Dungeon Robotics Book 6 PT 3 (Patreon)

1. If Amazon sends me a breach in contract message, I will be pulling them back down (Sorry!)

2. These Chapters are unedited. Edited version is on Amazon

3. I am putting these up for people to enjoy the Dungeon Robotic universe from the beginning.

Chapter 21

Louella

“Your Highness, we’ve lost everything! Surely, a person of such grace would have mercy on one such as myself,” a noble from Lecazar said while on his hands and knees in the assembly . . . throne room.

“Baron . . .” I said glancing at my aide next to me. I’d met so many nobles it was hard to keep track of their names. I could if I tried, but I felt it was wasted mental energy.

“Baron Kus, my lady.”

“Baron Kus, tell me. Did you own any slaves in Lecazar?”

“Slaves, Your Highness?” Baron Kus asked with a confused look on his face.

“Yes. Slaves,” I repeated.

“Well . . . Yes. Everyone owned slaves.”

“Where are these slaves?” I asked, tapping the arm of the throne.

Baron Kus’s eyes widened and sweat started to form on his brow. “I’m afraid they . . . they were . . . killed by the horde, Your Highness.”

I lifted the glass tablet up to read off what was written on it. “Baron Kus. Owner of one hundred twenty-three thousand five hundred fifty-three acres of land. With a slave population of one thousand four hundred two men, women, and children. Now tell me. None of them managed to make it out?” I asked, lowering the tablet.

“That’s . . . that’s . . . they’re just slaves, Your Highness,” Baron Kus said.

“Not. In. My. Queendom. Take him away,” I said, and two guards moved forward, clamping mana-dampening cuffs on him.

“This is an outrage! I demand to see the princess! She will support my claim!” Baron Kus said as he struggled against the guards. They barely seemed to notice his vain attempts as they dragged him away. While the baron was certainly weak, my soldiers had just endured quite the training regimen thanks to Bruce.

“That only leaves one more for the day, my lady,” my aide said. She was using a glass tablet as well to check the documents that we had on the various nobles and people who had entered the valley. Regan’s truth device was a life savior when it came to getting accurate numbers out of people.

“Who is it? I don’t think I can stand smelling another pig today. That woman from before was a nightmare. Who uses slaves for that kind of sick . . .” I stopped as I started getting angry. That had been my only execution so far during this process. I knew nobles had secrets, most dark enough to curl toes, but hers was just too much for me. She wasn’t even a necromancer, for fate’s sake.

“I agree, my lady,” the aide said with a sad frown. “According to this, the next one shouldn’t be too bad.”

“On a scale of ‘only drowned a few puppies’ to ‘slaughtered whole villages in their spare time’?” I asked with a dark chuckle.

“They seem to have a decent record. They were even nominated to be a saint by the Church,” the aide said.

“Last I checked, the Church of Lelune used just as many if not more slaves than the nobles,” I said, then called to the guards. “Just send them in for now.” Personally, I was just glad this was the last one for the day.

One of them went out and came back a few moments later with a tall woman following him. She was dressed all in white, and a light seemed to radiate from her. I was almost impressed that she was perfectly clean considering the strife everyone else was suffering. If I’d seen her on the street a year ago, even I might have stopped to offer a prayer to the goddess. However, I now knew well that the light hid plenty of darkness. In short, she was beautiful.

She came to a stop in front of my throne and offered a curtsy. “May the Light guide you to greater fortune,” she said as she bowed her head.

“I find it hard to believe that you would offer that to me. Considering what I’m currently doing,” I said, tilting my head and resting my chin on my hand.

“Mere mortals can’t pretend to know the goddess’s will. To do so would be blasphemous.”

“Something tells me you haven’t had a real talk with your goddess,” I said with a snicker. I noticed her mask of a face finally crack as her smile slipped a little.

“Nonbelievers will always fear the Light, but that is something the goddess teaches us to forgive,” she said with a renewed composure.

I snorted but let it go. “What do you seek me for?” I asked.

That earned an eye twitch, but she took a deep breath before she said anything. “I would like to head the Lelune Church in town.”

“That . . .” I started to say when there was another quake. It passed quickly, but it felt even stronger than the last one. I refocused and turned back to the woman. “Countess Constance, I have no issue with you staying at the church. I do not control my populace like the cities under the Church’s influence. Please. Feel free to take up living there. If they welcome you, all the more power to you. You will, however, follow all the laws of my lands.”

“As you say, Your Highness,” Countess Constance said with another curtsy.

“Then until next time,” I said with an air of dismissal. She bowed and turned to leave. When she was about to exit, I called out to her, “Feel free to visit the library. I think you’ll learn a thing or two about the history or your Church.” I got a glare, but she remained quiet and left.

“Are you sure that was wise?” the aide asked, looking after the woman.

“Of course. I want to get the Lelune elements out in the open so we can actually deal with them. The last thing I need is to let them fester until they overwhelm the people living here. As a noble back in Lecazar, I was actually taught several interesting ways to cause a rebellion so that the local forces could put them down. I really never thought I’d be using it.”

“I see. Lecazar may have deserved what it got,” the woman said with obvious distaste at the thought.

“Oh, very much so. Though, the royal family wasn’t too bad. They just allowed the nobles to get away with too much since their power was limited.”

“Good thing we don’t have to worry about that.”

“Trying to earn some points?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

“What do you mean?” she asked back with a straight face while typing something into her glass tablet.

“Nothing. Are there any more meetings this morning?”

“We have the tour of the dwarven complex in an hour.”

“Fun. I’ve always heard amazing things about the dwarves’ home complexes. It will be interesting to see what they’ve done in the few months since they’ve started work.”

“I agree, ma’am.”

“Take a break, Myra. Meet me at the gate in forty minutes.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Myra said with a bow before she backed out of the room, leaving me in the throne room by myself. Well, with a dozen guards as well, but for all intents and purposes, I was alone.

I grabbed the tablet and looked over the options. I selected the one showing an icon for a building. It listed the status of each of the buildings that Regan created for us. The communal areas were mostly full. The original four hundred thousand refugees was already at five. We were waiting for a month to pass before we allowed any refugees to apply for the higher-level rooms. Families that lived in the valley beforehand were getting first pick. A few were calling it favoritism, but I didn’t care. These people had stuck with me through everything that’d happened.

Reports from the automata that guarded the buildings appeared continuously on the tablet. People getting in fights, theft, attempted rape, and all manner of other crimes were being stopped. They were learning that it’s not a free ride, but some people just had thick skulls. One man had already been killed by one of the guards for trying to kill a rival or something equally stupid.

Time passed quickly while I read the reports. Soon, I headed to the gate with my guards following me. Ezal met me there with a few of her soldiers. Myra was present, her elven ears twitching from excitement. We loaded into a carriage being pulled by Lucifer, my wolf. I found he seemed to enjoy it.

Once everyone was gathered, including guards, our impressive force of forty people journeyed over to the dwarven complex. People made way for us on the street, with most of the regular citizens of the town bowing as we passed. I waved to my people and made sure I was visible.

My guards wore plate armor composed of mithril and steel. Their shields showed the new coat of arms I’d created to represent Vaihdetta: a green valley with a faded gray gear in the background. There was a lightning bolt bouncing from prong to prong on the gear. Two members on each side carried banners high in the air. It was a regal procession if I’d ever seen one. It also made me feel incredible.

The procession quickly arrived at the east side of the valley. A large assembly of dwarves were gathered in neat rows waiting on either side of their complex’s entrance. Each dwarf wore armor that would be worth their weight in gold if not more. The massive doors grew in front of us the closer we got. They had to be at least five meters tall. Why the dwarves needed such a large entrance, I couldn’t fathom.

“Impressive. I should expect nothing less from Nastok,” Ezal said next to me.

I grinned. “He’s a showoff.”

“Do you think the clan will be able to accept his decision?”

“He’s their patriarch. He can make them accept it,” I said, frowning.

“I don’t think it works like that. Unless he wants the entire clan to hate him,” she said.

“Yeah. Yeah,” I said, waving my hand. We would figure out a way so that our friends could be together.

We pulled up to the entrance, where Nastok stood waiting for us. A guard opened the carriage for us, and we stepped down. Nastok was wearing a well-made robe that seemed ill fitted for him. I was used to seeing him in a leather apron and soot-covered clothes.

“Welcome, Your Highness.” He gave a bow as he took my hand.

“Thank you, Nastok. My anticipation for this tour has been the only thing keeping me going.”

He grinned. “I hope we live up to your expectations.”

“I have heard amazing things about the dwarves’ homes. I know I won’t be disappointed.”

He nodded, then looked to Ezal. “Glad you were able to make it, Lady Ezal, given how busy the valley is becoming with the planned rescue about to commence.”

“I was able to have someone else take over for a few hours. Helps I can play the pregnant card,” Ezal said, covering her grin with her hand.

“Well then. Let’s get started. Not to toot my own horn, but there’s quite a bit of ground to cover,” Nastok said, gesturing toward to the gate.

Six dwarves rushed forward, three for each door, and pulled open the gate. With a resounding boom, the doors finished opening and we stepped in. Even as we crossed the threshold, I was already impressed. A massive hall adorned with delicately carved pillars extended in front of us. You could fit thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, in here with room to spare.

“I’m already impressed, my friend,” I said as I looked around. The pillars appeared to depict the history of their clan. I moved closer to one nearby and found the face of an old dwarf who seemed to be the centerpiece of the carvings.

“Master Crafter Frenz. Brought wealth and knowledge to the clan five hundred years ago,” Nastok explained as he moved up next to me.

I looked down the hall and saw at least two hundred pillars. “Do you remember all the masters of your clan like this?” I was impressed and awed by their devotion to not only their craft but their people. Humans could learn a thing or two from them. We live such short lives that we tend not to care about our forbearers.

“That’s right. Every member of the clan that has ever reached master at their craft is engraved onto a pillar. Most dwarf clans have a hall like this. It’s one of the reasons a big move like the one we did is so rare,” Nastok said.

“I appreciate the sacrifice your clan made to head to my valley,” I said.

“It was a decision that was made by everyone. We just hope Sir Regan reopens the mines soon. A few people down here are getting twitchy not being able to mine for so long.”

“I’ll talk to him. I know the attack on his dungeon has him redesigning the place. It might be completely different by the time he reopens it,” I said.

“Thank you. Now. Let’s continue the tour. The section to the left of the hall is all residences. While they are interesting, I don’t want to step on my people’s privacy by parading a group of people through their kitchens.”

“I completely understand.”

Nastok nodded and led the way to the right. The heat increased with each step we took. I channeled some mana into the field I keep around my body at all times so that the heat was channeled into my mana pool. We made our way down a complicated route of stone paths that angled down. I was sure this was the guest path, but I didn’t say anything.

After a few minutes, another large hall met our view. Hundreds of dwarves were moving around like ants as they threw ore into the forges. Dwarves who had more width than height due to their amazing muscles hammered away at ingots as they forged wonderous items. I could see everything from a simple sword to a full plate suit of armor being crafted.

“This is the Hall of Forging. The farther from the entrance the crafter, the higher their rank,” Nastok explained.

Indeed, the dwarves near the entrance all barely had any facial hair, and their muscles, while large, were much smaller than the dwarves at the back, whose beards almost reached the floors. It appeared the younger dwarves worked on making ingots and just straight worked with the metal. The older generation was making the actual weapons and armor.

“I have to say, I am always amazed by the skill of the dwarves,” I said, looking over the nearest forgers. I’d seen a few dwarf smiths in the capital when I was younger. Even though they were normally labeled outcasts by their clans, their skills were still above most of the other mortal races.

“Thank you for your praise. Throughout history, kings and queens from around the continent have offered all kinds of treasure to have a dwarf clan working for them,” Nastok said, puffing his chest out.

“How much mithril did your clan manage to acquire before the dungeon was closed?” I asked after we walked to the end of the hall. Light green weapons decorated a rack that was covered in more magic than I’d felt outside of the dungeon since I left the capital.

“We managed to get our hands on several dozen pounds. The last clan to have that much to work with was able to rise to the top of the dwarven hierarchy. They still have a stronghold in Thonaca, where they get paid outrageous sums of gold to make weapons and armor.”

“OH! Young master! Was today the day for the girl to visit?” asked an old dwarf as he toweled off his body, which had sheets of sweat running off it. I glanced behind him and saw a partially finished item of some kind.

“Master Derim! Manners,” Nastok said urgently.

“Bah! Manners are for people trying to hide things. I have nothing to hide!” Derim said, pounding his fist on his chest hard enough to cause a boom.

“I don’t mind, Nastok. Let the old-timer act as he pleases,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I knew that dwarves weren’t really one for protocol. If I wanted to make a big deal out of this, I would likely just cause the quality of items entering the town from the dwarves to drop.

Derim laughed loudly. “That’s the spirit, lass.” He looked me over with a few glances. “That’s an interesting set of armor and an even more interesting staff. They look like they were grown rather than crafted.”

“That’s actually quite close,” I said with a smirk. “Unfortunately, it’s a trade secret.” I wasn’t sure Regan would like everyone to know how it was made. While I had technically made it, I had done it by copying him.

He laughed again. “I leave you to it, young master. The metal should have cooled enough,” he said, pounding Nastok’s shoulder with his hand. He walked back to his anvil and moved the item I’d seen toward the forge.

We left the hall, and from there we continued down the entrance hall. There was another massive set of doors at the end, pulled open by another set of guards. A new path just as complex met our view, and it took even longer to reach the end.

A smaller hall extended out in front of us. Rooms branched off that looked like they had various uses. Delicate stonework decorated the walls and ceilings. Statues and suits of armor were on display.

“Here is where we house the council. There is always a council of ten along with a patriarch. We also keep a storage of food and water here in case the mountain is invaded. We usually stockpile enough to hole up for several months at a time.”

“Fascinating. I have to admit I am impressed, though I knew I would be going in,” I said, looking around.

“I agree. The stonework of the dwarves is amazing,” Ezal said from next to me.

While we were admiring the view, the ground started to shake. Runes carved into the walls glowed brown. I could tell the ground was still shaking, but I couldn’t quite feel it as much.

“Another one. It’s only been a few hours since the last one,” I said, looking to Ezal.

“I also feel they are getting stronger,” she replied.

“And you would be right,” Nastok said. I looked over to him and saw he was looking at a crystal that was embedded in the wall. It was pulsing slowly. “This is a mana crystal. Quakes are a dwarf’s worst nightmare, and we’ve spent many years working up hundreds of ways to deal with them. We found a way to convert the quakes happening around us to mana and absorb it with a mana crystal. That quake was about two percent stronger than the one this morning.”

“What could this mean?” I asked, more to myself than anyone in the room. I felt something was moving, and I wanted to know what the cause was.

Chapter 23

Regan

A few minutes after I instructed the worker, the satellite was launched but it would take another few minutes to reach its destination. During that time, I was working on some anti-demon tech. I needed a way to deal with something that was impervious to mana. I had a few ideas, but without a test subject I wouldn’t know for sure if they worked.

There were several factors to take into consideration. According to Izora, the general stated that she would need to consult their geneticist about it. That meant it had something to do with their DNA, as well as the fact that the demons were further along technology-wise than this planet. It was something to keep an eye on for the future.

If their bodies were out of phase with the local area, then the mana of our universe wouldn’t affect them. That would have issues, though, as physical means still have effect on their bodies. However, that would explain why space magic would work on them which was capable sealing them away.

The demons might also be like the Celestials. If that was the case, I would need to anchor their bodies. The two Celestials I’d had grace my dungeon helped me gather a good deal of data on that area of investigation. I was still pissed that the shadow Celestial was able to sneak in without any issue, but I would just have to let it go. I’d taken what precautions I could so it didn’t happen a second time.

That was another avenue of research that I needed to peruse. The only Celestials I’d encountered so far were these bodiless half-reincarnated spirits. I needed to find a way to meet a physical version. Preferably, one that wouldn’t want to kill me the moment it saw me. I doubted that this Lelune witch would be open to me running scans on her.

There was also Cassin, who Alara told me about. The Celestial the necromancers’ worshipped. If I could find a way to capture him, I could examine him to my heart’s desire, given that he was evil. Morka, I found, was never a Celestial. She was a dragon born in Celestia and sent to Murgin. A process she, unfortunately, did not remember.

“Sir! The satellite is in position,” called an officer.

I looked up from my musings to see the image feed from the satellite coming.

A view of the spot Jade Wind used to inhabit came through. The maelstrom, which was the largest mana engine on the planet from what I could tell so far, was acting strange. Where the explosion ripped into the maelstrom, arcs of lightning that were registering hot enough to ignite the air cut through the storm nonstop.

“Give me a mana reading of the area,” I said.

The view changed, coloring the mana in the area based on its density and type. I expected the air and water mana to be high, but every type was being condensed to almost physical levels. Jets of fire would form at random or clumps of soil or rock would fall from the sky.

“The mana in the area will reach critical mass in two weeks if these readings hold true and the bleed-off doesn’t increase,” one of the officers said.

“What is Jarvis’s current location?” He was becoming my main researcher. He had a passion for it and sought as much knowledge as he could. He and Saga got along great, too, last I’d heard. She would give him information that the mortals provided, then he would work out more concrete data before handing it to me.

“Sir, he was heading farther north to run some mana tests. He is scheduled to be back tomorrow,” the officer replied.

“Send a message and tell him to head to the breach. I want better readings from them as fast as possible. I have a bad feeling about it,” I ordered the officer. From the few instances I’d had time to study the maelstrom, I could tell that it wasn’t just a natural storm but something intentionally created. Created to do what was the real question.

“Understood.” The officer turned to start entering information into the console. Long-range communication on Murgin was a bit more difficult than on Earth. You had to work around the mana types, and even if you managed to account for all that, there was a chance that a random burst of mana could make your message incomprehensible. It was easier with the satellites, but there were still many variables that had to be dealt with.

We got a reply a few minutes later. I nodded to the officer, then made my way off the command center. There wasn’t much more I could do about the situation without getting a look at the source. Jarvis would allow me to teleport out there in a stable environment. I had other matters that needed attention.

I’d finally built some mana due to the fighting next to Tearfalls. The undead over there were made up of quite a nice amount of mana. The pods served as a link back to me and allowed them to condense the undead into mana for me to purify and absorb. I needed dedicated units for the process, but that was a simple matter that I’d built directly into the pods.

I moved down to the next section of my dungeon. With the snowy forest I gave attention to the water cultivators. I wanted to focus on another element. I also needed to repair my mines. I’d placed ore deposits around the edge of the forest, but I wanted a more dedicated area for it. I thought for a moment and decided on a type of hellscape.

Fire and metal tended to go together, after all. Pushing the other floors down some more, I created a new section for my floors. Starting at the entrance, I made a winding path that extended for nearly a hundred kilometers. I made black mountains of stone along with forests of pillars. In an area surrounded by lava, cracks that reached almost endlessly into the ground, and sharp spikes that could end a person’s life with one wrong step, I created a deposit of mithril. Not just a small deposit, no. There were several hundred pounds that would refresh monthly.

I created automata of heat-resistant metal. Using scripts and some mana stones, I was able to coat the automata with lava. There were several varieties of the creations. The most common was imp-like and would mainly harass from a distance. They were weak, relatively speaking, to close-range abilities.

The next was a hell cat. It would stalk its prey until the opportune moment, then strike. If it failed, it would flee. It had the ability to cool the lava on its body so that it blended into the background. I expected this one to give the adventurers a decent amount of trouble until they learned about it.

Finally, I had a swarm of drakes. They would attack anything in their sights and were powerful enough to make a tier three work for it. Each swarm would have a pseudo-tier three in its midst as well. People would have to plan ahead to have camouflage or some other way to avoid detection.

I populated the floor, then checked the distribution of resources. If you stayed on the path, you possessed a relative amount of safety, but the best ore would be iron. The farther out from the path, the better the ore. Even if a person stayed on the path, they wouldn’t get a free ride to the next floor.

On the other side of the floor, I made a crumbling cave exit that was a hundred meters tall and forty meters wide. Wanting to work with what I knew, I pulled Vetur’s and Anubis’s patterns. I swapped the mana type with fire and let the magic go to work. In the center of the room, the magic pulled in mana at a tremendous pace.

The best way to describe the form that took shape in front of me was a giant dwarf. He was buff and stocky, but tall like a giant. A giant hammer rested next to him. Flames made up his eyes, beard, and hair. He wore a set of red and green armor, which I could see was an alloy of mithril and fire elemental mana stones.

The new floor boss bellowed as he became aware. He was one of the most advanced automata in the dungeon now. There was no doubt that he would gain self-awareness like the others. I would keep him in the dungeon for now until I learned more about him. Even though they were born right in front of my eyes, they all managed to have very developed personalities. Even more so the more powerful they started out at.

The new boss looked around the rather empty cave and frowned. He swung his massive hammer and smashed it on the ground. I watched, as I didn’t think he was throwing a tantrum. Sure enough, after the third swing, a massive anvil rose out of the ground. Engraved runes adorning it hummed with power.

“Hello, Son,” I said as I formed my avatar in front of him. He was over twice my height, but I held in my laughter. I considered Nova my son, and he was five or six times my size.

“Machine Father,” he said, nodding.

“What would you like to be called?” I asked.

“Hephaestus. The name calls to me,” he replied.

“The god of forging and fire, huh?” It was from Greek mythology. I really needed to investigate how the magic was pulling memories for my creations. Puppet had learned about ninjas just from being near my core.

“That sounds good. I’ll forge those that are worthy weapons that will resound throughout history!” Hephaestus shouted, holding his hammer in the air.

“Good plan. Just make sure they defeat you in a test of strength first,” I said with a laugh.

“How else will I know if they are worthy?” he said, looking at me with a confused expression.

“Fair enough. Do what you want on this floor. It’s your domain from this moment on. I’ll call upon you if I need you,” I said, letting my form fade.

“As you will it, Machine Father,” Hephaestus said.

I moved through the dungeon, not really sure what to work on next. There were several things pulling my attention but nothing that was critical. Many of them required more mana before I would be able to work on the project, such as Julie and Wrakras. If I were a mortal I would just sleep, but nothing had managed to incapacitate me since the mana EMP, and even then, I was still aware.

I cast my vision out, not really looking for anything in particular. Sophie caught my attention, floating high above the valley but still in the aura. She didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular, just floating there. Curiosity got the better of me, and I moved next to her.

“What are you doing, girl?” I asked as I made a semitransparent form in front of her.

“Stargazing,” she replied simply.

“I see. That is probably a good idea, considering your mana type,” I said, nodding.

“Why would the lights in the sky have any effect on my power to make things lighter or heavier?” she asked as she turned upside down and looked at me.

“That force is called gravity. It is actually the attraction between two objects. When you make an object heavier, you’re increasing the pull between the planet and the object, and vice versa. You can do some interesting things with the power of gravity,” I explained.

“Like what?”

Moving us next to the mountain wall of the valley, I pointed to a spot on the wall, and with her watching, I made a small black hole. I kept it limited, but it effected a twenty-meter range. Everything was pulled in and condensed in a matter of seconds. When I killed the spell, all that remained was a tiny ball of smooth stone that weighed several hundred pounds.

“Your brother and sister, or rather your family, seem to have grasped a tiny glimpse of this power. I hope you take it to a never before seen height,” I said, patting her head.

“Chloe . . .” Sophia said with a frown.

I smiled. “You might be part of my family now, but I will not deny you visiting your old family. If you should feel so inclined.”

She remained quiet but gave me a small nod. I was glad to see that she was calming down about the betrayal. I was sure the dungeon magic was part of that, but she needed to work through the trauma herself. I would keep working with her, but I felt it was the others in my dungeon that were doing most of the work. I knew Anna was keeping her company a lot.

I may do a lot of questionable things for the dungeon, but I wanted my creations to treat each other like family. I was the deterrent keeping many of them from fighting among themselves, but I wanted them to keep from fighting for the rest of their time in the dungeon.

Chapter 24

Louella

Shortly after the quake, we left the dwarven complex. They’d suffered a few injuries, so we didn’t want to get in the way. I cleared my mind of the incident. Regan said he was investigating, after all. I would leave it to him until it became a problem for the valley.

When I checked the reports, Ezal said that any damages caused by the quakes were being repaired automatically by the dungeon. As long as there were no casualties, I would ignore the situation. I was certainly not making an excuse, because I knew there wasn’t anything I could do.

The rest of the day was hectic. There were hundreds of details to cover before the festival in a few days. There had been some back and forth about going ahead with the Winter Welcome Festival, but I decided that we needed to go through with the event. People needed a release from the fear of the undead and uncertainty of the future.

I wanted to incorporate Regan into the festival for all the new people to become aware of the mind behind the dungeon. Particularly since more than a few planned to dive the dungeon. It would be a good idea for these poor souls, I mean, brave individuals to know what they were up against.

Speaking of diving into the dungeon, Regan had pulled his automata guards from the border and declared that diving was allowed again. There had been a line half a kilometer long to enter the dungeon, if the rumors were to believed. I, for one, was glad it was reopened, as it meant the dangerous adventurers would have an outlet for their more violent tendencies.

With all the things going on for Regan, he needed all the mana he could get. While the death rate wasn’t high for his dungeon, it was still there. With all these refugees in the town, I was sure a few of them would rush to their deaths. That wasn’t much my problem, as long as no one of considerable value was lost in the depths. I just added that to my list of worries and moved on to the next item.

Soon, the dark of night was leeching the light from my office. I cracked my neck and stood from my desk. I’d taken care of all that I could that night, and I would start again in the morning. My guards were waiting for me, and I nodded to them. I wouldn’t fall for the same problem a lot of nobles did. You treat the people responsible for your safety well.

Walking the halls of the castle at night always calmed me. The normally bustling place took on a new light after the sun fell and the day was over. The quiet was peaceful. I took a bit of a longer route to reach my chambers to enjoy it just that much longer. When I was passing the mess hall, I saw someone I hadn’t in a while. I smiled and walked in.

“Wrakras, are you sure you should be here?” I asked. Alara seemed to have an issue with him the other day, and Regan was quite taken with her. That was something I would have to keep an eye on. Not that I could do much about it, but at least if she tried to get him to kill all mortals, then I might be able to talk some sense into him.

He was leaning back in a comfortable chair, enjoying a few sweet-looking morsels. “Queen Louella, a pleasure to see you this afternoon. As for your question, my master has concealed my aura from the Lady Alara for the time being. My . . . mana has been weakening as of late, so he is going to fix that bitc . . . fix Julie first.”

“I see. Well it is good to see you. I have so many new faces around me every day, it is hard to keep track,” I said. I gestured to the guards that I would be a minute, and they took up positions nearby but far enough to give us privacy.

“I can imagine. Going from just a girl to queen in a few hours,” Wrakras said with a chuckle. I couldn’t see his face due to the mask Regan made him wear, but I could imagine the smirk he had right now.

“There are pros and cons but I’m adapting. Much like you when you first ‘joined’ us here in the valley,” I said with a grin. I would never forget that the one who’d kidnapped me and used me to lure Regan away from his dungeon was this man. I’d forgiven him, of course, but I didn’t plan to let him live it down.

“You try being crushed through a hole barely large enough to put your hand in,” he retorted, then took a bite of a piece of cake. I would never understand how he could like food so much. Especially sweets.

“I plan on keeping that experience pretty low on my list of things to do,” I said. A maid brought me a cup of tea and a few snacks. I thanked her and we sat in silence for a few minutes while we enjoyed our individual treats. “I’m surprised Regan hasn’t just thrown Julie from the side of his very tall building.”

“I think she fascinates him. He seems to enjoy collecting . . . oddities, or creating them himself. Who creates a dragon? And his dungeon’s not that deep, or at least it wasn’t then,” Wrakras said, leaning to put his chin in his hand. “My master is one scary individual. The few bonds that hold beings back that are left on him might not last much longer.”

“I thought he already planned to be a god anyway?” I asked with some confusion.

“You forget due to Lelune, but a god is very different from a Celestial. I never thought about it before, but after learning a lot of things from being with Master, a few pieces from my necromancer days have fallen into place.”

“Wait. I thought Celestials were basically gods?” I asked, surprised. I knew from Izora and her people that Lelune was a traitor to the other gods, but it was deeper than I thought. I would need to get more information on this.

“Nope. Turns out they are basically the midway point,” Wrakras said, tapping his mask in thought.

“Interesting.” I noticed the clock. It was much later than I would have liked it to be. “If you plan to be in the castle, feel free to join my guard. At least it will give you something to do away from the dungeon.”

He held his cup up. “I might take you up on that,” he said, then took a sip.

~~~

Morning came quicker than I would have liked. First thing on my rather long list of things to do today was talk to Regan about being part of the festival. Good thing I knew he didn’t sleep. I tapped my bracelet, planning on just talking to him telepathically, but when I blinked, I found myself in a completely different place.

I was overlooking his Steel Spire town from the platform on the side of the tower. “Damn it, Regan! You know I hate it when you do this to me,” I said, looking around for him.

A disembodied chuckling resounded around me as he formed his body. I still found it strange to watch. I was in for another surprise—when his body finished forming, it looked almost like a mortal man standing in front of me and not his usual metal body.

He had black hair and looked to be a bit older, probably in his later forties or early fifties. He was still rather handsome for his age with only a few hints showing. It was more how he held himself that really said his age. He was a bit thin for my taste.

“What can I do for you this morning?” he asked, bringing me back to my senses.

“Regan, are you feeling alright?!” I asked, unable to hold back.

He tilted his head in confusion. “I feel perfectly fine. Why?”

I gestured at him. “Look at yourself.”

He narrowed his eyes but formed a mirror from mana. I noticed him pause when he saw himself. Then he rubbed a hand down his cheek. “Interesting. Again, this spell throws me another curveball.” He tapped a part of his neck, and a seam opened with a hiss of air. He reached up and picked his head up off his shoulders. “Just making sure.” He laughed, then put his head back on. So, very much not mortal, after all.

“Is that what you used to look like?” I asked.

“A bit younger. Full head of black hair had a bit of white when I left my old world,” Regan said with a shrug. “Now. To business.”

“Right . . . I want you to take part in the festival in two days. Mainly a display of magic so people can see how powerful you are.”

“Doesn’t sound too hard. I need to get Alara used to mortals, mind if I bring her along?”

I really didn’t want a traumatized dungeon core wandering around during something like this, but Regan would keep an eye on her. “I suppose as long as you watch her it should be safe enough,” I said slowly.

“Don’t worry. I doubt many people could harm her,” Regan said, waving me off.

“It’s not her I’m worried about,” I retorted.

“Fair enough. Alright, alright. I’ll keep an eye on her. I’ll treat it like a date.”

“I think I liked the cruel you more,” I said, without thinking.

“A bit of a masochist, are we?” he asked with a smirk.

“Very much not.” I hated pain. “I’m just worried you’re losing yourself.”

His eyes narrowed at me. Eyes that were still extremely crimson and seemed to bore holes into my soul. “You don’t have to worry about me. I was held captive for long enough in one life. Nothing will do that to me again. Not even love.”

“Got it,” I said, holding my hands up in peace. Don’t mention his love life, I thought, making a mental note.

“Leave a note on your side table about when you would like me to make my appearance, and I’ll be there,” he said, then waved his hand.

I found myself sitting back at my desk. The only thought I had was: When did Regan get good enough at teleporting that I don’t even feel nauseous anymore?

Chapter 25

Regan

I sent Louella back, then stared at the image reflected in the mirror. I was surprised to see my old face again. I knew that my Avatar spell could have created a mortal body based on any image I had in mind, but I’d never actually attempted to use it for bringing my old body back. I was quite content with the bodies made of machine and metal.

Alara suddenly appeared above me and fell. I reached out instinctively and caught her. “Morning!” she said, the most cheerful I’d ever heard her.

“Morning. I see you are in a good mood.” She still showed an almost expressionless mask, but I could sense that she was happier for some reason.

“Claimed . . . another floor . . . in my . . . dungeon,” she said with a little laugh.

“Good! You’re managing to cleanse the unholy mana much faster than we thought,” I said. It was a project that would take months.

“Yes! Son . . . big help. When . . . he return?” she asked, glancing around.

“Ah, in a bit. He’s helping clear some taint in another place right now. He’ll be back soon though.” I actually wasn’t sure how long Anubis would be. I didn’t have the mana to launch any large-scale assaults or hunt down the necromancers still free in the world. I was firmly stuck in the defensive court for the moment.

“I . . . see. What are . . . you doing right . . . now?”

“Nothing. I have to let my mana build up for my many projects I’m working on,” I said as I adjusted my hold on her, then put her in a princess carry. I’d heard somewhere that most women liked that, though I wasn’t sure it would hold true for a dungeon core.

She looked closely at my face. “You look . . . smoother today.” She even went so far as to poke my cheek.

“This is sort of what I used to look like before I became a dungeon core,” I answered, smiling softly. “My old world was much different, while still being much the same.”

“Glad . . . you’re here . . . now,” Alara said, then wrapped her arms around my neck. “Hair might . . . look better . . . with a . . . bit of gray . . . though.” She giggled as she ran her fingers through my hair. I blinked at her statement, then my hair faded a bit from its shiny black to a more dusted color. “Much better.”

“How about we go talk to the Ly’call? Hear some of their story?” I asked and got a nod in reply. I grinned and stepped forward and we were on the space station. I’d allowed the Ly’call to move into a small district in the living section. They’d settled in nicely and appeared to be enjoying the wonders that were available on the station.

They were doing much better after a few days on the station. Mainly, their health had spiked up for the better. Malnourishment was the biggest issue, but they had been riddled with a myriad of other health concerns and issues. My doctors were able to fix most of the surface issues quickly, but the deeper things would take time. We had to learn the biology of their race, after all.

Groups of the Ly’call were walking the street excitedly. They would pause and bow to me, and I would wave them on. Part of the excitement seemed to stem from the fact they were never full enough to be able to move around so freely, but the newness of their surroundings also gave energy to their strides. I likened them to children that were seeing new curiosities every moment. Roughly a third were learning to read from some automata I sent down to teach them. I was pleased to hear they were very fast learners, almost absorbing the information like sponges. I made sure to keep the dangerous stuff away from them, but basic science and magic were taught.

“Interesting . . . children,” Alara said, looking around at the Ly’call.

“Yes. Yes, they are. I’ve rarely seen such . . . childlike innocence since I came to this world. It’s a nice change of pace,” I replied. This world of Murgin was very much built along the lines of might makes right. While it allowed me to do what I wanted, after months of fighting, even I was starting to get tired of it.

We made our way to where the elder had set up shop. He was the most eager to learn and had devoured the English writing system in a matter of two days. He was now helping the younger ones to understand. They were taking a break when we reached the house.

“Elder, sorry for not coming to speak with you sooner. Mind if we drop in on you?” I asked.

“Lord Regan! Of course. Please come in.” He turned to the other Ly’call that were with him. Most would be roughly twenty or thirty years old by human standards. “We will pick up where we left off in a few hours. Why don’t you all head out and practice for a while?”

They all bowed to him and made their way out of the house. “Looks like you are all settling in nicely,” I said, looking at the happy faces they all wore.

“Indeed. We can never repay even this small respite that you have afforded us. Many of the young ones here have never known a full belly since their birth,” the elder said, staring off after them.

“I wanted to ask you about that. I have examined the data from the ship, and I was amazed that your people have survived as long as you have. Many of the facilities were shielded, and I hoped you would be able to tell me more.”

When Klumabus had returned, they’d brought a tremendous amount of data about the moon. The Ly’call lived on the desert surface around a few oases that we found were artificial. Facilities underground would pump water to the surface, among other things. The biggest discovery was that the atmosphere was being created as well. Basically, it was terraformed by someone for people to live on it.

“I apologize. I have no knowledge about what you ask about,” the elder said, shaking his head.

“How about old legends passed down through the ages?” I asked. Many tribal people would pass their lessons and history down to the next generation through songs or stories. The Ly’call might have something similar.

“There is only one story told. Would you like to hear it?”

“Please.”

“Many generations ago, we lived in a place called Murgin. A great tragedy happened that forced us and our neighboring tribe to leave the place. Luckily, there were other places that our neighboring tribe had made livable due to the efforts of many lives. The Great Mother brought us to our home, Lyrale. She then took our neighbors with her to find new lands to settle.” The way he mentioned lives had a notation of sadness. I could only assume that they used a type of magic or science that was unforgiving on the earlier generations.

I nodded along. It sounded pretty straightforward when I paired it with the few pieces of history I’d managed to collect so far. Either the Ly’call were more advanced back in the past, and the Arcarins helped them migrate to the moon to survive something that was happening on the planet at the time. Or, the Arcarins used them as lab rats to test terraforming techniques or technology.

Either could have resulted in their society coming to a pause due to lack of resources. I would have to inspect the facilities under the surface to maybe find more concrete information. I was also beginning to wonder if the constructs we had to deal with before weren’t part of some ancient defensive system left behind by the Arcarins. The question then would be, what were they defending against?

“According to the story, the Great Mother visited often for a time. Until one day she never returned. Since then the land has slowly wilted away from beneath our feet. The lands that are livable are only a tiny fraction of what we used to be able to inhabit. Had you not come along, we might have perished in less than a few years.”

“That is quite fortunate. I was told that there was a prophecy. Would you mind reciting it to me?”

“Not at all. When the Great Mother left, she left behind a tablet. It shows a depiction of men coming from the skies, then taking us with them back into the sky. Surely, it can only mean that we would be saved once the sky people came to us. And as you have done, we have been saved!” the elder said excitedly. His tentacles waved crazily in the air around his head.

I nodded and didn’t refute his claim. Worshipping was a big part of this world. Just these hundred beings alone were a decent chunk of adherent mana for me. If I could bring all the people on the moon under my protection, I could only see it as a win-win situation.

“Thank you, Elder. Please, make yourself at home. I will hopefully have the rest of your people brought here as soon as I can,” I said, squeezing his shoulder.

“Thank you! I hope I never have to see a child starve again,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye.

“I will work to make that a reality,” I said with a grin.

Alara had fallen asleep in my arms and had her head against my chest. I almost envied her. Since coming to Murgin, the only time I’d “slept” was when I’d blasted my core with a laser. And when the necromancers knocked me out, but even then, I was awake in my mindscape.

I took a walk through the station. Once I was past the section housing the Ly’call, it grew quite quiet. I personally enjoyed the quiet. It allowed my think about things I needed to do. The situation in the east was being handled for the moment, with Anubis aiding them. The undead scar would have to be dealt with at the source, but my mana reserves were too low to do anything.

The necromancer capital still stood in the northeast. With the satellites, we were able to detect a field around the city. I didn’t want to launch or fire anything at it until we gathered more data on it. The last thing I needed to do was cause another wave around the planet.

Louella was dealing with Thonaca. I planned to stay out of as much of the politics as I could. While I could steamroll over everything I’d seen so far, that didn’t mean there weren’t more things out there that could resist me. I didn’t want to wake a demon or something worse that could be sealed in some ancient palace.

The moon Krona came into view through one of the windows I was passing. That was an entirely different box that needed to be opened slowly. There hadn’t been anything since the other day, but I made sure to keep enough sensors to see an ant sneeze pointed at the ball of rock. Still, as about the only thing to give me trouble, it had been moved quite close to the top of my priority list.

My harvesters were working overtime to pull in as much material as fast as possible to create more units and ships. There wasn’t much of a mana cost until I activated the units and ships. I was creating a sort of backlog that I could activate quickly in case of emergencies. It was all a process.

Alara yawned as she opened her eyes. “Done . . . talking?”

“Yeah. Have a good nap?” I asked, smiling down at her.

She nodded, then looked up and saw the moon. “Beautiful.”

“Yes, it is. And full of mysteries.”

She snuggled in closer to my chest. “Nothing . . . hide from . . . you.”

I laughed. “No. No it won’t,” I said as I turned to keep walking.

Chapter 26

Regan

There was a lot of preparation to be done before Louella’s festival. Mainly, getting the airships ready for her forces. I couldn’t use the more advanced ones that I’d built recently. They had a bit too much power for the people using them, and I didn’t want them to get any funny ideas.

I went with the gnomish design of a flying sailing ship. They would be familiar with that, after all. I mainly focused on the insides. Several layers of armor, an internal and external shielding program, weapons, and of course the all-important portal matrix. That would be the most difficult part.

There were several ways I could go through with the portal. I just wasn’t sure which would be best in the long run. I worked and reworked the designs over several hours and finally had a working model that I thought would have the least impact on the civilization of the world, not that I was too worried about that at this point. I just didn’t care for it being used against me.

I already had a working portal from my experiments in the north. Replicating that, I built a large templelike structure off to the side of the town’s military district. It wasn’t actually called that, but it was growing to be quite large. I didn’t feel comfortable letting the mortals have full access to the portals. Thus, I created a security force and control force for the portal structure.

The standing force wouldn’t hinder any of the travel unless something was wrong with the portal. They would, however, stop anyone from trying to study them until I was sure they wouldn’t blow a crater the size of a mountain somewhere. The ancient cities had had teleport matrixes for centuries, and they hadn’t replicated those yet, so I wasn’t very worried.

The system used a power mana generator. That would keep it from pulling from my reserves, and the mortals would have to manage their travel a little more closely. A good harmless regulator in my opinion. That didn’t mean I couldn’t tap into the system to give it some juice when needed.

That just left the airships. I was going to give them two. There would be more than enough room for all the soldiers they planned to send. I decided to throw in a control crew. I didn’t want the mortals to crash the thing into the side of the mountains, after all.

Taking a shortcut, I copied the Raiu to save time. It looked like a twentieth-century Earth battleship from World War Two. I skipped the magicked ancient siege weapons and went for more modern turrets and artillery. They would be controlled by my automata, so there wasn’t any worry of the plans leaking out. Not that many mortals would truly understand them.

With that, my heavily armored taxi was ready. I was all for bringing more mortals under my aura. I felt like I never had enough mana since the battle to take Alara’s dungeon. Thanks to Louella, I might be bringing a whole city under my aura. Not to mention Puppet’s sub-core. If I was able to bring both Ebony Falls and Tearfalls under my aura, that would be close to a million mortals.

“What are . . . you plotting?” Alara asked, tapping my arm.

I looked down and saw her sitting on a stack of beams. I was so caught up in the construction that I’d failed to notice her pop in. I swear, I’m going to get myself killed due to my lack of awareness while building shit. I just sighed it away as the engineer at heart that I was.

“Just building some toys. Remember the floating ships? Building a few of those,” I explained.

“I . . . see. Like water . . . ones better,” she said, letting her body fall back to stare up at the ceiling.

“I won’t deny that sailing vessels have their own charms,” I said with a chuckle.

The shipyard in the Steel Spire, my forest core, was going full steam building the new airships. They were less complicated than the ones I was building regularly now, so it would only take a few hours. This would save me the most amount of mana in the long run.

I left the shipyard and went to the command center of the space station. I wanted to check the status of everything, a process that could take several hours if I let it build up. It appeared I arrived at a good time, as we’d just received a report from Darr over on the west front. With the necromancers cut off, they’d disappeared from that side. I presumed they’d fled south into Thonaca.

Pulling up the display and reading her report quickly, I saw that she’d found a dungeon off the northern coast. Interesting. I wondered if they’d flooded the entire dungeon or just the first floors. I would have to check it out before long.

“Do you know this dungeon?” I asked Alara.

She nodded. “Ornia. Stopped . . . talking to . . . me several dozen . . . years ago.”

I moved us to her core room. This would be the best place to attempt to communicate with a core so far north. Looking around, I considered that last time I was here it was basically a dungeon, not the good kind. That was until it was turned into a crater.

The room was now in better shape. A tree that grew from floor to ceiling dominated the center of the two-hundred-meter-tall cavern. Alara’s core floated in the center of the tree, which grew around it. Three lines of my most powerful automata surrounded the core in case something managed to slip in. Alara only truly controlled a portion of her dungeon, after all.

Extending my unique signature out, I felt for any response. When I had just about reached the limit of my senses, I finally felt something. I probed it to see if she would respond. For a moment nothing happened, then the scene around us faded and we stood in a room that was split in three directions, sort of like a triangle.

Each of us was represented by a mindscape of sorts, much like on previous occasions that I’d talked to other dungeon cores. An elf with scales, gills, and greenish-blue coloring sat across from me. She held a trident that I could feel radiated power even in this mental construct. I would have to be careful around this person.

Her space was underwater. A sunken ship’s captain’s cabin was what came to mind as I looked it over. Fish swam lazily, and a treasure chest full of gold and jewels sat in the corner.

“Hello. I am Regan, a core to the south,” I said, trying to start off on a good tone.

“What is the traitor doing here?” Ornia demanded, pointing at Alara.

“She is not a traitor. She was a captive. I have freed her from her captors,” I said, scowling.

“She could have denotated her core! Death is better than serving those . . . those monsters!”

“Didn’t . . . want . . . to die!” Alara, said curling into a ball on her wooden throne.

“Look. I came here today just to meet you, and to give you a warning. I don’t know if you know him, but Vlad from over to the east was killed. I don’t know the damage to his core. It was done by a demon general.”

Ornia’s eyes widened. “Another evil in a world full of enough evil to destroy it already,” she said with a growl. I noticed her teeth were like razors, similar to a shark’s.

“True. But at least I am trying to deal with the evil rather than hiding away in a fishbowl,” I retorted.

“Hide! Hide, you say! Thousands! Thousands of my children have those monsters killed. Why must I suffer and watch my children go to their deaths for those vermin that only want dungeons for their treasures and power?!”

“Have you reached out to help? Or seek help? Not everyone is a fighter. I am well aware of this fact. However, you could have helped with supplies, armor, or maybe you could have scouted. I am not saying fight them yourself. This isn’t a war anyone can win by themselves.”

Well, maybe I could, but that was beside the point. Ornia remained silent as she thought. Whether about a comeback or actually considering my words, only she would be able to tell me.

“Leave me! I will not suffer your insults,” she said finally. With a wave of her hand, the link broke and we were back in Alara’s core room.

“She seemed nice,” I said, looking at Alara.

“Friend . . . scared . . . understand . . .” Alara said with a hurt expression.

I grabbed her shoulder to comfort her. “Don’t worry. When you’re feeling stronger, you’ll be able to convince her.”

She nodded. I was about to leave the core room when I felt another presence on my mind. It was from the east, which would put it smack in the middle of necromancer territory.

“Who is this?” I asked, more to myself.

I was about to connect to it when Alara grabbed my hand. I looked to her, and fear was etched on her face. She shook her head rapidly. “Bad. Very bad!”

I narrowed my eyes at her reaction. Call me stupid, but it made me want to see who this was all the more. I wanted to know who could cause such fear in her. I grabbed her hand and cupped it in mine. “Don’t worry. I have a few tricks of my own.”

I stood and connected to the presence. The mindscapes built around me. I sat in my electric throne and stared at the other side. Gold lined every surface of another throne room. Sitting on a black throne was a man who wore a robe over armor that was fit for a king. When the head of the person rose, I saw it was not actually a man. It was a lich.

“Are you the one giving them so much trouble?” the creature asked with a lethargic tone.

“Them being the parasitic nuisance I’ve had to deal with since my creation?” I asked, leaning back in my chair. To be honest, I expected more—an eldritch horror, a being not of this world, or something. Him being just another undead kind of ruined the moment for me.

The lich gave a dry laugh. “Quite. The first generation was much more . . . more,” he said, seemingly losing his thought.

“I feel like you used to be much more . . . more,” I replied.

“I have forgotten more than you could possibly learn, boy,” the lich retorted.

“To the field then?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“I await your forces with open arms,” he replied before the scene burst into dust.

Alara held my hand with a worried look. I looked down at her and grinned.

“That was a letdown. Know anyone a bit scarier?” I asked, bringing her hand to my lips and giving it a kiss. She blushed while shaking her head. “Then we’re fine. I’m not afraid of a dusty old relic.”

Chapter 27

Louella

It was relatively silent in our council room, considering how busy we were with everything going on, until the sound of tapping resounded throughout. I lifted my hand to stop myself as my impatience got to me. Ezal, who’s stomach had finally started to swell noticeably of late, sat to my right. The person she’d chosen as the commander of the rescue fleet, Major James, sat next to her. On my left, Bruce and the commander of the soon-to-be built fort, Major Winda, sat with some tension. It was hard to tell which location was going to be more dangerous.

“How goes the preparations?” I asked Ezal.

“We are just waiting for the airships from Lord Regan. All the supplies and equipment that we expect to need have been gathered and prepared. Several of the White Fist have offered to join us, which should be more than enough on the healing front.”

“I’ve read reports of them, but I wasn’t sure what I was reading. What exactly are the White Fist?” I asked, pausing my finger for a second.

“An interesting group. As you know Lord Regan’s hospital offers to teach people their unique healing magics. They are required to take a magic oath that restricts them from using the magic on people in any violent capacity. One man found that he was still allowed to use his own body and developed a fighting method using the magic to keep them going,” Major James explained.

“They were able to get away with that?” I asked. One of the few things I knew Regan hated was people using his things in a way there weren’t intended for.

“One of the teacher automata noted it one day but said as long as the magic itself wasn’t being used for violence, they were ok with it,” he replied.

“How many of them are there?” If a force that was hard to kill was being built in my borders, I wanted to know about it.

Major James tilted his head to think for a moment before he replied. “Last report put them at close to fifty strong. It takes a strong heart to make it with them.”

“Keep me informed. They sound like they could be of great value in the coming days, or a very dangerous threat right next to our throats.”

Ezal laughed as she reached out and patted my arm. “I got your security covered, my lady. During the festival, the White Fist plan to pledge their loyalty to Vaihdetta.”

I leaned back in my chair. “That does make me a bit more relieved. Getting back on track.”

“With the White Fist and our own healers, we’ll be able to bring significant relief to the area. We have a force of five hundred and another two hundred in reserve that, if the portal system works, we’ll be able to trade out regularly to help with fatigue,” Ezal said while looking at her notes. “I’m pretty confident in the abilities of Lord Regan’s airship, but I plan to have a messenger set to go through the portal in case things go wrong.”

“Excellent. Keep up the good work.” I turned to Bruce. “On your end?”

“Much the same. The confidence level is high for the soldiers heading to the border defense. I have had a few inquiries about whether Lord Regan will be suppling any weapons for the fort defense. We are standing at five hundred strong with a similar reserve. Honestly, if the portal is as reliable as the one in the capital, then this will be one of the best defended points on the map.”

“What about here?”

“The capital has a standing force of two thousand. Now that the dungeon has reopened, we have started shifts of four hundred at a time. We are already seeing major improvement after only two days. The two gentlemen that Lady Ezal recruited to lead the expeditions are fulfilling their purpose well,” Major James said.

“The two?” I asked, trying to remember if she’d mentioned something about that to me.

“The two individuals that destroyed a restaurant a few months ago. I felt letting their . . . talents go to waste sitting in the cell was pointless. And if they die in the dungeon, we don’t lose a talented officer. They are bound by a magical contract, and with the dungeon, they are able to release their pent-up energy. The men actually like them,” Ezal explained.

“I’ll have to hear more about this later. Continue with the situation here,” I said.

“The majority of our forces are under tier one, but we do have a central force that is in tier two. Thanks to Lord Regan, we have people breaking through almost every day. The festival security is planned and ready. I will not let another valley event be ruined,” Ezal said, pounding her fist on her chest with a stern look.

I laughed and said, “I hope not. I think people might rethink supporting me if we let a third attack happen during the festival.”

“Exactly,” Ezal said with a nod.

“Speaking of issues. I feel the Lelune Church here in the valley might need to be handled soon,” Major Winda said, leaning forward.

I turned to her. “Are they causing problems? I haven’t received any reports.”

“With the number of refugees flooding into the valley, quite a few full clergies from the town churches that got out quickly have made their way here. They are staying to themselves for now, but I’m worried the more . . . radical ones will take offense when we start construction on Lord Regan’s temple,” she answered.

I nodded and looked to Ezal. “What do you think?”

She tapped the table for a second before she answered. “It’s difficult. We really can’t make a move until they make one. Mainly, it depends on the image you want to project.”

If I rounded them up and separated them, that would be sending a message I don’t want. I had nothing against Lelune personally. I doubted I would ever meet her, after all. Regan on the other hand might have a very real chance of doing just that, if Wrakras was to be believed. No, the best course for me would be to accept them and try to work them over to Regan’s side. The fact that they weren’t stuck in undead-covered Lecazar should earn us some points.

“Let’s us keep an eye on them but also keep a hand out to them. As long as they follow the rules and laws of Vaihdetta, I will not condemn them,” I said finally.

“As you wish,” everyone said, bowing their heads.

That mostly concluded the meeting. The officers talked about the more minor details among themselves. I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. I was feeling completely drained. There was just so much that needed to be done. I wanted to just retreat to my room and stay there for a few days. I knew that couldn’t happen, but it was a nice daydream.

~~~

The day of the festival finally arrived. I felt like the previous two days were more like two months. The Winter Welcome Festival celebrated the end of the harvest season and let people know that the time for rest had arrived. It was hard to get around on the continent during winter, and travel would usually grind to a halt during the four-month period.

“My lady, please raise your arms,” the maid said, bringing me back to the moment. I did so, and my attendants slid the dress on. Once that was done, they attached plates of armor made from a mithril alloy. The dress was every elegant and majestic with blue and silver colors. I felt awed just wearing it. The dwarves had made this armor for me in tribute. The best thing was that it incorporated the armor Regan had made for me. On the left breast was the coat of arms of Vaihdetta.

Finally, I was dressed and ready. I made my way out to the entrance hall, where a procession waited for me. Ezal stood to the side, wearing a dress that was accented in red. When she walked, she reminded me of a living flame. My soldiers wore uniforms of green and gray. I felt we created a very regal image.

“Ready?” Ezal asked with a curtsy.

“As I’ll ever be,” I replied with a smile.

I got in the middle of the procession, then signaled the guard. The massive gate that had never once been used since Regan had built the castle began to lower. The gate was easily forty meters tall. As it lowered, the castle descended, settling lower in the crater that it floated over.

With a resounding boom, the gate finished opening. A huge crowd stood gathered at the end of the bridge that connected the castle to the town. The soldiers began marching, and I walked slowly along with them, Ezal right next to me. The crowd cheered as we made our way down the street to the center plaza.

I smiled and waved slowly. The crowd fell into step behind us as we walked. When we arrived at the center plaza, my soldiers surrounded it and Ezal and I walked onto the stage. The cheering reached a new level as the entire crowd could see us.

I couldn’t help but look out over the people and feel a warmth in my chest. These were my people now. I had to do everything in my power to make sure they were safe. To make sure they were able to pursue a life, family, or whatever they wanted to make of themselves.

I was also grateful that my people liked me so much. I knew it was hard times, so much of this might be for show, but I preferred looking at it appreciatively rather than pessimistically. I continued to wave to the crowd as we waited for a few more people. Skywood arrived a few minutes later, along with Drine Wintergrasp. Those were the only two Thonaca nobles I was tolerating right now. The rest were on house arrest. Those two stood on the right side of the plaza.

Of the two dozen Lecazar nobles who had managed to make it to Vaihdetta, only three managed to make it through my questioning. They also lined the other side of the plaza. Chloe stood with them even though I’d tried to convince her she didn’t have to.

A spinning golden circle formed in the air next to me. Everyone quieted down as they watched the magic. A metal room appeared in the image before Regan stepped through, blocking the view with Alara next to him. He wore a black and silver robe that was fit for royalty, and his gear crown topped his head.

Alara wore a beautiful dress that reminded me of a flower blooming. The color appeared to change as she moved but never clashed with itself. Her black iron crown resided on her head, the only thing that was throwing off the picture. That said, it only added to the imagery.

Another portal opened, and Izora and a few of her people came through it. She bowed to me, then went to stand to one side of the stage. From there, everyone who held some level of importance made their way around the stage. With them all gathered here, I realized that my tiny valley really had grown into quite a strong place.

Chapter 28

Regan

“You don’t have to go if you’re worried,” I said to Alara as she created a new dress. The third one in the last twenty seconds.

“Go . ..” she said, checking herself in the mirror I created for her. I was surprised she cared about her looks.

“Alright. Just make sure you stay close to me,” I said.

I didn’t know where she’d learned about fashion, but she actually had a good grasp of it. All the dresses she created would be worth a fortune. They moved and looked beautiful. The problem, at least in my opinion, was that she could literally create the dresses in seconds. She couldn’t come to a decision with a virtually endless supply to choose from.

“How about I make your dress?” I asked finally.

The one she was wearing melted, and she was left in the nude. Being a dungeon core, my sexual drive had been almost nonexistent until now. I mean I could literally see anything I wanted to in the town that was under my aura. I could only stare at her. Alara had a low sense of modesty, after all. I assumed most dungeon cores did.

“Regan?” Alara asked after I wasn’t sure how much time.

I came back to my senses. “Huh? Ah! One moment.”

I really didn’t want to cover up the lovely sight before me, but alas, the universe was unfair. It didn’t take me long to figure out what to do though. Nature suited her best, after all. I created a dress that could mimic any flower that Alara knew about. It would also show different images to people looking at her.

“Beautiful!” she said, doing a twirl.

I smiled. “Glad to hear it.”

She caught me by surprise as she jumped and wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me full on the lips. “Thank you!”

“Anytime,” I said, laughing happily at her reaction. “I guess we have a party to get to.”

At the snap of my fingers, a golden portal opened in front of us that led out onto the stage. We walked out, Alara gripping my hand tightly when she saw the massive number of people on the other side. I snapped my finger again, and the gnome group came from their district.

With a nod to Louella, I went to stand to one side of the stage. This was her shindig, after all. The next few minutes were a showcase of the people she had managed to bring to her side. Even with the gnomes being here more for me, that might not have happened without Louella. I had rubbed her the wrong way when she first arrived. I was honestly impressed there were so many of them.

To the left were the Lecazar people, and I spotted Sophia’s sister among them. The little brat Sophia never stayed in one place for more than a minute, so it was hard for even me to track her down. She was over at Steel Spire right now, straight out refusing to be near the mortals as they celebrated.

When everyone arrived, Louella moved up to the center of the stage. “Welcome, everyone, to the Winter Welcome Festival! I could give a long speech about the strength and courage of everyone coming together. Instead I’ll just say this. Drink! Eat! Enjoy the company of each other. Let us celebrate another year about to end. Welcome!” Here short speech was magically amplified to reach every corner of the plaza and then some.

She and Ezal pointed their hands toward the sky. A surge of magic shot into the air from each of them. With a boom, they caused an explosion that resounded throughout the valley. A boisterous cheer went up from the crowd that rippled throughout the entire town. Music began to fill the air as musicians began playing various songs.

The central plaza cleared of people, and dance circles formed where single women would call for men to come dance with them. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the happiness on everyone’s face. Food and drink flowed without stopping. There were going to be quite a few drunks tonight.

“Nice party. I got to give it to you,” I said to Louella. We were all sitting in throne-like chairs with a table of our own. I didn’t have to eat, but Alara could enjoy it, given she had a mortal avatar. She picked at the food though.

“I feel like that’s high praise coming from you,” Louella said, tapping the arm of her throne with her finger.

“And you would be right,” I said, chuckling.

“Is the event ready for later?”

“Yup. You’ll love it,” I said.

She rubbed her temple “Knowing you, I’m sure it’s over the top.”

“And? What would happen if I didn’t deliver? That would just ruin our entire relationship,” I said as I stood. “Alara and I will be around.”

“Have fun.” Louella waved to us as we walked down from the stage.

Everyone stared but didn’t do anything beyond that. Most of the mortals here had never really interacted with me. They only knew that I was the dungeon host and that I could level the city if I wanted to.

“What do you want to do?” I asked Alara once we cleared the main crowd. It appeared that just about everyone in the town was out on the streets.

“I want . . . to see . . . plants,” Alara said.

“Got it.”

I took her arm in mine, and we headed for the commerce district. We ducked into an alley and emerged looking like regular humans, illusions of course. Walking along like this, I was finding it hard to call this a town. It was more a full-blown city by this point. I couldn’t remember the statistics that qualified a settlement as a city from back on Earth, but this would surely make the cut.

Most of the buildings in the central district were over five stories tall and comprised a number of businesses and housing. With me spreading more modern construction techniques, the buildings were going up even faster, and they’d gone up fast before thanks to the magic developed by the Builders Guild. Needless to say, I was impressed.

After a few minutes we made it to the herbalist. The shopkeeper here had a lot of cool samples, I mean plants, that I’ve looked into a few times for my dungeon. I didn’t know if Alara would enjoy it, but there were only a few more to check. I pushed the door open and held it for Alara.

“Welcome! Festival sale going on right now. All ingredients ten percent off,” a voice called from inside. Looking deeper in the shop, I could see an older gentleman writing in a book at the counter. He was a beastkin, but his age made it hard for me to identify his exact kind. I wanted to say a canine-type though.

“Thank you,” I said, then turned to Alara. “Let me know if you want anything. I’ll even be legit and pay for it.”

Alara went over to the first shelves, which were placed along the window. The keeper had rigged a few magical items that supplied water to the plants at regular intervals. She walked over to the first plant and ran her hand along its leaf. I could just barely sense the subtle use of mana. When she removed her hand, she had a smile.

“Keeper . . . good person. Plants . . . like him,” she said.

She spent the next twenty minutes making her way around the shop and talking to all the plants. I wasn’t just standing idly by. Sure enough, given that alcohol was involved, there were a few fights and altercations throughout the town. I made sure my automata were up for the task while also ordering a larger presence in the rougher parts.

“My. They sure like you, little miss,” the keeper said, pulling his nose out of the book he was writing. “I haven’t seen them this happy since summer ended.”

“She likes plants and they like her,” I said, walking up to the counter. “Not going to the festival?”

“No. An old man like me would just get in the way of the younger folk. I very much like my cozy shop surrounded by my friends.”

“You . . . a good . . . person. I like . . . you,” Alara said as she came up next to me.

“Anyone who’s a friend of plants is a friend of mine. Feel free to drop by anytime. I think they would like that as well,” the keeper said with a smile. “You two should be out there! No need to flirt in my shop and make an old man jealous.” The keeper threw me a wink while making a shooing gesture.

I laughed as I grabbed Alara’s hand and pulled her outside. We spent the rest of the day walking around and checking out various shops and attractions. Most of the merchants in town were pulling out all the stops to get a few extra gold today. Overall, I felt we had a good time. It was good to take a break every now and then, even from war.

“It’s time for Louella’s magic trick,” I said.

Alara just nodded. This was the longest she’d been active since I’d saved her. I picked her up in a princess carry, then jumped to the nearest roof. I turned toward where my dungeon entrance was, and my smile grew broader as the sun set.

“People of Vaihdetta! I am Regan! The Machine Father! As long as you are with Vaihdetta, you are protected!” My voice rang out across the valley. It was prerecorded, as I didn’t know how the day would go.

The sun set and a blinding beam of mana fired from my dungeon. It flew until it hit a spot directly above the valley, several thousand meters in the air. A silver lattice spread from the spot and domed down toward the mountains. The gaps in between the silver lattice threads filled. Images of the various races appeared on its surface. I wanted something that would actually speak to the inhabitants of the town.

“Nicely done, if I do say so myself,” I said, looking the shield over.

“Pretty,” Alara said with heavy eyes.

I smiled and leaned down to give her a quick kiss. She smiled back before passing out. This woman was going to get me in trouble in the future, I just knew it. I sighed, then paced over to Louella’s location.

She was still at the table that was set for her and appeared to be in some sort of competition with the dwarves. I watched from the nearby rooftop to see if I could get an idea of the mood. When I saw that it was just a drinking competition, I shook my head and jumped down.

“REGAN!” Louella yelled when she saw me. Her entire face was red, and she was swaying back and forth. I was impressed that she knew it was me, considering I still had my illusion on.

I looked to Ezal. “How much has she had?” I asked, worried about her image.

“Well . . . she was competing against dwarves, so three kegs. Turns out she is very competitive. She beat the dwarves, if that’s saying anything.” Three dwarves were lying around the table, drunk into unconsciousness.

“As long as she is ready to face the consequences in the morning,” I said, laughing.

“Don’t talk about me when I’m right here,” Louella said, or slurred. She walked over and poked me in the arm. “I am in full . . . full . . . full control.”

“I see that.”

“You . . . you don’t believe me!” she accused, pointing. “You always treat . . . treat me like a child!”

“I assure you, I do not.”

“My lady, maybe we should retire for the night,” Ezal said, trying to calm Louella down.

Louella turned her glare onto Ezal. “You’re happy! You found love and are even having a child! I . . . I . . . I’m still alone! What does power mean if you are alone?” she said, then started to tear up.

“My lady! You’re not alone! What are you talking about? You have me!” Ezal pulled her into an embrace.

“You can’t give me children!” Louella retorted, putting her head on Ezal’s chest.

“I’m sure there is someone out there for you,” Ezal said, caressing Louella’s hair. “Lord Regan, would you mind?”

“Not at all,” I said and snapped my fingers.

A portal appeared and Ezal led Louella through to her room. I looked around at the gathered crowd, who were staring awkwardly, and raised my hand. “Would everyone kindly look to my finger.” When everyone was staring, I quickly caused a flash that erased the last two minutes from everyone’s short-term memory. “Thank you. Please go back to having a good time.”

Louella better thank me for this,I thought with some mirth.

Chapter 29

Louella

Pain. That was the only thing I could think about when I woke up in the morning. Well, that and the incredibly embarrassing scene I’d caused last night. I might have been drunk, but that did not affect my memory. It was almost scary how well I could remember everything I did.

“Awake?”

I looked up to see Ezal sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, reading a book. Her voice was low, but it still sent ripples of pain through my head. She closed her book and walked over to sit next to me.

“Do I want to be?” I asked with a groan. Flashes of the events from last night continued to cycle in my mind. The thing I dreaded most was facing Regan after this.

“I really didn’t know that you wanted a man so bad,” she said, handing me a glass of water.

“I don’t remember.” I didn’t feel bad about lying at all. I honestly wanted last night to disappear completely. I took a long drink of the water. It helped clear the pain a little.

“Neither do the people who were there. You have Lord Regan to thank for that.”

“You’ll have to remind me to thank him later,” I said, falling back in the bed. I could never thank Regan enough for the things he had done for me over the months. I owed him my life a few times, so I probably would never be able to pay him back if he ever came to collect.

“We’re about to start deploying the troops. I think they would like a sendoff—if you can manage it,” Ezal said.

“When?” I asked and began channeling mana through my body to help get the residual alcohol out quicker, though it would take a few minutes. The throbbing in my head had at least gone down a bit.

“Two hours from now.”

“Let me wash up. I’ll be there,” I said and got out of bed. I grimaced when I realized that I was still in my armored dress from yesterday. The amount of mana and magic in it kept it looking pristine and beautiful, but just the thought of last night made my head hurt for more reasons than one. I shook it off and went to the washroom.

A very short hour later, I was ready and stood at the portal hub that Regan had built to coordinate our forces. He had his own forces guarding the structure, but Ezal and I decided to station a few patrols in the surroundings just to be safe. The structure only had three portals at the moment, but there was room for more. Regan liked to plan ahead, after all. The airships and fort portals were large enough for five men to walk abreast and still have room to spare.

Lines of soldiers, over a thousand people of the various races, stood in front of me. New armor and weapons shined in the morning sun. With my enhanced eyesight, I could easily see the tension, and in some cases fear, on their faces. Whether it be the fort or the airships, these men and women were heading into places that would be harsh.

It was like my hangover disappeared without a trace. “Men and women of Vaihdetta! I commend you for rising to the challenge that has been set for you. I know it is a frightful venture. Whether you fight the undead or the flesh-and-blood of Thonaca, it will not be easy for you. Some of you hail from Thonaca, and it may feel like you are fighting your brothers and sisters.

“I do not condemn you for feeling this way. At the end of the day, the common people always suffer the workings of the nobles and royalty. I am not much better for sending you off on this mission. I just want to remind you what you are fighting for—freedom! Those of you who are former slaves fight for the others like you so that they might have a life where their children can grow up free to make their own choices. Those from Thonaca seeking a better life, look how fast my city has grown. I can assure you that change will continue in Vaihdetta. Finally, those from Lecazar, your countrymen and women are dying at the hands of the undead. We have the power to save them. Remember, every mortal slain is another soldier for the armies of dead.”

I paused to let my words sink it. I knew it wasn’t the most rousing speech, but it was the truth. I wanted Vaihdetta to be built on truth rather than pretty and empty words. That meant I would deal with the consequences, no matter what they might be. I took a deep breath before continuing.

“Vaihdetta is stronger when we come together. For too long have the people of this continent been divided for petty reasons. Look to your neighbors. See beastkin next to human and human next to elf. Dwarf next to gnome. Vaihdetta is an ideal. One that we see working every day. But there are those that would see it destroyed. Thonaca with its hungry nobility seeking more and more. The necromancers that want to see all dead, no matter the race.”

I looked out and saw that much of the fear had been replaced by determination. Soldiers were turning to one another and clapping shoulders or grasping hands. It was a beautiful sight of camaraderie. It made me feel that my decisions to this point had not been wrong.

“So, go forth! Defenders of Vaihdetta! First army, the Wardens!” The soldiers on the right cheered, the sound resounding in the air. “Go forth! Second army, Peace Bringers!” The left banged their weapons on their armor or shields, adding a symphony of sound to the cheering. The sight made me proud.

I turned to the portal controller, a female-looking automaton that reminded me of a noble. She nodded and waved her hand. There was a ripple of mana, and all three portals opened. Two led into empty cargo holds, while one led to an empty clearing surrounded by trees.

Commanding officers quickly jumped to action and started directing people to their correct destination. The Wardens, the defenders of the pass to Thonaca, were hauling a lot of building materials. The Peace Bringers also possessed a large amount of cargo. Either way it would take several hours before everything was sent through.

“Quite a sight,” Ezal said from next to me.

“Indeed. If the nobles could see this, I bet they would be trembling in their shoes.”

“The nobles of Thonaca have their own problems right now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, tilting my head.

“An individual of massive power has been going around . . . testing nobles. He’s already reached ten heads. The people are starting to call him the Reaper,” Ezal replied.

“Do you think?” I asked. Ezal had never straight out told me, but I knew that this individual was someone important to her. That narrowed the list down considerably.

She looked at me for a moment before nodding. “Probably. I just hope he’s alright.”

“From the sounds of it, anything that gets in his path ends up decapitated,” I said with a chuckle.

Ezal glared at me but nodded. We remained silent as we watched the procession of goods and soldiers. They were almost done by this point. When we looked through the portal to the fort, construction was already starting. Dwarves and Earth mages worked the ground into a solid flat surface.

Finally, the last member of each of the armies was on the other end, and the portals closed. The keeper of the portals bowed to me, then walked over to a chair in the center of the templelike structure. She took a seat, then remained stationary.

“Let us pray for their safety,” Ezal said, turning to walk away.

“Who do we pray to? Lord Regan?” I asked, still staring at the portals I’d just sent over a thousand people through to their potential dooms.

“If anyone actually had the power to save them in a critical moment, it would be him,” Ezal said.

“I suppose that is true, and I can actually talk to him,” I said with a laugh.

“Does that make it better?” Ezal asked. “Maybe we shouldn’t be able to talk to our gods. I feel we would demand too much from them.”

“Good point.”

~~~

Walking through the town, I noticed how remarkably quiet it was. Considering most of the population was sleeping off a hangover, not much was being done. That was, of course, not true of the adventurers. The closer we got to the north side of town, the more parties we saw heading out of town.

“Looks like Regan is going to be busy,” I commented.

“Yeah. Though the new entry floor is quite deadly to the unprepared,” Ezal replied, looking after them.

“That’s nothing new,” I said, waving her off. “When is Cassie going to move the guild to be closer to the dungeon?”

“She can’t anymore. Damn place is so massive it would take months to redo all the work they’ve put into their current location,” Ezal said.

“Well, it was hard to predict the last three months. I’m surprised one of the more influential Adventurers Guild leaders hasn’t tried to take her place.”

“I bet they have, but all guilds have contracts for positions like that. Now, given that we’re at war with basically everyone on the continent, it would be hard for them to send someone to replace her either way.”

“Hey! They started it,” I retorted, then realized what I said sounded childish.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Ezal said with a head bow.

Finishing our little walk, we made our way back to the castle. As we grew, that only meant more paperwork. Even if I made myself a queen, it would be many years before I had trusted advisors that I would let do the work. I would need to enjoy these little walks while I still could. Even if I was surrounded by guards the entire time.

When we made it back to the castle, Ezal turned to me. “I’ll leave you here, Your Majesty. I have other matters that need attending to.” She gave me a bow and a grin before turning to leave. A few of the guards separated from the guard detail and left with her.

I stared after her for a moment before turning and heading inside. The giant gate was closed, and only the side gates were open. A patrol passed me as they headed out for their rounds, and I smiled and nodded to them. They served for the good of the people of Vaihdetta. I would always try to acknowledge them when I could.

Back in my office, a mountain of paperwork met my gaze. I glared at it, then cracked my knuckles. This was something I’d chosen for myself. I would deal with it as such.

Chapter 30

Regan

Today was going to be a busy day. I had enough mana to work on some of the experiments I’d been holding off on. Mainly, creating new bodies for Wrakras and Julie, as well as spending some quality time with Quin, the blood shifter I’d captured when Louella had fried her. She was stuck in an orb of energy down in the dungeon. I mainly just hadn’t had time to deal with her.

Alara was working on her dungeon and planned to rest when she was done, so I moved over to Steel Spire. I hadn’t been giving this location enough love, but it was getting along well. I was manufacturing my airships in the tower. As they were being built via an assembly line, there were several hundred automata working around several thousand machines in the trunk of the tower.

Julie was lying in a room I’d set aside for her, staring at the ceiling. I had no idea what she was thinking about, but she would randomly get a face-splitting grin, then squirm around and wrap herself with her arms before stopping to stare at the ceiling again. I was sure that she was completely off the deep end.

“Are you busy?” I asked from my ethereal form.

“Master! Were you watching me?” she asked, covering herself like a maiden would, though she did it almost sarcastically.

“I watch everything,” I replied with annoyance.

“What can I do for, Master?” she asked, then jumped to her feet in a blink. “Is it time?!”

I wanted her to be sure about this. The mind played a big part in magic, and if she felt confident about this change, then it was more likely it would succeed. “Yes.” I spoke in a booming voice, forcing her utmost attention. “However, you must be sure of this. If I fail, I have no idea what will become of your body, mind, or even soul for that matter. I’m offering one chance for you to back out.”

She fell to her knees with tears running down her cheeks. “I give my everything to you. My body, my mind, my soul. Take everything!”

I felt a burst of adherent mana like nothing before, even from Izora. With acute awareness, I realized that I could have reached out with my mind and crushed her soul. I knew that I had that kind of control over her now. This was unexpected and a little disturbing.

Creating my avatar, I kneeled in front of her and reached out, grabbing each side of her head with my metal claw-like hands. “Very well. Your loyalty has overwritten your past. I will make you one of the most powerful mortals on the continent. But remember. You must use this power for me,” I said, my voice still radiating power.

“YES, MASTER!”

She leaked something onto the floor from between her legs, but I ignored it and teleported us to another part of the main dungeon. Julie had originally been a dark-mana-based individual before the necromancers altered her energy in some way. Even after interrogating nearly a hundred necromancers, I learned nothing, as none of them knew what actually happened during the event. I wanted to take her back to her dark mana roots while also infusing my own brand of mana into her.

I snapped my fingers, and everything but her body melted into the dungeon. Julie began to float in front of me. I extended a metal claw and began etching magic script onto her skin. I could have reduced the pain, but she appeared to enjoy it, so I didn’t bother. This would be a complicated procedure. I wanted to create something that would be truly unique in this world. Grinning, I got to work.

~~~

A few hours later I was finished with all the designing. All that was left to do was infuse a chunk of mana into her new body to give it a boost like no one had ever seen. There were several hundred mana stones melted into a type of circuit covering every inch of her body. They would project the mana as I needed it.

I grinned with what I was sure was a bit of mania. I was a scientist at heart, and although my field was in robots, I liked to try all sorts of things, especially since coming to this world. This would be the most . . . interesting thing I’d done to date.

“You ready?” I asked. I had worked for hours carving the runes on her. She hadn’t cried out, at least in pain, once.

Her cheeks flushed and a sort of delirious expression overcame her face as Julie replied, “Yes . . . Master.”

I placed my finger on the mana stone overlaying her forehead. Julie’s body jerked as my mana surged into her. The mana stone circuitry sank into her, changing everything as it did so. To begin with, it sucked in and burned every last drop of unholy mana. From there it worked its way into her blood and fused with her cells.

It wasn’t long before she lost her flesh-and-blood body, and it was replaced with a synthetic one of metal. Her skin changed to a pale white metal that would have been able to repel a tank shell on Earth, and that was with it just being idle. Once she channeled mana through it, I had to wonder if anything would be able to hurt her via physical means. That wasn’t the end of it. Mithril was interwoven into her skin as well, which allowed for drastically increased mana resistance.

Julie screamed as the metal mixture hit her heart. I felt the link between us grow so dense that she could never escape me even if she tried. I didn’t hesitate and poured even more mana into her. Her body began to glow from the intense amount of mana surging through her. If I hadn’t been controlling it, she would have melted from the inside.

With a one last surge, I poured mana into her brain. Her eyes snapped open, and a silvery-blue light poured out of them. Arcs of mana cascaded around us, melting anyplace it struck into slag. The mana in the air suddenly rushed into Julie’s body with a bang. The force knocked her out. I slowly lowered her from the air, then carried her over to a quickly formed bed.

She was now an even two meters tall, with long white hair and, before she’d passed out, electric-blue eyes with circuitry inside. She looked purely mortal on the outside. In fact, had someone touched her, I doubted they would have noticed the difference. Several mana stones lay embedded in places along her body. I had developed some new armor and weapons, and they would need to be powered by the uplinks.

I checked her internals to make sure everything was alright and nodded when I saw no unholy mana. Dark mana and my own coursed through her veins. I felt that the experiment was a success. All that remained was to awaken her to see if her personality had been affected. Using the link, I told her to wake up. Her eyes snapped open instantly.

“Julie, how are you feeling?”

She raised a hand, then proceeded to open and close her fist several times. She shot up and felt her body over, a little more sensually than I felt was necessary. Finally she looked over to me and gave me her classic maniacal grin. “Perfection.”

I gestured over to where a suit of armor stood, with several weapons on stands next to it. “Then get dressed. Go stand on the pad.”

“Yes, my master,” she purred and walked over to the setup. She placed her feet in the marked locations, and the machines around her came to life. Robotics arms disassembled the armor, then reassembled it on her. Smooth gray plates with interlinking magic circuitry were attached to her body to create an almost skintight suit of armor. I kept the jester mask for her helmet. Her face was quite beautiful now, but I was more comfortable with the mask. She left it up for the moment though.

With the armor attached, several weapons were connected. A much superior version of her khopeshes were laid out. They were made of the topmost alloy my dungeon could currently produce. From the tests I’ve been able to perform on it, they should survive just about anything short of dropping them into the sun.

I observed the information being fed by the suit. “Let’s see. Tier three, level seven by my calculations. About what I expected.”

She dropped to a kneeling position. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen her so . . . serious. “My master. My god. My soul is yours. I shall be the sword that abolishes your enemies. Please. Wield me as you see fit.”

“Don’t worry. That was my desire when”—I paused to think of the right word—“forging you. I hope you understand what you are swearing to. That body cannot die by natural means. Unless I throw you into the sun, you will be my sword forever.” As I mentioned, the mind was a strong part of magic. If she believed very little could hurt her, then she would be quite powerful.

Her grin managed to grow wider, and her pupils dilated. “Of course! Nothing would please me more than to cut apart your enemies for eternity!”

“Very good!” I reached forward and pressed a hand against her chest, ignoring the pleased look on her face. A searing heat gathered, then branded her armor with a raven made of gears. “Fly well, my raven. War is going to be your skies.”

“YES, my master!”

“I have plenty of enemies we can let you practice on. Shall we?”

She pulled one of her khopeshes from her waist, then licked the edge of the blade. “It would be my pleasure.”

I snapped my fingers and teleported us to the edge of the Steel Spire aura. “Kill everything with an unholy signature between here and Tearfalls. Don’t touch the regular mortals unless they are a necromancer. I’m sure you know this, but I’ll know if you lie to me,” I told her while tapping her heart.

“What of the undead scar?”

“This is a test, not a solution. I know you’ll make it through, I want to know how fast.”

“Understood.”

A black aura grew around her that extended for almost ten meters. Quite impressive for anything with a body, and something that she could keep up for several hours with her mana capacity. I stepped back to signal for her to start. The black aura molded into wings and she shot off, keeping close to the ground.

A loud crashing sound came from the direction of the tower. When I turned, I saw Zuthon come to a halt a few dozen meters from me. He had grown considerably larger since I’d first met him, though as he was a land dragon, a larger size was in his favor.

“Metal man! I sensed a tremendous dark aura. Was it you?”

“Zuthon, glad to see you’re upholding your side of the bargain.” I blinked as I really took in his aura. “Have you managed to break through to tier three?”

Zuthon laughed loudly enough to shake the nearby trees. “I have indeed. I quite enjoy the magic meat you’ve been delivering every day.”

“Glad to hear you’ve been enjoying it. However, I thought land dragons liked to rule their territories?”

“I’ll admit a few months ago I might have challenged you for rulership of this area, but . . . I’ve grown to enjoy that town. The mortals aren’t so bad when they don’t try to hunt me for alchemical components.”

“Good to hear. The Steel Spire has grown a lot, and without me directly supervising it. I am pleased with that.” My automata were instructed by me of course, but Zuthon made a decent deterrent for anyone that might think to make trouble. I was glad he was around, protecting the place.

“Then I shall leave you to your conspiracies,” Zuthon said, giving me a dragon grin before turning to leave.

“Speaking of conspiracies,” I mumbled, moving back to the dungeon.

A room that could only be reached via teleportation—teleportation that involved a set code that currently only I knew—appeared around me. In the center of the white room floated a sphere of energy with a red liquid inside. I waved my hand and the sphere vanished. The liquid splashed to the floor, then flashed around the room, trying to find a way out.

“Stop bothering. I spent plenty of time making sure you couldn’t escape,” I called out as I formed my avatar.

The red liquid all came together and formed a child-sized figure. She was barely over a meter tall. Other than that, she was like a mini version of Quin. I formed a pair of chairs and sat.

“Now. Let’s talk,” I said. I thought for sure that Louella had killed her, but I found that she had regained consciousness after only a few hours. If all the demons were like this, I couldn’t see how the mortals won in the war, even with the Celestials’ help.

“If it’s about how to kill me, don’t bother asking. I’ll never tell you that.”

“I don’t need to know that. I can already do it, after all.” I created a small sphere in my hand that held a purple liquid. “Remember this?” I asked, grinning.

“I don’t think I’d ever forget that horrible stuff,” Quin said, gripping her chest.

“I didn’t think so. Let’s get to business. What do you know of the demon world?”

She looked like she was going to stay silent until I moved the liquid toward her. Then she slumped into the seat, defeated. “Fine. The demon world, my ugly twisted home world. Deorus. Torn apart by so many wars that we’ve lost count. That’s what happens when you trap a society built around conquering.”

“How did they end up trapped?”

“A dirty little secret is that once we open the portals, we have to migrate completely, as it uses that planet’s world spirit, life mana, or whatever it possesses. We failed to secure a foothold on this side before they were forced shut. That was over a thousand years ago.”

I tapped on my chin as I leaned back in thought. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that the only demons I had to deal with were the ones on this side already. Any good scientist knows that there is always an alternative way around a problem. Depending on their location, they could possibly reach us via ships if their technology reached that level.

“No desire to return home?” I asked, looking back to her.

“Not particularly. I was a lowly infiltration soldier back home. I doubt that will have changed in the time that’s passed.”

“I see. Speaking of your army, tell me about your generals.”

She gained a critical look. “Unstoppable. Unkillable. Un-everything-able. I could go on if you don’t get the picture.”

“I find it hard to believe that nothing is able to hurt these individuals.”

“If you can find it, be sure to tell the people back on Deorus. The generals are the main reason we’ve remained conquerors for so long,” Quin said with a shrug. “Most of the demons would much rather live out their lives like the mortals of this world.”

I refused to believe that nothing could affect these beings. I already knew that space magic worked on them even if you had to include everything in a certain radius around them in the spell. Even metals that people once thought un-meltable were melted once we learned more about their properties. Time to work on a new side project.

“Surely physical means have to affect them if they can interact with our plane of existence,” I said, tapping my chin in thought.

Quin shrugged. “The only thing, and I mean only thing, I’ve ever seen stop a general was another general. These were fights of legend and myth. Tales told to children.”

I stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “I will allow you to remain in that form in this room. Please don’t do anything stupid. The room is rigged to release this if you do so.” I tapped the sphere, then vanished from the room. The last thing I saw was Quin making a rude gesture.

Chapter 31

Julie

The ground passed under my feet with only flashes of color registering to me. I felt so much power radiating from me. Things I never thought I could do, I knew that I could do easily now. My shadow wings were only the tip of the iceberg. I crossed kilometers in seconds, soon making it out of the forest.

The plains met my eyes once I left the forest, and I soared into the sky, my fear of heights completely gone. I knew this body Master made for me could survive anything. In the distance I could see hundreds of undead. They were being held back by the few forces of Lecazar that still remained to protect people fleeing toward the valley.

I wanted to kill them all, but Master needed these mortals to get even more powerful. If I protected them, then he would reward me later. I angled down and shot toward the undead. A particularly large one that towered at least seven or eight meters became my landing pad as I slammed into it feet first. Its body turned into a spray of flesh and rotted blood as the ground cratered under me.

The undead nearest to me roared and started to charge. I grinned as I pulled my blades out and charged directly toward them. As I sliced the first undead in half, I felt that all too familiar energy from the unholy mana entering me. Only now, my superior body didn’t lose to it. It controlled it and changed it back to the dark mana.

My blades met little resistance while slicing the undead to pieces. Their bodies turned to ash around me. My black wings sucked the mana from the undead if they passed through them. To the mortals nearby, I must have seemed like a blur as I moved through the battlefield. Nothing could stop me while I was in my element. I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing.

In a matter of minutes, the undead that were threatening the mortals were reduced to ash. I had only used the blades Master had made and not any of the other weapons installed on my suit of armor. Even with just these, I felt invincible. Standing in the middle of the ash, I was breathing deeply as the battle-rush sensations faded from me.

A soldier walked up to me with a tremendous amount of fear on his features. However, there was an emotion I’d never seen before, too: thankfulness. “Who do we have to thank for this help?” he asked as he kneeled in front of me.

The old urge to remove his head from his shoulders didn’t emerge. Instead, I felt . . . above it. “The god Regan. If you are glad to be alive today, then you owe it to him. My master cares for the mortals and wants them to live. Were this not the case, you would have met the same fate as the undead,” I replied, swinging the remaining rotted blood from my blades for emphasis.

The soldier backed away but only a few steps. I didn’t notice it back with Master, but my voice was much more . . . more now. That way you know a person is beautiful from their voice. There was a certain quality that beautiful people seemed to possess. I was described as a brutish woman more than once in the past. I doubted that would ever happen again.

“I understand, Angel of Regan. Lelune left us to the undead when we prayed to her. We thought all hope lost.”

“Then you should remember this day,” I said. I had to hide my squirm. I rather liked being called the Angel of Regan. I wondered if Master would allow me to officially have the title. I would need to bring more mortals to his calling. I lifted my khopesh-wielding arms and formed the dungeon symbol from my darkness. “The day that Lord Regan saved you.”

I dropped my arms and shot into the sky. Master had given me many toys that I could use to find undead. I could also use them to find mortals. I felt my thighs get a little wet at the thought of a reward from Master. That and the thought of killing more things.

Louella

Looking over the construction from one of the balconies of the keep, I turned to the major. “The fort is coming along nicely, Major. How long until the walls are completed?”

“A few weeks. They will serve their purpose for now, but it will be hard to use them to actually defend the pass,” Major Winda reported.

“Keep up the good work. It’s only been two days. Having this much done already is amazing.”

It was true. Not only was the keep already built, the outside at least, the groundwork and about three meters of stone wall had already been raised. The more intricate work would start from here out and would slow down work considerably. It would only be a day or two until scouts from Ebony Falls gained awareness of the situation here. It would be interesting to see what response they would have.

The fact that the travelers had stopped coming from the direction of the city led me to believe they were already aware of the situation. There might be a meter of snow on the ground, but that meant little to adventurers and determined travelers. I just hoped the people weren’t being detained unlawfully. War always led to the commoners suffering.

“How are the soldiers?” I asked.

“They are performing admirably. Many of them miss the dungeon aura to fuel their cultivation, but with the portal we are able to rotate more easily than a normal force would. We are trying not to get too attached to it, but it is a challenge.”

“I can understand that. I’ll try to have some of Lord Regan’s food sent over to the soldiers. I know his chefs are still a higher level than our own.”

“That would be much appreciated. Nothing motivates a person more than a stomach full of good food,” the major said with a grin.

I left her and made for the portal. Guarded by forty men and women, it was the most defended place at the checkpoint. For good reason. I had to admire the portal. A giant circle of metal and stone with runes carved on its surface, it was a supreme example of the kind of magic technology that we should be capable of. I hoped the mortals would once again reach this point.

I placed my hand on the pedestal and pressed the sequence that led to the valley. Regan had said that he wanted to think long-term and made it capable of dialing future portals. With a ripple of energy, a pane of clear blue formed before changing to look at the other side of the portal. I stepped through with my guards.

Next on the agenda was the airships. I wanted to check their progress. They should have been arriving at a town a little south of the valley’s surrounding forests. Moving to an identical pedestal as the fort’s, I discontinued the current portal, then dialed the airship. It took a bit longer to connect, but finally the hold of an airship appeared.

Looking through as I walked toward the pane, I noted people running around and spotted a few injuries as well. I hurried my stride and came through just as the ship shuddered. Looking around, I found the portal guard on duty.

“What’s the situation?”

“My lady! The town was under siege by the undead. We are lending assistance, but there was a considerable force of flying undead. However, I believe we should be just about done cleaning up the skies and are about to move in,” the guard reported, then noticed my worry. “Ah. Most of the injuries you see were from evasive maneuvers. Many of the soldiers aren’t used to the airships in battle yet.”

“Thank you.”

We moved through the ship until we reached the bridge. Undead birds of all kinds assaulted the two airships, but appeared unable to penetrate the barrier around them. The things Regan called turrets were handling them with ease.

“Your Highness! I’d hoped to have finished this before your visit,” Major James said, rubbing the back of his head.

“The fort isn’t seeing this much action, thus the meeting didn’t take that long. It’s hard to believe that the undead have already reached this far west.”

“I agree, but we already knew they were being controlled. I wager they want to claim as much of Lecazar as they can, as fast as possible. This town would be a great place to cut off any forces sent from our valley, though they likely didn’t expect airships of this caliber,” he said, tapping the console in front of him.

“How much longer until the battle is over?” While I had full confidence in Regan’s airships, I preferred not to test it on the first battle.

“For the sky part, another ten minutes. The land might take a bit longer.”

“I see. I needed some exercise anyway,” I said, nodding to my guards.

“Your Highness?” the major asked, confused.

I threw him a grin, then pulled open the door leading to the deck. Lightning started to crackle around me as I lifted into the air. It slowly turned red as I poured more mana into the storm growing around me. As I flew over the deck, an undead bird, five meters in length, got fried when it flew too close.

I looked around, taking in the entire battle, which included a few hundred flying undead over a span of about a kilometer of sky, and several thousand on the ground surrounding the town walls. I homed in on the unholy mana, then spread my arms. The storm grew to encompass the entire battlefield. There was a moment of tension as everything came to a standstill, then I swung my arms down. Hundreds of lightning bolts rained down around me, slamming into air and land undead.

The energy then arced from one undead to the next, easily turning thirty to forty of the enemy into charred husks in an instant with just one strike. This continued for nearly a minute until every undead was a pile of ash. I nodded and flew back to the airship.

“Sorry to steal the thunder from your first engagement, Major.”

“No, Your Highness. We appreciate the help. Anything that reduces the loss of life,” he said with a small bow.

“I like how you think,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll let you handle the town. It wouldn’t do for me to interfere with that since you are the face of this force.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

He walked over to a pad on the bridge. A light washed over him, and down in the center of the town the same image appeared for everyone to see. I stayed, as I wanted to see how this would be received. I didn’t want to risk my people if they would just be met with resistance at every location they visited.

“Greetings. I am Major James of the Vaihdetta rescue force. Queen Louella Coates has sent us to rescue you from the undead scourge that is threatening Lecazar. Her valley is currently the safest place on the continent, protected by the dungeon god, the Machine Father Regan.”

Major James took a breath before he continued. “Those of you who would like safety but do not wish to trust a foreign force, know this. Princess Chloe Lecazar has given up her throne to Louella. She does not wish to see her people suffer but does not have the power to assist them.”

“We will be landing in one hour in front of your town. If you plan to leave, then please gather any belongings of import by then. There is boundless food and drink, so do not worry about these items.” The light cut off and Major James stepped down from the pad.

“Very good, Major,” I said, clapping my hands.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

Chapter 32

Regan

A few hours after releasing Julie on the undead, I started getting bursts of adherent mana from random places. I wasn’t sure what was going on until I tuned in to one of the cameras on her suit. Apparently, I now had an angel serving me. I just grinned and left it alone. She was serving me and wasn’t killing the mortals, so I couldn’t be mad at her.

Closing the feed from Julie, I looked around my dungeon. I wanted to spend the day working on another section of it. As I’d figured would happen, people were moving through the first ten floors with decent speed. It was calibrated to allow such a thing, after all. A few unlucky individuals had failed to avoid the machine gun traps and ended up Swiss cheese, but that wasn’t my problem.

The few parties that had already started diving in the dungeon would pass the information along to the guild about the farming floor. Already, I had close to five hundred people taking their chances on the farms. I found that my wage for that work was several times that of the kingdoms. Even with a war going on, you needed to eat. And you needed money to eat.

I needed to work on the fortieth floor down but wasn’t quite sure what to go with. If I chose an element, it would need to be water or air. I just didn’t like the idea of an oceanic floor. Machines tended to rust in the presence of water, after all. Then again, I wanted to give unique challenges to my divers.

How many people brought sailing experience with them? I moved down to that section and carved out a cavern that could not exist without magic. It was massive, spanning three hundred by three hundred kilometers, with another hundred for height. Then I created islands with a port town in the center. Using some magic scripts, I made the walls vanish. If someone were to sail next to them, they would get turned around.

Finally, I clapped my hands and filled over a third of the floor with water. With the use of magic, I created sections of fresh water and salt water. This way I could explore more types of plant life on the floor. Thanks to samples I’d gotten in town, I had plenty to work with.

Rubbing my hands, I thought about what to put on the floor. All manner of sea creatures of course, but I wanted something special. Luckily, I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. I copied the design for my airship pirate automata, which I’d created a while ago, and altered them to be more seafaring, then created wooden ships that would sail the seas.

On a few of the islands, I made pirate bases that people could raid for rewards. Pirates could be turned in at the town for rewards as well. At the entrance, I created a port that housed several different levels of ships. Everything from a dinghy to a galleon was available, though each required different things to gain access to them.

Treasure maps could be gained in several ways. They would lead people to enough riches to set them up for several years. I made sure the more luxurious ones were guarded by metal beasts that could sink a ship easily. This floor would test a party’s adaptability and teamwork. At least, that was the plan.

I was close to the middle of the center island when I looked down and saw Alara swimming in the water. She moved gracefully and appeared to be at ease. I moved down next to her.

“Enjoying yourself?” I asked with a bit of a chuckle.

“So . . . nice. Join . . . me . ..” she said, beckoning me like a siren to the sailors of Earth myths.

“How could I say no?” I muttered, then formed my body and dropped into the water. I made sure to use lightweight plastic parts for most of my body so I didn’t just sink to the bottom.

“Ocean . . . near me . . . cold and frozen . . . all year . . . around.”

“Ah. We are close to the arctic circle for this planet. This is a sea that would be found near the equator.”

“Like it,” Alara said with a smile.

She dived under the water and I followed her. I hadn’t realized it due to only her head sticking out of the water, but she was completely naked. I didn’t know if it was because this world didn’t have swimwear, or she just liked to swim naked. My brain froze again as I stared at her. Thankfully, I didn’t need to breathe. Neither did she.

Alara moved next to me and grabbed my hand, then started to pull me through the water. I put up a bit more resistance while looking at her back, but not much. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I really need to figure out what that is about, I thought with a grimace. I didn’t mind being entranced by her, but it might cause me problems down the road.

Down under the water with Alara, I found the seabed a bit lacking. I’d accidently left it a blank floor. I pulled her hand and she turned to me. I waved her over, then smiled as I placed a hand over her eyes. Quickly, I created the coral, plant life, and rugged seabed floor I vaguely remembered from movies and documentaries. My inherent dungeon skill helped make it appear more natural.

When I was done, I removed my hand and gestured to the new and improved floor. Alara did a cute underwater squeal, then kissed me deeply before she shot off to explore. I found that I quite liked her innocence, and frankly I was amazed it had survived through the necromancers. I needed to protect her from here on. I made small jets on my feet and hands and took off after her.

~~~

Alara and I enjoyed ourselves for longer than we probably should have. I’d never really had a romance back on Earth and didn’t know if that’s what this was. I did know one thing, however. Alara made me happy when I was around her. I enjoyed the moments more than almost anything so far on this planet, perhaps, except making my children.

“Come. You need to get back to your dungeon, and I have errands to attend to so that the eastern half of the continent doesn’t completely burn to the ground.”

“No . . .” she said with a pout.

I placed a hand on her cheek. “No worries. This floor will be here for us later.”

Her pout remained but she turned to sand as she went back to her dungeon. I smiled at her reluctance, then looked around. This floor was complete for the moment. The door to the next set of floors was hidden at the bottom of a sunken ruin that needed four parts of a treasure to raise it from the depths for twenty-four hours. I planned to make a boss at a later date but didn’t have the mana to spare on that bit of construction.

I planned to leave Goblin City as the next section after this. Actually, I guessed it would be Goblin and Gnome City. With the new race living on the station at the moment, I didn’t want to risk introducing the gnomes to the station just yet. If the Ly’call had some sort of biological issue, it would put anyone that came up there at risk.

It was late in the evening and I had a few hours before the attack on Tearfalls would begin from the undead. Even with my drop forces, the concentration of undead was still increasing. That was one of the reasons I wanted to send Julie from the west to see if she could hit the enemy commanders from behind.

Moving below Goblin City, past the asteroid mining, and finally beyond the floating islands, I started pushing my aura down farther. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but if my calculations were correct, I was nearly two thousand kilometers below the surface. What confused me was the fact that though I was in the mantle, the temperature had yet to start increasing as I went farther down.

Pushing my aura down was a very mind-numbing thing for me as a dungeon core. If I let the aura spread passively, it would take a week for it to expand by even a centimeter. Doing it manually like this allowed for me to gain distance much more quickly. I was thinking about things I wanted to show Alara when my aura suddenly hit a wall. It actually hurt, like I’d slammed my face against a wall.

“What the . . .” I muttered as my aura collided with the wall in an almost perfectly flat plane. I worked it for almost twenty minutes before taking a deep breath. “Ignea,” I called after I hollowed out a space for her.

Her form appeared in front of me. “Yes, Father?”

“I got a ques—” I started to say when she cut me off.

“A question for me! It’s been so long!” she said, zipping around in circles.

“Yup. I seem to have hit a wall. I can’t spread my aura past it,” I explained.

“Less than a year . . . I guess I’m not surprised. I don’t know the cause. That is not in my inherited memories, but this barrier is found no matter where on the planet you start from. You can’t expand your aura like in the past.” She pointed her palm at the wall, and a small beam came out and sliced a millimeter-wide hole that extended for about a meter past the barrier. My aura easily rushed in, filling the gap. “The dungeon has to dig down manually.”

“Is that all?” I asked with a bit of skepticism.

“Yup. At least according to these,” she said, tapping her temple.

I created my avatar and extended my clawed hand to scoop out a chunk of the stone. Absorbing it, I found it quite dense. It would not be an easy challenge for regular dungeons to overcome. Thankfully, I wasn’t a regular dungeon.

Again, I pulled from my previously created automata. The large drills I used to carve through Alara’s dungeon formed in the hollow. I modified their drill heads using the newer mithril alloy so they would be able to cut through the dense material. With a boom, their engines activated and started to grind into the floor.

I watched for a few minutes as the drills carved into the ground. It was quite slow, with the drills barely making headway. After five minutes, they’d only cut a meter deep. Sparks and dust were flying left and right to be absorbed by the dungeon. The aura rushed into the gaps without pause. I didn’t even need to push it.

I set my dungeon to replace the divides between the major sets of floors with the newer material. It would complement the plating well as added defense for the dungeon. With that issue taken care of for the moment, I moved over to the station. Tearfalls would be entering night soon, and I liked to be aware of the situation in case something unpredictable happened.

The defense line on Tearfalls was already formed based on Anubis’s direction. My automata had formed a camp outside the city. They were able to build turrets and other emplacements with the help of Queen’s daughters. While around the city, they liked to take a mortal form, ranging from human to elf. All unnaturally beautiful of course. I didn’t say anything, as it didn’t hinder their ability to perform.

Artillery, machine gun emplacements, laser turrets, and an assortment of other deadly weaponry formed a line of death around the wall of the city. My automata from the drop moved with precision as they took their places, readying for the night. Of course, the mortals hadn’t come to a decision in a single day, but I had graciously allowed them to extend it by a single night.

Chapter 33

Louella

“Over ninety percent of the town came with us,” Major James reported.

We sat in the captain’s cabin of the airship. Out of respect, I didn’t take his chair and sat in a chair to the side of the room, sipping from a cup of tea. Regan had left the room bare with only the necessities to operate included. Still the major had managed to make a nice home away from home.

“Very good. Any reason for the people staying behind in particular?” I asked. We were trying to save lives, after all. If it was an issue we could deal with, I wanted to do so. The more people we saved, the less undead we had to deal with.

“The Church. They didn’t take too kindly to another god being proclaimed,” the major said as he pounded a fist on the table. “Now, at least two thousand people are going to be fed to the undead due to a few old bastards’ hang-ups.”

“I wish we could force them, but that’s not the mission. If people want to stay, they get to stay. We might be helping them, but I will not force anyone,” I said, setting the cup on the side table.

“I understand of course. Just sad to see people behaving so . . . maddeningly,” Major James mumbled under his breath.

“I fully agree. That’s why we’re still sitting here for another night instead of heading to the next town. Once the undead breach their walls, I’m sure they will have a change of heart. Did you have the embassy party set up?”

“Yes, my lady. They are standing by where we said they would be. If anyone seeks safety from them, they will grant it.”

“Good. Let’s see if they can hold out through the night,” I said, grinning mischievously. This wasn’t just to save the few people who were being forced to stay but also to test the soldiers. They needed real combat to truly improve. This was about as controlled a situation as we could give them.

A few hours later I was standing on the deck of the airship with my guards. We were watching the gruesome horror show that the town was turning into. Needless to say, the town walls held for minutes with most of their standing forces gone. Families that were forced to stay due to their religion ran through the streets while undead slaughtered them freely.

There was a beacon of hope though. Toward where the slums of the city would have been, a pillar of light rose into the air. The undead were being cut down by the forces trained by Bruce and Ezal with ease, and people who came to their senses rushed past as fast as their legs could carry them.

“What is the point of all this?” I said, shaking my head.

“I don’t reckon there truly is a point, my lady. The undead only seek to slaughter, those that control them only seek power, and those above them only seek more power,” one of my guards said as he stared down at the massacre.

“Been reading in Lord Regan’s library, Lieutenant?” I asked, grinning.

The guard laughed nervously. “A bit.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” I turned back to the town. The only place that was free of undead by this point was the spot being held by my soldiers. “Get those men and women out of there. I don’t feel like losing any of my people to the undead this night.”

“Yes, my lady!” One of my guards relayed my message to the major, and a flare was fired into the night sky.

The airship moved so that it was above the spot and lowered a pulley to bring everyone on board. The ship began bombarding the surroundings with cannons to hold off the undead while the soldiers and civilians loaded on board. With practiced teamwork, the crew brought up the people quickly. After only five minutes, we had everyone who sought safety on board and we left the town.

“Still a loss to lose a city to the undead,” the major said as we pulled away.

“We might have been able to hold it, but we can’t hold every town and city we come to. We are limited, the undead are not,” I said with a shake of my head.

“True. Do we just leave it to become a nest for the undead, then?” the major asked.

“No.”

We put distance between us and the town. When we were about ten kilometers from it, a beam of light came from the sky. It struck the center of the town, and a dome of fire rose from the epicenter of the explosion. With my enhanced eyes, I could see everything turning to ash.

“What the—?!”

“Behold the power of your god,” I said, laying it on thick as I walked away. Before I entered the hold, I turned back to see the last effects of the explosion. Arcs of energy flashed around the blackened landmass. Nothing could have survived that. Elementals of various sizes formed in the crater. Adventurers would be busy for decades cleaning up the mess that would be Lecazar.

I confirmed the fleet’s flight path before I used the portal to return to the valley.

That was how things went for several days. In a week the valley’s population crossed a million people. If it wasn’t for Regan’s housing complex, as he called it, we would have been overrun by the amount of people. Our food stores were just barely keeping up as well. I hoped Regan was enjoying the mana from all these people, because I was quite ready to burn them to a crisp.

I’d thought the border cities’ crime rates were bad, but this was on another level. Even with Regan’s obelisks, people were still tempting fate and committing crimes. We were managing to handle it, with the main parts of the city being better off. I considered it mainly to be an adjustment period after so many people losing so much. I thought Regan might come up with a way to help with the issue, but he’d been mostly silent for the last few days.

Trouble,I heard in my mind before a knock came at the door.

“Enter!” I called, worried by the message from Regan.

“My lady! There’s a . . .” The guard paused as he struggled to find the right word. “Revolt happening in the town!”

“What?! By whom?!” I demanded, jumping to my feet.

“The Church of Lelune! They demand the imposter Regan be dealt with,” he replied.

“How dare they! I brought them into my city, my home, and this is how they respond!” Lightning crackled from my skin to anything metal in the room. The desire to storm outside and burn them all to a crisp flaring up again. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to do that. Regan needed the mortals to feed him mana. I needed them for manpower in the fledgling country.

“Orders, my lady?”

“Are they being violent?” I asked, sitting back down.

“No. They are just demanding that you bring out Lord Regan. They’ve set up in the first residential district where their church is located. The citizens are not being harmed in any way.”

“Please send a messenger that I will meet with whoever is in charge in an hour for . . . discussions,” I said.

“My lady, surely we shouldn’t negotiate with these . . . these . . . heretics!” argued the guard.

My anger subsided for a moment as the thought that people were truly worshipping Regan entered my mind. “Thank you. I don’t intend to threaten the safety of anyone in this valley. I will at least try to talk to them,” I said, giving the guard a smile. I knew he was worried about the valley at heart.

“I will deliver your message personally!” he said with a bow, then made his way out of my office.

I’d known this was bound to happen when the major mentioned the Church a week or so ago. I’d just hoped I would have more time to create an actual plan. I was about to call for Ezal when she appeared at my door.

“I like your timing,” I said with a grin.

“Heard there was a party in town and wanted to make sure they had all their permits,” she replied as she walked in.

“I had a guard tell them an hour from now, but to be honest, I’m not sure how to handle this,” I said, tapping my desk with my finger. “It would be brutally easy to just have them all removed. Cleanly or otherwise. Hell, if I asked Regan, he might be able to just teleport the whole lot of them to a very scary place.”

“Indeed. Though I doubt he would want to do that since these people are basically his food. I can only imagine how much mana he’s getting with just over a million people crammed into this valley.”

“Don’t remind me. It scares me just thinking about it.”

“So what’s the plan, Your Highness?” Ezal asked with a teasing tone.

“For now we’ll go talk to them. Have the city forces ready in case everything goes downhill. I would like to resolve this without bloodshed. What they plan to do to a dungeon host is beyond me,” I replied, shaking my head.

“As you command,” Ezal said and bowed on her way out.

I tapped my bracelet and was about to send Regan a message asking what he thought I should do but shook my head. He knew of the situation. I would see how far I could get without his aid, though considering he was the target, it might not be very long before I was forced to involve him.

Forty minutes later I was outside the first residential district, also known as the original district. It contained the largest portion of the old town, including the church. I hadn’t wanted to outright ban the worship of Lelune, but that might have been a mistake. They weren’t breaking any of the laws, so Regan’s obelisks weren’t doing anything about them.

Standing at the entrance of the district, I found the gate blocked by several dozen men equipped to varying degrees of completion. A few wore full plate, but most of the people in the back wore basic leathers and some chain mail. They all wore nervous looks as I approached. I felt a little better about the situation after seeing that.

“Are you going to make me leave my guards out here?” I called to the assembled group.

“Your Highness . . .” one of my guards said, but I waved him down.

A man called out from the center of the group. “I know what this looks like, Your Highness, but we cannot abide a false god. Please talk to the priestess and you’ll understand.”

I turned to Ezal. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, but in case anything happens, please stay out here.” I could take care of myself now. I’d gotten the power to do so. My city, however, was much more fragile than I was. I walked forward on my own, leaving the guards.

“As you command,” Ezal said with a salute.

Someone from the rebel force led me to the church. It had gone through several upgrades since the first weeks after the dungeon was found. Now it was almost to the point of being a cathedral. Elegant stone and glasswork made it a marvel to behold. Depictions of Lelune and her legends were portrayed in the glass.

I was led inside, where I found all the booths full. The noble from a week ago stood on the stage in prayer. I mentally groaned when I saw her. I felt like this was going to be a headache with such a headstrong person leading the opposing force.

“Welcome, Your Highness. We are happy you came so quickly. We didn’t want this to turn . . . ugly,” Countess Constance said with a smile that appeared to shine.

“Yeah. I’m here. Please tell me what you plan to get out of cutting off a part of the city,” I said, cracking my neck. While I was taking this seriously, I didn’t want them to see that. They needed to see this is an annoyance for just about everyone other than themselves.

Countess Constance’s eye twitched, which I took as a win. “Our brothers and sisters have sent us messages about how the rescue forces have abandoned whole towns because they worshipped Lelune and not the false god named Regan! No god would do such a thing!”

“That. Yeah, that was me,” I said and yawned into my hand. “I don’t have the resources nor the time to waste on people who refuse our help just because we follow Lord Regan. They’re lucky we didn’t treat those places like we did the infested cities. Only dust would remain at this point.”

“You . . . you! How could you?! These people were just trying to survive. Why should they have to bow to a false god to be saved?” the countess demanded heatedly.

“Then allow me to ask you, where has the Church been this entire time? The necromancer threat is far from new. Where has the Golden Army been? The Twelve Disciples? An entire country is reduced to a blackened wasteland, and a second one is well on its way!” I rose slightly in the air due to my anger. “WELL, Countess Constance?!”

“That is . . . I’m sure the Grand Vicar has a reason. The Light works in mysterious ways,” she replied. She was starting to sweat and backed away from the center of the stage.

“If the Church of Lelune hadn’t burned the texts and books from before the demon war in an attempt to keep the event from happening again, you would know.” I paused, swinging around to the gathered people. “Know that Lelune is a liar and a cheat! Murderer of her own husband!”

“Blasphemy! Lelune has only led us down the path of righteousness!” Countess Constance shouted from behind me.

“The Celestials used to walk among us. Now your priests only hear one message from her a year. If anyone is a false god, it is Lelune.”

The church was so quiet a person could almost hear hearts beating. I observed the crowd to gauge how my words had reached them. From their faces, I thought I managed to reach a few, people who might have had doubts in their minds for a while now. The Church had only been becoming more corrupt as the last century passed. They weren’t outright evil, but they had a new passion for gold and other . . . less than virtuous callings.

“I see there is no changing your mind, nonbeliever,” Countess Constance said, regaining her composure.

She looked over to the side, and that was the only hint I got. Over three dozen crossbow bolts shot at me from every direction. I sighed with great gusto as I snapped my fingers. The lightning curtain I always kept around me made a visible appearance as the bolts struck it. The metal was magnetized and spun around me like a tornado of blades.

I felt it was a rather weak attempt to take my life. Were they betting on surprise, or had the countess just not believed any of the reports about my power? I would have to find out, as both made me a bit annoyed.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were acting like a necromancer. Is this how the Church does things now? Kill whatever gets in your way?” I asked the countess, who was turning pale.

I began channeling mana into my curtain. I’d wanted this to be bloodless, but I didn’t see a way for that to happen. Besides, if I cooked them all well enough, there wouldn’t be any blood. Lightning started to arc to any metal around me. Countess Constance was in full retreat as she backed away on the stage.

Wait,I heard Regan say in my head. I pulled my mana back and waited to see what he had in mind.

One of his golden portals appeared on the stage. A moment later Regan himself walked out. As I looked him over, I had to consider my own words. Maybe Regan was a god.

Chapter 34

Regan

After two days, we were finally able to figure out what was past the maelstrom. I was still only about a fourth of the way through deciphering the magic woven into the artificial storm, but I had a rough idea what it was doing. The maelstrom was a cage. A cage the size of a continent.

Additionally, it was an engine, and a wall. As to what it was containing—it would take longer to get to the bottom of that mystery. Whatever it was, it was big and powerful, as well as something that I didn’t want to release by accidently tampering with the storm containing it. That’s why I was devoting more resources to understanding the magic, in case my terra wave had damaged it.

While I was doing my research, I felt an uptick of adherent mana to Lelune from the gathered people in the valley. I’d expected it, but something felt off. Pausing my research, I moved over to check out what was going on, and to my surprise, found the little coup happening. Mortals, they never get tired of causing problems.

With so much adherent mana gathered in one place that wasn’t all flowing into myself, I was able to examine it a bit more closely. This form of mana truly was powerful. I had been watching it for maybe three hours when I realized something I should have noticed at the beginning. The mana wasn’t going to a different plane. It traveled to another place on the planet.

I touched one of the streams with my own mana and traced its path. To my surprise, I found that the mana was actually traveling inside the maelstrom. If the cage needed more mana than the storm itself could produce, then tier five and six individuals would be a good source. They would release enough mana in their aura alone to produce quite a charge.

I was going to study it more when I felt Louella had reached an impasse with the people of the Church. I really didn’t want her to have to fry over a hundred thousand people. That would be such a loss of mana. With over a million people in the valley, I was getting nearly six million an hour. I couldn’t ask for something better right now.

I sent her a message to wait and quickly thought about what to do. I decided to go with the tried and true approach for this world, something that spoke much louder than words. Overwhelming power. That meant I couldn’t use my normal form. I groaned at the mana this was going to cost me, but if I was able to keep all these people alive as well as convert them, then it would be worth it down the road. I would just have to apologize to Wrakras later.

First, I took my face from when I was living and modified it to fit this world’s sense of beauty. They leaned more toward the strong look with sharp cheekbones. Next, I created short golden hair, topping it with a golden crown composed of gears. The next part was harder.

I needed my body to literally radiate power. Sticking to the white and gold theme, I created an automaton body that was similar to the machines I’d worked with just before my death. It was also the first time I used adherent mana. Creating living metal out of mithril, I fueled the spells with my adherent mana. I knew something would happen. I just wasn’t sure what.

The metal underwent a transformation. It was amazing, to say the least. Just from my dungeon sense, I could tell it was indestructible. I could also tell that I couldn’t make this without my adherent mana. I quickly made a staff with a star at the top out of the metal, the metal easily being able to handle the amount of mana scripting needed to control the shielding and reaction.

If I was a mortal, this body would have elevated me to tier five easily. I was also worried that this would be what I was dealing with if the Celestials were able to create this material. I would need to upgrade my children as quickly as possible and get Duilin his body. An ex-Celestial would have some ideas on fighting these beings. Then there was the mysterious force on the moon. So many issues, so little time.

With my new body done, I stepped through the portal. I realized my sense of size was getting slightly off-kilter, as I found I was almost four meters tall. I towered over the mortals standing on the stage, but the new material my body was made from was lightweight to the extreme and barely made a dent on the stage floor.

“I hear there have been accusations of me being a false god?” I asked the gathered people, casting my voice around the room.

“My apologies, Lord Regan. I was trying to reason with them but failed,” Louella said, bowing while floating in the air.

“I attribute no blame to you. Nor do I blame these fine people. Their lives have changed in the matter of minutes. I would be a poor god indeed if I did not know what they are going through.”

“Then you claim that Lelune is a false goddess?” Countess Constance said, pointing from where she was curled next to the wall.

“That is a matter of opinion. Did Queen Louella ever once say Lelune was a false goddess? No, she only implied. The goddess has sent sparse messages in recent years. Maybe we should ask her personally why that is,” I said as I turned to the side in search of the highest-tiered priest in the room. I settled on a man who was sitting off to the side of the stage. He was several levels higher than even the countess, who was in the tier three range. “Good man, would you do me the favor of communing with your goddess? That way you will know that I create no falsehoods.”

The man jumped at my turning the focus on him. A jumpy kind of person, in general. He looked to the countess, then back to me. His face seemed to change as his twitchy eyes grew steely, and he nodded with much more confidence. I grinned. And a man who knew when to hide.

He walked over and kneeled at the front of the stage to start praying. As the adherent mana started to flow from him, I tapped into it with my own mana and started to absorb it. I knew the goddess hated this from my beginning days as a dungeon core. Sure enough, an image of the goddess appeared in my mind’s eye. I quickly grabbed it with my mana.

“Hello, Lady Lelune. Let’s have a chat,” I said.

“What is the meaning of this?!” she demanded as a sort of viewing window appeared in front of me.

I made sure she could only see me. As an added precaution to make sure she didn’t catch on and start acting coy, I created a barrier of air so the sound wouldn’t travel to her even if someone shouted to her.

“I just wanted to chat about the current state of the world. I’ve been cleaning up a mess that could have easily been prevented had you made your priests work more diligently together.”

“You . . . how dare you tell me how to use my pawns. You’re just some little dungeon core. You have no idea of the forces I command.”

“Is that so?” I moved my staff so she could see the gleam it made. “What to do?” I said, tapping the staff against my shoulder.

“That . . . that . . . that’s not possible! Wait—Cassin! This is another one of his tricks. Damn that shadow demon. I swear I’ll slice him to pieces.”

I blinked as she came to some conclusion on her own, and I decided to just roll with it. “Lady Lelune, I ask again, why do you leave your people to suffer?”

She snorted, looking me over. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking. “You know as well as I do that those moldy old gods were the ones that forced this change. I should have burned their temples sooner. I regret waiting until I became a Celestial.” She sent a glare at me before waving her hand through the image. “Next time try something more original, Cassin.”

I went ahead and cut the connection as she waved her hand through it. I was quite pleased with the information gained from this little experiment. I now knew I could at least communicate with Celestia. And another fact I gleaned from this—my mana never left the realm. I knew what that felt like thanks to the subdimension I had in my core.

Dismissing the spell entirely, I turned back to the assembled people. “Are you pawns?” I asked simply.

Countess Constance grabbed the man who used his mana. “It’s a lie. Those weren’t actually the words of the goddess, right?!”

The man looked to be in a trance but quickly came to his senses. Quite violently, he tore the symbol of the goddess from his robe and stomped on it. He glared at the countess, who backed away quickly.

“That . . . that . . . that harlot! I devoted thirty years of my life to her! I believed in the Light!” He turned his glare toward me. “And what do you demand of us?! Devotion? Constant prayer?”

“I’ll be honest. I’m not a nice person. I look out for my own. In that same thread, if you follow me, you’re one of mine. I can promise you one thing. I am a dungeon. I need mortals to grow so I can grow. Lelune only needs you to serve her ends,” I said, giving the man a smile.

The man turned to Louella. “Your Highness, on behalf of everyone here, I apologize for the idiocy that has transpired today. Please. Punish me and forgive the sins of the others,” he said as he kneeled to the ground, exposing his neck.

“What is your name?” Louella asked, landing in front of him.

“Vicar Sarous, Your Highness.”

When the man said he was a vicar, the crowd made a large amount of sound. Countess Constance also looked at the man with wide eyes. Apparently Sarous was a big deal.

“Very well. As punishment for your crime of rebelling against the Crown of Vaihdetta, you are to”—she paused for effect—“make sure that everyone is returned safely to their homes and given a warm meal. That is a hundred thousand people.”

Vicar Sarous looked up with a bewildered expression. “But, Your Highness . . .”

“No. My decision is final. No one came to harm today, and I believe for most people”—she glanced over to Countess Constance—“it was an enlightening day.”

“Very well.”

I moved forward, pulling everyone’s attention back to me. “I will not force you to worship me as Lelune did. But I don’t mind everyone here thinking of me as a friendly grandfather. Let us grow strong and prosper together,” I said, setting my hand on Louella’s shoulder. A golden portal formed over us and descended down to move us back to her office.

“That went better than I expected,” Louella said, moving over to her liquor cabinet.

I laughed for a few seconds before I could reply. “You were about to turn them all into charred meat.”

“Okay, maybe you showed up just in time. Tell me, was that the real Lelune?”

“Yes. Vicar Sarous can verify it, as the mana had to travel through him. Everyone might have been able to see what transpired, but he could truly experience everything that the goddess was conveying.”

“I hope Sarous will be alright. I was surprised when he said he was a vicar. I thought that golden countess was the highest-ranked Church member in the valley.”

“I have to give the man credit. He knew that being high ranked in a valley that is currently worshipping another god might not be safe for him. But he still worked to make sure the people of his Church were taken care of. He is truly a good man.”

“On another note. It’s weird seeing you in white and gold. Have a change of heart?”

“Wanted to express my holiness. Made some kind of new material,” I said with a laugh.

“If I didn’t know any better . . . no, can’t be,” she said, shaking her head.

“What?”

“It’s just . . . the coloration. The way the light bends around it. It’s almost as if it was adamantine. God’s metal.”

“Considering how I made it, it just might be.”

“You know what? I’m not even surprised,” Louella said, rubbing her temples.

“Damn. I guess I’ll have to try harder,” I said and rubbed my chin. I would have to find a new person to tease if Louella stopped reacting to me.

I was about to say as much when I sensed a massive surge of mana in the east. It was near where I’d last checked on Julie. Excusing myself, I teleported to the station to find out what was going on.

Chapter 35

Julie

I knew Master was pleased. Every time I saved some mortals, I could feel a burst of appreciation from him. Just today, I managed to save a town that was about to be overrun by undead. When I saw the town, even I was amazed they were still alive. I could sense several large mana signatures from inside the town but couldn’t pinpoint them due to the chaos.

I had yet to use any of the more advanced weapons Master had built into my suit. My blades were more than enough for the rabble that I’d come up against so far. I preferred cutting up zombies to skeletons. Zombies were the closest to mortals I could get. I hoped that Master waged war on flesh-and-blood mortals soon.

I was a few hours from the scar that Master told me about, excited about what I would find. Endless slaughter being at the top of my list. I wasn’t sure when, but my blades had started to speak to me, craving more of the undead flesh. I wasn’t sure if it was the usual insanity or something new. I knew Master’s weapons were capable of developing egos, I just never dreamed that I would gain one, let alone two.

I squirmed at the thought that these blades could be like Master’s and my children. Master built them and I’d channeled mana into them. It was similar to that bitch Ezal’s weapon. I couldn’t wait to show Master when I got back.

“Master . . .” I moaned as I sliced a three-meter zombie in half. The dark mana was drained from the flesh and into me.

“More . . .” my blades replied.

“Don’t worry, my darlings. There’s plenty where that came from,” I cooed, rubbing the blades against my cheek.

I looked around me to a sea of undead of every shape and size. I’d once had dreams about commanding an army like this. Now, my dream was to tear it apart for Master. I flashed a feral grin, then shot forward. Limbs, rotted blood, organs, and all manner of gore splattered around me as I sliced my way through anything that had unholy mana.

I wasn’t sure when or why, but I started to laugh. I was having so much fun! I wanted to slaughter more! I’d never been able to kill so wantonly. Even if they were the undead, it felt so . . . good! My heart beat faster every moment I was in the horde of undead. I felt a wetness on my face as rotting blood from the zombie I’d just sliced in half splattered.

I came to a stop on the edge of a black wasteland that stretched as far as I could see to the north and south. It spread in front of me at least thirty kilometers wide, I estimated. Undead appeared to be continuously emerging from the desecrated land. A few months ago, this would have enthralled me. Now . . . now I just wanted to rip them apart.

I noticed a man walking through the Deadlands with much more coordination than the undead. He was either a very high-level undead or still living. That firmly put him on my master’s kill-on-sight list. My breathing sped up at the thought that I might further Master’s cause even more by killing a necromancer that escaped his purge.

“I see some prey,” I said excitedly.

The two blades spoke one after the other.

“Tear.”

“Apart.”

“I can’t deny my babies,” I cooed.

I surged my mana, then shot into the air. Flying over the useless undead, I angled down at the man who didn’t seem to notice me yet. The air streaked by me as I closed the distance on him. I was less than a meter away from him when he swung his arm around. My blades collided with his palm, and a shock wave rippled out from the impact. He sank half a meter into the ground.

“Aren’t you a feisty one?” the man asked with a grin.

“Motherfucker!” I shouted with a growl and jumped back. This was the first time I’d failed to cut through something. It felt like I’d hit a brick wall with my arms.

The man turned to face me fully, and I realized his face reminded me of the gnome bitch that Master kept as a pet. He was taller but not by much. Purple tendrils emerged around him, and I pulled farther back, sensing mana even darker than unholy mana.

“I can make your life easier for you,” he said with a beckoning motion.

“I’m quite happy with my current situation,” I replied.

I tapped the wrist of the suit, and pods opened on the shoulders. Solid red beams of light streaked at the man, carving furrows into the ground, which exploded after a moment. When the dust cleared, he was standing perfectly fine, dusting off his clothes, which were the only things damaged.

“That was interesting. I don’t think I’ve seen magic quite like that before,” he said with a chuckle. “I think it’s my turn though.”

He raised his hand, and a black hole formed with streaks of lightning arcing into it as he pulled in mana. I didn’t take any chances and shot into the air, flying back to gain as much distance as I could. The ball of darkness was only about the size of his hand when he threw it toward me, but it expanded to fill the sky. I wrapped my dark mana wings around me just before the blast hit me.

The impact sent me flying, and I slammed into the ground and probably would have died if not for the new body Master made for me. I felt pain, but not nearly as much as I should have been feeling. As I pushed myself up, a good few centimeters of dirt fell off me. Looking around, I found that almost a kilometer’s worth of area around the man was now as smooth as a pane of glass.

I crawled out of the hole I’d made with my impact. “My master is able to hurt me more without even meaning to,” I called to the man while dusting off my armor. I noticed a few scratches, and my anger boiled to the surface. “I got this from Master! Son of a bitch!”

“Interesting. I don’t think a person has ever been able to walk away unscathed from that before.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed, then shot toward him. I brought my blades around with inhuman speed that he matched with his bare hands. Each of my impacts caused a shock wave that tore the ground around us to pieces. My anger only grew more as I failed to hurt him in any way.

“I believe that is quite enough,” the man said with a sigh.

He swung his fist around, and I could have sworn it was in slow motion, but he managed to hit me square in the chest. The next second I was in a crater several meters deep. My chest throbbed but didn’t quite hurt. I dug my hand into the side of the crater and started pulling myself out with effort.

“You’re not holding back because I’m a girl, are you?” I said after I reached the top of the crater.

“My lord. Whatever created you must be even scarier. I don’t think I should let someone with that amount of power have free reign. Would you be a dear and tell me where your master is?” the man said.

“I’ll say it again. Fuck you.”

“Pity.”

Energy surged around him, nearly taking a solid form as the ground cracked under him. He shot toward me, and I barely got my arms up in time to block as his fist slammed into me. I was sent flying again, but he stayed on me and began to rapidly pound on me. I could feel some type of energy trying to seep into me through the impact sites.

We collided with a hill, and I realized that I’d just been knocked at least twenty kilometers to the north. He kept his barrage up, each blow forcing me farther into the hillside. I could feel the armor Master made for me starting to crack. There still wasn’t much pain, but I knew once the armor broke, that might change.

The man stopped for a moment. “Want to reconsider your answer?”

I spit in his face and smiled when I saw his expression change from mild humor to one of anger. He lifted his hand and a jagged spike formed out of some type of energy I couldn’t get a sense for. The only thing that crossed my mind was that it wasn’t of this world. Just before it started to descend, I heard something I didn’t expect.

“Mind if I cut in?”

A blade of golden-white metal erupted from the man’s chest and purple energy spilled out.

Regan

Using the station and satellites, I was able to locate Julie in the northeast. She was fighting something I’d been trying to find for a few weeks now. Volrudos, the demon Izora’s father had unleashed. I’d figured he’d be near one of the dungeons, not strolling through the dead scar like it was a fall afternoon.

I couldn’t tell from the station whether she was making any headway, but given the information I had on the demon generals, I doubted it. I debated on my course of action for a few minutes but lost my cool when I saw Julie impact the side of the small mountain. I don’t care how messed up Julie was, she was mine.

Opening a portal to the battlefield using my connection with Julie, I appeared behind Volrudos just as he was about to plunge some type of blade into her. I leveled my new staff with his back, then amplified my strength to the limit of my new body.

“Mind if I cut in?” With a thrust, I stabbed the blade through his back. A second later, the entire mountainside shattered from the shock wave created. Purple blood leaked from the wound along the shaft of the weapon.

“Im . . . possible,” Volrudos said, spitting out some blood.

I yanked the weapon free as I grabbed the back of his head and threw him straight down. He created a crater with his impact.

I made sure Julie was alright and teleported her back to Steel Spire, then dropped down into the crater. “Nothing is impossible. I have various theories I need to test. I’m glad you’ve volunteered to be my test subject this fine afternoon.”

Energy pulsed from Volrudos, and his wound healed instantly. Grinning, I activated a laser of my own. There was a brief flash of light, then Volrudos was slammed back into the crater, adding another ten or so meters to its depth. I examined his body but couldn’t see any visible wounds.

A stream of black and purple erupted from the bottom of the crater as Volrudos threw some type of spell at me. I created a quick barrier before the spell collided with me. The next second two or three kilometers of the mountain behind me was gone, whereas my barrier cracked and shattered.

“I’m glad you have a few tricks up your sleeve,” I commented, dusting my robe off. This was why I preferred black. Blood and dust didn’t stain it as easily.

“You are an interesting being. I’ve never met anyone outside of my own kind that managed to cut me,” Volrudos said, pulling himself out of the crater.

“Hurt? I plan on killing you today. No one hurts that which is mine,” I said, with mana flickering around me at my anger.

“Now, now. It was only a little bit,” Volrudos said roguishly.

The demon stood there as if waiting to see what my next trick was going to be. I couldn’t disappoint. Thinking through my list of weapons, I grinned as I held my hand out. It was times like this I was glad to be a dungeon core. Having created something once, I could reproduce it again. A spec of fluctuating matter formed over my palm.

“Let us see if you can withstand this.” I shifted my hand, then fired the mass like one would from a railgun. Volrudos gave me a grin that seemed to say Do your worst. The mass hit his chest. It was at least three hundred grams of antimatter. I teleported a distance away just as the reaction happened.

Volrudos’s chest exploded with enough energy to equal a few hydrogen bombs. I had to give him credit. The rest of his body was indeed immune to energy, and the explosion turned into a column coming from both his chest and back. Everything in a twenty-kilometer radius was reduced to ash. After that, the destruction varied based on the landscape.

I reappeared next to Volrudos to check if he was still alive. I was depressed when I found him still breathing. The wound didn’t heal instantly like the first one, but it was closing before my eyes. I considered what to try next.

“That . . . hurt . . . I hope . . . you’re . . . ready for . . . what comes next,” Volrudos said in between grunts of obvious pain.

“Did I piss someone off?” I asked with a sneer.

“You . . . are . . . dead.”

With a boom, the mana in the air suddenly surged toward him. I frowned as I calculated the amount of mana he was pulling in. While mana didn’t technically have a physical form, if it was condensed enough, it took on a crystalline form. With the amount he was absorbing, it just didn’t make sense.

“We’ll see about that,” I said, readying my staff for whatever he might throw at me.

“I’ll . . . break you!” he shouted, then shot forward. It appeared he was doing this the old-fashioned way. Brute force seemed to be Volrudos’s motto. I channeled mana into my body to bring it up to the same speed, the god metal drinking in mana like a man lost in a desert.

I met his fist with my staff, and from there it turned into a rapid rally as I met his increasingly faster blows. I knew he was soon using enough force to break entire mountains. In fact, the shock waves of his blows were creating furrows in the ground around us. The parts of my body not composed of the adamantine were slowly cracking and breaking from the pressure.

I contemplated what to do as I went over all the facts I knew about demons. A light bulb went off in my head as I thought about Quin. I made what I thought was an evil grin. Now, I just needed to stab him again. I met his blow, but this time I let it throw me a few dozen meters away. When I cleared enough distance, I channeled mana into my Laser spell again, only making it continuous. He knew it wouldn’t hurt him, so he took it.

He was blasted into the side of the mountain, and I shot at him myself. He struggled against the laser but failed to get up in time. The blade on my staff impaled him, going through and nailing him to the mountain. I killed the laser and stood back.

“I think we both know this doesn’t really bother me,” Volrudos said with a gesture at the staff in his stomach. “Honestly, I’d hoped you would show me something more.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said, then snapped my fingers. As I watched, his veins instantly bulged as his body rejected the new substance, but my theory had paid off. The mana-eating nanites I’d made worked on him as well. They replicated before his body could deal with them, allowing them to quickly eat him.

“What—what is this?! It—IT BURNS!” he yelled as he ripped the staff out of him.

I held out my hand, and it returned to my grasp. I knew that Quin had managed to survive by literally ripping her own body apart, thus I’d made a few improvements. Rather than spread slowly in a growing radius, these dived directly into the bloodstream for maximum spread.

“This . . . is your reckoning,” I said as I reached into the hole and grabbed his neck with my clawed hand.

Chapter 36

Regan

I debated for a few minutes but ultimately decided his existence was too dangerous to me. Allowing the nanites to run their course, I watched Volrudos slowly and very painfully die, wreathing in a puddle of his own blood. I did collect all of the aforementioned blood. I remembered stories back on Earth about creatures that were able to regenerate from a single cell. It would not be a joke if the same happened with Volrudos.

I knew the moment his soul left the body. Whether to return to the Wheel of Reincarnation or to head off in some other path, I couldn’t be sure. My clawed hand suddenly bit through his neck as if there was no resistance. I made a mental note to increase all my defense against energy entities. I checked his body over and found two shards of crystal embedded in him.

I frowned as I ripped them from the body. I didn’t know if the dungeon hosts that these originally belonged to would be able to return, but I would at least try. I knew one was Vlad. The other one, however, I wasn’t sure. I would need to see if I could set up some way to track either the movements Volrudos made or a mana signature of the cores themselves back to where they’d originated.

I encased the body in a mithril alloy that sealed it from all outside stimuli, then used space magic to cut it off from the flow of time. I really didn’t like the idea of risking this thing in my main dungeon, so I moved it to Steel Spire. Wiping my hands of the entire thing, I moved over to where I placed Julie.

She was slamming her head against the floor but was doing more damage to the floor than herself. Tears spilled from her like a river. I watched for a few seconds, not sure how to proceed, then just decided to wing it. It wouldn’t be the first time I didn’t know how to deal with a woman for one reason or another.

“Julie, stop,” I said, walking up behind her.

“MASTER!” she cried and flung herself around my waist. “I’ve failed! I’ve failed!” She kept repeating the phrase over and over.

I wrapped my hands around her shoulders and pulled her back. My god form, as I was starting to think of it, hands were nearly large enough to wrap around her chest. I was almost four meters tall in this form and could easily picked her up so that she dangled in the air.

“That is enough. You failed, so you will be sent back to the starting point and made to do it over. This time if you run into a creature that is basically the nemesis of all life on this planet, you are to give me a call.”

“You’re . . . you’re not mad?” she asked with a sniffle.

“I wouldn’t be a very benevolent master if I got mad at you over something you couldn’t control. But . . . I guess a punishment is in order,” I said, looking off into the distance, though I didn’t miss the pleased expression that flashed over her features. Bloody masochist. This would be difficult, however. I’d given her a body that didn’t really feel pain. I grinned as I got an evil thought.

I accessed the living metal that formed her body. I was the one who’d made it, and I still retained control over it. Tapping into what served as her nerves, I sent the command to administer pain throughout her body. A second later, she screamed and writhed as her thighs grew wet. I let it go on for about ten seconds before I dropped her to the floor.

“Thank . . . thank . . . thank you, Master,” she said, lying on the floor and breathing deeply.

“Rest for a day, then you will be sent back to the forest to start over,” I said, then walked away.

“Yes . . .”

I shook my head and began checking over the Steel Spire. I didn’t feel like having another body walk away like Reed’s had. The only information I had on that break-in was that a Celestial of considerable power had managed to inhabit it, then vanish. His little . . . visit gave me quite a lot of data to use regarding that type of entity, however.

If something tried the same thing, I would be adding another Celestial to my collection. Speaking of Celestials, I needed to create a body for Duilin soon. I hated the idea of a powerful minion . . . ally sitting up there wasting away. It would have to wait a few more days. The battle with Volrudos took much of my mana that I had built up.

I checked the hour and realized it was nighttime, so I decided to go look in on Puppet. With the drop forces there, they should be able to hold out for several weeks if not months without issue. Still, it paid off to never assume you were going to win the war before it even started. I decided to go full appearance. Maybe I could score a few worshippers.

I found Puppet on the wall of the city. Even with my forces there, the mortals weren’t taking any chances and were stationed on the wall. Though, I could see quite a bit of relaxing going on. People were even asleep in a few places. Mortals, it was scary how fast they could adapt once they thought they were safe.

I was about to create the portal when I saw the prince standing next to Puppet. That reminded me I hadn’t actually negotiated with their leadership yet. Guess it didn’t hurt to strike while the iron was hot. I looked around my aura and found Louella. With a thought I was standing in her office.

“If you were any bigger, you would be in the ceiling,” Louella commented after my form solidified.

It was true. The room was barely big enough to contain my new form. I waved my hand and her office expanded by several meters in every direction. To Louella’s credit she never once blinked.

“How did the situation with the Church go after I left?”

“About as you can expect. There is going to be a great amount of turmoil in their ranks for the foreseeable future. You would be the better judge of how many people have actually converted.”

“True. I’d say we managed to sway around thirty percent. It will be interesting to watch going forward. On to other business. I need you to grab Chloe and come with me over to Tearfalls. We need to negotiate what happens going forward over there.”

“I’ll send a guard. Where is she?” Louella asked with a raised eyebrow.

I chuckled and told her where the guard could find Chloe, then I snapped my fingers as a thought came to me. A small portal opened. “Sophia, I want you to come with me. We are going to talk to your brother. I won’t take no for an answer.”

The portal opened into a black void. Of course, that’s to be expected when you open a portal into space. The girl was floating around the space station like a small satellite. I seriously didn’t understand what the child was thinking.

She came through the portal with a pout. “Alright.”

“That’s a good girl. Don’t worry. Just a small family reunion so that hopefully everything goes smoothly,” I said with a chuckle.

“Hello, Sophia,” Louella said, waving at the girl. “Do you remember me?”

Sophia nodded but hid behind my back. While we waited for Chloe to show up, I played with trying to shrink my new body down to a more reasonable size. It took a few tries, but after setting the material to fold into itself, I was able to make the body smaller, though it was much denser now.

“That’s a bit better,” I said, looking myself over. It still held its divinity, which was its prime goal.

“Yeah. I think I like you below the three-meter mark better,” Louella said with a quick observation.

“Thank you, Your Highness.” I gave her a bow and a smirk.

Chloe showed up a few minutes later, breathing heavily, having rushed over. Her guard was right behind her almost on her heel.

“Are we all here?” I looked around to make sure everyone was ready, then created a portal. I led the way in case the mortals got trigger-happy. Not that anything these mortals could do would hurt my new body, but the same couldn’t be said for the others with me. Plus, I didn’t want to have gravity magic thrown at me.

Stepping through the portal, we found Puppet still next to the prince, calming everyone down. A few of the guards on the wall were certainly uptight. Not that I blamed them, considering the one-sided war on the undead my creations were waging only a few hundred meters from their walls.

“Good evening, everyone. I hope the night finds everyone well,” I said, tapping my staff on the ground. Going through the portal undid the shrinking my body had gone through.

“You’ve . . . certainly changed since your message a few nights ago,” the guard captain said.

“Given my nature, I have a lot of forms I am able to take. But that is neither here nor there. We are here to discuss the future of this lovely city,” I said, gesturing around me.

“Brother!” Chloe moved from behind the group and grabbed her brother’s hands.

“Chloe? What are you doing here? What about Sophia, Kyla, Mother, Father?”

“Kyla betrayed us to the necromancers. Only Sophia and I got out.”

“Where is Sophia?” the prince demanded, looking around.

Chloe glanced back to me.

“She’s right here,” I said, reaching behind me to pull the girl from where she clung to my back. She dangled from my grip like a kitten would from a mother cat’s mouth.

“Sophia! What have you done to her?!” he demanded when he saw her new form.

“What she asked me to, so don’t even start or I’ll level this entire city just to be done with it,” I said, not even bothering to hide my annoyance.

He ground his teeth but didn’t say anything on the subject. “Sophia, can you at least give your brother a hug?” he asked, holding his hands out.

I let her go and she floated forward a few centimeters, then flashed behind me almost faster than my own eyes could keep up.

The prince cried, “Sophia!”

“I’m sorry, but part of my deal with the child is to protect her. If she doesn’t want to speak to you, then there is nothing I can do on the matter,” I said.

“Lord Regan,” Louella said, moving forward. “Perhaps it’s best if we continue inside. There are many eyes watching right now.”

I glanced around to the many soldiers and adventurers on the wall, then nodded. “Indeed.”

The guard captain led us to the city keep, or rather palace. Looking around, I could see that even with the assistance of my drop forces, the people were still in rough shape. There appeared to be a general lack of food. Mentally asking Puppet while we walked, I found out that the last airship had failed to return about a week ago.

I reached a plaza in front of a church belonging to Lelune’s followers. The priests and priestesses were turning people away even though they still appeared decently fed. I was about to let the hypocrisy of this particular branch go since I was already here on other business when I saw the priest point to a young girl. She was of decent beauty, and I still would have been fine with it, but he refused to let the rest of her family, two brothers, in with her. When she tried to go back to her brothers, the church officials stopped her.

“Stop,” I said, slamming my staff into the ground hard enough to form a small crater. Everyone came to a stop. The eyes of people new to me widened at my apparent burst of anger. I walked over to the church steps. “Tell me, why does she get to enter while her brothers do not?”

I could see the man was thinking quickly. He gulped, then said, “I can sense the Light in her. If we train her, she will be able to help many people.”

I looked over to the girl and used my mana sense on her. I chuckled when I saw she was very strongly of the dark mana. “If you want her to run in the shadows, certainly. Though I have a feeling your use of her will be more of the carnal type.” At this point I was actually impressed that my body wasn’t affecting him much. I narrowed my eyes and scanned the man.

“Who are you to decide how the Church is to operate? We have uses for all the aspects, not just Light!” he shouted.

“I’m sure . . . Tell me,” I said again. “What is a necromancer doing behind enemy lines? Don’t you feel bad about your brothers and sisters being slaughtered out there?”

“Necromancer . . . Please. Just because I don’t agree with you, you try to frame me,” the priest said with a flippant hand wave.

“You are a brave one. You don’t even know what I am,” I said, then slammed my staff into the ground again. The center of the plaza behind me rose half a meter up with a radius of several dozen meters. Bags of grain, crates of vegetables and fruits, and cooled meats formed. There was enough to feed several thousand people for months. For the number of people in the city, it should last a few days.

“What . . . what are you?! Wait!” His eyes grew wide. “You’re the dungeon core to the west!”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that look,” I said, reaching forward to grab him. Whether out of panic or some other desperate reason, he threw a bolt of unholy mana at me. It collided with my face but was cleansed before it even started to leech into the ambient mana, let alone my body. “Are you done?” I shot my arm forward and latched it around his neck.

“Lord Regan . . . don’t you think . . . think it might be better to let the local forces deal with him?” Louella asked.

I didn’t fail to notice her hand on her forehead. “One moment,” I called back. Metal leaked from my hand and made a brand around the man’s neck, effectively sealing his mana. I tossed him over to the local guards, not worrying about being gentle, then moved over to the girl, who was still being held by the priestess. That changed with a look at the woman. “Child, I commend your actions of trying to stay with your brothers. You see that woman over there in the silver? She can give you and your brothers a comfortable place to live and plenty of food to eat.”

“What . . . what do you want in return?” she asked, her voice only cracking once.

“Smart. Never expect a handout. But don’t worry. I am more than capable of getting anything you could give. So, what I want is for you to grow up, and if your path might lead to it, help the lady in silver. For now though, why don’t you spread the word about the food here?”

“I will, Lord Regan!” she said, bowing enough that her head touched the ground. As her brothers followed her example, a burst of adherent mana came from the girl. I waved as she ran off, shouting about food at the plaza. I turned my eyes over the church to make sure there weren’t any more necromancers.

The structure was much larger than it appeared. Mana of all aspects flowed in and out of the place. Looking farther down, I saw what might have been catacombs that were flooded by death, dark, and unholy mana. I would need to send in Puppet later to have a closer look, but I couldn’t delay any longer.

“Guard Captain, I am sorry about this delay. I would recommend you send a few platoons here to investigate this church. If you want me to help, that will be determined during our upcoming session,” I said, turning back to the group. I had to stop myself from laughing at the range of emotions being shown. Louella exasperated, Puppet interested, the prince horrified, and the guard captain infuriated, though not at me, surprisingly.

“I will make sure that these . . . vermin pay. I can’t believe I allowed this scum in the walls under my watch!”

Once I was back in the group, I said, “Don’t beat yourself up too much. They’ve been practicing it for nearly five decades now.”

Chapter 37

Louella

I could only sigh as I watched Regan. I knew he’d kind of taken a turn toward prosecution ever since he’d rescued Alara, but there were smarter ways of going about it. Well . . . I couldn’t blame him. When I saw the girl being taken into the church, I about lost it myself. I would just have to hope it didn’t affect the talks with the city government.

With the interruption over, we soon arrived at the palace. It appeared to be constructed out of jade and marble. Even higher than the city itself, the waterfalls gave it the appearance of being lifted by water. A single bridge connected the city to the palace. The guards stood aside when they saw the prince leading the group.

“Some very clever magic was used here,” Regan commented, looking around at the palace.

“Anything we need to be worried about?” I asked quietly. The last thing I wanted to do was walk into a trap.

“No. It’s mostly magic to allow this castle to even exist like that.”

We were led into the throne room where a man sat on a smaller chair to the side. If the emperor visited, he would take the place of honor. Though, I guess there wasn’t an emperor anymore. Prince Charles made his way over and sat on the throne once we all entered the room.

“I know it is not custom, but as my sister informed me, Father is no longer living. As heir it is my right,” he said as he sat down.

“This is going to be fun,” I heard Regan mumble and could only groan.

“I owe you a debt of gratitude. It is likely that this city would have already fallen had it not been for your timely intervention. No thanks to my other sister at that,” Prince Charles said, slamming his fist on the throne. “I’d hoped she’d been forced when she attacked the other day. It appears I was wrong.”

“Prince Charles, I don’t have an easy way to say this so I will come straight out and say it. As queen of Vaihdetta, I lay claim to all Lecazar lands. Princess Chloe has already surrendered her rights as the heir to me. Willingly. I still have some love for my old country, so please step down,” I said, stepping forward. While I knew Regan could play circles around the prince, if he stepped down on his own, it would be better for Chloe. I didn’t want her to lose any more family.

“Yes . . . I heard about this Vaihdetta from the guard captain. That would make you the Machine Father. The new god.”

“It’s always nice when they catch on quickly,” Regan said from next to me.

Prince Charles burst out laughing, and I grew worried about what was going to happen. “I knew from a young age I would never be emperor. I just wanted to sit on the throne for a few minutes. I hope you excuse me for my . . . childish dreams,” he said with a shrug. He jumped up and looked back to the throne. “I still wish I could have sat on the golden throne of the capital.”

“You’re taking this remarkably well. And you knew you would never be emperor?” Regan said with a smirk.

“The royal family has been around for a very long time. We have seen many magics come and go. There was a prediction of when the line would end. Every heir is taught about it.”

“Interesting,” Regan said, rubbing his chin.

“Well then. Your throne, my lady,” the prince said with a sweeping bow.

I was still reeling from how . . . easy this had been. I expected an argument, a fight, or something. Regan tapped my back with his staff, pushing me forward. I blinked and walked up to the throne. The noble in the steward’s chair bowed to me. He seemed more or less casual about the whole situation. I guess as long as your life and position weren’t in jeopardy, then it didn’t matter who was above you in the grand scheme of things.

I sat down and looked over the people gathered. I allowed Helios to float next to me and cleared my throat. “Thank you, Prince Charles. I am glad you have abdicated the throne so easily. I promise to return Lecazar to its former glory. Thanks to Lord Regan, we can deal with this necromancer threat.” He bowed his head in thanks. “Lord Regan, is there anything we mortals can do to make this easier for you?”

“Where is the centermost place in the city? Other than showing me that, not really.”

“Lord Steward, will you please escort Lord Regan to this location?” I said.

“As you wish, my lady.” The man bowed to me, then to Regan before leading the way out of the hall.

I turned back to the rest. “We shall link our two cities with portals to allow greater assistance. Those that wish to leave may do so. Those that wish to fight for their home are more than welcome.”

“Many will likely want to leave but will be more than willing to return. A few nights of rest without fear of the undead will lift many a spirit,” the man next to the guard captain said. I looked at him and realized it was one of Regan’s children, Puppet.

“Then we will make it happen. You are Puppet, correct?” I asked, leaning forward.

“Yes, Your Highness. I am technically in charge of the adventurers currently in town. The guild master was killed during the first raid on the city.”

“Then I will issue some missions for the adventurers that wish to stay in the city. That way they will be more inclined to stay.”

“That will go a good distance in making many people happier,” Puppet said with a nod.

“Prince Charles, if you would like, you can be taken back to my city with your sisters.”

“I thank you for the offer, but I will remain. I refuse to leave until Tearfalls is safe again.”

“Very well. The last matter is that of the Church. Guard Captain, please have that issue taken care of.” I quickly sent a message to Regan, then reached into my space bag. “Here, use these, they will allow you to detect any unholy mana, and they are adept at absorbing the foul stuff.” I held out three green sheathed swords to him.

He stepped forward and took them from me, and I nodded with a smile. “Thank you, my lady.”

~~~

The next few days were hectic. The city of Tearfalls had a population of nearly four hundred thousand alone. Adding in the refugees from the surrounding lands, it came out to a decent population boost for Vaihdetta. When half of that population moved to Vaihdetta, it grew empty in Tearfalls and even more crowded in my city. Thankfully, it was more of a rotation deal, with many of the people returning with high spirits.

A few hours after Regan was led away by the steward, a tower much like his Steel Spire rose in the center of the city. I was glad he’d reduced the size a bit, but it was still at least seven hundred meters tall. He’d also changed the fields outside the city into a literal wall of death. Machines of all kinds were slowly moving into the forest. It was almost as if they were eating the tainted land as they moved.

“Well, Steward, Prince Charles, I leave the city of Tearfalls in your capable hands. If you need me, send me a message on this.” I handed the prince a strip of metal that had a mana stone in the center. One of the mages Ezal had recruited for the army made it after studying in Regan’s library. I was considering making him a court mage to work on advancing the country’s magic. We couldn’t always expect handouts from Regan.

“Thank you, Your Highness. Please keep my sisters safe,” Prince Charles said with a bow.

“Of course.”

“Keep me safe. You’re the one in a war zone, Brother,” Chloe said, smacking his arm.

I tapped my staff, and a portal opened to the valley. I had to thank Regan for making this for me. A circlet of mithril floated at the top of the staff just below the head. It contained the Portal spell matrix. I had to fuel it myself, but it was surprisingly easy to do when the distance to cross was just under a few hundred kilometers.

Chloe and I followed my guards through to the portal matrix. I nodded to the guards, then we loaded into a carriage that was waiting for me and made our way back to the castle. Regan said it was safer for me to have the portal link to the matrix. I was already happy just to have an easy way home, so I wasn’t complaining. Looking out at the city, I noted how much it had changed over the last few months. The snow covered it like a blanket. I smiled and swore to myself for maybe the thousandth time: I would protect this place. No matter what.

Chapter 38

Oparens Wanderer

“Yes, I know it’s dangerous, but I can’t refuse a direct order from the council,” I said to the annoying raven that’d been cawing several good points this whole time.

The council had ordered me to investigate the strange terra wave that struck the city. I had a general idea of where to start my investigation, but it could still take me months to years. That entire time I wouldn’t be able to come back to the city unless it was dire. The journey was just that perilous for most people.

“Caw . . . caw. CAW!” Qez sounded from its perch.

“If that happens, so be it,” I said, shrugging. I couldn’t control what would happen once out in the wilds of the Beneath. That’d been a fact of life for the last ten thousand years. Especially since the dark elves had made their way down here. It was peaceful within the areas around the cities, but even then, there were skirmishes all the time between the various races. Space in the Beneath was the premium, after all.

I snapped my fingers, and the other spirits around the room condensed into beads that formed a bracelet around my wrist. They used a decent amount of mana in their physical forms. The only one I left out was the raven since he was useful. Plus, he would throw a fit if I tried to put him in his bead.

“Fifty years since I’ve been to the surface. I wonder how much has changed,” I mused as I donned my armor. It would be hard to tell it apart from a cloth robe, but it contained mithril inlayed with defensives spells. I could take a troll fist and walk away with less than a bruise. Not that any troll would aim anywhere other than the head.

“Caw!”

“I’m sure the sunset will be the same. Something like that doesn’t change,” I replied with a snort.

The year I spent on the surface was still vivid in my memories. It was a place that was hard to forget. Such vibrant colors that almost blinded me the first few days. The distances amazed me in the beginning, but thankfully, I quickly adjusted. There were large caverns in the Beneath, but never seeing a cavern wall after days of walking had been new to me.

“Caw . . .”

“No! I will not cry! I was only twenty when I left the first time. I’m much older. Damn, I shouldn’t have told you that story.”

Qez scoffed at me, then took off through the window. I harrumphed as I finished packing for the trip. I could carry quite a bit thanks to the city council lending me one of the best storage bags in the city. It could hold several tons, and I wouldn’t even notice. That was one magic that always got the better of me. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get a grasp on it.

Half an hour later, I was exiting my tower. There were still considerable repairs being done to the academy. Though, I felt some of the masters were using this event as an excuse to get a few upgrades done to their labs. I just shook my head at the idea. Moving past it all, I stepped on the teleport pad and went to the city gate.

With the small tinge of nausea that even at my age I still couldn’t shake, I walked up to the gate. One of the four ways into the city, the massive gate was thirty meters tall and made from a blue metal known as cobalt. It was found around the Beneath, and with proper tempering and a few secrets I wasn’t privy to, it could match mithril in many ways. The gates to the city had withstood many an attack over the years.

Qez landed on my shoulder shortly after I emerged from the teleport pad. I was about to join the line for the people leaving the city for one reason or another, as I wanted my exit to be as quiet as possible, when one of the guards saw me and ushered me forward. Everyone started to bow as I reached the end of the line.

“Be careful, Master,” one of the guards said. Apparently, word had already gotten around.

“Thank you. I promise to do my best,” I said with a gruff smile.

They bowed again as I stepped out of the city. The tunnel stretched off into the darkness. Qez hopped off my shoulder and flew ahead, lighting my way. “Caw!”

“Very true, old friend. Just like old times,” I said. I felt almost thirty years younger just from taking that first step.

Yo’ei Meng

“Mother, you need to rest,” I said, helping my mother to a seat.

“The village still needs so much work,” she replied with a sigh.

“Which will be there even if you take a few hours to rest.”

“You’re right,” she said as she closed her eyes. It wasn’t even ten seconds before she passed out.

My siblings were at the village teacher’s house right now, so I didn’t have to worry about them. I covered Mother with a blanket, then left for my assigned worksite. Men were hauling trees over to the craftsman to have them turned into lumber.

“Meng! Take the day off! You’ve been working harder than anyone, and I would rather you not collapse. Seriously, Son. You take too much after your mother,” the foreman said as I approached.

“The village still needs so much work,” I said, then realized I’d just copied my mother.

“Son, go.”

“Fine.” I turned around and made my way to the cliffs. I hadn’t had a chance to sit out here in weeks since the wave. Taking the familiar trail, I started walking. It was strange since the path had changed. A few minutes later, the cliffs stretched out before me.

It was an unusual view now. The clouds that used to hide what was below the cliffs were gone. A massive landscape spread out before me. From the height of the cliff, I could make out forests of trees, plains of rolling grass, and all manner of other views came to me. The beauty was marred, however, by the monsters that made their way through the view.

The village had a guard posted to make sure that nothing tried to climb the cliff, but luckily, even the flying monsters hadn’t managed to make it this far up yet. I walked over to my usual perch. In the time it took for me to do so, a monster that was the size of a small mountain collided with another one almost of equal size. Enough blood to fill a lake sprayed from both of them as their claws ripped into each other.

“I don’t know how many fights this makes,” a voice said behind me.

“Greetings, Feng,” I said, turning to see the guard posted to watch this side of the cliffs.

“Greetings, Meng. Finally taking a break?” Feng asked.

“More like forced to take one,” I said with a laugh.

“It’s good you are a hard worker, but it is possible to work too hard,” Feng said, grabbing my shoulder with a strong grip.

“Hence, why I am here.”

The ground started to shake. At first, I thought it was the monsters fighting, but even they paused in their fight. We jumped back as parts of the cliffs started crumbling. A minute later, the shaking finally stopped. The monsters glanced around, then went back at it.

“What was that?” Feng mumbled.

“At least it wasn’t as bad as a few weeks before,” I said.

“Go make sure the village is alright.”

I nodded and took off at a run back to the village.

Yuno

Port of Hope

“Nero! It has been ten years. You said you could help my sister.”

“Yuno, I’ve told you before every time you ask me, it is not that simple. Celestials don’t just drop from the sky,” Nero said.

He hadn’t changed at all since the day we freed him from that prison in Ebony Falls. Through many twists and turns, we’d ended up as an Adventurer Party named the Ardent Lords.

“Not according to this,” I said, tossing the parchment on the table in front of him. It was a report from a member of the Lelune Church, claiming that a Celestial had in fact attacked a dungeon to the north. By falling from the sky no less. “Well?”

“My dear boy, this is not a true Celestial. Entrance to Celestia is not granted, it is forced. Once a person reaches tier five, they are whisked away. That being said, the only way to reach it is to reach tier five.”

“So, as I thought from the beginning, you’re worthless. Hell. We would have been at this . . . Robia Valley had you not come up with some stupid excuse to keep us here,” I said, getting angry.

“That . . . is a valid point but hear me out. She was hot,” Nero said.

“So, you dating some girl for a few months is more important than my sister?” I demanded.

“No, no. Of course not! But—you should have seen this girl’s ass,” Nero said, making a cupping gesture.

“Enough! I’m taking my sister to this valley. With or without you,” I said, having enough of this idiocy.

“Fine! I’ll go with you. I just love the city so much. Besides, the undead hordes might be a few weeks away, but I doubt the Church of Lelune can handle them,” Nero said, making a flippant gesture when he mentioned the Church.

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