Ben and Mira go deeper into the dungeon with Mira using her Satan Soul form. There weren't any more engravings after they got 50 meters deep into the dungeon. Now they can see the Etherious that are looming inside the dungeon.
"What a merry welcome. Let's see, there are 80-90 of them just at the entrance. Do you want to take them, Mira?" Ben asked while doing a rough count of the Etherious' number.
"Alright, I haven't done anything in this dungeon, so I feel stiff. I need to stretch a little." Mira said before she charged forward.
The Etherious also charge towards Mira and the battle starts. Mira is using her Satan Claws to rip the Etherious' bodies apart. There's a black aura on her claws because her Satan Soul form can use Darkness Magic and she coats her arm with it to increase her attack power.
These Etherious are very low-leveled and super weak. Their bodies were ripped apart by Mira's claws like butter. Well, it's also because Mira has become a lot stronger so these Etherious seem very weak even though each one of them can kill a squad of knights.
Mira is currently the 3rd strongest mage in Fairy Tail after Ben and Gildarts. She has surpassed Makarov but is still weaker than Gildarts. However, with her current progress, Mira will catch up to Gildarts in a few years and Ben will make sure she caught up in less than 3 years.
Back with the fight, Mira is doing well against the Etherious. She only used her close combat skills because these weak things are good punching bags. Just like Ben, she often treated her battles like training, and she does it now.
But if even she could easily defeat the Etherious, their number was still high. Many of them just rush past her and move to Ben who's standing behind her. Of course, none of them have any chance against him and they are massacred.
Ben also only used his close combat skills, but unlike Mira, he doesn't even need his magic to fight. The only magic that he uses now is the light that illuminates the cave. To fight these Etherious, he uses his best melee weapon, the Pendragon sword.
He swung his sword with fast movements while dodging the Etherious' attacks. Ben doesn't block or parry, he keeps moving his body to dodge their attacks while attacking them with his fast swordsmanship. He is training and testing his agility and flexibility by dodging their attacks.
Blood spilled on Ben and Mira's bodies but they ignore it. They just keep fighting and killing the Etherious that keep coming to them from deep inside the dungeon. It's like there's no end to these things, they just keep coming.
They finally stop coming after 3 hours and A.I Chip had counted that 942 Etherious had attacked Ben and Mira. That is a terrifying number that can destroy several towns if they weren't trapped here.
But this number is a good thing for Ben and Mira because the more demons here, the stronger they will become. As a Devil Slayer, slaying demons will increase Ben's Devil Slayer Magic power. Mira's Satan Soul also got stronger as she absorbed the dead demon's souls without taking over their bodies.
"Strange, there are too many of them. From my experience, one Book of Zeref can only generate one demon. But there are just too many of them." Ben said.
"Maybe there's a library here." Mira suggested.
"No, I don't think that's the case. I don't think Zeref would put so many books in one place. And I don't think he was bored enough to make these many weak Etherious. They were far too weak compared to the ones that we've encountered before so it's suspicious." Ben said.
"But there's nothing we can do about it. The only way to find the answer is completing this quest." Mira told him.
"Yeah, right." Ben said while nodding.
Ben then burned all the Etherious' corpses into ash using his Sun Devil Slayer Magic. When he does that, he can feel his Sun Devil Slayer Magic becoming even stronger. It's like the remaining magic power inside the dead demons is entering his body.
"Oh, this is good. My magic is sucking their magic power up and turning it into mine. I guess this is why Acnologia got that strong. He absorbed the magic of the dragons that he killed. And dragons have immense magic power, so he got a lot of it." Ben said while he continued burning the corpses.
He doesn't get the full amount of magic power from these dead demons, he only got some portions. But it's still a nice amount because there are a lot of dead demons here, even though they're weak. Having more magic power is always great and having his Devil Slayer Magic become stronger is even better.
Ben and Mira move forward and soon, the dungeon is branching out. There are three paths in front of them and they don't know which one is the correct path. So Ben decided to explore all of them by creating 7 clones.
3 of the clones head down the left path, 4 head down the middle while he and Mira head down the right path. He instructed his clones to split up again if their paths branched off again. They also need to keep communicating with him and report their findings.
Ben and Mira walk forward and expect some Etherious to attack again, but no one came their way. Instead, they encounter traps that keep getting activated as they walk forward. The traps are just typical old traps like arrows, crushing walls, poison gas, spikes, etc.
They destroyed all these old fashioned traps easily and Ben even took his time analyzing them. These traps are activated at high speed, but Ben is much faster. His senses have increased significantly and his reflexes are top notch.
"This was fun at first, but now it's annoying. We've walked for a half hour and there's nothing but traps." Ben said after getting through a lot of traps.
Ben is becoming bored with the traps, so he just used his gravity element on the walls around him. All the traps that were activated can't even come out because his gravity suppressed them and even deforms the wall.
"What's the point of using non-magical traps like these? They are demons for f**k sake. Set up curses instead of traps, would you?" Ben complained in frustration.
"But these traps are enough to tire and kill average S-Class mages, you know. There are just too many of them that even S-Class mages will find them difficult and annoying. Eventually, they'll get tired and after they are injured by a trap, they'll keep getting injured." Mira said.
"I know, but these traps aren't creative." Ben replied.
Right after he said that the traps changed into magic traps. The first magic trap was thorny vines that come out of the walls and floor. They try to catch Ben and Mira but then they were crushed by the gravity.
The vines still try to struggle though, so Ben burned them after analyzing them for a bit. His mood changed into a better one because he can now see other variations of the traps. He is like a kid exploring a place full of mystery.
The situations on the paths that his clones took are similar. Traps are set up everywhere but some Etherious appear once and a while on the other paths. The clones have split up again because their paths have branched off a few times, unlike Ben's path.
The 2nd magic trap that Ben and Mira find is a area with wind blades. Multiple wind blades appear out of the wall and fly everywhere. But just like before, they all break when they come in contact with Ben's Gravity Magic.
"Hmm, there's no enchantment or anything on the walls. So these traps must be the work of an individual." Ben noted.
Their path finally branched off after they get through 8 magic traps. They go down the right branch and encounter a lot of Etherious there. Ben and Mira slaughter them again but when they are in the middle of fighting, one of Ben's clones is destroyed.
Ben is surprised, but then he grinned. "Found it."