent her to a higher-level location than where Ruby currently is."
"What floor is she on now?" Agnes asked.
"21."
"Wait... The 'tower' sent her?" Haruna narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying that this tower is sentient?"
Victor smiled a bit. "Something like that, but at the same time, different."
"Ugh, why don't you just tell us, Victor?" Pepper grumbled.
"If I tell you, you will lose the value of surprise, which is quite essential for growth. Explore this place and discover your own secrets; I guarantee you will be completely different when you leave the tower."
"...." They had no words to refute these statements; what he said made a lot of sense, after all.
Victor looked back at Violet.
She began to exert more power and flew toward the monsters.
'She's going to die,' he thought.
Those monsters were far beyond Violet's current capabilities.
That didn't mean the monster was stronger than Violet; in fact, Violet's firepower was stronger than the monsters. However, there was a small problem.
By altering the souls within them, Victor created a subspecies of dragons and gave them a rather problematic ability.
This ability was inherited from Sasha, specifically from Sasha's father's clan.
An ability that allowed the individual to be more 'resilient.' It was a simple ability, but when combined with the dragon-like skin of those creatures, well...
Tink!
The sound of two metals colliding was heard, and in the next moment, Violet's steel sword shattered. She couldn't cut through the monster's skin, nor could she burn it.
The last reason was quite simple: even though they were only a subspecies and not true dragons, they still had a high resistance to flames because they were 'descendants' of Victor, a being whose primary attribute was the violet dragon aspect flames, which were much stronger than common flames.
Therefore... the result of the creatures taking a deep breath and 'blowing' a beam of ice, freezing Violet to death, was quite predictable for Victor.
"Just what are these creatures, Victor?" Agnes asked seriously. "They are clearly a subspecies of dragon, but the other characteristics..." She looked at the creature's 'humanoid' form.
This monster looked like a bizarre fusion of various species.
"A species native to Nightingale, altered into a dragon subspecies," Victor's response was simple, and it caused a stir in the group, especially in Eleonor and Rose.
"You used an Alpha...?" Rose asked.
"Wrong, I used those above them," Victor said. The main 'ingredient' he used to create those creatures were the 'natives' of Nightingale, especially those beings that ambushed him.
He never thought that this combination of dragons and those beings, along with some humanoid monsters Roxanne had in possession of souls, would be so deadly.
...
"Whoaaa!" Violet woke up back in her room.
"... I died, didn't I...?" She touched her entire body, shuddering as she remembered the sensation of 'dying.'
'This is not cool. I don't want to experience that again.'
Little did she know that she would indeed experience it again, in several different ways.
Violet clenched her fist in determination and got out of bed. She walked over to the secret area and picked up another steel weapon. She looked at the weapon and tried to cover it with her fire.
Slowly, her fire began to completely envelop the sword.
Unlike before when she randomly infused her power into the sword, this time she was shaping the steel to create a sword of fire. She was perfectly controlling her power.
"Let's try again." Violet's spirit wouldn't break just because she 'died.'
The moment she passed through the door, something unexpected happened.
The scenery changed to something completely different. It was no longer the ice cavern, but rather a mansion described as green liquids dripped from the ceiling.
"Ugh, that stench." She covered her nose and looked at the liquid in front of her. Without thinking too much, she was about to burn the entire place to make the smell disappear, but... she stopped when her instincts warned her of danger in taking that action.
"... What?"
Despite her instincts warning her, she didn't really know what to do. It's not like her instincts were telling her what was wrong. But for now, she decided not to risk it and continued walking through the mansion.
While walking through the mansion, doing her best to ignore the smell, the 'fire' of Violet's blade touched the green liquid.
"Shi-"
BOOOOOOOM!
A green explosion engulfed the entire screen.
...
"She died." Haruna, Mizuki, Helena, and Natalia all spoke at the same time.
"... Why is Violet's challenge harder than Ruby's?" Natashia asked.
"It's not that it's harder, but rather the dungeon is highlighting a significant flaw in Violet and Agnes."
"Huh?" Agnes blinked in surprise when her name was suddenly mentioned.
"They rely too much on their flames."
"Since that's their strongest and most frequently used point, the tower will create scenarios where those flames can't be fully utilized without caution."
"Variety is necessary in a warrior. Being a master of one thing is good, but even that master needs to know other things to avoid being predictable."
"Predictability kills, we all know that... Just look at what happened to Michael and Gabriel."
"....." Silence fell around the group, and they couldn't help but think of the vision of Gabriel and Michael being killed in the war.
Diablo knew that no matter how much time passed, their enemies would never 'evolve' beyond what he 'predicted' because that's how angels were – beings with brains but not using them.
"Ahhhh!... What the fuck! I died again! I didn't even see what happened!" Violet growled.