Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 396

Chapter 396 – Watch Party

We weren’t holding the watch party in anyone’s actual divine realm. Too many wildly different personalities and potential conflicts for that. Even if we were all there to watch a dragon catch a whipping from the Great Sage, that didn’t mean everyone was suddenly going to be best buddies. And conflicts in the divine realm had a chance of filtering down to the mortals, which could cause problems like the one we’d just used a dragon to solve. It was part of the reason why GodNet had the virtual meeting spaces to begin with.

Naturally, I’d set the virtual space to the recreation of the lounge area in my dungeon, complete with succubus maids ready to tend to all the visitors’ divine needs. This wasn’t a ‘smoky back room’ kind of thing, and definitely wasn’t a formal ‘throne and altar’ gig. No, this was just a friendly gathering of divine beings, in an area where they couldn’t cause any harm to each other, or their followers.

And there was no shortage of divine attendees. Several of the big names from the Greek/Roman and Norse pantheons were around. Coyote had brought some of the Native American gods. Susanoo was at the head of a group of Japanese kami. And Peter, Moses, and Muhammed were all here, since this was the clean-up stage of taking out the trash in their faiths, and the three ‘brothers’ were still not awake. Even after waking, it would take some time for them to ‘solidify’ enough that contact with other deities wouldn’t result in undue influence or ‘contamination’.

I’d left the guest list limited to Earth deities on purpose. Even though there were other deities who had a presence on Earth, mostly thanks to my influence, Earth wasn’t really their focus. This was the aftermath of an Earth problem, so this watch party was for Earth gods only.

Athena was at my side as we sat on one of the couches, watching the view of fallen Jerusalem just before dawn on the 72” TV screen that acted like a scrying pool. The Great Sage intended to make his challenge with dawn’s first light, because the monkey was inherently something of a showman. He knew that symbolic measures like that would help enhance his image when people saw this fight.

The Goddess of Wisdom and War was still getting used to the idea of closeness with another. I hadn’t pushed her, since that would like cause her to run, rather than bend. We were just sitting side by side, chatting. I gently placed one arm around her, hand resting on her hip, but didn’t advance further. She did not flinch or tense at the touch, but the combination of [Psychologist] and [Seduction] gave me the feeling that this was the limit, until either the wedding night, or she made another move on her own.

I did not mind taking things slow. It wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty of outlets for my ‘stress’ with my pets, after all. Sometimes, the sweetest dishes were those you had to wait on. Rushing would only ruin things, and there was more than just getting my dick wet riding on the union between Athena and I.

Athena turned to look at me as Sun Wukong descended from the clouds in a flash of light, just as the sun broke over the horizon. “I understand how you convinced the Monkey King to take care of the Dragon, and why you were confident in his ability to do so. His myths, after all, involve several instances where he defeats dragons, so dragonslaying is in his nature. But what made you so sure that he would not seek out the secrets of Kithenin’s immortality? By my understanding, the Monkey King collects forms of immortality like some mortals do pairs of shoes.”

I chuckled, and said, “He did not need to seek out the secrets of Kithenin’s immortality, because I told him of them directly, holding nothing back. And no, I wasn’t worried about him taking hold of that form of immortality for himself. If anything, the idea of it only made him more eager to seek out and put down the dragon.”

“Really?” Athena asked, not entirely convinced. “I would have thought he would have been eager to add another tool to his kit.”

I shook my head. “You are thinking like a Goddess of Wisdom and War, Athena, not a Great Sage who achieved glory through personal hardship and exploits. The Monkey King is a proud creature. Not entirely without reason, of course, but pride is one of the central pillars of his being. Pride in his martial prowess. Pride in his cleverness. Pride in his ability.

“The form of immortality that the dragon uses could more accurately be called false immortality, as it does not prevent his death, but rather ensures his immediate rebirth. However, while that alone would make the Victorious Fighting Buddha look askance at it, the mechanic of the rebirth is what ensures that he will never go down that road. There is a difference between that, and studying long with a master to achieve immortality, or scratching your name from the Book of Life and Death, or eating the Heavenly Peaches, or any of the other means of immortality that Son Wukong has attained. Those other methods all involved feats of strength or using cleverness and guile to overcome and outwit beings of considerable power. They all required challenges to be overcome, which meant there was worth to the actions themselves.

“In comparison, Kithenin did not find a worthy foe to test himself against. He caught and preyed upon the weak, like a scavenger, and used and abused them until he had no use for them. And when someone strong finally catches him, he does not look to the strong, but to the weak, those who literally cannot resist, and steals their life to extend his own. It is a cowardly, shameful, fear-filled means of immortality, and none of those describe the Monkey King.”

“Shh, they’re starting!” Loki called out from the sofa he was sharing with Hermes and Coyote. All three were tricksters, like the Monkey King, and so they’d all been quite eager to see him fight. Fortunately, the rules for this space kept them from starting too much mischief while they were here.

Looking back to the screen, I saw that it had, indeed, started. The Great Sage had easily made himself heard when he called out across the ruined city, and the dragon had responded like most bullies do when someone calls them out. He roared in rage, and flew out to trounce the latest in the line of ‘pathetic mortals’ that had been challenging him since he made the city his lair.

Of course, it wasn’t the dragon’s fault he didn’t recognize the Great Sage as a divine being. Sun Wukong was using one of his abilities to hide his divine power, intentionally making himself look weaker to draw out the dragon. However, it was definitely the dragon’s fault that he was too angry to realize the significance of a single being standing there and challenging him in the open, in a relaxed stance with a staff resting upon his shoulder. That kind of easy confidence was not something a ‘puny mortal’ would have when facing a dragon.

Regardless, the Monkey King did not let the dragon get close enough for a fair fight. Almost lazily, he shifted his staff in both hands, and brought it down in an overhead strike. The dragon was still a kilometer away, but that did not matter, since the Monkey King’s staff was no mere stick, but the fabled Ruyi Jingu Bang, and it easily lengthened to crack the dragon upon his skull, driving the creature crashing into the ground.

“Hardly a sporting start,” grumped Seidai Myōjin. The God of Sports preferred bouts to be fair, which I could respect. However, time and place.

“Come now, Seidai!” Susanoo laughed. “There is a difference between a kendo match and a fight to the death. Fairness means nothing, so long as you remain standing at the end.”

“The ruffian is correct,” nodded Artemis sagely as she sipped her wine. “Fair play and honor are well and good in a competition, but when on the hunt, or at war, then no weapon should be held back, if it will bring victory, or at least stave off defeat. You may choose to use the spear before the knife, or start with a bow, rather than setting the forest ablaze, but unless the burning forest would lead to a greater defeat than returning with no food for the table, or not returning at all, then only a fool leaves the torch unthrown, if it comes to that.”

“Oh, that’s clever!”

Coyote’s exclamation drew all eyes back to the screen. The dragon had been trying to cast spells, but every time the Monkey King’s staff struck. Not terribly hard, but enough to be felt, and to break the dragon’s concentration. Since the dragon was more of a mage-type than a trained fighter, the Son Wukong knew better than to give him time to cast spells.

Naturally, the dragon did not just take that lying down. His jaw opened, though it was unclear whether it was to breathe fire upon the Great Sage, or to attempt to bite and rend his flesh. What was perfectly clear, however, was that this was what the Great Sage had been waiting for. The moment the dragon’s jaw opened, he leapt forward, and his staff extended, jamming the dragon’s maw as wide as it could go. And then it extended further.

The dragon howled in pain as his jaw hung limp, only a few ligaments still connecting it. There was a collective wince from the gods in the room, as everyone knew that such a wound would be unpleasant to heal from, even with divine powers. For a mortal being, even a Tier 4 dragon, the healing process would be almost worse than the injury itself. But the Monkey King was far from done.

What followed could not be called a battle, because a battle implied some degree of parity. It could not be called an execution, for those were often swift, and to the point. It wasn’t a massacre, for those rarely were so playful. No, this was a brutal beating, as Son Wukong toyed with the dragon for all to see.

And there were people to see, beyond those in my watch party. An ‘anonymous tip’ had gone out to different news sources. Those who could, had people watching the fight through long-range cameras, unwilling to get too close, but the promise of a scoop being enough to bring some journalists near enough that they could bear witness to the Monkey King’s triumph. Just as I promised him.

Eventually, it came to an end, as all such things eventually do. Kithenin the Broodlord, terror of Sendara 3, lay broken and beaten upon the ground, cast down upon the ruins of the city that he had tried to claim as his lair. Vainly, the dragon attempted to plead, to bargain, but the Victorious Fighting Buddha’s only response was to bring down his staff one final time, splattering the remains of the dragon’s skull like an overripe melon.

The mortals watching through their cameras saw that the Monkey King glowed golden for a moment, as the experience from killing a Tier 4 Dragon was enough to give him at least one level. For those of us divinities watching, a filter came across the screen, to show the soul of the dragon as it rose up from the corpse. In a spectral form, invisible to any mortal eye, the dragon cursed, and promised vengeance upon the Monkey King. A blood-red portal began to form in the ‘soul-space’, and I knew it to be the path his soul would take to the nearest of his spawn, to be reborn once more. Just as I knew that it was taking more time to form because of the great distance in space between him and the nearest of his kin.

However, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven was not the only divinity on the field. Another had been waiting, hidden from sight until now. One who had long waited for this moment. When I had told Bahamut, the Dragon God of Justice, that Kithenin would soon be in a state where his resurrection would take more time than normal, if it worked at all, he was more than happy to send an invisible avatar to Earth.

“It is strange that Bahamut fits so many of the modern depictions of him,” Aphrodite said, as she lounged closer to me.

“Psychic leakage, I believe,” I answered. “Same as how we have elves and catgirls in popular media who look all but identical to the knelfi and fimaazro in the wider galaxy.”

The spirit of Kithenin screamed as it tried to claw its way to the bloody portal that would return him to the world of the living, but Bahamut would have none of that. The dragon god’s spectral form snapped its jaws around Kithenin’s soul, sealing its movements, and one claw slashed through the portal unmaking it, and the enchantments that comprised it. Turned out that the moment usually passed too quickly to act upon it, but the enchantment binding Kithenin to his bloodline was never so vulnerable, or easily shattered, as the period between his death and resurrection.

A portal of silver opened in the spectral space, and Bahamut nodded once, before tossing one of his platinum scales to the divine being, which became a platform that floated in the air. The Monkey King laughed, and hopped up on the platform, which then began to fly forward at great speed, before it opened a portal, and the Great Sage was gone. Then, Bahamut, too, turned, and flew through the silver portal, which closed behind him.

“Did he just…” Athena trailed off.

“Yes,” I nodded. “The Monkey King was just granted a divine artifact that will allow him to traverse the stars as he pleases. A worthy boon for all his work, beyond the recognition that he is sure to get. And, most importantly, it completely erases any trail leading back to any of us here, save for what can be seen in GodNet.”

“Well,” Aphrodite sighed, “it looks like I’m going to have my work cut out for me if your wedding next week is going to top this!”