The Hero Became a Succubus, and the Only Way to Level is to… What?!

They crossed the threshold into what finally looked and felt like an underground dungeon. Everything Kanae had passed previously only seemed like a slice of different parts of the surface world. Down here, it was as if she had fallen into a gargantuan catacomb meant for giants. If Kanae wanted, she could even comfortably fly around.

Tall pillars wrapped with vines and moss stretched up to a ceiling that was too high to be seen. Their footfalls echoed far and disappeared down the enormous corridors. Cobwebs connected columns to each other. Indentations in the walls intended for coffins were left empty and unfurnished.

However, the place wasn't empty. The party fought monsters known and never before seen. Many were undead, and others were living. That perplexed Necro Lord Thored the most, since the only way to create monsters down here was through the use of the skill, Dungeon Core Manipulation.

"Hmph. If the dungeon boss is an undead just like these monsters, this will be a piece of cake for me." Arenade rubbed the bridge of her nose and grinned, having become even more useful than ever as a priest.

"You crushed those monsters into dust! Sis, I want to be as strong as you one day!" Seven gushed.

"Hehe. Keep the praise coming, and I'll consider taking you on as my pupil!" She puffed out her chest.

Oh, no. Arenade was getting full of herself again. Kanae needed to find some way of taking her down a notch before that godly and high elven sense of superiority returned.

Both Kara and Seven had been sticking close to her in every fight. They had started seeing her as a big sister, and the harpy boy took to calling her 'Sis' as naturally as breathing. In terms of firepower though, Arenade was their biggest damage dealer solely because of the type of enemies they encountered. So far…

Still, Kanae smiled warmly at the strength of Arenade's abilities. It used to be that she only grew plants, fired a few holy bolts of magic, and occasionally casted healing. The combination of being a high elf crowned with the Priest class made her that much stronger. Petyr Stormcloud was similar; a much more potent paladin compared to William Bellevue, who was crowned the same.

Kanae glanced down at her hands. As a true succubus, she had been crowned the succubus-specific class Seductress, which made her much stronger. But she still had a long way to go to match the likes of Ambrosia in strength.

"Hmm… No, that can't be it…" Thored muttered to himself off to the side.

"What are you brooding about?" Kanae sidled up and asked.

He gestured to the place around them. "I'm trying to figure out how this all came to be shaped. The final dungeon used to be an underground city biome, so the anomaly had clearly transformed it. I had also populated it with high-level animated armor monsters, not undeads and what we've seen so far. I don't want to believe the anomaly could manipulate the dungeon, but…"

The ground shuddered. They almost lost their footing. When the shaking stopped, Seven immediately pointed up.

"Giant slime!" Seven cried.

A large, translucent slime was hanging on a pillar. It detached without warning and went splat on the ground, only to reform again into a blob.

"Is that the anomaly?" Kanae asked, reaching for Lust.

"No, and that's not a normal slime. That's an imitation slime! Don't let it touch you!" Thored yelled.

The warning came too late. Several slime appendages shot out. Arenade shielded Kara and Seven, but Kanae had been hit. The strike knocked her back, and when she got up, the slime was gone. In its place were… Arenade and Kanae.

"There's another Sis now!" Seven gasped.

"That's not me! I'm clearly the real one. You know, the one who shielded you!" Arenade exclaimed in exasperation.

"Huh… Seeing myself in person and not in a mirror… I'm pretty hot," Kanae said, admiring her clone which was also doing the same thing.

"You horny succubus, this isn't the time to be turned on by yourself! An imitation slime copies all of your spells and equipment. We're in serious danger!" Thored shouted.

Spells and equipment… oh.

The Kanae clone grabbed the straps of her Matron's Regalia. Kanae and Arenade knew what was about to happen right away. They shielded their eyes as the clone flashed her tits with Piercings of Impurity. Kara, Seven, and Thored recoiled from the blinding light.

"I-I can't see!" Kara panicked from the ground with an arm over her eyes.

"Tch. Copy this! Holy Armament: Full Suit of Armor, Sword and Shield!" Arenade dressed herself from head to toe in golden platemail. A longsword manifested in one hand and a kite shield in the other.

The Arenade clone offered an arrogant laugh, then incanted the same spell that also gave her a suit of armor, a sword, and a shield.

"I didn't mean to literally copy me!" Arenade protested.

Both Arenades clashed in a battle that demolished a pillar. Stone and rubble came crashing down, and Kanae swooped in to carry Kara and Seven away safely. Holy beams of energy from two Halos of Holy Radiance cut through the air like lasers. What about the Kanae clone?

Kanae scanned the massive corridor to find her clone on top of and pinning the still-blinded Thored on the ground.

"Ahhhh! Not this again! I can't see… but it better be the clone and not the real Kanae on me!" Thored complained.

The clone repeatedly slammed their hips together with the force of Titanic Blow. A delirious, sex-crazed demeanor adorned its face. Eyes rolled back, tongue hanging out, it was the picture-perfect image of a succubus having the time of her life.

"Do… Do I really look like that when I'm having sex?" Kanae turned bright red and gulped.

When Thored and the clone climaxed, Kanae seized the opportunity to lasso her double with Lust. The whip wound around its neck. That seemed to turn the clone on even more. It bounced more feverishly, lips peeled back into a depraved smile. That had to be Masochist at work…

"I'm not choking you to get you off!" Kanae groaned, pulling hard to yank the clone off the Necro Lord.

Thored's throbbing cock fired thick loads of cum into the air. The clone landed at Kanae's feet. When it saw how all the ejaculate went to waste, it suddenly became wrathful.

Kanae was about to put some distance between herself and the clone until everything went dark. A tail pussy had clamped down on her face. It was wet and warm. So, this was how it felt like whenever she did it to others. Kanae put all her strength behind pulling it away. She could finally breathe again.

The clone pounced. They both fell to the ground with Kanae beneath it. Breasts squished together and gazing deeply into each others' eyes, the two let their lust take over. Kanae grabbed the back of her clone's head and pulled it in for a deep kiss. Their slightly longer than human tongue wrestled with familiarity. Supple lips, the exquisite taste of succubus, and even their tail pussies connected. No one knew her body better than herself.

"Oh, my god… You're so hot… Wait, is that narcissistic if I'm saying that to a clone of myself? Screw it!" Kanae rolled them over so she was on top, then went down on the clone's soaking pussy.

It didn't fight back. Kanae took that as an invitation. One lick sent the clone over the edge in rapturous pleasure. The taste was indescribably delicious. She locked its legs with her arms and feasted on the leaking muff. No wonder people couldn't resist her pussy. It was so tight and wet, enough to drive anyone crazy.

The clone grabbed both of Kanae's horns. Its moans and heavy breathing was like music to her ears. Soon, it started shuddering and writhing intensely. Kanae pulled back in time as the clone's waterworks drenched the cold ground. It laid there twitching in the throes of pleasure, tongue lolled out, and soundly defeated.

Kanae wanted to switch on Futanari to fuck the clone of herself, but the body deformed and melted into a puddle of slime.

"Well, that's disappointing." Kanae frowned.

Arenade crashed down next to Kanae and groaned in pain.

"Everything hurts…" Arenade squealed.

"I beat my clone. Why haven't you?" Kanae folded her arms.

"Clearly, I'm too strong for my own good. Maybe you're the one who was weak," she fired back.

Getting Arenade off her ass was going to need a different approach…

"I didn't know the real thing paled in comparison to an imitation," Kanae replied teasingly.

"What… did you say?" Arenade slowly got to her feet.

"Listen, if you're no match for your own clone, just take a back seat and let me—"

"You want to see the real thing? I'll show you the real thing!" The high elf launched off the ground and slammed into her taunting clone at lightspeed.

They disappeared into the darkness of the high ceiling. Kanae knew Arenade had won when globules of translucent slime splashed to the ground a few minutes later. The victorious priest descended with a haughty look, panting heavily from a hard-fought battle.

"See… heh… I told you… the real thing is…" Arenade collapsed, and Kanae caught her wife before she hit the ground.

Other than being winded, she was perfectly fine.

"Are you guys okay?" Kanae asked the others.

Kara and Seven helped each other up and gave a thumbs up.

"Help! My hips are broken again because of your stupid clone!" Thored cried, still lying on the ground.

"You wouldn't happen to have another imitation slime lying around your monster storage, would you?" Kanae asked.

"Quit thinking with your clit and heal me already!" he demanded.

"Alright, alright. I got you, so quit crying." Arenade found the strength to walk on her own and started administering healing magic on the beastman.

Once Thored was able to walk again, they continued their journey through the catacombs. However, a dead end awaited them at the end of the corridor. The party thought they must have taken a wrong turn at some point, but the other halls led nowhere either.

It wasn't until Seven spotted a crevice inside one of the indentations in the wall that they were able to press on. The space was only large enough for them to crawl through on all fours. Thored, being the largest of the group, really had to squeeze in to fit.

The hole was dark and cramped. Arenade bemoaned her fortune of having to wade through ruins when she could be getting a massage instead. Eventually, the sound of gunfire echoed from a distance.

"Is that who I think it is? The gun lady?" Seven asked.

"It has to be! If she's shooting something, we need to help her." Kanae picked up the pace.

There was light at the end of the tunnel. When they emerged at last, it wasn't a catacomb anymore but a grand cathedral of gray walls, intersecting rafters above them that criss-crossed into infinity, and stained glass windows that cast a menagerie of colors to the granite floor.

Renya Rown's numerous clones were arranged in a firing line, shooting at gargoyles and stone imps. Sweat drenched the clones' faces. One of them glanced down to find Kanae crawling out of the crack in the wall first.

"Well, fuck me in the ass at the top of the crow's nest! You don't know how welcome of a sight you all are!" Renya exclaimed.

"Where's the real Renya? What's going on?" Kanae asked as she helped pull Thored from the wall.

"You're looking at her! I just got here through that window over yonder, then these damn things started flying down from the ceiling to attack me," she explained.

Kanae followed Renya's gaze to a stained glass window that had been broken into. Shards littered the interior immediately around the entry point. Thored did mention that there were multiple avenues from which to reach the final dungeon. Renya had found another from the maze, which likely meant Theena was nearby.

"Let's clear these monsters and get everyone up to speed!" Kanae instructed and infused Renya with Bond.

Mostly reunited now, the party easily dispatched the gargoyles and imps. They were all made of stone, which made bludgeoning attacks their weakness. Arenade pummeled into dozens with her Big Fucking Hammer, and Kanae whip dealt enough impact damage to shatter them into pieces of rocks. Renya's firing line, empowered by Bond, punched through wave after wave of monsters with volleys of magical slugs.

By the time everything had fallen quiet, the ground was littered with broken stone. Thored was in sheer disbelief at the destruction Kanae and her two companions had wrought. Kara and Seven, on the other hand, were left speechless and in awe of their sheer power.

"Sheesh. We cut through them all like kraken's tentacles on a ship's hull when we're in one place. Maybe we find a way to not be separated next time, eh?" Renya blew the fumes smoking from her guns and grinned.

"Gun lady!" Seven, with Kara closed behind, raced up to Renya. You were with Theena, right? What happened to her?"

"You're gonna wanna sit down for this, kid. Your pal Theena isn't who you think she is. That chick is working for someone else. Almost left me for dead back in the maze." The pirate lord spun her flintlocks and tucked them back into her inner coat.

Seven staggered away, feeling faint. Kara held him from behind.

"I don't believe it… No way. It's not true! She would never!" Seven cried.

"Succubus." Thored pulled Kanae aside and lowered his voice. "Through that door… That must be the dungeon boss chamber."

If Theena was inside…

Kanae walked up to Kara and Seven, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. They looked up to her as though expecting her to say something comforting or profound. Instead, she uttered 'Sleep' and put them into a deep slumber. Renya and a conjured clone caught the pair and laid them gently on the floor.

"Sorry, you two. I'm not going to let you risk your lives in this fight," Kanae said.

Both of them looked about as young as Teana. Kanae couldn't let either of them get hurt. Even if Theena turned out to be bad after all, she probably wouldn't want that either. The rest of them exchanged nods. Renya and Thored offered each other a brief introduction before they turned their attention to the large doors ahead.

Kanae swallowed hard. She cast Bond on three of them, Thored included. He disliked the newfound horny sensation briefly, but the surge of power made him quick to accept it. All four of them pushed their weight against the doors and pushed it open. Stale air rushed out past them.

The entrance gave way to a large, dark chamber in which a massive tree appeared to be buttressed up against the far end. Its gnarled roots stretched across the floor. Thick branches loomed over them, creating a canopy of vegetation above with hanging vines. Half-way up the tree trunk, Kanae recognized the many glowing eyes that dotted the bark. It stared right at them.

Someone— Theena, was embedded into the base of the trunk. Large roots and vines restrained her. She was unconscious and seemingly unharmed from what they could see.

"Theena!" Kanae rushed in, only for Arenade to grab her.

"No, stop!" Arenade shouted.

A rumbling knocked leaves loose from the canopy, showering them with dried flakes and pollen.

"Oh. Shit," Thored cursed under his breath with uncharacteristic worry. "I just remembered why Lord Charron stole the relic."

"Spit it out already, horsie!" Renya smacked him on the back.

"It's the Sceptre of Want… a legendary magic weapon forged from a devil, Saffronesse, the Envious…" He gulped hard.

"A devil?!" Kanae and Arenade gasped.

The canopy rustled again. They followed the source to a humanoid creature with a female form descending from the branches. Her body had the same texture as tree bark. Roots wound into human-like arms and legs. The face was smooth like that of a beautiful woman, and her hair was made of blooming vines draped down her back. She wielded a morningstar in her right hand.

"Is that… Thistle, the Matron's Regalia?" A deranged, feminine voice spoke from dryad's unmoving lips. "Satine, you always have the best champions… what about me? Me? ME? ME? ME? I WANT A CHAMPION WORTHY ENOUGH TO WIELD MY ARTIFACTS, TOO!"

"Oh, shit…" Kanae, Arenade, and Renya uttered at the same time.