Monster Integration

We reached the door to the other side, and Sarah placed her hand on the door, revealing the formation a few seconds later.

I quickly scanned the formation and began to break it with my avatar while Ashlyn watched over me.

"You can try to break any artifacts, except for that golden plate; I want it," I said a few seconds later when I saw Sarah walking toward the artifacts. Who knows if her artifacts will be able to break the formation; if it does, I want to stake my dib.

She can take any artifacts she wants, but I want that plate.

"Snort!" She snorted and walked toward the artifacts before stopping in from the first artifact. A jeweled bracelet, she was able to draw out the protection formation on it but was not able to break it with her glove artifact.

She had tried a few others, including the golden plate I wanted, but all she was able to do was draw out the formation; breaking them seemed to be out of its capabilities.

Seeing that, I began to completely focus on solving the formation, and it took me one hour and twenty minutes to break the formation; it was obviously more difficult than the formation earlier.

"Here is the key," I said, and the formation key materialized in front of me. This time, she was not surprised and quickly scanned it before pushing the door open.

Krrrr!

The door opened, and I looked at one of the most beautiful gardens I had ever seen; it was filled with beautiful plants, and most of them were extremly precious and dangerous. For the first time in coming here, we saw the signs of the Grimm Monsters.

There are two of them, dried to the bones as all their lifeforce is got sucked by the plants that had trapped them.

I knew some of these plants, and they are dangerous as they are precious; they are also protected. Including the carnivorous ones, the protection runes on some plants are clearly visible.

The flower people had defaced this floor the least, but there are still signs of defacement. The statues and murals around the garden had not been spared; the statues are in worse poses than even a second floor, and murals show the shuddering cruelty of the asar race man.

For the first time, the flower people are showing what it did to them, and I have to say, it is pretty cruel and despicable. It had wiped out their kingdom and used their people for the ritual to increase its strength; it is cruelty at the level of Grimm Monsters.

Sarah had once again summoned her wings, and I sent the waves through my hand to investigate and was shocked to find the whole garden is engrossed in traps. Not to mention these deadly plants which would attack us as we walked through the garden.

"My method has found this to be a safe way," said Sarah, and a rough map of the garden materialized with energy, showing the safe routes.

"Your method was not able to detect the traps here, here, and here; this last one is the only safe way through the garden, and on the way, we will have to be deal with some nasty plants," I said to my surprised, Sarah nodded, without any argument.

My investigative methods have taken a huge leap in these past months; the study of soul that I am especially focusing on is helping me a lot, and when you add the rule-bending power to it, you get pretty amazing abilities.

A contained powerful aura rumbled out of Sarah's body as a grey sword appeared in her hand. Its design had changed since the last time I saw it; it had become more spartan. It might look like a common steel sword to any uninformed, but those who can see will never dare to underestimate it.

All my boosts activated, and a short sword appeared in my hand; a great sword would not be much helpful in such constrained space; I would need something smaller and slimmer.

Hun!

"Let's go," I said, stepping forward, but just as I did, I was instantly attacked by two vines and a huge flower with sharp teeth that wanted to consume me.

These plants are no weaklings; each of them could deal with the Grandmasters if they were not careful enough.

Slice Slice Slice!

My sword moved and, in a fraction of a second, cut apart all three attacks that came at me. I did not even stop while dealing with the attacks of the plants. These attacks are powerful but not enough to harm us; the truly dangerous one will come as we head deeper inside the garden.

Ten minutes passed, and in these ten minutes, we got attacked more than a hundred times. One hundred and sixty-seven times.

These plants are ferocious, attacking us from every direction, not just with vines and huge teethed flowers but also with poison and psychedelics. Each step we took was cautious, as we might be swept in hallucination before we realize it.

"Careful, that plant in the left had released a psychedelic," I warned, and misty fire appeared around me, burning the psychedelic, but it was still enough to bur it all. Thankfully, my armor is extremly tight, and I activated the special protection against psychedelics, which would not let even a speck inside.

SLICE SLICE SLICE!

Another fifteen minutes passed, and we reached the end of the garden, where the plants were so powerful that I had to use nearly all my strength while Sarah had directly summoned her defensive abilities, which are amazing.

Still, they would not have been enough to protect against these plants. If I had not been here, she would have been in a really wretched state right now.

It took another three minutes before finally, we were finally able to reach the end of the garden, and I finally took a sigh of relief. It might not seem like it, but I shit scared of this garden, and there is sweat piled over my whole body.

There are some truly dangerous things that had not attacked us for some reason; if they had, we wouldn't have been in such great condition.