Dungeon Robotics Book 7 PT 4 (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 31

Regan

“I’m going to have to ask you to stop breaking the universe,” Creation said as he leaned back against the pew he sat at.

I looked around and found I was in a grand cathedral that appeared to stretch on forever. Millions of people could fit easily and likely wouldn’t even be bothering each other.

Creation sat at a pew in another form. Male this time, he was at least four meters tall and radiated power. He was wearing clothes from Earth’s modern era that looked to be what most people might consider his Sunday best.

“What’d I do now?” I asked with a grin as I moved to sit on the pew next to him.

“You, a complex being of the measurable power of a lesser god, entered a universe that barely has the energy to support itself. I know you were trying to only send your mind, but the mind is where most of your power sits,” Creation said with a very audible sigh.

“Creation, leave him alone. He’s barely even a baby,” a new voice said from my other side.

I turned to see a woman who had likely caused a few countries to fight in the past. The first thing that came to mind was Helena of Troy. There were no words to describe her beauty, but I could also tell any attempt to touch her would only spell destruction.

“Destruction, this is my area. I would ask you to leave,” Creation said. While it sounded rude to me, I could tell there was no emotion implied.

“I would tell you no. This is no longer just your area,” Destruction said with a smile that made me more scared than interested, no matter how beautiful it was. “I have you to thank for that.”

“Me? What’d I do?” I asked, nervous that I’d just upset some cosmic game of good and evil.

Destruction and Creation both started laughing. “Good and evil?! Mortal thoughts.”

“Um,” I mumbled, unsure what was going on.

“We are forces of the absolute, of everything. I create everything. My sister destroys everything,” Creation explained.

“I see, I think,” I said, mulling it over. “Anyway . . . what am I doing here exactly?”

Creation yawned, then said, “It was either this or die.”

“Die?!”

“Your little universe couldn’t support your mind. I didn’t think you’d dive into it like that. As I AM Creation, I didn’t want a newborn to go to waste.”

I glanced over to Destruction, who was wearing a smile. “I feel like you broke some rules for me,” I said, rubbing the back of my head.

“Not quite broke, just bent. You and that universe were meant for me,” Destruction said, licking her lips.

I gave a tight laugh. “I didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter. So, what does this mean for me exactly?”

“You get to watch,” Creation and Destruction said in almost perfect sync.

“Watch?”

“Watch the coming events of that valley. Let’s hope the little mortals are able to protect it by themselves,” Destruction said.

I jerked out of the pew but only made it one step before chains that appeared to be made from galaxies wrapped around me. I knew instinctively that I couldn’t break free no matter how hard I tried. I attempted to just move my arm, only to find I couldn’t budge.

“Surely there’s something else we can do!” I yelled.

Destruction clapped her hands, and sound disappeared from around me. “That’s enough whining. It’s been decided by the scales. That’s the end of it.”

Creation moved up next to me. “Sorry, my friend. This is the price to pay for your life,” he said, patting my shoulder.

A hole opened under me and I fell. I wasn’t sure how long I fell, but I suddenly found myself in my main core. I could see everything in my aura like normal. I folded my arms and sighed at my predicament. “What now?”

I attempted to interact with my core and could clearly feel a barrier blocking me. I tried several different methods but couldn’t get past it. Deciding I was stuck for now, I turned my attention to the happenings of my dungeons.

Deciding to check the one thing that worried me the most, I looked to Soza and found her napping around the subcore just like I left her. I didn’t think she would attempt to destroy me, but it had been nagging at the back of my mind. At least she was sort of doing her job.

Steel Spire was quiet for the most part. I noticed some destruction here and there but couldn’t figure out the cause from the context. There were quite a few more mortals since the last time I’d checked it. At least it looked like it was safe there.

Looking to my main dungeon and the valley dungeon, I found the population had nearly doubled. While the apartment buildings I’d created were being used at about thirty percent, the rest of the new population were dwelling in tents on the outside of the city. Likely, they were people from the cities and towns that Louella wanted to rescue.

I couldn’t find either her or Alara in my main dungeon aura. I did find that Ignea was in my main core room with all the defenses activated. She would only do something like that if there was a serious threat to my core. My sense of urgency spiking, I looked around and managed to find what I thought was the likely source.

A group of goblins were fighting a creature that I wasn’t quite sure how to describe. I only had to wonder why they weren’t using mana on it for a few seconds when a fireball hit it and caused it to grow nearly a centimeter. I wasn’t too worried, as the bullets the goblins were firing at it were definitely making a dent.

I looked over to Alara’s dungeon, pleased that I could still do that. I felt that it was under control, and I really couldn’t help if I wanted to, but I still couldn’t find her. Lena was also in Alara’s core room, and they’d raised all the defenses that I had put there in order to protect her in case the necromancers ever managed to reach her core room.

I finally found Alara on Alpha in the core room with Jarvis and the captains. Jarvis was pacing as he did when he was attempting to figure something out. I tried to understand the situation from just the context clues but didn’t get very far. I’d been watching for a minute when I realized I sensed undead in my aura on the surface.

When I looked outside Alpha, sure enough, there was an army gathering on the edge of my aura. If the undead core was aware that I was gone somehow, he might have been attempting to recapture Alara. That’s when I realized that Jarvis was likely trying to have Alara link to Alpha’s core. It was something we’d talked about a while ago but never got around to testing. Mainly it was in case I had to completely destroy her core if she couldn’t control it.

With the defenses I’d left on that core, no one within a thousand kilometers would be able to access it without enough mana to flatten a few cities in the process. This world kept throwing me for loops, and I never knew what to prepare for. It was getting to be annoying.

Jarvis stopped pacing and moved over to the core. He raised his hand but stopped just a few centimeters from the core shielding, which was a wise decision. Even he would be vaporized if he attempted to access the core like this. I thought quickly, wondering what the hell I could do to help.

Those spells were linked to my main core. They drew their mana from it since that would keep most from being able to destroy the power source before getting to the core. I’d seen plenty of movies and knew that you needed the generator to be off-site. I split my attention to my main core.

Ignea was the second child I’d summoned. That my link to her was the strongest of all my children was a fact that didn’t help me much right now. I snapped my ethereal fingers. She was my dungeon fairy, though I didn’t take advantage of that fact very often. She knew everything about the dungeon as long as she thought about it. But more importantly, she knew about my avatar body, which I was currently using nearly full-time.

I moved to sit in a meditation pose just to help myself get into the mood. I wasn’t sure if this would help at all, but it was worth a try. I concentrated on my avatar body, which the two absolute beings had decided to let me keep, and focused on changing a single part of it.

“I hope I don’t break the universe again,” I mumbled as I started.

Chapter 32

Louella

The mana in the area was almost physical as I watched Ezal and her company rise into the air. With Ezal at the center, the other mages were acting as conduits, channeling an increasingly larger amount of mana to her from almost forty mages who were still inside the fort. The people with her all manifested displays of mana similar to her own. Their bodies were leaking flames, or their hair had turned to burning flames.

While I sort of knew what this spell was supposed to accomplish, it had never been tested before. Of course, using magic of that scale drew the entire enemy’s attention to them. The elemental beasts turned en masse toward the floating Fire mages. They slammed into the barriers surrounding the fort, causing cracks to form. I worried for only a moment before mages started to reinforce the barrier surrounding the floating mages.

The enemy clearly felt that they needed to stop the magic being worked as their forces started to rush the walls. With the battle about to enter a melee, it would take a turn, and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. They did outnumber us close to twenty to one. We hadn’t even been able to get accurate counts before our scouts were forced to withdraw, so that information was lacking.

Knights and soldiers with tower shields made the front of the wave of enemies. Enchanted to withstand most common magic and projectiles, they made a moving wall that most people would find hard to overcome. I could make out ladders and other siege equipment getting closer to the wall under heavy protection from the enemy forces.

“Target those ladders! We can’t let them get on the wall!” I shouted, my voice amplified by magic to reach everyone in the fort. Fire mages set simple spells that highlighted the location of the siege weapons as they were spotted. After that, mages and archers on the wall started to unleash hell on the enemy.

One particular enterprising individual sent a burst of terra mana that caused the ground to explode from under the enemy’s feet. The ladder and most of the soldiers around it were torn to shreds before one of their Terra mages got the writhing land under control. Similar scenes could be seen along the wall.

As the enemy got closer, we were able to cause much stronger magic without using extra mana in the process to cross the distance. The hundred meters in front of the wall was no different from a kill box. The problem was they had the bodies to force the divide. Their priest detachment was also strong. People who didn’t suffer a fatal wound would get back up and continue to charge.

With the front lines still mostly under control, I turned to look at the elemental beasts trying to tear their way into the spell formation. While our barriers were strong thanks to Regan’s library helping our mages increase their power, they wouldn’t last forever. I needed to deal with at least two of the things.

“Gulv, how about we have some fun?” I asked the elemental curled around my neck. He chirped and I smiled. I channeled as much excess mana that I felt was safe for me to use into him. He started to grow before my eyes, so I shot into the sky. Wouldn’t want to destroy the gate myself, after all.

Over the course of about thirty seconds, he went from being just a bit shorter than a meter to well over forty or fifty. He roared and managed to shake the entire battlefield. I spun Helios and decided to take out the fire phoenix. Gulv turned and started making his way after the water dragon. I wondered if he thought it was a challenge for there to be another dragon on the field.

I flew over to the phoenix in a blink of an eye. With a downward slash, I slammed Helios into its head. I was only slightly surprised to actually hit a physical layer. With a boom, the phoenix was sent careening off the barrier into the surroundings outside the wall. Not letting the opportunity pass, I flew after it.

I glanced at Gulv to see him and the water dragon entangled as they fought for dominance. It was a very violent display, with charged water raining down on both forces. My forces were safe for now, as they were still protected by the barriers. The rushing enemy could not say the same.

I angled Helios so that the bladed end pointed at the phoenix and dived at the elemental. It struggled to regain its foot in the forested area around it. Trees and shrubbery that were partially buried in snow were soon dry as tinder, and some were even going up in flames.

I pulled Helios back and threw it like a spear. It impacted the center of the creature, overloading whatever spell was giving it life. All the flame that composed the phoenix was sucked into a single point before it exploded outward, incinerating everything in a forty-meter radius. I quickly threw a barrier up, but it still managed to throw me several dozen meters and singe my hands.

Holding my throbbing hand out, I called for Helios and it flew up and into my hand. I winced at the pain of holding it but knew people were dying for me right now. A little pain wasn’t going to stop me. While I was making sure the phoenix was truly finished, a massive force slammed into me from behind.

I crashed into the ground, causing ash to blast into the air, then quickly regained my feet just as the terra elemental, a gargoyle made from stone, created a boulder and tossed it at me. I shot into the air, barely managing to avoid the several-hundred-kilogram stone. Even I would have been hurt by that.

I channeled mana into my hands to numb the pain as I turned a glare on the elemental. With my free hand, I created an orb of lightning that should have been able to crack even the mana-infused stone that the gargoyle was made from. Once it had enough mana, I unleashed the spell and sailed across the distance. The gargoyle must have underestimated me, as it didn’t even attempt to dodge.

The spell slammed directly in the center of the gargoyle, and arcs of lightning ripped through the elemental. The damage was less than I hoped for, with one of its arms being sent flying, while the rest of him remained intact with only a few surface burns.

“Why can’t you just die in one hit?” I mumbled in annoyance.

The stone elemental gave a gravelly roar in response, then charged me. I spun in place to build up momentum and threw Helios like a javelin. Knowing better, the gargoyle tried to dodge but was going too fast. Helios ripped through its head and would have kept going if I hadn’t called it back to my hand.

I observed the battlefield during the respite. The enemy line had reached the walls in the time it took me to deal with the two elementals. I spotted only a few ladders that were propped against the wall, and those were being hammered with spells. Gulv was finished with his elemental as well. He was currently harassing the enemy lines by dive-bombing them to scoop up one or two soldiers in his jaws.

The Thonaca forces had given up on trying to stop the spell Ezal was working on and were reinforcing their barriers while the foot soldiers continued to rush the wall. I estimated that we’d probably taken out a little over five thousand soldiers. Not a number to scoff at but nowhere near enough to discourage the enemy from continuing.

In the distance, I saw a giant, of all things, making its way toward the wall through the enemy forces. I couldn’t even imagine where they managed to drag that thing up from, let alone how they were controlling it. It was still a good distance away, so I prioritized protecting the mages.

I flew up, then over toward the grand magic. I wouldn’t have put it past the enemy to attempt to take it out at the last minute. I would make sure that didn’t happen. I came to a stop right in front of them, scanning the battlefield for anyone or anything that could threaten the mages.

Ezal’s and everyone else’s faces were masks of concentration as they built the magical construct. I vaguely wondered when the last time magic of this scale had been done by mortals. You heard about gods and Celestials doing magic like this on a daily basis, but for a mortal to do it was only told of heroes and villains. Though, depending on how this battle went, we would be either heroes or villains.

A ball of pure flames had formed above them. It had gone through several colors but had been blue for the longest time now. As I watched, it started to darken to purple. I was the closest person to the spell at a few hundred meters short of Ezal and her people. The heat coming from the ball of flames was making me worried that this might have been a spell better not launched.

I didn’t have time to contemplate long before the ball suddenly cracked in a spiderweb pattern. It pulsed once before exploding out. Streaks of dark fire made it appear to be raining. It flew around me, but I quickly dropped to the ground, not wanting to chance it. From the top of the wall, I watched as what I envisioned hell might look like took place in front of me.

Chapter 33

Alara

Jarvis finally stopped pacing after a few minutes. He walked over to the core, then reached up like he was going to touch it. Everyone jerked forward in response, but he smartly stopped on his own. His hand dropped to his side, and a sigh escaped him.

“I am truly sorry. I do not think I will have any affect and do not see any logic in throwing my life away to try,” Jarvis said, turning back to us. I doubted Regan would have wanted that anyway, even if he had succeeded.

I moved over and took his hand. It reminded me greatly of Regan’s, only making me miss him more. “I don’t think . . . Regan would . . . want that of you. We can find . . . another way to do . . . this,” I said, patting his hand.

“Thank you, Lady Alara.”

While we all thought silently about what to do from there, the ground started to shake at random intervals. That was Alpha’s automated defense systems coming online as the undead got too close to the floating city. Regan had showed me their power a few times since he’d freed me. I shook my head and made to leave the core room. Regan was too great for us to be able to get through anything he’d put in place.

“Wait!” Ignea shouted, appearing in front of me. She was quite flustered even with all that was going on.

“Ignea, what are you doing out of the core room? It is dangerous!” Jarvis said, moving up next to us.

She held up her hand and he went silent. I felt there was something at work. Knowing Regan, he was likely behind it. Ignea flew over to the core, and the shielding opened around her as if it were afraid to touch her. “I don’t know why, but I knew I had to come here and do this. Hurry, it won’t last long.”

I nodded, then rushed over to reach through the gap she’d opened for me. My hand touched the surface of Regan’s core. The amount of power thrumming inside, which I was only starting to reclaim, nearly knocked me to my feet. I concentrated and wrapped my aura around the core, making sure to focus on borrowing rather than claiming.

The core accepted me just as the shielding snapped back. Had I been a few seconds later, I would have lost my arm. Not that it would have bothered me; it just would have hurt for a minute. As it was, the plasma, as Regan called it, wrapped around me like a warm blanket that periodically shocked me gently. I pulled my arm out and flexed it to make sure everything was still working right.

“I felt a change. Did you succeed, Lady Alara?” Jarvis asked me.

I turned to face them. “Yes. I felt Regan’s . . . acceptance,” I answered with a smile. Even wherever he was, he was still thinking about me. I would truly never be able to pay him back for all he had done for me. For now, I would have to protect my and his cores. That way I would have plenty of time to work on my debt.

I let my awareness flood out as I acclimated to the new power I felt. I hadn’t realized how large Regan’s core’s aura had gotten, but it covered nearly a hundred kilometers around us. The core itself was already at the end of tier two. I couldn’t help but wonder how Regan had amassed so much power so fast.

I knew that if he had wanted to, he could have had this core break through a while ago. That was how much mana was gathered in it. Of course, he was using a lot of mana in the various battles he had engaged in. I would have to be sparing with it since it wasn’t mine.

“Excellent! Let us move to the command deck,” Jarvis said with a clap of his hands.

I blinked and moved us to the command bridge. Moving about one’s aura was the first thing a core learned, after all. Even though I was borrowing this core, I could move around as if it were my own aura even before this. I just felt more at home now. I would be the laughingstock of the dungeon core community if I couldn’t do at least that much.

We moved forward to assess the situation. The command children that Regan had left behind were exceptionally good at their job. They had already gathered information about the coming undead. All of said information was in Regan’s automata’s language, but I could at least read the numbers.

A blue box on the bridge showed past the edge of the aura where several thousand undead were spotted. They were tunneling through the snow, up to twenty meters deep in places, so they were not completely accurate. They had estimated the number based on the spikes in unholy mana in the area.

“Fifty thousand? That’s . . . it?” I asked, moving over to the screen showing the number.

The automaton at the terminal nodded. “That number is still growing, of course, but based on mana detected, there can’t be too many more.”

“Jarvis . . . when should we . . . leave for the . . . enemy?” I asked as I looked at Regan’s throne-like chair in the center of the room. I didn’t feel like I should sit there, so I created a smaller one next to it and took a seat.

“Soon. Lady Ignea, I would like to pull some of the newer units from the main dungeon if that is acceptable?”

Ignea landed on the back of Regan’s chair. “I think it will be fine. The goblins have those creatures under control. I’d rather send you with a full force than risk the core by gambling,” she said. “I will open a portal in a few minutes. Whatever is causing those monsters is also affecting portals and teleportation magic. I won’t be able to keep it open for long, and if you get too far from here, I won’t be able to send reinforcements.”

“We understand the risk. We will do our best to answer this threat.”

“We should get . . . Anubis,” I added. He was Regan’s prime champion against the necromancers, and I thought he would be invaluable on this campaign with his ability to absorb the unholy taint. I still remembered the pain and relief that I’d felt when he was cutting through the undead as Regan worked to save me.

“Anubis is leading Sir’s other forces past the undead scar. It would not be wise to pull him from there with Sir incapacitated as he is,” Jarvis said, shaking his head.

I nodded and turned to the giant window that showed the snow-covered north. “Very well. We leave in . . . one hour . . .” I just hoped it would be enough to answer whatever the necromancers were trying to accomplish. I tightened my grip around the hilt of my sword at the thought of my old undead master. I would not be easy prey this time.

~~~

The floating city was much fuller after the hour had elapsed. There were over thirty thousand of Regan’s best automata on the ship, awaiting orders. It made me realize all over that, given time, Regan could have marched an army the mortal way. I didn’t think anything could have stopped him either.

With a shudder, the city rose into the air, blasting snow and ice in every which direction. The gathering undead took notice almost immediately. The city was gigantic, after all. As the undead came into range of the mounted weapons, they unleashed their full firepower. Beams of energy, metal rounds, and projectiles that exploded when they hit the target turned the path the city was on into one of destruction.

The rear end of the undead turned and ran back out of the aura. “This is . . . a trap,” I said.

The undead knew no fear. They would only flee if they were being commanded. I had learned that thoroughly over the century I was trapped. Only their mortal masters would run and hide if the danger got to be too much.

“I expect so. However, we need to deal with this before they find a way to attack us closer to home. I believe this to be the best option, Lady Alara,” Jarvis replied. He was sitting at one of the consoles, working it faster than I could keep up with my eyes. I thought the device he was working on was having a hard time keeping up as well, as he would stop periodically.

“Not . . . my core. Regan’s,” I said with pointed meaning.

“I understand. Please do not worry. Sir would have likely had you take this approach if he could view the situation,” Jarvis said.

Alpha was soon joined by two of the great ships that Regan had been commanding when he’d saved me. They were each well over two hundred meters long and appeared armed to the teeth. Dozens of smaller craft were flying around all three of the vessels, providing information. A few what I assumed were scout ships were zipping off into the distance.

Liz put her hand on my shoulder. “Do not worry, Lady Alara. Jarvis knows what he is doing. We all have Lord Regan’s best interests in mind here. We would not endanger one of his cores lightly.”

“I understand . . . Please continue and just . . . tell me where . . . I can help,” I said, falling back in my chair. I would leave the commanding to them. I’d been trapped in a prison for a century. I knew how to kill and corrupt people, but not how to lead people.

Chapter 34

Rens Wanderer

“I’m going to have a hard time returning home after enjoying this city,” I mumbled to Qez. I held out the skewer of meat to the flaming bird, and he took a nibble of the end. Just these simple skewers tasted better than any I had eaten over my long life. I just couldn’t help being fascinated by everything.

Finishing off the skewer, I closed my eyes and sent out a pulse of mana. Something simple that wouldn’t bother any but the most sensitive mages. When the pulse reached the edge of town, I found what I was looking for. “A pinprick of mana that felt off” would be the easiest way to describe it.

It went by many names, depending on which mage you asked. Chaos mana, reverse mana, negative mana, and more. That was because no one race had been able to study it enough to claim the naming privilege. The main thing that they all said was that it could end up being the destruction of everything around it.

Sticking the now clean skewer between my teeth, I tapped my staff on the ground, forming a spell structure around me. I hadn’t been stuck in the cell doing nothing. They really should have moved their jail away from the portals. I was able to study the portals for nearly five days. I teleported over to the spot that was about to crack. Even in just the ten seconds it took me to do that, the crack grew by over fourfold.

“Now, now. We can’t be having that. I do have an agreement to uphold,” I mumbled.

The crack continued to expand, though there was no visible indication of it doing so. Only those who could see mana in its purer form would have been able to see it. Still even without being about to see the crack, normal people would have started to be aware something wasn’t right. They would feel depressed or overwhelmed, for example.

Examining the crack, I gathered it would be some type of dog monster. I placed my hand against the ground and summoned my terra elemental. A large golem, five meters tall, loomed over the area. As the crack finally reached the point where the monster could materialize, the golem shot its hand forward and wrapped it around the neck of the wolf that was half in this plane and half in the other.

“I’ve always wanted to test pretakrin, but they are just so hard to come by!” I said, walking around the creature at a safe distance. I pulled a small notebook from my storage bag. “If the materialization is interrupted, then the crack stays open.”

The crack that had formed the wolf monster was still present and was growing as the creature remained lodged half in, half out. While it would have been interesting to go to the dimension they originated in, I was not prepared for such an excursion. I motioned for my golem to pull it all the way through in case something else tried to come across.

“With the body created in this dimension, functions similar to a regular lifeform are exhibited. Fascinating,” I commented as I wrote it down.

The pressure from the monster was growing as it started to absorb ambient mana. While the golem was animated by mana, its body was very much just dirt and stone from the surroundings. That allowed it to touch and actually affect the pretakrin.

“Now, now. Don’t ruin my fun,” I said. Tapping my staff on the ground, I created an anti-mana barrier around the wolf. It took more mana than it was worth when dealing with mortals of this plane, but for a pretakrin it was the perfect thing to keep them contained. I was glad I had studied with that branch of magic a few times in the past.

I used some terra mana to form a sharp blade on the end of my staff. Jabbing forward quickly, I sliced a nice gash into the monster. Blue blood leaked from the wound, but the creature didn’t show any signs that the minor wound had hurt it. Less than three seconds passed before the wound was completely sealed. Not even any scar tissue remained.

“The flesh is a mana construct. This allows the creature to repair any damage received to pristine condition at the expense of mana. Physical methods of harm effect the mana construct, effectively interrupting the structure of the creation for a time. This gives the impression of wounding the monster, but the attacking force was in fact only draining the creature’s mana supply.”

I couldn’t help but mumble out loud as I worked on the creature. It was an occupational hazard of old age. It helped me sort out the subject I was working on. A few of the little queen’s soldiers surrounded the area while I worked but left me to my own devices, which I appreciated. Last thing I needed was a soldier using a spell to feed this thing.

“Caw!”

“Huh?” I looked up from my book and saw the monster was starting to expand. I checked my anti-mana barrier and found it working as it should. Looking closely at the wolf monster, I found it was trying to detonate its pool. “Very established intelligence. Will seek to destroy itself when caught. Interesting,” I said, jotting it down.

Closing the book, I tightened my grip on my staff, then stabbed it through the center of the creature. The excess mana was siphoned into the dormant dungeon shard at the top of the staff. The monster slowly broke into motes of light that were sucked into the instrument.

After a good two minutes, the creature was gone. I double-checked to be sure but found the crack to be gone as well. I made a note that the crack and monster might have been tied together in some form but would require further investigation. This incident was concluded for the moment. I dismissed all my magics and turned to the soldiers.

“Everything is over. This area should be safe now.”

A soldier with a small bar of mithril on his breast came over and saluted me. “Thank you for your service to Vaihdetta. Here is a small token from Her Highness,” he said while handing me a small bag.

Looking inside, I found several dozen gold coins that possessed a white tint.

“While your living expense and lodging have already been taken care of, Her Highness wanted you to have some spending money for around the valley.”

“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each a few more times over the coming days. Thus, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I said, holding my hand out.

He took it with a grin. “I am called Pin. It is a pleasure, Master Oparens.”

“Just Rens is fine,” I said with a wave of my hand.

“Very well. We are responsible for responding to these threats as best we can. We will make sure that any citizens in the area of an appearance cooperate with you.”

“Sounds good. Needless deaths are something none of us wants,” I said with a grin that some might take as smug. Pin just nodded, unfazed by my attitude. That just took all the fun out of it.

“We will be returning for—” Pin started to say when the valley shook from a tremendous force from the west.

We all turned to see a cloud that was shaped like a giant mushroom rising into the sky from the other side of the mountains. Lightning and mana flashed inside the clouds from the mana it was putting off.

“Lady Ezal or Her Highness?” I heard one of the soldiers whisper to his fellow.

“If they followed the battle plan, should be Lady Ezal. Damn! Remind me never to skip training,” replied the other soldier. I noticed that he was gripping his sword tightly.

I turned back to the spectacle just as a wave of force washed over the mountain. I had to dig my staff into the ground to keep from being knocked over from the strong winds that were ripping through the valley. Less than half a second passed before a massive barrier formed over the entire valley. The effects died down immediately.

“I have ten gold that one of them will end up blowing up the valley,” another soldier said with a chuckle.

“Ten gold? That’s it?”

“Well, if they do blow it up, then it’s not going to do me much good,” the soldier shot back and got a begrudging nod in reply.

“Are you sure you should be betting on your queen like that?” I asked, a little surprised about the exchange.

Before I got a reply, I heard a massive crash as debris started raining onto the barrier above us. Everyone ducked unconsciously, myself included. The debris chunks were easily two or three houses large, with smaller pieces intermixed. More debris rained down, ranging from trees to boulders. Even a few monsters that were tier two and of the physical class, thus able to survive the outright blast, were impacting the barrier.

The soldier coughed before he turned back to me. “She allows it. There are so many new people arriving in the valley every day that it would be ludicrous not to. A little trivial betting to help ease people in this troubling time. Plus, it is mostly harmless. I think the biggest bet is what mana aspect Lady Ezal’s child will have.”

“Convention is that it follows the parents,” I said, looking between them and the barrier-blocked sky.

“Exactly. There are a few bets on who the father is,” Pin added, joining the conversation for the first time. He didn’t seem like the type of man to engage in idle chatter. This must be an issue for the entire valley.

“Oh, what are the options?” I asked, curious.

A streak of yellow lightning struck the barrier, turning several dozen of the hexagrams that made up its structure orange, then red. After the lightning passed, the hexagrams near the impact site appeared to exchange mana with each other and balanced out the damaged section. Soon, the area that was struck returned to a solid blue.

I took note of the magic. It was a fascinating use of mana exchange. One that had never crossed my mind before. I could think of several applications for it on more than just barriers.

“First you have Baden, he was the local leader of the Golden Dawn before a bit of an incident ended up with a necromancer coup in their ranks. Though rumor has it that he and Her Highness were more of a thing than those two, there are still some placing bets on it,” a soldier said, but I could tell he didn’t think that was the correct candidate.

“Next, Marquis Valamar. She saved his life when he almost fell from the airdocks on the other side of town. They were supposedly spotted together in various places in town, but she was the head of security for Her Highness back then. So, it’s up in the air,” another soldier explained.

“Then you have Bruce, who appeared in the dead of night and protects her as if his life depends on it. He has the highest odds right now,” a third soldier added with some gusto. Likely, this Bruce was the one that he had bet on.

“Interesting. Well, with her being such a powerful Fire mage, the child will be largely influenced by that. If the father was a fire aspect at all, then the chances of the child being of the fire aspect are almost guaranteed. If the father had anything else, it would be interesting, to say the least.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. It looked like the display was almost over, so I turned to head back to my housing. It would take at least a few more hours for the chaos mana to gather enough to form another crack, so I wanted to rest and figure out a way to maybe capture a pretakrin.

I was only a few meters away when Pin shouted, “What the hell is that?”

I turned back, worried that I might have missed something to do with the crack, and saw a massive being made from flames over the mountains. It had a warhammer and looked like an evil god that was bringing about the end of the world. As we watched, it brought its warhammer down on something past the mountains, and a pillar of flame rose into the air.

“May the fates have mercy on our souls,” murmured a soldier just loudly enough for us all to hear. I could only nod in reply.

Chapter 35

Regan

I breathed heavily from the pain I’d just experienced. I’d managed to create what I was calling a “core transmitter” inside my body. It was painful to create and use, so I was glad I only planned to use it for the one thing. I was equally glad I was able to manipulate my own body, even in this strange space.

I was able to get a message through the prison to Ignea by using my soul as the conductor. Thankfully, the damage wasn’t permanent, but it would remain for a while. Now that the immediate issue at hand was dealt with, I needed to figure out a way to get out of here. I could just watch like the two forces of the universe told me to, but I felt like that was giving in too easily.

They seemed to be watching me closely, but of course, they could just be omnipotent. Something told me that wasn’t the only reason. Even though I knew they had a bet of some type going, I couldn’t be sure what it was. I once thought it was the destruction of the world, but that might not have been the case.

I rubbed my temples, as the idea seemed ridiculous. What would two immortal beings that obviously had no restraints of time want with me? “Whatever will be will be,” I mumbled finally and turned back to my aura. At least I could see what was going on, as long as it was in my aura. I would need to remember to thank them for that boon. Being stuck in a black void for who knew how long would have been annoying.

Checking my main dungeon first, I noticed that there were nearly twenty thousand people working the farming floor. Nearly half of that number had even gone for the homestead option and were living there now. I could see hundreds of families that looked genuinely happy with their lot in life.

Moving on, I looked for the more aggressive version of the mortals. The adventurers had moved past the junkyard floor and were working on the winter forest section. I was impressed with what I saw after observing for a while.

An outpost created by the mortals had sprung up on the outskirts of the forest. Mostly made from tents and terra magic buildings, there was a pretty large community that was trading and collecting the stones to get to the next floor. While the boss remained undefeated, or rather no one had reached it yet, many parties were getting close.

The guardians of the stones, giant mechanical wolves or ice golems that towered over the mortals by three or four meters were getting a workout. The adventurers that were diving my halls were much more powerful than when they’d first dived them. A combination of higher-quality mana, studying their elements in ways that many had likely never thought of, and the desperate drive to get stronger pushed these people faster than just simply gathering gold could ever have done.

I was pleased with the mortals. I liked the fact that these floors I’d spent time and mana designing were finally getting some action. I personally couldn’t wait for the adventurers or, more accurately, the dwarves to reach the next set of floors.

Hephaestus had remodeled the floor since I’d created him. It was a miners’ and crafters’ paradise. Ore and abandoned smiths dotted the land. You could mine iron, walk less than ten meters, and start forging. There were plenty of monsters to fight and harvest for materials. Damaged miner mechs, forging automata, and more made for a nice challenge for those that would seek them.

Hephaestus himself worked at a forge at the end of the floor. His hammering could be heard from anywhere on the floor. Depending on what he was working on, crafters could get insight into their works just by watching the man. I was glad that I’d created him. He was currently making weapons and armor for my armies at an almost nonstop rate.

It would likely be quite a while until anyone reached the fortieth floor. Any parties that wanted to get past the thirtieth-floor section would have to gather enough materials for Hephaestus to forge a weapon or piece of gear of a certain quality. He would outright reject anything that he felt was too poor for him to forge with.

People could gather these materials from the monsters on the floor or mine them. Foreign materials brought from outside the dungeon were acceptable but were scrutinized more before he would accept them. I estimated that it would take someone about a week of solid work to gather enough materials for him to use, since the size of what he forged was based on him at several meters long.

Of course, if a party could defeat Hephaestus, then they would be free to move to the next section. That would be ridiculously hard, considering he was able to use all the armor, weapons, and gear that he forged. That and he was well into tier three.

Looking toward Hephaestus, I expected to see him forging but was surprised when I found him in battle. He was surrounded by three creatures that gave off the strange mana readings. They were reminiscent of the separate dimension I’d been stuck in for a few weeks. I didn’t know why they were in my dungeon, but I could tell they were after something. Given that they were trying to go deeper, I could only wager that it was my core.

As I watched, Hephaestus brought his massive forging hammer around, and it grew to the size of a house. He brought it down on one of the creatures, and the thing exploded into a splatter of gore. I whistled at the outright death of the creature. It didn’t look like he was going to have any trouble with them.

A hyena monster with wings and an extra pair of legs jumped onto Hephaestus but wasn’t able to penetrate his should armor when it went in for a bite. He flexed his arm, and the hyena’s mouth exploded from the force of his muscles expanding. As the hyena fell to the ground twitching, he brought his foot down repeatedly, crushing the hyena’s body.

“I hope no one tries to fight their way through this floor,” I mumbled, shaking my head. I really needed to stop making overpowered boss monsters. I was breaking the idea behind a dungeon. Though, the only real rule I had been told was to cleanse the mana from mortals. I wasn’t actually told I had to be fair about it.

I just shrugged and looked on. The ocean floor was tranquil at the moment. Looking over the navy and pirate fleets, I could see they’d been in some serious combat with something, likely the same creatures that Hephaestus was fighting. Several ships were listing at their respective docks, being hurriedly repaired before they sank.

The rest of the dungeon appeared to be free of the creatures for the moment. Looking farther, I could see Goblin City had suffered some damage. Crews of goblins with heavily armed mechs patrolled the streets while gnomes offered support. They’d seen some casualties, but living in a dungeon was never meant to be safe. At least they weren’t just taking it by rolling over and were ready for what looked like anything.

Feeling that my main dungeon was secure for the moment, I moved over to Steel Spire. The ex-slave population had ballooned even more and was close to Vaihdetta in size now. People moved about with purpose, but there didn’t seem to be many appearances of the creatures.

I could spot some damage, but it was minor. The automata were usually being updated daily about the happenings in the main dungeon, thus they should have been relatively prepared for anything that came their way. The tower itself was designed to be a death trap for anything that I didn’t recognize. If one of the creatures appeared in the structure, I gave it less than thirty seconds of life before it was vaporized.

Moving farther east, I saw the city of Tearfalls looking much like the last time I’d seen it. My army appeared to be stationed in front of the city and were not pursuing the undead farther. Likely, it was due to my disappearance. They didn’t want to risk getting into a position they couldn’t handle without my support. A wise decision by Anubis.

Izora appeared busy converting people to my name. I could feel the adherent mana coming from the city was growing by the hour. That was usually what happened when your god just sat and let you die while another reached out with food and help. The fact I was protecting them literally meant everything to some of the people there now.

Puppet appeared to be helping a great deal. It looked like his party was quite famous among the people of Tearfalls. I nodded my approval. A single voice shouting promises wasn’t much to move hearts. A voice with the support of someone that you know and are thankful for means all the difference.

The situation there looked stable, so I moved to the next core. Alara and Jarvis along with the captains were moving Alpha to confront the lich core to the east in the north. I wasn’t sure what the lich was thinking by sending such a weak force to attack me, but likely he wanted to lure her out of her home turf. Especially if he knew I wasn’t available at the moment.

That wasn’t even that hard to find out. He just needed to probe the core communication and he would find I wasn’t there. After this incident, I thought,I’ll just work from home. Yeah, a couple hundred drones that I have direct access to will work just as well. While I wasn’t completely sure of the necromancers’ goals, taking the fight to them was the best option, given what they knew.

The group looked to be well on their way and had already traveled about halfway to the lich core. I idly wondered how the core connection would work, as it was my core but Alara was technically piloting it right now. Something interesting to see in about a day or two once the aura around Alpha contacted the lich’s.

Just to be safe, I checked my newest core. Soza was napping around my core shielding like a cat next to a heater. This was both good and bad. Good since I knew she was holding up her end of the agreement. Bad since that meant she was absorbing a ton of mana directly from the source. I couldn’t fathom how that might affect her in the long run.

I would have to try to give Nova a boost before their fight. I wasn’t particularly interested in having a dragon for a wife. I just exhaled and looked back to my main dungeon. That was a problem for another day. One that I hoped didn’t bite me in the ass.

Reexamining my prison, I could tell that the mana my body contained wouldn’t be enough to break free. I was interested in the fact that the two forces of absolute used real-world rules for my prison. I could only assume that they didn’t care if I managed to break out as long as it followed the rules of the world. That I was able to send even a hint of a feeling to Ignea told me that. It also made me truly wonder what their deal was.

~~~

Roughly ten hours later, if I was keeping track right, I was nowhere closer to getting out. I came up with about half a dozen different ways I could escape. Nothing that would work from inside, ironically enough.

I was staring out over the city and pondering what to do when the entire valley shook. Thankfully, my sight wasn’t limited to the valley. Looking out to the west, I saw a mushroom cloud, of all things, and immediately thought of Louella and Ezal. Mainly Ezal. Only she would have the control over fire mana and knowledge of it to create the reaction of anything close to that type of explosion.

“Looks like I really did create a few monsters with that knowledge,” I mumbled as debris started to rain on the city. The barrier I’d placed during the festival activated and repelled the falling wreckage. I found it ironic that the first time the barrier was used was to protect against friendly fire.

I could only watch as this went on for about ten minutes. It seemed to be about over when a flaming roar washed through the valley. I turned my eye back to the other side of the mountain and saw a behemoth that was formed out of flames. He wielded a giant warhammer made from magma, or lava since it wasn’t underground.

I watched as the figure brought the weapon down onto the ground. I couldn’t see past the mountains from my prison, so I could only hope that Louella and her people survived when the hammer impacted and caused a ripple that sent the mountain on the west side of the valley rising a dozen meters from the shifting lands.

I felt new mana start to pour into me from my portal that was connected to Louella’s fort. It was the purest fire mana I had ever felt. It literally flooded the gate room as it manifested into lava upon coming through the portal. As I watched the gate building outside of the city become encased in lava, Ignea transferred the exit point to the portal in the dungeon.

Only one person died from the sudden appearance of the lava, but many were severely burned. I could only worry about what happened to Louella and her people for a moment when the amount of mana being funneled into my dungeon cranked up due to the size of the portal on my floating island floor. It was made to allow an army to travel through it quickly.

“This can’t be good,” I said just as I felt the object that housed my soul crack—this time with a lot more pain. “Yup. Definitely not good.”

Chapter 36

Louella

Ezal’s spell was completed with quite a flashy display. Streaks of fire fell from the sky and burned through anything they came in contact with. When they reached the ground under the enemy ranks, they continued without stopping, as if they would melt through the planet. With that alone, Ezal managed to take out nearly a third of the enemy army.

The giant was struck almost fully by the magic but managed to survive. I began to wonder if there was some truth to rumors that giants had partial mana immunity. I would have to deal with it when it got closer. It continued on its path even while it was on fire.

Fire mana rippled through the air, causing random bursts of flames. I turned and found Ezal unconscious, so I flew over and ordered a few soldiers to send her and her mages through the gate while they could still be sent. This was still a battlefield, and if the enemy managed to breach the wall, the portals might become inaccessible. The soldiers had their commanders; she was no longer needed and didn’t need to endanger herself by being here.

I overlooked the battlefield and saw that any fire magic being used was amplified a great deal. To make matters worse, to reduce collateral damage, the spell had been aimed for deep enemy lines. The frontline soldiers were still making for the wall. Both sides’ large-scale barriers were about to collapse as well.

“Form up! We’re about to engage in a melee with the enemy!” I shouted, taking to the sky. The sky flashed as lightning arced between the darkening clouds and Gulv as he flew around the battlefield, harassing the enemy.

Flying over the ranks, I pointed my staff at officers in the enemy army. With a blast of mana, a bolt of lightning would cross the distance in the blink of an eye, turning my target into charcoal. I managed to take out five people like this before they had their Lightning mages divert any of my attacks into the sky.

The Thonaca army finally managed to cross the fifty-meter threshold and were almost to the point of being able to use their fallen as shields against our attacks. I came to a stop at the closest point and charged my mana. My dual pools arced between each other as I unleashed a stream of black lightning, which I used to strike a forty-meter-long section of the front lines.

All the metal around them, from dropped swords to dead bodies with armor, was magnetized. More than a few people were run through from swords that came flying point-first. Bodies, living and dead, went flying as they crashed together and rebounded off each other. After about twenty seconds, there were four balls of metal and flesh of varying sizes on the front lines.

I sensed something and dropped a few meters down. Less than a second later, several rays of light flashed over my head. I could tell they were from the lowest-tier-three priests. I counted five before the lights vanished. Tracing the light back in the split second I had before they vanished, I was able to locate two of them.

Pulling from my negative pool of mana, I formed two black balls in my hands and threw one at each priest. The spells vanished from sight as they impacted the area. Everything within a twenty-meter radius stopped moving as all the surfaces gained a sheet of ice. Unless they were high-tier two, that spell would have killed them as it pulled all the energy out of their atoms’ electron fields and caused them to come to a stop.

I created a small barrier around myself so I could check the battle. The enemy had reached the walls. Mages with flight were leaping from the front lines to assault the defenders to try to gain a foothold. We were holding for now, but we were severely outnumbered.

As I watched, the ground started to shake violently. It appeared to be focused in front of the walls. I flew over my soldiers. “Careful! Something is coming!”

With an explosion of dirt and stone, what appeared to be hundreds of tunnels opened along the base of the walls. I didn’t have to wonder for long as I saw the BronzeStone clan’s banner on the dwarves who rushed out from the tunnels.

Cries of “For the glory of BronzeStone!” rang out along the line as the dwarves took to the field. The Thonacans were unprepared for such an assault and lost hundreds of soldiers by the second. In less than a minute, the dwarves had pushed the enemy back two dozen meters from the walls.

Flying over the line of dwarves, I found who I was looking for. I shot down and landed with a crack of the ground. Nastok stood decked out in armor that looked like it should have been on a king. I found it suited him more than when he wore his blacksmith leathers.

“Your Highness,” Nastok said with a bow. “Five thousand BronzeStone clan fighters have come to assist you in your time of need. We apologize for being late, but it took some time for us to finish.”

“Better late than never! I’m so glad to see you!” I said, giving him a hug even though it was against protocol.

Nastok patted my back and we separated. “We’ve learned a thing or two from our mutual benefactor, and they will all be . . . tested today.” He whistled and several hundred dwarves rushed from the tunnels and planted shields that were almost a meter larger than the dwarf holding them.

I felt terra mana surge up from the ground as if it was being pulled into the shields, and a green barrier rose into the air several dozen meters. With another whistle, the shield-planters turned and went back into the tunnels as another set of dwarves rushed out, several holding what looked like four or five tubes connected together. I realized these were similar to the weapon Regan had made for me a few months ago.

A gun. The dwarves placed the guns next to the shields and slid them into slots that I hadn’t noticed before. With a few swift movements, they had the weapons assembled.

“Stage two, boys!” Nastok shouted.

The dwarves fighting on the front lines suddenly threw something that exploded into clouds of pitch-black smoke. I expected them to run back behind the shields, but the gunners pulled the triggers of their weapons before any of them made it back. A hail of bullets flew from the four-hundred-plus gun emplacements, tearing through the black smoke and into the enemy.

As the wind shear from the bullet rain cleared the smoke, all the dwarves who’d been on the receiving end were gone, but I noticed small dents in the ground roughly where they would have been. They must have burrowed under the ground to safety. I was almost worried about Nastok’s state of mind for a moment there.

The bullets from the guns were cutting through five or six of the soldiers at once. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen such wholesale death in my life and hoped never to see it again. The enemy quickly realized they couldn’t push the walls with the dwarves defending it.

The giant had almost reached the wall when Nastok motioned toward his dwarves. They rushed back into the tunnel and dragged out another, much larger gun. The giant slammed into the terra wall formed by the dwarves. With a grin, Nastok lit the back of the giant gun.

There was a resounding bang followed by a large amount of smoke. I turned and found the giant’s head was missing. The remaining Thonaca soldiers finished retreating to a small hill that put them partially out of target for the guns.

Even with the timely retreat, they’d lost close to fifty thousand people in the ten minutes they had tried to push. They had less than half their army remaining. Personally, I’d seen enough death for one day. A break in the fighting would not be turned down. We’d lost our own share of people today.

“Amazing, Nastok. Where did your people learn about these?” I asked, gesturing at the weapons. I knew the gnomes had access to something similar, but their air rifles weren’t nearly this deadly on such a large scale. Plus, I didn’t think Regan would allow access to knowledge like this in his library.

“Not all the talented people work for you, Your Highness. We have more than a few dwarves that literally live in the library. One has even managed to make it to Goblin City, though we don’t care for publicity, so we haven’t advertised it. There is a much nicer library there,” Nastok said with a hearty laugh.

“Still, I am surprised that Lord Regan would put knowledge of these weapons there,” I said, looking again at the guns.

“And you’d be correct. We actually learned about these through copying the goblins. They don’t exactly hide them, and by the fates, they have fights all the time using them,” Nastok said, shaking his head. I wondered at what he was remembering.

“Well, I think the dwarves may have won this war . . .” I started to say when the ground shook.

I cast out my senses and felt the fire mana in the area hadn’t gone down. In fact, it felt like it had increased a thousandfold. I looked to the ground and could almost see several hundred meters down. All the fire mana from Ezal’s spell had converged into a single point. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as if something had taken control of it.

Nastok also looked in the direction of the fire mana. He was a fire cultivator, after all, and had a better idea about it than I did. “If that does what I think it’s going to do, everything in a two-hundred-kilometer radius is going to be leveled.”

“How much time do we have?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes as he stared at the anomaly. “I’d say twenty minutes. Tops.”

“We need to evacuate,” I said, then opened a portal to the gate room. I found Bruce with a protective pose over Ezal. “Why haven’t you left yet?!” I shouted at him.

“The gateway isn’t working, Your Highness,” the gate attendant reported.

I rushed over to the device and placed my hand on it. Sure enough, it felt like something was interfering with the connection. Its origins felt otherworldly. I tapped my staff as I thought about how to get everyone to safety.

An idea came to me. If the gateway wasn’t working, I could use my portals. I initially tried the valley, but sure enough, something was blocking the connection. I kept trying until I only had one location left to choose. I didn’t care for the location, but it was far from here.

“I am opening portals around the fort! Get to the nearest one and get through it!” I shouted, amplifying my voice with mana. Pulling every ounce of mana I had left, I opened a hundred portals around the fort. My mana drained a little bit with each person who went through.

The ground outside the walls had bulged until they were higher than the walls and glowed a deep crimson. I silently sent a message via my bracelet to Regan, knowing that he probably couldn’t hear it. “It was fun. Hopefully, this isn’t my end.”

The bracelet crumbled into dust after I got the last syllable out. I lurched over as pain struck my whole body and coughed, splattering the ground with the amount of blood coming from me. I was powering the portals with my life force, but there were still people who needed to leave.

Finally, the last of my people passed through my portal, and I collapsed to the ground. I ground my teeth and pulled myself up. Limping slowly, I managed to make it to the wall just as the magic went off. An explosion unlike I had ever witnessed before destroyed everything around me, the force throwing me back. I wasn’t sure how far I flew until I collided with the wall on the other side of the fort.

Gritting my teeth through the pain, I opened my eyes, vaguely aware blood was leaking from them. The fort was gone. Only a small section, that which I’d collided with, had survived, likely due to the fort’s keep taking the brunt of the blast. I coughed up more blood, personally amazed that I was still alive. I realized that some protective measure on the armor Regan made me had kept me alive.

A cloud that reminded me of a mushroom ascended into the sky from the center of a crater that was deeper than I could see. The sides of the crater glowed and were partially turned to glass and partially turned to lava. In the distance, I could make out yellow and orange lightning from the intense mana discharge.

“I guess . . . this is . . . how I die,” I mumbled through coughs before I closed my eyes to welcome the darkness that was eating at the edges of my vision.

I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, but something caused me to open my eyes again. Nothing had changed, so I could only wager a few seconds to minutes had passed. All the mana discharging in the area was being sucked into one place, a ball of flames that was quickly growing in size.

It wasn’t long before cracks formed on the ball as it exploded outward. The flames soon took the form of a giant man who wielded a massive warhammer. I knew I should flee, but I couldn’t move anything.

“I have returned! Finally! After a millennium!” the giant shouted, and the entire area shook. “I shall free you, Master!”

The flaming giant suddenly lifted his warhammer and brought it down in the distance. It had to be close to ten kilometers from me. With a horrible sound, there was a wave of flames that exploded from the spot and soon reached where I lay, washing over me. If not for the armor Regan had given me, I’d likely have been ash two or three times over by then.

For the next ten minutes, he hammered at the ground. He was making good time, as he’d already made it at least a kilometer deep. I couldn’t imagine it taking him long before he reached his “master.” I knew that he needed to be stopped. I tried to put my hand under me to at least lift myself up and ended up only causing myself a to cough more blood.

The giant figure stopped mid-swing. His massive form turned and looked directly at me. “Interesting. A mortal that has survived my flames for so long.”

I didn’t even have the energy to gulp as the giant walked over to me. Each step shook the ground with a quake. How does something made from flames cause the ground to shake? That thought bounced through my head as the giant reached down and picked me up. To my amazement, his flames were merely warm to the touch, even though they looked like they should melt anything that came near them.

“Today is a wonderous day. Not only am I revived by the greatest amount of mana I have seen in more lifetimes than I care to count, but I find a suitable Legara. Pity it looks like you’re about to die. We can’t have that.” The giant placed his warhammer on the ground, then closed both hands around me. I felt like I was wrapped in sunlight, it was so bright.

“My flames to your heart. Your heart to my flames. In the forging heat, may your body be tempered!”

I felt my heart beat once, then couldn’t hold back the scream that left me. I felt everything about myself changing. My last thought before the blinding light overtook me was of Regan.

~~~

Darkness was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. I stood and looked around, not sure what I was seeing. I appeared to be in a cavern, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember how I got there. I placed a hand on my head as several grayed-out images flashed before my eyes. People with faces I couldn’t see, places that looked like ones I hadn’t been to in years.

“Ah! You’ve awoken, my Legara! I was starting to worry about you,” a voice called from behind me.

I turned and found a man who glowed with beauty. He was the most amazing thing in this world. Everything flew away as I looked at him. “Master!” I ran up and threw my arms around him. He stroked my hair, and it made grin me in pleasure.

“I am glad to see you are alright, my Legara. The change kills most people,” my beloved said, pulling my hand to his lips.

Something caused me to pause—my hands had flames and lightning tattooed on them. I panicked and the flames seemed to respond to my emotions as my body burst into flames. “What! What is going on?!”

“Calm, my Legara. You have become the embodiment of fire. It was not much of a change since you were already a lightning user, which is basically fire that’s been condensed to a different state of being,” the man said as he stroked my hair.

What he said did not sit right with me. A man made from metal handing me a book on lightning and energy flashed through my mind.

Something in his voice calmed me down, though, and I leaned into his chest. “Why did you change me?” I asked, not sure why it mattered.

“You were dying. I had to save you,” he replied and brought his head down level with mine. He was quite a bit taller than I was. His words sounded truthful, but wrong at the same time.

He did it to save me. There must not be any reason to doubt him, then. I threw my arms around his neck and snuggled close. “Thank you. I guess I owe you my life,” I said, my words muffled slightly from his chest.

He laughed, then wrapped his arms around me. “I guess you do, but I’m just happy to see you alive, my Legara. Come. We have work to do,” he said, as he set me down.

“Work?” I asked, leaning my head on his shoulder.

“Yes. We must free the true master of this world,” he said, then clapped his hands.

The cavern in front of us exploded into light as a castle made from flames formed in front of us. Spots started rising from the flaming road that led to the castle. What looked like thousands of soldiers formed lines upon lines.

“Anything for you, beloved.” I followed behind him but paused after a second. The sight of my dress brought to mind the metal man again. I looked up to see my beloved walking ahead of me, but it felt like something cold and hard was clamped around my heart. I took a step forward, trying to clear the thoughts and saw a gear on my handcuff. “Regan?” I mumbled without meaning to. Why did that name bring such mixed feelings to my mind?

Chapter 37

Regan

I grasped my chest as a pain grew inside me. I only got a vague idea of what was happening before my senses were overloaded by the intense surge of mana that flooded through the gates. The gates hadn’t been activated purposely. It was more along the lines of them being forced open due to the mana in the area.

I dropped to the ground of my prison as my body grew hotter by the millisecond. It was soon as hot as the sun. Each breath I took released large amounts of steam. Finally, I’d had enough.

I started flooding my adamantine parts with the mana. I knew that if my body gave out here, the chance of my main core surviving was slim to none. I could already feel it cracking more as I struggled to contain the mana gushing through my body. More and more kept flooding through the gate.

Ultimately, it wasn’t my core that gave out, but my gate. It had never been built to handle such intense levels of mana, and the frame of the device melted to the point that the magic was interrupted. For a brief moment, I thought I would survive the event, when I felt my gateways in both the north and Steel Spire connect to the one in the fort.

More mana than I could fathom poured into my cores, all of it being fed back to my main core. At least with the buffer of my subcores, the pain had subsided a bit. I don’t know how long this state lasted. It felt like months to me, but was likely only a few seconds.

The moment my core shattered I knew it. I thought that was the end. I was going to die after all. Images of the people and of the things I still wanted to do in this new world flashed past my eyes, Alara and Louella flashing the most, with a few other people making an appearance more than once. I realized that I had grown quite attached to this world.

I thought quickly. I didn’t want it to end like this, but I needed to be present at my core to save it. There was the hope that my soul would transfer to one of my subcores if the worst happened, but I didn’t want to test that like this.

I observed everything in my dungeon with an awareness that likely could only be achieved when one was about to die. I looked for everything and anything that I could use to break free of this prison. I was able to scour every centimeter of my massive dungeon in only a second.

Finally, I found something I thought I could use. In the corner of my dungeon, one of the creatures that was trying to get to my core was forming. Wherever it was coming from, I could feel the crack cross through my aura and even my prison. I didn’t hesitate.

Latching on to the signature, I flooded everything into it. The crack widened to the size of a house, and my avatar was violently thrown from the opening. I slammed through three or four houses and vaguely noticed people scrambling out of the way. I came to rest halfway through a pub’s bar.

“An advanced body is great and all, but I wish I didn’t feel pain,” I mumbled as I pushed myself up. Something suddenly formed a shadow over me, right before a foot at least two meters wide crashed down on me, forced me back to the ground, and formed a pit around me.

I groaned as I struggled to push the foot off, but I was feeling the effects of my core currently shattering. I had maybe two minutes before it reached a point of no return. I went to dismiss my avatar but found I couldn’t for some reason.

The foot suddenly vanished as something collided with the giant above me. Glancing around, I found a stone golem had slammed into the giant’s chest and caused it to collapse backward. I reached for my staff as I struggled to my feet. I didn’t have time for this.

Pouring mana into my arm, I threw the staff and caused a shock wave of air as it left my hand. It only had to travel five meters. The top half of the giant vanished, vaporized as my staff went flying into the atmosphere. Hopefully, I would be able to recover it later.

Not wasting any time to check on the people around me, I teleported to my core room. My defense orb had been ripped apart, and magic of all kinds was playing out in the core room. Ignea stood to the side, unable to get close, but injuries on her body told me she had tried.

“Father! What’s going on?!” she shouted when she saw me appear.

“I’ll explain in a minute!” I replied, then strode forward through the mini maelstrom.

The magic meant to keep people from getting to my core was activating randomly. If my body had been any weaker, I would likely have been vaporized already. Rays of magic meant to disintegrate anything they touched struck my shoulder, carving a chunk from it.

I suffered several such wounds before I stood in front of my core. Small pieces that had already broken off the crystal floated around the main structure as if caught in orbit. Cracks continued to grow by the millisecond, giving me little time to decide what to do.

To my knowledge, dungeon core crystals were a unique material that even differed depending on the core. I couldn’t just repair it with glue. I needed something that could handle the amount of mana that was coursing through it. Thankfully, I had just the thing.

I wrapped my hands around the crystal, which was close to a meter in diameter at this point, and started pouring my adamantine metal through my body onto the core. With the gaps filled, I worked on actually fixing the problem. I concentrated and worked to move my core to tier four. That was the only way it would be able to handle all the mana coursing through it.

Unlike with the previous tiers, my core didn’t automatically go to the next one. I was missing something. It was also the reason I needed to be consciously here for this tier. I began flooding my already overflowing mana ocean with adherent mana. Up until this point, they had been in two separate pools. Now, they responded like a chemical reaction.

The adherent mana changed my normal mana at a rapid pace. My overflowing ocean was drying up faster than I could insert adherent mana. Soon, all that remained was a small sea of new mana. The power radiating from it was so dense that I felt like I could create a planet with it.

I pulled my consciousness out of my ocean and looked around my destroyed core room. “Going to have to remodel again,” I said with a sigh. I waved my hand and removed the last of the malfunctioning magics. “Ignea, it’s safe now.”

Ignea flew over and we both looked at my core. It had shrunken to just about half a meter in size. Lines of the golden-pink adamantine continuously shifted as the core’s crystal flowed along the now orb-shaped core. Blue energy similar to plasma leaked streams from the sun. In fact, the more I looked at the core, the more it reminded me of the close-up images of the sun, only blue.

I looked deeper into the core and found the universe that was growing inside was still intact. I didn’t want to know what Creation would do if I accidently destroyed it. Though, Destruction might have praised me. However, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see those two for a while.

With the immediate threat to my life over, I fell to my back on the floor and stared at the ceiling. Phantom pains were flashing in spots of my now mortal-sized body. I tried to leave my body and found I could do so now. I was glad when the sensation of feeling went away.

“Father, are you alright now?” Ignea asked, looking between my avatar body and my core with concern.

“For the moment. It was dangerous for a second there. Looks like there have been some fun things going on while I was away,” I replied without any energy. I went back into my avatar so I could move it to a more dignified place.

“That’s right! You’re not allowed to risk yourself anymore! You’re a dungeon, not an adventurer! Stop leaving your dungeon!” Ignea scolded, pointing at me with her tiny finger.

I could see she was truly upset and smiled at her concern. It felt good to have people who worried about you.

“Sorry for all the trouble, Ignea,” I said, patting her head.

She couldn’t take it anymore, and tears started to stream down her cheeks. “I was really scared when I saw your core start to crack,” she cried.

I pulled her into a hug and allowed her to vent for a few minutes. “I wish I could rest, but it looks like there is still work for me to do,” I said, pulling her back a little and wiping the tears from her eyes.

She nodded, then flew back a bit. “The portal system is currently useless. Even before the fire mana surged through, we were having trouble with it.”

I nodded, as it made sense. “I thought as much. I couldn’t teleport straight back here and ended up going through hell because of it.”

I was about to head for the station when I felt something enter my mind. It was barely a whisper. “It was fun. Hopefully, this isn’t my end.” I paused, sensing that the message from Louella was several hours old.

“When did the first wave of fire hit?” I asked Ignea.

She tilted her head in thought. “Roughly four hours ago. That was when the valley-wide-barrier activated,” she replied.

“I need to take a walk. I’ll take Nova with me just to be safe,” I said when I saw her glare. That seemed to calm her down.

I moved to Nova’s lair. He and Morka were curled around piles of gold, with their heads lying next to each other. They immediately opened their eyes when I appeared in the room.

“Father, you’re back,” Nova said, lifting his massive head from the ground.

“Yup. I need to borrow you.”

“Very well,” he replied and got fully to his feet.

I hopped on his back, then moved us to the very edge of my dungeon aura. It had recently just gotten past the valley walls, so we could circumvent most of the mountains.

With heavy wing beats, we took off into the air. With the speed we hit, it would only take us ten minutes to reach where Louella had set up her border fort. I didn’t know what we would find, but even from the mountain, things weren’t looking good.

Charred land stretched out before my eyes. The once glorious forest that claimed this area had been reduced to ash with only the oldest and most powerfully endowed trees managing to survive whatever had taken place. As for living creatures, I didn’t see any.

Ten minutes couldn’t have passed any more slowly, but we finally arrived at what remained of the fort. Only a single two-dozen-meter stretch of wall that had been directly behind the fort still stood, though it was completely black from soot. Farther past the fort, a hole that appeared to descend to the depths of the planet was the dominating feature of the ruined battlefield.

I could sense tremendous amounts of fire and terra mana radiating from it. Fire and terra elementals ranging from tier one to tier three wandered the area. I debated heading into the hole to investigate, but the last time I’d done something like that, I’d ended trapped in not one, not two, but three different places. No, I would need to make preparations before I investigated this mystery.

Turning from the hole, I cast my mana around until I located the particles of the bracelet I’d given Louella. I directed Nova to the spot, and we set down. Elementals started rushing toward us as soon as we touched the ground. Nova roared and a white light washed over everything in front of him, vaporizing anything that it touched.

I hopped from his back and moved to the spot the sensation was coming from, then bent down and scooped up the ash. With a thought, the particles pulled themselves back together. Some of the material was long gone, blown away by the wind, but there was enough to reform a ring.

I concentrated on it and was able to view the last thing she’d done before the ring turned to dust. With some effort, I was able to get a lock on where she’d sent her people. It was deep in Lecazar, not far from the dead scar. From the sensation I was getting, I thought it was her childhood home.

Putting that on the top of my list, I reestablished the link it had with Louella, expecting her to be with her people. What I got instead was very faint and many hundred kilometers underground. I narrowed my eyes at that information and tried to reach out to her mind. Nothing happened for a few minutes, then I felt a wall block my attempts.

I curled my hand around the bracelet-turned-ring. “Nova, I want to be back in the dungeon in half the time.”

He nodded and bent his neck down for me. We were about to take off when I felt a strong electrical surge from the distance. My curiosity piqued, we moved over to the spot and came to a boulder that had been partially reduced to slag. With a hand, I easily lifted the boulder.

I blinked when Gulv shot out and wrapped around my neck. He had barely enough mana to sustain his form. He must have risked everything to emit that pulse, hoping I would find him. I quickly channeled him some lightning mana, and his form solidified.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what happened here, would you?” I asked as Gulv chirped, reenergized.

He unwrapped from my neck, then nodded.

“Then I guess we need to get back so I can build something to understand you.”

Chapter 38

Ezal

“Ezal . . . Ezal! Lady Ezal!”

I slowly blinked against the flashes of light making it hard to see what was around me. Giving up, I closed my eyes, as I suddenly felt more drained than I ever had. I couldn’t even feel my body. A surge of adrenaline filled my veins as I thought about my child. My eyes shot open again, the pain from the light not hindering me, and my hand flew to my stomach.

It rested there for a few panic-filled moments until I felt a kick. Overcome with relief, I collapsed back as my breathing calmed down. That was when I realized that I was on a cot in a building that looked like it had seen better days. Parts of the ceiling were cracked, and the wall to my right looked like it was about to crumble at any minute.

“Lady Ezal!” I heard again.

I turned to see one of the White Fist crew next to me. She had a relieved look on her face.

“Wa . . . ter,” I said, a sudden dryness filling my mouth. The woman reached behind her and handed me a glass of water. I gulped it down but didn’t fail to notice the lack of taste. Conjured water created by a Water mage. “Where are we?”

“We’re in Ferias. Or at least what remains of it,” the woman replied. “I am Sister Terao.”

I got up with the sister’s assistance. After a few steps, I felt much of my strength return and was able to walk without any more of her help. Outside the building, soldiers were taking care of tasks, while squads of them appeared to be patrolling the streets. I spotted Bruce at a tent with a few of the other officers.

Everyone quieted down when I entered the tent. I looked around but couldn’t find Louella. “Where is the queen?” I asked when no hints were displayed.

“We . . . she . . . she didn’t come through the portals. We . . . we can only assume the worst,” Major Seiro said, rubbing the back of his head.

“Bruce, report,” I ordered, taking a seat before my legs gave out.

“Yes, ma’am. After you completed your spell, we eliminated over half the enemy. The dwarves rendered assistance and drove the enemy back temporarily. During their retreat, something triggered by the spell caused the queen to order a full retreat. The gateway was inoperable, so she opened portal. The fact that she put us out here leads me to believe that Vaihdetta was inaccessible.”

I nodded at the explanation. “How long have we been here? What attempts have been made to contact home?”

“Two days as of an hour ago. All our sending stones are inoperable. A large amount of mana is disrupting the spells. One of the queen’s tablets was found, but it also is not working. Several of the mages are trying to find a way to get a message to the airships since they would be our safest route home.”

“That is a good idea. I will help them in a bit. What is the situation here?”

“As you can imagine, we have undead present. Their numbers were low when we arrived, but they have steadily increased every night and are coming from the north. It is still within the limits of the soldiers, but we will likely be overrun in a week. If exhaustion doesn’t set in first.”

“Damn. It’s not looking very good, is it?” I asked with a tight smile.

“Morale is certainly lower than it could be, but the soldiers are holding out hope. They know the powers that helped them get to where they are today do not leave their people behind lightly.”

“Very good! I am glad that everyone is in at least partial good spirits.”

“I have another piece of news. Sadly, I was told to keep my mouth shut,” Bruce said with a large grin on his face.

I narrowed my eyes at what he could mean when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and saw Valamar standing behind me. He was completely changed, but I would know his face no matter how different it was. Tears welled up before I could compose myself, and I jumped up and flung my arms around him. “VAL!”

“Ezal, how I’ve missed you,” Val said, embracing me with not two arms but four. Surprised, more by the fact that I didn’t mind than the fact that he had four arms, I laughed as I embraced him tighter. I vaguely noticed all the officers leave the tent to give us privacy.

“Why you are here?!” I asked, pulling away slightly.

He cupped my cheek with a tender look on his transformed face. “I heard about the army marching on your home. My quest for revenge will always be there. You might not. Thus, the choice was obvious,” he explained.

“I’m so glad to see you. How did you find us?”

“When I arrived, portals had been opened throughout the fort. I went through, as I sensed you from the other side. I regret that action now. I had no idea that Lady Louella would get left behind.”

“No! There’s no way you could have known. We’ll find her!”

“Yes. I owe her a life debt for everything she has done for you.” He embraced me again before pulling back and kneeling in front of me. He rested his head on my stomach. “Hello, little one. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’ve come to protect you and your mother like I was supposed to do from the beginning.”

“He heard you alright,” I said, rubbing my stomach as the baby gave me a particularly strong kick. I would never understand how I could take a full-on punch from Bruce, but a tiny kick from the baby growing inside me could hurt me more.

Val laughed, then swept me into a princess hold. “Come! There is still a few more hours in the day. I want to hear about the time I was gone before I help the soldiers during the night.”

~~~

Three days went by with each night getting more desperate. Despite having Val, we were getting to numbers that even he was having trouble fighting off. He only had so much mana he could expend, after all. I had rested through the first two nights, but I demanded to help on the third. I couldn’t have my soldiers risking their lives while I stayed locked in a room.

It was nearly halfway through the night when there was a change in the situation. The undead were charging the section of the city we had made into a stronghold. With all the buildings surrounding us collapsed to form makeshift walls, the undead were being forced to climb over the hastily-constructed barriers to get to us.

We were fighting what felt like the third wave of the night. I would never understand why the undead liked to attack in waves. It was then that a large section of ground collapsed, creating a hole a few dozen meters wide outside the west wall where the center of the city would have been. The explosion of rubble took a couple hundred of the undead out.

“Was that a Terra mage trying to be a hero?!” I demanded from the mage squad around me even though I knew none of them had caused it. There had been no mana signature for any of them.

“It appeared . . . natural, ma’am!” one of the mages replied.

The next moment, a wave of fire and stone washed out of the hole, clearing everything for almost a hundred meters. As the fire died, several hulking silhouettes emerged with small creatures running around their feet. They only took a few looks around before they started tearing the undead to pieces.

“Reinforcements?” I asked. Maybe it was one of Lord Regan’s?

Soon, there was a sizable force surrounding the hole. I counted at least a thousand of the larger creatures and roughly the same to a little more of the smaller. The smaller creatures were the magic might of the force, using spells that would have left many tier two mages out of mana over and over again.

While we watched the new force tear the undead apart, Val landed next to me. “Trolls and kobolds. No matter what you do, do not attack them.”

“But trolls and kobolds are weak monsters,” one of the mages said with a huff.

“The kind you are used to. These are High Races. They come from the Beneath. If you don’t want us all to die today, you would do well to heed my command,” Val said with a sharp glance at the man.

“High Races?” I asked. I knew about the High Races. Lord Regan suspected Louella was descended from a one.

“The royal family know about the Beneath. Part of that information is about the races inhabiting it. This information is very old but should be accurate enough. There is the High Race city of Fallen Rose, home to the Common High Races such as human and elf. Then there are three other cities we don’t have names for. One is a shared place for the trolls and kobolds. Another for dark elves. And lastly, a city for the High Dwarf Race.”

“So, there are over a thousand High Race trolls and kobolds within shouting distance that would wipe out a few cities. I understand,” I said, looking at the new arrivals with opened eyes. I was sure I was too shocked for the terror to set in.

The force managed to clean up the undead in less than thirty minutes. The other half of the city was a smoldering pile of ash now, but it did the job. Once they were done with the undead, they turned their attention to us. I tightened my grip on Val’s arm.

A group of the creatures approached us in a calm fashion. I was worried what we would do if they started to attack us without even attempting to open a dialogue. I released Val and stood up straight at the front. I was the person in charge, after all.

The approaching group stopped at the edge of our makeshift wall. A kobold motioned with his hand, and an aura from a spell washed over the group. “Leader! Bring out!”

I stepped forward and presented myself. “I am the leader!”

“Hunting! Terra wave! Great destruction it caused! Know the source, you?”

I pointed toward the north in the direction of the scar and the northern capital beyond. “A great battle took place a few months ago in the north. The surface dwellers were greatly affected as well. Only the origin is known,” I answered.

The kobold doing the talking eyed me for a long moment. “You answer. Kill you, we won’t. Thankful be. If lying you are, destroy everything you love, we will. Remember, Koraz City Expedition, you will.”

“Thank you for the warning. I hope your hunting turns out well,” I said with a bow as best I could with my swollen stomach.

The kobold nodded, then turned and walked away with his group. We watched as the trolls and kobolds formed up into a horde and started to march toward the north. The ground responded without heed to the trolls as it formed smooth paths for them.

Val jumped down next to me. “Good job, my love. Those two races respect honesty, if the reports are to be trusted. It’s a good thing you didn’t try to stall.”

I nodded. When facing overwhelming power, I knew to just say what needed to be said and be done with it. Lord Regan had shown that to me plenty of times.

The rest of the night passed calmly, the Koraz force having dealt with all the undead in their path. As the morning sun broke over the horizon, we spotted an airship coming from the direction of Tearfalls. One of our better-sighted members made out the dungeon and Vaihdetta emblems on the banners. At least something was going right.

Chapter 39

Puppet

I looked at the city from the wall. Since Father had built his tower, everything had calmed down considerably. While it wasn’t as tall as his forest tower, it still dominated the city. After living here for so long, I couldn’t decide if it ruined the view or improved it. I knew that some people found it an eyesore, but they were adapting.

Steps sounded next to me and found Izora approaching. “Queen Izora, how goes the teachings?”

“It would be easier if Lord Regan actually preached anything. Well. I’m telling people about him as is, that he helps those who try to help others.”

“I see. Hopefully, the people aren’t too hard with you,” I replied.

“After what was going on in their Church, I’m surprised they are willing to trust anyone talking about religion.”

I glanced at her to see she had her head in her hands. I couldn’t agree with her more. After Father had exposed the Church here, the local guards launched a full investigation of the place.

Many unspeakable acts were just some of the things taking place under the feet of the believers. Anyone who was even a bit beautiful was pulled into the Church and used until they were little more than corpses. In the end, everyone was arrested while the place was burned to the ground.

“I just want this war to be over. How many more lives have to be lost before it’s too many?” Izora asked. I noticed that she wasn’t looking at the city but toward the east. She had lost quite a lot of her people due to the necromancers. Last we’d heard they were at the northern capital.

“I think one is too many, but people with power usually want more power. That’s what makes them so dangerous.” I was no exception. After coming to this city, I found that my power was lacking. I inadvertently wanted more. I was able to help some of the people but not enough.

We lapsed into silence as we watched the night roll in. With Father’s force stationed in front of the city, we hadn’t had to worry about attacks anymore, but we still kept a guard rotation for obvious reasons. It wouldn’t do to have some undead sneak in during the dead of night and slaughtering everyone.

“What’s that?” Izora asked as she pointed to a spot past the machine defense line.

I zoomed in and saw a globe of darkness heading for the city. I was wondering why none of the machines were firing on it when the globe broke and Julie appeared. She carried something in her hands that shifted in the winds from her flight.

“What do we have here?”

I jumped from the sudden new voice. “Anubis! I’ve asked you not to sneak up on me. You’re the only one that is capable of that,” I said with a growl.

“I’m helping you so that you are ready in case an enemy does it,” Anubis said, then jumped off the wall. I followed him as Izora spread her wings and took to the sky to land on the ground with us.

Julie stopped in midair, then descended. She dropped the two bodies she was carrying, and they crashed to the ground. “I picked these up on my way through the scar. I think you guys should have them.”

A large man in a suit of armor and the prince’s sister lay on the ground, barely breathing. They were severely weakened, but I placed the man somewhere mid-tier three. The girl, while possessing a tremendous amount of mana, was still in tier two. It was probably one of the reasons she hadn’t destroyed the entire wall when she attacked.

I gave Julie a raised eyebrow at her statement. “Picked up?”

“They were being all flirty in the middle of the undead scar. I knew they weren’t your regular necromancers. Oh, I killed about fifty of those, by the way. Anyway. I figured they needed to answer to someone.”

“Yes. While I don’t know about the man, the woman will need to answer to the prince . . . Argent for her crimes against the empire. Even if it no longer exists,” Izora commented, looking the pair over. Since the Lecazar Empire technically didn’t exist anymore, Izora had changed the Prince’s title mid-sentence.

“I hope they go with a beheading. They are always fun to watch,” Julie said with a grin that would make children cry. I called for the guard captain, and he had the two taken to the jail after they were bound in several mana-absorption cuffs. We found the man was actually a minor lich after we removed his armor.

“Well, that’s a bit of the problem taken care of,” Izora commented as they were taken away.

“Master will be here soon. From the sensation I was getting, I don’t think he is very happy,” Julie said, glancing toward the south.

True to her word, one of Father’s airships appeared on the horizon a few hours later. The airship docked at the tower, and we waited for those on board. Father walked off followed by Ezal, who was looking much more pregnant than the last time I’d seen her, and the noble that Father had transformed to help with his quest for revenge.

“Father!” rang out from all those gathered. Z2 ran past us and locked her arm around his.

“Oh Z2! It’s good to see you.”

“Master!” I didn’t realize that Julie had also clamped on to Father’s other arm.

“Ah, Julie. I see you’ve adapted to your new body considerably.”

“Yes! It’s amazing!” she said, rubbing her hand against his arm.

We moved into the tower and found ourselves in the core room. I glanced at the core and had to pause. The familiar crystal was gone, replaced with an orb that had shards of crystal floating around it. I could still sense Father’s presence from it, but I felt like there was . . . more of it.

“We have several issues that are coming to a head. Ezal informs me that a force from the Beneath is heading north along the scar. Thankfully, they’re almost on a direct path to the lich core. What that meeting will result in, I’m not sure yet.”

“Are they dangerous?” I asked. I’d gotten a few bits of information from the local library but nothing more on the Beneath.

“Considerably. I sent scouts a few times, and they had yet to suffer any losses from the undead on the scar. That is just how much mana they have at their command.”

“Understood.”

“Second, due to the battle that took place roughly a week ago, some . . . thing has been revived. We haven’t been able to identify it as of yet. It turned everything to slag within a hundred-kilometer radius, then started to dig. I believe it seeks something in the Beneath. The complication is that it has taken Lady Louella.”

I felt a burst of fire and glanced to see Ezal’s body was radiating flames. The anger washing off her was almost tangible, if you didn’t count the flames. “I swear I will send this creature back to whatever plane of existence it crawled out of!” She only calmed down when Valamar placed his hand on her waist.

“Yes. That would be the plan. Next, my floating core is heading to deal with the lich core. This presents another problem. I can see and sense the core, but I cannot control or move to it. The forces with them are all that they have until I physically go to the core.”

“How is that possible?” I asked with more emotion than I meant to. What could cut Father off from his own core?

“When I allowed Alara to take control of it, I wasn’t present to form the correct bond with her. Thus, she has taken full control of the core for all intents and purposes.”

“Is that safe for either of you?” Izora asked with concern in her voice.

“Yes. I just need to get into my own aura to take back control. The problem is either they are about to be in a dungeon battle or they have already entered it. Frankly, there are so many issues to deal with that I’m going to be stretched thin,” Father said with a hand on his forehead.

“Send us where you need us!” I shouted. I was created to do Father’s will, after all. It was fun mingling with the mortals, but it was time for us to return to our original purpose.

“Yes. It will have to be all hands on deck to deal with all this.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Father would know how to place us where we could shine the most. I was ready for anything I would need to do.

Chapter 40

Yuno

“Nero! Why the hell did you drag us down here?! Where the hell are we?!”

Nero rubbed the back of his head. “Calm down, boy. We’re in the Beneath. I didn’t have time and pulled you two with me.”

“It’s dark,” Sera whispered.

I quickly moved over to her and grabbed her hand. For the most part and a bit to my annoyance, she wasn’t afraid of anything. However, she’d recently started developing a fear of the dark. I couldn’t get a straight answer out of her about why, but I felt it was due to her worrying that she would no longer be able to go into the light.

“It’s ok, Sera. I’m here.” I turned back to Nero. “And? Why are we in the Beneath?”

Nero gave a large sigh. “Lady Louella was taken by an old fart. I’m going to take her back.” A large grin formed on his face, and he started to laugh and mutter to himself. “She’ll feel grateful to us for rescuing her and will reward me. I can do this and that with her.”

“Pervert,” Sera muttered. I nodded at her statement. He was definitely a pervert.

Nero crossed his arms. “Excuse me. I am truly enamored with her beauty.”

“Yes. Yes. So? What are we supposed to do?”

We were currently in a cave of some sort. I could only remember a sphere of stone wrapping around us before we eventually arrived here. There were a few spots of light, but nothing that really gave any hints to our situation.

“We need to find Glourios’s lair. He’ll need to rebuild his power and army before he can do anything. We need to get the lovely Louella away from him before he gets too powerful.”

“Glourios?” Sera asked.

Nero groaned as he looked around the cavern. He turned back to us after a minute. “Glourios, Sovereign of Fire. The lacky of Tersio. He was vanquished a few millennia ago, but something like that is never truly dead.”

“Alright.” That was a lot information we would have to circle back to later, as I didn’t know anything about any of the names used. “Why would he take Lady Louella?” I asked, wondering what a being of such power would want with a mortal.

“We’re going to have to ask that when we find them. I just know that it’s not with his best intentions at mind.”

“Fair enough. Lead the way.” I helped Sera up and gestured for Nero to take the lead.

“About that. When I used the spell to get us down here, the shock waves sort of . . . pushed us about a bit.”

I crossed my arms in front of me. “Meaning?”

“I don’t actually know where we’re at,” he replied, looking off into the distance.

“So, what you’re telling me is that we’re lost?”

“You got it!”

Nero never even saw my fist as it collided with his face. He flew through the cave and impacted the wall. I growled, just barely resisting the urge to roar in anger. It was always like this. Nero did whatever he wanted and dragged my sister and me with him.

“Lie there for a minute! If you weren’t our only lead, we would have left you a long time ago.” I cupped my face as the last ten years crossed my mind. “I should have been smarter about that contract.”

“Always read the fine print,” Nero said. He pulled himself out of the hole he’d made in the wall and dusted himself off. Of course, he was completely unharmed. Even after all these years, I wasn’t sure how powerful he truly was. For instance, during the battle on the surface, he’d used a spell that had wiped out thousands of men.

“How are we supposed to find her down here, then?”

Nero pointed to his nose. “Time to put your other side to work. Just focus on ash and brimstone. You won’t miss it.”

“You know I hate that.” I sighed, knowing I didn’t have too much choice in the matter. I doubted Sera and I could find our own way out of here. I didn’t even know how deep we were in the first place. Nero’s spell had cut off our sight, after all.

“You want to stay down here forever?” Nero asked with a smirk.

“Brother?” Sera asked. She hadn’t sounded so serious in quite a while, her disease pushing her further down the path of insanity. We didn’t have time to deal with all these problems that kept cropping up. We needed to get to Lord Regan and see if he could help her.

“Fine.” I patted Sera’s hand, then stepped a bit away. I began channeling my mana through my body, focusing on my head. My wolf beastkin features started to grow more pronounced as my senses increased severalfold. In less than ten seconds, my snout had elongated just over a dozen centimeters, while my sense of smell was nearly twenty times stronger than a human’s.

I drew in great breaths of air, smelling everything that had passed through here for the last several days. In a confined space like this, I could almost view the past with how much information I could gain. With the lack of external forces like wind disrupting the area, I could gain quite a lot from just a few smells.

It took me a few seconds, but I finally found something. Just a hint of sulfur that had drifted in over the last few hours. Without a mana-enhanced nose, I doubt anything would be able to detect the trace amount.

I pulled a more concentrated breath in, focusing on the source this time. A sense of the layout the sulfur traveled entered my mind. The sulfur had pulled other scents with it, allowing me to trace where it came from. When I reached the limits of my ability to trace it back, I relaxed my transformation. My body changed back while steam was released into the air around me.

I collapsed to the ground as I breathed heavily. Doing just a part of my body took more effort, but I retained much more control over the abilities I gained in the process. With me being tier three, the recoil didn’t last too long, but I tried not to do a partial transformation unless I knew we were safe.

I felt a hand rest on my back and looked next to me to see Sera wearing a worried look. I grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. “I got it, but it’s going to be a few days’ travel, from what I could tell.”

“I knew you had it in you, kid!”

Rens Wanderer

I was walking down the street and found myself in a whole new place. The transportation did not stop my next two steps, and I collided nose-first into a wall. I stepped back, rubbing my nose, and looked around at the room composed completely of smooth metal.

“Mister Rens, a pleasure to meet you,” a voice said.

I looked around and found the source of the voice in what I initially thought was a statue.

“Yes. I am Rens. I would love to know the name of the one that brought me here,” I replied. I glanced around but couldn’t find anything.

“I am Regan. Some have begun calling me the Machine Father or Father Machine.”

“Ah! The dungeon host! Yes. I have heard quite a bit about you. What can I do for you?” I could tell from the power emanating from just this room that I needed to proceed with caution. Something told me that this being was upset.

“Answers. I need answers, Mister Rens.”

“I will do my utmost to answer,” I replied with a bow.

“Then tell me—I know that you are High Race. Had I known that you were from the Beneath, I would have met you on that first day. A lot of forces are moving down there, and I want to know the political landscape before I get pulled into another war.”

“I see. Very well,” I said, then I explained the situation to him as best I could. There were four known city-states that all maintained their own territory. While we had engaged in war in the past, no one territory was ever able to push the others enough to cause a change. My city of Fallen Rose was the most powerful, but also the most restricted when it came to the size of our force.

“The dark elf city of Nefelume and the city of Koraz are currently tied for second place in the power ranking. Their territories border each other’s, leading to skirmishes every few months. Lastly, the dwarven city Khal Todur is the weakest of the four but is the most essential of the cities. They make all our weapons, after all.”

“You believe the terra wave has caused a disruption in this delicate balance?”

I looked up at the dungeon host in front of me. I had never known a dungeon to be this involved in the affairs of the world. I couldn’t help but wonder how it came about. I knew one thing, though. I needed to be truthful.

“Yes. Fallen Rose, for example, suffered quite a substantial amount of damage. We are the most advanced in magic of the four cities. If even we were hit so hard, then I imagine the other cities were as affected, if not more. The dwarves might be the least affected, given their connection with terra mana.”

“I understand.” The host waved his hand, and a large map of the continent appeared in front of me. He manipulated it to show where we are. “As you’re quite intelligent, I’m sure you can figure out where you emerged from. Tell me.” He moved the map to the west, where a large, blackened wasteland surrounding a crater lay. “What is under this?”

I studied the map for a moment, then held up my hands to use the map the same way he had a second ago. “May I?” The host nodded. I moved the map back to the valley, then farther over to where I thought I had emerged from. When a mark appeared from a ruin, I knew for sure that was where I’d gained access to the surface. After a few more minutes of checking the map, I stood back.

“Well?”

“I will be honest and say that I can’t be completely sure. The Beneath is composed of dark and winding tunnels. Some areas contain magic that make it hard to map. However, I think I can say with confidence that the Ruin of the Seal resides in that area.”

“Ruin of the Seal? Do you have any information on it?”

“Not much. That area is filled with undead. And I’m not talking about the child’s playthings you’re dealing with up here. Even the four cities have been unable to investigate this place.”

“Why would undead be down there? They are only a recent issue for the surface. Every time I get a step closer, the path grows a mile longer,” Lord Regan said, rubbing his chin as he stared at the map. I waited, as I didn’t want to interrupt him. “Wait. Cassin. He might not be a true Celestial. This requires investigating.” He turned back to me. “Are any of the cities a threat in the area?”

“No. Everything for quite a ways is considered no man’s land.”

“Good. Soon it will be my land,” Lord Regan said. He turned and walked over to a wall. When he placed his hand on it, the metal surface flowed back like water and revealed what reminded me of a workshop, only on the scale of a country. Magic and other techniques of all kinds were being used to make vessels of incredible size. I unconsciously wandered next to him.

“Amazing. Just what are you?”

“The Machine Father. I will remake this world. I do have one final question for you.”

“Yes?” I couldn’t pull my gaze from the sight in front of me, so I didn’t realize that the host’s tone had gone much darker than earlier. It only dawned on me as I blinked a few times.

“Why do you have a shard of a dungeon core on your staff?”

I snapped my eyes to the host and saw his frown. I quickly backed up but ran into the wall. “Please. I acquired it many decades ago. My mentor passed it on to me. I meant no disrespect!” The host only looked at me for a moment before he held out his hand. I stared at it for a second before I realized he wanted me to hand over the staff.

I looked to the staff that had seen me through many tough spots in the past. It was almost a friend. I dreaded parting with it, but I was sure if I didn’t hand it over, I likely would be the one not leaving this space. With a trembling hand that was unbecoming of my position, I handed it over.

The host grinned. “You had me worried for a second there. I was starting to like you after all. Had you not handed it over, I would have had to kill you.”

He held it out in front of him, and magic circles of a complexity even I’d rarely seen formed around the staff. I watched as a ball of light suddenly emerged from the crystal shard at the top of the staff. It wobbled, then burst as a fairy appeared floating in the air.

He was male, only about forty centimeters tall, and wore a suit of white armor. He stretched, making his joints pop, before he looked around. When he saw the host, he flew over to him. As he did so, the light appeared to bend and curve toward him.

“I thank you, my lord. My master would have welcomed the knowledge that you freed me. I will work to make myself valuable to your workings.”

“Think nothing of it. I am sorry that your master’s soul either has already entered the Wheel or is in another shard of this core.”

“I can answer that. She has already passed on. Even dungeon cores do not live forever if they are shattered to this degree. She was kept from regenerating many centuries ago.”

The host nodded, then the fairy flew over to me. “I have enjoyed journeying with you. You might not have been aware of me, but I was of you. Now that I have returned to a fairy form, I can’t easily leave the dungeon. I would like you to have the shard as you always have. It will still function the same.”

The fairy looked to the host, and he nodded his approval. I took the staff that floated under the fairy, feeling complete again. “What is your name?”

“Glint. That is what my old master called me.”

“I’ll be here for a while, Glint, so I hope you wouldn’t mind telling me of your late master.”

Glint nodded.

“I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me,” the host said, then waved his hand.

I found myself in the exact spot I’d vanished from earlier. I was so glad I’d come to the surface.

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