My Dungeon Daddy System: Raising Monsters and Waifus Underground-Chapter 85 – War Crimes On Dead Soil

"IGNITION!"

Reed didn’t think. He didn’t aim. He simply let the intrusive thoughts win and squeezed the twin triggers inside the gauntlets.

FWOOOOOOSH.

It wasn’t a stream of fire. It was a torrent of liquid, violet devastation.

Two massive cones of Void-infused flame erupted from the exhaust ports mounted above his wrists. The fire roared like a dragon waking up from a nap in a volcano, consuming the air in front of him with a terrifying, pressurized hiss.

The Lead Paladin didn’t have time to react. The creature raised its rusted greatsword, vines pulsing in its throat to issue another gurgled challenge, but the words were swallowed by the inferno.

Usually, fire in this biome would be a death sentence for the user; the heat would cause the pressurized spore sacks in the zombies’ chests to expand and detonate, spreading the neurotoxin across the entire floor. But this wasn’t normal fire. This was Void Fire, entropy given thermal form.

It didn’t just burn the wood; it erased the definition of it.

"SCREEEEEE!"

The Paladin screamed. It was a horrible, high-pitched sound, like a teakettle whistling in hell. It was the sound of a soul finally being ripped out of the plant matter that had held it hostage for two centuries.

The violet flame hit him chest-high. The metal of his ancient breastplate didn’t melt into slag; it rusted into dust in seconds, the entropy accelerating the decay of the steel by a thousand years in a heartbeat. The vines holding his bones together turned grey, then black, then disintegrated into atomic ash.

The spores inside his chest were incinerated before they could even think about expanding.

Within three seconds, the Lead Paladin was gone. Not dead. Gone. Just a shadow burned onto the wooden floor and a pile of purified dust.

"Sweep left!" Grika commanded from his back, her voice vibrating through the chassis of the suit. "The little ones are trying to flank! Don’t let them touch the perimeter!"

Reed pivoted his hips, the heavy servos of the exo-suit whining against the torque. He swept the flamethrowers in a wide, cleansing arc.

The fire washed over the other statues. It washed over the puddle of slime that had once been an arm, now trying to snake toward his boot. It washed over the toxic ferns track-lighting the path.

Everything the light touched died.

The sickly green glow of the jungle vanished, replaced by the stark, terrifying violet of the Void. The humidity evaporated instantly, replaced by the dry, crackling smell of ozone and absolute aridity.

"Terra! Down!" Reed shouted over the roar of the engine.

Terra, seeing the wall of purple death approaching, dropped to the ground. She curled into a ball, tucking her head and arms in like a massive pill bug made of granite. The flames washed over her rock shell, scrubbing off the moss, the slime, and the creeping vines, leaving the stone beneath pristine and glowing with absorbed heat.

Reed held the triggers down for ten seconds. It felt like a lifetime.

His mana bar plummeted in his HUD, the numbers scrolling down like a slot machine paying out a jackpot in reverse.

[VOID MANA: 65%... 50%... 40%...]

The drain was agonizing. It felt like his blood was being siphoned out of his chest through a straw. The Void Shard pulsed violently against his ribs, demanding more fuel to keep the reaction going. The [Thermal Equilibrium] buff was fighting hard, keeping him conscious, but the sheer output of the weapon was staggering. If he held it for five more seconds, he’d burn out his own neural pathways.

"Cut it!" Reed gasped, releasing the triggers.

The roar of the flamethrowers died instantly, replaced by the hiss of cooling metal and the frantic click-click-click of the engine cycling down.

Smoke, grey, thick, and smelling of musk, filled the clearing.

Reed stood panting, his arms hanging heavy at his sides. The chainsaws were glowing white-hot, the heat waves distorting the air around his fists.

"Did we... get them?" Reed wheezed, tasting copper in his mouth.

Silence.

Then, a soft clink.

Terra uncurled. She stood up, shaking a pile of grey ash off her shoulders. She looked at her own hands, then at the empty clearing.

"CLEAN," Terra rumbled, sounding impressed. "TINY BOSS IS SPICY."

Reed looked around. The clearing was sterile. The moss was gone. The statues were gone. Even the bioluminescent mushrooms on the ceiling had dimmed, their light retracting in fear of the apex predator that had just arrived.

Seraphine was kneeling on the ground nearby. The fire hadn’t touched her, Reed’s aim had been surgical, but the intense heat wave had seared the blooming parasitic flowers off her tail.

She looked at her scales. The tiny white flowers were gone, burned away by the ambient temperature, leaving behind small, pitted scars on her emerald hide. The urge to sleep, the heavy weight of the neurotoxin, had vanished with them.

"The rot..." Seraphine whispered, running a clawed hand over her tail. "It is burned away."

She looked up at Reed. Her slit-pupiled eyes were wide, filled with a mixture of primal fear and intense reverence.

"You purged them, My Lord. You didn’t just kill them. You purified the ground they stood on."

Reed straightened up, the servos whining as he forced the heavy suit to move. "Grika. Status."

"Engine temp critical," Grika reported, hopping off his back. She patted the engine housing with a gloved hand, wincing as the heat radiated through the leather. "But stable! We have maybe two more bursts like that before the core melts down and we become a very expensive crater."

"Let’s save it for the Matriarch then," Reed said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I don’t think I have the juice for a third pass anyway."

He took a step forward, intending to check the path ahead.

Suddenly, the ground shifted.

It wasn’t the violent rumble of an earthquake or the attack of a root. It was a ripple. A shudder of pleasure.

The massive roots that formed the highway didn’t attack. They shivered.

"Movement!" Seraphine hissed, scrambling to her feet... tail. She raised her Magma Lance, ignoring the pain in her tail. "More hostiles? Beneath us?"

"No," Reed said, watching the floor. He lowered his gauntlets. "Wait."

From the scorched, blackened earth where the Paladins had stood, fresh vines emerged.

But these weren’t the thorny, aggressive vines of the Sniper Lilies. They were smooth, deep purple, and tipped with large, soft buds that pulsed with a gentle bioluminescence.

They moved slowly, almost shyly.

One of the vines slithered up to Reed’s boot. It didn’t wrap around his ankle to crush it. It wrapped around gently, caressing the metal greave like a cat rubbing against a leg.

The bud at the tip opened with a wet, soft sound. A flower bloomed instantly, a magnificent, velvet-petaled orchid the color of a deep bruise.

Poof.

It released a puff of scent. It didn’t smell like rot. It didn’t smell like acid. It smelled like heavy musk, expensive perfume, and pheromones so potent Reed could taste them.

[SYSTEM ALERT]

[Status: VOID AFFINITY DETECTED]

[The Garden recognizes the Core.]

[Reaction: SEDUCTION.]

"It... wants to seduce me?" Reed asked puzzled.

"It... likes you?" Grika whispered, tilting her head. She pulled down her goggles to look closer. "Boss, the mana signature changed. It went from Aggressive Red to... Thirsty Pink."

Another vine rose up, reaching for Reed’s hand. It curled around the gauntlet of the Weed Whacker, ignoring the residual heat that should have burned it. The thorns retracted, becoming soft nubbins that massaged the metal casing.

"The Void Fire," Reed realized, watching the plant fawn over him. "I didn’t just burn the rot. I fed the floor. The Garden senses the Void Mana. It recognizes the flavor."

He lowered his hand. The vine reached up and caressed his faceplate.

Master...

It wasn’t a sound. It was a feeling. A telepathic impression of hunger, submission, and desperate loneliness.

Strong... Warm... Fertilizer... Return...

"Get off him!"

SHING.

A blade flashed in the dark.

Seraphine severed the vine with a single, vicious stroke of her Magma Lance. The cut end sizzled, cauterized by her own weapon.

The flower fell to the ground, twitching like a severed finger.

Seraphine stood between Reed and the plants, her tail lashing furiously, creating a wind that blew the pheromones away. Her eyes were glowing with jealous rage, her fangs bared at the vegetation.

"Do not touch him, you salad!" Seraphine hissed at the floor. "He is not your fertilizer! He is my heat source! Find your own!"

"Yeah!" Grika jumped in, running up to kick the severed flower with her heavy steel-toed boot. "Back off, photosynthesis! You didn’t build the suit! You don’t get the juice! I calibrated him! He’s mine!"

The vines recoiled slightly, sensing the hostility of the harem. They didn’t attack, but they hovered just out of range, swaying hypnotically.

Reed looked at his staff. Seraphine was ready to stab the ground. Grika was threatening a plant with a wrench. Terra was standing by, confused but supportive.

"BAD PLANT," Terra agreed, stomping a small sprout flat. "NO TOUCH TINY BOSS. HE IS DELICATE."

"Stand down," Reed said, a strange, grim smile touching his lips.

He looked at the path ahead. The roots were pulling back, clearing the debris of the battle. The thorns were retracting into the wood. The path to the center was opening up.

The Garden wasn’t attacking anymore. It was rolling out the red carpet.

"They aren’t fighting us," Reed said, stepping past Seraphine. He patted her shoulder as he passed, a silent thanks that made her relax slightly. "They’re escorting us."

He looked deeper into the gloom, where a massive shape loomed in the distance, the silhouette of the Heart Tree. It was colossal, a tree the size of a skyscraper, glowing with a pulsating violet light that matched the rhythm of his own heart.

"The Matriarch knows we’re here," Reed said, feeling the pull of the Void Shard. "And she doesn’t want to kill me. She thinks I’m here to seduce her."

"Seduce?" Seraphine narrowed her eyes. "She thinks she has a claim? I will peel the bark from her bones."

"Save the rage, Sera," Reed said, revving the chainsaws one last time, just a short vroom-vroom to remind the flora who held the power. "We’re going to need it."

"Let’s go meet the widow," Reed commanded. "And try not to look too edible."

The team moved out, walking down a path that was now lined with hundreds of blooming, purple flowers. As Reed passed, they turned to watch him with hungry, unblinking eyes, releasing puffs of scent that whispered of dark promises and eternal entrapment.

[QUEST UPDATE: THE GARDEN OF SIN]

[Objective: Reach the Heart Tree - COMPLETE]

[New Objective: Confront Amara]

[Threat Level: COMPLICATED (Yandere Plant)]