Dungeon Robotics Book 7 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

Regan

“Well the equations work out, I just don’t know when and where it will actually put us,” I commented mostly to myself. It took nearly four days for me to work the information into my core on the ship. I had greater control of the core than the ship itself, which was a separate entity in my aura. Plus, my natural dungeon core abilities allowed me to process the information far faster than the computer that was designed to have limits.

“Responding. It should be within a month of the entrance point. Though there is always room for variance,” Aires said.

“I agree that I saw that as part of the equation, but I believe that time isn’t so easily manipulated.”

“Then let us hope you are wrong,” Aires said, and I could have sworn I saw her stone eye twitch.

“Let us hope.”

My ship moved to the front near what could have been considered the edge or boundary of the temporal dimension we’d found ourselves in. With the rest of the fleet arranged around us and the constructs’ ship directly behind us, we made ready to leave this place.

The ship’s reactor and my core worked to generate as much mana as I could afford to and channeled it toward an array I’d constructed at the front of the ship with the equations and information the constructs gave me. For a solid two hours the mana built to a peak. I nodded to Aires, then to the rest of the bridge crew, then hit the big red button I’d created for just this purpose.

With a shudder, a large beam of energy fired from the front of my ship. It slammed into a point in space that appeared empty and large cracks formed, which soon grew larger. Roughly five minutes passed before we were able to see through the opening. I quickly saw that the opening had formed right above the surface of a planet—which I hoped was Murgin.

“Forward full! Get through before the portal closes!”

With a second shudder, the Grand Titan started to move toward the opening. We had barely minutes before it could lose even a semblance of stability, thus it was a race against time. The front end of Grand Titan started through, and I felt the strangest thing I’d felt since coming to Murgin.

There was a sense that I existed in thousands of places at once, all of which I was acutely aware of. I saw myself back on Earth still locked in my tower waiting for someone who would manage to kill me. In another version, I was working as a cashier at a convenience store. In yet another version, I was laughing manically as my machines conquered the world.

Finally, everything that possessed my aura around it was through the tear in space, and the sensation passed. I would have breathed with relief—except the next moment, thousands of what I’d come to consider information feeds slammed into my head as I reconnected with the real space-time.

“Impact in ten seconds!” First yelled, but I wasn’t able to do anything about it. The ship was already in full reverse. Everyone on the bridge who wasn’t strapped down was thrown about. I managed to keep my spot by melding my feet to the floor.

The Grand Titanploughed a furrow that would likely become a landmark for whoever lived in the area. I momentarily worried I’d just crushed a town or the like, but I hadn’t had a chance to check the exit point. We finally came to a stop, and the crew got back to their spots.

I finally began to process all the information flooding into my head and checked the surroundings. The constructs’ ship was embedded in the ground near us. Thankfully, they’d managed to adjust their trajectory enough not to crash into us.

In the distance was a plateau, but whatever was here before was gone. It had been reduced to a smoldering ash field. The basic systems of the ship returned, and we started to lift into the air. I turned my attention back to the constructs’ ship to see if they needed any help.

“Incoming!” First shouted.

“Deploy barrier!” I ordered.

A stream of energy slammed into Grand Titan’s barrier, pushing the ship back a few meters. Unlike in the temporal zone, I had much better access to mana. I quickly reinforced the barrier, then returned the favor with a volley of my own weapons.

“Lock down Aires!” I shouted but found I was already too late. The screen that showed her room was turning white from the light she was putting off. The last thing I saw was a sad smile. Grand Titan shuddered from the shock and cracks forming over the hull.

I redirected some of the mana I was getting into repairing the damage, but she’d taken a good ten to fifteen percent of the center section of the ship out with her self-destruction. If my vessel had been any smaller, we would have been in two pieces right now.

“Incoming message from construct ship! Audio only.”

“Relay it.”

“Thank you for freeing us from the dimension. As our agreement only lasted to that point, we’ll finish what we started.”

“What point is there in fighting?” I sent back. I just couldn’t find any logic behind their decision.

“We were created in the image of precursors. We are the inheritors of the planet!”

It was the first time I’d heard such strong emotion from the constructs since I’d started working with them to escape the other dimension. I could tell they truly believed that. This could be a problem. I remembered plenty of wars were fought for basically the same reason back on Earth. One race seeing themselves as better than all the others usually led to some very dangerous people.

“Then is there to be no peace?”

The reply came back almost instantly. “We refuse to be ruled again.”

I attempted a few more times to talk with them, but each time was met with weapons fire. If that was the way they wanted it, I would return the favor tenfold. I had worked to maintain relatively peaceful relations with the people of this planet so far. I supposed that there had to be one supremist race among the bunch.

They were able to generate mana again, but it was no match for a dungeon core! For every one of their attacks, I sent five in return. The already decimated landscape gained even more scars. Some of the weapons’ fire  managed to make it to the plateau nearby. The constructs’ ship was severely damaged by this point, and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stop.

One of their energy beams rebounded off our barrier and struck the plateau. I didn’t think anything about it until I felt a wave of what could only be called evil erupt from somewhere on the plateau. The constructs’ attacks also stopped in that instant.

“What did we just unleash?” I mumbled.

The evil sensation I was feeling passed quickly as if it were suppressed by something. I would need to expand my influence more. Whatever had caused that feeling of dread was not weak. It gave me the end-of-days vibe.

The constructs had come to a complete standstill. I took advantage of the lull to move above them and expand my aura to cover their entire base. They were the ones that started this, and as my enemies found, I don’t let people get away with hitting me in the face after helping them. I flew in front of the ship in case they tried to attack Grand Titan while it was sealing them.

My core nearly fractured with how much mana I was pouring through it. After two minutes, my aura covered the three square kilometers around the constructs’ vessel. I bound the Grand Titan to the spot so they would have to leave their ship to be able to exit the area. I knew they likely could do that, but a race like theirs needed a steady supply of mana to operate.

Almost as soon as my aura was established, a communication link formed. “RELEASE US!”

“A little slow on the uptake?” I asked, not holding back a snicker.

“How dare you! Using that moment to trap us like this!” Kurnezal shouted at the screen.

He continued with a speech about how they were better and how everything on the planet should serve them. It reminded me of a dictator from back in Earth’s history. I had to write it off as a result of being trapped in the darkness of the moon for a millennium. It had driven him insane.

He had the same face as before, but his body was now pillar-like with stone tubes leading away from him. I was surprised when I saw a core that had to have come from a dungeon embedded in the center of his chest. I knew that he wasn’t a dungeon core host, though. It was an instinct thing.

“I think I’ve had about enough out of you. Keep this up and I will reduce your little ship into a pebble,” I said, truly getting angry about the situation. I wanted to go check on Alara and my main dungeon. I didn’t have time to deal with this broken computer of a golem.

I knew they wouldn’t listen without a demonstration, so I pulled some of my adherent mana and created an ultra dense point in space at the top of their ship. My control over space and time magic had reached a new level from being trapped in that temporal dimension. With them being in my aura, I could place the spell anywhere in their ship. All the more so since my dungeon sense didn’t register them. I could literally have placed one next to Kurnezal if I’d wanted to.

Instead, I placed it directly at the top of their ship. The top five meters were pulled into a spot barely larger than a centimeter in width and vanished. Kurnezal instantly stopped griping.

“Behave for a while please.” I killed the communication and looked around to see what we were dealing with as well as try to figure out where the hell we were.

Chapter 22

Regan

With the constructs dealt with for the moment, I turned my attention back to my main dungeon. I could sense it, but I wasn’t able to reach it. I could tell that it was due to the pathways being formed between the cores. I started to form a portal to move my avatar over to my main core, but something affected the spell, causing it to fail.

I created another portal just to the plateau, and it worked, though I could sense something wearing at its edges. I stepped through and found that the plateau had suffered quite a bit of damage due to our battle. I flew into the air to see if there was anything of interest in the area.

Almost immediately I spotted a village that looked like it’d been sliced in half. There was a smoldering husk of a tree in the village center that was giving me some interesting vibes. I flew toward it and reached it in only a few seconds. Landing in front of the tree, I placed my hand on it. The spot cracked and turned to ash from my touch.

“You possessed some serious magic, didn’t you?” I said, studying the tree with my dungeon sense. Unfortunately, it was very much dead. There didn’t seem to be anything I could do for it. I removed my hand, and the spot crumbled to dust. An acorn fell to the ground in front of me.

“I see. I know a good home for you. I’ll make sure your will is carried on,” I said. There was a soul here at one point. All that remained was more of a memory, but I knew Alara would be able to work with it.

“Monster! What are you doing in our village!”

I turned at the sound and saw a boy who had to have been fifteen or sixteen pointing at me accusingly. If I had to describe him, I would say his appearance was similar to Earth’s Chinese people. He was shaking so much that I knew he was scared, but I had to give him credit for his bravery. Not to brag, but I was quite intimidating in my current form.

Looking around, I did notice signs that this village had been recently lived in. Likely, one of the beams from our ship battle had struck the village when it rebounded off one of our barriers. I dropped into a sitting position on the ground, causing the boy to jump. Even like this, I was still taller than him by a few centimeters.

“This is your village? I can guess what happened. Did anyone perish?” I asked.

“Eh. Ah. No,” said the boy, apparently startled by my laidback questions.

“That’s good. Buildings can be repaired and replaced. That is a lot harder to do for mortals,” I said, leaning back to look at the darkening sky.

“What? Aren’t you taking this a little too lightly?” the boy asked.

“Lightly? No one died, right?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. I lifted my hand and momentarily spread my aura. The village returned to a pristine shape right before our eyes. I didn’t have many basics of their culture, so I held off on any upgrades. Wouldn’t want to cause any more of an uproar than I already had.

The boy spun around as he tried to lay his eyes on everything at once. After about two minutes, everything was back to how I figured it would have looked. Though, now everything was likely newer since I had re-created it all from mana. Roughly ninety percent had been ash, but I’d taken advantage of my new time mana and briefly looked at an image of the past.

“I’m sorry! I called you a monster, but you’ve repaired our village. That was disrespectful of me!” The boy dropped to the ground with his head bowed.

I laughed and waved my hand. “You are a child. Plus, this is really my fault.” I laid a hand on the tree next to me. “I can’t heal this though.”

“You can’t . . .” The boy was obviously saddened by the news. “It is the village treasure. It has protected us for centuries.”

“Then I apologize. I’m Regan by the way, a dungeon core.”

“A dungeon core?”

“It is hard to explain. I’m something that has transcended being mortal.”

“A god?!” shouted the boy as if that would make everything make sense.

“Well . . . something similar. Where are the rest of your people?” I asked, deciding to shift the topic.

During the whole conversation, I was keeping an eye on the mana pathways between my cores, but it was going to take a while before I could move between them. The other option would have been to take a scout vessel and do a low-orbit or high-orbit insertion. In fact, I could have gotten to space and connected with my space station even easier.

I glanced at the Grand Titan, now locked permanently in place. My only worry was that I couldn’t get back there quickly if something happened. I could tell something was happening back at my main dungeon, but it appeared to be under control for now. I pulled myself out of my thoughts when I realized that the boy was talking.

“They are camped on the other side of the plateau. I snuck away,” he said while looking away. I realized that he’d told me his name, but I’d missed it due to my musings.

“What was your name again?”

“Yo’ei Meng.”

I heard the sound of charging feet and looked up from Yo’ei to see several dozen men making their way toward us with their weapons bared. They ran in front of the boy and blocked him.

“Yo’ei! What are you doing out here?!”

“I’m sorry, Larick. I couldn’t stop myself from coming back to the village,” Yo’ei said, bowing to the man in the center.

The man looked at the boy with understanding, then turned to me. “What are you doing in our village? No outsiders are allowed.”

I stood before I answered so I loomed nearly two meters taller than all of them. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to the person who returned your village back to normal,” I said while stretching my arms out wide.

“Don’t play dumb! We know you and that other object caused the destruction in the first place! Do you think cleaning up your own mess will earn our respect?!” he demanded while thrusting his spear at me at several points during his speech.

I had to give the mortal credit for not shrinking in fear of me. I don’t want to brag, but I was putting off an aura of a god right then. No pun intended.

“Well. It is better than me coming over here and reducing this entire plateau to ash to match the village,” I said, pointing my hand to the side. With a burst of mana, a beam emerged from my palm and bored a hole all the way to the cliff face nearly ten kilometers away.

“Larick! He returned the village to this state in minutes! He’s not someone we can fight!” Yo’ei said, grabbing the man’s shoulder.

For a kid, he had a decent head on his shoulders. It was one thing if I had been attacking the village, but I was there to fix what I’d messed up. If no one had died, there was no reason to cause the situation to escalate more. Though, mortals were known for their emotional and irrational decisions. Maybe I’d been a dungeon core for too long.

“While I don’t want to belittle your loss, if you come to me, I will replace everything that was destroyed. I mean this with all sincerity. We are going to be neighbors from now on. I would like to get on nonhostile standing with you and your people.”

“That will be decided by the elders.”

“Very well. I would like to meet your elders, then,” I said, falling back to the ground. Normally, I would have created a throne for myself, but I didn’t want to push these people too hard at the beginning. I already had enough enemies that needed to be dealt with. I wanted to hold off making more with these folks for a bit.

“No worries. We’re right here,” a fatigued voice called calmly from behind the soldiers. Three elderly people moved to the front. They were all decently powerful, but the middle man was powerful in a different sort of way. “Well, well. A dungeon host. We haven’t seen one since before the village’s founding.”

“Oh, I’m glad you can recognize what I am.”

“Indeed. There are ten dungeons on this continent, but they all have monster hosts. They only seek death. The first elders created this plateau to divide them. I began to fear when the clouds lifted. With your arrival, there can be no doubt. They are about to awaken.”

“Awaken? And why would my arrival have anything to do with that?” I asked. I’d been a core for almost a year now. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept willingly. Thus, these cores would have had to have been sealed by some powerful force.

“Our world possesses a tremendous number of secrets. I can tell you’ve exposed quite a few and in such a short amount of time. With the Alrain Tree no more, the lock has been undone. It won’t be long before this place is no longer safe. Tell me, how much mana would you have if you slept for a millennium?”

“Quite a bit. Though, I don’t think I would still be on this plane,” I answered.

“Exactly. You have intelligence and thus can ascend to tier five. These monster cores cannot. They only think of devouring.”

“Very well. I will tame them since I was partially the cause of this.”

“They should remain dormant for a few months longer. The magic will last at least that long.” The elder glanced toward my ship and the constructs’. “Have you managed to restrain them? We saw that they fired first.”

“Yes. They are under control for the moment.” I looked around, then created an automaton that could access the mana of my dungeon core nearby. “This guy will create anything you need within reason. Feel free to name him. I apparently have quite a bit of work ahead of me, so if you’ll excuse me,” I said, standing up.

I was about to leave when I noticed the elder breathing heavily. Walking and even standing must have been hard for someone his age. I thought for a second, then created a wheelchair out of materials they wouldn’t be too surprised about.

“What is this?” he asked when it formed next to him.

“I can see walking is quite difficult for you. I would hate for the leader of the people I just met to die from exhaustion. Feel free to use that.” With that, I teleported back to Grand Titan.

I went to my core room, as that was the best place for the task I wanted to complete. Placing my hands on either side of the core, I focused outward. While I could have dismissed my avatar body at any time, the god materials increased my magic to another level. Plus, I hated the thought of re-creating the thing when I had to summon my avatar again. I shook my head to clear my idle thoughts.

Sending my mind out around me, I felt for other cores in the area. I didn’t find anything within five hundred kilometers, but when I pushed a little harder, I got a ping. There were three other cores almost exactly a thousand kilometers from me in most of the cardinal direction. I made sure not to actually interact with any of them, but they were definitely unconscious.

“This is going to be interesting,” I said with a wicked grin.

Chapter 23

Louella

“Time for round two!”

I spun my staff-turned-spear and faced the monster. I found it ironic I was fighting a monster that wasn’t actually part of the dungeon in said dungeon. Regan better pay me back later, I thought. I tracked the path of the monster, then with a pulse, I sent myself flying to intercept it.

With a bubbling yell, I came up and sliced clean through one of its fins. Blue blood exploded into the water and left a trail as the monster swam at a slight slant away. I was beginning to wonder if it only had ramming attacks when I felt the water constrict around me. I had to force more mana into my curtain spell to stop from being crushed.

So, the damn thing had control over water. Too bad water conducts electricity. I supercharged my skin so that the current that would hit the monster would be natural and not mana-based. The field quickly spread and met with the monster. It was the first time I’d heard a monster scream underwater.

The water constricting me vanished, and I quickly flew through it, spear point leading. I slammed full on into its head, colliding with enough force that about a meter around me sank in by a few centimeters, not to mention my blade sinking up to the guard. Twisting the blade, I did the most damage I could.

The paralysis wore off, and the beast started flailing, sending me flying off. I corrected my path and charged back in. It wasn’t letting me get close again, though. The game of cat-and-mouse continued for nearly twenty minutes. I’d managed to take another three fins, as well as cause some other damage.

I wasn’t damage-free myself. I got caught by the constricting water, and my left foot was currently a crippled mess. If I hadn’t been underwater right then, it would have been quite dangerous. Thankfully, I wasn’t bleeding, as the skin wasn’t punctured.

I used the injury to play defenseless, and the creature took the bait. It turned and charged at me with its mouth wide open. It was easily large enough to swallow half of one of the sailing ships above us. The creature closed its mouth around me, and I found myself sliding down its massive throat.

I aimed for where I thought the creature’s brain would be and channeled my mana to start flying. I sliced through the flesh and made it to the brain in moments. It was a lot easier from the inside. I could feel the creature thrashing around me, but I was able to resist it with my dense body.

After its brain was mush, the creature came to a stop. I carved my way through to the outside, then flew up until I reached the surface. Landing on a nearby ship, I fell in a heap. I was completely spent mana-wise, and my ankle was killing me. A pirate with a white cape moved forward and started healing my injuries.

“Thank you.” I turned my head to the captain. “I killed the beast.” As if on cue, the body floated to the surface. Only a few seconds later, the monster faded from sight as its body returned to wherever it came from.

“Thank you for your assistance, Selected. This would have been nearly impossible given our loadout. Floor Boss Tony reported that there are currently no more of the abnormal monsters in the dungeon. You should return to recover.”

“I agree. I’ll leave you for now.”

I stood on my injured ankle gingerly, but it was completely healed. Helios had returned to normal as well, so I was good to go. I created a portal to my private room and found that the portal edges felt a bit frayed. Carefully, I put my hand in the opening and found it was safe, so I stepped completely through. The portal vanished a moment later.

I released Helios, then looked at myself. While the ocean water on the floor cleaned me for the most part, there were still patches of blood on my person. While I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep with how tired I was, I didn’t want to make my bed filthy. I quickly made my way to the bathroom and cleaned up.

~~~

“Your Highness! Your Highness!”

I came to as someone called for me. Blinking away the sleep, I saw Wrakras standing next to a maid as they tried to wake me.

“What? What is it?”

“I apologize, Your Highness. There has been an incident at the border fort,” Wrakras said with a small bow.

I snapped fully awake and flipped the covers off me. Jumping out of bed, I held my hand out for Helios, which sprang across the room into my grip. With a snap of my fingers, my night clothes shifted to my normal armored dress. It was something I’d had Regan add when I’d burned up a few sets due to slacking control while asleep.

“What’s the situation?”

“It’d be best to hear it from the major,” Wrakras said, shaking his head.

I nodded, then quickly opened a portal to the border fort. The gateway room came into view as the portal opened. My eyes narrowed. The portal was having a bit of difficulty fully opening. Walking through, I found the guards for the gateway room had their weapons drawn, but they lowered them when they saw it was me.

One of the guards rushed over and saluted. “Your Highness! The major is at the central tower!”

“Thank you. Return to your post,” I said, giving him a smile before nodding to Wrakras and rushing from the room. I tried to see the situation from the windows, but we were on the opposite side of the fort and could only see the calm forest that led to Vaihdetta. I would have flown, but without knowing what was going on, I could have caused more problems.

Soldiers rushed to-and-fro as we made our way to the tower. It took us maybe five minutes to reach our destination on foot. The major stood with most of his commanders, looking out the window.

“Major, report!” I said as we came up to a table in the room.

The major spun around, as did everyone else. All present gave a salute, and the sound in the room vanished. I could still hear something and moved up next to the major to look out the window. What I saw made me grit my teeth in anger and annoyance.

An army, with enough soldiers that I couldn’t see the end of the lines, marched and began to cover the field in front of the border wall. What made me angry was the fact that I saw almost more Church banners than Thonaca banners being held by the soldiers.

I could see the telltale signs of Siege spells being used in areas of the army. It would make bombardment extremely difficult, as most would be absorbed by the barriers. They must have been using them since before they were in sight of the fort.

“Why didn’t the scouts report anything?!” I demanded, turning to the major.

“That is the thing, Your Highness. The Church did something that allowed them to move this massive army in only a few hours. By the time we got the reports of them mobilizing, they were already at our gates.”

Returning my gaze to the soldiers, I asked, “What’s their expected strength?” Even with a glance, I could see there were over a hundred thousand troops out there. There were only ten thousand here at the fort. Even if we pulled every soldier from the other deployments, we couldn’t hope to match that.

“We’re only getting estimates in at the moment, but they’ve already exceeded two hundred thousand. They’re pulling soldiers from the south faster than should be possible. I can only fathom that the Church had hidden portals that they have decided to utilize.”

“Damn it! How’s morale?” With such overwhelming force in front of them, I was sure more than a few soldiers were getting scared. I didn’t have to worry about them turning to the enemy thanks to the magical contract that they’d signed, but that didn’t include fleeing. That clause was hard to include in the magical contract since retreat was consider fleeing in some eyes.

“Not as bad as expected. Many people here believe that Lord Regan will protect them. I do know the enemy will suffer heavy losses approaching these walls unless they can deal with the magical weapons Lord Regan left.”

I nodded, glancing at the towers that dotted the wall every fifty meters. Regan had installed some of his turret weapons there for me. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to them being used, but here we were. I just worried whether, with his dungeon the way it was, they would receive enough mana to operate.

“Have the men take short naps in shifts until the enemy makes their move. They might not get another chance for a while.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I was about to say more when Ezal came into the room. She gave me a quick salute. “Your Highness, I came as soon as I was informed. Reinforcements are mobilizing and should be here within the hour. Unfortunately, our numbers pale in comparison to theirs,” she explained.

“I assumed as much. It is just like the church to horde magic that would allow them to do something like this. I wished they’d used it against the necromancers years ago.”

“About that. The Grand Vicar claims to have received a message from the goddess. We have officially been branded as heretics and usurpers.”

“How dare they!” the major roared, as did several of his officers.

“Calm down. We knew something like this could happen. I just expected it to be closer to spring. Incorporate the reinforcements into . . .” I jerked my head to the sky as I felt a wave of . . . something wash over the fort. I noticed that Ezal seemed to be aware of it too, while the others reacted to varying degrees. If I had to describe it, I would say it was pure evil.

“What do you think?” I asked, looking to Ezal.

“That Lord Regan did something,” she said with a chuckle.

“We can’t blame him for everything,” I replied, fighting to control the smile.

“Whatever that was, I have a feeling it doesn’t like mortals,” she commented, and I nodded in agreement. The feeling had been overwhelmingly evil.

Rubbing my shoulders to fight the goose bumps, I asked, “Have you ever felt such concentrated . . . evil?”

Ezal just shook her head.

I turned back to the major. “Sorry about that. As I was saying. Incorporate the new soldiers into the wall line while giving the regulars a longer break. Have everyone prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. Come morning, we could very well be at war.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

With a salute, all the officers ran out of the room and got to work. I looked up to the cloud-covered night sky. It was going to be a long night.

Chapter 24

Regan

I debated what to do. I needed to get back to my main dungeon core. While I could tell everything was generally alright, I still wanted to check up with my cores and children. I’d only meant to leave Alara alone for a day or two at most. Now, nearly a month had passed. I couldn’t help but be worried about her. Plus, there was no telling what trouble Louella was getting herself into.

The pathways between my dungeons were forming by the minute, but I could tell it would take a while before they formed enough for me to travel them. I stood on top of Grand Titan, overlooking the plateau and surrounding lands. I didn’t know yet if this was a large continent or an island compared to the one my main core was on, but it looked like I would have to find out.

I hadn’t ever had a chance to really test out the limits of this body—yet. While I had fought the general, that had been more an application of force. What I wanted to test was my speed. I started by floating into the air like I normally would, by generating an antigravity field and enough air current to lift me into the air.

I could probably have achieved planetary exit with this body alone. However, I wasn’t sure if my personal mana capacity allowed me to reach the point I would need for leaving the pull of gravity, not to mention survive reentry of the atmosphere, one of the many things I needed to test when something wasn’t trying to kill me. I shot up into the air until I reached close to thirty thousand kilometers.

For my test, I didn’t want to channel excess mana into air resistance, so the more I could do to reduce that negative force the better. I grinned as I overlooked the world from this height. The fact that I was able to do things like that still seemed like a dream, but it had been a year. Besides, I felt enough pain to know it wasn’t a dream.

I concentrated and turned toward the direction the sensation of my main dungeon was coming from. With little effort, I weaved a spell around my avatar and shot toward it, easily passing Mach 5 in seconds and still continuing to gain velocity as the land passed beneath me.

When I hit Mach 10, my acceleration stopped. I could have gone faster, but I had only my personal mana pool when I was this far from one of my cores. Said pool might still have been in the millions, but this level of magic used hundreds of thousands in minutes. I could already think of ways to improve fuel efficiency.

The scenery changed in blinks of an eye. It appeared this continent possessed every kind of environment short of tundra. In less than three minutes, acceleration and deceleration included, I reached the edge of the content. I wasn’t surprised to see the maelstrom a ways off the coast. Even after nearly six thousand kilometers, I didn’t see anything that resembled civilization.

There were, however, plenty of monster hordes that put the one that had attacked the valley to shame. That monster horde was child’s play compared to the hordes on this continent. Some neared the million mark. For one, I was impressed that the ecosystem could support that many monsters. Secondly, when I examined one of the monsters after I came to a stop, I could clearly sense dungeon magic in its aura.

Judging by how the dungeon magic was operating, these had left the dungeon centuries ago and had since become a hybrid of a free monster and a dungeon monster. What that meant at the moment, I wasn’t sure, but I filed it away just to be safe. You never knew if the parent dungeon might take control of them when it woke up.

Moving over to the maelstrom, I saw that it was in fact the same storm. For something like that to rage across the entire globe signaled that it was definitely not natural. Natural forces were keeping it going, but someone from who knew how many lifetimes ago had created it. The question now was: Why?

I wanted to test a few things on the other side of the planet-sized event but didn’t have the mana to waste. I shook my head, then turned and started around the continent. While my body was made of metal, I was glad I could still feel. Though, given that I was flying nearly above the air, I couldn’t experience the wind on my skin. With a chuckle, I accelerated.

~~~

I judged that I was almost back to the starting point after going around the continent. I was flying lower at the moment since I was about to head back to my core. I wanted to get a little better visual of the environments and resources available. As it was a magical world, there might have been things that only grew or could be found there.

I was going around Mach 3 when a red shape appeared in front of me. I didn’t have time to stop and slammed into the object with quite a bit of force. I realized it was a monster only after it gave a roar that shook the nearby trees. We rolled end over end in the air until we collided with the ground, gouging out a nice-sized ditch.

I stood up, separating myself from the creature, and saw it was a dragon of all things. I also realized it was much stronger than Zuthon and could probably have given Nova a run for his money. With a large amount of thrashing, the dragon corrected itself, then turned to glare at me.

“I didn’t mean to run into you. I might not look like it, but I have a lot of dragon friends,” I said but held my ground. Wouldn’t want him to think I was a pushover.

The dragon either couldn’t speak, couldn’t speak the language I used, or didn’t want to speak, and instead he roared angrily. I sensed a surge of mana, then a burst of flame was expelled with the roar, forcing me quickly into the air to dodge the attack. I whistled as the flame managed to turn everything it hit into ash and charred glass. That was impressive, considering we were in the middle of a forest.

I dodged three more such attacks, as I hoped the beast would calm down, but it only seemed to make him angrier. With another surge of mana, fire started to line its body, then the dragon shot into the air. I worried that if the creature got any hotter, the hydrogen in the air might start reacting.

I waited as the dragon charged directly at me, feeling the heat from several dozen meters away. I was sure no mortal would be able to survive the aura skill. Well, Ezal would probably enjoy it. When the dragon was only a few meters from me, I twisted in the air and brought my heel down on his head.

With a shock wave, his head was shoved straight down, and he tumbled to the ground. I was impressed that he had even survived the blow. My feet were made out of adamantium, after all. He should have felt like a castle had dropped on his head.

With a boom, the dragon collided with the forest floor and formed a nice crater. He lay there for several moments before rousing and stumbling to his feet as if he were drunk. I couldn’t help it and started clapping. I was impressed that he still wanted to fight, given the blow he had just received.

I flew down, taking a cross-legged pose just before landing on the dragon’s back like a ton of bricks, enough force to make the crater five meters deeper. Even if his scales could take it, the organs inside must feel like they’d gone through a blender. The dragon lay there, breathing heavily but still alive.

“Listen, this is fun, but like I said, I have a few dragon friends. I really don’t want to kill you,” I said, looking at the dragon to make sure my Dungeon Language skill produced the correct language. I was being honest. In fact, I should have been the one to apologize, as I was the one who ran into him. If he hadn’t gotten angry, we could have been having a friendly chat right then.

We sat there in silence for probably an hour. I just lay back, staring at the sky from the back of the dragon. As my form was nearly five meters tall, the thirty-meter-long dragon made a good seat. Not that I would have told him that.

Finally, I heard a deep gust of air from the dragon sighing. “Very well. I accept defeat. I will submit and be your mate,” a very feminine voice said, catching me off guard.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s quite alright,” I said, waving my hands as I rose into the air.

“You dare deny me?! After laying claim to me for over an hour!” she roared at me, getting angry all over again.

“Look. I’m sure you’re a very nice lady . . . dragon, but I’m not exactly in the market for a mate. Isn’t there a way we can just put this behind us?”

“Sure,” she said, and hope grew for a few seconds. “If I can kill you, then our mating pact will be annulled.”

“WHY?!” I shouted, putting my head in my hands at the ridiculousness of it. Fucking dragons. I mean sure, I’d thought it was fine when Morka and Nova had entered this pact, but they were both fucking dragons!

“What should I call you, husband?” she asked as she flew up next to me.

“Not that!” I was just picturing a certain dungeon core when I managed to get back to the other continent. Well, the image brought a smile to my face, but that was beside the point. I sighed and looked back to the dragon. “Call me Regan. What is your name?”

“Soza, husband,” she replied with a toothy grin.

I could already feel the headache forming from this.

~~~

An hour later, I found myself back at my core on the continent. It was roughly the size of four North Americas put together. Everything from scorching deserts to snowcapped mountains made its home here on this continent. As I neared my core, my mana pool instantly recharged, and I felt the massive power that came from being a dungeon core.

I glanced over to the village, the only race of mortals I’d found on the continent. I didn’t even find elves, who were known to be able to live in the forest with monsters. The mountains were missing the dwarves. This place was a perfect example of what could happen if monsters were able to reach too high in numbers.

The people of the village had mostly returned to normal. Or at least, I thought it was normal for them. They farmed, hunted the small game on the top of the plateau, and mainly carried on as humans who lived in a secluded spot would. It honestly made me think about the little, well not so little, village that Ren was running for me in my dungeon.

I shook my head, clearing the idle thoughts. I had work to do.

As if on cue, Soza landed on the surface of Grand Titan and collapsed, breathing heavily. “Too bad, husband. I managed to catch up,” she said, wrapping her tail around me.

I moved the tail easily and stepped away from her. “I’ll put up with this for now, but I don’t accept it. There has to be a non-death way to get out of this pact,” I said, looking into her eyes.

She gave me another toothy grin before flames wrapped around her, shrinking her until she was the same size as me.

The flame vanished and a tall elven woman who still had large leathery wings and two horns curling around her head like a crown appeared. Her skin tone was white-as-snow, but her hair was a living flame. She was completely nude, showing off goods that many mortal females would have killed to have. Unlike Alara, she didn’t affect me more than if I were looking at a beautiful painting. I formed a gown made of red silk and handed it to her.

“A gift, husband? I will treasure it,” Soza said, taking it and easily slipping it on. The question of how she knew about cloth made me raise an eyebrow, but I would get to that later.

Heading back inside while rubbing my forehead, I made my way to my core. I had to consider whether I was going to leave the core or stay. I could not do either with a powerful enemy directly beneath this core. They were behaving for now, but I doubted that would last for long. I glanced behind me to see Soza tagging along as if she owned the place. Frankly, I was too tired to deal with her.

Chapter 25

Alara

I brought my blade down, slicing the arm from the passing creature. It crashed into the tall tree that was directly behind me, coming to an abrupt stop in its charge. I swung my sword, clearing the blade of the blue blood. The creature wasn’t from the undead sections of the dungeon. It had appeared out of nowhere and started wreaking havoc on the floor.

I turned to face the creature as it pulled itself up. The beast had a massive horn on the front of its snout and head. It moved on two legs but had dropped down to four limbs when it charged. I frankly didn’t care as long as it wasn’t undead. I had no issues fighting it.

Holding my hand out, I channeled nature mana into the area around the beast. Vines shot out and wrapped around it. They were laced with steel, making them much stronger. While it was unable to move, I shot forward and buried my blade in its head. It slowly collapsed to the ground.

When the last signs of life left it, I started to absorb it. Something else pulled at the creature, but I managed to get nearly half absorbed. I cleaned my blade again, letting the dungeon take in the blood while I studied the mana patterns that were flowing through my head from the partially absorbed creature.

While I couldn’t make anything out of mana patterns, Regan or one of his children might have been able to put them to use. I didn’t even consider trying to summon something based off this creature. I knew almost instinctively that I wouldn’t have been able to control it.

Lena appeared next to me. “Another one on the seventieth floor.”

I nodded and moved above that floor. A creature that was easily ten meters tall was making its way through the forest. It didn’t have a face, only a white faceplate that appeared to be bone. There were dozens of tentacles coming from its back that were tearing my forest apart. I angled my body, then fell straight down.

Just before I hit the monster, a blue barrier appeared. I impacted the barrier with my sword but didn’t make it more than a few centimeters through before the force was gone. A dozen tentacles shot toward me, and I jumped back, dodging them.

With a wave of my hand, vines burst from the ground and wrapped around the monster’s legs. The monster struggled to free itself while its tentacles tried to reach me as I flew around it. When a tentacle got close, I would swing my sword, slicing it clean through. It burst into black particles and vanished.

I landed on a tree and placed my hand on the trunk. When I pulled my hand back up, another sword formed. I tore the remaining tentacles coming at me apart as I slammed into the barrier again, whaling on it until cracks started to form. With the sound of shattering glass, I broke through and landed on the chest of the monster.

Without hesitation, I stabbed my swords into the chest area repeatedly. Everything came to a stop as the monster started to fall back. With a boom, the monster died and crashed to the ground. I quickly absorbed it before it returned to wherever it came from.

I stabbed the wooden sword into the ground and let it become a real tree, adding it to the surrounding forest, then sheathed my main sword before landing on the ground to repair all the damage the monster had caused. Trees were broken, and the ground had been torn apart by the weight of the creature.

I placed my hand on the earth and fixed the damage quick and easily enough, but it was still new growth, not technically the same plants as before. Once all the damage was repaired, I allowed my avatar to fade, then reappear in the mortal Louella’s office. She was always working, so I was keeping an eye on her for Regan until he got back. I wouldn’t want his favorite mortal to have issues while he was gone.

I was just glad the undead images had stopped appearing a day or two ago. The creatures were still making it into the dungeon somehow, but I was getting closer to the answer with each one I killed. At first, I hadn’t wanted to kill anything in my dungeon but the undead, but one of them had attempted to eat Lena and I couldn’t allow that to pass.

“Lady Alara, nice of you to visit me today. I’m afraid I can only stay a moment. I have a bit of a situation to the west to deal with,” she said as she took a bite from the plate of food in front of her.

“Situation?” I asked. Maybe I could help. I was finding that as mortals go, Louella didn’t really feel like one. Maybe it was how much power she unconsciously gave off in her aura, but I just didn’t see her as a mortal sometimes. Lena told me not to tell her that though, as some mortals reacted negatively to hearing something like that.

“Yes. Thonaca, the kingdom to the west of us, has an army stationed right outside the border wall. They haven’t made any moves yet, but I’m not sure how long that will last. Though, every moment they give us both makes me happy and worries me.”

“Why both?” I asked. If they were an enemy, why not strike first? Maybe Louella’s people didn’t have enough strength to defeat this Thonaca.

“Happy, because that gives us more time to prepare. Worried, as they might be up to something. I don’t have a lot of resources that I can use at the moment. Plus, my attention is being split a dozen ways due to these strange monsters that keep popping up around and in town.”

“Mana does not work . . . on them.”

“Yeah. You know them?”

I nodded. “They are appearing . . . in my dungeon . . . Annoying to kill,” I said, wrapping my hand around the handle of my sword.

“Exactly. I’ve managed to use straight brute force to kill them up until now, but I feel like they are actually getting stronger. If you can believe that,” Louella said, taking a deep breath before standing. “Sorry. I can’t delay.”

I nodded and watched her go, then looked around but there wasn’t anything for me to really do there now. Plus, Regan’s mortal seemed fine for the moment. I would check up on her later. With a pop, I moved back to my dungeon.

Since yesterday, the blizzards had stopped across the north. The temperature hadn’t changed and was still cold enough for unprotected and even protected mortals to die in minutes. Regan’s floating city was keeping the area around my dungeon clear, and a surprising number of creatures had made their way to the safety it provided.

Not having anything else to do, I wandered to the room under my core. The throne I’d been forced to sit in for years at a time still remained there. Something one of my captors apparently thought was ironic, as I was more powerful than all of them but had been forced to serve them. Just the thought of that man made my blood boil.

Still, I’d improved the room since I was freed. Across the room where I’d first seen him was a statue of Regan. He didn’t know about it, but it was based on the first image he showed me when our minds linked. It was his form as a human.

An older man around his sixties or seventies, he had a kind and curious smile. Long gray-white hair went to his shoulders. He wore a strange white coat that had several pockets. To be honest, I preferred this form of Regan to the overpowering form he showed everyone else.

Even his recently created “human” form was lacking something compared to this older form of his. Not that I would ever tell him that. I sat in the throne and just stared at it for a while. I liked to come here to think. Hard to break a habit of several decades. Leaning back, I merely stared into the eyes of the statue.

Chapter 26

Rens Wanderer

The town authorities had me locked up for a good week before they decided to release me. I was initially surprised to find another High Race individual up here, but almost as soon as I walked out of the jail, I walked into three more. Two beastkin and another person who had enough latent power to level a mountain if he wanted to made my skin tingle as they walked by.

I tried not to stare, but the powerful one appeared to notice me as well, though he didn’t do anything. I nodded to him just so he knew I knew. It was a gamble, but I wasn’t going to show weakness. The man grinned at me in such a way that I shuddered, then moved on with the rest of his group.

This place was becoming more interesting the longer I spent time here. I’d thought Steel Spire was amazing, but after being in that city, I couldn’t help but compare it to a mold used to mass produce items. This was more like a fully forged sword that had been used for a while. It felt more lived in. I rounded a corner and heard a man shouting in the distance.

“Calling for volunteers! Her Highness Queen Louella is offering two gold coins a week for anyone that volunteers. As well as a living space above the fortieth floor in the Queen District Complex!”

The announcement of the gold really didn’t garner much reaction. The second, however, was a completely different story. People immediately paid more attention and looked like they were seriously considering it. Over to the side, I found someone who looked bored enough to answer my question.

Giving him a simple wave, I said, “Hello, friend. What’s this Queen District Complex?”

“New to the city?” he asked in a way that I felt was more rhetorical.

“Yes. This old man heard a lot about this valley and decided to check it out before I died. No real family to hold me back, after all,” I said with a toothy grin while leaning on my staff.

“I feel ya. I came here almost six months ago. I swear the city changes by the day,” the man said, pulling a pipe from his breast pocket.

I pulled mine out and held it to him when he lit a match. He grinned and lit mine as well.

We both took a long drag from them. “So, this Queen District?” I asked.

“Ah yes. You see, the dungeon host has a bit of a soft spot for the lord of the area. He built her four grand buildings for all the refugees and new people coming to the city. Rumor has it the four buildings alone can house close to five hundred thousand people, comfortably at that.”

“Rumor?” I asked, taking another drag.

“Rumor. No one has gone past the thirtieth floor. The first twenty floors or so are communal. Just enough room for everyone to stretch out their legs and get off their feet after a hard day of work. Then you get to the twenty-first floor.” The man whistled and finished with a large smile. “Some of the nicest living accommodations ever seen in either Thonaca or Lecazar—a man could live there easily and never complain.”

“They are that nice?” I asked with a bit of skepticism.

“Sure are. That’s not the end of it. They get nicer and larger as you move up the tower. I know a man who knows a man who has a friend that recently managed to move into a room on the twenty-seventh floor. He said he would happily die there. It’s him and his wife, but I heard there was enough room for a few kids.”

“That is impressive. It sounds like it might be worth it to volunteer, then,” I said, looking about to the announcer. He already had a queue of people that snaked around the corner of the street.

“Be careful, friend. You just got into town, but Vaihdetta has recently gone to war with the neighboring country, Thonaca. I’m not sure someone as . . . wizened as you should throw what little life you have left away by going to battle.”

I laughed but nodded at his statement. He had no idea of the power I commanded at my fingertips. I wasn’t sure what level the surface had gotten to, but I knew that I would still be among the strongest on this continent. “Thank you for the warning. I’ll have to find some other way to check out this queenly complex.”

“Hey, Porter! Get back to work!” a voice yelled from the business we were smoking next to.

“Well, Porter, thank you for the wonderful conversation,” I said, patting his shoulder as I moved past him.

“Anything to distract from this job,” he said, then lifted a sack and took off running.

I had to hold back a laugh as I realized he was a porter and was named Porter. I shook my head to clear the idle thought, then moved on down the street.

After wandering for a few hours, I came to a walled-off section of the city. Though walled, the traffic didn’t appear restricted. People were flowing in and out without being stopped. I joined the flow to head inside the district.

Right as I crossed the gate threshold, I blinked and found myself to the side of the gate with a red barrier around me. A man who looked to be made from metal walked over and waved his hand, dismissing the barrier.

“This area is restricted to residents and military personnel only. Please head to city hall to register if wish to have access.”

“My apologies, friend. I’m rather new to this city. Could you point me in the correct direction?”

He pointed behind me, so I turned and saw a castle in the distance. I wouldn’t have been able to see that if it wasn’t for a break between two buildings. I turned back and nodded in thanks before heading that way. The buildings seemed to grow taller the closer to city center I came.

I made my way toward the castle, then paused as I noticed a barrier surrounding it. I tilted my head, watching as people were entering and exiting it without trouble. I couldn’t gauge the purpose of the barrier if it didn’t keep people out or in. Shrugging, I moved forward.

Stepping through the barrier, I watched the castle in front of me change. Not the actual structure so much but how it was placed. The castle was floating on a chunk of land that appeared to be held by large chains. I felt a tinge of a headache while looking at all the magic that went into making this almost pointless creation work.

Not having any real business at the castle, I turned and left. I assumed I likely wouldn’t stay there, as I was on a mission from the council, so I didn’t need to worry about becoming a citizen or acquiring permanent housing. If my mission took longer than I expected it to, then I might have needed to reevaluate that statement, I knew.

Still, I was no closer to finding out what had caused the massive terraquake. A few people knew it had happened, but all accounts stated that it originated in the north. The north, which was supposedly an undead-infested wasteland. While I was confident in my abilities, I knew not to challenge large numbers of undead without a full force with me.

Thus, I was currently at an impasse. I wanted to meet this dungeon core, but he had vanished shortly after I arrived at Steel Spire. All my attempts to contact him had ended in failure. I walked over and sat on a bench as I thought about what to do. I really wanted to have another chat with the lord, but it sounded like she was in the middle of a war.

“Lords and their wars,” I mumbled, leaning back.

The stench of ozone cause me to jerk up, then a loud crack and a creature appeared out of nowhere. Resembling a large snake, only with three heads and a spike-covered tail, the monster had to have been over thirty meters long with a diameter of a meter or two. The six eyes all looked around as if selecting their lunch.

“What the hell is a pretakrin doing here?”

It must have heard me, as all three heads jerked around to face me. Everyone ran for their lives, many of them screaming in the process. I just shook my head, then waved my staff without getting up from the bench. The ground rumbled in front of me as a massive humanoid form rose up. Next to it, a tree quickly grew and then took the form of a buck with very deadly antlers.

Accepting the challenge, the monster whipped forward. My golem didn’t hesitate and brought its massive arm down on the head that came near it. The buck charged down the street, then turned and angled its head down. With the golem holding the monster in place, the buck was able to pierce the side of the snake easily.

I held out my staff and created a massive spike of stone above the monster. Pretakrin were tricky, as most would just absorb mana. That limited the schools of magic you could use to kill them. When the spike was nearly six meters tall and thinned to a point, I allowed it to drop. With a boom, the center of the snake was impaled, crushing its heart completely.

“Three heads. One heart. Too bad, my friend.”

The pretakrin thrashed for a few more moments before it faded into smoke.

I dismissed my elementals right as a portal opened near me. The lord of the city walked out and looked around. She saw as my spell faded back to mana though the damage from the short fight was still very much there and turned to regard me. One of the metal men rushed over to her and appeared to explain the situation to her.

She nodded, then walked over to me. “Thank you. With your help there were no deaths this time,” she said with a small bow that was more of a head bob.

“My pleasure. Pretakrin can be an annoyance to deal with,” I said, waving her off.

“Pretakrin?”

“Nasty sub dimensional beings. Get them all the time down in the Beneath where certain barriers rub a little thin.”

“Could I buy you a drink?”

Chapter 27

Louella

I sat across from Oparens, or Rens as he liked to go by, in a tavern. I had used a bit of my lord power to clear a section of everybody else, then had my guards put up a barrier so no sound could get out. I wanted this conversation to be private. Mainly because I didn’t know how it would go.

“So, Sir Rens.”

“Just Rens,” he said, taking a pull from his pipe.

“Rens then. You know of these creatures that are plaguing my city?”

“Indeed. A plague is an adept way to view them. As I mentioned they are from a sub dimensional plane of existence. They like to find cracks and make their way here. I don’t know if there is any fact in this, but I once heard that to them we taste quite unlike anything they have ever eaten.”

“Why are they so immune to mana?” That was the number one issue I was having when dealing with these creatures. I couldn’t use my magic, and I was literally overflowing with mana thanks to my body.

“How do I explain this?” Rens said while tapping his chin. He held out his hands at slightly different heights. “We are my left hand, they are my right hand. Because we don’t match up, certain properties of us don’t work on them and vice versa. Thankfully, they still gain a physical form when they go through a crack, or it’d be damn near impossible to deal with them. Though, without a physical form, they likely wouldn’t be able to interact with us.”

I nodded, understanding his explanation. Regan had a book on it in his library. I could not for the life of me remember what it was called. Some of the words in the English language just didn’t click with me, although I had learned it to read his books.

“You said they come through cracks, is there any way to seal them or at least find them?” I asked, getting to the heart of the issue. If we at least knew where they would appear, I could prepare for them.

“That, I’m afraid, is a difficult question to answer. Cracks are caused because something is traveling through a nearby dimension. And before you ask, no it’s not your portals. That was sound magic, some of the best I’ve ever seen. It was firmly in this dimension. However, whether whoever built them is the cause or not, I can’t say,” Rens finished with a shrug.

I thought the problem over. “I have noticed my portal has been more difficult to form lately. Could whatever’s behind the cracks be causing it?”

“It is very likely. Even us down in Fallen Rose have not managed to fully understand the mechanics behind these creatures. Mainly because even down there they are fairly rare,” Rens explained and took a bite of a sandwich. The quality of said food had drastically improved since Regan’s library had showed many ways to make bread. “I do have to say this is some of the best food I’ve ever partaken of. And I’ve traveled quite a ways.”

“Glad to hear it.” I leaned back while I sipped my tea. I wasn’t sure how to broach this subject, considering I had just had him locked up for a week. There were just so many powerful players on the board that I had to be careful. He might seem like a nice old man with blueish skin right now, but the scene in the street proved otherwise. He’d taken the thing down in seconds.

“Child, you do not need to beat around the bush. Ask.”

I narrowed my eyes at him as he gave me the kind of smug professor look that I’d seen all the damn time at the academy.

“I have an issue to the west that I’m dealing with,” I started to say.

“Ah yes, your war.”

“Yes. I need someone I know who can actually deal with these things to protect my city. I can’t afford to be jumping back and forth if there is a major battle,” I said, looking him straight in the eye.

Rens took a long drag from his pipe, then turned to look at me. “Sure.”

“Wait. That’s it?” I asked, surprised.

“I mean you have a nice city and all, but I’m old and quite like what I have back in Fallen Rose. Speaking of, when this is over, I want you to accompany me there.”

“Why?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. I knew it’d been too easy.

“You are High Human. I want to see whose line you belong to.”

“Again, why?”

“Let’s save that for when we know each other a bit better. For now, be assured I don’t plan to kill you or impose any of our laws on you,” he said with a chuckle.

I slowly nodded, then held my hand out to shake. He took it with an equally smug grin and we shook. I made sure not to channel any mana, thinking I wouldn’t want it to accidentally be sealed as a magical contract. After a single shake, I broke contact.

“Thank you, Rens.”

“My pleasure. Do you perchance think I might be able to stay in one of the rooms in that Queen District Complex?”

I could almost see the sparkle in his eye. However, rather than the sparkle of a man who wanted to rob you, it reminded me more of a child’s curiosity.

I thought it over for a minute but couldn’t really think of anything I didn’t want him to see in there. He could cause trouble with the other people living there, but I thought it would be rather shortsighted of him. Mainly, he would have to pick a bone with Regan for killing his mana supply.

“Very well. I don’t see a problem. Let’s see.” I pulled the glass tablet out of my bag and clicked on the Building Admin icon. Looking through the rooms and planned distribution, I settled on one. “Floor thirty-four. Room 37. That will be yours, for now,” I said, looking back up to him. I found his eyes were firmly locked on the tablet.

“Wonderful!” he nearly shouted before he got up and started heading out the door with a skip in his step.

“Wait!” He skidded to a stop, and I could see the reluctance rolling off him. “I need to scan you in.”

“Scan?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not too hard.” I held the tablet up, and a picture of Rens appeared on the screen. I clicked on the weird box at the bottom and the picture froze. A minute later, I had all of Rens’s basic information entered into the tablet. Apparently, this tablet was linked to all the security systems around the district that Regan had built.

“Can I go now?” Rens asked, bouncing on his heels. I had to resist the urge to laugh at him and waved him off. He took off, heading for Queen District.

“Sure . . .” I said, staring after him.

“He’s an interesting one,” said the current guard captain.

“The powerful usually are,” I replied, then shook my head. “Let’s go. We have work to do.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” The captain as well as everyone else saluted.

I tossed a bag of gold to the bartender as we left, and he bowed several times. The streets had calmed, though on this most recent occasion they’d never gotten a chance to really panic compared to the previous times the strange beasts, the pretakrin, attacked the city. I took that as a good sign.

I watched the passing crowd, which was light for the area we were in, at least for a few moments. I needed to take these chances to actually see my city as it grew, or I was worried I might become cold to it. I could tell myself all day that I wouldn’t, but I had memories of when my father was still warm when I was a child. One of my biggest fears was to change like he had as his station had improved.

“Your Highness, we can’t remain idle. We just received a message from General Ezal. They’ve started moving.”

“Very well.” I lifted my staff and created a portal, channeling some extra mana into it just for added stability. Stepping through, my guards and I found ourselves at the border fort. It was a flurry of activity as people rushed around. So, basically it looked the same as always. I’d opened the portal in the hall near the command center since I figured that was where Ezal would be.

A soldier rushed up to my party. “Your Highness! General Ezal is present in the command center!”

“Thank you.”

We headed down the hall, and one of my guards rushed ahead a bit to open the door for me. Inside, a table was set that showcased the surroundings and had representations of all the forces available to us and the enemy. As accurate as we could get it, anyway.

“Your Highness, the issue back at the city has been handled already?” Ezal asked with a bit of worry. Whether for me and our people, or because I had left in the middle of a fight, I wasn’t sure. I decided to go with the second.

“Yes. I managed to recruit a powerful ally to watch home for the time being,” I said as I moved up next to her.

“That’s good news. Too bad I don’t have good news myself.”

“They are moving?”

“Yes. But only at the rear. We expect to have a messenger in a few hours.”

“After all this time, what could they possibly have to say that they didn’t already say in their first two visits?” I asked with a snort. First with the noble attempting to basically rob me, then with Quin trying to force the petty king’s demands on me for only defending my home. They clearly didn’t care about the who and only wanted the what.

“I assume since this is more of the official sort of war compared to the noble who attacked us the first time, they’ll actually go through the proper etiquette. I wonder if we’ll get to the see the legendary seal?” Ezal said with a mischievous grin.

“I would hope so, since all of Thonaca is coming at us,” I replied, shaking my head at her.

There was little we could do but sit and wait. While a preemptive strike might have taken them by surprise, I felt it wasn’t worth the losses we would take. Even I didn’t have enough mana to power through all the magic the enemy army had prepared when marching to the walls. The barriers alone were done by some of their top mages.

As we predicted, almost exactly an hour later, a man rode to the gates, by himself and unarmed. He bore the banner of the Thonaca king, meaning he was a messenger. The gate guards opened the gates just enough for him to enter, then slammed them shut. There were plenty of times throughout history where the gates had fallen during the messenger’s entrance.

We moved to the entrance hall to greet the messenger. I wanted to have a position of power while being hospitable. We didn’t have to wait long before the doors swung open and the messenger was escorted into the hall.

“Welcome to Vaihdetta,” I said as I spread my arms wide in welcome.

“Spare me your drivel,” the messenger said with a flourish of his arm. “Louella, traitor of Thonaca! You stand accused of crimes against the crown, the murders of Lady Quin and Lord Lines, the suspicion of causing the disaster that struck Lecazar Empire, the heretical worship of a false god, and many more crimes. His Highness King Ataulf Vetericus can no longer stand by and allow you to run rampant.”

I leaned over to Ezal. “Did we ever find out anything about Lines?” I asked with a whisper.

“No. He returned to Thonaca, but we didn’t have anyone on him,” Ezal replied, covering her mouth with her hand.

“We are sure we didn’t do it, right?” I asked with a chuckle. I would have thought that Regan would tell me if he’d killed off someone like that. It seemed like something had happened and I was being forced to take the blame.

“You will listen!”

“You are declaring war against us, right?” I asked, trying not to yawn. “Why do I have to listen to people accusing me of things I haven’t done?”

The messenger grew red in the face, and I heard the sound of splintering wood as his hand tightened on the pole of his banner. He looked like he was at a loss for words. “You . . . you—very well! I hope you savor this moment when your people are dying around you!” He slammed the banner pole into the ground hard enough to embed it into the stone floor, then turned on his heel and stormed from the hall.

“Your Highness,” Ezal said, sighing and shaking her head in exasperation.

“What?”

Chapter 28

Regan

“Everything in here is so shiny!” Soza said as her head swiveled around, trying to look at everything at once. She grabbed a silver plate from the wall and ripped it off without any hesitation. “Can I take this back to my lair, husband?”

“No! Put it back and stop tearing up my ship!” I shouted at her.

She pouted but did as she was told. I guess the dragon-bond magic was quite powerful. I could tell she didn’t want to give it back. Upon her return of the panel, the ship healed the damage before her eyes.

I shook my head and continued to the core room. I had created it when I was sealing the constructs in this locale. A solid position made the dungeon magic more powerful. Walking into the room, I lowered the barriers protecting my core, then rested my hand on the core.

“Husband! You’ve claimed a dungeon core?!” Soza asked with much more enthusiasm than I was prepared for.

“No. I am a dungeon core,” I replied honestly. I didn’t see much reason to hide it from her, and hopefully, it would nullify this dragon marriage.

“Really!” she shouted, then caught me off guard by running forward and wrapping her arms around me. “No wonder I lost so easily. Dungeon lords are the most powerful of the monsters. The group,” she paused as if trying to remember something, “I think they wanted to use coalition, or something along those lines. If you ask me, they were just copying the mortals. Not that I really . . .”

I snapped my fingers in front of her. “Focus. What group?”

“Sorry, husband. Anyway, I was just a hatchling at the time, but my mother told me about the lords assembly from the dungeons on this continent. They used to terrorize all the monsters, imposing their will on everyone and everything.”

“How long have they been gone?”

“Gone? Never. They might be asleep, but they are very much aware of their immediate surroundings. Some of the more intelligent monsters have tried to destroy their cores before they reawaken. None has been seen since.”

“Interesting. Who would you say is the weakest of these monster lords?” I asked. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that I’d literally run into Soza.

“Can’t say. It’s been so long since anyone in living memory actually saw them. Rumor, however, says the Elaro, the Whisperer, was the weakest.”

I tapped my chin while I thought about this new information. I had a few months to set up a plan to deal with these “lords.” Everything I was hearing stated they were evil. The issue that I was worried about was that my attention would be pulled into the battles like it had been during my confrontation with Alara. Not to mention, I had a lot of unfinished business back on the other continent.

I glanced over to Soza as she was looking at various things, and an idea came to me. I could bind her to my dungeon. I seldom used the spell, but I knew it worked wonders. If her power was elevated even higher, she would make a very powerful guardian for this area.

“Husband, I will be embarrassed if you stare at me so,” Soza said, puffing up her chest even more in spite of her words.

That was my worry. If this was truly from her dragon bond or whatever, I could inadvertently amplify it during the spell. I didn’t have as much control on personality during the binding magic as I did the summoning magic.

“Soza, tell me more about the dragon bond,” I said finally. I created a chair and took a seat, then quickly made it larger when Soza practically dived at me. I shifted her from my lap to the seat next to me.

“An ancient magic, if my mother is to be believed, though she was quite empty in her head. Dragons are the oldest monsters,” she said the word with a small growl, “in the world. Predating many of the mortals. Because our magic was so powerful, we had issues getting along. Several dragons saw the future of our race and worked together to create a magic that spanned the universe. Now, if one dragon should best the other, they are to be bonded. Of course, males can be released if it’s to another male, and same for females.”

“How can they make lasting magic like that?” I asked. It was the same for the goblins. Magic that affected their entire race had been used. While it might not be true for magic, in science you needed something to sustain the reaction. Something was supplying and directing the magic.

“The World Spirit. The Origin Source. The World Pillar. The Primary Ley line. There are many such sources of power that can manifest magic anywhere on the planet and beyond.” Soza pointed into the distance, and I realized she was pointing toward the plateau. “That was the World Tree.”

“But it is stone,” I commented while opening a screen that broadcasted the plateau.

“From what I understand, we have the Arcarins to thank for that.”

“I heard the Arcarins were a peaceful race,” I said, rubbing my chin. I was really thanking my luck for having run into Soza.

“Yeah. Unless they were threatened. The monster lords managed to do that. The tree in the center of the plateau, a little thing, keeps the lords asleep. It is the World Tree’s magic concentrated into one spell.”

“Pretty fragile for something with so much magic,” I said, without thinking.

“Fragile? What do you mean, husband?”

“It got sliced in half, then burned to ashes.”

“Sliced . . . in half . . . and burned . . . to ash . . .”

“Yeah. That’s what I . . .” I actually looked next to me and saw Soza with a full-blown panic-stricken face.

“We’re all dead! Nothing can stop the lords if they are allowed to leave their dungeons!”

“Calm down. Trust me. You’ve never met anything like me,” I said, patting her head between her horns. It was about the only place I felt I could touch without it being taken another way.

Thankfully, it did what I wanted, and she took a breath and visibly calmed down. I stood and waved my hand. A map of the continent appeared before us. Dozens of locations of interest were marked. I felt energy readings from more than only ten places. I wouldn’t know if they were dungeons until I traveled closer, but I didn’t want to risk alerting anyone that didn’t need to be alerted.

“Which of these are the lords?” I asked Soza while pointing to the map. “I think I know, but I want to be sure.”

She moved up next to me and pointed out four immediately. “Those are the only ones I can be sure about. There are three other dragons, and we’ve divided the continent between us. I didn’t want to be bound or to bind anyone, so I didn’t try to force my way farther around the continent.”

“If that’s the case, let’s nullify this right now,” I said, holding my hand out.

“You’re such a kidder, husband! Why would I nullify my pact with someone as powerful as you?” she asked while avoiding my hand and wrapping herself around my arm. I sighed and let the hand fall. “Besides! Now that I know you’re a dungeon core, I know you can alter your form. You could even give me children in the future!”

Alara is going to kill me. “Look. I already have someone!” I said, desperate.

“So? Dragons can have dozens of mates at a time,” Soza said, even yawning toward the end.

Shit, I had forgotten that Nova had asked me to bring him more females. Soza was a curveball that I just wasn’t going to be able to handle. I grinned when I got an idea. “Actually, I have a dragon son. When we get back, you have to best him, and then I will consider our challenge valid.”

Soza starred at me for a long moment. I silently prayed to Creation that this would work. “Very well. But if your son cannot best me in battle, then I will have you honor our bond.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. “Since we agree on that, I have a proposal,” I said with the main topic giving me a headache put on hold for now.

“Go ahead, husband,” she said with a grin. I knew she was doing it on purpose, but decided to ignore it for now.

“I want to bind you to this core. I’ll be able to help you if you get in trouble by giving you mana. But more than that, I want to ask you to guard this area while I go to my main core.”

“You have more than one core?” she asked, surprised.

“Indeed. My main core is much more powerful than this one, but they are all important.”

“May I have a moment to think about it, husband?” Soza asked, looking probably the most serious I’d ever seen her. Though, I’d only known her for a few hours.

I nodded and patted her shoulder. “Take your time. I have something I need to work on,” I said, then left her on the seat. I moved over to my core and placed my hands on either side. I wasn’t sure if this would work, but my knowledge of space and time magic had grown while we were stuck in that subdimension.

I concentrated and moved deep into the magic that made up my core. The construct was exactly the same as my main core, only reduced. They were all technically the same core, so it wasn’t surprising. That was what I was betting on. Sure enough, when I went deeper, I found what I was looking for.

A gateway was the easiest way to describe it. A gateway into the dimension I created in my main core so many months ago. I had only checked on it a few times. Growing a universe from scratch wasn’t exactly fast. I thought about the last time I’d checked on it, about two months ago. The number of quarks had increased, but it was still far from causing the big bang. I wished I could talk to Creation about how to build it.

I pulled my attention out of my core and realized almost two hours had passed. I made a note of that—I didn’t want to spend years in there on accident—then turned to find Soza poking my back.

“About time. I thought you’d died or something,” she said with a worried look.

“Sorry. I can get a bit caught up in my work. Have you decided?” I asked, pulling completely out of the core.

“Yes. I would like to take you up on this task. I promise to protect your core and your domain for as long as I live.”

“Good! Hopefully, it won’t come to that. I suggest you return to your original form.”

I waved my arms and widened the room to be able to hold her entire form and then some. If I knew the magic, there was a good chance she would get larger. I rather she not damage the vessel or my core.

Soza nodded and took off the dress I gave her. Handing it to me, she backed away and in a burst of flames quickly grew to her original thirty-meter form. She laid her head on the ground in front of me.

“Feel free to ride me if you want.”

I wasn’t sure how, but I swore I could see her blush. I hadn’t thought that was possible for cold-blooded creatures. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll have to take a rain check. Are you ready?”

She nodded. I moved forward and placed my hand on her snout. The mana surged as I offered to bind her to my dungeon. When she accepted, mana flooded from my core, then into her. I was able to see her pool before it was changed. It rivaled Louella’s pool and might even have been a bit larger.

Mana flickered across her body as her scales took a metallic sheen. She grew but only by about two meters. For the most part, it appeared her mana was the only thing that changed greatly, growing much denser. I felt her mana capacity quadruple, and if she soon broke into tier four, I might have some trouble dealing with her if she tried to challenge me.

The magic died down soon after that. “Soza, are you alright?”

“Alright?! I feel amazing!” Flames flashed around her, and she transformed into her humanoid form again. It looked mostly the same, except that her hair had a metallic glint.

“That’s good to hear. There is just one more thing I want to do.” I moved over to my core and weaved a Barrier spell unlike I had ever done before. Now that Soza was truly linked to the dungeon I was able to do a spell that tied her life to the core’s. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I’ve been burned in the past. This is just a precaution.”

“I completely understand. I don’t mind being tied up like this, husband,” Soza said with a sultry smile.

“Glad you feel that way. Now, I’ll leave you to it. I will be back as soon as the pathways of my dungeons form. It should take roughly three to four weeks. Though I might be able to speed it up from my main dungeon.”

“You’re going to leave me alone for that long,” she said with a pout. “At least give me a kiss to help me remain strong.”

I flicked her forehead hard enough that she could actually feel it. “Down, girl. You’re going to get me killed.”

She shrugged. “That would just tell me you were not worth my affections.”

I kept my mouth shut, but inside I thought about Alara not stopping at me if she did attempt to kill me. Though, I’m not sure if she felt that way about me. She might have just seen me as a support that she needed to recover from her trauma. Other than the two kissed, one of which I’d practically forced on her, we hadn’t done much more.

I shook my head and turned to the core. Idle thoughts were how people died when they should be concentrating. Clearing my head, I entered my core more fully. Time to do or die.

Chapter 29

Louella

After the messenger left, we got to work preparing for the eventual rush that was about to take place. They might make us stew for a few more hours, but given how we treated their messenger, I doubted whoever the king put in charge of the enemy forces would sit still for long.

I made for the wall myself, even as Ezal and most of the other officers shouted at me to stop. I wouldn’t make my soldiers stand on the front lines without doing the same. Besides, I was likely the most powerful person at the fort. They would need me to do as much damage as possible in order to make the enemy think twice about sieging this place.

I reached the courtyard in front of the keep and saw three people I was not expecting. Nero, Yuno, and his sister were preparing their arms, along with a large number of other adventurers. I also saw Noir and her sisters together with the man who went by Meteor.

“Your Highness!” Nero shouted, running up to me. My guards moved to intercept him, but I just waved them off. Nero stopped about two meters away from me and swept into a deep bow. “My weapons and magic are yours to command. Your enemies will learn to fear you.”

“We are also indebted to you for all that we’ve gained in the valley. We have pledged to help in your coming time,” Noir said, moving up next to Nero.

“I’m just here to test my spell. The recent vision in the valley gave me many insights,” Meteor called from where he sat checking his staff. I wasn’t sure I liked the look in his eye, but as long as he was using whatever magic he’d come up with on the enemy, I would accept it.

Many other adventurers started to cheer or call out their loyalty as the gathering grew denser. Seeing all these people here to support and help us brought a smile to my face. Maybe this evening would be a rough one, but at least I wouldn’t be alone in the fight.

“Thank you, everyone! I promise to return this gesture in some way if we make it through this. Even though my words might sound hollow on the eve of battle, I believe we can get through this together. We are family and friends coming together to protect our loved ones. For many of you, it would be easy to turn away and start a new life elsewhere far from the battle. The fact that you stay to help fills me with immense joy. Again, thank you!” I finished by bowing my head to the adventurers and holding it.

“There is no need for that. We are here because this valley has become special to us. Even though I have only been here a few weeks, I would hate to see it destroyed for petty reasons. As I said for me and my party, I think I say for everyone here: our magic and swords are at your command, Your Highness.”

I looked over everyone in the gathering and counted at least two thousand people. That was not a small number. I moved forward and took Nero’s hands. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you, Azura Flower,” Nero said as he dropped his head in another bow. With a kiss to the back of my hand, he leaped back. “To arms, my friends!”

The adventurers split up into their individual parties and made for the walls. I stared after them before I went to the top of the gate. I wanted to be at the center so I could hopefully help out if anyone got into a dangerous situation. My guards took up positions on either side of the platform at the top of the gate. It would take quite a bit of force to get through them.

“Let them come!” I shouted, amplifying my voice so everyone in the fort and beyond could hear it. They needed to know that we weren’t scared. As my voice faded, there was an echo of thunder, and it soon started to rain. The result of mages working on both sides to create the storm. After that, silence filled the air, only punctuated by droplets hitting metal, cloth, and leather armor.

With a crack of thunder, both sides of the wall lit up as thousands of mages began to channel mana into their spells. Some went for quick and precise, while others took the longer route and used large spells for maximum destruction.

After a few seconds, the air was pulled and pushed as the wave of spells was launched from both sides. An almost solid wall of magic collided just outside the wall, causing mana to rip through the area.

The ground rippled and the air froze. Two of my guards moved forward on either side of a pedestal and started to channel mana to create a large chunk of metal. It was a little something that the mage’s tower had developed with knowledge from Regan’s library. The enemy would experience quite a few weapons like this today.

I placed my hands on either side of the almost meter-diameter ball of metal and channeled lightning to form a tunnel around it. The tunnel only lasted for a second before the ball of metal streaked toward the enemy almost faster than I could follow with my eye.

With a loud boom, the ball struck one of the barriers protecting the approaching army. It was ripped to pieces but managed to pierce the shield. The fingertip-sized pieces rained death on the soldiers under the impact site. To make it worse for the enemy, the barrier that was struck gained large cracks.

“Again!” I ordered and began channeling my mana to ready the next one.

As I waited for the guards to create another metal ball, a large number of spells were directed at our location. Fireballs, blasts of energy, and lances made from darkness crashed against the wall’s barrier as it sprang to life right in front of us. The barrier protecting my forces likely couldn’t compare to the Thonaca one, but it was powerful enough to hold for a while.

My guards finished preparing the metal ball, and I created another lightning tunnel. This time aiming farther back, I targeted what looked like a command spot. They were too far forward to be the main command unit, but anything to hurt their chain of command was a good target to me.

With another boom, the metal ball streaked across the battlefield and struck the barrier. The barrier was still repairing from the last strike and couldn’t take it. I saw a flare of mana as a mage in the enemy ranks had all the excess energy from the barrier wash back on him. He quite literally exploded.

The metal ball didn’t break into as many pieces this time but still caused devastation as it ripped the command unit apart. The main person managed to throw up a barrier in time to save himself, but everyone with him was either dead or on their way. I motioned for my guards to start another. The two who did the first set had to fall back and gather mana, as the spell took a large amount of it from them.

The other towers along the wall were using similar weapons to hammer at the barriers around the enemy lines. The large amount of pinpoint force was taxing on the barriers. With nearly a dozen of the weapons being employed, we were forcing the enemy to consider whether this was a good idea or not.

In the midst of the torrent of flying spells, there was a blinding light. The next moment, only a charred path of destruction for at least a hundred meters remained. Even with the enemy’s barrier protecting them, whatever spell had just been used had completely obliterated everything in its path.

“Who the hell was that?!” I demanded from the sighter that was monitoring the battlefield.

“An adventurer, Your Highness. There was a spike of mana unlike any I’ve ever felt before, then there was a flash of light. I couldn’t even see what actually happened.”

“I see. Let me know if you can get some information on the adventurer in question,” I said, then turned back to the pedestal. The metal ball was just about ready. I didn’t want to anger someone who could cause such destruction so easily. The enemy army had started rallying and was working to reinforce their barriers by layering them.

I fired the metal ball at the enemy without a particular target but frowned when it failed to pierce the barriers they’d managed to reinforce. Only a few minutes had passed for the battle, but the difference in resources was already becoming apparent. My force’s spells were coming farther apart, while the enemy’s spells were still coming almost nonstop.

What looked like a blue fireball shot from the back of the enemy lines and morphed into a phoenix. It rose above the battlefield, then started raining fire on my soldiers. Whoever was controlling it was quite powerful. The barrier protecting my forces visibly weakened just from a few seconds of the bombardment.

I formed a lance made from lightning and threw it at the phoenix. It wasn’t just a spell effect, as it actively dodged the lance. I quickly controlled the lance to have it spin around and chase after the phoenix. They were about even in speed, but at least the phoenix wasn’t sending fire down on my forces anymore.

While I was dealing with the phoenix, another spell similar to the phoenix shot into the air. It appeared to be a dragon made of ice and water. As it flew over the battlefield, a deluge of water poured from it. Even though the barrier blocked it, the water flowed down the barrier and soon made it rough for my soldiers in certain areas that turned to pure mud.

Shortly, I sensed two more spells that were similar in strength ascend into the sky. I knew there would be tier three mages, but I didn’t expect for them to make their presence known from the beginning of the battle.

“I guess their king really doesn’t like me,” I mumbled.

“Your Highness . . . I think it’s more about just how scared they are of you,” one my guards said with a grin.

I nodded, matching his grin. If only Regan’s weapons had worked, then this battle might have already been over. Unfortunately, they had been unresponsive.

“I think he should be scared of us.”

As if on cue, the top of the fort opened, the roof sliding unnaturally, as it was controlled by Terra mages. Ezal, glowing bright enough to be seen in the gray rain-filled light, floated along with a dozen other mages around a large crystal. Runes and gears made of mana formed a massive complex spell construct around her. It was time to even the fight.

Chapter 30

Alara

“Mother!”

I turned from the statue of Regan and found Lena hovering next to me. She had a wild look on her face. “What is . . . it?”

“Undead on the surface! One of Lord Regan’s children spotted them moving from the east. There’s an army of them!”

My attention snapped to her as I let my senses flood out. I ignored the undead on the top floors that I had yet to reclaim. Pushing my mind to the edge of my aura, I spotted the first vestiges of the undead forces making their way in.

I moved my avatar to Regan’s Alpha after I located Jarvis. He was Regan’s advisor and had told me before to seek him if I needed anything. He was also in charge of the forces Regan left behind to guard the surface area of my dungeon.

I found him working over a table that had hundreds of vials on it. I could sense mana emanating from just about everything on the table. The cables that made up his eyes were observing several things at once as some sort of reaction was taking place.

One of his eyes turned to look at me, while the rest of him kept working. “Lady Alara, I presume you are here to discuss the undead army marching toward us.”

“Yes,” I said with a nod. The speed at which he was working on his experiment increased severalfold until he came to a stop, holding a single vial of platinum liquid. He put it away in his coat pocket.

“What is . . . that?”

He turned to face me fully, then patted the spot the vial was stored. “Don’t worry about it. About our undead problem, what are your mana stores at?”

“I am about . . . a quarter full.”

“That doesn’t give us too much to work with. I have command of Sir’s forces in this area, but that also doesn’t give us too much to work with. If we pull too many, then the undead being created by the leftover undeath in your dungeon could get out of control.”

“Defense?” I asked. If we focused on that, we could potentially hold the undead back for a long time. Long enough for Regan to come back.

“That is an acceptable path we can take. I just fear the objective of this undead force. We know that we’ve managed to only make a dent in the necromancer leadership. Depending on the number of leaders controlling this force, they could be quite dangerous.”

“What should . . . we do?”

Jarvis turned and appeared to be deep in thought. “Lady Louella is busy dealing with her own problem. I guess we’ll have to rely on the captains,” he mumbled, more to himself than me.

I heard the door to the room open and turned to see a group of people walk in. I recognized them as the captains of the ships that patrolled the area around my dungeon. Regan had introduced them to me once before.

“Looks like we have a bit of an issue on our hands,” Wilson said with his arm around Liz. At least I think that was their names. They were a couple and were never apart from each other unless forced.

“We never get a chance to rest around here,” Liz said with a pout.

“Wherever there be bounty or battle, I’ll be there,” said the captain I thought was named Benjamin.

“You lead the way, mate. I’ll be using your pretty boat as a nice shield when the enemy cannon fire begins,” another captain said. This was, I believed, Spare.

“Good, you all have gathered without me calling for you. We have a bit of an issue. Any ideas?” Jarvis said with one eye on each captain.

“Those paltry undead can’t match up to us. I say we take the fight to them,” Benjamin said, moving his hand to the handle of his sword.

“Yes, but without Master Regan here, we would be walking right into a trap if, oh, I don’t know, an army of specters were to be among the corpses,” Spare said, looking at Benjamin like he was an idiot.

“We might not have Master Regan, but we do have Lady Alara. Couldn’t she serve in his stead?” Wilson asked, looking over to me.

“I’m not . . . sure what you . . . expect me to . . . do. I’m no match . . . for Regan,” I replied, shaking my head. Not only did I not know nearly any of the magic he’d used on me, but I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t freeze while they were dealing with the undead. If I caused any of Regan’s children to die, I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself. And I didn’t want to make Regan upset.

“We don’t need a commander. Any of us can serve in that capacity. We just need someone who can react to any sudden changes the necromancers might throw at us. A dungeon core is the best candidate for that role,” Jarvis said as he started to pace.

“Unlike Regan . . . I can’t move . . . my core,” I replied, lowering my head. I felt even more useless than I had in a while.

“We know, Lady Alara,” the captain named Liz said as she patted my shoulder.

Jarvis came to an abrupt stop. “Your core can’t move, but this one can. I wonder . . ” His eyes all focused on me. “Follow me.”

One of his eyes lit up, and we found ourselves on the command section of Alpha. We followed as he led us up the large building that served as the center of the floating city. The area became more heavily guarded as we moved closer to the core that sat at Alpha’s center.

After a few minutes, we made it to the room that surrounded the core. Energy much denser than my own pulsed from the glowing orb in the center of the room. I could see so many defensive spells that I knew I would have to be near full strength to have any hope of getting through them. And those were only the magic layers.

“Sir Regan’s core. I’m not sure if this will work, but I want you to try to link with it. DO NOT attempt to take it over. Think of it more along the lines of asking it for cooperation,” Jarvis said with a stern look at me.

“I don’t know. This feels like . . . it could be . . . dangerous to Regan,” I said, moving up to the orb. Looking at it closer, I saw it had to be five or six meters in diameter. How much mana had Regan used to create something like this?

“I understand your hesitations, but there is nothing to worry about. This is actually a test that Sir Regan wanted to perform. Though, I admit under much more controlled circumstances and of course with him being present.”

I looked at Jarvis for a long moment as I tried to decide what to do. Even now I could feel more undead flowing into my aura. They’d already reached nearly three thousand, with little evidence that they would be stopping soon. Something needed to be done.

I moved closer to the orb. There was so much magic that heat was actually being put off. I held my hand up and sent my aura out from my body. The defense magic activated instantly. The orb, which had been alternating colors up until this point, shifted to a crimson.

“WARNING! CEASE INSTANTLY OR RISK TERMINATION!” Regan’s voice sounded out, echoing throughout the room like an angry god.

I jumped back, not wanting to risk it. The orb stayed red for a few moments before it shifted back to its colorful state. “It’s impossible . . . we’ll be . . . destroyed,” I said, looking over to Jarvis. I could sense the spell that had been building up. It would have reduced us to something less than dust.

“My apologies, Lady Alara. A moment,” he said and started pacing again.

~~~

City of Jordan, Thonaca Kingdom

“Any word, Urena?”

“No, my lord. The worms have holed themselves up with the coming winter,” Urena said with a shake of her head.

“Damn. I don’t want a repeat of Terneo. There was too much collateral damage for my taste,” Valamar said, overlooking the city of Jordan.

One of the southernmost cities in Thonaca, it was the closest city to his home. The Church had a large presence there but not large enough it appeared to control the necromancer scum that had managed to take hold in the city.

“I fear there may be no other choice, my lord,” Urena replied while checking her bladed hands.

Valamar had managed to calm the seething rage over the last months. With each necromancer he killed, it was like the fire died ever so slightly. He’d also gotten accustomed to the almost overwhelming power that flowed in his body now. He still remembered when he could cause a tree to shatter to splinters just by resting his hand on it.

“How many?”

“Twenty, spread across ten buildings. It appears they are in pairs, which supports our information of the larger infestations,” Urena reported, then got a sour look. “No one suspects married couples of being evil.”

“Ingenious, to be honest. Everyone watches out for the man dressed in a dark robe by himself. But a couple out buying dinner? I certainly wouldn’t suspect them,” Valamar said, shaking his head at his own naivety.

“Orders, my lord?” Urena asked.

“I’ll rain fire. You hunt any that try to escape,” Valamar replied.

“Understood,” Urena said with a salute, then melted into shadows.

Valamar looked back to the city and channeled mana into the ring on his back. He floated into the air, then shot off into the sky, quickly reaching the same height as the clouds. Night was upon them, and only Krona was in the sky tonight.

Locating each of the buildings, Valamar raised his four arms into the air above his head. Using terra, fire, air, and water mana, he created a spell that was in the top ten of his most-destructive list. Ten objects formed around him, each quickly becoming close to five meters long and over a meter in diameter.

A white flame flashed around them, the water mana working to reduce the interference from that branch of mana. When the spell was complete, Valamar made sure to aim, using his heightened senses to judge the targets. With one last push of mana, he flung the flaming pillars down.

Ten streaks of light appeared to flash through the air before they hit their spots throughout the city. With the ancient barriers that would have protected it from such an attack still weak from the terraquake of over a month ago, the streaks of light ripped through them with ease. The people who were still on the street didn’t even have a chance to yell or scream before the lights hit the city.

Ten booms echoed out at the same time, and everyone in the city was awakened by the massive explosions that rocked it and its surroundings for nearly forty kilometers. The damage, as far as Valamar could see, was contained to just the single building. He’d used air mana to make a cyclone around the explosion that pulled it up into the air rather than trying to block it completely.

People streamed into the streets as guards and soldiers rushed about to see if they were under attack. Valamar noticed that there were very few soldiers among the people running around. He took note of it before he flew back to the cliff overlooking the city.

An hour or so later, Urena reappeared from the shadows.

Valamar eyed her. “Well?”

“Only one was not home during the attack. He attempted to make a run for it, but he didn’t get very far,” she reported.

“Why are there so few soldiers? Have you heard anything?”

“The king called for arms. They are about to wage war. I couldn’t get a clear answer on the target.”

“I think we both know where he is,” Valamar said, looking to the north. He wasn’t sure how, but he could sense Ezal even this far south. He’d thought it was a happy illusion to help himself cope, but after so many months, he knew it was something more magical in nature.

“What do you want to do, my lord?” Urena asked, kneeling.

Valamar looked from the north to the south. His father was the biggest traitor of them all. He wanted me to marry a necromancer so she could sacrifice me, he recalled. He needed to get his revenge, not just for himself but for the friends who’d perished due to being with him. That meant little, however, if his love and her family and friends were killed by an army.

“Let’s go,” Valamar said before he shot into the air. Urena sank into his shadow and used that to follow.

Next:

Previous:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/43761506