The four spirits looked at the monster that rose from the sea.

"Should we get reinforcement?"

Salamander gauged the monster that was in front of them.

"No, we can take care of her with a little strategy."

"Mmmh, I expected you to charge head-on and-"

Undine's diatribe got suddenly interrupted by the monster who cried again, before slamming both of her fists towards the Water Spirit. Gnome interposed herself between the assailant and her friend, but ended up buried in the soft sand for her trouble, with only her hat protruding from the ground.

"…"

Gnome slowly rose up from the ground and dusted herself, unperturbed.

The large monster shouted a deafening cry again, but she got interrupted by a tornado from Sylph.

"Get some chi-pa-pa for hurting my friend you big, slimy monster!"

Real insult there Sylph.

The huge scylla cried once again and started swatting at the small fairy repeatedly. Fortunately for Sylph, her small size and her high speed couple with her mastery of the wind made her nigh uncatchable. In the meantime, the other three spirits started devising a strategy to take down that horror.

"Attacking a monster that size head on is going to be fruitless. We have to aim for the head."

"That is quite obvious."

Salamander briefly glared at Undine before the latter pushed on. "How do you suggest we get to do it? Sylph is the only one who can fly. Using water or dirt to create a path that could endure its attack would take all of our energy."

Salamander slammed her closed fist in her hand. "Well then, let's rush in!"

Undine sighed and closed her eyes. "How barbaric, just because those two options aren't plans, we-"

The end of her sentence got interrupted by a gust of wind. She saw Gnome and Salamander holding back a tentacle that had threatened to smash them.

"Then if you want to search for a new plan, do it faster!" Salamander pulled back her right hand which she then proceeded to imbue with fire. She then punched the tentacle in synch with Gnome, which had quite the effect on the monster if her horrendous cry was any indication.

Undine was forced to acknowledge Salamander was right: they could not afford time to think of a plan in their current predicament. Sylph was still chased in the air by tentacles, and getting caught would spell instant doom for her. A tentacle almost caught her and got torn apart by a blade of wind from the small spirit. However, it regenerated extremely fast and had grown back to its fullest in only a few seconds.

Gnome and Salamander were pushing back every tentacle that tried sweeping them. A tentacle interposed itself between the Water Spirit and her allies. She smoothly glided under it, and cast spells after spells to freeze a precise point.

"Gnome!"

Getting the cue, the Earth Spirit jumped across the beach and slammed her fist on the tentacle with the might of a mountain. The monster cried in shock, and as soon as she noticed what happened, Salamander casted an extremely powerful jet of flames on the open wound, cauterizing it and slowing the regeneration process to a crawl.

Salamander looked satisfied at her work. "One down…"

She got tossed away by the monster who was now crying in agony. Her burst of pride had cost her a hit, and she got up with a little difficulty. She then saw the numerous tentacles the monsters kept shaking around. "Thousands more to go…"

In the meantime, Undine looked at the water. The monster had most of her lower half immersed. She considered freezing it, but the sheer amount of seawater she had to dal with tore her plan apart. In the meantime, Gnome tore apart another tentacle, and Salamander casted another fireball on the stump to slow down its regeneration. The assaults were effective, but they couldn't afford to do that for each of the tentacle the monster had.

In any case, the three spirits kept at it while Sylph was keeping the upper half of the monster busy. After an undetermined amount of time, Sylph's movements started slowing down while the monster showed no sign of exhaustion.

"Huh, guys?" Sylph dodged another attack and threw a blade of wind at the offending blade of wind. "I'm starting to get tired…"

"Keep it up!" Salamander burned another tentacle. "We have destroyed… less than a quarter of its tentacles."

"Huh." Sylph dodged another tentacle with the grace of a breeze… And ended up within mouth's length of the monster, who instantly swallowed her.

"SYLPH!" Salamander shouted in desperation. Gnome tapped on Salamander's behind, and mimicked a boosting position. As soon as the Fire Spirit climbed on her fellow spirit's hand, Gnome propelled her straight at the mouth of the large monster who swallowed her with pleasure. The monster stopped moving for a second, as it emitted smoke from its mouth. The next second, it spat out the two spirits out, covered in gunk.

"What now?" Undine sounded actually more afraid than sarcastic toward her fellow spirits.

Sylph shook herself to clear the gunk. "Well, we can still do the thing with me, then with Gnomey, then with Deeny, then Mandy."

Undine and Salamander looked at each other as they realized what Sylph wanted them to do.

"That NEVER led to good result." The monster swiped at them with several tentacles at the same time. Undine and Sylph slipped amongst them, while Gnome and Salamander focused on one and tore it apart. "And we need a catalyst for it to work." Gnome revealed her weapon under her gloved hand, showing the King of Heart, and impossibly rare weapon Luka had found in another dimension. "That'll do."

"It's not like we have another plan anyway. Let's do it fast. We only need to get sure that thing doesn't attack us for a few seconds." Salamander glared at the abomination.

Undine focused energy in her hand, and plunged it into the sea. A path of frozen seawater slowly made its way toward the monster, who soon found itself shocked as its lower half was blocked by the ice. She used her tentacles available to free herself rather than to attack the Four Spirits.

"There."

As if on cue, all Spirits started accumulating energy. First, Sylph imbued Gnome's weapon with the wind element, then Gnome herself imbued it with the power of earth, then Undine added her water mastery, and Salamander finally gave the next attack the wrath of fire.

With all her might, Gnome jumped at the monster's throat with the power of a rocket, her fist raised forward. She punched with all her might and crossed right through her opponent's throat with such strength that the giant scylla was instantly beheaded by the shockwave.

She silently exulted, before she realized that she was almost a hundred meters in the air above the sea. She flapped her arms fruitlessly for a few seconds, before holding onto her hat as she started falling down toward the ocean.

On the beach, the three other spirits were celebrating their victory, when they realized the issue with their fellow.

"We must save Gnomey!"

Undine shrugged. "Oh don't worry, she'll be fine."

Salamander frowned. "Not everybody has the swimming ability of the water spirit."

Undine moved back and pointed at the monster's body. "What about the pancake-resisting ability of the Earth Spirit?"

"What?" Salamander looked at the towering body which was slowly tilting toward them faster and faster.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhi-"

The body fell on the beach, smashing the three remaining spirits into the ground. Right afterward, it disappeared into a puff of smoke. An half buried Salamander looked at the sky with an expression of pure disbelief on her face.

"Are you kidding me? She couldn't have disappeared before smashing us?"

An hour later, a moody, soaked Gnome had managed to join back her friends. Undine was still working on opening that hidden compartment, but her moves weren't as naturally flowing as they were, as exhaustion was gradually taking over her. And last, as they took time to confirm that monster was destroyed and didn't leave any other nasty surprise behind, the sun had left the sky to make way for the night.

As Undine kept fiddling with the chest, every other spirit carefully held back. Even if she didn't get interrupted, the Water Spirit started growing frustrated.

"What's the matter exactly?" Salamander tried to sound genuinely concerned to prevent getting doused by her angry fellow spirit.

"There's a whole puzzle with blocks to slide underneath it! I have no idea how you're supposed to resolve it without being able to see it or to feel it.

"Magic? No wait, it's been made spell proof."

After another few minutes, a clicking noise echoed through the silence. Undine carefully removed the cover, showing to Salamander the sliding block puzzle that represented tentacles coming from an abyss that she had to blindly solve. The Fire Spirit respectfully nodded, and all four of them looked at the bottom of the box. There was another parchment, delicately rolled and held by a red velvet ribbon.

Salamander sighed. "Please tell me it's not a spell to ban that huge thing."

Undine carefully removed the ribbon while coagulating her extremity to avoid sliming up the paper and started reading it. The text was written in a persistent ink in flowing cursive.

I found a way to reduce the biggest monster to the size of a brick. If you isolate the raw genetic material present within the cells and condense it with a few earth spells while infusing your target's natural environmental elements in the process, you will be able to compact her to then bring it back ready for battle by throwing her back in her environment. The process takes less than a minute, and it could be useful to bring back larger wounded monsters from the field once I know it's safe enough to use.

When I confirmed it worked after testing it on several of my chimeras, I showed it to my sisters who asked me to do it on my Cthulhumera. They told me her aggressiveness was a liability, but after further testing, I managed to condition her to become more pacific toward monsters upon hearing "How my philanthropy affects my love for my craft?" Don't ask how I did that. I don't know either.

Either way, she's now reduced to an almost indestructible brick that will transform back into her hundred foot tall self if we throw it into a sea. Pretty awesome, no?

I'll just place it into a chest and throw that into the sea with the instructions to see if someone's going to fall for it. Maybe she'll end up making company for the beezlebubs…

Once she was done reading, Salamander collapsed. She wasn't even angry. The fire of passion had simply left her. Gnome let herself fall on her behind and started playing sadly with sand, while Undine lied down, hoping something would appear to end her days.

Sylph pulled the ribbon from the chest. "Well, at least, we still have a ribbon and a meteorite chest. Those are probably worth a fortune!" The Wind Spirit chuckled awkwardly.

"This ribbon isn't a magic one. It's worth as much as a seashell." Undine sighed. She went wide eyed when she heard two more puffing noises. She looked around her and could no longer see the chest nor the puzzle. She started panicking, and looked around her. She shook the parchment as if the chest had disappeared under it. When she turned it, she saw a few small sentences that were written at the back.

P.S. Tamamo said she wouldn't make us more chests like that if we keep losing them. I placed a recall spell to automatically get this one back in my room once it's empty. I hope she'll appreciate the effort.

Undine looked at the three other spirits, who had expressions as desperate as hers.

"This. Never. Happened."

Mephisto was slowly making her way through the Pocket Castle after a long day. She had spent said day taking care of her younger students, and those had been a bit scattered during today's lessons. They spent just as much time gossiping than studying in class, which was endearing at first, but was really annoying her by the end of the class. Even expelling the most talkative ones proved barely effective. As a punishment, she took longer to finish the class and gave them additional homework, but she felt it did hurt her more than them.

Her evening studies had been consecrated to succubi to prepare for the upcoming Purple Sabbath, and interviewing some representatives of this race had proved just as exhausting. She had to add a few men to her bargain to get them to cooperate, and even then, she didn't get half the answer she hoped to have, more often than not getting an answer amounting to "because fun and pleasure are everything."

And then her day got worse. She heard about the sightings of a mountain sized scylla close to the west coast of the Ilias Continent, and then said monster was destroyed by a huge amount of eleme,tam energy. A monster like that sounded like it could be an extreme, immediate danger for the local population and then for the whole world, and whatever had destroyed it could only mean worse news. However the agents she sent there reported that there were no signs of the monster or of its killer anywhere. Lemuse Beach had been wrecked by something, but it wasn't clear what happened. The queen of the southern sea, Kraken, was just as dumbfounded by the event as her, and none of the book she had found had any information on a monster like that, in spite of her effort to scour the San Ilia library. The only place she hadn't looked in was the Monster Lord's castle.

By the end of the day, she had students that had learnt almost nothing, a headache from dealing with succubi, and an even worse feeling in her guts after hearing about the sea monster that mysteriously disappeared. Eventually, she gave up altogether and decided that she was allowed to go for a drink or ten to forget this day.

When she reached the bar, she was greeted by the sight of the Four Spirits together. It was relatively rare to see them all like that because of their conflicting nature. Furthermore, they looked even more exhausted than she was, as if they went through hell. Was it just a coincidence? She decided to ask them.

"Greetings, I apologize for disturbing you, but I heard rumors about a huge sea monster near the west coast of Ilias Continent. Do you happen to know anything about that?"

Each of the spirits muttered a barely audible negative answer. Even the hyper energetic Sylph and the passionate Salamander looked utterly broken. The latter had an empty plate that seemed to include remains of sushis and takoyakis in front of her.

"Good grief, you all look like you went through hell, maybe you should go on a small vacation."

"NO!" All the four spirits answered in perfect sync, startling Mephisto.

"Good grief, message received."

They definitively knew something. Still, if they had taken care of it, there was no reason to be worried about it…

Mephisto sat alone at a table and offered herself a bottle of Noah wine. Well, it looked like that unless she started looking in the closed recordings in the Monster Lord Castle, she wouldn't learn anything more about that monster…

Now, for the Purple Sabbath… A small reminder should be enough. After all, those males had lived with monsters for a long time now. Surely dealing with a company rowdier than usual would prove no trouble…

A small, blonde figure with two triangular furry ears atop her head and nine fluffy tails waving behind her was going on her merry way through the Monster Lord Castle. Even with all the powerful monsters around, she still had a lot of job to do. While a part of her important workload could be blamed on the whimsical nature of the Lilith Sisters and the damages their actions all too regularly occasioned, the reality was that Yao and herself were the only two persons in the castle able to correctly deal with certain tasks, such as maintaining the wards all around the place and getting sure the chimeras weren't getting too out of shape.

Tamamo lifted open the door that lead to the temporarily closed chimera lab. No work other than maintenance had been done inside this place for a long time, and the only reason most tools lying around weren't getting rusted was only thanks to the thorough work done by herself and her followers.

She checked the Giganto chimera, and smiled to herself. Even after so much time, she could still function, even if she lost a part of her power. She checked the tool and cleaned the occasional rust that had formed or one or the other with care. She hoped that they would never be needed again, but in those trying times, nothing was more unlikely. She frowned when she noticed some of them were lying on the ground. Did the Lilith Sisters come to play around here? Her brain told her it was unlikely, and her nose confirmed her that there wasn't a hint of succubus pheromone or of a coital odor amongst the chemical smells. In fact, the only lingering presence that was still detectable her was her own passage from last time. She decided to carefully examine the objects lying on the ground.

One was a meteorite made chest that reached the level of her armpits. Tamamo recognized her own craft in it. She chuckled when she remembered that she had found the metal in abundance on Hellgondo, and used it to craft tons of curios that she gifted to her sisters and would end up almost invariably lost. If she knew how rare it was at the time, she would have given it a more practical use. She was checking the second item when the realization caught her: An empty chest with Hiruko's sigil had randomly appeared in the chimera laboratory.

She looked around her as fear started gripping her heart. She considered turning into her ancestral form to prepare for a fight, but the more rational part of her mind prevailed. Her small sister was sealed, she would definitively have felt it if the spell had broken, and as hungry as said sister was, she was still very unlikely to attack her. Her magical senses analyzed the chest and the puzzle, and she picked the presence of a recall spell, as well as the impossible to miss presence of the element of water in all its purity, meaning Undine was the one person unfortunate enough to find the chest and deal with its content. And since her network didn't report the ocean turning over or any other strange event, the Water Spirit likely made it out alive.

Still… Having something like that resurface right now… That couldn't be a coincidence. Maybe something else was in preparation. Maybe she missed one of the Lilith Sister's plan. Maybe they found a way to break the seal that even herself didn't consider. Or maybe she was becoming paranoid because of the growing restlessness in the world.

In any case, she decided that it was time to go on a vacation. She had the tools to travel unnoticed, that would be a good occasion to practice her ninjutsu skills, and she could maybe find an occasion to entertain herself...