A few days later, with the Hathor familia being in the dungeon, Evilus sent a scouting party to the 28th floor.
"You see them? Anywhere?"
"Meowp, I don't."
"Damn so they really did head deeper than this?"
An angry woman with flared pink hair, and yellow eyes walked around looking for a trace of the Hathor familia.
"This is absurd, where are they? They couldn't have gone much further than this. But there's no trail left behind."
"Perhaps we missed them on the way down here?"
"Idiot, if that would have happened, we'd be dead now too. That brat can smell us from so far away now, if we were on the same… They're at least beyond the 31st floor."
"Why do you say that?"
"The water city is all one giant floor, 3 floors combined together. He would have smelled us, especially over the faint scents the air has there."
"Meow! He's fast! Real fast!"
"Let's go back. I've been itching to kill some weaklings for so long now. It's finally time, I'm so excited!" Valletta's lips curled into a crazed and sinister smirk. The evil having been bottling up inside for long, it was finally ready to burst. "Finn, my darling, I'm coming to kill you."
…
On the 36th floor, the expedition team rested in the cool breezes the environment created. It was a much needed rest after the day everyone had. The lower level members were starting to struggle too much to last until the actual next resting point, Under Bridge.
Shurry looked back towards the entrance, seemingly squinting, as he sniffed. "Hmm, odd. I could have sworn I felt an evil presence coming from that entrance. But it's gone now."
"Hahaha, maybe you need a little break now too. You haven't slept since the night before we left the surface."
"That might be it? But I can usually handle reaching floor 50 on my own. In like two days. And it only takes that long cause I get hungry." Shurry said innocently, giggling.
"Well, even if you don't sleep, it would be good to lay down for a while. We're all good to stay up for watch duty."
"Alright, stay safe Bokhoir! I'll go see Ardee and rest for a while."
"Heh, how'd I know he'd say something like that?"
"Those two are inseparable. And they have been since they were 4 and 5 years old."
"Well, let them be. They deserve a break with how hard they work."
…
On the surface, around the fifth night of Hathor familia's expedition, Evilus made their first move on the surface in quite a while.
Valletta was holding a little girl hostage, forced to watch as her now headless mother's blood spurted up and out like the central plaza's fountain.
"Oh yes! FINALLY! It feels so good! Blood fountains are so pretty don't you think so?" She got angry. "Well? Answer me?"
"NO! YOU KILLED MY MOMMY!"
"Oh shove off it, you brat. I'm not going to keep you two apart for long." Valletta said, slowly inserting her knife into the girl's southern region. "See, you feel that? It feels so good right? The pain's great, and when you die, the pain is all gone! I'm doing you a favor girl."
"You're worse than the monsters. Ugly, evil woman."
"Wrong choice of words little girl." Valletta twisted her wrist, and the knife by extension, then ripped it out of the girl, tossing her dying body onto her mother's corpse. "Awe, such a sweet scene. Die with your mommy, you mouthy girl." … "Hmm?" She moved, dodging a sweeping spear. "Finn, so you finally came. Oh my, it's so good to see you again darling. Do you want to play?"
"Valletta!" Finn's face filled with rage.
"Oh sorry, but I don't have the time to play with you my dear. I need to go and kill some more!" She turned to leave but Finn was following her until "Boys my darling is being abusive, stop him so I can escape him!"
Finn was surrounded by what felt to be a bunch of 1s and 2s. Nothing to him, but there sure were a lot of them. Valletta used this moment to get away, moving on to her next target.
However, Finn had stopped being a complete pushover, and did manage to catch up to Valletta but only after she'd killed a young man.
Sensing her situation she tried to grab the nearby woman sobbing, still in shock at what just happened. However, as if fate was at work here, in this very moment, she fell to her knees barely dodging Valletta's mad dash for a grab.
Finn capitalized on the moment without a thought. And battle began, between the two level 5s. I need to be a hero for my people! I have to be! Why did that damn brat fuck everything up for me!
"Oh my! You have some monsters in you too don't you, darling?" Valletta asked in a rare moment where the battle stopped, in a rather populated place. "Tell you what, if you kill say-" She looked around… "100 people here, right now, I'll let you into our little group. We could have so much fun, killing people together. Tell me, wouldn't that be fun?"
Finn gripped his spear, utterly furious at himself for even allowing the thought to go through his mind. "I'LL NEVER STOOP SO LOW! I won't let you kill anymore of Orario's people!"
"Awe, man. Fine, I guess we have more foreplay. It'll just make your conversion all the more thrilling. I'll throw you down like an Amazoness when this is all said and done. One way or another you'll have my heart."
"Only on the end of my spear!"
The battle went on for another minute, until support magic was fired over.
"Finn! I'm here to help?" It was a level 3 mage of his familia, one of the lucky few who didn't learn the humiliation of eating dirt 3 years ago.
"Hmm, looks like I'm not going to win." Valletta uttered with a tick of the tongue. "Fine, we'll continue this another day. I'll just have to be satisfied with the 3 people I so graciously ceased their pain." Valletta seemingly vanished at a speed Finn might have been able to catch up to but he'd injured his leg during the most recent clash.
"Allow me to heal that for you."
"Thank… Thank you. If she used that during the fight I'd be dead right now." He sighed. "Just how strong were the Zeus and Hera familias? It couldn't be that much stronger than us now, right?"
"Captain, they were heroes who killed two of the three legendary monsters of myth. We can still grow, but we're clearly missing something that they had."
"I know…"
"WHY DIDN'T SHOW UP SOONER! MY FIANCE IS DEAD NOW!" The woman caught up, somehow finding the strength to ring her, and her dead fiancé over. "BRING HIM BACK TO ME!"
It was a bit rough from there, but eventually the situation calmed down, not because of Finn, rather it was the people who came together that saved Finn this time.