Dungeon Robotics

Book 3 Escalation

Matthew Peed

Copyright © 2020 Matthew Peed

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First publishing, March 2020.

Matthew Peed

Iteration 64

P.O. Box 481

Dover, TN, 37058

https://www.Patreon.com/DungeonRobotics

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21700/dungeon-robotics

About the Author

Matthew Peed is a single father who works hard to provide for his daughter and also for his loyal readers. He has read or devoured millions of pages of novels, web fiction, and any other media that he can get his hands on. He started this project in order to shape something with his own mind that he could leave for his daughter to read.

Dedication

To all the people who have helped me along way: Thank you! Here we are six books in the series. Without yours and everyone else’s support I’m not sure I would have gotten this far. I plan to continue expanding this world as far and as wide as possible, and I hope everyone stays with me every step of the way.

Something witty and offencive

Jens Jensen

Reviv3pls

Phill barr

Spellman – RiahWeston

Kwynirith

BrauBaer

Table of Contents

Dungeon Robotics

About the Author

Dedication

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Book 4: Cascade Preview

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Afterword

Chapter 1

Regan

I sat in my core as I reevaluated everything I had in the dungeon. This recent attack by the necromancers had really shown me what they were capable of doing. The town was torn apart, though that was mainly my own fault. Several people were killed, and the little Lord’s security forces were turned against her.

Even if I was using knowledge to build things years ahead of this world’s civilization, someone could easily counter that advantage due to my magical nature. I would need to learn from this and make sure something similar didn’t happen again. A bigger stick didn’t always win the battle, after all.

If it weren’t for Ignea and Jarvis, the town and dungeon would have ripped themselves apart. I wasn’t sure why, but the forest core was alright when I checked on it. I had a thought that it was the distance that diluted the effect, but when I checked, one of the automata stated that they only felt a bit of rumbling. The two had managed to control the mana fluctuations from the main core for the time I was . . . out of commission. I really needed to come up with a countermeasure for that magic EMP. I shook my mental head, then went back to checking the dungeon.

I was able to look through all the floors quickly, and most of the things I had set seemed pretty respectable. I needed to keep some resemblance to a regular dungeon for the innocent adventurers who still came into mine. Hard floors with certain-death areas were needed, therefore, but had to include ways for proper diving individuals or parties to be able to get deeper.

The tunnel to the Deadlands had gotten so long I had to switch to a magnetic levitation system train so that the miners wouldn’t get delayed. The miners had also “upgraded” themselves, after a night or two. When I studied them, I found that having mined so many different materials, and minerals had infused them with quite a bit of terra mana. They were firmly in the mid-tier two range now. Some had developed tricone drills that were more efficient at mining, and these had removed the buckets and gained clawed hands. I was glad I had set the upgrade for them.

Others now focused on hauling, and their hands had gained a small dimensional storage compartment in them. They could hold the material in this storage for a few minutes, long enough to put it in the train storage car. Their weight capacity also far exceeded what the materials comprising them should be able to handle.

The miner automata had literally developed to drill the tunnel more efficiently. The models were actually from Earth, so I wondered if their evolutionary path had been decided from my subconscious. It was something that would require studying in the future.

I observed Reed that was in a sealed room, he was still in a coma. I’m not sure what was happening, but his body was being kept alive by the dungeon. I felt that the mana was creating something new, but it was taking a long time. I had used as much of my magic knowledge to seal the room as fully as possible, as I wasn’t sure what was going to wake up later on down the road. Would it be Reed with a drastically changed body or some new monster this world had never seen before? I tried to add more layers of protection when I developed something new. At that moment the sealed room was sitting at four layers of different metals and then five different types of barriers.

I left the room and moved farther down the dungeon. The trees had gained a few more forms but nothing too exciting. At least I was gaining some more mana from them.

I was looking into the twentieth floor right as an explosion took place. I mentally blinked a few times as I tried to figure out what was happening.

In a roped-off area set apart with some chains, two steampunk-themed mechs were in the middle of what looked like a brawl. Two groups of goblins were cheering for one of the mechs from the stands. I glanced around and saw what was either a godfather or a boss from a mafia family sitting in the center of the set of stands.

One of the mechs was human shaped and carried the pilot inside a cockpit. A machine gun was mounted on one arm, and a large ax that looked just as deadly on the other. I decided to name it Bob. The mech was roughly three meters tall and looked to have a decent center of gravity. It sported what looked like some advanced hardware. The pilot appeared to be able to maneuver it like a real body.

The other mech had four legs and two arms. The pilot controlled it from a platform on top of and to the back of the mech. It had what looked like a cannon and a sword. A large number of cables kept the whole thing moving. I named this one George, and it was closer to four meters tall. While it had decent 3D movements, its agility was a bit less than Bob’s.

Bob pulled back its fist, then threw a punch that collided with George in the torso area. It tried to follow up with an ax slice, but George met it with his own weapon and made sparks fly. Bob kicked George, putting some distance between the two, and brought his machine gun to bear. Bullets ripped through the air and put several holes in George’s armor. Some of the shots ricocheted off the armor and flew toward the stands.

I expected screams but there were cheers instead. When the rounds neared the chains, a pale barrier formed and caused the bullets to bounce in other directions. I stroked my chin as I examined it. It appeared that instead of stopping any attacks, it redirected them, which required less power. I filed this away for later.

George’s pilot lifted the arm to protect himself, then armed his cannon. With a boom the shell flew from the cannon and narrowly missed Bob, impacting with the ground two meters away. The blast managed to shower Bob with debris that put a few gashes in its hull. It felt like the two mechs were pretty evenly matched to me.

Steam started to pump from Bob, and the mech shot forward, ax leading. George tried to meet the charge but seemed to lack the speed to match him. His cables were not able to respond to the sudden movement. Bob brought his ax around and sliced clean through the center hull. The rider went flying and landed bodily a few meters away. Another mech walked into the ring, but this one was noncombative in design.

“Huilgob of the Fuirn family is the winner!” a female voice called to the gathered crowd.

One side of the crowd cheered, while the other looked down.

I clapped, making sure to make my form slightly physical. The crowd quieted down and looked up at me. Then, those who I guessed were the Fuirn family cheered even louder. I noticed that the boss of the Fuirn family was actually the first goblin I had made a few days ago.

“That was a good match! While I would love to hear the details of what is going on, I would hate to ruin someone’s victory,” I said as I floated down to the winner’s side.

“Thank you, boss!” said the male goblin that sat in the center of half a dozen female goblins.

“Well, Mayor, enjoying yourself?” I asked when I landed next to him.

“Thanks to you, boss! We have metal and chemicals! It’s like knowledge is flowing into our heads. The knocking fades a bit as we develop stuff.”

“Interesting. So, what is this?” I asked curiously.

“The Dread family was trying to usurp mine’s position as head family. So my champion . . . showed them that was pointless,” he said as he pulled a cigar out of a pocket.

I realized that he was wearing a suit that would have been popular in the twenties and thirties in the US. He took a deep drag of the cigar and blew it out.

“Anyone die?” I asked. I couldn’t just have my goblins killing themselves.

“No, boss, we have set rules in place so that no one dies.”

“Good, feel free to continue these matches then,” I said and was about to leave when I had an idea. I felt that the godfather needed some type of token to show the appeal of winning. I thought for a moment and made a suit like the one he was wearing but lined it with a magic script to allow him to leave the floor for a few hours at a time. I added a fedora to complete the look. “Here. A prize for the winner. It’s also to be passed to the next family head if your family should lose. Ah, have you named yourself?” I asked.

“Yes, boss. Tony Fuirn.”

“Tony, got it. Keep up the good work,” I said as I let my body fade.

I was looking around to check a few more things when I felt a rush of energy. It was rotted and tasted nasty. My filtering gems were almost unable to keep up before the stream abated. My main core had actually risen a level from the mana stream, which put me at tier two, level five. I had so much mana that I didn’t know what to do with it. I quickly diverted some of the stream over to the town core to boost it a bit more. I had to split the mana between the core level and actually increasing the aura size, which seemed to be a unique requirement for field dungeons.

Tracing the source of the mana, I found it came from the tunnel to the Deadlands. I loaded a force of automata onto one of the trains that was about to head that way and was able to load nearly a hundred onto it. I would need to get a subcore out there as soon as I could but didn’t want to leave it to a regular automaton. I would head out there myself.

A half hour later, I felt something strange enter my aura from the tunnel, mainly because I wasn’t expecting it: a girl with fur that covered her hands, part of her arms, most of her legs. She had a fluffy tail and wolf ears that I could see were naturally brown even though she was filthy. I felt she was a bit different than a regular beastwoman but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. She’d been laid in the train, and the miners had left it clear of any material. I wasn’t surprised that her aura was tainted by unholy mana, but it seemed more like mud on the skin than the invasive aura of a necromancer.

I moved to the town tower and called Anna. When she arrived on the top floor, I said, “We are about to get a guest. I want you to wash her.”

“As you wish, my lord,” Anna said with a small bow.

I teleported the wolf girl to a spare room that Anna had gone into. Each of the rooms had a bathroom, so Anna was able to get her cleaned with only a bit of difficulty. Once Anna had finished, I moved into the room and attached an IV to the wolf girl, as she was severely lacking in nutrients.

“Echo . . .” the girl said in her sleep. I wondered if she was dreaming of someone from the north.

I sent a message to Louella that I needed to talk to her. As I waited for her to get there, I thought about what I needed to do. There was still the monster horde in the eastern forest to take care of, and now I needed to work on another outpost. At least my mana income was through the roof.

~~~

Louella arrived and made her way up to the top floor. I sighed as I saw Julie with her. She was getting annoying as of late. I paused as I sensed Izora moving through town, apparently looking for Louella. I decided to wait for her to get here before I discussed the future.

“Master!” Julie squealed as the platform arrived.

I swear it felt like her internal balance was getting more and more twisted. She craved death and destruction but was more than willing to follow all my orders and instructions to protect and help people. At least for now.

“Hello, Jul—” I started to say as she grabbed me around my waist.

“You know, if Master wants to, you could always use me,” she said in a purring voice as she rubbed her face against my waist.

Something seemed to snap in my head, and I grabbed the back of her neck and slammed her into the wall harder than I meant to. The wall collapsed around her, but she had what looked like pleasure on her face as she dropped to the ground.

My eye twitched, and I stepped on the small of her back. “For the last time! Stop clinging to me!” I said. Then I noticed Izora had gotten there and stopped. “Sorry you had to see that. She was getting too . . . liberal with her touchiness.”

“I . . . see . . .” Izora said. She looked away quickly, not that I could blame her.

After a few more minutes, the girl from the north awoke and somehow made her way up to where we waited. I decided everyone that needed to be there was there. The girl had even named one of the miners, so I added that to my long list of experiments that I wanted to check over. Gray had gained not so much sentience but individuality when Anna had named him, and I wanted to see if the same thing would happen to this Echo.

“That brings me to the topic that I was going to talk to Louella about. As of a few hours ago, I completed a tunnel that leads from my dungeon to the Deadlands. How this affects the greater scheme of things, I’m not sure yet, but hopefully, I will be able to reduce some of the strain on the mortals. Now”—I turned to the girl, who had taken a seat at the table—“are there any more survivors that you know of?” If she could survive, surely more could.

“I came from a town that is roughly a few weeks travel from the capital,” she started. “We held out as long as we could, but that only amounted to a few months. The necromancers expanded their influence fast. Those that submitted were . . . left alone, at the cost of a few sacrifices every month. The farther from the capital the more resistance the people put up. My family steadily made our way east from our town. We would have to move farther every few months as the horde of undead grew larger, more diverse, and . . . smarter. Then we made it to an underground dwarven stronghold, and I’ve lived there for the last seven years. About a year ago it fell from the inside, and we went on the run again. My . . . my parents . . . died shortly after we left the city. I’ve been alone since. As for your question, I don’t really know . . . maybe.”

I turned to Julie. “Well? What do you have to say?”

“Sorry, Master,” Julie said with an almost heartbroken face. “I came from this side of the mountain. Only the loyalists of the cause get to visit the holy land.”

“Yeah, Wrakras said as much as well,” I said.

“I . . . I had heard . . . rumors before we left the city,” the wolf girl said.

“Oh?” I said, looking over to her.

“There were people who believed that the other two dungeons were harboring survivors,” she replied, glancing around nervously—or perhaps interested in everything. I still wasn’t sure.

“That would be pretty amazing if they helped each other to survive,” Louella said from the table.

“Indeed,” I said as I tapped my chin. If the mortals fed the dungeon mana, and the dungeon was smart enough not to create an avatar for any reason, then they would be safer together than apart. “Now on to our second topic,” I said as I waved my hand and relocated the group.

We appeared at the forest tower a few meters from the edge of the platform. The others gasped at the sight in front of them, and Julie actually jumped back several meters from the edge. I looked at her curiously.

“I have . . . a hard time with heights,” she said almost cutely.

“That is good to know next time you piss me off,” I said with a sinister grin, and I swore I heard her make a normal groan for once.

“This is amazing!” Louella and Izora said together from the edge.

I pointed to the west. “The valley is in that direction. Now, for the future of the valley and everyone who wants a safe place from the necromancer scum, I plan on creating a similar tower there. I wanted to ask you Louella if you would like me to put it where the townhouse used to be, where you would be able to use it as a replacement. I won’t restrict your authority in any way if you decide to accept.”

“If it is half as nice-looking as this one, I totally accept!” Louella said excitedly. “My main worry is still the people’s reaction.”

“That’s where Princess Izora comes in. We will have her endorse it, and the building will become the neutral ground that you always wanted. In the future, Thonaca, Lecazar, and Jade Wind will be able to interact there without fear or worry.”

“I like this idea!” the princess said. “The necromancers are trying to drive everyone apart, but if we make a place that necromancers can’t even enter, then it will reduce their strength.”

“Exactly. Take it from me, I hate to be betrayed. If the fear is always on everybody’s mind, then trust is worthless,” I said.

“Um, Mr. Regan, sir, if you are against the necromancers, why do you have one nearby?” the girl asked as she pointed to Julie, who had moved back even farther from the edge.

“Julie is special,” I said and raised my hand. “Julie, come here.”

Julie’s eyes widened, and she started to struggle against the order as I moved to less than a few centimeters from the edge. Yellow sparks began to pop from her collar and cuff as she resisted as much as she could, but she started to move toward us. The girl’s eyes grew larger, but she nodded in understanding.

“Never mind. You can stay over there,” I called, and Julie’s body went limp as she dropped to the ground. “By the way, what is your name?” I asked the wolf girl, having not gotten it this whole time.

“Ren Wolendrin, sir,” Ren said politely with a bowed head.

“Ren . . . I like it, a good, simple, yet strong name.”

“Thank you. You are really powerful, sir. I’ve never seen a building this tall before. What kind of magic did you use?”

“Not magic. Engineering, which is stronger than magic,” I said with a smile. “You must still be tired from your ordeal in the Deadlands, so how about I send you back to the smaller tower, and you get some food and rest. I will take you to see Echo, as you’ve named him, tomorrow.”

Ren’s stomach growled loudly, which made me smile even wider. “That sounds wonderful!”

Chapter 2

Izora

I sighed as I laid my head on the desk. The day of the assembly was supposed to be a good day but had turned into a nightmare. I just hoped that the alliance didn’t fall through. But considering how the fight had gone, we owed more than a fair share of our survival to Regan and his people. Not to mention the fact that half the town was torn apart by some berserk mana that had taken place after Regan was incapacitated, yet it had failed to kill anyone. That was a miracle in itself.

I looked up when I heard a knock at the door to my office. I couldn’t help the sigh that came but recomposed myself. “Come in.”

Tsuzuki entered, then moved to stand in front of my desk. “Your Highness, that is improper for a lady of your standing,” he said as he looked at my slouching form.

“Shut up, I don’t care right now,” I replied, giving him an eye roll.

“Haha. Well, in other news, a guard just came from town with a report about something that just happened.”

“What now?” I asked.

“It seems the host and Lady Louella have created a new device that allows for the detection of unholy mana. They have already captured two individuals that possessed the taint. I hear that the town will be covered in a few hours, if you want to . . . check any of our crew,” Tsuzuki said with a hard face.

“I hate to do it, as I would like to trust each and every one of my crew, but it is probably for the best,” I said as I made a fist, my fingers turning white.

“I understand, Your Highness,” Tsuzuki said and bowed as he backed out of the room.

I stood up from the desk and walked over to the window to look toward the town. Even from here I could still see juts of rock that stuck out of a few buildings. I thought for a moment and used my Mystic Eye ability to look at the town. I hadn’t checked it in a few days.

The impact of the aura hit my eyes for a moment. While they adjusted, I took a look around. The pillars for both the main dungeon and the town were higher than ever. I looked at the dome of energy that originated from the town and noticed that it almost covered the entire valley now. In fact, it was almost to my ship, I realized, once I looked closer.

I wouldn’t mind if it covered the entire valley. The more this situation progressed, the more I felt we needed Regan to be as powerful as possible. I let my Mystic Eye fade and tapped my finger on the windowsill. I needed to report to Father the aggression of the necromancers. We had been keeping an eye on them, but it seemed they were growing bolder to ignore us entirely like this.

I walked back over to my desk and channeled some mana into a rune engraved on the front of the drawer. A lock clicked, and the drawer slid out. Inside, a crystal ball sat on a velvet cushion. I gently lifted the crystal out and set it on the stand that rested on my desk.

I focused, pouring a decent amount of mana into the crystal ball. The inside of the ball turned cloudy, then a face appeared in it.

“Father,” I said respectfully.

“Izora. How are you?” he asked warmly. I never had to worry about Father treating me like an object; he always treated me like his daughter first, then as the princess.

“I am well,” I replied.

“That’s good. Then what is the reason for this communion?” he asked, growing more serious. Magical communication wasn’t rare, but there were mages who had enough skill to tap into messages being sent. Thus, we tried to use ours only in emergencies.

“As we discussed I have signed a treaty with Louella and the dungeon host Regan. However, after the session was complete, we were attacked by a force of necromancers.”

“What?! Even knowing that Jade Wind was involved?!” Father demanded.

“Yes, Father. The targets were clearly the viscountess and I. They even had a means of disabling the avatar body of the dungeon. I can only draw an assumption, but it looked like a combination of holy and unholy mana caused some sort of disruption. I don’t understand how they could have advanced their methods so . . . quickly.”

“Hmm, I will bring this up to the council . . . How do you feel about this dungeon?”

“I feel that he is the answer to many of our problems, Father. Only there is a lot of resistance from multiple sources. I . . . worry for the future,” I confided in him.

“I will send the Gwendolyn with a full detachment. See if you can establish an embassy on political ground within the valley.”

“Yes, Father,” I replied and bowed. The Gwendolyn was one of the three ancient airships left. It could hold twice as many troops as the Raiu. It would be a comfort to have it here.

Father returned to his warm voice. “Your mother misses you.”

“Tell her I miss her as well,” I said with a sad smile.

Mother was bedridden and unable to leave her room most days. We’d had hundreds of mages with experience of all kinds in to see her, but none had been able to help her. I wondered if Regan would. I shook my head. I couldn’t rely on him for everything. We needed to show that we were equals first, worthy of being allies.

Father and I ended the conversation soon after. While it was convenient, the magic communication was mana intensive, and I felt completely drained after a conversation that only lasted a few minutes. I moved to set the orb back in the sealed drawer and reactivated the rune.

I needed a breath of fresh air, so I made my way up to the deck. A few of the crew were moving around the ship, taking care of their tasks as I passed them. When I reached the deck, I saw Tsuzuki standing near the rail as he observed the town.

“Teacher, mind if I intrude on your evening?” I asked as I approached.

“Not at all,” he replied with a bow.

I looked over the town and said, “It always amazes me how fast something can be changed when mana is involved.”

“Indeed, that is one of the scarier parts of war . . .” Tsuzuki said with a faraway look. “I once visited a set of ruins. There were only a few buildings remaining, but evidence suggested that there had been a city that matched the capitals. In one of the buildings was a record that stated that their city had been wiped out with one spell.”

“Such power! Surely, that is no longer possible?!” I asked, shocked.

“I wouldn’t know. Our world holds many secrets, and new ones are being created every day,” he said as he glanced to the main dungeon entrance.

“That’s why we need to be involved! In case something goes wrong in the future, we might actually have a chance to fix it,” I said firmly.

Tsuzuki nodded with a smile and then excused himself. I continued standing there for a while as I thought of the many possible outcomes of the future. I shook my head. The fates will bring what the fates will. I could only affect that which was around me. I made my way back into my quarters to get some sleep.

~~~

I awoke early in the morning to the sound of crashing. Jerking out of the futon, I rushed to the window to see what the hell was happening. I didn’t see anything until I looked toward town. Large juts of stone had ripped buildings apart and were receding back into the ground, which was causing the buildings they had torn through to finish falling to pieces.

I watched as one building stopped collapsing in midair and then righted itself, the materials knitting themselves back together like a patch on a linen shirt. I left the window and got dressed, keeping it simple and using some of the clothes Louella had gifted me. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided I would blend in nicely.

When I got to the command deck, I saw my royal guard already waiting for me so we could depart quickly. I laughed at having been seen through. They knew I would want to investigate personally. We left the ship in a good mood.

When we reached the edge of town, I saw a group of automata march by, which gave me a shock at first. When I saw that no one else was really reacting to the strange men, I decided it must be something that Louella and Regan had agreed on. It was rare for the gnomes to be left out of decisions, and it was sort of fascinating to be a bystander for once.

I tapped a passerby to get their attention. “Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, trying to go for the innocent girl act by upturning my eyes to him.

He stopped and looked at me with a semidumbfounded expression. “It’s crazy! I know of dungeons that have sort of taken to inhabiting the city near them, but this is on another level.”

“Oh, and what exactly is going on?” I asked again.

He pointed over to a blue and golden rune obelisk in the center of the plaza that we were in. “That thing is out of this world. It can detect what kind of mana you use. Heck, it can tell if you break the law near the damn thing.”

“That sounds like a good thing,” I said honestly.

“Yeah, yeah for the good of mortals and whatnot, but even the street rats have a place in this world. At least they’ve caught nearly a dozen necromancers, or at least people who had an unholy taint on them,” the man said as he rubbed his head.

“That many?!” I asked, shocked.

“I know, right,” he  said with a breath, then made a pardoning gesture. “Sorry, I have to go.”

I nodded and thanked him for his help. We made our way toward the center of town. I wasn’t sure where I would find Louella, but I wasn’t too worried. I wanted to see the damage for myself. It seemed that most of the significant damage had already been repaired that morning, and now it was just people who were reporting something that was damaged during the event to a passing automaton. The automaton would then judge the report, and if the report appeared valid, the damage would be repaired.

I noticed a stockade in one plaza. A few people who had various levels of marks on their foreheads were locked inside. Wondering what this was about, I approached another nearby person. I could wait until I saw Louella to find out the situation, but I’d rather just ask now. The man seemed to be a merchant based on the stall around him. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to grab the business of the people who were checking out the stockades or just happened to be there when they filled up.

The man saw us approach. “Welcome! I have skewers of deer and rabbit meat freshly caught just this morning!”

I pointed at a rabbit skewer. “That one please,” I requested, then handed over the two coppers. “What’s that about?” I asked as I pointed to the stockade.

He looked, then frowned a bit. “Well, you know the dungeon and Lady Louella put up the obelisks, correct?” I nodded. “Well, justice was being dealt indiscriminately at first, but when half a dozen children who didn’t know better were knocked unconscious, the obelisks turned gray for an hour. When they turned vibrant again, they no longer struck children unconscious. Instead, they get a light shock to the hand, much like a firm slap. People falling unconscious in the middle of the street for reasons unknown to most was also becoming a problem, but those stockades emerged, and people were then teleported into them. Finally, it ignores fighting unless a person cries ‘help.’”

“Seems like the dungeon isn’t afraid to fix something if it doesn’t work the first time,” I commented.

“Aye. As a street vendor, theft is one of my biggest problems, but even I don’t want a hungry child to get knocked unconscious. A little zap to the hand isn’t too big a deal. Plus, it lets me be more aware of their situation if I can actually catch them and get them to talk to me.”

“Thank you for filling us in.” I handed over a few silver coins and grabbed a deer skewer. “Keep the change,” I said, and the man bowed his head slightly.

Moving on from the plaza, we went deeper into the town, eventually coming to the town hall. It was still a wreck from the other day, and people were moving about the ruins, pulling out paperwork and other things. We went over to Louella’s manor and finally found out that she was at Regan’s tower. We made our way back through town, taking another route. The lack of damage was becoming more apparent as we got closer to the tower. When we finally reached it, I spotted Wrakras standing outside next to the two golems.

One was still the same golem from when I’d first visited the tower, but the second one had emerald-like crystal in some parts and was more defined. I didn’t notice at first, but an elf was leaning against the second one. She noticed me as I looked at her, and I had a sense of someone looking into my soul. I jerked back reflexively but quickly calmed down. I knew that sensation very clearly.

“Wrakras, I heard Louella is here?” I asked once we were closer.

“It is so. Please, by all means, show yourself in,” Wrakras said with a bored voice.

“Very well,” I said, then started to walk toward the entrance.

“It’s never good to be able to see too much,” the elf said as I started to pass her.

My eyes jerked over to her, and I noticed she was blind. “Some of us must bear the burden,” I replied.

“Then you are stronger than I was,” she said with a sad smile.

The golem she leaned against grabbed her chin gently and lifted her face toward his. “You have no need to bear a burden. I will bear it for you,” he said with, I felt, a lot of passion.

“Thank you, Gray. You always know how to make me feel better,” the elf said as she reached up and stroked his face.

We left the lovebirds alone and made our way into the tower. Everyone but Tsuzuki decided to wait on the bottom floor. I was safe enough inside the tower; there wasn’t a need for a full guard. We made our way up to the only floor I’d ever really been on and walked in to see Regan. He stood on a balcony that seemed to have appeared at the cost of the wall.

I looked around to try to get a grasp of what the hell had happened and only managed to see Louella with her head in her hands and Julie buried in the debris from the wall. I wasn’t too worried, though, as Julie had a delighted look on her face. There was something terribly wrong with that woman.

“For the last time! Stop clinging to me!” Regan said as he pressed his foot into Julie’s stomach. Julie’s smile only grew more twisted. Regan seemed to notice us and stopped. “Sorry you had to see that. She was getting too . . . liberal with her touchiness,” he said as he looked at Julie.

“I . . . see . . .” I said, not sure what else to say.

Chapter 3

Lost Wolf

So hungry . . . So cold . . . The sound of the ghouls that I continuously failed to lose still coming from behind me. I heard a branch break in front of me and swung my sword without hesitance. The blade sank into the flesh of something humanoid but got caught on the bone. I quickly lifted my leg and kicked in the general area of the chest. The body of the thing went flying. I may have been hungry, I may have been cold, but I was still a werewolf and had my heritage’s strength no matter how weak I got.

I looked at what I had just cut, and sure enough, it was a ghoul. I was pretty sure the ghouls outnumbered the living by then in the northern lands. That was why I was trying to find a way over the damn mountains, but the closer I got to the pass, the more undead there were. I flicked my claymore, and the rotting blood and flesh flung from it before I continued.

~~~

A week passed, and I’d turned away from the pass I was heading for. The undead had grown to a number I couldn’t sneak by. Thousands, hundreds of thousands swarmed the entrance to the pass, each trying to get to the aura of life on the other side. So I turned back and was now trying to find an animal trail or something that would allow me to get to the other side.

~~~

It was a good morning. I had managed to find a berry bush that wasn’t completely tainted from the unholy mana. I was sure my stomach might hate me later, but I was too desperate to care right then. My ear twitched; I heard a sound of feet rustling in the distance. I didn’t wait to find out what it was and took off before it reached me.

~~~

I had found an old riverbed leading from the mountain, which was sloped enough that I could actually make some headway up it. I was about a hundred meters above the twisted tree line—and I felt something. I looked back the way I’d come, but thankfully, no undead had tried to follow me out of the trees, yet.

I felt it again; it was coming from under the surface, maybe a couple hundred meters away from me. My ears twitched as I tried to trace the source of the disturbance. I quickly found a boulder to hide behind, intending to wait for whatever this was to pass. I sat there for a few hours and didn’t realize that the rhythmic sound coming from the ground had managed to lull me to sleep.

I suddenly heard an explosion from the other side of the boulder. The sleep was blasted from my body. I leaned around the boulder to carefully take a peek. Dust covered the area, and I could see several rocks that were larger than me falling from the mountain and into the forest. I held my breath and was shocked when a large . . . something came out of the hole.

It was roughly man-shaped but had an extra set of arms. Two of the arms had a weird contraption with three spinning disks and what looked like teeth. The other two arms had hands at the ends of them, but the hands had massive claws that would allow them to rip a creature apart if they wanted to. It was an orange color, and the head had several glass eyes.

As the dust cleared, I noticed that there were several of the things moving around the hole as they enlarged it. When the hole reached about the size of a house, I felt the mana in the air freeze. It was an unusual sensation, one I had never felt before, but I seemed to understand what it was instinctively. Suddenly, like a twister, the mana rushed into the hole that had been made. It moved so fast I was able to see that the sides of the entrance seemed to be melting. The large things grouped together and helped protect each other.

The event only lasted a few minutes but felt like a few hours. I slid back behind the boulder and thought about what to do. I wasn’t sure if it was right, but the word “golem” came to mind when I looked at those things, which meant that someone might have been controlling them. And I thought, They might be able to help me. As I thought through my options, I heard a roar from the forest. I jerked, but I wasn’t the target.

I peeked back around the boulder and saw a small horde of ghouls making their way up the side of the mountain. The orange things just kept up their work as if nothing was wrong. I struggled over whether I should warn them but thought they surely wouldn’t just stand there and let the ghouls do what they wanted.

Finally, I gathered my courage and decided to warn them. “Lo . . .” I had barely spoken in the last year, and my voice was hoarse. I swallowed and tried again. “Loo . . . look out!” I shouted as best I could.

One of the things stopped and looked over at me. I wasn’t sure if it could understand me, but when it put down the boulder it had been carrying and started to walk toward me, I grew tense. It would be just my luck that I might have triggered it in some way. The ghouls had also noticed me, and a few of them broke off toward me.

I sucked in a deep breath and decided to trust the strange golem things. I jumped over the boulder and rushed toward the one that was heading toward me. I hadn’t noticed before, as I’d been a decent distance away, but it must have been four or five meters tall.

It stopped and lowered to one knee. I slid to a stop in front of it, not sure what it wanted. It moved its clawed hand in front of me and set it even with the ground. I took a gamble and hopped on it. It lifted me to its shoulder and started making its way back to its brothers.

“What . . . what are . . . you going to . . . do?” I asked haltingly.

One of its eyes turned toward me, but I guessed it couldn’t speak. One of the other golems stopped what it was doing and started to make its way toward the ghouls. The golem was one of those that had the circular disks for two hands.

As I joined the group of golems, the ghouls regrouped into one horde and were slowly making their way toward us. The disk-handed golem headed toward them and then kneeled like the other one had for me. I was confused until one of the ghouls tried to take a bite of it. That’s when things got . . . gory. The eyes of the golem turned red, and the disks started to spin rapidly. It slammed the ghoul to the ground, where its body turned into a paste in the blink of an eye.

The gore caused the other ghouls to go into a frenzy, and they swarmed the golem. I panicked at first but noticed that they weren’t causing it any damage. The golem’s clawed hand made a casual swipe and knocked most of them off him, body parts not necessarily still attached. In only a matter of minutes, the horde of at least fifty ghouls was decimated into a pile of body parts and paste mixed with chewed-up dirt and stone.

My relief that these golems were able to so easily deal with the ghouls made me go weak, and I started to slip from the golem’s shoulder. It managed to catch me with surprisingly gentle movements. The change in position put my head even with its chest. I saw the characters E.C.H.01.

“Thank . . . you . . . for saving . . . me, Echo,” I said, and then my world went black.

~~~

I awoke and was immediately aware that I was in a bed. Something I hadn’t felt in over seven months. I looked around and saw that I was in a nice-looking room that seemed to have not been used before. There wasn’t any dust or signs of neglect, but I knew instinctively that it’d never been used before. As I calmed down from the sudden change in environment, I heard something even more amazing: people talking, and not the whispered conversation of people trying not to be found but one at normal volume.

I jumped up and looked out the window, taking barely a second to rip the clear string that had been attached to me. I saw a town that seemed to be . . . happy. People were walking by without a care in the world while some people stood on the side of the street and chatted with friends. Where the hell was I?!

I heard a boom from above me and reached for my sword. Thankfully, it was next to my bed against the wall. I grabbed it and made my way up the stairs to see what was going on. Once I reached what had to be the top floor, given the stairs ended there, I noticed a few people in the room. One was a woman sitting directly across from me at a table; the next, a man, who reminded me of the golems that had rescued me. Under his foot was another woman who smelled of the taint that I had lived with for the last ten years, ever since the necromancers had started taking control of the north; and, finally, a third woman, who stood on a platform of sorts.

The metal man turned to me and said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What’s . . .” I started to say and noticed my throat felt much better than earlier. “What’s . . . where am I?”

“Girl, I have to say that you are one of the luckiest people I have ever met. Do you know what I thought the chances were of there actually being anyone still alive in the northern country? Close to none, but look at you! At the exact spot my tunnel exited right when it was finished! Amazing! I’m Regan, by the way.”

“Nice to . . . meet you,” I said, slightly at a loss for words.

“Indeed, it is nice to meet me. If I do say so myself,” Regan said with a pat to his chest.

I smiled. It felt good to hear people after so long of just the sounds of moaning and roars. “Where am I?” I asked again.

“You are in Robia Valley, sweetie, and, more directly, in my town,” the woman at the table said in a soft voice. “I’m Viscountess Louella, the lord of this area.”

“I had no idea there was still such a place on this side of the mountain,” I said as I looked outside through the hole that Regan had made.

“That’s because you are not on your side of the mountain,” Regan said, then made a grand wave of his arm toward the mountain I could see in the distance. “You are on the southern side, brought here by my faithful servants when they found you, or more correctly, when you requested their aid.”

“I would like to thank Echo if I could,” I said as I remembered the golem that had helped me.

“Echo?” Regan asked as he tapped his chin. “Did you name one of the golems?”

“Its name was on its chest,” I said, confused.

“I see, was there a number after the letters?”

“Ah, yes, it was a one,” I said as I recalled it.

“Understood. I will bring you to him later,” he said as he patted my head, making me feel like a child.

“Sir Regan, I heard a few things I would like to clarify. You said she is from the north and that you have a tunnel there?” the woman who had been standing on the platform said as she walked over.

“Indeed, I was going to inform you later. But seeing that you’re here, for a few months now, I have been making my own path into the Deadlands. There are a few things I want to . . . do there. This girl was in the area when my drones broke through a few hours ago, and she requested help from one of them.”

“I don’t remember asking for help,” I said. I may have passed out shortly afterward, but I still remember the event clearly.

“Maybe not verbally, but by accepting the hand—or in this case, jumping into it—you accepted its offer of help.”

“I . . . see . . .”

“Is that a native from the north?!” the woman said as she clamped on to Regan’s arm.

Now that she wasn’t buried by the stone, I could more clearly smell the taint from her. My instincts got the better of me, and my fur rose on end as I snarled, then drew my blade and backed farther away from her.

“Julie, do not make me throw you off the top of the tower,” Regan said as he grabbed the woman, Julie, by the throat.

“Yes . . . Master . . .” Julie gasped with her throat clamped. Regan dropped her, and she remained seated on the floor with a blush on her cheeks. I shuddered as I looked at her.

“That brings me to the topic that I was going to talk to Louella about,” Regan said.

Chapter 4

Regan

Back at the town tower, I told Anna to take Ren to get some real food, then sat at the table with Izora and Louella. I had a few more things I wanted to discuss with them. The state of the town might not have directly impacted me, but without the town, I had no people to feed me mana.

“So,” I said as I looked over to Louella, “what exactly have you been able to learn?”

“It’s chaos! The Golden Dawn is basically gone from the valley now. To top it off, their high leader sent me a refund of all things and a note stating that they had no control of the situation given our . . . location! Baden intentionally left holes in several areas to allow just about anyone who is smart enough to walk right into the damn valley,” Louella said, then slammed her fist onto the table. “If I ever see him again, I’m going to rip his head off!”

“That’s good and all, but I have a feeling we won’t be seeing that particular Baden again . . . isn’t that right, Julie?” I said and looked over to the still-recovering Julie.

“Ye . . . yes, Master. Baden, or rather Jezes, is one of the top operatives on this side of the mountain. He infiltrates, then helps control the locals afterward. He is a shapeshifter. Not sure what kind, though.” She answered shakily at first, but steadier as she continued, though it was the second time I had asked her.

“As you can see, I don’t think this Jezes will be an immediate problem. However, you need to find a replacement for him quickly; otherwise, undesirables might take advantage of the situation. You do have more than necromancers to be worried about, after all.”

Louella groaned as she rested her head in her hands. I couldn’t blame her. Unlike my dungeon, where I could see and move around anywhere nearly instantly, she had to rely on others most of the time. The time spent just walking around her little town to personally check places was already time-consuming to the extreme. I thought about how I could help her, but I didn’t have anyone really suited for security at the moment. Administrative tasks—I could help handle those with a librarian or two.

“I would like to apologize. I know it’s custom for the host to handle security at the treaty session, but I feel I should have included my own guards in the surroundings,” the princess said as she bowed her head.

“Izora! None of that. This is all my own fault for trusting too much in magic to handle all my problems,” Louella responded quickly.

A thought popped into my head. “I know someone who is well trained in security and could use a new job right now. Plus, I know you can trust them,” I said.

“Huh? Who?” Louella asked, confused.

“Why, Ezal. Of course.”

“Well, she does have the training, but she is kind of lacking the full use of two of her limbs right now.”

“True, but I could fix that for you. If Ezal agrees, of course,” I said.

I had learned a lot from studying Reed, and I wouldn’t need to be as intrusive, as I wasn’t trying to get rid of a curse or control a potential enemy. The most I had to do was connect her nerves to some mana circuits formed from script that would respond to the intent that was produced when trying to move.

“She’ll . . . she’ll probably say yes to whatever you have in mind. She was going crazy from boredom in that room. Last time I visited her, she nearly burned the place down because of it.”

“Well, no sense in waiting. Let’s ask her,” I said and snapped my fingers.

Ezal, bed and all, appeared in an empty spot near the table. I really should have checked before I moved her—she was nearly completely naked and seemed to be in the middle of toweling off.

“Whoops,” I said with a smirk and turned around. I might have a metal body, but I could appreciate a good view when I saw one.

“Regan! You can’t just teleport people willy-nilly. I bet those priests are freaking out right now!” Louella reprimanded me, which continued on for another two or three minutes while Ezal got dressed.

Ezal looked around, then said, “Need me for something?”

I was surprised at how calm she was but just shrugged it off. The people of this world did have a sense of modesty and shame, but it wasn’t as bad as it was on Earth. You could often find men and women walking down the street with less than appropriate clothing on. Though, it tended to be the beastkins that showed off their skin more than humans or elves.

“Ezal, we were wondering if you wanted to be my new guard captain?” Louella asked, grabbing her hand with both of hers.

“Mistress . . .” Ezal said, then glanced at her arm and leg. “I’m not sure I would be able to perform such a task.”

“That’s where I come in,” I said and cracked my knuckles . . . ground my knuckles, as they were made of metal.

“Can you fix them?!” Ezal asked excitedly.

I rubbed the back of my head. “Not so much fix . . . more like replace,” I said honestly.

“Re . . . replace?” she asked, confused.

“That’s correct,” I said and held out my hands.

I pulled the materials from my storage, then began crafting the limbs in front of them. I used diamond for the bones, as they were the best for heat conductivity, light enough not to be a burden, and when mana is coursing through them, they are incredibly strong. I made them hollow to hold some napalm I had been experimenting with. While it reacted like it did on Earth, it turned out to be an amazing conductor for fire mana. With her bones infused with it, the diamond would be able to withstand the energy generated from the napalm.

Next, I worked on the muscles so she could move the arm like normal. I used some enscripted metal that would contract and expand based on her intentions. Compacting the internals made it weaker than it could be, but it kept a feminine look for Ezal. The cover or skin was the hardest part to decide on. I wanted to keep it delicate-looking for her, but I knew that she might have to go into battle.

I settled on some nanocarbon fiber that I had made while working on the upgrades of the automata. It was super-expensive to produce, which I believed was due to the fact that I was using magic at the atomic level. A layer of the durable material formed over the arm, and a gem was embedded in the top of the hand and near the shoulder. They would store any excess fire mana she generated so that she could use it later. I looked it over and added a few details, such as nails. I was technically finished, but I felt it lacked something.

I turned to Ezal. “Want me to add some designs to it?”

“Designs?” she asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know, some flora designs or something?” I asked.

“It does look a bit plain. Do whatever you feel is best.”

I used the gems in both the hand and at the top to add the dungeon’s symbol. I made the gears flow around the arm and link with each other. Then I added some flowers that were known to have fire mana in this world. They were just light etchings, but it still added a nice touch. All in all, the arm cost nearly thirty thousand mana, not including the materials that were already in my storage.

I looked at everyone in the room. “I assume you all know what comes next.”

They looked at each other, but everyone decided to stay in the room, Julie a little too excitedly. Ezal slid her good hand down her blackened arm and seemed to be hesitant. I waited until she was ready; I didn’t want to rush her.

“Alright, go ahead,” Ezal said, steel in her voice.

I nodded and moved next to her. I was glad I’d brought the bed with her; wouldn’t want her to have to stand during this. I channeled some light mana into her shoulder to cut off the nerve endings. That way she wouldn’t feel any pain. Next, I made a thin beam of energy that covered the edge of my hand and then, with a quick motion, swung and sliced the arm just a few centimeters above the biceps. There wasn’t much left to the arm that wasn’t cursed, so I had little to save. I channeled light mana, which got her skin to regrow faster, and the wound sealed in moments.

I caught the arm before it fell and absorbed it. I connected the prosthetic to her arm and fused her nerves with the magic script to control the metal muscles. I made sure to link her mana veins as well so that she could channel mana through it naturally rather than as a tool. While the magic was taking affect, I made some of the metal muscle travel to her lung to replace the damaged tissue. After a few minutes, the operation was done, and I stepped away. I stopped channeling mana into her nerves so that she would be able to move the limb.

“How does it feel?” I asked Ezal after a moment.

She stared at it for a moment, then tried to lift it. It responded almost too fast and, in a flash, moved to where she wanted it. She made a fist and released it several times, going through a few other motions as she got a feel for it. I watched, pleased that it was working so well.

“I like it. I feel a . . . power coming from it, though?” she inquired.

“I made it so that you would be able to channel your mana through it. The materials I used are good for fire mana, and there is a special liquid inside the bones that actually generates a trace amount of fire mana. The gems will absorb that passive amount, and you will be able to use it in emergencies.”

“It . . . it won’t affect the baby, will it?” Ezal asked, concerned.

“Don’t worry. I’m not into child experiments. Make sure to expel a bit of fire mana every other day, about the amount you would for cultivating mana, and there won’t be any problem. If you forget, you might only influence the mana type of the baby, nothing more,” I explained. I had built in as many safety features as I could for the baby. I didn’t want to be a monster, after all.

“Good,” Ezal said with a warm smile.

“M-m-m-m-m-master! D-d-d-d-do you think I could get one of those?!” Julie asked with delirious eyes.

“You think I would give you something so powerful?” I scoffed at her.

“W-w-w-what do I have to do?!” she asked with a desperate face.

I tapped my chin as I thought it over. “Let me think on it for a bit,” I said after a moment.

“Regan! You can’t be seriously thinking about giving this . . . this . . . this lunatic something that would be considered a national artifact,” Izora said, shocked.

I raised an eyebrow. “Really? A national artifact?” I asked

“Of course! Magic like this hasn’t been used in a thousand if not two thousand years. Even during the Golden Age, this thing would be locked in some king’s vault.”

“He really made something so powerful?” Louella asked.

“Yes! Tsuzuki, back me up!” Izora said to her advisor.

I looked at him but was surprised to see him staring at the arm with a considerable amount of drool leaking from the side of his mouth. It took a moment, but Izora finally roused him from his trance.

“Huh?! Ah, yes. This artificial limb would have been considered one of a kind in the ancient times,” he said as he wiped the drool from his mouth. “Not many people made these, as holy and light magic can replace a limb if the mage or priest is at tier three. The first one that I know about was made for a king who lost a limb in battle. No matter who tried to heal him, he swore it never worked the same as before, so he had the best artificers make him one.”

“Hmm, so I should keep it on the down-low, or I might gain some more ‘admirers.’ Is that what you’re saying?” I said.

“Not that you don’t already have a bunch,” Louella tacked on.

“HAHA, that’s certainly true,” I said, then looked back to Ezal. “Time for the leg.”

I repeated the process with the leg. It took a bit more material of course, but it wasn’t too hard. After about an hour, I finished crafting the leg and attached it. Since walking was more of a subconscious activity, I made sure to dial it back to match her normal leg. After she was all set, I stepped back to give her some room to move.

She stood up from the bed and took some short steps to get the hang of the response time. I had dulled it just a bit so that it didn’t overreact to her thoughts, but it was still a bit faster than a normal human’s would be. I had done the same with the designs so that it looked quite pleasant to the eye.

“I just noticed but it’s even easier to breathe,” Ezal said with a hand on her breast.

“I fixed your lung while I worked on your arm. Would you like to try some magic?” I asked. I wanted to make sure everything worked correctly.

“I could use the stress relief from being stuck in that ward all this time,” Ezal said as she flexed her new limbs.

Nodding, I moved us to the dungeon’s eleventh floor and sent a command to one of the nearby wolf packs. They moved quickly and arrived in only a few moments. I tilted my head as I looked them over. I swore they were bigger than when I’d made them and shook my head. I would have to ask Ignea and Jarvis about it later. If I wasn’t actively paying attention, I tended to ignore parts of the dungeon that didn’t interest me. That habit only worsened the larger the dungeon grew.

The wolves came up to me like loyal dogs and rubbed their heads against me as if they wanted some attention. It was making it hard for me to use them for the test. I had a soft spot for animals that actually listened to me. Sighing, I surrendered to the urge to stroke the wolves that had gathered around me. With a look into the distance, I created a few new ones that would be more blank slates.

“Alright, go try it out on those over there,” I said and noticed that the girls were petting the wolves as well.

“Regan! Can . . . can . . . can I get one of these as a pet?!” Louella asked with longing in her eyes. She reminded me of a person who would spend more time with their friends’ pets than their friends when visiting their homes.

“I didn’t take you for a dog person,” I said, thrown off a bit.

After an hour of the girls messing with the dogs, we finally got to the test. Ezal didn’t have her staff, but she would be able to work her magic without it, as it was more of a focusing tool in the middle of battle. She strode forward and stopped a bit away from the blank wolves. Pointing her hand into the forest randomly, she channeled some mana, and a ball of fire formed above her palm. She hurled it forward, and it collided with a tree. A minor explosion took place, decimating a good four or five meters.

“That’s some real firepower,” I said as I watched her.

She channeled some more mana, then unleashed a volley of fireballs into the area. I looked back to Ezal and saw that a red transparent gear had formed around the gems in her arm. I used my dungeon sense to look closer and saw that her mana was being augmented a bit more than I had anticipated it would. I couldn’t change it without cutting her arm off again, so I decided to leave it.

Ezal turned back to the wolves, pointing toward them. The wolves responded by growling at her and spreading out a bit. Ezal channeled mana through her arm, and the engravings I had done started to shine, the floating gears getting larger by the moment. She released a small flame from her finger, which took me by surprise since it contained the amount of mana that her previous volley of fireballs contained and much more.

I studied the flame as it drifted over toward the wolves, and my eyes widened in surprise. I quickly reacted and erected a barrier around the spot that was about to be hit, then double layered it. The flame reached about halfway through the group and then sparks started to form around the flame. Everything went quiet for a moment, then an explosion that shook the entire floor rang out. I had to quickly layer another barrier over the other two when they started to crack. Gears made of flame formed inside the explosion as if to represent the spell at work.

A jet of flame broke through and snaked toward Ezal as if seeking her out. She raised her hands, and the flame flowed into her body. I wasn’t sure if she was, but it felt like she was in a trance. I watched as the fire mana infused with her body. I was worried about the baby, but some type of barrier protected the fetus from the mana. It seemed . . . otherworldly.

Ezal started to float above the ground as her body took in as much fire mana as it could. The crack in the barrier enlarged, and the explosion began to spread. It was using the hydrogen as fuel to burn, and I had to cut the flow of air to that section of the dungeon, or it might have ripped the floor apart.

The explosion finally died, and I released the barriers. A cloud of ash spread out from the site. I looked closer and saw that a crater had form that extended almost to the next floor. This could have been a disaster. I looked over to Ezal, who had landed back on the ground. Studying her body, I saw that she had finally broken into tier two and somehow blasted through to midlevel. The most noticeable thing was her hair, which was currently actual flames.

“Ezal! Are you ok?!” Louella shouted as she rushed toward her.

Chapter 5

Ezal

I walked forward on the new leg that Regan had given me. I was still amazed I was able to walk again, but when I thought that these limbs were equal to a national treasure, my stomach did a little flip. I would have to take the knowledge of how they were made to my grave. Even if it really did mean my life.

I had practiced the method that Regan had shown me when using my magic a few times, but it was hard to nail down. Frankly, I didn’t have the sensitivity for it. I hoped that with these new limbs I might gain a new understanding of fire mana. Just walking, I could feel the trickle of heat from them.

I stopped and turned toward the forest a few dozen meters from me. I channeled a simple fireball like I’d done thousands of times in the past. Then I felt intense energy from the arm flow back into my body after my mana had entered it. I focused on that and thought I understood what Regan had talked about a while ago regarding the tiny mana in the air.

I channeled another spell and sent a volley of fireballs into the patch I’d already hit as I concentrated on each spell to see how the mana burned while it passed through the air. I could feel which parts of the tiny mana burned faster than the other types in the air. Nodding to myself, I moved toward the wolves. I thought about how the spell should work and gathered the mana into my palm. Condensing the mana until it was barely larger than a fingertip, I sent the spell out.

As the flame entered the center of the pack of wolves, I saw a barrier form around it. Before I could look back to Regan to see what was going on, an explosion blasted out from the flame, as I had intended. My mana drained as the explosion built. It grew more, and the barrier cracked. As a tendril of flame flowed to me, I felt my body burn as I broke through to the next tier.

I’d heard stories about people breaking through, but this was more intense than I’d expected. As nature kept filling my mana pool, the spell then drained it. It felt like there was a war happening in my body. I started to panic, worrying about my child, but I vaguely sensed that it would be alright. The knowledge seemed to come from deep inside me.

I couldn’t even scream as the fire flowed through me. Finally, I sensed Regan do something, and the spell ran out of the tiny mana to fuel it. I realized that I had started to float in the air only as I slowly settled back on the ground. The area around me had been burned to black ash.

“Ezal! Are you ok?!” I heard Louella shout from nearby.

I looked over to her and then fell back onto my butt. I could still feel an intense amount of energy flowing through me. As I breathed, small flames leaked from my nostrils and mouth. I was more amazed that I was, in fact, alright. I didn’t think mortal bodies were meant to experience such a flow of power.

I sent a small smile toward Louella. “That . . . was intense.”

“You don’t say,” Regan said as he walked up to me. “In the future, if you’re about to break through, make sure to do it where I can help. I think I might have influenced your perception of fire a bit too much.”

I laughed and said, “At least we know the arm and leg work.”

“Yeah, looks like I might have created a monster of a Fire mage—try not to burn any cities down,” Regan said as he did his usual chin tap.

I cast out the mental image of me floating over a city while it burned and asked, “Putting that aside, will this go away?” I gestured to my flaming hair and smoldering nostrils.

“I don’t honestly know. First time I’ve seen a breakthrough as intense as yours, and quite a few people have broken through since I started watching the town,” Regan said with a shrug.

I tested my body and stood up gently. I felt much better than I had in a long time, especially since I had been cursed. I thought about that and looked over to where Julie was standing. I had never really gotten my payback for her sneak attack on me. I formed a mini fireball in my new hand and threw it at her while she was gazing at Regan. Her barrier formed a moment before it collided with her, and the fireball exploded and blasted her nearly thirty meters away. She impacted the ground and slid another couple of meters with a few rolls mixed in.

She clawed her way up and turned toward me. “WHAT THE FUCK was that for?!”

I was a bit disappointed that she appeared alright. “For the alley, you bitch!” I shouted back at her. Flames leaped from my body at various places.

“Julie, I think you earned that one,” Regan called over to her, a sinister grin on his face. “Don’t make this into a thing, or I’ll hold you out over the tower ledge.”

“Y . . . yes, Master,” Julie said, defeated.

I stretched and tried to adjust to my changed body. Luckily, I hadn’t grown any, as was usually common when breaking through, but my muscles were definitely denser. Looking deeper, I could feel that my mana pool was much larger. So large, it felt like an ocean. In my mental image, flames seemed to jump from it.

I looked over to Regan. “Does my mana pool look different from a normal Fire mage’s?”

His eyes seemed to take on an ethereal light as he studied me for a good five minutes. It started to get uncomfortable, but I was the one who’d asked, so I held it in.

“You . . . your pool seems to lack any impurities that would normally be present. Your mana is very . . . pure, which would be the best way to put it,” he said and then shook his head. “I think this has really created a monster of a Fire mage. With that type of mana, your Fire spells will be even more powerful.”

I nodded and flexed my new hand. Gritting my teeth, I asked, “Sir Regan, I know this is completely out of line, and you have already done so much for me, but I have one more favor to ask.”

Regan just smiled and said, “Go ahead.”

“I would like a weapon that can truly exhibit the power of fire. I will even be willing to wear one of those cuffs so that you can watch me,” I said. I knew that anything below tier two would likely melt away in my hands if I tried to channel this mana through it. I could certainly just free cast like I had been, but having a magnifying force would serve to heighten my control of the magic.

“You use a . . . staff if I remember correctly,” Regan said, and I nodded.

He reached forward and tapped my head. I felt him trying to draw some of my mana, so I let it flow to him. It turned into a mana stone as I watched, which changed and grew a few centimeters, then turned a crimson color. The stone appeared to melt as Regan molded it like clay. He stretched it to about two meters long. One end widened and became the head of the staff. It reminded me of a sunburst, with rays coming off the circle in the center. Flame flowed down the pole and ended at the bottom with a crescent.

A burst of steam blew from it suddenly, and Regan spun it a few times as if to test the balance. He paused midspin and then smirked. He turned back to me and handed me the weapon. I felt something enter my mind as I grabbed hold of the staff.

A voice sounded in my head. Mother?

I jerked and looked at Regan in surprise. His smirk grew more extensive, and he said, “Well, it’s not wrong. It did come from your mana.”

“Um, yes,” I said out loud.

“ . . . ” I felt, rather than heard, in my head.

“Ah, it seems it fell asleep,” Regan said. “You should name it.”

I examined the staff but couldn’t really think of a name, so I turned to Regan, “Do you know another word for ‘fire’?” I asked.

Regan tapped his chin in thought. “How about . . . Feuer?” he said eventually.

“Feuer, that sounds good.”

I leaned the staff against me to adjust my grip, and it suddenly lifted into the air and floated around me. I freaked out and quickly grabbed it. When it didn’t try to leave or anything, I let go of it, and it returned to floating in the air.

Feuer, I mentally sent.

The staff bobbed once in the air and moved back to my hand. I smiled at the warmth that seemed to flow into my hand from him. I looked at the rest of the group and noticed that Izora was kneeling on the ground and Tsuzuki had completely passed out. Even Julie had a completely open mouth off to the side. Only Louella seemed to be normal, but she had interacted with Regan more than anyone there.

“Well, I’m glad you like him, given your mana bond. He will channel your power much better than any other weapon I could make for you, and should grow with you. I just recommend that you treat him well—I wouldn’t want him to become a cursed weapon in the future.”

Father . . . I heard the voice in my head. I looked up to Regan with a small smirk on my face.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, I mean technically, but I treat everything I create as my children so . . .” Regan said and waved it off.

“Ezal, you man-killer,” Louella said and whistled.

“Stop that!” I said back to her.

It had been nearly two hours since I had broken through, but my hair and breathing were still releasing flames. I just sighed and figured I would have to live with it. I was glad that most of my clothes and other things were already flame-resistant. When I was a child, I tended to burn my pillow every few weeks.

“Hey, wake up! Stop drooling in my dungeon,” Regan said as he kicked Tsuzuki lightly.

He groaned and sat up slowly. “I feel like I just witnessed something history-making,” Tsuzuki mumbled.

“You would be right, Teacher,” Princess Izora said.

Regan handed me a golden band similar to the one Louella wore. Taking it, I put it on my left hand. As part of my actual body, I felt attaching the band there would mean more in this situation. Regan smiled and nodded in approval.

~~~

It felt good to sleep in my own room for the first time in several days. It was just . . . comfortable. Feuer floated next to the bed as I lay down. I was worried that the new limbs would be hard to sleep with, but they were actually quite relaxing and soft to the touch . . . for the most part. Curling up like a cat, I dozed off.

I woke the next morning and stretched. Parts of my body popped in just the right way, and I sighed in relief. I looked around when I didn’t see Feuer and found him at the window. He was in the sun and seemed to be basking in it.

Mother . . . hungry . . . I heard in my head.

I panicked for a moment as I tried to think what a sentient weapon would want to eat. Then I smacked my head—duh, mana. I channeled some mana into him and heard a contented sigh. He flew over and landed in my hand.

“I need to get dressed. Just a moment.” I released him and got up.

Feuer started floating again, but he seemed slightly reluctant to do so. I smiled; it seemed like I had a needy child. I looked at my stomach and lay my hand on the still utterly smooth surface.

“I wonder what you’ll act like,” I whispered.

Chapter 6

Louella

The next morning after Regan fixed Ezal, I woke and thought over what had happened and was still amazed at some of the events. Mainly, I was just happy Ezal was able to move again. That had been weighing me down since the incident, and I was just glad. I went into the dining room, and the maids served me breakfast. They had started buying the ingredients from a store Regan had opened near his dungeon. One of the maids had even taken to studying a cookbook she had found in the library a few days ago.

Needless to say, the food was wonderful. Ezal walked in from the hall, and I motioned for her to take a seat. I noticed that she had taken her outfit and removed the sleeve and leg section to show off her new limbs. She looked dangerous and not to be messed with. Her hair was still flaming. While her breaths weren’t causing as much of a leak of flame as last night, sparks still seemed to leap out every now and then.

I wanted her to get used to joining me at the table, as I planned on getting her an actual rank soon. It would be a little tougher, but I swore I would find a noble willing to sell the rank. Unless I reached the next rank first—then I would just do it myself. She sat down, and Feuer came to a rest next to her.

“Ezal, regarding what we were talking about yesterday—do you want the position?”

“I thought about it last night, and I decided it would be a good idea. While I would like to actually guard you myself, I feel that if I can make the town safer, then that would also make you safer.”

“In that vein, instead of my guard captain, how about my general?” I asked her. I was permitted a standing force, but I planned on gathering a larger number than I was technically allowed. I had a feeling that things would only get rougher going forward. I wanted someone I could trust to be my leader.

“General? Mistress, I know how to protect someone, or at least I know the theory,” Ezal said with a grimace. She must have been thinking about the other night. “But leading a force like that is a completely different sack of grain.”

“I still feel that you would be my best bet,” I said firmly.

“If . . . if you really think it would be alright, then I guess I will try. I need to remind you I am pregnant,” she finished with a smile.

“I know, but luckily, I think you have gotten the tools to move to the rear lines and still be a threat. Plus, being the general of the force will guarantee your safety to a certain degree.”

Generals were required to be captured if their forces lost the engagement. Then they would be sold back to their country or to a lord for a monetary amount that was usually so high that it could never be paid by the losing lord. I wasn’t worried about that. I just wanted to secure her safety as much as I could.

“Very well, you win,” Ezal said with her hands in the air.

We quickly finished our meal and then headed out to get the process started. First, we rounded up all the remaining Golden Dawn members who had survived for one reason or another. We explained that we were making a new force and that anyone willing to sit through a few tests and some questions could join if they wanted to leave the Dawn.

We left them with the sound of mumbling and whispering following behind us. It sounded like the reception was positive, but we couldn’t be sure until later. We made our way to the Adventurers Guild to see Cassie. The guild was busier than usual with people streaming in and out while carrying a variety of things. It looked like some were running errand quests and others were preparing to head into the dungeon. I was happy to see it so lively. After all, the Adventurers Guild was the lifeblood of the town.

Right as we approached the guild, a body came flying out of the second-floor window. It collided with the ground and plowed a small trench for a few meters before coming to a stop. That’s when I realized she was a woman. I looked back to the building and saw another woman jump out of the window, forming a small crater in the ground with her landing. She looked like a small mountain.

“I’m tired of you whoring around! Fucking slut!” the woman shouted as she walked toward the one struggling to get out of the trench.

“Just because you can’t get a man doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me,” the other woman said in a weird voice that seemed overly flirty when you considered that she was covered in dirt.

“Megan! You bitch!” the giant woman screamed in anger. A monstrous two-handed ax appeared in her hand as she picked up speed.

“Hannah, you know you can’t beat me in an actual fight,” Megan said as a pair of sabers appeared in her hands. She dusted off her outfit, which I saw was revealing to the max. I was more surprised that something wasn’t popping out.

“Well, today will be the day!” Hannah shouted back and shot toward Megan as the ground exploded out from under her feet.

She arrived in front of her and brought her ax straight down. Another explosion occurred where the ax impacted the ground. An Air mage in the crowd did a quick cast that caused the dust cloud to clear, and we were able to see Megan standing to one side as she tapped Hannah on the back with one of her sabers.

“That’s one point for me,” Megan said with a smirk. Hannah brought her ax back around for another strike. “I guess you’re serious this time.”

I frowned. At this rate they would destroy the entire plaza in front of the guild. Unfortunately, they seemed fairly powerful, so no one wanted to intervene in the fight. I turned to Ezal to ask what she wanted to do when a red blur shot past me, a small trail of flames following behind it.

Right as Hannah’s ax would have made another crater in the ground, Ezal grabbed it by the edge of the blade with her new hand, while she brought her leg around and kicked Megan full on the chin. Flames started to lick at the blade, and I worried she might melt the edge. Megan went flying for the second time that morning and landed in a limp pile a dozen meters away. Sometimes I forgot that Ezal had trained at the royal barracks to be a bodyguard.

“No violence in the streets by adventurers! I believe that is a town law for visiting adventurers,” Ezal said, steel in her voice.

Hannah struggled to pull her ax back, but Ezal had her body braced with her new leg and was even channeling some mana to be extra stable. Hannah seemed to lose her temper even more. “Son of a bitch! What do you think you’re doing to my sister!” she shouted, and the ground ruptured as the stone flowed around her.

Ezal took a deep breath, then her fingers melted through the blade. The liquid steel dripped to the ground. The lack of force from Ezal holding her back cause Hannah to overbalance, and she fell back suddenly. Another red blur shot from beside me, and I realized that Feuer had been floating next to me the whole time. The crescent-shaped blade pressed against Hannah’s throat, and she seemed to realize that it would be better if she calmed down.

“Alright! I think you two have caused enough trouble for today!” another female voice called from the guild entrance.

I looked and saw Noir from the competition. I hadn’t known she was still in town. I heard a rustle, and Megan climbed up from where she was lying. She cracked her neck but otherwise seemed fine.

“Ah, that really helped my sore neck from the intense night I had,” Megan said as she dusted herself off again.

“Lady Louella, I am sorry for the trouble caused by my sisters,” Noir said as she walked over, her pitch-black plate armor barely making a sound.

“As long as . . .” I started to say when a force of Regan’s automata rushed into the plaza.

“Attention, citizens! Excessive force has been detected, please submit to forces for questioning!” the middle automaton, which had red stripes on its shoulders, said to the crowd.

The crowd started to whisper and seemed to get upset at the situation.

I stepped forward to the automaton. “I take responsibility for this incident. Please let them be,” I said.

“Viscountess Louella, I understand. Their mana signatures have been registered. If the event is repeated, actions will be taken.” The automaton then turned in formation with the others and marched away.

I turned back to the crowd. “Alright, everyone, the situation has been handled, so please return to whatever you were doing!”

A few people still seemed upset, but most appeared relieved that I was able to do something about the automata. More than that, it looked like Ezal had gathered a small group of Fire mages, who were fawning over her. Especially the women, who wanted to know how she managed to get her hair like that. I hadn’t ever seen a person have that happen to them when breaking through, and apparently, neither had anyone else. Feuer circled her as if to keep people away.

I went back to Noir, who was standing next to her sisters. She seemed to be reprimanding them, but it looked like it was going in one ear and out the other for Megan. Hannah was also crying over her damaged ax. There was an interesting family dynamic at play.

“Think you can keep them in line?” I asked.

Noir turned to me and sighed before she replied, “Probably not . . . but I’ll try.”

“By the way, I need Hannah to pay for this,” I said, pointing at the craters all over the plaza and the hole in the wall of the Adventurers Guild.

“Don’t worry, the guild has a special fund already set aside for her.”

Just as I nodded, the ground started to repair itself in front of the crowd. I watched in marvel as the plaza and street returned to pristine shape. If people got used to this, there might be a surge of towns being built on dungeon cores. A person near one of the spots tapped it with the butt of his spear as if to check if it was real.

“Well. Isn’t that cute,” Megan said as she watched the spectacle. She seemed to cast a wicked look toward Hannah.

“Don’t get any ideas . . .” Noir said. She hadn’t even been looking at her.

Megan jerked up straight, then gave a nervous chuckle. “Ideas? What are those?”

“That’s right,” Noir said and nodded.

“Well, try not to break anything else while you’re here, please,” I said to the sisters.

The crowd went back to trying to get into the guild, or out of it, as the excitement was over. Ezal and I made our way in and luckily were able to meet Cassie right away. Her office was cluttered with mountains of stuff, and not just the usual paperwork.

“Cassie, I see you’re busy as well.”

Cassie looked up and her eyes locked on Ezal’s arm and leg for a minute. Her nose twitched before she looked away. I grew suspicious but didn’t know if it was just me being paranoid or something else. Cassie coughed as if to ease the tension. I moved my hand to my bracelet and sent Regan a message to see if he could make my bracelet like the obelisks in town. I got an affirmative answer from him and felt the mana of the bracelet change just barely.

“Sorry about that, a lot of . . . interesting smells coming from those. Do I smell diamond?” she said as she tapped her nose, then pointed at Ezal’s new limbs.

I didn’t get any sensation of unholy mana, but she could still be dangerous for other reasons. Just because someone wasn’t a necromancer didn’t mean they were innocent.

“I . . . see. How are the adventurer parties coming along?” I said and made a mental note to look into her background more thoroughly later.

“The Three Witches, which I just heard you dealing with, were the last B-rank party that accepted your request. With them, we have around a hundred B-rank and nearly fifteen hundred C-rank and lower to fill the gaps. If we plan carefully and work it right, it should be enough to deal serious damage to or even resist this monster horde. I just hope that your dungeon is really dealing with the Lecazar side, as we have literally no resources over there except basic scouts.”

“I trust him to handle it, don’t worry. I would like to start attacking the horde soon. The less time they have to gather the more likely we will be able to deal with it.”

“I agree. This isn’t a natural event, and considering how much the necromancers like this place, something tells me they are connected,” Cassie said. She looked at a map I hadn’t noticed at first.

I nodded and asked, “Not what you signed up for?”

She laughed. “No not really. I figured I would see a couple dozen adventurers a month for a few years, and would have trinkets and materials from a new dungeon to play with. Instead, in only a few months, I’ve beaten the record of some of the city guilds in both countries, while weapons that seem to improve by the week keep coming through these doors. Now, the mining floor is open and creating enough material to make a lot of people both very happy and very angry.”

“Yeah, Regan really threw this part of the continent for a loop. Now the gnomes are here as well,” I said.

“Cassie, I don’t know if you have someone chosen already, but I would like Ezal to lead the expedition. I have made her the local forces general, so I need the people to accept her.”

Cassie thought in silence for a moment, but she said, “That would actually be a good idea. As I told you, most of the adventurers are tier three and below, but we didn’t get anyone higher, so it’s hard for the parties to accept a single tier three as the leader. However, if Ezal were to lead, it would solve our problem, since they are required to listen to local leadership for a request like this.”

“I understand, tell them that I would like to lead the first expedition in a few days. Everyone is to be ready and waiting at the west gate at dawn,” Ezal ordered once it was decided.

I nodded. I wanted her to take command in situations like this.

We worked out a few more details, then left the guild. In the central plaza, we posted a general recruitment notice with the details listed so people would understand that there would be no exceptions to being examined by an obelisk. A crowd formed as soon as we started walking away, but we didn’t stop to watch.

As we made our way back to the manor, Wrakras, who had been following from the shadows, appeared next to me. I looked at him, wondering what would make him break his cover like this. “Iveta is approaching. She seemed flustered, so I came as a precaution.”

I nodded as we kept making our way through the street. Sure enough, Iveta rounded the street corner a moment later and looked around. When she spotted us, she ran as fast as she could, which for an air cultivator was ridiculous. Before I could blink twice, she was in front of me, breathing heavily.

“Mistress, I need you back at the manor as soon as possible! It’s urgent!”

I looked to Ezal, then back to Iveta and nodded. We rushed along the street back to the manor. Luckily, we seemed pressed enough that the crowds parted for us easily enough.

When we made it to the manor, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. But when we were about twenty meters from the wooden gate around the manor, a tall form rose from the hedgerow. I skidded to a stop and gaped at the large-as-fuck wolf that was sitting in my yard as if it belonged there. It took me a moment, but I realized it was one of the wolves from Regan’s dungeon that we’d met yesterday.

“Not that, Mistress, I mean that’s important too, but the real urgent matter is inside the manor,” Iveta said before I could say anything.

We made our way inside, and my eyes widened at the sight of a maid cleaning up a trail of blood. I looked Iveta over, but she seemed unharmed. We went to the guest room, and a familiar face greeted us. Bruce lay on the bed, breathing heavily with most of his body bandaged.

“Fuck.”

Chapter 7

Bruce

A few days before the incident

“One thousand!” I shouted. Then, with a bang, I dropped the metal bar that had a few hundred pounds of stone on each end. I got up off the bench and moved over to a basin, then grabbed the stone inside, channeled some mana, and used the resulting flowing water to wash the sweat off. I set the stone down when I was done and donned my armor. It was time for me to take over the guard duty.

I left the room of the inn and moved down the hall. So still someone might have taken her for a statue, Avina stood watch next to the marquis’s room. After I approached and took my place on the other side of her, she left without a word and entered another room down the hall.

We’d rented the entire top floor for extra precaution, but still it lacked some security, not being on the airship. Master had received a letter that bore his private seal and decided to head for Robia Valley under cover of darkness, even resorting to using an artifact that moved us several hundred kilometers from the capital, much more than the gate at the center of town would have allowed. I’m not sure why the change of attitude, but it just meant we of his private guard had to pull a little extra weight.

Dawn quickly colored the sky pink outside one of the windows, and another night passed without issue. At the pace we were traveling, it would take us another week or so to get to Robia. I heard a noise from the room and peeked inside to see the marquis getting ready. His face had a very determined set, the likes of which I had never seen it have before.

“Bruce, my friend! Come in here for a moment.”

I jerked and made my way inside. “My lord?”

“None of that right now. I’m talking to you as Valamar to Bruce, my childhood friend and the person I trust more than anyone in this world.”

I grew more shocked with every word but nodded. “I understand.” Val never talked like that unless it was about something of great importance.

“You must be curious about all this?” he asked, and I nodded again. “A few days ago, I got a letter from Lady Ezal. Apparently, she is carrying my child.”

“My lord—” I started but got a glare. “Val, surely you don’t believe this! How could she possibly know it’s yours? We were only there a short amount of time!” I argued. People were always trying to claim this or that to get favors or rewards from my master.

“Of course, I was suspicious at first, but after I finished reading the letter, I got a gist of how she found out. I decided to trust my instinct, and we are heading there to confirm this. But I know for a fact that I was her first,” Val said with a severe expression that said he had thought it all through as well.

“If it is true, is it really that big of a problem? You already said you wanted to marry her, and if she is carrying your heir, then all the better,” I said with a big smile, hoping to cheer him up. Having known him nearly his entire life, I knew that he’d come to truly care for this woman even though they’d only spent a few days together.

“Indeed, if this all pans out, I will be incredibly happy. It’s just, I learned some . . . disturbing news when we made it back to the capital.” I remained silent and waited for him to continue. “It seems that my father would wed me to a woman named Helicilia.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “What are the chances of it being a coincidence?” We had just heard that name from Sir Regan back in Robia. Apparently, she was something of a leader for the necromancers.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Val said with a frown. I slowly nodded in reply. It was just too close together for it to be someone else. Val took a deep breath and continued. “Either Father is unaware, or he is very aware, and my father is not a stupid man.”

“I understand,” I said and kneeled in front of him. “What do you need of me?”

“If . . . if something should happen to me, I want you to take care of my child and Ezal. I know this is asking a lot of you, but I don’t want you to seek revenge for me.”

I jerked my head up in surprise once again. Val was a very confident person, he wouldn’t order something like this without reason. “Val! If you know something, then we should change course or set up a diversion . . . anything!”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t help, and I don’t want to go into why. I just hope that we reach the valley without incident. Once we’re there, we’ll be safe,” he said, then reached down to set his hand on my shoulder. Well, reached down is pushing it a bit; my shoulder was almost level with his middle torso even while I was kneeling.

“I . . . see . . .” I bowed my head. “I promise that no matter what, I will protect Lady Ezal and your child, my lord.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Val said with a smile.

A knock sounded at the door, and Avina looked in. “My lord, it’s time to depart.”

“Thank you, Avina. Let’s go, Bruce.”

We made our way out of the inn, and we were on our way shortly. We each had a horse that had reached the tier two realm, so they were quite powerful animals for riding. Mine was of the terra element, which gave it the strength to carry me in full armor and still be able to keep pace with the others. The day passed uneventfully with only a small attack by some bandits, which was handled in a matter of seconds without issue. We made good time with the fall weather seeming to hold back the cold for us a bit. We reached a small village just as the sun was setting and managed to rent the entire top floor of the one inn in town, as it was empty besides us.

We set up the usual rotations for guard duty while Val got some rest. He’d barely spoken to anyone during the day and seemed to have worried the others, but I couldn’t blame him. I went to a room and pulled my workout equipment out of my storage ring and proceeded to do my presleep warm-up. As my mana was fire, I’d learned to be able to cultivate it from the heat my muscles put off while training. This type of mana seemed to be rare. I had tried to teach it to my brothers at the academy, but they were never able to understand it.

I was in the middle of switching to another tool when I felt something was . . . off. I wasn’t sure what it was that rubbed me the wrong way. The place was silent, and outside, the village was asleep. I peeked out into the hall and saw Avina still guarding the marquis’s door, the cursed chain leading into the door of her own room. I decided to trust my instinct and made my way over.

“Avina, how is it?”

She glared at me but replied, “Same as usual. Nothing to my knowledge.”

“I see. Well, I have something to discuss with Lord Val. Excuse me,” I said and went to knock on the door.

Avina stepped in my way. “I can’t let you do that. My lord is trying to sleep!” she hissed at me angrily.

“Sorry, it’s important.” I tried to force my way through.

Before I could take a step forward, she leveled her spear at me. I slid back in reaction, to make some space. “Just . . . just turn around, Bruce.”

“Avina! What is the meaning of this?!”

“I’m sorry, but he left me no other choice! They said I could have him when they were done! They said he would be mine!” she shouted with a crazed look in her eyes.

I willed my shield and sword from my storage ring, thankful that I worked out in my armor for added weight. The weapons appeared in my hands as I braced myself and said, “If you don’t move, I’ll make you move!”

Avina’s frown deepened and she took a fighting stance. I grimaced but Val was more important. Small flames started to flicker along my shield as I readied myself. Bracing, I charged, shield leading the way. Her spear collided with my shield and managed to make a nasty gash but couldn’t penetrate it. I collided with her and slammed her through the door to Val’s room. Her body went flying after the door stopped resisting her, and she collided with a person who was in the room performing some type of spell.

“VAL!” I shouted as I rushed to the bed and blocked it from the intruder. Val seemed to be in some type of trance but was slowly regaining his composure. “ENEMY ATTACK!” I shouted so that the others would be awakened.

Several doors in the hall crashed open, and the others rushed in barely ten seconds later. Liuvan came in as well, and I leveled my sword at him. Understanding crossed his eyes, and he swung his halberd, making enough room to get to Avina.

“Really?! We were finally going to be free, and you had to fuck up on the last night?!” Liuvan scolded Avina.

“The brute interfered!”

“That’s insulting!” I shouted back.

Val shook his head and looked around. Taking in the situation in a glance, he stood up from the bed and moved next to me. The room wasn’t really built for this many people, and it was starting to get crowded. The floor creaked with all the weight in the room. He looked at Avina before asking, “Avina, how could you? After all we’ve been through together?”

“BECAUSE YOU WOULD NEVER LOOK AT ME!” she screamed hysterically.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t love you like that. You are like a little sister to me,” Val said with a sad smile.

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Some very nice people said you would be all mine to do with as I please here soon.”

“Is it the same for you, Liuvan?” Val asked.

“Haha, that’s funny. But no, I was actually on the other team from the start,” Liuvan said, then tapped the chain. It melted and flowed into his halberd. Then he pulled off an amulet or medallion and tossed it to the ground. The darkness seemed to get a bit darker. “Ah, so liberating,” he said, then turned to the cloaked figure that had been casting a spell on Val and nodded. The figure threw a globe of darkness outside through the window, which should have been warded for intruders, and it burst in the air.

I suddenly felt a wave of mana rushing toward the inn, and I reacted by grabbing Val and using my Flame Fortress. I felt an intense impact, then the floor gave out under us. The next thing I knew, I was covered in debris from the building, but at least Val was safe. I sent out a burst of flames and blew the debris off us. When we looked around, we heard screams coming from all over the village and saw several buildings already on fire with a wicked green and black flame.

“Val! Are you alright?” I asked urgently.

“Yes, thanks to you.”

We got up and looked for the others. Neldor had a white barrier around him but was pinned under a beam. I couldn’t see Urena, but I hoped that she was alright. Avina, Liuvan, and the cloaked figure were surrounded by the necromancer’s common barrier. They had quite a bit of debris surrounding them as well, which was probably why they hadn’t attacked yet.

Avina and Liuvan swung their weapons, flinging the debris from them. A large number of cloaked figures emerged from the surroundings and encircled us. I gulped—it was quite a few, and I doubted we would be able to get out of this. I tightened the grip on my sword and shield until my knuckles turned white. Flames started to leak from the gaps in my armor. I wouldn’t let them take Val without a fight.

A woman who didn’t bother to hide her features stepped out from the crowd. She was tall, with slightly wavy shoulder-length blonde hair, and burning eyes. I had to personally say that she was one of the most attractive women I had ever seen. She had shoulder length blond hair that was wavy She reminded me of a noble’s daughter.

“Did you hate the idea of being my boy toy so much?” a sensual voice said, seeming to flow over to us.

“I would rather die than marry a woman like you!” Val shouted back.

“Pity, I just wanted to use you for a few nights,” she said with a sorrowful tone.

“You promised he would be mine!” Avina screamed toward the woman, who I had to assume was Helicilia.

Helicilia looked over to Avina with contempt. “Be quiet, girl,” she said, then waved her hand. Black spikes that had to number in the hundreds formed around her. I barely had time to blink before they shot toward Avina. A barrier of light went up around her, but it paled in comparison to the power of the attack. She was torn to pieces as the spikes ripped through her. She barely screamed before she lost the ability to continue doing so. I was honestly surprised that she was still alive before at least fifteen spikes tore through her head.

“Monster!” Val shouted.

“I get the job done, nothing more, nothing less. Now, as you can see, I am more than a match for you by myself, but I have several dozen more mages with me. So please, just come with me quietly,” she said as spells of all kinds started to form around us.

I whispered so that only Val could hear me, “I’m going to charge her. Use my distraction to escape in any way you can.”

“Bruce, no!” Val said, but I ignored him.

Channeling every ounce of mana I had at my disposal, I exploded toward Helicilia. The ground cracked from the force of my acceleration, while I created the hottest flames surrounding me. Several spells flew toward me, many making impact, but my trusty armor outlasted them. I felt an intense pain in my stomach but kept up my charge.

“Hmph, amusing,” I vaguely heard Helicilia say just as something engulfed me.

My charge came to a complete stop, and I looked at what had me. The white of ancient bones surrounded me as a giant arm came out of a black tear in the air. More emerged from the black portal as a dragon made out of bone took shape in front of me. It tightened its grip on me and several of my bones started to crack.

“Sorry . . . my . . . lord . . .” I gasped through gritted teeth. I could feel blood leaking from my nose and mouth.

“Well, I can’t say I hate loyal followers, they are quite hard to come by. Hey, how about you come work for me?” Helicilia said as she ran a finger down my jaw.

“N . . . ev . . . er,” I said.

“Oh well,” she said and snapped her fingers.

The bone dragon gripped harder. My armor cracked, which drove several pieces into my body. Blood burst through the claw marks and fell to the ground. I just barely maintained consciousness as the dragon tossed me aside. I landed nearly one hundred meters away, the impact jarring my body even more. If I were an average person, I would have been dead several times over. I couldn’t move anymore, but I channeled what little mana I had left into my eyes so I could watch what happened. I would need to know if I wanted to be able to rescue Val from them.

“Now, back to business. I really do need you to come with me. Everyone thinks female virgins are the only good source of mana, but men are just as useful, especially one as powerful as you. It all depends on the fates.”

“Ha . . . haha . . . . HAHAHA,” Val laughed. I saw Helicilia’s eyes narrow. “You might as well kill me. If you had told Avina what you were planning, she could have told you that I wasn’t one anymore as of a few weeks ago,” Val said, then laughed some more.

Helicilia jerked her head to another mage, and he did something. When he nodded to her and she ground her teeth, I knew that had somehow confirmed what Val had confessed. “Pointless,” she said, then turned to her dragon. “Kill them.”

The bone dragon roared, then charged toward the ruined inn. I tried to get up, but my body refused to move. A massive wave of mana came out of Val as he held his ground, his sword raised. The dragon brought its claw down, and Val responded by meeting it with his sword. A shock wave blasted out from the impact.

Neldor had cast some type of holy magic, which caused Val to glow. The bones of the claw started to smoke when it made contact with Val’s sword. They exchanged blows a few more times before the dragon roared and seemed to heave a deep breath. Shadows gathered in its chest, then, with a release of its breath, a dense wave of darkness washed over the two, even taking Liuvan with it.

I could barely make out Neldor struggling to maintain a barrier made of light against the darkness. I couldn’t even yell when I saw the barrier give out and the shadows swallow them completely. It lasted nearly an entire minute before the bone dragon finally closed its mouth.

“Finally. This has been a tremendous waste of time,” Helicilia said as she walked over to where Val would be. “At least this righteous fool has been dealt with,” she continued, then ground her foot into something.

I heard what sounded like bones shatter, then I just couldn’t maintain my will anymore. I wanted to swear to seek her out and kill her a thousand times, but my promise to Val kept echoing in my mind.

~~~

I awoke who knew how long later when I felt a wetness. I opened my eyes slowly, not sure what to expect when I looked around. What I saw was smoke rising from the smoldering husks of buildings in the background. The inn was a pile of rubble, with most of it having been turned into ash. I listened but couldn’t hear anything but the pattering of rain on my armor and the ground nearby.

I tried to move but could barely budge myself. I concentrated, willing my armor into my storage ring. A couple hundred kilos lighter and I was able to sit up slowly. I saw a smoldering body a few meters away while I spat to get the taste of the air out my mouth.

I crawled toward the inn slowly, still not able to walk. I couldn’t believe that Val and the others were dead. It felt like a nightmare to me, and I just wanted to wake up. I was completely coated in mud by the time I made it to the ruin of the inn. I lifted my body, barely managing to get to my feet. Finally, I stumbled forward into what remained of Val’s room, the few posts that still maintained their shape.

There were several corpses . . . more like skeletons. It was as if all their fluids and insides had been sucked out of them. The corpse that would have been Val’s also had its head crushed in. I moved over to it and reached down under the shirt. There would be an amulet there that only Val was able to remove even if he died. I sucked in a breath when I felt it, that meant this . . .

“AA-HH!”

I don’t know how long I yelled, but I heard a sound next to my foot. I jerked my head down and saw Liuvan’s body twitching. I was just about to grab him when I noticed a green glow from his face reflected in the water on the ground. I pulled my sword from my ring and watched as Liuvan’s body started to moan like the undead were prone to in the presence of life.

“Fuck you!” I said and stabbed my sword into the back of its head.

Flames blasted out from my blade and roasted the already blackened body until it turned to ash. I breathed heavily as my anger passed a bit. More moans sounded out from the village. As I was probably the only living thing bigger than a bug within a kilometer, they were most likely all headed toward me.

I pulled a spare shield that was lighter than my usual one out of my ring and looked toward the village edge. There was a stable that looked mostly intact. I had to hope there was a horse still alive inside. A form rushed from a nearby building, an undead that had already evolved. A moan that was close to a roar came from it as it ran toward me.

“Come at me!” I shouted, then I let my flames roar for me. They engulfed me while the sound of the fire echoed, and the heat turned the ground black.

The creature jumped when it was about ten meters away from me. I braced myself, then swung my sword over my head. The trusted blade sliced the creature in half, and black blood splattered over me. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and spit on the corpse, the upper half of which was still moving. I coated my foot in flames and brought it down to crush the thing’s skull.

Several more forms were making their way toward me. I cracked my neck. It looked like I wasn’t going to be leaving here that easily, after all. I condensed my flames to a blue color with white edges and lined the edge of my blade. With a quick look around, I found a stone wall that had been built for carriage storage. I moved toward it slowly but managed to reach it before the undead could reach me. Then I put my back to it so that they couldn’t surround me.

The runners, ten of them, reached me first. I swung my blade, and a wave of condensed flame left the edge of my sword. Two of the runners were unable or didn’t care to dodge and were sliced in half. The ones behind them shoved them out of the way and kept going. I braced my shield, and when the forerunner collided with it, I brought my sword around and sliced off its head.

The rest collided with me, and I fought tooth and nail. After a minute there was a pile of bodies around me that had formed a small wall. I breathed heavily, completely drained. But when I looked around, I saw nearly thirty more undead a couple hundred meters from me. I moved as quickly as I could and made for the forest. At that point, I’d rather have fought monsters than any more undead. I was already channeling most of my mana into fighting off the corpse poison.

I stumbled through the forest. Although I was leaving a pretty good blood trail, I was putting distance between the ghouls and myself. When I could no longer hear their moans, I stopped and quickly bandaged my wounds to stanch the bleeding. It took longer than I would have liked, but I got it done and picked up my pace through the forest.

~~~

It was early morning when I came across a camp that had been set up along a road. I called out to make them aware of my approach, and a group of people with weapons drawn had encircled the camp by the time I entered their site. It was standard procedure for most camps.

“Help!” I called wearily.

I felt a wash of light over me, and some of my wounds healed.

“What happened?! Bandits?” a man asked as he rushed toward me and grabbed my shoulder to help me into the camp.

“Undead,” I answered honestly. Undead needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible when outbreaks happened on that side of the mountain.

The man turned toward another man. “Go, warn the nearest village!”

The second man nodded and jumped on a horse.

“Please, I need a horse!” I said to the man aiding me.

“We have a spare, but you shouldn’t be moving. You’re pretty banged up,” he said as he held me down.

“I don’t have time. I need to go!” I said as I pulled several gems from my storage ring. The man took them nervously and led me to a horse they had tied up with the others.

“This is the best we got. I don’t think you should be riding, but I won’t stop you,” the man said as he handed me the reins.

“Thank you for your concern,” I said, mounting the horse. “If we ever meet again, I’ll treat you to a meal.” I cracked the reins and took off.

Chapter 8

Regan

The ground cracked as I walked from the tunnel entrance. Mana was still rushing into the hole I had “punched” through the mountain, but it wasn’t the tainted mana. As I studied the mana that flowed through and into my aura on the other side, I found that it was ambient mana that had nearly no taint. Now that I physically stood on the other side of the mountain, I could see that the tainted ambient mana seemed to resist moving. I wondered if something was controlling it after all, or if it was just because the mana didn’t align properly; like fire mana in a volcano or unholy mana in a dying forest, that sort of thing.

I’d absorbed quite a few ghouls and zombies. They had started to pile up for the miners killing them as they emerged from the forest, and the miners started sending them to the dungeon where I would consume them. Some of the bodies were relatively fresh, while others were several years old. They were in all shapes, sizes, and ages, which was a bit sad.

I walked away from the entrance, a contingent of automata around me. Anubis was also with me. He seemed to enjoy the atmosphere here quite a bit, and he breathed deeply and pulled in the unholy and dark mana in the area. We moved roughly a kilometer from the entrance. Then I tapped my staff on the ground, and a wave of gravity blasted out. Everything was ripped clean of the ground, thrown several hundred meters clear of the spot I’d chosen to place my newest subcore. Of course, my guards were protected from the spell. It was easy to make a bubble around an object.

I was going to have to use pure mana for parts of the construction, but I decided it was a small price to pay. Besides, I had quite a bit at the moment. I created an antigravity area around my avatar, then floated several hundred meters into the air. Once there, I created a sphere made out of mithril and diamond nanothread. The entire sphere cost nearly twenty-three million mana. It tore a good chunk out of my pool, but it was the only thing that was absolutely needed. I had a good amount of mithril built up, so that offset the cost a bit.

The material was impenetrable. Or, at least, everything I could think to throw at it was unable to get through it. I could create magic scripts inside the material itself, allowing for nanocircuitry for magic. I created the most substantial barrier I could, which even I couldn’t penetrate with my senses if I weren’t coded to it. Once it was ready, I placed my subcore inside. My newest aura filled the space inside the sphere, then exploded out.

It was able to expand about ten meters before the tainted mana actually struck back, which caught me totally by surprise. An arc of black energy came from several different directions and slammed into the sphere, Anubis, and me. My avatar was vaporized with no small amount of pain. When my senses came back to me, I saw that Anubis, while smoking, was alright, and the sphere was fine as well. Mana had never reacted like that before, so I was caught off guard.

I gritted my teeth in anger. I wasn’t about to take shit from static discharge of all things. Moving my ethereal body over to the sphere, I worked with some demantoid, or andorite, to make several large spike-like pillars. I scripted them to draw in all excess mana in the area and then convert it to my own. When I was satisfied, I moved back and tried to expand my aura again.

I’d reached roughly twenty meters when it seemed to trigger some kind of response. The arcs of black energy reappeared, and suction in the air seemed to echo out as the pillars altered the path of the energy. They struck the pillars, the energy coursing through it toward my core. As it moved down the pillar, it turned a cyber-looking blue before it was pulled into the sphere.

If I were a mortal, I would have burped from the deliciousness of the mana I’d just absorbed. I normally have to absorb tainted mana, or at least mana that felt slightly not right, but this mana . . . it just seemed to agree with me perfectly. I might have to consider adding these pillars to all my cores, I thought. I went ahead and changed the pillars in front of me so that all the mana absorbed by the aura there would be fed through the pillars into the core.

With that taken care of, I worked on the next part. I created another larger sphere around the small one that was made out of regular nanosteel. I wanted it to be strong, but I didn’t need it to be able to survive a nuke. From there I added three large “arms” to the structure, which could be repurposed into whatever I needed them for later. The area taken by the structure soon reached almost a kilometer.

The arms were wide enough to support several city-size blocks on it. They were bare for the most part, as I hadn’t set them to a purpose yet. Only the area near the core had a few buildings already. While I could use mana throughout my aura, that wasn’t true for many of my creations. Thus, I created powerlines that linked all the buildings and structure on each arm.

At the end of each arm, I added networks of hexagons that were enscripted to absorb the sunlight, then convert it to energy to power Shield spells. In between the individual hexagons, I added a weapon platform of some type. This felt a little random, but I wanted it to be able to handle whatever might attack, no matter from which direction.

I connected the base to the ground, then stood back. It needed a bit more work, but I felt I had a nice fortress now. I looked to the ground, frowning at how bare it seemed. I channeled my mana and waved my hand, resulting in the ground changing into reinforced concrete.

I kept at it until forty-meter walls were surrounding the base, which went all the way back to the mountain. They were multilayered with several types of materials reinforcing them, some denser than others. They would be able to take quite a beating.

I looked over my new base and smiled. It had a completely modern feel to it. While my time on Earth had been . . . troubled, I had always loved the feel of concrete, the right angles of buildings, and the smell of cities—when I was on a clean street, anyway. I unleashed a couple hundred of my stored automata forces into the base to crew the defenses and facilities.

Near the center of one of the arms stood a large building a few stories tall. I moved inside where labs of all sorts were set up. I looked back into my main dungeon and grabbed some of the smartest goblins, Jarvis, and a few librarian automata that had shown increased interest in the things they read.

The goblins seemed surprised but calmed down when they saw me. I turned to Jarvis. “Your talents are being wasted in the dungeon watching the cameras all day. I need you up here to research the undead. I want to know everything we can find out about them. These are the best of the best in their areas. They’re your new team.” Short and sweet.

Jarvis took it all like a champ. Bowing his head, he said, “As you command. I shall instruct the drones to bring us samples.”

“Good, the goblins can move about anywhere in this building and the streets connected to it. I plan on moving a few of the families here in the future for outside projects.”

“Whatever you say, boss!” one of the males said for the group. Their Boston accents always brought a smile to my face.

“Hey! We Fuides will speak for ourselves!” another goblin said as he smacked the first over the head.

“Get along,” I said simply, and they shut their mouths quickly.

I pulled out some of the corpses that I had saved from my storage, then set them in a pile over to one side of the room. Some basic robots activated and began to distribute the bodies to various workstations. The gathered group broke up into smaller pairs and such, then moved to the stations to check over the equipment. I downloaded the instructions into the librarian models so they could explain their uses.

While knowing it might take some time, I felt this was a good investment for the future. I was sure I would be in here on and off to help and check how they were coming. I left the research team and moved to the edge of the platform on one of the arms.

Even now a small horde of ghouls and other undead monsters were pounding on the walls. One of the turrets on the wall activated as the automata brought them online. After a few moments of charging, a large arc of electricity shot from the turret. It collided at one end of the small horde, then traveled along the wall, incinerating everything along with it.

Some automata I had modeled after Natsuko moved up to high points along the wall that had several towers, which added another fifty or so meters. Then a barely audible popping sound, to even me, echoed out as they took out the more dangerous undead by destroying their heads. I glanced over toward one of the gates and saw a large group of automata, with Jarvis standing behind them. It must have been his sample acquisition team. I was impressed with how fast he worked.

I watched over the hive of machines for a while as I planned what to do next. Now that I was in the Deadlands, I wanted to focus on it, remove the problem at the source, as it were, but I was afraid to leave my back exposed. I wasn’t sure how difficult it was going to be to deal with the monster horde yet and was hesitant to throw everything I had in the Deadlands.

The sample team had left and come back twice already when I felt a message from Louella. Something wasn’t right, and her voice sounded as if she was in quite a panic. She informed me that Bruce had shown up injured to hell and that the marquis was most likely dead. They were still working the story out of the man apparently. I was about to move over to them when I heard a large boom over to the side of the fort.

I jerked my head over and saw a giant form rising out of the nearby forest. Amplifying my eyes, much like a camera zoom, I was able to make the creature out. I wouldn’t really have been sure how to describe it even if I’d been asked. It looked like a treant, a tree creature that could move around, except some parts were made from bones. The bark and bones seemed to be fused together, making it hard to describe. Green energy leaked from places along its body, and it actually looked like it was in pain.

Where a face would normally be, a skull resided. Branches, twisted and gnarled, arced from its body, huge limbs and trunks that served as arms and legs and allowed it to move like a mortal. Each step it took caused the ground to wither a bit as if it were sucking the nutrients out until not even the life force remained.

I whistled. We were only on the edges of the Deadlands, and there were already giant monsters. The sample team moved forward to block its path with machine-level precision. The improved auxiliary troops, which I started calling gunners, pressed buttons on their guns, causing them to morph into rocket launchers, and began to load the rockets. I had taken some inspiration from Natsuko’s weapon when making my improvements.

A moment later, over a dozen rockets blasted toward the gigantic creature. With an enormous boom that rivaled when the creature . . . I guessed formed, the missiles collided with the creature. Flames and shrapnel tore through it as it roared in pain. Its top half was obliterated into smoldering pieces of wood and bones. It slowly fell to its knees, then all the way to the ground.

Several more booms followed after, and I figured the battle was over, but it turned out to be over half a dozen more of the creatures rising from the forest. I noted that each was a certain distance from the other, so I reasoned that they must be forest guardians like treants, but had turned into those . . . things.

I shifted my senses and noted that each creature seemed to react to my aura reaching its spot in the forest. The ones that had arisen were only a few kilometers from the fort, after all. I was tempted to let the problem sort itself out. My forces were enough to deal with them, as they were just big and seemed to lack any kind of intelligence, at least lacked it after the transformation.

“Jarvis.”

A rune appeared next to me. Then, with a column of light, Jarvis appeared. Once the spell was over, he bowed his head and said, “Yes, sir?”

“Do you think you can capture one of those alive?”

“Alive, sir?”

“Fine, not turned into a pile of splinters,” I retorted.

“It should be possible, sir.”

“Do it, then. Also, how many samples have you gathered?” I asked. Unless I looked directly at them, they just appeared to be blobs of unholy mana to the part of my mind observing from the background.

“Nearly fifty, sir. The skeletons have been harder to capture . . . undamaged. However, we have still managed to collect a few. There is an . . . issue, I would like to report since I am already here,” Jarvis said.

“Go ahead,” I said. I needed to know everything I could about this land if I wanted to fix it.

“The ambient mana is causing our parts to corrode at accelerated rates. Without a countermeasure, a continuous supply of mana will become an increasingly bigger necessity.”

I tapped my chin as I mulled that over. “How long can you last without a mana supply?”

“If my calculations are correct from the two previous trips, then roughly four hours or so. The higher-tier automata would last longer, I wager.”

“That is concerning,” I said with a frown. I had wanted to steamroll this bloody mess of a country, but it looked like that had just gotten harder. “Alright, get back to your troops,” I finished with a pat to his shoulder.

“As you command, sir,” Jarvis said with a bow. One of his eyes lit up, then the magic rune appeared under him as he teleported back to his force.

Only a few minutes passed before Jarvis’s force surrounded one of the creatures. Harpoons with large chains fired from the gunners’ rocket launchers, digging deep into the bark and bones. I looked closely as I saw that Jarvis had snagged a few Echos. They were the ones with four hands rather than tools. A group of four had ahold of the chains and were working to bring the creature down.

A group of the smaller automata grabbed a chain next, then proceeded to run around the legs until they were tied up. The creature tried to stomp around and even into them but was too slow. With its balance thrown off, it slowly started to collapse. The Echos began to drag it back to the fort. I had to tip my hat again to Jarvis for working so fast.

I moved my gaze over to the fort and chose a clear spot. There I erected a large cage that would be able to house the creature and inserted a post that the chains could be connected to. I drove the chains several dozen meters into the ground and added spikes that branched off to force the creature to pull up a section of ground that easily weighed several hundred tons, if it tried to escape.

Chapter 9

Izora

Regan moved toward me with a weapon much like I had seen Louella use, only it reminded me more of the ancient weapon I used when I dungeon dived. He held it out to me, and I took it gingerly, afraid to break it.

Mother? a voice asked in my head.

“Yes!” I replied excitedly. A warm feeling entered my heart as I gripped the sentient weapon to my chest. “Thank you, Regan!” I said. I would never regret coming to this valley, no matter how long I lived into the future.

Regan moved forward and grabbed my shoulder. His eyes took on a deep crimson color as parts in his chest glowed. “Now you belong to me,” he said.

“Of course,” I answered without hesitation. My eyes slowly turned red, and parts of my body started to change as lines formed along my skin. When the lines, which seemed to turn at random but always in ninety degrees, reached my heart, my body jerked.

~~~

I shot up in my futon, gasping for breath. I yanked open my shirt to look at my chest, then breathed in a sigh when I saw the two mounds that had been there for the last few years, still light tone color flesh. It was quite concerning to have had the same dream twice since I’d seen Ezal get her sentient weapon from Regan. I wasn’t sure if it was my desire, greed, or lust that was driving the dreams.

I shook my head, then looked outside. Dawn was cresting over the valley wall as I groaned but got up. I had purchased some dresses from the town, so I went with one of those, as, to be honest, they were easier to move in. I had started carrying several knives along with my large warhammer no matter where I went. I didn’t want to be caught off guard again.

I joined Vern on the deck in preparation for going over to the library later that day. She’d found some interesting books, but we weren’t allowed to remove them from the library. Someone had tried. Let’s just say, they no longer got to enjoy this world. People had stayed away from the library for a few days after that, but the knowledge inside seemed to keep growing by the hour, so it was hard to stay away for long.

“So, what is it that you found exactly?” I asked as we walked over, my guards like a shadow in my wake.

“It’s called physics, Your Highness!” she said excitedly. “I’ve only just started with the basic science, as physics is in the higher realm of the magic. Even though I understand the language rather fluently now, it’s like another language built into it. It’s fascinating!”

“I . . . see . . . So, what is physics, or even this science?” I asked further.

Vern’s eyes focused back on the road ahead. “My apologies, Your Highness. I got carried away. Science is a systematic method of building and organizing knowledge in the form of testable and observable study. For example, what is water?”

“The wet stuff that we drink to keep us alive?” I ventured.

“Yes, but according to the book I’m studying, water basically keeps the entire planet moving. There was so much information on just water alone that it took up nearly thirty pages of the book. The water is absorbed by the ground, where it travels to a water table. From there it is discharged into the oceans, lakes, and rivers. The water then goes through a process . . .” Vern spent the next ten minutes explaining all the details of the water cycle, as she said it was called. Soon, my head actually started to hurt.

Tsuzuki spoke up from the back. “Some scholars had reasoned some of that out by following the flow of water mana. I had no idea it was quite so . . . profound.”

We finally arrived at the library and saw that it was quite crowded, or at least the bottom floor was. People of all sorts lingered inside. I saw adventurers, simple villagers, craftspeople, and even some children in a section off to the side that seemed to have books that contained a lot of pictures.

As we approached the desk at the center of the entrance hall, one of the librarians came up to us. “Ah, Miss Vern. Back again today?” she asked.

“Yup, can’t get enough of this place.”

“My master would be pleased to hear this,” she said and bowed her head slightly.

“Lily, are any private rooms open?” Vern asked.

“Miss Vern, as I have said before, please do not call me that. There are several available on the fourth floor,” the librarian said, exasperated.

“Thanks, Lily!” Vern said with a smile, then dragged me over to the stairs.

“Lily?” I asked curiously.

“Huh? Oh, I had a friend back in Jade Wind that liked to frequent the libraries. One day I accidentally called the librarian by my friend’s name, and it kind of stuck.” She looked around, then moved next to my ear. “I have a theory I’m testing. I think if a mortal forms a bond of some kind with the automata, they gain sentience, at least to a certain level. I’m not sure about the magic behind it yet.”

I looked around nervously. “You sure Regan won’t be upset?!” I asked.

“I don’t think it bothers him. I know he has looked at me several times during my interaction with Lily, but he has never done anything,” Vern said with a shrug.

“Then why keep it on the down-low like this?” I asked, confused.

“Because if everyone started naming them, I would lose my advantage for the book I’m writing!”

“Ah, and the truth emerges,” I said as I shook my head.

We made it to the fourth floor and entered a party room. Most of the others grabbed a book while Sasori kept a guard outside the door. Vern moved over to the wall and tapped a panel. A slightly see-through screen appeared. Then she moved her finger down the list, and the names of the books changed. I stared at it in amazement. How much paperwork would be saved if we had something like this in a government building? She seemed to read my mind and smirked.

“Haha, I know, oh I know. I have already begged the librarians to tell me how it worked, but they only said it wasn’t up to them. I’m not confident enough to bother the host about something like this just yet, though.”

“I agree.”

“Where is it . . .” Vern muttered as she moved down the list. “It gets longer each time I come in.”

She made a happy sound, then pressed on a title. A moment later a librarian walked in, carrying a few books.

“Miss Vern, do you need a translator today?” she asked. I could actually tell the difference between this one and Lily from the tone of her voice.

“I should be alright, thank you,” Vern replied, and the librarian nodded as she set the books down and left. Vern pulled one of the books forward, opening it to a section near the middle. “This is a middle-school-level science book, which I believe means a certain level of the academy from another world. Anyway, the reason I feel this is so important to show you is the type of magic you use, Your Highness.”

“My type? I don’t have a type,” I said, getting more confused.

“I would argue that you are all types,” she said, then showed me a picture of several spheres that rotated around each other. “This is called an ‘atom.’ It is the basic building block of everything around us. I think you affect these on an instinctual level . . .”

After nearly three hours, during which even Tsuzuki joined in, I had a grasp on, or maybe more of a fingerhold on, what atoms and particles were. In fact, I had made the connection that heat was what caused these atoms to move faster, and I felt my fire mana actually grow. After three hours my head felt like it was about to burst, so we went to the roof to take a break. Vern had apparently been there before, and she said that it was quite nice up there.

We exited through a set of doors, and I saw several other groups of people already on the roof. There were benches, individual chairs, and tables for reasonably sized groups. We made our way over to one side that had a table next to the wall. A server automaton brought us some drinks and snacks that were amazing, nearly out of this world for how good they were.

I was surprised that it only cost a single gold for the entire party to eat. We sat, watching the other people on the roof, as Vern tried to help me understand particles more. Hatsu leaned against the wall when we heard a click. The area around the table seemed to glow, but I noticed just before we were teleported that no one seemed to be aware of this.

When I opened my eyes, everything was a faded white, as if the color had been pulled from everything that my eyes touched. I looked around, but no one was with me. I took a deep breath. Regan wouldn’t go through all this trouble to kill us. He was much more likely to do it with an audience than out of the way.

I looked around again, and this time I saw something new. Hanging in the air was a woman sitting on a crescent moon that had hundreds of runes carved into it. As I stared at it, I could feel my mind being drawn deeper into the meaning behind the runes, so I quickly moved my gaze to the woman. She was almost more mesmerizing.

She wore a dress, but there was armor over it. She looked like a Celestial that was talked about in the Lelune churches. Her hair was a beautiful blonde, and while she looked frail, I felt that if she wanted to, she could destroy the entire mountain.

“Child?” the woman asked after I don’t know how long.

“Y . . . yes?” I replied. I indeed felt I was nothing more than a child in front of this woman.

“I am Saga, keeper of the trials. Do not fear, no harm will come to you here,” Saga said with a soothing voice.

“Where . . . where are my people?” I asked.

“Why they are in their own trials,” Saga said as if that should already be known.

“I . . . see. Um, what are the trials?”

“Those individuals who seek knowledge instead of power or riches, the Creator has felt that it is best to reward them.”

“Creator. Do you mean Regan?” I asked just to be sure.

Saga squinted at me and I flinched, but nothing happened. Then she said, “That is correct.”

“Ok, so what do I do?”

“The first trial is a set of riddles. Or you can leave before attempting. Most of your friends have already done so.”

I contemplated, then decided to try at least one trial. She said no harm would come to me here, and for a dungeon like Regan, that was a binding thing to say. I looked back up to Saga and said, “Alright, I would like to challenge the first trial!”

“Very well,” she said, then waved her hand. On the wall, words that seemed to blaze with every color known to humanity appeared.

When I am alive, I do not speak. Anyone who wants to take me captive cuts off my head. They bite my bare body. I do no harm to anyone unless they cut me first. Then I soon make them cry.

I read the words several times in my head and even a few out loud. Something was flashing in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t grasp it. Something living that can’t speak—so, a plant. A plant that had a head—that narrowed the selection down a bit. Something that hurts whoever cuts it . . .

The answer flared in my mind from the few times I had tried to help in the kitchen during a dungeon dive. “An onion!” I shouted, sure of the answer.

Saga nodded and waved her hand again, resulting in the words being rearranged into a disorienting pattern on the wall.

There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?

While this one was shorter, I felt it might actually be harder. If you enter a house blind and you come out seeing . . . maybe they got healing magic to fix their eyes. That felt too on-the-nose, though. I thought back over my life, to the many times I had entered a house, then moved on to a building. I drew a blank until I happened to remember what Vern had said earlier when talking about the title of that book.

“Is it . . . is it an academy?” I asked, not as sure this time. I had gone in not knowing anything and had come out having learned something new. Blind, then seeing.

“Correct, the first trial is over. Congratulations,” Saga said and waved her hand again. A small book started to float down toward me. “This magic tome can record up to two thousand pages worth of knowledge. A scholar must study to be called such. Before you may partake of the next trial, you must add at least five pages worth of knowledge to the tome.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

“A warning, the tome is not stupid. I would advise not testing it. Now be on your way. You currently have two choices: the library where your journey began, or the second floor of the dungeon.”

Two doors appeared on the wall, and I moved toward the library one. When I emerged, I saw the others sitting at the table like nothing had happened. Once the spell finished, it was like time started moving again. We all jerked weirdly as our bodies seemed to catch up with our minds.

“Was that a dream or did everyone else just experience the trials?” I asked out loud.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Vern and Tsuzuki both answered and held up their tomes.

“Leave it to Regan to have something for everyone. Kind of surprised the passage is hidden like this, though. Once it gets out, it’s not much good to have it here like this,” I said, then turned to look at the spot Hatsu had pressed, only to see the symbol was gone.

“Your Highness, I’m afraid to say that we have all just been assigned homework,” Tsuzuki said with an amused look on his face.

“Well shit!” I groaned as I rested my face on my arms. I sighed, then went back downstairs to leave for today. As I was leaving the library, a messenger handed me a letter.

Chapter 10

Louella

I stood next to Ezal as the adventurers gathered outside the town. There were nearly two thousand people in the raid, all hailing from different backgrounds but all bound to the creed of the adventurer. The B-rank adventurers really stuck out, though, as throngs of people formed around them. I looked back at my own group and chuckled to myself because we stuck out nearly as much as they did.

Ezal was handing out commands like a champion, and everyone had an assignment to fulfill. Some of the heavy hitters were to have extra protection as they performed their spells. Supplies were to be guarded, paths of retreat were planned, and scouts were placed every kilometer or so for rapid communication. Many more details were being worked out by Ezal, Cassie, and some of the more strategic-minded adventurers.

I looked into the distance where two large obelisks that dwarfed the ones in town stood as if performing as sentries to the valley. I had asked Regan to make these much larger than the regular ones, not only for the new travelers that still streamed in but also to have this force checked as they left the valley, while increasing the awe factor. I really didn’t want another stab in the back to happen. Ezal fully agreed with me.

I looked over to her. She was putting all of herself into this, like she wanted to distract herself. Not that I could blame her, after hearing the father of the child she was carrying was dead. Bruce stood nearby like a silent statue. He watched everyone that approached her like a hawk waiting to strike. I shook my head. The man was barely able to move, yet he insisted on following his late master’s orders.

“Attention!” a magically amplified voice called through the area. Everyone turned toward us as we stood on a stage. Ezal turned to Cassie and nodded her thanks, then said, “We have one mission. To eliminate the horde of monsters gathering to the west. Once we set off, it will take us two days to reach their location. During that time all scouts will be inspected by these two.” She gestured to Julie and Wrakras. “The dungeon has given them an artifact that will mimic the obelisk ability to detect necromancers.” She paused to let that sink in.

“I know many of you are worried about this mission, but if we work together, I know we can succeed! We have many powerful parties and adventurers with us that will relieve the burden. I’m not saying it will be a walk in the park, but we can succeed.” She raised her arm, the one Regan had replaced, palm up into the air. A swirling vortex of flames burst from her palm and soared into the sky, where it branched out like a tree. Soon, it looked as if the sky were covered in flames. I had to admit that it was one of the most awesome displays of power I had ever seen. “WE WILL SUCCEED!”

The crowd cheered with tremendous energy. People started to slam their weapons on their shields or the butts on the ground. The sound was powerful and inspiring, and it got my heart beating rapidly.

“Ooh, there’s going to be lots of death,” Julie muttered beside me.

“Yeah, monsters’,” I replied.

She turned toward me and tilted her head, which was creepy with her mask, and said, “That’s fine by me,” then started laughing.

I shook my head, and noticed a moment later a shadow flowing over the gathering. I looked up, glad that we had Izora joining us on this trip. We had requested her help yesterday for defending the skies, as there would be several bird-type monsters. Her airship hovered over the gathering along with three other merchant vessels that had been reinforced with iron plates and some magical weapons. I was extra glad to have the gnomes, as they were able to finish the changes in less than a day.

“Let us teach the culprit behind this horde that we’re not afraid!” Ezal said as Feuer floated around her, emitting a blinding light, and everyone cheered in response. Ezal burst into the air with a jump, then landed on one of the mechanical wolves that Regan had sent us. Feuer landed in her hand, which she thrust forward. She took the lead as she made her way out of town and through the twin obelisks, Bruce right behind her.

I watched as the force of adventurers gathered their gear and equipment and started to march for the gate after her. It wasn’t the most organized force I had ever seen, but it was still quite the sight to see. Julie, Wrakras, and I jumped on a wolf each and got ready to follow after Ezal. I noticed Julie’s wolf try to bite her as she jumped on, and she just popped it lightly on the head. I didn’t even want to know what that was about.

I turned back to the stage. “Iveta, you’re basically the only other person I trust in the town. I leave it to you to hold the fort. Just . . . make sure Regan doesn’t accidently blow the place up.”

She saluted me and said, “I’ll . . . do my best.”

I laughed out loud. “Fair enough.”

I tapped my wolf’s head, and he shot toward the front of the line. While we would move to the back of the line after a few kilometers, a leader should lead her people. Even if Ezal was in charge, people were still going to be watching me, so I had to make sure to put my best foot forward.

I pulled up next to Ezal as we caught up to her. “I felt that went well,” I commented.

“The necromancers need to pay for the suffering they’ve caused!” Ezal said as the flames in her eyes flared out a little.

“I agree. I would like to be able to walk down an alley while only worrying about the regular threats.” I glanced over to Julie. “Getting kidnapped just because I haven’t tasted a man . . .”

“Little girl . . .” Julie said as if she were disappointed, “it’s more than just that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, curious.

“While you being a virgin does help, it’s only like adding one and one together and getting two. No, in your case, it’s related to the way your life has turned out. You have people who are fairly powerful mana-wise and whose fates are tied to you, and a few harder-to-explain details that all add into the reasons I wanted to kidnap you.”

“So . . . if you kidnapped a princess, the amount of power would be vastly greater than if you took a village girl.”

“Yes, and no. Like I said, it depends. If the princess was fated to die, then we might get a bit but not much. If the village girl was fated to rise to greatness as a hero, then we could get a tremendous amount of mana.”

“Sounds confusing and annoying.”

“You have no idea . . .” Julie mumbled under her breath, “but the great one tells us which he would prefer.”

“I think I understand.”

“Mistress, are you sure you want to come?” Ezal asked for the tenth time.

“Yes, I feel I have a duty to help,” I answered firmly.

~~~

The first day passed without much difficulty. A few of the parties got into fights but nothing more than verbal arguments. The airships kept pace with the ground forces as we made our way to the first stopping point: a large clearing, or more of a plain in the middle of the forest that could accommodate the large number of people in the group.

We reached it roughly an hour before sunset. As the camp was set up, the airships dropped anchor over the edges of the camp. They would have several watches set all night along with watchers on the ground. Security was being taken very seriously. In fact, much to the chagrin of quite a few dwarves, all alcohol was left back in the town.

Ezal stood with several party leaders as they worked out patrols. Bruce stood nearby, which was becoming a common sight. Weirdly, I never really got creeped out by him, as he was more like a silent guard than a stalker. I went to set up my own tent, but Wrakras had already beaten me to it.

“You really want to sleep out like this?”

I turned and saw Izora standing behind me with her guards. I laughed and said, “I thought the experience would be interesting. Plus, I felt it was wrong of me to stay in a nice room while asking all these people to risk their lives for my valley.”

Izora smiled at me. “I’m glad you feel that way, that’s why . . .” She flung her arm out, and Sasori threw an object onto the ground near my tent. It looked like a piece of cloth, but it soon started to swirl as it grew larger. In moments, a tent twice as large as the one I had brought unfolded. “While I agree with you, I still believe in the creature comforts!” she finished with a loud laugh.

People nearby looked over. Some ignored us while others laughed as well, then went back to their business. A line had formed over at the section of camp where several blacksmiths had set up shop. Nastok, who had been a bit depressed as of late, had taken the position of head blacksmith and was directing the weapons and tools that needed maintenance with a burning passion. The blacksmiths were working on a reduced fee, and I had told them to send the bill to me. A lot of the lower-tier adventurers were taking advantage of the opportunity.

I had talked to the dwarves several times since the attack, but it was off-putting that none of them blamed me for the patriarch’s death. I watched the crowd around Ezal as she handed out orders to the various teams. It was like watching another person, as if Ezal was meant to be a leader. I actually felt a little in the way.

I grabbed the bracelet around my arm. It was starting to bring me comfort as of late. I turned to Izora. “How about a little target practice?”

“I could use the exercise,” Izora agreed.

We moved over to the training fields. The archery lines were set so that no tents were pitched behind them. A few parties were there practicing, but most of the others were resting up for the coming battle. We made our way to an empty set. The training field had a low-maintenance barrier around it that kept all the sounds down to a minimum. It would take an Air mage a few minutes to cast one of these, but afterward it could last several hours.

I had used the single pistol for a while, or at least it was starting to feel like a while by then, but I wanted to get a feel for wielding them both while my life didn’t depend on it. I pulled the one I got from Regan’s minion Queen and checked it over. It looked almost like a perfect replica of the one Regan had given me, with only a few coloring differences.

I turned toward the straw figure in the distance. Markers had been set that allowed people to be able to check their range. I had the attendant set it to one hundred meters. From there I spent half an hour or so practicing my aim and rapid-fire skills. As I got the hang of the weapons, I got more accurate, managing to at least hit the straw figure with each shot. Some people were surprised about the weapon, but it sounded like most just wrote it off as a gnomish weapon when they saw Izora with me.

I turned to the attendant. “What levels of difficulty are available?”

“Viscountess, we have three levels of practice with the mages we have: stationary, moving, and dodging.”

“Set it to moving for now.”

Unlike swordsmanship, I didn’t know even the basic forms for using the guns, as Regan had failed to show me anything like that. He just said point it at the enemy and pull the trigger. I mean, yeah, but there should have been a way to increase your balance and reduce the stress of firing the weapon. I had to work that all out for myself.

It was late before I called it a night. I had recharged the guns so many times that my mana pool felt extra drained. At one point, I tried to fire the gun without any ammo, and a column of lightning had burst from it. Only, unlike my lightning that I create, it was much more intense and there was quite a bit of heat. Not to mention that it left a nice-size crater in the field when it struck the straw figure. It also drained the mana stone completely.

I turned from the training field and noticed that Julie was juggling several blades for some reason. I shook my head and made my way back to the tent. Izora had left before me, as she was much more familiar with her weapons so didn’t need as much practice.

Chapter 11

Puppet

We were in town, getting ready for our next mission. I had a new mission to plan for, even if it was rather straightforward. Father needed to know the information on the monster horde, and he was going to get it. With the construction of the tower, the attack on the valley would be delayed. If it was going to happen soon, the mana wave that radiated out would be quite apparent to anyone paying attention.

I would have to plan for enemy scouts coming toward the tower while we made our way toward the horde. I just hoped the entire swarm didn’t attack at the same time. Even if they did, I felt we had at least a day or two in the worst-case scenario, as we were in the middle of a forest. A horde couldn’t move quickly through the trees.

I got Father to provide me with a decent amount of materials before he went to the top of the tower. He showed us how to get in if we needed to, which was by an entrance at the base of the various legs. I moved to an out-of-the-way spot and started making some new drones. Typically, I just made drones that were good for scouting, but I wanted more combat-oriented ones. I had examined the turret that Father made earlier and felt I could use some of the techniques in my own construction.

After nearly an hour of work, with plenty of failures in the mix, the Mark One was finally complete. It was quite large, at almost two meters long and a meter or so tall, and the wingspan was nearly four meters as well. On the bottom was a single-barrel form of the turret Father had used. It could fire roughly once every minute or so and needed to use mana to recreate the shell that I copied from Father, only a much smaller one.

I mentally connected to it and felt a type of strain that I had never felt before. The other drones I had made weren’t exactly big or complicated, so I must have never pushed myself to the limit before. I instinctively knew I could control maybe three more of these with my current strength. It made me realize I needed to get stronger since I had never really bothered to cultivate mana before. I didn’t need to; I naturally gained mana while in Father’s aura. I put the drone away in my storage ring; it felt nice to actually have something in it now.

I made another drone that was roughly the same size as the last one. To this one I added the Creation spell inside the body of the drone. I changed the spell so that the formula created was more violent than the shell the turret used. This way it could fly higher than the other one, due to the lack of weight and . . . the word was “bombs,” I thought, which were what armaments were called if they just fell on the enemy.

On the next two drones, I added two turrets on the top and bottom. They were much smaller but had larger storage for ammo. These could fire much faster, and while they did less damage, they would probably be able to handle anything under tier three. I looked over the drones and made sure everything was good.

I reached into my chest and tapped the shard of crystal that was from Father’s core. I got all kinds of information from it whenever Father invented or did something new. It was getting kind of lonely while we were out of Father’s aura not getting the flow of information that I usually did, but the flood of ideas and knowledge I was experiencing was on another level since I had been in his aura that day.

I shook my head and turned back to the drones. I connected to the last one and sent the command to start to take off. Two rings of glowing energy appeared on each wing. I wasn’t too sure of the full science, as Father would call it, but I believe I understood it as a hover pad. The energy produced by the ring would cause the air to be ionized and force the air to move, which resulted in the object moving.

The drone lifted from the ground with a nearly silent hum. It hovered there a few meters off the ground. I accessed the camera on the front of the drone and was able to see much more precisely than the other drones I had made from the basic materials I’d found in the environment. The image seemed to take a corner of my vision unless I focused on it. I decided to give it a true test.

I pictured several spots in the air and sent a command to the drone to navigate to each point as fast as possible. When I was done, the drone took off in a gust of wind that nearly knocked me off my feet. It barely took it a minute to reach the fifth point in the course I had set for it. I watched the picture in the corner of my eye and was amazed at the view. I set it to circle for a bit as a test to see if the mana absorption I’d set was strong enough to maintain casual flight.

I looked around me and noticed I had enough materials to make one smaller drone. I decided to make a target of sorts to practice on. I had gotten decent at building them, so it only took me a few minutes. The only time-consuming part was feeding the materials into my chest and pulling the, as I liked to call them, enriched parts out. Then I took the time to assemble them.

I took control of this one, and the strain doubled. I also grew worried, as the image from this one took another corner of my vision. I would soon lose much of my ability to see easily if I took control of too many. I sent this one up and set as complicated a course as possible with twists and turns. I also tried to install an “evade” setting, but I wasn’t really sure if it would work until a bit later.

I “let go” of the target and was pleased that it didn’t immediately fall from the sky. I sent a command to the Gatling drone to hunt it down. It took off, and the other drone seemed to respond to the threat in some way, as it also accelerated. It started making twists and turns that I felt would have ripped an animal or creature apart had they attempted it.

The Gatling followed close behind, and the turrets on the top and bottom swirled to get a bead on the target. They fired, but the target would spin and barely dodge the bullets. This kept up for nearly three minutes, and it seemed the turrets were getting better the whole time, firing fewer bullets as the flight went on.

Suddenly, the Gatling put on a burst of speed and managed to overtake the target. Then, as if it hit the brakes in midair, it stopped several hundred meters in front of the target. It looked like it came to a perfect standstill. A torrent of bullets flew from the turrets and blanketed the area that the target was flying into and ripped it to shreds.

I reconnected to the drone and had it return. Once it was back I touched it with my ring and stored it away. Pleased with the result of my weapon test, I left the secluded area and went to find the others. They were each doing their own thing.

Z2 was training. She seemed to be pumped after having seen Father that day, so she was extra motivated to improve. It looked like she had pulled some of the other automata from the dungeon and were fighting them. I counted nearly two dozen around her, but she was dominating them with her speed.

I’d heard, read, and investigated a few things in the times that I’d gone to the town back at the valley, and I was pretty sure that ice was supposed to be strong and deadly, but it was relatively slow. Z2 seemed to have thrown that rule out the proverbial window. She was moving like a shadow; the automata would strike where they thought she was and would only hit air or the ground.

It seemed that she was honing her evasion skills, as she wasn’t returning any of the strikes sent her way. I noticed nearly half a dozen times when she could have decapitated or sliced a limb clean off, but she only used her weapon to deflect or block attacks she couldn’t dodge.

I moved on and found Natsuko and Natsuo where they sat with their legs in the water. I moved up to them to see what they were doing. Natsuko noticed I was about to ask and went ahead and said, “Enjoying the water, duh!” as if it were apparent.

“Water . . . energy . . . good . . .” Natsuo added.

“Energy?” I asked and stuck my leg in the water after I removed my boot. Upon feeling a current of mana start to flow into me, I quickly removed most of my clothes and put them in my storage ring. Then I jumped into the lake and felt the energy wash over me. I wanted to dive deeper as I felt the energy get stronger, but the heat also went up, and even I couldn’t take much after a certain depth.

I went as deep as I could go and got into a meditative pose like I had seen some of the mortals in the town do. I started to circulate the energy through my body. The rush of it felt good. I knew I didn’t have veins like mortals did, but I had strings of metal that served to distribute mana.

I understood that mortals had something like a pool they used to judge how much mana an individual could retain inside their body. I was born with the knowledge of how to use mana instinctively, so it was a new experience to actively focus on body parts. I circulated the mana through the wires until it arrived at an empty space. Somehow, I knew that I needed to fill this space.

I must have stayed under the water for several hours before the emptiness was full. I had no idea if my pool was large or small compared to mortals, but I felt quite refreshed after having pulled in so much mana. I returned to the surface and noticed that it was night. There was still quite a bit of activity going on, though, as the automata never had to sleep or rest unless low on mana.

A small force of automata that looked like they were ready to go to war stood in formation nearby. Z2 was inspecting them with a severe look. I got out of the water and channeled some mana into drying off, then walked over to see what was going on while dressing.

“Puppet, Father didn’t want to bother you, but these guys will be coming with us,” she said when I was closer.

“How long can they stay out before running out of mana?” I asked as I looked them over.

“Father said they are good for a day, but also that we could recharge them ourselves easily enough if we had to.”

“Good, they will make our mission a bit safer.”

~~~

We left the village the next morning. We wanted to get information as soon as possible for Father, and while I had a decent reading on their location, I could be off by a few hundred meters to a few dozen kilometers until we get closer. Father had made us another new invention that he wanted us to test for the coming days.

It was a large vehicle with six robust wheels that had a radius of nearly a meter. Essentially a large steel box, it still had plenty of curves that would help deflect anything that might hit it. The front window was rather small but provided enough visibility to help us make our way through the forest. At first I thought it would have trouble moving through the trees, but when it approached the tree line for a test, two large circular blades came out that spun faster than I could track. Father called the vehicle an ASV.

The trees would be cut a few centimeters off the ground, and as they fell, they would be absorbed by the vehicle to power it. There was some script that Father had embedded in each vehicle so that it was like, as he said, “a computerized dungeon core.” I thought it was an ingenious way to make a path through the forest. Father said we could just fly over the forest but there were times when flying might not be available or even more dangerous than on the ground.

We loaded into one while the group of nearly twenty automata that Father had assigned to us loaded into two other vehicles. I let loose one of the drones I had worked on the previous day and sent it high into the air. The camera quality was much better than the others I had made so I felt it was worth it.

The vehicles had drivers that came with them, so that if something broke, the drivers would know how to fix it. Father called them “mechanics,” I think. We made our way into the direction the sensation was coming from. The vehicles made quick work of any trees that grew too close to the animal path we were using to travel. We still didn’t see any monsters as we traveled, but that was starting to become normal.

As we crossed over cut-down tree stumps, the wheels adjusted to keep the chassis level. We traveled relatively peacefully for the first part of the day; then things started to get interesting.

I had just checked my drone to see if anything had changed up ahead when I saw a flock of birds approaching our location. They were large, like several meters across and long large. Their feathers were pitch-black, and arcs of lightning jumped between the nearly ten birds. They seemed to notice something and started to reduce their altitude.

“Everyone, I think we have company,” I said to the party.

“What is it?” Azra asked.

“A flock of birds that seem to be after something. And considering they are diving at us . . .” I said, not finishing.

Natsuko popped the hatch open and looked into the air above us. “Yup, they’re circling above us.”

“Think you can hit them?” I asked. She was created to deal with this kind of threat.

Natsuko looked at me and flashed an evil grin that I had seen on Father a few times. “No problem.”

She jumped onto the roof of the ASV and pulled her rifle off her back. Father had made it so that it compacted a bit more after he’d heard about some of the trouble she’d had since she’d left the dungeon. She clicked a button on the side, and the barrel slid out. After pulling a scope off her belt and quickly attaching it, she then lifted the rifle and pulled the catch back, loading a round into the barrel.

She took a moment to aim, then, with a small boom, fired. I watched from the drone’s eye as the head of one of the birds burst into blood, brain matter, and feathers. The body quickly fell from the sky. Before it had fallen a few dozen meters, the chest of another of the bird vanished after another shot by Natsuko. I gulped as I made a mental note to never piss her off—not that I should have worried; we were all part of the dungeon.

As the two bodies fell from the sky, the others finally reacted and started to weave around as they tried to pinpoint us. At least that was my assumption. They clearly had lightning mana, so they should have been able to hit us. They started to rise, but they seemed to still be well within Natsuko’s range, as another soon followed the first two with its head going missing.

It seemed the birds couldn’t take any more, and they started to send bolts of lightning into the forest at random near us. In fact, a tree right next to the ASV was struck and burst into flames. Azra had moved to the roof of the vehicle during the sniping and held her shield at the ready. I was glad that she was able to absorb energy from incoming attacks up to a certain amount.

I turned my vision back to Natsuko as she fired again. She had two thin pieces of metal that almost reminded me of wings coming out of her back. When she fired, they emitted some energy to hold her in place. There was also a cord that linked the gun to her, whether to give it mana or her more control over it I would have to ask later.

It wasn’t long before she took out another three, and the rest of the birds decided that it was in their best interest to flee. I set my drone to follow them for as long as it was possible. They were headed in the direction we were going anyway, so I would be able to keep in contact with the drone for a while.

It was around noon when something I had never felt before happened. We had to stop as everyone, even the automata accompanying us, felt it. It was as if Father was . . . gone. I just couldn’t feel him anymore.

“What—what happened?” Z2 asked with a lost expression.

“I don’t know. Something must be blocking Father. There’s no way someone could remove him.” I still felt the link, which meant that the dungeon was still there. “I can feel the dungeon,” I finished as I tapped the crystal that was embedded in my chest.

“That’s . . . that’s true . . .” Z2 said as she regained a bit of spirit.

“Let’s keep going. This mission is to help Master, so it’s best if we finish it,” Azra said. She seemed less affected by the strange sensation. Most likely because she came from outside the dungeon.

We roused the regular automata and kept going, but the pace was noticeably slower than before. Finally, after about thirty minutes or so, Father’s link came back fully, allowing us to breathe a breath of relief. After that we picked up the pace to catch up with the drone that had left my radius. A few hours later, it was nightfall and the regular automata needed to stop so that they could recharge.

The ASV had several batteries they could use, charged from the excess mana from all the trees that were cut down to make a path to our location. We set up camp by putting the three vehicles into a triangle and letting one of the automata crew the gun turret mounted on the top. They could charge and watch the surroundings via the long cord that Father had provided for the gunner of each ASV.

I looked around to make sure that everything was set up and then jumped into the canopy of the forest. I quickly made a circle as I planted several of the low-quality drones all around us to make sure nothing could sneak up on us. Once done I made my way to the top of the canopy and peered out at the sky. Ever since the first day I was upgraded, I had liked watching the night sky. Trees always made me feel calm. Part of the reason, I thought, was because of my makeup, with barely any metal.

I watched the sky for a while, then made my way back to camp. The automata would be charged around midnight, but we decided to wait until dawn before moving out, as it would be safer. Plus, it reduced the chance of their mana being low in the case of an emergency. I lay on top of one of the ASVs as I watched Z2 spar with Azra. They were keeping it low level, but it was still quite interesting to watch.

Azra was holding out against Z2’s rapid assault. She was able to move her shield almost before Z2 could strike. Even the trickier attacks were blocked, as if she had an extra pair of eyes. I noticed Z2’s tail streaking in for a sneak attack that I knew Azra couldn’t detect. My eyes widened when Azra pressed her heel down gently, but a jut of stone soared out of the ground and blocked the tail strike.

With Z2’s tail attack blocked, it seemed that while Azra had Z2 pinned down, she couldn’t really attack as well. That’s when I found out I was wrong, Azra’s own tail slammed into the ground, and a pit opened under Z2. Z2 reacted instantly and the metal “wings” on her back opened and released some of the liquid nitrogen stored inside to form a set of full-fledged wings. She flapped them quickly and easily took to the sky. I wondered how much mana it took for her to be able to do that, considering the weight of ice.

“Hey, no fair!” Azra called to Z2 from the ground.

“All is fair in a battle. If you feel bad, come up here and tell it to my face,” Z2 mocked. She seemed to have cheered up considerably after she realized how easy it was for us to see Father.

“You asked for it!” Azra shouted at her. I sensed the terra in the area flow toward her in a rapid rush. What looked like black sand started to float around her, and I noticed her eyes start to glow. Z2 took some distance and waited for whatever Azra was doing to finish. I couldn’t blame her; if I had no idea what was going on, I would put some distance between the enemy and me too.

In a rush all the black sand seemed to fuse with her armor, and she started to float in the air. She looked at Z2 and then, like one of Natsuko’s bullets, shot toward Z2 in a flash. Z2 flapped her wings and dodged the rush with ease, but I thought it was more due to Azra still getting used to the movement of flight.

Z2 frowned and readied her sword. A small snowstorm had started to gather around her. I looked over to Azra, who had come to a stop in the air, and she also had what looked like shards of metal that could rip someone apart floating around her. I decided that if the fight continued, someone might get hurt, and it probably wouldn’t only be one of them.

“Alright, ladies! We don’t know if someone is able to watch us, so let’s not use ALL our abilities in a simple training session,” I called to them. I had to lace my voice with mana to make sure they heard me.

They looked at each other and smiled sinisterly. “Let’s finish on a real battleground next time. Most kills, wins,” Z2 said nonchalantly.

“Sounds good to me. Puppet judges,” Azra responded, pulling me into it.

Chapter 12

Puppet

After dealing with the two girls’ fight, I just shook my head. I wasn’t sure if it was a woman thing or just the rivalry that comes from being strong and needing someone to keep challenging you to grow. I leaned back and flipped through my drones to check the area, when I saw something alarming.

“Looks like you guys will get to set that tonight after all, we got company,” I shouted to them, then to the rest of the gathering, “Enemy attack! Crew your stations!”

My order roused the camp, and the regular automata immediately reacted. The drivers climbed into their vehicles and readied them in case we had to move quickly. Another three jumped up on the roof and crewed the machine guns mounted on the top. The armored foot soldiers formed walls in the gaps between each vehicle while the others readied their rifles and other weapons. The shields of the foot soldiers started to emit a barrier, and then they fused with their neighbors.

“Everyone be ready! We have a large pack of wolf-based monsters in the perimeter. They are tier two or higher!” I shouted as I moved between the groups of automata.

I was checking that the last group was ready when a howl seemed to shake the air. Several more followed after it that were less powerful but still equally nerve-racking. I released one of the machine gun drones, unsure how effective they would be in the forest. I would have to make a few land-based models.

“Azra, Z2, you two are in command. I’m going for a walk,” I said and channeled light mana around my body. The surroundings started to appear on me so that if someone looked at me, they would see whatever was behind me. I believe that Father would call it “active camouflage.”

“Make sure you keep watch!” Z2 shouted in my direction.

“I’m going to win either way!” Azra retorted.

I jumped into a nearby tree and made my way toward the pack that was stalking us. I used air mana to erase my scent and space mana to reduce my weight as I made my way toward the top of the trees. I sped through the canopy without so much as a sound, the branches barely bending at my passing. After a few seconds, I arrived at where the wolves had gathered and seemed to be preparing a rush toward the camp.

I contemplated my options. I wanted to cause some damage, and I knew how to create the gunpowder that Father liked to use so I could create a bomb, but I had too little information on what type of wolves these were. I was about to throw a gunpowder bomb when a wolf entered my view.

It was at least an extra two meters taller than the rest. It had the form of a wolf, but that seemed to be the end of it. Flames leaked from its mouth and nostrils, while smoke curled off its hide. The ground was singed as it stood, very clearly in charge of the pack. What had me worried was the strange collar around its neck. A green stone was embedded at the throat, and green “cracks” spread from it. Where the green was, it seemed that the wolf’s body had started to become twisted.

“Well, shit,” I whispered to myself.

The leader’s ears twitched, and I quickly jumped to another tree. A moment after I moved, an evil-looking black, green, and red flame completely devoured the tree I’d been on a moment ago. The tree quickly rotted from the burned spot and was just a husk in a matter of seconds. The leader looked around as if trying to decide if it was a threat or not.

The regular wolves started to freak out, but it growled, and the pack returned to calm. A few had even launched fireballs into the surroundings the moment the leader had attacked. It looked like a bomb wouldn’t do much good. The shrapnel might have caused some damage, but a few cuts weren’t going to stop these things.

I pulled my blade from the scabbard on my waist and channeled mana so that a thin beam of light covered the edge. I made sure the light didn’t leave the blade, making it basically invisible to the eye, then looked back to the pack to figure an attack route that would optimize my strike and, hopefully, avoid the leader until I cut the numbers down a bit.

My time to decide ended when a bullet plowed through the head of one of the wolves. A few moments later the body exploded quite grandly. Taking the opportunity created by the distraction, I shot toward one of the wolves on the outer edge of the pack. It appeared to catch my scent right as my blade separated its head from its body. I followed the path in my head and struck down three more before I exited the pack and rushed back into the forest.

Four splendid explosions followed behind me. I made my way up into the treetops and observed the panic I’d caused. The pack was actually calmer than I thought it would be. I knew this because several dozen fireballs followed my path through the forest. I made my way around the pack as two or three dozen meters of trees were turned into ash.

More bullets shot from the direction of camp and took the heads off a few more wolves. I nodded. At this pace, we might be able to handle this without any trouble. I plotted my next course through the pack and readied my blade.

I jumped down and charged the nearest wolf, and its head went flying. I was about to remove the next wolf’s head when the flame from the leader encompassed it and its surroundings. The explosion sent me flying into the brush nearby, and my flight ended as I collided with a tree. My right hand was thoroughly charred, and I found it hard to move. I was thankful that I didn’t feel the pain that mortals talk about.

I jerked up to make my way into the forest but was too late—several wolves had surrounded me.

“Oh, you dogs want a piece of me?” I said through gritted teeth.

The wolf directly in front of me was thrown several meters to the side as the leader smacked him out of the way. An unearthly voice came from its mouth. “Dogs! If we’re dogs, that makes you our new chew toy!”

“Since when did dogs learn to talk?” I said as I looked around to find some way to escape.

The leader snorted, and flames left its nostrils. They coiled around either side of me, and I was amazed at the heat that came from it.

“Joke all you want. You and yours are about to be the shit I crap out tomorrow,” the leader said, somehow managing to pull its snout into a grin.

“Not today!” I shouted as the drone I’d released earlier came around and unleashed a hundred bullets every second.

The leader roared and turned toward the drone, then unleashed what I was going to start calling “hell flame.” I managed to turn the drone in time to avoid most of the damage, but one of the wings got hit, and it started to lose altitude deeper in the forest. At the same time, I jumped straight up and reached the bottommost branch, using it to propel myself farther into the forest.

Another hell flame followed me and burned everything in its path. I gulped after I had escaped the immediate area, then made my way back to the camp. The damage to my hand was starting to spread, and I was worried that I would have to cut the thing off. Hopefully, Natsuo would be able to fix it.

I dropped into camp and shouted, “Open fire! Don’t let them near the camp!”

The three turrets turned toward the section that the wolves were in and unleashed a steady stream of gunfire. I heard several explosions during the first couple of seconds, but it slowly died down. I felt like the leader had done something to reduce the effectiveness of the weapon.

“What is it that did that to you?!” Azra asked, shocked when she saw my hand.

“Big guy, something is up with him,” I responded as Natsuo examined it.

“Closer, bad,” he said, which I took to mean that if I’d been closer, it would have been worse.

He poured some energy into my hand, and the darkened section started to fade. The black had receded to my wrist when a fireball soared into the camp. It collided with the side of one of the ASVs. Luckily, it seemed the armor was strong enough to defend against it.

I looked and noticed that a thin barrier was covering it. I peeked into the driver’s seat and saw that the driver automaton was channeling mana into the vehicle. I gave him the thumbs-up, and he nodded back to me.

“Natsuko, can you see anything?” I asked. She was lying on top of the ASV and looking through her scope.

“Hmm, the big dog is channeling mana into a firewall of some sort. Stupid mongrels,” she replied with a really pissed off face.

“Thanks, let me know if it changes,” I said, and she fired a round into the forest. A moment later an explosion followed.

“Sure thing,” she said as she pulled the bolt back to remove the shell she’d just fired.

Even with all the wolves we’d killed already, there were still over thirty or forty plus the monster of a leader they had. I suddenly heard a growl from behind us and turned to see at least a dozen of the wolves rushing from the rear of the camp.

“Fuck! Behind us!” I shouted and shot toward them with my blade shimmering from the energy covering it.

It would have been better if I could have used both hands, but one blade was going to have to suffice. Z2 followed close behind me. She had her gun out and was firing into the group of wolves as we ran. She managed to take out at least three of them, but it seemed their hide was thick enough to protect it from the rounds she was using.

I channeled some mana, and blades of light formed around me. I flung my injured hand forward, and the blades sliced into several of the wolves. Let’s just say, limbs went flying. We collided with the group and met claws with blades. Z2 was easily dodging their attacks, and each time she sliced with her sword, ice burst out of the wound . . . usually resulting in the wolf being pulled apart.

Z2 was quite destructive in a close group fight like this, it seemed. I knew she was getting better with her close-range combat, but it was still surprising that it had reached this level. Her tail was slicing into a wolf’s eye, while her sword gashed one in the side, and her other hand fired bullets into another wolf.

I didn’t hold back either and went to town, moving like the wind. I used the wolf’s own bodies as jump boards and made my way through the group, removing their heads as I went. In a matter of seconds, the group of roughly fifteen or sixteen wolves was decimated.

When a thunderous crashing sound came from the camp, I turned and saw that the leader wolf had its mouth around one of the turrets. I looked to Z2 and got a nod. We ran back toward the camp, me scolding myself for thinking stupid dogs would only rush from the front as I ran back.

I swore we left afterimages on our way back, but the speed required for that was ridiculous. The entire group released everything they had on the leader as I watched. Natsuko shot him point-blank in the head, but the bullet actually bounced off. Damn! It had a thick skull. It seemed this irritated it, though, as it turned its head toward her and gathered its hell flame.

Azra jumped in front of its mouth just as it released the flame, her shield leading. A shimmer covered the surface, then the darkness was pulled out of the flames as if the shield were devouring whatever was in it. Azra had to handle the flames herself, though. As the flames let up, I noticed that she had some type of metal coating her other than her armor. We reached the others and braced ourselves for the coming combat.

“Ah, little chew toy, I wondered where you ran off to,” the leader said as it turned toward me.

“Just had to handle some of your friends over there,” I retorted as I pointed toward the pile of dead wolves that Z2 and I had made. A moment later the pile exploded like the other wolves had been doing.

The wolf snorted in contempt. “Those mutts are nothing to me.”

I sensed the leader start to channel mana as it came off in waves of heat. Blades made of flame came out all over its body. They were flames, but they seemed to have a solid form. As the leaders shook its body, a nearby tree was cut with the flame blade and was sliced like butter.

“Filthy mutt, just die!” Natsuko shouted and shot its head again. This time the bullet melted before it could even reach it.

Azra jumped between us and seemed to be able to channel the heat away from us at least a bit. The leader roared and looked at us as if trying to decide who to eat first. I sent several blades of light at it, but the mana it was putting off caused them to dissipate before they reached it.

It set its eyes on Azra and said, “You look tasty, you first!”

Rushing forward, it opened its mouth wider than I thought possible for a creature to do. Azra channeled her mana, and her shield grew nearly a meter larger as spikes shot into the ground and the top of the wolf’s mouth. The wolf roared but didn’t seem too bothered by it.

“Fuck this!” Natsuko said and placed her hand on her weapon. It started to glow as it changed shape a bit. The barrel got longer, and the end seemed to enlarge. The body also got slightly larger. A bullet formed in her hand that was quite a bit larger than the one she was using in her rifle before. She pulled the bolt and loaded the bullet. “Form two: antitank mode.”

“That’s quite a bit of mana coming from that weapon, meat,” the wolf said as it spun around and knocked Azra away with its body. One of the blades of flame sliced into her leg, but she seemed alright. The wolf leader started to rush toward her, but Natsuko pulled her trigger first.

The heat managed to alter the path of the bullet, but it still impacted in the wolf’s upper shoulder. Flesh and blood went flying, and the wolf roared loudly enough to shake the nearby forest. The trees in the path of the roar actually ignited. The damage from Natsuko left the wolf’s front limb barely hanging by a few pieces of muscle and part of the bone.

“Hit it again!” I shouted at her.

The wolf turned a glare that could have come straight from Hell toward Natsuko. I tried to think of a way to stop the wolf from moving, but nothing I thought of would have been effective against it. It started to channel hell flame and with a burst sent it toward Natsuko.

Natsuo actually managed to protect her. A dozen plates of some type of metal shot forward and collided with the flame at an angle, causing it to be redirected into the forest. I was more amazed that the plates didn’t melt from the heat. I could sense some type of energy that coated them and helped to control the energy from the flame.

With her ice wings, Z2 suddenly flew from the sky and buried her sword to the hilt in the center of the wolf’s back. She struck the leader with enough force that the impact broke the ground beneath them and collapsed a few centimeters. I hadn’t even noticed when she took off; her speed was reaching another level. Steam blasted from where the sword was embedded in the wolf’s back.

With another roar, the wolf collapsed onto the ground and breathed heavily. It sounded like Z2 had managed to puncture one of its lungs. As it lay there, it struggled to get back up, but it seemed all the strength had left it.

Steam started to pour out of it, as if all the energy inside of it was trying to escape. “Well . . . done . . . little girl,” the wolf said in pained breaths.

Natsuko, breathing hard as well, looked at it. We didn’t need to, but it helped us regain mana we had used. “You as well, mutt.”

“Finish me off. I would rather die in battle than by the curse of this fucking collar!” the wolf growled, its anger causing the air to tremble a bit.

I approached it, and as I got closer, the collar indeed started to cause green sparks. Most likely the wolf had been given the order to attack us or die trying. I had studied the collars that Father used to capture those two necromancers. I didn’t quite understand them enough to make them, but I was able to mess with them, so maybe I would be able to at least get it off.

I concentrated as I set my hand on the gem in the center. I studied the spellwork as my mind traveled the inner workings of the collar. This was complicated; it was nearly on the level of Father’s but was much cruder than his. It took everything I had learned from building my drones and all I had studied, but I was able to affect it a bit. The best I would be able to do would be to change the “owner” of the collar.

I thought about it, then set the collar so that Natsuko would be the owner, as it seemed like they got along. I made sure to erase all the commands that had been given from the previous master and add a simple do-not-attack-us command.

“How do you feel now?” I asked after I pulled myself back from the inner workings.

“Better! My mind is so clear!” The wolf leader howled into the air. “I’m free!”

“Not so much free . . . more like under a new owner.”

“Oh! Who is my new owner, is it you, chew toy?”

“No, I have enough to deal with. I left you to Natsuko,” I said as I rubbed my neck.

“HUH?!” Natsuko shouted in surprise.

“Pet,” Natsuo said as he looked the wolf over.

“Ok, Natsuo,” Natsuko said, entirely dropping the issue.

“What’s your name, anyway?” I asked the wolf. It had shrunk down nearly two meters in the time we had talked, and I noticed that its wounds had also healed considerably as well.

“Name? I’m the Great Cadum, ruler of the West Forest!” he howled, his name making it clear the wolf was a he. He stood up and shook his mane, then walked over to Natsuko. Even shrunken down the wolf was still almost a meter or two taller. He sniffed her once or twice. “Hmm, you smell weird but not bad. Those necromancers smelled horrible.”

“Sit!” Natsuko said with steel in her voice. Cadum sat with a small boom. “It’s rude to sniff people without permission!” she said as she put her finger in Cadum’s face.

“Little girl!” Cadum said with a struggle, then seemed to give up. “I . . . understand.”

“Very good,” Natsuko said and started to pet him.

“What are you doing to my glorious self?!” Cadum demanded.

“Huh? Never been petted before?” Natsuko asked as she stopped.

“WHO SAID YOU COULD STOP?!” Cadum howled loudly, causing the heat in the air to rise a bit.

Natsuko looked at him, shocked for a moment, then burst out laughing. It was the first time I had really heard her laugh so loudly. She went back to petting him as we took stock of the damage the battle had caused. Thankfully, it was light, but I would have to be better prepared for the next time. I should have known better than to think that the enemy would only attack from the front.

We set the automata back to charging. Most had lost a bit of power while maintaining the barriers on their shields. It would only take an hour or so for them to be fully charged. The biggest issue was the injury that Azra suffered. Natsuo moved over to her and pressed his hand against her leg. It looked like he was able to help flesh and blood ones as well. That was good news in case we ever had to bring mortals into our party for some reason.

When dawn came, we set off. I made sure to keep a better vigilance than before with several smaller drones circling the convoy at all times. I also tinkered with some parts as I tried to make a land-based drone that resembled a spider. They had excellent 3D movement, which was helpful when in a forest. I added some explosive powder in the very center. That way if something went to crush them, they would get a nasty surprise.

I toyed with several different types of weapons to equip the spiders with but went with venom, after all. Only, I gave them launchable needles from their fangs, so, if they were able to get a good shot, they wouldn’t be constricted by having to get close to the target. They were tiny at roughly thirty or so centimeters, and I had added active camouflage to them. They would be quite deadly to the unaware.

I wanted to test their speed, so I activated one and tossed it on a nearby tree that we had just passed. It sprang to life, and the needlelike legs dug in to find purchase. I set it to follow us, and it kept up easily. The thought of the chaos these little things would cause in the future made me grin.

We made good time through the forest with Cadum as our guide. He knew all the game trails that moved in the direction we needed to head. Natsuko was using him as a mount now, which he took to surprisingly well. I figured as he was a boss-class monster, he would take offense to being ridden by basically two children. Also, I had several dozen of my spider drones now, which were more useful than my basic drones, while only costing a bit more mana.

Even with Cadum, it took us a few days to reach the gathering of monsters. The mana in the area felt weird as we approached, as if it were tainted by something. The noise was on another level even a few kilometers out. Roars, howls, and all manner of vocals sounded out from in front of the convoy. We had to move carefully to avoid several patrols, but Cadum was able to get us past the first few. I wasn’t sure if the monsters’ survival instincts were still working or if it was a scent thing, but nothing approached within a few hundred meters of him.

I called for a stop when we were close enough for my drones and me to get a better look. I nodded to Azra, then she began to channel her mana. A moment later a mound of dirt and stone formed into an artificial cave and surrounded the group.

“Alright, I’ll send out the spiders first, then follow them to get a closer look.”

“There are all manner of creatures over there, so I would watch my back if I were you,” Cadum said as he lay down.

“I got it.”

I released my spiders, then followed after they had gone a few hundred meters out. They would be a good safety net for me. I jumped into the trees as I made my way toward the horde, glad that I didn’t have to breathe and that I basically didn’t have an odor on my body. I quickly made my way over, making sure to stay absolutely quiet.

Upon reaching the edge of a clearing, I stabilized myself near the top of a tree branch. I was only a few months old by mortal standards, but I had never even conceived of such a large number before I saw the horde in front of me. Monsters of all kinds ate, fought, slept, mated, and did other activities down in the clearing.

I ordered my drones to observe as much of the horde as they could, as I needed to send a report to Father later that night if possible. I was in the middle of checking out an area that seemed to contain actual tents when a group of monkey-like monsters landed in the tree below me. I panicked at first, thinking they had found me, but they just rested against the tree in the branches below.

I waited for nearly two hours before they finally moved away. If they had all taken a nap at once, I might have made a break for it, but they seemed to take naps in shifts. Considering the number of monsters that were killing other monsters in just the two hours I sat there, it made sense to watch out for something that wanted to turn them into a snack.

I made my way to the tents, or as close as I could get to them. I was worried that they might have booby-trapped the area, so I just let one of my hand-sized spiders, which I’d made a few of, go in for me. A ratlike monster somehow noticed the spider. As it took a dive at it, the spider dodged in time, and the rat tumbled into the threshold of the camp. Then there was a bolt of green energy, and the rat turned into a pile of ash.

A man stepped out of a nearby tent. He seemed to be grumbling as he did so. I saw him start to chant, and I took the chance to rush the spider forward to the spot the rat was killed at. The smoke from the body concealed the tiny spider, and it made it into the camp before the spell was complete. A rune appeared where the dead rat was. The man cracked his neck, then went back into his tent.

I had the spider head for the nicest tent, as I figured that was where the boss would be. It crawled up the walls up to the roof. Once there it tore a small hole through. I held my breath, worried there might be another trap, but nothing happened. It crawled its way inside as I looked around through its eyes.

There were three people in the tent. An old man, a woman, and another man who seemed to be in his late twenties. I would have thought the old man to be the leader, but he was sitting to the side with the younger man behind the massive desk in the tent. The woman seemed to be more of a slave than a collaborator, as she had a slave tattoo and was barely dressed.

“Old Kuul, any news from the west? I’m tired of waiting,” the young man said as he swirled a glass of wine.

“They still want more time to make the horde larger. It seems a lord-class monster is in the mountains, which is giving them trouble,” the old man said with a shrug. “What we should be . . . concerned about is that structure that formed overnight a few days ago. Every monster we’ve sent has failed to return, and we even lost the lord-class monster hell wolf that we sent.”

“The tower does bother me. I feel like it’s a bad omen and am torn over whether we should send the horde there first. Better to cover our back than get stabbed by an unknown assailant,” the young man voiced.

“I agree. Maybe it’s just an illusion to buy the valley time, but it’s better safe than sorry. Besides, even if they buy time, they most likely won’t flee. They have no idea we’re behind it.”

“M-ma-aster—” The slave tried to speak, but the young man slapped her across the face.

“This is no place for a slave to speak! I’m only enjoying the view before we use you, so don’t think you’re going to escape your fate,” the young man said with a twisted grin on his face.

The woman cowered away from the man, then curled into a ball next to the tent wall. While I felt sorry for her, there was little we could do to help, and I was sure that another would just take her place shortly after. I could only shake my head. The man grinned in sick pleasure at the sight of the woman before he turned back to the old man.

“You grabbed a good one this time. It’s too bad we can’t taste them.”

“It is a pity, but you learn to live with it. The High One likes his virgins,” Kuul said with a sad smile.

“Speaking of the High One, is it really necessary for us not to use regular mages? I mean, so many things would be easier for us in the long run . . .”

“I’m not sure of the exact details, but I believe it has something to do with a war in Celestia.”

“Celestia . . . I hope I gather enough power to ascend there one day.”

“Just another reason why we are fighting this war. The bitch Lelune needs to be brought down a few pegs.”

The young man was about to say something in reply when an orb on a nearby table pulsed with a green light. The pulsing accelerated until a wave of energy spread from the orb. Nothing seemed to be affected until I noticed that everything in the room started to glow with trace amounts of unholy mana. The wave reached the drone, then it seemed like the mana circuits I used started to go haywire. I frowned but decided it was better to be safe than sorry and armed the self-destruct. A moment later my vision from the drone cut off, and I saw a relatively good-size explosion from the center tent.

The two men rushed out, coughing from the smoke, then glared at the surroundings. I was worried that they might have a larger version of the orb, so I beat a hasty retreat. I had gained some useful information, though. If those necromancers really sent the horde to the tower, that would save Father quite a bit of time. I sent the order for all my drones to return to the camp and worked my way back. I had to avoid quite a few monsters because the necromancers had raised the alarm in the horde. I wasn’t too worried about the others but felt it better to get back quickly just to be safe.

An hour later I finally made it back. There were quite a few more of the monkey monsters than the group that had taken a nap under me earlier. The trees had been crowded with them, making my trip much more difficult than it had been on the way in. I tapped my foot in the password we had decided on last time we had erected the artificial cave, and Azra let me in.

When everyone had gathered around me, I began, “Well, as Cadum said, there are several thousand. The good news is that the necromancers might be heading for the tower in the village. They want to remove the potential threat to their rear.” I paused for a moment as the sound of heavy footfalls vibrated through the walls. When they passed, I continued, “I have the information Father wanted, so we need to head back as quickly as possible. When we get farther from the horde, I will send it to him via the crystal.”

“Is there nothing more we can do while we’re here?” Azra asked me.

“Not without causing the horde to crush us with overwhelming numbers,” I replied with a shrug.

“I just wish we could leave a nasty surprise,” she said.

I considered the options open to us but couldn’t think of anything that would do any real damage and let us be able to escape without any trouble. I knew that risk might be necessary, but the lives of the group were more important. I was seated with my back against the wall when a smell drifted over to me. In the corner of the artificial cave was a pile of . . . something. I recognized the smell of sulfur. The scent seemed to trigger a memory that I had inherited from Father. I smiled and got to work.

I reached into the bag that contained food for the times that Azra needed to eat. I was actually thankful that we had a previous mortal with us at this moment. Then I grabbed the salt, quickly made a tube, and poured it and some water into the pot. I capped it, then channeled mana into generating some electricity through a piece of copper inserted through the bottom. Once the voltage got high enough, the dissolved salt separated into a gaseous element that, I believe, was called “chlorine.”

I moved over to the pile of sulfur and was about to grab some when Natsuko nearly shouted, “What the hell?!”

I looked up and asked, “What?”

“That’s . . . that’s Cadum’s . . . shit,” she said with a few pauses.

I looked back to the pile. “Figures. A fire-breathing monster wolf would crap out some of the highest-grade sulfur,” I said with a shrug and grabbed some.

“Nasty! Make sure you stay away from me . . . far away,” she said with a shudder as she looked at my hand.

I channeled my mana into removing the . . . less desirable parts, then added the sulfur to my little science experiment. I created another set of tubes, then fed the chlorine into the sulfur, which slowly turned golden yellow as it condensed into a liquid. I spent a few hours working through all the steps, my recall of them seeming to improve as I worked on it.

A few hours before dawn, I was finished. According to my memories, what I’d made was called “mustard gas,” but I liked another name that seemed to be in my memories. I pulled my spiders to me and added a container into each, making sure to pull their memory cores so that I had all the information for Father.

The horde had calmed down when they’d failed to find anything. I figured that most would be pretty tired after the night of activity, and I wanted to act during the day when the mist would be hardest to see. I released my spiders, and they spent an hour getting to their locations. I wanted to get the maximum effect but only had so much of the materials. If I’d wanted to create them from my mana, it would have taken days. I made enough to cover about a kilometer or so, but the horde encompassed nearly ten kilometers, with certain monster types keeping to themselves.

Chapter 13

Regan

The last day had ended up being busier than I had expected it to be. Someone had found the secret path I had added to the library while making some improvements to the dungeon. It was a reward for people who sought knowledge. I was a bit surprised that the princess’s group were the ones to be first, but I guess it was up to fate. The researcher Vern had already reached the tenth trial, and her book had nearly three hundred pages of information written in it.

When I’d created the trials during my downtime, I had been worried some of the smarter ones might blast through them and make it deeper than they should, so I’d created Saga. She was based off a Norse deity that kept their tales and stories. I had used quite a bit of mana so she would be able to create a grimoire of sorts that could create what I liked to call “seeds.” I wasn’t sure what would happen when the seeds were filled, but Saga was linked to all the seeds and was able to judge their content.

Saga also filled the role of Jarvis, as she had a lot of downtime, at least for now. I wouldn’t have said this to Jarvis’s face, but she had much better specs than him when it came to memory and analytics. Jarvis needed to be upgraded, but it was harder to upgrade than create my more sentient automata. He would have to gather mana, then break through like a mortal.

After that, I got a message from Puppet and company that the horde was bearing down on the forest tower in a preemptive strike. I also learned that Puppet had inadvertently created some sort of monster that rivaled even the necromancers accompanying the horde. I cracked my mental knuckles and set the fort on the defensive for the time being. The automata wouldn’t venture from the walls and would destroy anything that attacked. Jarvis was watching over it, so if a group of survivors came then, he could at least detain them until I checked them over.

I moved over to the forest. A decent-size town that any city planner would be proud of now spread out over roughly two kilometers of space, as I had planned when the aura was spreading. The inhabitants living there might have felt that it had grown overnight. I created my avatar, then moved into the mayor’s office.

The two co-mayors stood over a holographic map that represented the town and the surrounding area for roughly twenty or thirty kilometers. They seemed to be discussing something about new additions to the town and how to locate them. I sensed the area, then felt a group of people who were heading for the town from the outer edges of my aura. The two mayors paused when they noticed me in the doorway.

“Creator!” the major said with a salute.

“Host,” Hiden said with a small bow.

“You two seem energized, what’s going on?” I asked.

“Creator, one of our patrols spotted a group of adventurers apparently out on a quest. They had taken a detour to inspect the tower. We were trying to decide how to handle them.”

I turned to look out the window. “Welcome them. Welcome them to Steel Spire, the Machine City. I want people to know of this place.” My reasoning behind this was that I could more easily obliterate anything that attacked this place as I was less worried about my core. If people saw this gigantic structure, they might be more inclined to focus here.

The major saluted and left the room. Hiden stayed behind, though.

“Sir Host.”

“Regan.”

“Sir Regan, is it really the right call to welcome people into the city? What if they report us back to the Slaves Guild?” Hiden asked, worry coloring his tone.

“What power do they have over me?” I asked and channeled some mana to cause the light in the room to dim.

“I’m worried due to this,” he said, pointing at the slave crest engraved in his chest.

I walked over and tapped it with my finger, drawing a bit of blood due to the sharpness of my metal appendage. The runes rearranged themselves, then finally came to a stop, appearing as a crystal surrounded by gears. I had to stop myself from chuckling. Whoever had created this particular slave rune was obviously just following some kind of guide or instruction manual, as there were so many spots for me to enter the “program” and alter the parameters. My action gave him quite a shock, but he recovered quickly.

“There, now no one but me can tell you what to do, and I’m far too busy to bother with that, so go do whatever you want,” I said a little more offhandedly than I meant to sound.

“Really?! A slaver can’t redo the crest if I get caught?!” Hiden asked seriously.

“Correct. I don’t know who made you a slave, but the mage they hired was an idiot or at least lazy, so it was easy to rebind the runes. That”—I pointed to the new rune—“will require someone with extensive knowledge of runes and magic to crack. In fact, it would be timelier just to kill you.”

His face brightened, and he said excitedly, “Sir Regan, this may not mean much to you, but I swear my fealty to you. Not only did you create this wonderful place for us to live but you also removed the hatchet over our necks. I can’t speak for the others, but from now on, I’m your man!” Hiden went down on one knee, tears trailing down his cheeks.

I tapped my chin. While I really didn’t have a need for him, I knew he could be useful for a future project I had in mind. I pulled some mithril out of my inventory and created a small dagger. I enscripted it to do the same thing I had done to his rune. It would work on most slave runes that I could think of, except maybe a necromancer’s slave rune or collar. It acted like an autohacking program and would attempt to alter the rune until it was under my control or the blade was removed.

Some people might consider this unethical, but in my defense, those who did were already permanently slaves. Without ripping a piece of their souls out, I couldn’t do anything else to save them. Just look at Azra. Her personality had changed when the dungeon had affected her slave rune. At least this way the people could be free from any mortals who wanted to enslave them like animals.

“After we deal with the monster horde, I want you and a group of trustworthy people to head to the nearby towns and buy up all the slaves that are on the market. I’ll prepare all the funds and whatnot. Lead the groups back here and allow them to choose.” I handed the knife over. “A life of slavery or a life of freedom as a citizen of Steel Spire.”

“I’ll do as you say!” Hiden bowed, then walked out.

I followed him with my senses as he rushed to the other mortals and offered them the choice. I was disappointed I didn’t get any mana from it, but if I were able to pull all the slaves in the kingdom and empire to me, then I would have a decent mana gain either way.

The major showed the adventurers to an unoccupied house for them to use and explained that the forest was dangerous at the moment. They looked around in awe the whole time they walked through the town, so I left them alone for the time being. I moved up to the tower platform. The wall around the town had changed into one much like the one around the fort, but it only protected the inner city at the moment. I concentrated on the outer line of my aura, where I created another wall, only this one was less durable.

If I held them at the wall, then all was well; if they made it into the city, they would be subject to more of the tower weapons than just the artillery. I went along the wall, adding more turrets of various kinds, then moved farther out, where I added traps along the forest floor. I wanted this horde over with, as I had other things to concentrate on.

With that taken care of, I moved onto the bridge of my airship. It was still docked at the bay so as not to drain the batteries. I was tempted to turn the reactor on. While it produced pure mana, along with all the mana I would get from the complexity of the transformation, I was worried the pure mana would be cut in half every time I leveled. I was almost confident it wouldn’t, but something just held me back. It never hurt to keep a trump card in reserve.

I looked at the empty bridge, then waved my hand. As I summoned my magic, the image of a captain from an ancient set of movies came to mind. He was a pirate, but a good man. More importantly, he was a good captain. A grin came to me when I thought about creating another couple of ships and have them be captained by people from this set of movies.

The magic took effect and seemed to embrace the entire ship. A moment later an automaton decked out like a pirate stood in front of me. He had a peg leg—as I had thought of the later stages of the movies—but all in all, he seemed pretty tough. He had a beard that was made out of a soft metal. I was sure it would make dwarves in this world jealous. He paused as he looked over the ship.

“This be a mighty fine ship,” he said in real appreciation.

“Thanks, Bar . . .” I stopped myself; that was a little on the nose. I considered for a moment. “Thanks, Benjamin. She’s yours to take care of from now on.”

“Much obliged,” Benjamin said as he tipped his hat. He pulled his sword hilt out, which I noticed was just the hilt, and channeled mana into it. There, a stone converted it to light that extended to about a meter. “TO YOUR POSTS, YOU SCALLYWAGS!”

The ship seemed to breathe for a moment. Then, down in its belly, which was just a cargo space, a giant summoning circle formed. From it poured nearly two hundred pirate-based automata. Some of the better-dressed ones made their way to the bridge or assumed spots throughout the ship.

“The crew all be accounted for, Captain!”

“Thank ye, First!” Benjamin turned to me. “Ye be the owner of this vessel. Point us where ye want us to pillage and plunder!”

“A monster horde is approaching.” I paused as I considered my options. “Crush them.”

“Aye, AYE!” Benjamin shouted excitedly. “Orders, boys. Time to set the coast aflame! Take us out of port, helmsman!”

“Aye, aye, Captain!”

The helmsman operated the controls as if he had known them his whole life. The engines flared to life as the dock clamps retracted, and with a shudder, the ship was free of the tower. It moved out of the bay slowly, as it had quite a bit of length, but finally exited safely. Once out into the open, the air mana started to react to the ship where some runes for mana absorption were placed. I had placed them there for defense, but the ion repulsors moved the air in a way that they started to absorb the excess mana. Thankfully, it didn’t affect the ship’s flight capabilities.

As I watched the interplay of the three, a visual effect outside reminded me of the water-based craft back on Earth. The air mana acted like waves that broke against the ship as we cut through the sky. I was honestly quite mesmerized by the effect.

“Owner, be this yer first time on the sea?” Benjamin said with a smile.

“Indeed. Not sure if it applies to now, but I can see why men were called to the sea.”

“She be a dangerous mistress,” Benjamin said with a serious tone.

The airship gained speed as it headed in the direction of the horde. While we traveled, I worked on a few more creations that should help in the upcoming battle. It was a pain, as I had to channel mana into creating an aura around my avatar, but it was a trick I had practiced every now and then since the first attack on the valley.

~~~

A few hours into the night, the ship’s sensors started picking up aerial targets that were moving at ridiculous speeds for living creatures. I created my staff and stood up from the chair I had been sitting in. I don’t feel fatigue, but it gets tedious to stand for several hours on end.

Flying monsters of all kinds covered the horizon. Some that looked like they shouldn’t even be able to fly seemed to hover with the pack. Birds, winged beasts of the land, and horrors that seemed to crawl out of people’s nightmares were assembled as they flew toward us.

“Full stop!” Benjamin ordered, and the ship halted. Gravity magic kept everyone from flying forward due to the momentum. “Prepare to broadside!” he added, and the command was echoed down the line.

The ship turned ninety degrees, and several dozen ports opened on the hull. Arc, machine, cannon, flame, and a few more types of turrets made their appearance. A translucent barrier appeared around the ship as well.

Benjamin seemed to pause for effect, then shouted, “FIRE!”

A hailstorm of weapons fire arced toward the oncoming flying monsters. Sometimes the bodies just seemed to fall, while other times, the bodies exploded into a splash of gore in the air. Beams of energy sliced through dozens if not more at a time. An explosion encompassed several dozen meters and took out dozens of monsters in one hit. The downside for the horde was that they were so many that no matter where we fired, we would hit something.

The airship, having made its presence fully known, became the number one target for all the monsters in the air. The wave started to act like a set of pincers as the outer edges curved in toward us. I also sensed something . . . powerful moving behind the wave that was about to reach us. I sent a mental command to the automata waiting in the hangar bay.

The bay doors opened, then two dozen Raptors sped out as several trails of smoke shot out in front of them. Four dozen explosions cleared the air, allowing them to make their way around the outside of the wave. Groups of monsters broke off from the horde to intercept, but they couldn’t match the speed of the Raptors I’d built. Turrets from the ship followed the Raptors’ trail and annihilated everything that followed them.

The wave finally seemed to reach the conclusion that they weren’t going to be able to approach the airship without most of them dying in the process, so they started to circle us, doing their best to dodge or block the incoming attacks. A bird that had wings of flame built up a surge of mana, then sent it toward us. Hundreds of other attacks quickly followed it.

“Brace yourselves!” Benjamin shouted.

All the turrets stopped firing, and the barrier’s color darkened until it was almost black. I watched as the multitude of attacks seemed to move in slow motion before they collided with us. I glanced and noticed Benjamin had a smile on his face. Well, I had created him for this purpose. I was glad he was enjoying himself.

The attacks slammed into the ship and managed to push it a few meters down. Effects of all kinds took place on the barrier as it fought to maintain itself. Hexagons became visible as the barrier compensated in places that were hammered more heavily than others. I looked over to the energy storage and noted that they had drained a few days’ worth of energy with that attack.

“Return fire!”

The turrets opened fire again, only this time the monster wave was sending an equal amount of flak our way. The barrier moved like a disco ball as the colors changed from absorbing so much damage. Some of the damage was absorbed by the runes around the ship, but there was so much that they couldn’t cover everything.

The ship was continually shaking from the impacts but was steady enough that a glass of wine would only shake and not move. I looked outside, but it felt like the number of monsters was barely changing, let alone going down, and we were cutting down several dozen every second. I was about to move to the deck to contribute some more, but Benjamin held his hand up.

“Men! Take a walk!”

“Aye!” the crew screamed as roughly a hundred of them ran to the edge of the ship. Gems inside their hands and feet lit up as they jumped off the deck. I watched in awe as they pulled beam sabers out that were like the captain’s. Their flight ability was quite high as they maneuvered around not only enemy fire but friendly fire as well.

As they made their way to the front line, I studied the magic behind their flight gems. I noticed they were condensed versions of the ship’s, but had a much more limited flight time, as they were being powered by their internal mana stone. But once they returned to the ship, the ship would recharge them in a matter of minutes. They reached the front line of the wave and sliced their way through like a hot knife.

I turned my senses to the powerful sensation I had felt earlier. The Raptors had reached it and were currently engaging it in combat. It looked like a giant bat that had darkness coiling around it. Green cracks ran along its body and led to a collar around one of its limbs. Puppet had reported something like this to me, a hell wolf that had been corrupted due to the collar’s influence making it more powerful.

The Raptors were circling the creature in complex patterns so that it couldn’t predict where to aim. One of them launched a missile into the creature’s chest, where it exploded, but little damage was done. Shadow leaked more profusely, meaning that it had been wounded, but it looked like it was barely bothered by it.

I studied the creature the best I could. With the distance I was working with, not to mention all the other mana being flung around in the air, my senses were coping with a great deal of interference, and some of the information was a bit garbled at times. At least it was all being funneled into my pseudo aura so that another creature of horror wasn’t created. I was starting to realize that more wasn’t always better, at least on this world. I would have to be careful about unleashing any powerful weapons without being there to absorb the aftermath.

Chapter 14

Puppet

A few hours before the horde hits Steel Spire

The spiders crept through the horde with ease. I was right in that most of the monsters were sleeping. I aimed for an area that had a dominant type of monster: a large camp of Minotaurs, nearly a thousand of them. There were quite a few random monsters scattered around the Minotaurs as well.

I set the spiders to go off after we put a decent amount of distance between the horde and us, so that if another panic happened, we wouldn’t be as close this time. We made our way from the horde as quietly as possible. I was thankful that Azra had started pulling the stumps up as we went; otherwise, it would have been like leading them right to us. Being on the game trails also helped to reduce the number of trees we had to cut down.

When we were several dozen kilometers from the horde, I had all the spiders release their payload. Once they released all the liquid, they made for the forest line to keep a sentinel on the horde. A golden, nearly invisible mist spread from the drop points. It quickly engulfed the section of the horde, but it seemed I had underestimated the power of the chemical.

After five minutes it covered nearly three kilometers before it seemed to reach its limit. The Minotaurs that had been in the epicenter of the attack were the first to suffer. If my memories served me right, it should have taken a couple of hours for the early symptoms to surface, but I must not have taken the mana into account.

A Minotaur near one of the points had reactions only after a few minutes. His roar of pain filled the air as his skin turned a deep red. Blood flowed from his eyes, snout, and mouth as he collapsed to the ground, seemingly struggling for breath. Large blisters, the size of a man’s hand, formed all over his body. His struggling caused one of the blisters to hit the ground, and it exploded in a deluge of pus and gore.

I watched in horror as the weapon I’d created tore through the horde. It didn’t even need to be breathed in. Some of the monsters tried to cover their faces, but once the mist touched them, it only took a few extra minutes to work its way into their systems.

The horde dropped into a panic as the infected monsters rushed from the contaminated area. They caused the chemical to spread even farther. I was wondering if I alone would be the cause of the destruction of the horde when the old necromancer rushed out of the tent. He looked around before he shouted something that caused all the monsters to stop in their tracks completely.

Even though the infected monsters struggled for all their worth, they still ended up dying, unable to move an inch. Kuul walked near one of them and examined it for a while. A frown formed, which grew deeper the longer he studied it. Finally, it seemed he lost his patience as he sent a wave of green flames at the corpse, burning it to a black pile of ash.

I wondered if he was upset that it wasn’t a curse or spell that he could replicate. No, sir, as Father would say “It’s science!” The old man went to a few more corpses, trying to figure out the method used. I was relieved when, after the six or seventh corpse was burned to ash, the old man had failed to figure anything out. I wondered why he didn’t bother with the large amount of death in the area, as I’d heard that was what necromancers used to cultivate mana. It could be that he was just too powerful to be bothered with the small amount that had died, even though that number was nearly a thousand strong.

I was about to disconnect my drones when I noticed something happening in the middle of the affected area. The air mana swirled into a cyclone as it pulled all the remaining gas left over into the center of the twister. The nearby bodies were also pulled in and were ripped apart. Kuul actually backed away instead of investigating the phenomenon. I couldn’t tell how great the mana fluctuations were from the drones, but the air was literally rippling with it.

The cyclone died down, and a grotesque looking creature emerged. Made out of an orangish-red cloud, its body didn’t seem to remain in one shape for long. The only place that looked . . . normal was its face, which took on a Minotaur’s shape. It had two horns, but there was no pattern to them; they just turned and twisted randomly. Appendages and tentacles emerged from its body without rhyme or reason, but its lower half was like a gas with no legs to be seen.

I moved one of my drones closer to get a better look as well as to see if I could get some sound. I watched as the old man and the creature stared each other down, and shuddered as I thought about what I had inadvertently created. The drone was only a few dozen meters away when I thought it was close enough.

“What . . . what are you?!” Kuul shouted at the creature.

“What am I?” the creature echoed back to Kuul in an unearthly voice that violated some natural boundary of the world. It looked at its own body. “I don’t know the answer . . . I was created to . . . kill, yes, kill,” the creature said, then parts of its body started to change with spikes appearing at the ends of appendages, and yellow smoke emerging from other parts. “But not for the sole reason of killing . . . no, there was a reason . . . Maybe if I kill enough . . . I will remember!”

The whole time the creature was talking, Kuul was backing away while he channeled a spell of some kind. When the creature finished his sentence, Kuul sent a ball of flaming darkness the size of a man’s head at the creature. It didn’t seem to know fear or didn’t understand that it was in danger and took the attack full in the . . . chest-like area of its body.

The creature roared in pain that reached us all the way back at the convoy. I grabbed my head in my own pain but did my best to hold the connection with the drone. For something to be able to cause me pain, it definitely wasn’t ordinary. I saw several of the suffering creatures explode into pus and gore, which flew toward the creature. The wounds closed in a blink of an eye.

Kuul had blood running down his face from all his orifices, and his face was screwed up in concentration as he managed to finish another spell. “In the name of the Celestial Cassin the Dark. Undead creature, submit yourself to me!” Green chains with red runes on them burst from the ground all around the creature. They wrapped themselves around him while he looked at them with curiosity.

“Undead . . . yes, no. I am very much alive!” the creature shouted, then its form flexed. Cracks appeared in the chains before they shattered. It moved and one of its appendages shot like a whip toward Kuul. It collided with his barrier but still managed to make a crack in it. From the shocked look on Kuul’s face, I assumed it must have packed quite a punch.

“I can’t let this venture be a waste. She’ll kill me for sure this time!” Kuul said, then raised his arm.

A moment later a blast of green energy exploded in the sky. My drones all picked up movement at once as they saw the entire horde start to move in our direction. They weren’t just walking either; they started running full tilt.

I turned toward Azra. “Bury us! At least twenty meters down, now!”

She did as I instructed without hesitation, and I felt the vehicle tilt forward as we accelerated briefly. We came to a stop after a quick drop. She channeled some more mana, and the cave that led to us was filled in. Azra and Cadum were the only ones who needed to breathe, so we would be fine for a few hours, and I could always create some fresh air.

I turned my attention back to the encounter at the horde camp. Kuul had been joined by the other necromancer, as well as a few more. They must have been on patrol or attending to other business. They launched a barrage of unholy spells, and bone spears, balls of green flames, black ethereal chains, and a mixture of others flew toward the creature.

The creature looked at the attacks flying toward it before a green barrier much like the ones the necromancers used appeared around it. As the attacks impacted the barrier, cracks formed. But, as if it were learning, the barrier seemed to grow more robust as the barrage continued. A few moments later, the necromancers were breathing deeply from mana consumption as the barrage ended.

They started to inch backward as they realized that nothing was working on it. One of the necromancers channeled another spell, then a regular ball of fire emerged from his hand. It shot toward the creature, and it actually hit. The attack was pitiful, though, and it quickly died after burning the creature for only a moment.

“Pain . . . feeling . . .” it said before several of its tentacles shot toward the necromancers.

I barely had time to blink before the necromancers were impaled by the attack. My drone shook a moment later as something buffeted it. A few died instantly, but some remained alive.

“Death . . . more, I need more, I still don’t remember my purpose.”

The ones who were still alive had the tentacles twist around and impale them through the head. I gaped at the power of this . . . thing I had wrought on the world.

Kuul and the other young man had been able to avoid the attack. They glanced at each other before they faded into smoke. The creature stared at where they were for a long moment before it turned to my drone and looked directly at it. I wasn’t sure if it was because the drone wasn’t technically alive, but it decided to ignore it. It turned toward where the horde had charged, then started to glide over the air after them.

I set the drones to follow it and disconnected from them, then turned toward the others. “My gift for the monster horde has spiraled completely out of control. I need the crystal, to speak with Father, NOW!” I said urgently.

Azra dug in her pack as she said, “The horde has passed, so we should be able to use it safely. Besides, I don’t think they were in any condition to sense us.”

I took the crystal from her and channeled some mana into it. I was really testing my limits today. It took a few moments, but I saw Father appear in the orb and start to speak.

“Puppet, have you found the horde? What are we looking at?”

“The horde is heading for the forest tower as we speak, and judging by the speed they were moving, they should be there in a couple of hours or so.”

“That soon . . . alright, I’ll have it handled. Make your way back if you can. I might need a strike force on the rear line.”

“Father! I . . . I may have created a bigger problem,” I said. I felt ashamed about what I had created. “I created a substance called ‘mustard gas.’ I’m not sure what happened, but a creature of immense power was formed after I used it in the camp,” I explained, then showed the clip of the happenings to Father.

“I see. That is indeed a problem. However, Puppet, while you were the cause, that does not make it your fault. If I make a sword, am I responsible for it being the cause of death a thousand kilometers away?” I shook my head in answer. “Exactly. Magic in this world is very much alive. If the fates wanted that creature created, it would have happened eventually.”

“I . . . understand, Father.”

“Good. Now get your asses back here!” The image in the crystal faded as the link was cut.

We made quick time following the destruction the horde left behind. Even going full speed, though, we still failed to catch up with them. Even more surprising was that we didn’t catch up with the creature either. I wanted to fix the problem I had created one way or another. I connected with my drones, then looked ahead of us and was able to see the dust and debris cloud that such a large body of creatures created when they moved en masse like that. It was several hours ahead of us still.

I concentrated on the mana fluctuations that the creature created and saw him just behind the horde. From the drone senses, he looked like a wave of shadow that was eating away at the back of the horde. I shook my head, as I feared we wouldn’t even be able to catch up before they reached Father. I focused, then looked inside my storage ring, then quickly worked to take the drones apart and rebuild them using the parts to create an aircraft that could carry the party. We would have to leave the regular automata behind, but I felt they would be outmatched with the equipment they were packing.

“Stop the convoy,” I ordered. Once we came to a stop, I jumped out and pulled the new aircraft from my inventory. I created a chassis for us to sit and took all the repulsors so that it would be able to fly with the added weight. I believe Father would call it a “helicopter” except only without the blades that created the uplift.

I turned to one of the drivers. “I need you to come with us. It needs a dedicated pilot.”

“Understood, my lord.”

He jumped into the pilot seat and took a moment to familiarize himself with the controls. While he was doing that, I went around the vehicles and took the guns from them. I told the rest of the automata to wait there and I’d send someone to get them once we handled the crisis. I quickly mounted the weapons on the vehicle, then hopped aboard. Natsuo had his hand inside the dashboard, but I left it alone, as anything he was doing would only help.

The pilot flew us up, then angled toward the horde. In the air, we were able to make much better time and quickly started to gain on the rear of the horde. It was getting into night at this point, so visibility was lower; but everyone in the heli was basically able to see at night, so it was of little concern.

“We’re getting close to the creature, so get ready for the fight of your lives,” I said to the party.

A flash of light in the far distance pulled my attention for a moment, but I had to disregard it as a tendril of shadow nearly slammed into the heli. The pilot was able to avoid it, but more soon followed. It looked like the creature had seen us.

“Move over!” Natsuko shouted at me over the wind.

I moved over and noticed as I did so that her weapon had changed. It was a large tube now, with spikes that were sparking toward the back.

She leaned out over the edge, and as she aimed the cannon toward the ground, she yelled, “Eat this!” A beam of energy blasted from the cannon. The particle beam lit up the night as it burned through trees and the ground alike. The creature took the beam full on as the necromancer-like barrier he used was sliced through as if it wasn’t there.

The . . . otherworldly voice roared in anger as it reverberated in my mind. Natsuko’s gun changed back into her normal rifle form, and she slumped back. Four spots on her back opened as steam blasted from her body. Natsuo leaned in, then placed a hand on her, channeling mana into cooling her down.

“Well . . . at least I hit it,” Natsuko said weakly.

“That’s a good start,” I said with a small smile.

“Incoming!” the pilot shouted just as a wave of shadow slammed into the bottom of the heli. We jerked around as the pilot fought for control, holding on as best we could, but Azra was thrown from the aircraft. I wasn’t even able to see where she landed, much less if she was alright.

“Get us out of the sky!” I shouted to the pilot.

He nodded, and the heli tipped straight down. I wanted to yell that I didn’t mean it quite like that, but just before the heli hit the ground, it tipped back up and the repulsors flared, bringing us to a stop a few centimeters from the ground.

“Bottom floor,” the pilot said smugly.

“If we survive this, I’m going to kill you,” I growled at him.

We got out of the heli, and he pulled away from the ground before I could say anything. The machine guns started to revolve as he was leaving the tree line. I just hoped he would survive.

“Alright, I had hoped that we could test the waters a little more from the air, but we’ll just have to go like this. Azra is down somewhere, so we need to hurry up and finish this so we can find her,” I said to the party. “It’s made from four mana sources: air, unholy, death, and life. That means it’s going to be a bitch to kill. We need to make sure it stays away from the horde so it can’t recover.”

“Containment. We, unable. Father, able,” Natsuo said with what I think was the longest sentence I had ever heard from him.

“We need to contain it so that Father can deal with it,” I reiterated for everyone.

“I . . . I think my ice can do the job. Unlike with the mutt”—we’d had to leave him back with the automata—“this thing can’t counteract the element entirely.”

“Let’s go with that. I’ll back you up.”

We followed the sound of gunfire, then quickly left the living trees behind. The pilot was evading the tendrils of shadows like it was child’s play, but if we had been in there, it would have sent us flying. I noticed that the metal seemed to have changed color, but I had no way of confirming that. Bullets slammed into the creature, doing little damage but still managing to hold it in place so it could not pursue the horde.

Natsuko changed her rifle into another form. This one still looked like a rifle, but it had several of the spikes the cannon had inserted around the body of the weapon. She and Natsuo made their way over to a boulder, where Natsuo set up what looked like a barrier.

I looked over to Z2. “Ready for this?”

“I was created for battle,” she said quietly.

I channeled mana into my blades so that light coated the edges, giving me unparalleled cutting. I would slice this thing to pieces if I had to. Z2 pulled her weapons out as well, white smoke rising from the edge of her blade and the muzzle of her gun.

Before we attacked, a voice echoed in my mind: You . . . I know you.

“That’s right! I created you!” I shouted to the creature.

“Created . . . me . . . Why?” it echoed. Everything got eerily quiet.

“You already fulfilled your purpose! There’s no need to kill any more!” I said, hoping it could be reasoned with.

“My . . . my purpose . . . has been fulfilled . . . A new, a new purpose . . . I must find a new purpose . . . But I must kill . . . But that’s not my purpose . . . I need a new purpose . . . To kill is my purpose . . . Yes, to kill is my purpose . . . To KILL!” The voice seemed to debate with itself, and I swore when it still reasoned to kill more.

It turned toward us, its twisted face lit up with green and orange light. Spikes of shadow shot toward us. Z2 and I dodged them easily enough, but there were so many that I still ended up getting nicked by one. I focused, then threw a ball of light into the air. It exploded into light that would have rivaled the sun in midday. I wasn’t sure if it would, but I hoped this would reduce the amount of shadow mana he had to work with.

The creature had grown much larger since the horde camp but was still only roughly five or six meters tall. It still had no legs, as they spread into a curtain of shadow once they touched the ground. We charged it, my blade burning every part that I sliced through, while Z2’s blade froze it. She was firing her gun nonstop as well, causing tendrils that were heading toward her to freeze and break off.

The density of the creature made it hard to get closer than ten meters without risk of serious harm. We needed to create a containment field using Z2’s ice, but that was easier said than done while trying to stay alive. A beam of energy shot from a distance and burned a section clear off the shadow. Z2 took the chance to charge through the gap, a layer of ice coating her skin.

As the shadow impacted with her, it froze just before it could do any real damage. But if Z2 had been a mortal, the strikes would have been leaving nasty bruises. I thought fast, then pulled some electrum out of my inventory. I enscripted it to repeat magic and linked it to Z2’s mana, quite familiar with her “signature” after all this time.

I threw a spike into the ground, then took off in a circle around the creature, inserting a spike every five meters or so. The creature had engulfed Z2 by this point, but I knew she was still alive as juts of ice would punch through every few seconds. When the last spike was in, I linked them all together, then yelled to Z2, “Hit it with your biggest one yet!”

The strangest sensation happened next. It was as if the very atoms in the air stopped moving. Even I felt cold, and I shouldn’t have had a sense of temperature. The spikes reacted to whatever Z2 was doing and amplified the effect even more as they pulled in all the mana in the area to fuel the spell Z2 was doing.

No . . . Stop! the creature cried in my head. The shadow convulsed within itself as it condensed in size. I wasn’t sure if it could, but it looked like it was trying to crush Z2.

“We . . .” I started to say, but the sound couldn’t even leave my mouth, as it seemed just to disappear.

I watched as its body was iced over, then iced over again. This happened several times until it encompassed the space within the spikes in a giant dome. I was worried about Z2, but whatever spell she had used I couldn’t get any closer to without freezing myself. I’d already had to back off several meters.

We waited to see if anything would happen and were relieved when after ten minutes nothing seemed to move within the dome. I sent a message to Father that the threat had been handled, but we would need his assistance to finish it off. We had been keeping watch for maybe half an hour when Azra ran into the clearing. She was pretty banged up, but all her limbs were still in one piece.

“Where’s the creature?!” she asked when she saw us.

I pointed to the frozen dome. “Z2 was able to contain it, but we’re not sure for how long.”

“Wow, how much mana would you need to create something like this?” she asked as she examined it.

“Not sure. That’s why I’m worried,” I said honestly.

“Something is happening!” Natsuko shouted.

I jerked my head toward the dome just in time to see a large crack form on the surface. I jumped back when an intense wave of shadow burst from the crack. A hand emerged and gripped the edge of the ice. I would have felt relief, as it was a female’s hand, but it was different from Z2’s. Z2’s hands had been mostly like an ordinary mortal’s, but the one that gripped the ice had claws made of black metal.

It pulled itself from the crack that was slowly enlarging. On its head, two large horns started above the ears and curved around so that they pointed almost straight up. Steam like you would see on ice wafted from them. Silver-white hair framed a face that had an unearthly beauty. Her eyes were also silver but with a bluish tint.

The woman who emerged was also a bit taller than Z2 had been, but if she had evolved, then that wouldn’t be a surprise. Wings that appeared to be composed of shadow and ice spread out behind her as her upper body emerged. They drew the light into them and held it in the ice. Where the original Z2 had had the body of a girl maybe around fifteen, a bit on the tall side, this body was in the midtwenties and would have men on their knees if my research of the mortals from town was to be trusted.

She unfurled her wings and shot into the air. She breathed in deeply, and all the ice in the area started to float as it turned back into mana and streamed toward her. Up in the air, her outfit left little to the imagination, as the material only covered her bust and her waist, where it turned into a skirt. A wicked tail seemed to complete the package. As the ice mana flowed toward her, the aura she was projecting grew denser by the second. I had only seen a few tier three people while in the town, but she was getting close.

The woman finished absorbing all the mana, then streaked toward the ground. I expected a significant impact, but she landed without so much as a sound. She started walking toward us with a saunter that said she wasn’t afraid of anything.

“Ah, Puppet, what’s with the face?” the woman said with a slightly condescending tone.

“Z2?” I came straight out and asked.

“In the flesh, quite literally,” she answered. As she took a deep breath, her chest looked as if it were about to pop out of the piece of cloth that held it.

“What . . . what happened?” I asked.

“Well,” Z2 said, then waved her hand to form a throne-like chair of ice to sit on, “the little beastie and I had a battle of wills inside my subzero ice. I used all my life force to create the barrier that held us. I thought I would die. Luckily for me, the creature tried to stop me. Not sure why but when something kills me, my body absorbs it and turns it to my advantage. Not something I could test until something like this happened.”

“I can see you’re quite powerful now . . .” I said, not sure what to do with this situation. I couldn’t read her mind to see if it was actually her or not. “Who is most important to you?” I asked.

“Father, of course,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation.

Z2 looked behind her, where the remains of the ice that she had yet to absorb rested. I didn’t have to wait long to find out what she was looking for when another loud crack boomed out from the pile. A new hand shot out, then gripped the ice as it started to pull itself out. I jerked back as I readied my weapon. Z2 just looked at me, amused.

“Calm down. We came to an . . . agreement,” she said with a smile.

“Agreement?” I asked. I decided not to put my weapons down just yet.

“That’s right. During the little tug-of-war of wills we had. We learned a great deal about each other. Of course, Lean here was just unable to move past part of the spell that you created, but thanks to me, we were able to break him free of it,” Z2 explained as she watched the body that slowly emerged from the ice.

The upper half of the body had risen by this point, and I was able to see that he looked much like a male version of Z2, only his skin was pitch-black. His hair was also snow-white and stopped just before his shoulders. Two horns shot up and curled out, releasing smoke that dissipated quickly. On his chest, where the heart would be for most mortals, a chain emerged and was fused with the skin. It stretched off only about a meter, then faded into more smoke.

He finished pulling himself out, and we were able to see the bottom half of his body. He had gained legs and what looked like a tail with three or four tendrils to it. They were composed of smoke as well, but appeared to contain a bit more mass. He moved slowly, adjusting to his new form I assumed.

“Z2 . . . are you sure this is safe?” I asked seriously. I didn’t feel as much power from this creature as the last one, but it still had quite a bit packed into it. Not only that but it felt more refined to me.

“Completely. Oh, Father is going to be so pleased!” Z2 said and squealed a bit. That certainly was the old Z2, in my opinion.

“Strange . . . the call . . . is gone . . .” the creature or, I guess, Lean said as he moved closer to Z2.

“Lean . . . what, what do you want to do?” I asked carefully.

“Z2 has . . . shown me many things . . . that I want . . . to experience.” He paused to consider for a moment. “I would like . . . to see the . . . ocean.”

“See. I got this under control,” Z2 said with a hint of smugness tainting her voice.

“I’m sure Father will decide—” I started, but the sound of a large explosion from far in the distance echoed through the forest. Looking toward the direction the horde had moved, I chose the tallest tree nearby, then quickly made my way up to the top. In the distance, large clouds of dust rose into the sky from some kind of explosion. I knew that had to be Father’s work when I considered the amount of power needed to create something like that.

A few more flashes happened afterward, but nothing I could quite see clearly from the sixty or so meters I was up in the air. I released one of my drones and sent it higher so that it could zoom in on the battlefield. I knew Father had reinforced the town, but I wasn’t sure of the particulars. It looked like the battle was far from over when I saw a drone start to move toward the center of the horde.

I wasn’t sure why, but I got a bad feeling from it. Jumping down from the tree, I shouted to the others, “We need to create some distance, now!”

The heli had landed while we watched the ice, so we quickly crowded in. The pilot shot into the sky, then forward once we were barely clear of the canopy. Suddenly, a high-pitched sound hit us like a wave that even managed to knock the heli a bit. The bit of glass in the front started to crack when the noise disappeared. I wasn’t sure if it was over or not, so I had the pilot keep going just to be safe.

Suddenly, Azra lurched forward in pain. Natsuo was the one who saved the day, quickly covering her with a white light. She breathed easier as the barrier Natsuo put over her gained some strength.

“Felt like my lungs were about to explode,” Azra said breathlessly, still wheezing a bit.

I concentrated and was able to sense the extreme control of air particles via air mana. It took a good two or three minutes for the effects to completely clear. Once they did, I ordered the pilot to take us back to the convoy so that we could head back to the town. I had a feeling that Father had just finished the horde—with extreme results.

Chapter 15

Louella

I awoke in the middle of the night to some shouting from the commander’s tent. When I got up to investigate, I found a man being forced to kneel before Ezal and a few of the other party leaders. I noticed Izora and moved next to her.

“What happened?”

“Ah, Louella, Wrakras caught this idiot trying to sneak in. He has unholy mana, which has been confirmed by a priest and the Mage Guild, respectively.”

“What do they plan to do?” I asked, wondering how Ezal would deal with him.

“I already know about your silence curse and that questioning you would be pointless,” Ezal said, and the man seemed to get smug. “So that means there’s no reason to keep you around.” Ezal’s face was completely serious as she brought the crescent end of Feuer around. Realization struck the man just before Ezal’s blade sent his head flying.

Ezal turned to the gathered people. “This man was a necromancer! He was trying to bring death, or worse, slavery upon us! We don’t have the leisure of taking care of a rat that has sworn himself to a faithless god!”

“I quite like the girl’s style,” a voice said next to me. I turned and saw Noir watching the proceedings. “We barely know the surface of necromancy. If we allowed that man to stay alive as a prisoner, not only would we have to assign people to watch him, but we’d also have to worry he might curse them in some way to work against us.”

“I agree. It’s about time those necromancers get what they deserve,” I said with a nod.

It seemed the crowd was in agreement as they all cheered. One man even kicked the body where it lay. There had been no blood, as Feuer had burned the wound as he sliced the head off. I glanced at the sky and saw pink dawn about to crest the horizon.

“At least we can thank this idiot for one thing. We can get an early breakfast!” Ezal shouted to a mixture of groans and laughs.

A few people came and checked the body’s belongings, but there wasn’t anything of value or any sensitive information. It was moved to a small clearing, where Ezal’s flames turned it into a pile of ash in a few moments.

~~~

The force began to move just after dawn. As Ezal had stated, most of the camp was awakened due to the news that a necromancer had tried to sneak in. Over the last day or so, people had started calling Ezal the Flame Sovereign. I thought it was apt, and she didn’t mind, letting me know about my nickname, The Charmer. I wasn’t sure about it; while it didn’t sound bad, it didn’t quite sound good either.

I found out it was from me making such powerful allies, and that many people were stating it had some kind of magic behind it. I shook my head as I wondered how long this would haunt me. People were also inquiring about my giant wolf that I rode, but I just told them I got it from a friend. The second day I started to notice that people would mumble “Charmer” under their breath as they walked away.

We reached a dry riverbed that we planned to lure the horde to around late afternoon. The Terra mages went to work quickly erecting walls that were several meters thick and between four and five meters tall. In the center of the field in the empty clearing, some Terra mages were building what could only be called a fort. It wouldn’t pass any beauty contests, but it appeared quite durable. Some carts carrying large amounts of iron plates were unloaded and incorporated into the fort’s structure and walls.

I made my way up to one of the fort’s towers. It was nearly fifteen meters up and would give me a good vantage point for my weapons. Not to mention I could use some actual lightning magic for once and rain down some mass destruction into the horde. Wrakras stood next to me. He would protect us from any flying monsters that managed to attack the tower.

Julie, as Regan had said once a long time ago, was going to be thrown out into the horde. Unlike when the town had been attacked, she would be quite powerful in the middle of a monster horde that was composed of flesh and blood. Even though she annoyed me to hell, I was still worried about her diving into the horde head-on like that.

I watched as mages of all types mounted the wall and began casting all kinds of spells that would be activated when the horde passed over them. I pulled my guns out and started doing the same. Lightning mages were the flying monsters’ worst nightmare, the instructor at the academy always said. I thought about the tiny mana that Regan had talked about a while ago. I had gotten the hang of it with the guns, but what I wanted to try was going to be on another level. I sat down in a cultivation pose, then waited for the horde to arrive, comfortable in the knowledge that Ezal would be handling the regular orders.

~~~

It was late in the evening when the mass amount of mana being used around the fort started causing the first of the natural phenomena. Storm clouds began gathering over the fort, stretching for nearly two or three kilometers into the distance. The mana density was also getting heavier. Light bent at weird angles or dimmed randomly, as those mages worked apart from each other.

I stood up from my cultivation pose after gathering all the mana I could in the time we had. I jumped when I looked around and saw that Ezal was standing next to me. I took a deep breath, knowing that if someone wanted to sneak up here, there would be a lot more death. Wrakras was skilled at infiltration, after all. He would be able to detect anything that could get to this point.

“Shouldn’t you be closer to the command area?” I asked after I calmed down a bit.

“Not particularly. I can just as easily give commands from up here as I can from a triple-guarded room. Besides, I want to do a little damage myself.” She appeared rather stressed, though she was doing a good job of hiding it. I felt she was doing a wonderful job of controlling the adventurers. They were notorious for not following orders, after all.

“Fair enough,” I said as I glanced behind her to see four guards and two messengers. She was ready to get orders to where they needed to go. I supposed being up here would actually be better for getting an overview of the battle when it began.

“The horde should be here soon, if the scouts were able to draw their attention,” Ezal said, then gripped Feuer hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

“Don’t worry, we have some of the best adventurers with us. Hell, the meteor guy might take care of them all by himself,” I said to try to assure her. He was known for causing mass destruction. The guild only used him for infestation quests.

“True.” She laughed, then glanced up to the storm clouds. “I see you and your fellow Lightning mages aren’t going to be left behind.”

I looked up as well. While most of those assembled were indeed us Lightning mages, a good amount of the storm was caused by the overflow of tainted mana. There was a reason that battlefields became almost more dangerous than the battle waged on them afterward. The corruption from the mana given off by mortals tended to taint the entire area.

“I was working on my own spell when I felt the . . . current of the others, so I tweaked it a bit,” I said just as raindrops started to fall slowly. This kind of rain was the best, as it was very clear, or so I’d learned in the academy. It didn’t contain any of the normal dirt that most water had, which allowed it to conduct lightning mana the best. If you wanted a team that could cause widescale destruction, you had two choices: Fire and Earth mages, or Water and Lightning mages.

I flexed my hand, nervous energy as well as pent-up lightning raring to go. I wanted this battle to be over. I could only hope that everyone survived the coming confrontation.

~~~

Just before sunset, the first roars started to trickle in. As if riding the wind, they were barely audible at first but grew in strength. The ground soon started to tremble continuously. I looked to the west where the horde was gathering and noticed a cloud of dust rising in the distance. A flash of lightning and the peal of thunder marked the first flying monster as it was struck out of the sky. The lightning caused the creature to explode and the water turn to steam instantly.

Soon, the lightning never seemed to cease as it continuously struck out at the incoming monsters. The only ones that were unaffected were the monsters with lightning mana, but those were rare in this section of the world. So far, I only counted two that managed to make it through the storm.

Manas of various types flared to life inside the storm as the stronger or smarter monsters used their auras to protect themselves. I took my gun and changed it to the rifle form, then selected the biggest monster I could find to maximize the target I would have. I took a breath, then pulled the trigger when my body was as stable as it would be. The round flew through the sky and blew off one of the monster’s wings, and I think I may have hit another monster behind it.

When the flying monsters were within a kilometer of the fort, the airships began to fire their weapons as well. Enchanted bolts flew from the merchant ships, while what looked like beams of mana fired from the gnome’s airship. I guess they were able to fix them with Regan’s advice, so that was good news. Monsters died by the dozens from the mana beams. I could only wonder how long they could keep the barrage up.

The long-range mages also took up the attack from the ground as they sent fireballs, shards of ice, ink-black shadows, and many other forms of attacks into the dense pack of flying monsters. Ezal lifted Feuer next to me and threw him like a spear. Feuer flew deep into the dense horde of monsters, and I quickly lost sight of him. It wasn’t long until a massive explosion bloomed out in a perfect sphere several hundred meters large, blew across the field, and easily reached the ground, reducing hundreds of monsters to cinders.

Ezal released her breath, and flames seemed to literally pour from the sides. Her hair also grew even more vibrant. A moment later Feuer came spinning back and landed in her grasp.

“Think you got a few more of those in you?” I asked.

“I can do it again in about ten or fifteen minutes, but not one after another. It puts too much stress on my body.”

She rubbed her stomach and I nodded. While Regan assured her the mana wouldn’t adversely affect the child, it wasn’t a good idea to use several large spells one after another, pregnant or not.

She pulled her arm back and threw some regular fireballs. Well . . . regular by her standards. They still exploded and took out several monsters with each one. I looked up into the clouds and saw that the charge was starting to drop from the continued strikes. I pulled the ammo clip from my gun, then aimed at the clouds. I let my mana build to the max that the gun could handle and fired. The lightning exited from my gun, arcing into the clouds, where it was absorbed.

The intensity of the lightning suddenly jumped to another level and began striking several monsters at once. I looked over to my fellow Lightning mages on the nearby towers as they started channeling more mana into the storm. It was a group effort to keep it up for as long as possible.

A tremendous shadow formed in the distance behind the horde. It only took a moment for it to reach the area of Light spells. A giant turtle with several sets of wings down its back flew as a king among the other monsters. It had a golden shell that seemed to repel anything that came near it. Green cracks lined the shell, which seemed to originate where the tail would be, or at least I assumed as much, as I couldn’t see behind it. It was huge.

Golden whirlpools appeared in front of it that had to be several meters in diameter each. A jagged shape soon emerged, followed by the rest of what turned out to be a giant boulder. The amount of mana it would take to create something like that, without a source, would be equal to four or five mages. The boulders finished emerging from the whirlpools, then with a boom shot toward the fort.

Two dozen Terra mages grouped together to “grab” the boulder, then shifted its trajectory to outside the fort. Another group, this one comprising Water mages, made a tube of water that forced one of the boulders to change course, then slammed it into the one next to it. The force behind the boulder was tremendous, however, as they explode when they collide, and the shards rained down into the fort, causing many injuries and even impaling one man through the head. I couldn’t tell from where I stood, but I assumed he was most likely dead. There was no way to tell if there were any more casualties in the middle of the battle.

The giant turtle was already forming new whirlpools as it prepared to send another attack. I reacted quickly and aimed my rifle toward one of the whirlpools. I emptied the little charge I’d built back up, as well as tried to force as much mana from my pool as possible into the round. I took a breath as I centered myself and fired.

The round seemed to be blessed by the fates and struck dead center of the whirlpool. Lightning flashed as arcs of energy cascaded through the whirlpool, emitting the sound of glass breaking, followed by the whirlpool exploding. The giant turtle roared in apparent pain, most likely from mana backlash.

Many monsters are naturals at mana casting but don’t build in the mental guards to protect against a spell being forced to stop. Something this size had probably never lost. It was likely the offspring of a land dragon or something of similar strength.

A flare of red light alerted me to Ezal as she did something. I looked and saw red gears around her limbs as she floated a few centimeters off the ground. Small jets of flame were keeping her in the air. The pressure from her mana was enough to make me feel smothered.

“Ezal! What are you doing?!” I yelled at her.

“Taking care of the big guy,” she answered calmly.

“You can’t! What about your body?!”

“If someone doesn’t handle that thing, it will bring the whole fort down.”

With that, she jerked her body out of the opening, then shot toward the giant turtle like an arrow. She dodged and evaded all the regular monsters, her sight set on the boss. Feuer acted like a barrier, burning to ashes or impaling anything that came near her before it could touch her.

She was about a hundred meters from the turtle when it seemed to notice her. Hundreds of much smaller whirlpools formed. It looked to me like a nearly solid wall of rocks shot toward her. There was a loud boom, and it appeared that Ezal became flames in their true form. I swore I could feel the heat from nearly a kilometer away.

All the shards of rock were vaporized several meters from her. Even the shell of the turtle started to melt from the heat she was giving off. Ezal lifted her hand, and Feuer came to her. When they touched, the energy she was giving off reached another level. Then what looked like a sword that extended for a hundred meters appeared from Feuer. She swung the weapon, cleaving not only the turtle but half the flying monsters still in the air in half. The burned corpses and ashes started to fall to the ground and mix with the rain.

After the attack, Ezal had clearly used most if not all of her mana, as she returned to normal. She turned back toward the fort and flew as fast as she could, her flaming gears dimming quickly. I saw she wasn’t going to make it back to the fort at this rate. Even as I saw her losing consciousness, Feuer was pulling her along, trying to get her to safety.

I turned to Wrakras. As I pulled him over the edge with me, I said, “I hope your undead body can handle this.”

“Seriously!” was all I heard in reply as the wind from the fall drowned him out.

Chapter 16

Regan

I looked around the battlefield. The airship had performed wonderfully, and I was pleased with the captain. There were still quite a few airborne monsters to deal with, and, while I could let the ship handle it, every attack dealt and received was draining the batteries a bit more.

“Benjamin, I am most pleased with you and your crew’s performance, but it’s time to head back to the tower. I want to test the defenses there as well.”

“Aye. For their maiden voyage, me crew did splendid. I await orders to go pirating.”

“In good time,” I answered with a smile, then waited for the crew to return to the ship.

I walked out onto the deck where I could choose my targets for maximum effect. I pulled a few gems from my inventory and enscripted them much like I had when the necromancers had attacked the town, only with much more refinement. I pulled my arm back as I aimed, then threw them in rapid succession while I spun to cover all the directions around us. The gems sailed through the air, easily reaching the spots I chose.

For a moment nothing happened, then a sphere of darkness spread faster than the eye could follow. It quickly expanded until the spheres each contained nearly a kilometer of space. Any monsters the spheres missed soon started to fight against a suction that pulled them in.

I looked around and the only monster remaining was the aerial leader. I willed the gems back to me and pocketed them. They were a little cracked from the spell but could be used one or two more times.

Returning to the bridge, I sat down in the throne-like captain’s seat. I leaned back and cupped my chin as I said, “Let’s finish off the bat while we’re here. I would like my Raptors back.”

“AYE!” Benjamin yelled with force.

He seemed to be impressed with my display of power. Hell, I was impressed with it. The magic of this world continued to amaze me. It seemed like every day I came up with or found a new use for power.

We quickly gained on the giant shadow bat. It had managed to take out two of the Raptors, but the others were holding on. Several dozen wounds that leaked shadow dotted its body. We brought the side of the ship to bear. The minute of rest the ship was able to take had returned the shields back to full strength.

Benjamin grinned, then shouted, “FIRE!”

Every turret on the left side opened fire on the beast. The more physical-based ones did little damage, but the energy-based ones practically ripped it to pieces. The giant bat did its best to both dodge and return the attack, but the combination of the Raptors’ and airship’s weapons hammering it gave it little room to struggle.

In a last-ditch attempt, the shadow bat exploded out in a black and green miniature version. The crew compensated by running onto the deck and taking their laser rifles. It basically turned into a turkey shoot. A Raptor got swarmed and was torn to pieces before backup arrived. I spotted a larger one that I felt was the core of the spell.

“Target that one!” I shouted, placing a marker on the bat with the ship’s targeting system. The battle was over when a laser tore through its head and the body started to plummet to the ground. It landed with a tremendous boom. The remaining Raptors quickly returned to the ship. Of the dozen I’d launched, only seven remained. Not too bad considering what they were dealing with.

“Take us home,” I said, and Benjamin repeated the order.

We were almost back to the tower, when I felt an intense energy. I wasn’t gaining anything from it, I was just . . . aware of it. I ran through my list and found my link to the bracelet on Ezal. I looked, then had to pause, thinking I’d pulled up the wrong channel for a moment. She reminded me of a goddess made of flames. I smiled. It looked like I couldn’t underestimate this mortal anymore.

We reached the tower, then had to wait for the ground part of the horde to reach us. I wondered how well the communication was for the monster horde, and if they were aware we had already ripped the aerial contingent apart. I would just have to wait. And if they refused to come here, well, I had a nice new pirate crew that liked to get their hands dirty.

~~~

We only needed to wait an hour or so before the horde started to appear, the swifter monsters racing ahead of their slower counterparts. I leaned forward in my seat as turrets all around the forest surface emerged with sprays of dirt and soil. After a moment of tension, where it felt like the forest held its breath, they opened fire. Beams of energy streaked into the forest, resulting in trees and monsters being set ablaze equally.

Catlike monsters that moved at ridiculous speeds managed to dodge the first volley. They still weren’t fast enough to dodge the second, and they were torn apart by the follow-up rounds. Other monsters, such as an air-mana wolf, were also in the first wave and barely made it past a hundred meters into my aura. The main body of the horde soon caught up—and that was when things got really interesting.

A heavily armored armadillo monster repelled the beam. It appeared to have a shell made of metal of some type. A few hundred of the turtles led the horde deeper into my aura by acting as shields, allowing a few to reach some of the turrets. At least they almost did until the ground gave out under them. They fell several dozens of meters, and if that wasn’t enough, I had placed grinders down there. I had thought about using spikes, but sometimes they missed the vital stuff and then the monster would be stuck down there suffering. I would have to call a cleaning crew. It was all kinds of annoying, so the grinders got the job done.

The horde reminded me of those wave games, where each wave got harder as it came on. After the heavily armed armadillo, dozens of different types of monsters made it through the laser fire. They at least learned from the armadillos, as the ones with terra mana created covers over the pitfalls. Others jumped over them or were aware enough to avoid them by taking untrapped land in between them.

Some of the monsters used the trees that had survived the first barrage to jump through the trapped area as some more cat monsters managed to reach a few of the laser turrets and destroy them. The monster horde basically “cleared” the first section of about a hundred meters of my aura, after it cost them nearly five or six hundred in body count. The next section on my mental map of the traps lit up as they reached it. Every little bit was more data that I could use to increase my effectiveness later.

I tapped my staff on the ground, activating the next layer. Several angled trap doors opened a few dozen meters in front of the forerunners. A loud whirring sound could be heard as a giant ball comprised of hundreds of blades and sharp edges flew from the launcher. The first monster among them that was hit turned into a shredded puddle of blood and flesh. They only became more dangerous as their momentum was allowed to build.

One monster managed to avoid the spinning ball of death, but two plates opened along the side, and a whip-like metal cable flew toward the monster. It was impaled through the chest, then literally dragged under the death ball. The pile of bodies really started to grow with this trap. I created them using several alloys, but the main thing was the mithril tips at the end of each blade. I wasn’t completely sure, but if I were to quantify it with the kingdom’s currency, it would have been worth nearly five hundred thousand gold, give or take, according to the market that day.

The first death ball was defeated when a lizard monster of some kind blasted an arc of lightning into it. It would have been fine, except the shot was a lucky one and struck the mana core inside, causing the magic script to overcharge. The death ball didn’t go down easy, though, and it exploded and sent shards flying into nearby monsters.

I’d almost started to wonder why the monsters just kept pushing with no apparent leadership when they came to a stop in front of the second section. I tried to keep to the theme of being a dungeon, so the death balls sat at the section boundary as the two halves of their structure jerked back and forth.

I figured they were about to use the long-range-type monsters to try to destroy the death balls, so I pulled them back into their launchers. I would let them make the next move. It was only a good experiment if multiple conditions were tested. I leaned forward in anticipation.

The monsters made their move, and one that seemed to be made from lava moved to the front of the line. Tube-like protrusions on its back aimed toward the second section, then released flaming chucks of rock and magma. They collided with the trap doors and started to bury them. I had to give the monsters or whoever was behind them credit as they managed to mark nearly all the trap doors.

After a few shots, the damage was starting to add up. If I didn’t act soon, they would be sealed by the attacks. That wouldn’t do.

To get them moving again, I needed to give them a little push. I mentally sent a command down to the Raptors, then they started to prepare themselves for a quick run. Concentrating on the hard points of the Raptor that usually housed missiles, I changed them out for some decent-size bombs. They finished setting up quickly, then launched from the airship.

With streaks of white smoke, they were off. They dodged and maneuvered, their speed offering them all the protection they would need from the horde. The only time one of them was hit was from a lucky shot as the projectile exploded in midair. Even then, it only managed to leave a cut on the surface.

It didn’t take them more than a minute or two to get around the horde. Blasts of mana and other more solid projectiles were flung at them but were much too slow to hit the Raptors moving at such speeds. They circled around, then spread out to hit as large an area as possible. Soon the bombs were dropped, some even crushing monsters as they collided with the ground. It only took a second before a massive boom sounded out from the rear of the horde.

The blast spread until they connected with each other, using the fire mana to feed the reaction to increase the size of the explosion. I was really pleased with what you could do with magic in this world. The explosion did the trick, forcing the horde to rush forward recklessly. The death ball traps reactivated, but some of them were sealed successfully. The death balls slammed into the entrance. While some suffered from a bit of damage, others managed to crack the seal, then the rest burst through.

It looked like the horde was at least partially prepared this time, as they had some terra-based monsters that managed to literally grab the balls. They got their hands and arms torn up pretty badly in the process. One even sacrificed itself by crushing the ball under its body, and most of its torso was ripped apart. A few guarded the lightning-based monsters, which were emitting as much energy as fast as they could to take out the balls.

At this point, it was just a matter of attrition. There were a hundred of the death balls at the start. The horde was taking them out at a rate of about one per fifty monsters. If they’d had a mortal commander, or at least one with a conscience, then they might have ordered a retreat by then. I really only had pity for the monsters that were being controlled at this point.

After a terrible number of losses, the horde managed to make it through the second layer of defense. I tapped my chin in thought. While I considered the second layer a moderate success, if it had been a mortal army, I probably wouldn’t have done as much damage. I quickly compiled a few improvements that I could make to my mental list, then turned to the third layer.

This layer was roughly six hundred meters out from the first wall. Here, the traps were much more straightforward but quite a bit more vicious. The first batch made it halfway through before anything happened. With a large heat spike, everything within ten meters of the lead monster’s spot melted into a paste. The ground turned into a solid black and brittle charred mess. Only a few monster remains still existed in the incinerating zone. Blackened bones were the main theme.

It was a simple thing to do, just requiring precise control of the mana in the area. I used it much like I would fire mana, only I accelerated the process by a hundredfold. So, where a regular mage could make a fireball in a few seconds, I could create a flash incineration in the same amount of time. I just needed to change all the ambient mana in the spot to fire mana at about one-to-five ratios. Simple but effective.

Add into that the use of simple chemistry, and I had a powerful spell. By converting large areas of the spell’s zone to oxygen and hydrogen, I could reach a scale that was quite dangerous. I would have to consider showing Ezal this in the future. Though, it might be a bit too much power for her to have.

The bonus was that even if a fire monster were to try to get through it, without oxygen its body would get roasted from the inside. And if it were made out of flesh and blood . . . I wasn’t sure what would happen if a flame golem or something that was made of flames were to get hit by it. I considered this because the fire mana was under my control. So if a fire elemental were to get hit by it, I wasn’t sure if its body would be changed or not.

I lost track of how many monsters had died in this section. Alright, not really. Nearly two thousand died, mainly due to the press of monsters behind them, before terra monsters saved the day again. The mastermind must have come to the conclusion that it was a spell matrix of some kind, thus he’d ordered his monsters to destroy the land in front of the horde before they reached it. It worked out pretty well, as it achieved its objective. But what they didn’t account for was the matrix overloading due to the damage, which then proceeded to blow a large section of the ground into pits much deeper than the ones the monsters had fallen into earlier.

The horde had lost half of its original strength. I could tell by this point that the owner, or whoever was in control, didn’t care about the casualties they were suffering. If that was going to be the case, I would put these monsters out of their misery. It helped me gain mana and to run tests on magic and techniques that I wanted to test.

The fourth layer was the last hundred meters before the outermost wall of the city around Steel Spire. It was also what I considered the most deadly. All along the rim of the tower platform, panels opened. If the turrets on the forest floor were considered tier one, these were tier two.

The monsters rushed toward the wall, maybe bolstered by their apparent success of getting through the first three defensive lines. When they were directly under the rim of the tower, a black sheet of what appeared to be rain fell as the turrets lit up from the continuous firing. Bullets slammed into the ground in seconds.

Anything in the rounds’ path was obliterated. Using carbon lead and steel alloy, the rounds were dense enough to pierce through orichalcum given enough energy. Dropping from over a thousand meters in the air after being fired gave them quite the punch. Even I couldn’t think of a way to easily deal with something like this.

With the final push halted, I was getting ready for the next layer’s test. There were only about three thousand monsters left in the horde. I could deal with them in any manner of ways. Even now, they didn’t show any signs of letting up the push. I was ninety percent sure that whoever was commanding them had already fled.

I was using my dungeon aura, as well as my more mechanical means to search the horde, but was finding nothing. It was in line with the necromancer calling, however. They wouldn’t risk their life when they could return with a new plan. It was one of the things that made dealing with them so annoying.

A wave of despair washed through one of my links. I quickly examined them all to see what was going on. Julie was having the time of her life, from the joy I was sensing from her. In fact, I think it spiked a bit when I touched the link. There was nothing unusual from Jarvis. I sensed a bit of stress from Wrakras. Finally, I checked Louella and Ezal. I didn’t feel much of anything from Ezal, but Louella was in full-on panic mode it seemed like.

Even though I was enjoying my testing, I really didn’t want to lose my mortal connections right now, as, while they did what I said, they still didn’t just follow my orders without me giving reasons. I enjoyed the conversations we had as well. As the saying goes, you need to help your friends when they’re in need.

I pulled out a new device from my inventory. On Earth it might have been called a “smart bomb.” Hell, it might have been smarter than some of the people on this world. It had the body of a drone and used an amplified type of air magic for its attack. I released it and it shot off toward the center of the horde. As I sent the order for attack, I created a barrier near the wall, just to be safe.

A few moments later a high-pitched sound could be heard from the drone. The sound quickly passed some of the monsters’ range of hearing, but others started to convulse in pain. Once the frequency reached a certain point, none of the monsters were able to hear it. Some thought the attack was over and resumed their rush into the town.

Only the most sensitive of creatures were able to detect the signal at this point. In particular, I felt sorry for the canine-based monsters. Just from a quick observation, nearly all the ones that remained were whining on the ground with their paws on her heads.

For nearly thirty seconds nothing happened, then the chest of one of the monsters exploded. Soon, a wavelike rhythm went through the horde from where the drone was positioned as the monsters, no matter what element they were, died from their chests exploding. I felt a shock wave on my barrier and knew the wave had reached the town. The mana drain as well as the gain increased by the second. I waited for nearly a minute to let the wave hit several kilometers worth of area.

While I couldn’t be sure I’d succeed, I hoped that I would manage to bag one of the necromancers in the attack. I ordered the drone to return to the tower, then turned my attention to Louella. I could see for a good distance around her thanks to the bracelet, which seemed to be amplified by the one Ezal was wearing. I was about to teleport to her, ship and all, when an intense burst of energy flowed back along the connection.

Chapter 17

Julie

The little girl really did drop me off in the middle of the battlefield. I would have to make sure to annoy her when I got back. It was the waiting that was killing me. She’d sent me out here shortly after we arrived at the riverbed, but she had no way of knowing when the horde would attack. That left me sitting there, twirling my thumbs.

What the master saw in the little girl I wasn’t sure. A personage who knew death and destruction on his scale shouldn’t have to help someone as insufficient as her. Though, she did possess quite a bit of fate. When I thought about the scale of her fate, even I couldn’t help shuddering.

“Annoying brat,” I said, pursing my lips as I carved curses into the tree I was sitting on. Even being the twenty meters up that I was made me groan when I looked down, but at least I knew I’d walk away fine from a fall from this height. Master’s tower was ridiculous. Only something not of this world could create a structure like that. Then there were the souls around him. I’d never seen something so . . . massive. Innumerable souls all packed around him. It was glorious.

The day passed while I sat in the tree, waiting for the horde. She wanted me to wait until most of it had passed and attack from the back. I couldn’t help but smirk when I thought of her ordering me to do what necromancers do best. I channeled darkness mana into my eyes. The world shifted to a grayscale around me as souls of the dead drifted by.

In the distance, I could make out a vortex of souls. What many people didn’t realize was that the souls of the dead left an afterimage on the person who killed them. I believed that it was used as a form of judgment on a person when they went to the afterlife. I would have to wait until I was able to talk to a Celestial to learn the truth.

Shrouding my aura in darkness, I waited. The horde crashed through the forest around me. A massive turtle that was easily thirty or forty meters long flew over me. A slave collar was clamped on its tail. Green and black cracks ran toward its front. I wanted to take the creature for a ride but figured that would get me in trouble.

Finally, the main host of the horde passed. I managed to sense a few underground, but there was little I could do about those. I double-checked but couldn’t find any necromancers. Hiding was what we were good at, I thought with a chuckle. I never thought I would be hunting my own side. Not that it really mattered to me.

I jumped down on a weird land-bird monster. It ducked as and tried to throw me. I shoved my hand into its back, killing it instantly, and accessed the little unholy mana that master allowed me to use. Flooding it into the bird, I quickly brought it back to life.

Removing my hand, I drew my blades. It was time to wreak some havoc. I urged the undead bird forward while slicing a wolf that leaped at me in half. I grinned as blood splashed over me. The scent of fresh blood caused the monsters nearest me to react. I ordered the bird to keep moving even if it attacked.

Soon, we were in the middle of the rear of the horde. No matter where I swung my blade I sliced something off. I allowed dark and unholy mana to flow around me, causing death and destruction with ease. Blades made of darkness whirled around me while I unleashed unholy bolts that usually killed in seconds.

After only a minute, I was laughing at the bloodshed around me. Licking my lips, I could taste several different flavors, which only made me laugh harder. Glorious death! This was what I lived for! I could almost feel the death mana sweeping into me and making me stronger.

A strong blast of mana sent me flying, the initial blow blocked by my barrier. My flight came to an end as I slammed against a tree. Green fire lashed around me as the tree quickly caught flame. I looked up to see a necromancer walking toward me. I didn’t recognize him, but that was normal.

“Why is one of us helping the enemy?” asked the man as he drew a sword from his belt.

“Sounded like fun,” I replied, cracking my neck. Depending on who was commanding this operation, I could be in over my head. If it was a necromancer from over the mountains, then it might be difficult for me to win. I grinned at the thought. It wasn’t any fun if it was too easy.

“Pity. I can see great promise in your aura. You might have been able to see the holy land.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to see it one way or another,” I said with a shrug. Master had already drilled a tunnel to the north. I doubted he was going to stop with just that. There was little that I felt could stop Master. My undead stomach was proof of that. The pain of the lead bullet penetrating me was still a pleasant memory.

“Silence, swine!” he yelled before he shot toward me.

I grinned and charged as well. We collided and our barriers cracked as they hit each other. I didn’t hesitate to bring my blade around, using the curve to place the blade in a hard-to-defend crack. Fire and unholy mana met my blade and pushed me back.

I flared my dark and unholy mana as well. I shot to the side and kicked a monster into him. He brought his blade around and sliced it in half. Before he could think, I sent another one flying at him. I laughed as I rushed through the horde and sent the smaller monster after the first. They were reacting to me hitting them, so he couldn’t just dodge the beasts without getting clawed or bitten.

“This is fun!” I shouted.

“Girl, I’m going to enjoy slicing your heart out!” he shouted back.

Sounds from the battle grew louder as our fight took us closer to the fort. I suddenly felt Master’s gaze on me. Thrilled that he was looking at me, I shot forward after sending several monsters at the necromancer. With skilled sword work, he managed to slice them all in half.

Appearing in front of him with a burst of darkness, I brought both blades around in extremely awkward lines. He managed to block one, but my other blade tore a gash in his chest. He coughed up a mouthful of blood as he backed away, trying to let the monsters block him.

I quickly followed after him. He soon left the monster horde. The creatures, more concerned with attacking the fort than dealing with me, allowed me to be able to follow him. I found him trying to channel unholy mana into the wound. Not wanting to give him a chance, I threw one of my blades. The crescent blade sank hilt deep into his stomach.

“Well well well. I wonder if master would like a new toy,” I said, walking up to him.

“Bit . . . ch . . . I . . . ’ll . . . kill . . . you.”

“Aw. You’re so cute. You know, I have enough competition with Wrakras,” I said with a finger on my chin.

The man actually looked confused until I slammed my hand into his eye socket. To make sure I killed him, I forced darkness mana through his skull, turning his brain to mush. Finally, I cut off his head and crushed it under my heel.

You just couldn’t be too careful with necromancers. I looked up from the mess, wondering if there was anything left for me to do. I didn’t feel like I’d killed enough thanks to being interrupted by this guy.

Chapter 18

Louella

We slammed into the ground as I clung to Wrakras’s back. The fall was quick and easy. Thankfully, it looked like Wrakras was able to handle it. I climbed out of the same crater we’d made, then looked around for Ezal. I saw her a hundred meters from the wall. She was still in the air but fell quicker as the time passed. I looked around for nearby adventurers.

“The commander is about to collapse! I need support to retrieve her!” I shouted as we ran toward the gate.

I wasn’t sure when, but Bruce joined us as we ran. The aura around him made me worried for anything that got in his path. The wet ground quickly dried as he ran over it. And the rain evaporated before it touched him.

“Here to lend a hand,” Noir said as she fell into stride with us. Her sisters were next to her.

“Much appreciated,” I replied. They were a powerful adventurer group, and I would need a decent amount of power to reach Ezal.

We ran as fast as we could to the pseudo gate where a large group of adventurers had grouped up. They made ready to open the gate to let us out. I drew both my pistols. I would need the rapid fire rather than power.

“We’ll provide cover from the wall!” a mage shouted down from above me.

I nodded, then braced myself. Two Terra mages sent a blast of mana into the gates to force them open quickly. Two monsters were even knocked back from being hit by the doors. Bruce led the way as we rushed out.

The party followed the red glow into the distance. Ezal had landed but it seemed Feuer was protecting her for the moment. Luckily, the main part of the horde hadn’t hit us yet, just the forerunners. We had to hurry, or we would all die when the main host overran this point. Flames grew around Bruce as he took off in Ezal’s direction. For such a large man, he moved fast enough to almost leave afterimages.

The rest of the party followed after. Spikes of shadow would burst from around Noir every now and then. A large catlike monster leaped at the party and was sliced or pierced precisely through the head. Several of the party had active effects like this going on around them. Hannah would swing her ax, and a wave of terra would ripple out and tear through the onrushing monsters.

I wasn’t slacking off either. With my pistols aimed ahead of us, I would shoot anything that was heading in our direction. I managed to score a head shot with some type of bull monster that was three times my height. Wrakras was also using the dark mana version of his attacks to participate, but he had to be careful not to alarm any of the members of the party.

Spells rained down from the fort, providing us with some manner of cover. Fireballs and ice spikes were the most common, as they were the easiest to control. A triple-headed monster that appeared to be made up of two dogs and a cat was turned into charcoal from a spell that hit it point-blank. I would have to increase the reward for the adventurers if we survived this.

A grueling two minutes later, we made it to Ezal. She was collapsed on the ground with nearly a wall of bodies surrounding her. Right as we approached, Feuer impaled some kind of wolf monster’s head without a problem, and another body was added to the pile. I could feel the protectiveness of the weapon from ten meters away.

We rushed in and surrounded Ezal as I made my way to check her. She was still alive, though she looked like she’d gone a little further on the path her body had started. I barely felt any energy from her, but parts of her body still seemed to be releasing flames. I tried to get close to her. However, the heat was too much for me to handle. I yelled for Bruce to come over and carry her. He would be able to resist the flames as a Fire mage.

Ezal roused a bit as Bruce picked her up, then looked at me. “Used . . . a bit . . . too much . . . than . . . planned.” She proceeded to faint again.

We needed to return to the fort, but the way back was getting increasingly packed with monsters. I gave the others a hard look, and they all nodded back. We formed a spear with Noir at the front. Her heavy armor as well as her deadly control of dark mana were perfect for breaching the way ahead.

I was channeling mana like I’d never done before as I fired one gun while reloading the other. I emptied a clip nearly as soon as I finished channeling the mana into it. There was a close call when Hannah was nearly flattened by a hawklike monster that was struck from the sky by a bolt of lightning. As it fell, she swung her giant ax, which sent the corpse flying several meters.

All of us were covered in monster blood, and quite a bit of our own, but all in one piece. I thought our luck would hold, but it seemed the fates had another idea. Just as we reached about a hundred meters from the wall, the ground in front of us started to convulse. We skidded to a stop, then braced ourselves, everyone readying their magics. Even the nearby monsters decided to start circling around us for some reason.

Soon, the ground exploded as the head of a giant worm monster burst from underneath. I knew we were in trouble—as it was very much dead. And from what I understood of necromancy, if someone was able to get this massive thing moving, it meant they were quite powerful. The head slammed on the ground as it turned toward us, but nothing happened after that.

“They’re quick but a little bumpy for an old man such as myself,” a voice called from inside the dead land worm.

It made me shiver, as it sounded like whoever it belonged to was used to playing with the lives of his victims.

We tightened our grips when we heard the voice, anyone crazy enough to ride inside something like this would be troublesome to deal with. An elderly man walked out of the mouth of the land worm as if it were a carriage, then looked at the gathered party in front of him. He had on a very nice black robe with green runes lining it. A staff made of bones tapped with each step he made toward us. The staff’s head consisted of skulls from several races that all seemed to be in anguish.

“Now, I may consider letting you all live if you hand over the artifact that killed the Protector Turtle,” the old man said, as if scolding a group of children who had stolen from the teacher.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but that was pure talent,” I replied. I really had no other option. We didn’t have anything to hand over. While Feuer was technically the instrument, Ezal was the source of that magic.

“Child, no mortal can channel that much power,” he said as he shook his head. I felt mildly offended, as if my intelligence was just insulted. “Not without a bit of help.” The green runes on his robe flared briefly as if in emphasis.

“Alright, I’ll hand it over,” I said as I raised one of the pistols and slowly started walking toward him. His eyes brightened. When I was roughly five meters away, I fired the full clip, bullet after bullet in rapid succession. Much to my chagrin, a nearly solid green barrier formed in front of him. The bullets managed to crack the barrier but little more.

“Now, that was impressive. Is that one of the gnomish air-sticks?” he asked, sticking to the interested-teacher tone.

Having failed, I quickly jumped back to the rest of the party. I glanced back to Ezal, thankful that Feuer was floating behind Bruce’s tremendous bulk right now. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want the old man to assume anything if he saw the floating weapon. I turned back to him, “Pretty much,” I said as offhandedly as possible.

“Child, I already know that it is not one. For children that do not tell their elders the truth, some punishment is needed,” he said.

As if a switch were thrown, the mana density in the area intensified by severalfold. Twisted, dark shadows emerged from behind him, and the skulls on his staff seemed to grow even more tormented. It looked to me as if . . . things inside the shadows were trying to get free.

At some unspoken command, the entire party attacked at the same time. I unloaded my other clip and fired the partially charged beam version from the empty gun. A giant blade, much like the one Ezal used, only a hundred times weaker, emerged from Bruce’s blade as he swung. Noir couldn’t use her full abilities due to the affinity issue. Instead, she focused on amplifying her sisters’ attacks. Hannah struck the ground, which caused a wave of jagged spikes to cascade toward the old man. Megan actually turned out to be a Terra mage as well, as spikes of stone formed in the air around her, then shot toward the old man.

Two giant hands made of shadow reached from around the old man’s back, then slapped the ground. A surge of terra mana wiped out the effects of Hannah’s attack. Another set of hands, these smaller with long claws, ripped Bruce’s flame blade apart. Then a third set of hands, which were squarish and brutish-looking, took all Megan’s spikes with ease. A set of hands formed to stop the bullets as well, but they were pierced without much damage being done to them or the bullets. Unfortunately, the rounds were stopped by the barrier again.

“I wonder how many hands I’ll get to use today?” the old man said almost longingly.

“Fuck,” Wrakras said next to me. I could tell from his tone he knew who this was.

“What, who is this?!” I nearly yelled at him.

“His name is Neremyn! He is fifth on the council! We need Master to deal with this, it’s out of our league.”

“So, someone knows of me? Of Neremyn the Necromancer of Hands? It might not sound as legendary as Helicilia the Queen of Bones, but even she would have trouble handling me,” Neremyn said, then started laughing. Again, like a teacher at a child’s joke.

I quickly grabbed my bracelet and sent just straight panic over the link, hoping that Regan would be able to figure out the rest. I needed to think of some way to keep us all alive until he was able to get to us. I was flipping through my options in my head as fast as humanly possible when one of the hands shot forward faster than I could follow. It was one of the clawed hands, and it pierced through Megan’s stomach even with her enchanted armor on.

“I’ll let her go back to your fort to rest first,” Neremyn said, then twitched his finger.

The tendril of shadow flexed, then flung Megan over a hundred meters to the fort, and then some. I lost track of her as she went over the wall. Noir and Hannah screamed as they charged Neremyn. I shouted for them to stop, but they’d lost all reason from that one move.

Neremyn, looking depressed, said, “Pitiful.”

Two more tendrils shot forward. Noir managed to do something with her shadows to negate most of the damage but was still sent flying several dozen meters toward the rest of the horde. Hannah was much worse off as one of the giant hands hit her. It managed to grind her into the ground, digging a furrow before it picked her up by the head and tossed her toward the fort as well. I didn’t get a good look, but because of the large amount of blood on the ground, I didn’t hold much hope.

At this rate, I am going to die. The thought seemed to cause my mind to shut down. I looked up into the sky, where the lightning arced left and right as it struck monsters down. If only I could gather all that power into myself. That idle thought brought a memory to mind of when I’d broken through and the lightning had followed the charge of the tiny mana that was in the metal rod. Then I turned to the only one who could help right now.

“Wrakras, think you can stop a few of those tendrils?” I asked quickly.

“A few seconds at most . . .” he answered, no strength in his voice.

“Let’s hope that’s enough.”

I focused deep within myself, on my very center, where my mana pool rested. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. I thought about how I normally channeled my mana to create an arc of lightning from me to another point. This time I concentrated on reversing that process. I made my mana the opposite of the charge that I normally worked with.

At first my mana pool had no reaction, but soon a swirl in the center appeared, as if it was being pulled into a drain, only upside down. My mana pool seemed to switch from being on the ground in front of me to being in the sky. My pool was normally a blue color that turned white when I channeled mana, but now it took a reddish-black hue. It reminded me of a thunderstorm when the sun was setting.

Suddenly, a tremendous amount of pain flashed through my body. It was so strong that I was unable to do anything. I opened my eyes just as a bolt of lightning hit me. All its charge flowed through me into my mana pool, which was then funneled into the negative pool in the sky. Several more bolts hit me. Thankfully, the pain lessened with each hit. I wasn’t sure yet if that was a good thing or not.

I noticed a streak of shadow that was curving in from the side, but it was intercepted by a skull on a chain. I looked up as I saw a swirl in the clouds above me. Something was about to happen. I just hoped that I made it out alive. Suddenly, the entire sky lit up as all the clouds seemed to turn to pure lightning. All of it arced toward the center of the swirl, then a solid white light connected to me for a moment before a tremendous boom echoed out as all the energy of the mana-driven storm was sent colliding into my body.

The transfer only lasted a few seconds, then the sky was clear, the night sky looking as if nothing had ever been there. My mana pool extended as far as the eye could see, the negative pool as well. With a detached sort of awareness, I vaguely wondered if I’d damaged my mana pool doing this but seemed strangely unworried about it. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I noticed was that I was naked, my clothes having been incinerated. Again, I was strangely alright with it.

The next thing I noticed was that I was white, as in glowing white. If someone had looked at me, they would have been able to see my body just fine, but I was creating light. Arcs of lightning jumped from my body into the air, then down to the ground or other parts of my body. I wasn’t sure why, but my hair had also grown much longer, reaching well past my waist now.

“Well, well. That was fascinating. It looks like I’ll have to be a bit deliberate,” Neremyn said. His voice was serious for the first time.

Without replying, I pointed my hand at him, then an arc of lighting as thick as my palm shot at him without a moment’s hesitation. Neremyn jerked his arm, and a half-dozen shadowy palms reached in front of him, each different from the last. The lightning sliced through all of them and slammed into his barrier, stopping just short of shattering the barrier and forcing him a few meters back.

I looked around Neremyn, noting the negatively charged spots on the ground. Then, as I took a step forward like I was about to simply walk, I vanished. I appeared behind him, the fading light of an arc of lightning hovering in the air. With my palm already facing him, another arc of lightning thundered out. Barely having time to react, Neremyn yelled as dozens of sets of hands appeared around him and formed a dome of sorts. Not giving him time to rest, I started flashing around him faster than any mortal could possibly keep track of. Each time I reappeared, another arc of lightning thundered toward him.

“Do not underestimate me!” Neremyn shouted. The ground cracked under him as hundreds, if not thousands, of hands appeared around him. It was as if another horde appeared in front of me, but I felt unconcerned, as though my mind was disconnected from the part of me that worried about my own well-being.

I worked my hands as I continued to flash around him, the spell coming from somewhere deep in my mind. A knowledge that I knew I shouldn’t know but did. Neremyn grew more desperate, and his frenzied attacks managed to score a few nicks on my arms and legs. When I was done, I threw a ball of lightning into the air.

There was a boom of thunder, the loudest one yet of the battle, then a dragon made of lightning formed in the sky. It was at least two hundred meters long, like a giant snake that could swim through the sky. It roared, then turned toward Neremyn and flew downward, colliding with the ground encircling the necromancer.

The giant body started to tighten, destroying the hands that it came in contact with. The ground was turning black from the intense heat it was giving off. I flashed to a spot in the air above Neremyn, and the dragon constricted around him to less than a few dozen meters. I pulled as much of my mana as I could into a massive attack.

I shot toward the ground, fist leading the way. Neremyn was in full panic mode now as his attacks were being repelled no matter what he did. He noticed me at the last second and created his barrier with what must have been most of his remaining mana. I collided with it, and with a roar that could probably be heard in the city to the south, I broke through the barrier, with my arm piercing through Neremyn’s chest.

Arcs of lightning burst from him as his body burned from the heat. With the same detached awareness, I shoved my other hand into his body. The lightning flowed through him, then back to me, and I could tell with the loss of energy I was dealing with that I could likely keep this up for several hours.

Hands of shadow grabbed at my body as I stood there burning him from the inside out. The unholy mana in his body fought but couldn’t overcome the combined strength of several hundred mages who had channeled mana into the storm. Not just Lightning mages, but Air and Water were involved as well.

The hands slowly lost strength before they started to fade. The skulls of Neremyn’s dropped staff seemed to smile as they cracked and shattered, turning to dust. Neremyn stopped moving, so I pulled my arms out of his body. Even with the combined heat and energy, his body was still only partially charred.

As I started to lose consciousness, I directed the lightning dragon that was coiled around me to help the fort finish the horde. A pair of arms grabbed me before I collapsed, and I turned my head to see Regan standing behind me. He wore his metallic grin as if to say he was particularly enjoying himself.

“Now that was EPIC!” Regan said with a laugh. “Nice view by the way,” he added as he glanced down toward the rest of my body.

The glow had already faded, so I was back to normal, only there were streaks of white that looked like currents of lightning tattooed all over my body. I also noted that my skin had a light blue tone now. “Clothes please,” I said, either too tired to care or just not worried about the fact that I was naked.

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Regan said with a mocking head bow, then draped a blanket over me. “What the hell did you feed that thing?” he asked a moment later as he watched something behind me.

I looked back and saw the dragon I’d made going to town on what remained of the horde. I found out later that many of the monsters started to flee once Neremyn had died.

“A lot,” I said tiredly.

Chapter 19

Regan

The battleground was torn to pieces by Louella’s little pet. The thing made quick work of the remaining monsters on the field as it ripped, clawed, and just straight up electrocuted everything in its path. It was a good thing that when I teleported there, I moved the others away. Even the brief exposure to the sound and light had done some damage to their bodies.

The exchange between Louella’s party and the necromancer, while brief, allowed a decent number of monsters to stream into the fort after the giant undead worm ploughed a hole through the wall. I could sense that they suffered some loses, but I couldn’t get an accurate number from this distance. I swung my arm and threw Louella into a princess hold, as I could see that she was starting to tire just from standing.

“This isn’t very comfortable,” Louella complained as she squirmed a bit. I chuckled and shifted my metal arms a bit. “Hey, no reason to rub it in.”

I formed some padding on my arms to allow for some comfort. “Just enjoy the ride. I think you earned it, as well as did Ezal. You two have touched magic that I didn’t even consider possible. Makes me remember the ingenuity of humans . . . of mortals.” Just from studying the magic they’d done, I felt like I could raise my own magic to a new height.

Louella looked around the battleground as I regarded her for a moment. Before, she had been beautiful, there was no denying that. Though, I felt that in more of a grandparent to a child way. Now, she seemed almost ethereal with her looks. Her hair had turned a platinum white and white lines were tattooed over her body that reminded me of lightning bolts. I wasn’t sure why she didn’t go as far down the rabbit hole as Ezal, but she wasn’t breathing lightning, as her body seemed to have adapted to the mana overload much better.

Louella turned back to me, then said, “Have you managed to take care of the horde to the east yet?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, a few minutes before I popped over here,” I said, momentarily distracted by her eyes. Her pupils had turned to a midnight blue with what looked like stars in them. “Are you sure you’re still a human?” I came straight out and asked.

“What? Of course I am,” Louella said, confused. I conjured a reflective piece of metal, then made it float in front of her. She stared at her reflection for a good minute. “Maybe . . . maybe the same thing happened to me as Ezal?” she asked.

“Hold out your finger,” I said. She held her finger out slowly, still weak from her fight. I moved one of my fingers over as it morphed into a sharp needle end, quickly jabbed her fingertip, and absorbed a few drops of her blood. She hissed in pain but otherwise kept silent. “Hmm, it appears your body has changed, more so than the obvious. Something that was dormant in your bloodline was awakened due to the extreme amount of power you were flooded with.”

“My bloodline . . .” she said with a forlorn look.

I knew she didn’t care for her father, but I’d never heard anything about her mother. Whatever it was, she had something powerful in her ancestral line.

I started moving back to the fort, knowing the people would want to see their lord was still alive. As we walked, I was able to see just how deadly something like this was for the inhabitants of this world. Without a military backing them, these adventurers were hard-pressed to withstand this attack. Bodies of large monsters that had smashed through the wall were still radiating heat from the many spells that were needed to stop them.

A few of the adventurers who had defended the breach lay among the monster corpses. Their gallantry had likely saved many of their fellow adventurers, but it was never a good day when you had to bury a loved one or a friend. I would need to consider creating an altar in memory of these people.

Louella looked deep in thought before she said, “I heard a story. More of a bedtime tale than a real myth, about higher races. For example, High Elves, or High Humans, they were like a grander version of a normal mortal.”

“Oh, and what happened to these higher races, considering they were better? I am surprised they are not the kings and queens of the world.”

“That’s just it, they were . . . but were forced to leave the surface for the Beneath,” Louella said. When she mentioned the Beneath, her voice took a serious tone. “The Beneath is a dangerous place that only the foolhardy venture to. The last I heard, no one had managed to find an actual entrance in the last thousand years or so.”

“Wait, how long ago were the high races driven there?”

“Oh, eons ago. When Celestia was basically another continent. At least this is what the academy taught me. Also, they weren’t driven but forced by their very nature to move to the Beneath.”

“By their nature?”

“Look at my mana pool,” Louella said.

I peered inside with my senses, where I saw an ocean that rivaled, if not bested, Ezal’s pool. It seemed to extend to the horizon, but what was really interesting was the mana pool in the sky. I actually stopped walking as I peered at the interesting sight. The pool was still mana but had taken on a negative property. I studied it for several moments while I came up with several theories.

“What the hell did you do?” I asked after I came out of my trance. By my reckoning, her mana should be canceling itself out. Some sort of barrier or field was keeping the two mana oceans separate. Willpower, perhaps. I already knew that played a large factor in control of one’s own body.

“Huh?” she said, then focused inside herself. “I didn’t think it would be permanent . . . I did as you said and made the tiny mana into a negative charge so that all the energy in the sky would come to me.”

So, she changed the state of her mana. I wondered if she had another attribute that she was just unaware of, or if all mana elements had this negative state. I would need to find a mortal to experiment . . . I mean ask for help from someone later.

“Anyway, I’ve seen your pool enough times from before, so go ahead,” I said.

“Ah, yes, well. Higher races were said to have a mana pool so large that they corrupted whole kilometers of land at a time with their cultivation. The deeper a person goes into the planet the denser the mana concentration, so they were able to live more easily underground, as less monsters would spawn randomly.”

“Sounds reasonable,” I said with a nod.

“Reasonable maybe, but try telling someone they would never get to see the sun again. A large war took place that threatened the world. By the end of it, their mana corruption was turning them into lunatics that wanted nothing more than to destroy. Thankfully, the Celestials were still more accessible and pushed them into the Beneath back then.”

“I see. I want you to try to cultivate it for a moment,” I said, my metal brows furrowed a bit.

“O . . . k . . .” Louella said. Her eyes were closed for barely a moment when the mana pressure around us grew almost physically dense. The ground even cracked under my feet, as the increased mana started to affect the gravity around us. A shock wave of wind blasted out before she snapped her eyes open, and the effects disappeared slowly. I yanked one foot, then the other out of the ground as I sank a good five or six centimeters.

“Well that was fun,” I said as I laughed.

“What am I going to do?! I can’t cultivate mana anymore without destroying a building in the process!” Louella said, panicked as she held her face in her hands.

“Good thing you know people,” I said with a smile. “Just use the dungeon. Any damage you manage to do, I will actually congratulate you for.”

Louella blushed, while still groaning, as she knew I wouldn’t let her live this down anytime soon. I was about to tease her some more when a streak of light shot by my face. I locked eyes with the thing in an instant and saw that it was Louella’s giant lightning dragon, which apparently had shrunk to the size of a large snake. It wormed its way into Louella’s hands so that she could see it.

“Oh, little one. You can go back if you’re done. I don’t want to enslave you,” she said with a grateful look. The little dragon-snake shook its head, then wrapped around her neck carefully. Once it wrapped itself the third or fourth time, it tucked its head between one of its coils and Louella’s neck, then appeared to go to sleep.

“Made a new friend?” I asked, amused.

“I called for any lightning elementals to aid in my attack, then a dragon appeared . . . I want to say I was surprised, but I was in a state where nothing seemed to move me. Anyway, it looks like it’s taken a liking to me.”

“Yeah, I noticed that you didn’t seem to care about anyone around you. You almost shot Bruce with a lightning bolt.”

“I have to apologize to him,” she said with a worried look.

We finally made it back to the fort. The adventurers were gathering the bodies of the monsters to throw outside. They would collect the parts later. There was a literal fortune piled up outside the fort, after all. It wouldn’t be worth the people they lost today, but some of them did have families. The gold would go a ways to helping them.

The bodies of the adventurers were laid in a row to one side so they could check who’d died and their loved ones could be informed once they got back to the guild. The girl I saw get punted over the wall was leaning against one wall and didn’t appear to be injured in the slightest. I believe her name was Megan. I moved my senses over to her, then saw something I’d had yet to see before.

Unless I’d been actively looking at her, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but she’d infused her body with terra mana. Her bones appeared to be made of metal, her skin a soft stone that was nearly identical to skin, and many more places were touched with terra magic. I took a moment to actively look at all the adventurers gathered there, and I was impressed at the amount of people who used their element in unique ways to boost their power.

I wondered if it was the influence of the Flame of Knowledge. It might even have been my library that was helping these people along the path to power. At least, I hoped they were using the library. The people were doing their best to improve their place in life.

The fort was organized quickly, with all the dead, monster and mortal alike, finished being separated. I decided to do everyone a favor and quickly set up a teleport gate that led to town. Louella had wanted me to make her teleport gates anyway, but we’d never managed to get time since our talk about where to place the anchors.

The injured were let through first before the healthy ones moved the dead onto carriages. Of the nearly two thousand adventurers, almost three hundred were killed. It seemed the lord-class monsters, such as the turtle and the undead giant worm, had been curveballs. Another lord class had been present, some type of dinosaur monster, but some guy with Meteor in his name had managed to destroy it before it could kill too many people.

Now that the hordes had been handled, I could finally turn my full attention to the north. I had a dungeon to rescue, and necromancers to kill. Probably not in that order. I also needed to have a conversation with Izora about sending Benjamin to Jade Wind. I was considering being up front about placing a core in the city, but I wasn’t above accidentally misplacing one as some cargo that a careless dockworker might open.

The gnome airship and the merchant ships were too large to be sent through the portal, and one in particular was listing to the side and doomed to be scrapped. The people onboard were doing their best to save it, but even without my dungeon sense, I could tell it was a goner. The other merchant vessel was pulling alongside it to help. In short, the airships would have to make their way back to the town on their own.

At least the airships had served their purpose of keeping the flying monsters out of the fort while they retaliated. I decided I might be nice and replace the vessel for them later. Izora and her crew had also managed to take out quite a few monsters on their own. I was actually quite impressed, as her crew managed to fix many of the old systems on the ship and put them to great effect during the battle. It would have been hard for Louella to notice, as it was nearly directly behind her.

Chapter 20

Puppet

It was just after dawn when we made it back to the town, all of us having used quite a bit of mana over the last few days. Thus, we decided to actually get some sleep. Being back in the dungeon aura would help us recover the mana and fix most of the damage we’d received. I was nearly running on empty, so I planned to crash for a solid ten hours.

~~~

When I woke, it was midafternoon. A patrol had just returned to the town from the looks of it. Lean was walking around and looking at everything, much like I had seen some of the children in the valley do when encountering new things. Z2 was nearby, whether to help him or watch him I wasn’t sure. I hoped that Father was able to make sense of this situation.

As if summoned by my thoughts, Father appeared a few meters away. He was looking right at Lean, so I braced myself just in case a fight broke out. I loosened up a few seconds later as a big smile appeared on his face.

“So! This is Lean!” he said, walking over to Z2 and Lean.

“Father!” Z2 said in her old voice, despite her disconcerting new body.

“Z2! A day goes by and you completely change on me,” Father said as if hurt.

“Sorry, but now I have more power to help you,” Z2 said with a blush, which made me realize she was more than just an automaton now.

Father reached forward and cupped Z2’s face and gently moved her a few ways as if trying to decide which was the best angle. He’d only touched her for a few moments when his hand started to freeze. I was shocked that Z2 would do something like that.

“Seems to be a bit too much power packed inside there now,” Father said as he let go.

“Father! Are you alright?!” Z2 asked, panicked as she saw what had happened.

“Fine, fine,” he said, then made a fist effortlessly. The ice shattered, then fell to the ground, having not bothered Father at all. After that, he moved over to Lean, who simply stood there watching without a care in the world. Father grabbed both of his shoulders. “You, you are quite interesting. So many different types of magic and mana wrapped up into a functioning being. I want to say that you’re the first of your kind, but I can’t be sure of that.”

“Why would . . . more of my kind . . . matter?” Lean asked curiously.

“Well . . .” Father paused for a moment, “to make offspring, the next generation. The continuing line of existence that extends past ourselves. To make children, I suppose.”

“Children . . .” Lean said as if mulling over the word. He suddenly moved and grabbed Z2’s shoulder. “Make children . . . with me.”

“WHAT?!” Z2 and Father said at the same time.

“She is . . . has part of . . . me in her,” Lean said matter-of-factly.

“Well, I see your point, but that’s not how it works. You both have to want it, and there’s love, which should be shared between the two of you,” Father said, starting to explain the intricacies of falling in love. Finally, it looked like he gave up. “Anyway, you can’t make children with someone you only just met.”

Lean actually looked a bit sad when he replied, “I understand . . .”

“Look, kid, try again in a few years. Maybe then Z2 will feel differently about you, and I won’t blast you to the moon after changing you into a pile of dust,” Father said with a sincere smile.

Lean just nodded, then started to walk away. But it didn’t take long before something else caught his attention.

I moved forward. “Father, is it really safe to allow him to roam so freely?” I asked. I just couldn’t get over the amount of death and destruction Lean had been able to cause.

“It’s fine. His power is being restricted by Z2 right now. From what I could gather, when he was in the other form, he was still basically just a spell that had gone haywire. Now, he is a fully formed being with a real mind and quite possibly even a soul. I won’t ask you to treat him like a son but at least a brother. He was your creation, after all.”

Father looked at me sternly. I lowered my eyes and nodded.

Necromancer Council

Helicilia slammed her fist on the table, then said in a voice that would have scared even the most battle-hardened warriors, “What. Was. That?” Each word she punctuated by a tap on the table with an elegant finger.

“We lost Neremyn . . .” a robed man said from the side where he kneeled.

“And?”

“And . . . we don’t know how, Master,” the man said with a groan. Even before the last syllable was out of his mouth, a black chain burst from the ground and impaled him through the chest. The man struggled but soon lost strength. The chain pulled back through him and revealed his still-beating heart.

He stared at it for a moment, then collapsed to the ground. He didn’t stay down for long, though, and his body soon rose up with jerking motions. Blood dripped from the eyes as he stood up awkwardly.

“Go join the others,” Helicilia said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Then she turned back to the fully armored man who sat at the table. “We need to accelerate our plans in Lecazar. This valley is becoming a problem, and I would like a distraction.”

“The plan can easily be accelerated, but I must warn that all the targets may not be where we need them,” a gruff voice said from within the helmet.

“Handle it,” Helicilia said with another finger tap. This one seemed to echo with a barely contained power. The armored knight bowed, then his form dissipated into smoke. She turned to another person, “What have you found out about this valley?”

“We were able to gather a good amount of information before about a week ago, then almost all our agents vanished. One managed to send a message about some type of artifact that lets them know who can use unholy mana or has even been touched with it,” a female voice answered from down the table.

“How?!” Helicilia demanded.

“We . . . don’t know,” the woman said nervously. She didn’t want to end up like her associate. “Just before our sources were cut off, the host and the town lord were heading into the center of town. We have to assume one of them was the main culprit.”

“Assume . . . Assume?! Find out!” Helicilia said, raising her voice.

The figure had never heard Helicilia yell that loudly before. Unconsciously, she slid back a few centimeters. The figure quickly tried to think up a solution but only drew a blank. An idea formed, but to speak it required more courage than she currently had.

“Master, if . . . if we could use regular mages that haven’t been touched by the sacred mana . . . their chances of finding out what is going on would be much higher,” said a different necromancer.

“Blasphemy!” Helicilia said angrily, but it quickly cooled. “But. You are correct. It is apparent someone has found a way to detect us.”

The figure released the breath she was holding. Another voice joined in: “I have quite a few loyal servants in my land. It would only take two weeks for them to get there.”

“They are untouched by the sacred mana?” Helicilia asked.

“Yes, Master.”

“Send them.” The man bowed, then his form also dissipated into smoke. Helicilia turned back to the other figure. “Find another group to send. I don’t want to put all our cards on the table.”

“As you command!” the female voice answered, then also disappeared like the other member.

Helicilia leaned back in her throne. All her plans were being interfered with lately. Valamar had died because of her anger, which she regretted. He would have served as a good hostage. It would have been even better if he had been converted to the cause, Helicilia thought as the trail of blood caught her eye.

~~~

Celestia, Mount Asteralia, The White Palace

Lelune tapped her sword on the ground as she sat in her throne. In front of her, on the other side of the giant room that could have fit several thousand people, a giant scale stood. It was an artifact from before the sundering. Before, it measured the balance of light and dark, but after the sundering, it measured unholy and holy.

Lelune had only realized the change after several centuries. As her power increased, the scale would tip farther. That was until a while ago, when these troublesome necromancers started following that pain in the ass Cassin. As if called by her thoughts, the shadows twisted and churned. Lelune sighed; she knew what was coming.

“My dear Lelune, I felt you thinking about me.” The twisted voice resounded from around the room. One of Cassin’s pleasures was to annoy Lelune as much as possible.

“Thinking about how to get rid of you,” Lelune retorted. If she could have, she would have brought her sword around and sliced the miserable creature into a thousand pieces, then further incinerated him.

“How endearing,” Cassin said with fake warmth that actually made the room feel colder. “Have my toys been giving you trouble?” he asked with a chuckle. “Trouble for Lelune the Great, Lelune the Wise, Lelune the Merciful, Lelune the . . . Betrayer!” His rant ended when he began to laugh twistedly, then bent over as the laughter took all his breath.

Lelune slammed the tip of her sword on the floor, and the light in the room reached a new level of intensity. Cassin’s form wavered for a moment before the shadows in the room grew darker in return. “Cassin, what? Got bored of watching your necromancers make fools of themselves?” she asked.

The shadow laughed. “You know we have played this game of chess for nearly a millennium now. Even a Celestial such as myself can get bored.”

“If you came here in your true form, we could settle this once and for all,” Lelune said and tapped her sword. The creature was hidden somewhere that her gaze couldn’t reach. Celestia was massive, but it did have its limit. She should have been able to find him but couldn’t. It was one of the greatest failures of her life.

“Very true, but I am well aware of my own weakness. Besides, I am trapped in my hole somewhere in Celestia thanks to someone’s never-ending light.”

Lelune smirked. “Feel free to come out anytime you want.”

“If I were gone, who would keep you company?”

“I’m quite fine without you.”

“Of course! Lelune, Champion of Light, Lelune the Demon Slayer, Lelune the . . . Traitor!” the shadow said, his voice getting louder with each title.

“Enough!” Lelune shouted and swung her sword at the shadow.

“Ah! How I wish I could have been there when Arin rushed to do your bidding like the most loyal of dogs! How, when he returned from his mission and delivered the Flame to your grasp, you ran him through with the sword that was meant only for evil! Such a glorious thing—I wish I could have seen!” The shadow’s singsong voice danced around the throne room, easily avoiding Lelune’s sword.

“Be gone!” Lelune shouted and thrust her sword into the air. A light that would have rivaled the sun’s burst forth and illuminated every nook and cranny in the throne room. The shadow dissipated into the air.

“Poor, poor Lelune. Shadow cannot exist without light. The brighter your light becomes, the deeper my shadows,” the voice said, slowly fading into nothing.

Lelune frowned, then looked at a map engraved on the floor that represented the entire mortal world. On the continent of Saymar was a large black smudge that she hadn’t been able to peer into for years now. She contemplated it for a long time; days went by.

“It’s time my priests took care of this,” Lelune said finally. She stood and moved to the center of the continent on the map and raised her sword high into the air, releasing another burst of light. “It’s time for war!” With a surge of holy mana, she sent a message to all her tier three priests.

“I am worried about the fate of the world. Remove the necromancer threat no matter the cost.”

~~~

Port of Hope, Lecazar Kingdom

Priests all over the continent jerked awake with a terrible sweat. One man in particular smiled to himself. “As you wish, my lady.” He looked outside to see the sun was just breaking over the horizon like a good omen for the coming events. He got out of bed with vigor that he hadn’t felt in years, dressed quickly, then pushed open the doors to his chambers.

“Grand Vicar! The sun has only just risen, are you sure you shouldn’t get some more rest?” a knight guarding the vicar asked, surprised when the door burst open.

“I received a divine message! We have a lot of work to do!” the Grand Vicar said forcefully. A light seemed to be emitted from behind him.

It would take some time. The church had never mobilized for something as grand as this. They didn’t even have conventions in place for a military mustering. They’d left that to the local lords, happily neutral during the strife. He quickly sent the guard to gather the vicars and archbishops.

Several days later they were all gathered in the church meeting hall. Over twenty people had rallied, even though forced to use any means necessary to get there in the short amount of time. Some had even used secret ways that had long been hidden by the church. People from churches on the other side of the world’s spine had managed to arrive.

“Grand Vicar, we have confirmed it. Lady Lelune has indeed sent us all the same message. Even the bishops were made aware. The lady is very serious about this message.”

The Grand Vicar kept quiet until the hall came to a silent calm. He stood with his hands behind his back and started to pace along the table. The people here knew that the Grand Vicar was weak of body lately. They were amazed that he was up and about without any help.

“This is a difficult task given to us by the lady. For years, we operated on a case-by-case basis to deal with the necromancer issue. She is no longer pleased with this course of action.”

He remained silent for a long moment. No one dared to interrupt him. “We will start here. We weren’t given a timeframe, but I want all the necromancers destroyed within five hundred kilometers of your seats of power.

“I don’t care how we go about doing this. If we have to create a new form of magic, we will do so. If we must pull more people to our ranks, we will do so. We will not fail our lady!”

~~~

Deep in the bowels of the planet

A giant creature, one that would rival mountains, stirred for the first time in centuries. Powers of all types were moving above its head, powers that usually only moved once a millennium. It had slept through the last occurrence, too lazy to bother with it. This time, however, it felt it had slept enough and wanted to participate.

It shifted to its side, then decided a few more weeks wouldn’t hurt. The powers still needed more time to mature, in its opinion, so that it could fully enjoy the show. The ground around it rumbled as it breathed, something that only happened once a day.

A small form took shape next to the head of the giant creature. With a feminine shape, the figure rested its hand on the head of the giant and channeled some of its power. The great beast went back to sleep more fully. The small form looked up toward the surface, then sensed something it hadn’t felt in nearly a thousand years.

It could sense the small waves that rippled from a miniscule flame that looked like it would be blown out by the tiniest of breezes. The small figure smiled. Maybe there was hope, after all. In her lapse she didn’t realize that she had channeled her mana incorrectly. The beast managed to break the cycle it had been caught in for the last two thousand years. It remained sleeping, though. If it made a move now, it wouldn’t be able to break the magic binding it. It daydreamed of the time to come. The havoc to wreak.

Chapter 21

Thonaca Kingdom, Royal City, Merchant Guild

A few days after the horde extermination

“I’m telling you. We should change our course to this new town that has popped up!” a man shouted to an assembled group of his fellow merchants.

All were dressed in garments that would cost the same amount of gold that could feed several families for a year. This was the Merchant Council; they decided the exchange rates between the countries and rules for new merchants, among other things. There was a similar council in Lecazar, though, as they all had the same things on their minds, and they were usually able to agree about which direction to lead the guild.

“They’ve already been attacked by necromancers twice!” a woman argued back. “What’s to say the next time won’t be while we’re traveling through?”

The woman was Linda Highwater, a wealthy personage who had risen all the way to countess from a commoner on her wits and cunning alone. While she had a noble title, she still saw herself as a merchant.

“I have reports that a system has already been put into place to prevent any more necromancers from even getting near the town! Now! Now is the time for us to invest there before we lose out to the Lecazar people. The lord is a former Lecazar citizen after all,” the first man argued back.

He was Dirne Wintergrasp, and he operated most of the potion shops in Royal City where competition is toughest and twice that in other cities. He had heard about the up-till-then unheard of magic that was being used in town, as well as the quickly-becoming-famous library. He wanted to get into those walls to see if there was something, anything, he could learn that might let him make the first new potion in over five hundred years.

“About that, how do we know that it really works?” an elder asked from the side.

This elf was Yuin Skywood. He seemed to be older than time to most of the people in this room, but even pushing nearly six hundred years, he was still a cunning and very dangerous merchant. More than one person had lost their entire family fortune to him when they’d pissed him off.

“Several necromancers have already been captured. Some confessed to crimes they did in other villages and towns. After using a few message hawks, the information was easily gained that matched their testimony,” a clerklike man said from near the wall.

“Interesting . . . So there might finally be a way to deal with these annoying flies. I also agree with changing our course this year to Robia Valley,” Yuin said, then paused for a moment. “Someone send a letter to the little lord of that place to change the name. It just doesn’t feel . . . up-and-coming enough.”

Another clerk, who was taking notes, paused, then said, “As . . . as you wish, my lord.”

“What about our investments in Daggerfall Pass?!” another man shouted. This was Frederick Guest. He had quite a bit of money invested in guards and mercenaries that escorted the caravans through Daggerfall. It would be hard to change those contracts quickly, not to mention costly.

“Oh, piss off, Frederick! Half of the, what you call ‘guards,’ usually die to plain old goblins. Pay the damn silvers so that we all can make a couple gold in return,” a woman scoffed at him. She was Olivia Holdin. She didn’t have a set industry and liked to dabble in a little of everything, but her most significant income was from brothels. “I also vote for the new pass. My businesses near the other dungeons have taken a hit from the little hole that opened there.”

For the rest of the night, the over two dozen A-rank merchants went back and forth as they debated the pros and cons. In the end, Yuin ended up deciding for the guild, as he flat-out refused to use Daggerfall Pass. Many of the others, afraid that if they resisted much more, they would lose all their valuables, agreed with him in the end.

“So, we’re agreed, Robia Valley and the pass to the north shall be our new route so that we can stop at the town growing there.”

“For gold!” all the merchants chanted in the room.

To one side a merchant sat with his hands braided. He knew about the gold mine that had been Robia Valley months ago, but his one attempt at taking it had failed more miserably than he thought it could. He’d tried to have the baroness there killed by a group of brigands but some . . . thing interfered. The man who was sent to make sure the brigands did their job stated they’d been killed in seconds.

Now he had a legitimate reason to go there himself. This time he would take it. He was the original owner of the lands, after all. The Lecazar parts would be annoying to deal with, but that was all outside the valley. Oh, how he wished he’d inspected the lands before selling them. It was even a recurring nightmare for him recently.

~~~

Thonaca Kingdom, Royal City, Royal Palace

Two men sat at a table that was worth its weight in gold, and then some, being made from gold. The men sitting at the table, however, could easily afford it. On one side was King Ataulph VetericusThonaca. He wore a robe that was said to be able to repel a dragon’s breath, and a scepter rested next to him. There were accessories all over him. Each seemed to hum with more power than the last.

On the other side sat Valaravans Soas. His robes were just as nice but were clearly less powerful. No weapons were allowed in the same room as the king, so he was unarmed. To an onlooker, he would seem to be grief-stricken.

“I truly am sorry for your loss, my friend,” King Ataulph consoled. Valaravans had been his friend for decades, and he trusted him with his life. He’d even asked Valaravans to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to his son, but he’d said he’d already chosen someone. “I still can’t believe it was his own guards.”

“It came to me as a shock as well,” Valaravans said, pressing his hand against his temples. “We inspected the site. At least one of his guards is still alive, but the other bodies were burned beyond recognition. That leads me to believe it was Bruce. Judging by the state the village was in, he had dealings with the necromancer scum.”

“We’ll have our best men look into this, old friend,” the king said with determination.

“I . . . I thank you . . . my friend,” Valaravans said with a sad look.

The king stood up, never one to hesitate. He turned to one of his Royal Guards. “Get Lines on this immediately! Tell him failure isn’t an option.” The guard saluted, then turned on his heel to leave. He was just about to open the door when the king added, a bit subdued, “Tell . . . tell Quin to go as well.”

This time the guard actually hesitated. “Are . . . are you sure, Your Majesty?”

This typically would have earned the guard a whipping or a week in a cell, but even the king couldn’t blame him for this. His eyes hardened, then he said, “Yes. Tell Quin to go.”

The guard bowed, then slipped from the room. Valaravans, who’d heard everything, was momentarily in shock. Quin was basically the king’s trump card. With her on the case, his plans might get disrupted, but he had no way of refusing the help.

“I thank you, My King,” Valaravans said with a deep bow.

~~~

Royal Castle, Left Wing Suite

The guard approached as quietly as possible. He gulped once he reached a bright red door, finally took a breath, then knocked. The door swung as if it jerked open by someone.

“Come in,” a melodic voice called from inside the room.

The guard gulped again, then entered. A woman was lounging on a window seat. She wore a bloodred dress. In fact, everything about her was red. Her hair and eyes looked like dripping blood.

“Lady Quin, the king sends a mess . . .” the guard started to say, then his body locked in place.

“I said to come in, not to speak,” Quin said with a sinister grin. Her hand was held in the guard’s direction, a circle of red mana fluctuating around it. The guard struggled but couldn’t even breathe, much less move. It felt like his own blood was fighting against him

Quin got up from the window and leisurely made her way over. When she reached him, she stroked the guard’s face with her hand, which was whiter than snow. “Hmm, you’re quite good-looking. Makes me want to get a taste,” she said, licking her lips.

The guard begged with his eyes to be spared. Quin pouted for a minute as she debated, then decided to let the man go. Even she couldn’t cross the king quite yet. She released her magic over the man, and he collapsed a moment later. His lungs labored as he tried to catch his breath.

“Consider yourself lucky that I ate earlier today,” Quin said with an almost sad smile.

“Thank . . . you . . . for . . . your . . . grace . . .” the guard said between breaths. He took a moment to regain his composure, then said, “The king has a mission for you.”

“Oh, he only has two favors left,” Quin said as she gave him a lecherous smile. “What does the little boy want?”

The guard didn’t even consider getting mad at the disrespect cast at his king. He took a deep breath, then continued, “Someone murdered Duke Valaravans’s son. He wants you to find and deal with them. Currently, the only lead is his main bodyguard, Bruce.”

“Ah, that mountain of a man,” Quin said as she licked her lips again. “Surely you have an idea where he went?”

“Yes, a group of adventurers stated they saw a man who matched his description head for Robia Valley.”

“Very well. Tell your king that I have accepted this as one of his favors,” Quin said. Before the guard had a chance to reply, Quin’s body started to melt. A bloodred mist formed where she was standing, then flew out the window.

The guard collapsed to the ground, sighing in relief. More than a few guards had died at the hands of that woman. He was thankful that he would be able to see his wife and children again.

Chapter 22

Boris Lut

Lecazar Empire

“Move it, slaves!” a slave dealer yelled to the group as they made their way onto the stage.

I was the last one up due to my size. As a bear beastkin, I also needed to make way for the smaller people. Sometimes I wished that I could just rip them all apart. Of course, that was part of the reason I’d found myself in this predicament. I’d lost my temper one time. One time! And destroyed some noble’s property, earning enough debt to crush a few nobles, and here I was.

The dealers gave us boards with our prices written on them. It was another level of degrading to have to hold up your own price tag. I gripped the board with a bit too much strength, and a loud crack rang out. The slaver gave me a dirty look, but as the board was still legible, he let me off.

All morning people streamed through the market. Since slavery was legal, the slavers were able to set up shop right in the middle of the market. We had to stand there while people came through and examined us with looks ranging from pity all the way to disgust. I felt these people were just as bad as the slavers, though, as they did nothing to stop it.

As the slaves were bought, the buyers finally reached the back row. It consisted mainly of beastkin like me, whose bodies grew large due to our animal descent. They started with a dragonkin down the line. I don’t know if something offensive was said, but he suddenly started to roar and thrash against his binding magic.

His large clawed hand managed to rip through one of the slavers, and I suddenly felt I could move. Not passing up this chance I “fell” back off the stage. I grabbed a sheet that covered a box close by and tossed it over my shoulders like a cloak, then ran for the alleys.

Luckily, the dragonkin was still creating quite the scene but was unable to strike his owner. The magic didn’t allow it. I caught the last bit just before I rounded a corner, where a blast of flames left his mouth and started to engulf the stage. Man, they must have had a shitty mage do his slave crest for him to be able to act out this much.

I couldn’t tell if any of the other slaves were able to make a run for it, but that was the least of my concerns. I needed to get out of this town as fast as possible. Thankfully, the town wasn’t that big, as far as towns that I’ve actually seen go. I made my way down the back alleys as much as possible, only cutting across main streets when necessary. I got a few curious glances, but adventurers were known to be even more eccentric.

The back streets ended as I reached the wall that surrounded the town. I looked it over to see if it would be worth the risk to try to climb over it, but I decided that the nearly twenty meters were a little beyond my ability to climb silently. I took a deep breath, then started to follow the wall toward the nearest gate. I tried to keep a steady pace, but to an onlooker, I must have looked quite rushed.

The gate came into view a few minutes later. The streams of people coming in and out were not halted, so the slavers must still have been having problems in the marketplace. I steeled myself, then joined the queue leaving the town. Bearkin were not rare, but we had a bad reputation in certain areas thanks to some of our tribes that wanted to remain “close to nature.” I shook my head at the thought. Give me a stone house with a roof over my head any day.

The line quickly reached my turn. The guard looked me over with hesitation clearly written on his face. Just as he was about to reach forward to grab the cloth tarp draped over me, the man behind me raised his voice.

“Ah! There you are. How could you leave your old friend behind just to get into the forest a little faster,” an old man said gruffly. “I swear, you bearkin!” he continued with a good-natured laugh.

I decided to play along, as the man was clearly trying to help me out, “Sorry, old friend! You know me, a freshly killed deer does so much to soothe the bloodlust.”

The guard, much to his credit, seemed to know exactly what was going on but decided that it wasn’t worth the time or effort. He waved us through. I walked as normally as possible, while the old man looked like he was having the time of his life. When we reached the forest, I came to a stop and turned to him.

“Thank you for your kind act, sir.”

“No problem, young man. I saw the scene at the slave show. You were the only one to slip away nearly unnoticed despite your . . . size. I figured that you would probably be making a run for it, so I headed to the gate to see if I would guess correctly.”

“Why . . . why would you help a slave?” I asked, almost regretting that I couldn’t stop myself.

“Strange, isn’t it? Slavery is rather new to the continent, and I remember when all mortals were free to decide their own fate,” the old man said with a faraway look.

“I don’t know if me escaping really helps. If anyone ever finds out I have a slave crest, then it wouldn’t take a Slave mage more than a few seconds to rebind me,” I said as I tried not to growl.

“True . . .” The old man looked around as if to make sure no one was nearby even though we’d come there for the seclusion in the first place. “I have some good news for you, then. In the valley to the north, all kinds of new things are happening. A little birdy told me that there is a town in the forest next to it that slaves can call home, that is even guarded by a land dragon.”

“Impossible! Who could possibly tame a land dragon?!”

“Hmm, that’s the thing, it’s not tamed but is protecting it willingly.”

The information didn’t sound very credible, but soon I would be living in the forest if I didn’t at least check it out. “Thanks again for the help, old man . . .” I started to say, but when I looked to where the old man stood, there was nothing there. I scratched the back of my head, then shrugged. If I ever saw him again, I would remember him. I stretched, then headed deeper into the forest. A long trip will need some provisions, I thought as I licked my lips.

~~~

Thonaca Kingdom, Jade Sun Port

BOOM!

The sound of an explosion rang out from the docks of Jade Sun Port late in the afternoon. One of the ships anchored there slowly sank as water rushed in through a large hole that appeared in the stern. Unnoticed by anyone watching the scene, a pair of figures slipped out through the water. As the watch restricted anyone from entering the area, they were already long gone.

An hour later

Two people burst from the water along the shore. One was a scrawny man who looked more like skin and bones. He had a metal peg for a replacement leg. Once he reached the shore, he channeled some fire mana into drying himself quickly.

Next to him was a mountain of a man. In fact, he looked more round than tall. If a person saw him, they would most likely assume he was an obese human, but he was, in fact, an orc. A half-orc to be precise. His mother had been . . . taken care of by an orc in the past. She’d survived and decided to raise the child even though it was half monster. That was long in the past, however, and now the half-orc, Chips, was part of the thief duo with Des, the . . . insane Fire mage.

“Chips! We’re rich!” Des said as he jumped on Chips’s back.

“Get . . . off!” Chips said gruffly.

“Alright, alright!” Des grinned as he flipped over Chips’s shoulder and landed in front of him.

Chips slammed his foot on the ground, then a jut of rock shot out, the end flat. It slammed into Des’s crouch. Des’s eyes crossed as he collapsed to the ground. He groaned as he looked back to Chips. “Don’t . . . forget . . . I’m . . . paying . . . you,” he wheezed out slowly.

Chips snorted as if he didn’t care. But without Des, he’d probably be dead in a ditch somewhere. He reached down and grabbed the back of Des’s tunic, dragging him as he set off for their hideout.

“Ah, thanks . . . buddy,” Des said a little more clearly.

They made it to their hideout a few hours later, which turned out to be a hollowed-out tree deep in the forest. Des jumped over the table, then pulled out a bag, which he dumped out onto the table. Mana stones worth tens of thousands of gold shined up at them. Des’s eyes seemed to shine just as much as they did. Chips walked inside and plopped down on a bench against the wall. He looked at Des, then said, “Food.”

Des snapped out of it. “Of course, buddy! I couldn’t have scored these without you, after all.” Clapping his hands happily, he moved into another section of the hideout, which was basically the kitchen. Orcs had a racial curse of never feeling full, but they couldn’t stand going hungry, as it caused them physical pain. Since Chips was a half-orc, he didn’t have it as bad, but he could get dangerous if he didn’t eat often.

Des pulled free a hunk of deer, then quickly roasted it by channeling some mana into a flame around it. He tossed it to Chips when it was not quite so bloody. Chips pulled off the mask he used to hide his orcish heritage, then sank his teeth deep into the meat. He was almost done with the meat when he felt a surge of mana from the ground. Placing his hand on the ground, he channeled his own mana to see what it was.

A few hundred meters away, he sensed a large party of people who seemed to be heading right in their direction. He stood up, then moved over to the table where Des was playing with the stones while he chanted all the things he would buy once they sold them.

“People coming,” Chips said as he grabbed the bag and put the stones back inside.

“Time to blow this joint!” Des said with a wicked grin. He basically ran around the hideout as he pressed his hand against spots at what seemed to be random. When he was done, he ran outside with Chips and jumped on his shoulders. “No time for fun, we need to split!”

Chips bent forward, then channeled mana into his legs. He took off in the opposite direction of the people closing in on them. They moved like the wind as they put ever increasing distance between them.

A few minutes later, a massive explosion rang out through the forest. When people came later to investigate, they thought a star had fallen, as the crater was nearly thirty by thirty meters. It became the topic of discussions for the weeks to come. The church, of course, denied that it was anything ominous or divine, just an explosion that happened in the middle of the night.

Chapter 23

Louella

The events of the monster horde felt like a nasty nightmare when I woke the next morning. Of course, the surging energy of my changed body didn’t let me think like that for long. I looked my hand over, my eyes tracing the white lines and blue skin. It all seemed so foreign to me.

Regan had told me that it was likely something from a distant ancestor. The thought that one of my parents was related to a being of such great power still left me reeling a bit. Just the thought of having to contain my cultivating area to the dungeon irritated me slightly. I didn’t mind getting help every now and then. But having to rely on someone for my power? This world didn’t take kindly to weak individuals.

I looked around my office. With the town hall still a wreck, I was working from my manor. There was basically an ocean of papers on the ground. They contained all the information on the deceased that I’d had Cassie bring me. I wanted any messages I wrote to be at least semipersonal. I was just sad to see that so many people had died for my valley.

~~~

Four hours of writing messages to the deprived later, I was finally done. I called for a guard and ordered him to have them sent off with priority. He bowed and left with the sack. I smiled when I saw him carry them with utmost care. Stretching, I got up to head over to check on Ezal.

A few rooms down, I found her reading in her bed. She was still recovering from the massive amount of mana she’d used during the battle. She was harshly scolded afterward. By Regan more than anyone. He even told her all the things that could have happened if she’d been even a little less lucky.

“How is the patient?” I asked, taking a seat next to her bed.

“Bored out of my mind. I feel right as rain,” Ezal said with a grimace.

“Regan told you a week. So, you’re staying in that bed for a week,” I said, hiding my grin behind my hand. It was a good thing she wanted to get to work to make sure the town was running smoothly, but I wanted to make sure she didn’t suffer in the process. If something happened to her child that she came to regret . . . either way, I didn’t want that for my friend.

“I know. Just some idle complaining. Did you finish writing your letters?” she asked, looking at me with worried eyes. She did know me better than probably anyone else, even my own family.

“Yes. Quite a few of them had families. Though, I think I felt worse for the ones who were too young to have a family. I’m not sure whether writing to their parents or their lover is worse,” I said with a sigh.

“Comes with the position, my lady,” Ezal said with a mocking bow from her spot on the bed.

“Next time, I’ll let you do it,” I retorted, smacking her with one of her pillows.

Looking down, she said, “Hopefully, there isn’t a next time.”

The room grew quiet for a long moment before Feuer flew in through a crack in the window. He hovered next to her as if checking on her. I found it strangely cute.

“It appears someone else is worried about you,” I commented.

“He does like to check in on me every hour or so. He likes to fly. So as long as I don’t need him, I’m letting him have free rein.”

“Well, I doubt anyone in the valley would be stupid enough to try anything with that weapon,” I said. Feuer’s action of protecting Ezal during the battle when she’d collapsed was well known among the adventurers. I’d received many inquiries on how they might acquire one similar to him. “I do hear you have a bit of a fan club.”

“I know,” Ezal said, then glanced toward a corner of the room. Stacks of candy, flowers, and messages were taking up at least a meter of space. “I’ve gotten three messengers just today.”

“Speaking of fan club, where’s tall, dark, and handsome?” I asked, realizing that Bruce hadn’t been guarding the door. He’d barely left her side since he’d arrived at the valley.

“I was getting annoyed, so I asked him to do something constructive. He’s heading up security until I recover,” she answered, turning to look at the hallway.

“That’s a good idea. Never know what might try to get into the valley nowadays,” I said.

If it wasn’t adventurers, who have more brawn than brains, trying to force everyone to do what they said, it was necromancers that wanted to sacrifice me to some demon for mana. I personally wouldn’t have minded a few days of just . . . calm around the valley. Even that was hard to ask for, as Regan usually made it a point to blow something up every few days.

I just took a deep breath. One day at a time. As long as I was still alive, then there was tomorrow. I rubbed my hands over my arms, a dull ache that hadn’t gone away since the battle echoing in what felt like my bones. Channeling a bit of mana, I was able to ignore the ache for the moment.

I noticed Ezal yawn, and I smiled and patted her arm. “I’ll leave you to rest,” I said and got up to leave. There was plenty of work to do, after all.

Chapter 24

Izora

“Bring the cannon around! We have multiple incoming on the port side!” Captain Shido yelled out his order.

The airship shook from a blade of air that bit into the starboard side from a massive six-winged bird. The gnome soldiers rushed to execute the captain’s order. A moment later cannon fire blasted out, and a corpse slammed onto the deck of the airship.

Some of the crew rushed forward and quickly threw the corpse off the ship. I shook my head, then sent my warhammer flying. Using my mana, I controlled it to come around and plow through three monsters. The spell had a low mana cost but required more concentration than I could afford on the battlefield.

The warhammer sailed through the air and landed in my hand. I saw a swarm of bug monsters in the distance. Kneeling, I channeled my mana into the ship, taking control of the ancient weapons that Regan had helped us repair. They were powerful, but due to the rushed repairs, we couldn’t fire them often.

Focusing on the center of the swarm, I released the build-up of energy. A streak of mana fired from the metal rodlike protrusion on the side of the ship. It crossed the distance in a matter of seconds before it struck the center of the swarm. An explosion of mana formed a sphere from the impacted monster and took most of the swarm with it.

“If we can get even one more airship back to working condition, we would truly command the skies,” Captain Shido said from next to me as we watched the display of power.

“Careful, Captain. That is a dangerous road to take. Especially when we weren’t the ones who achieved this ourselves.”

“I understand. Pardon me.” I nodded and turned back to the battle waging on around us. “Princess!” Captain Shido shouted, shoving me to the ground bringing his sword around as a monster bird crashed on the deck.

~~~

I jerked awake for the third night in a row and quickly rubbed my face with my hands. Ever since I’d come to this valley, I’d seemed to keep getting drawn into things that risked my life. I would really need to talk to Regan about sending more troops here. The problem was the diplomatic issues that would cause.

I was already receiving missives about nearby nobles who wanted to meet with me. Sadly, they only ever wanted one thing: airships. Flying magic was hard to use and unsustainable for long periods of time. Airships gave the warring lords a bigger stick to use against each other while making the gnomes a nice amount of gold in the process.

I shook my head and turned my thoughts to my current issues. Things that I was dreading when they came to my attention. With Regan’s obelisks, even some of the people on my own crew had been found to be traitors. I didn’t have even a beginning of an idea on how to deal with them. For now, I had the two of them in cells with mana-suppressor cuffs. That would at least stop them from causing trouble.

I knew that war was a breeding ground for issues such as this. The enemy offering people deals or incentives to betray their own, but I’d thought the gnomes to be over this. We were the most magical advanced race on the continent. That came with its own benefits. There were things in Jade Wind that some of the land walkers could never imagine.

I decided to put it off for the day. My feelings on the matter were in disarray, and my mother always told me to make decisions about a person’s life while I was calm. It’d been almost six months since I’d last seen her, given her illness, which made it hard for others to approach her.

I would have to ask about her when the reinforcements arrived from Jade Wind. I rolled over in my bed to try to return to sleep. As I finally drifted off, I could tell another dream was already working its way into my mind.

Chapter 25

Regan

Once everyone and everything had been moved through the portal, I went ahead and closed it. With the condition everyone was in, I’d rather not have a necromancer or large-scale monster manage to slip through and wreak havoc on the valley while they were recovering. Not to mention the fact that I currently didn’t have a way to monitor what came through the device.

Considering the other fact that the valley had already been attacked three times, I decided that some more improvements were to be made. If I had to put out every fire, then there would be no end to it. Louella and her band of adventurers had done well in defending the valley. However, if I hadn’t been there to handle one side of the conflict, it would have followed a much different path.

For one, the mortals needed to be able to train harder, faster, and longer. The biggest issue was healing between trainings. The priests were able to do a decent job, but they required compensation that exceeded the trainers’ budgets, or the process took them too long to be able to recover their own mana. I had a few ideas on how I could improve that area.

I also would spend some time tweaking the dungeon’s settings for loot and difficulty. Many of the adventurers had yet to get past the tenth floor, and it had already been several months since my birth. From the conversations I’d eavesdropped on, this was unusual. I needed to correct this problem.

I wasn’t worried about stronger adventurers coming to the dungeon. In fact, it was the opposite. I’d rather have had many more of the weaker adventurers come, as they were easier to come by. If tier one adventurers thought they didn’t have any reason to come to the dungeon, I’d lose out on a huge chunk of potential mana.

Then there was the little project I’d started in Steel Spire. The former slaves were gearing up to leave for the various towns in Lecazar. Already a few had left shortly after the monster horde was taken care of. I’d already created a storehouse filled with hundreds of chests brimming with gold at the bottom of one of the tower’s legs. Each party would consist of three individuals. That way the party wouldn’t be too small, but they would have a higher chance to escape if they were hunted for some reason.

I knew my little scheme would likely throw the slave market into upheaval. You remove the supply, then demand rises. Thus, I fully expected the prices of slaves to rise in the near future. This would be a dangerous point, as many of the people looking to make gold would resort to more vulgar means to create supply again.

However, I planned to use that to my advantage. The slaves would despise the lords for causing them to fall as such. My people would come in and buy them, and they would be thankful. Once I had enough slaves that were faithful, I could use them for missions in the countries that require a more flesh touch.

Sometimes to win . . . you have to play both sides of the law. I mentally grinned as my eye traveled over my aura. So much life, so much energy. There was a small part of me that couldn’t resist calling it mine. Thankfully, for the mortals, I protect what I call mine.

Book 4: Cascade Preview

Chapter 1

Regan

It’d been three weeks since we’d dealt with the hordes. I’d made a lot less headway into the Deadlands than I would have liked. The severity of the mana corruption increased the farther the automata got from my base. I was in the middle of designing an emitter that would put out a bubble-like aura to cover a decent area, but the mana drain was quite high, so I was fine-tuning it to bring the drain down.

As I stood on the ramparts of the wall overlooking the undead forest, Jarvis teleported next to me. His form has changed a bit from the amount of combat and mana usage. His head had changed to a more normal-looking human head, where instead of one large eye that took up most of his face, there were now two. His extended eyes, which would have reminded people of a beholder on Earth due to the tubes that connected them to his head, had changed into floating drones that circled him, each with access to different elements.

“Sir, we have reached ten kilometers. The new antennae are working on cleansing and clearing the unholy mana from the forest, but there is resistance to the process,” Jarvis said as he looked over the forest. He put off a gentleman vibe the way he stood stick straight with his arms behind his back.

“I know, something is actively resisting me. I can sense the . . . awareness behind it,” I said with a frown. The presence had really made itself known after I’d extended my aura to the five-kilometer mark. It was the first time I’d ever felt something push back, after all.

“What would you like to do?”

An explosion occurred a few kilometers into the forest, which was a common sound these days. A single person was able to slip through as Ren did. But for a force like mine to make headway into the north, we had to overcome tremendous resistance for every meter we took. All kinds of monsters blocked our way, but mostly ghouls and zombies.

The research team had made some decent headway in researching the undead. The goblins got better at their work as they grew more accustomed to the technology in the labs. They even found a way to boost their immunity to the ambient mana from some of the information they gained from the ghouls. Apparently, being undead was a type of curse.

The more I learned about these race-level magics and curses, the more worried I became about these higher-level beings and the Celestials. I needed to think up countermeasures before I encountered them rather than after. From what I’d learned about mana, I knew they would have amounts I hadn’t even seen before. So it would have been hard to outlast them like I had the necromancers.

They would most likely have magics that would be on another level, given the fact that they were able to reach the fifth tier. From what I understand, that meant they understood their element enough to nearly fuse with it. Ezal was a good example of what I would be dealing with if I had to fight a Celestial. From the few records I’d gotten from the people in town, one of the myths about reaching tier five was that you became one with your element.

I wasn’t just twirling my thumbs. With the undead as the focus, I was making headway on several techniques that I felt would give anything a hard time. Most of it was still in testing or required large amounts of mana to create. Just more things on the list that would need some tweaking before they became a viable means of offense or defense.

I pulled myself from my thoughts, then turned to Jarvis. “I think it’s time we launched it,” I said with a smile. I’d been trying to find a good time to try out this experiment for a while. This felt like it to me.

“Understood, sir.”

Jarvis bowed his head, and I teleported us over to the side of the fort nearest the mountains. A platform reminiscent to the rocket launchpads back on Earth lay there, with fumes from liquid nitrogen cooling the rocket that was prepared and ready to go.

Sitting at the top of the rocket was another mithril-coated shelled core. I didn’t know what to expect in a universe with monsters, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if there’d been some sort of space tentacle monster out there. The mithril-alloy coating would make sure it was protected. Once I established a geocentric orbit, then I could worry more about defenses that might need to be prepared.

It was far easier to build an escape-velocity vehicle when I could build a seamless structure, as well as use magic for some of the systems. I was able to use some magic scripts to create barriers and cooling for the outer layer. With the way it was constructed, the vehicle would actually be able to leave the planet and return as long as it didn’t run out of mana.

Seeing the vessel made me recall Earth’s attempts to get to space. Earth was close to having a space elevator thanks to the work of a man named Elon from a few decades before my time. But, thanks to me, that had never come to fruition. Not much reason to go to space when high-energy positron lasers turned the vessel into scrap metal.

I knew the stage launch of space vehicles from the satellites that my company sent into orbit. The problem was that I’d usually outsourced that part of the equation to other companies back on Earth. I was basically working from scratch here. I was just throwing everything on it that I could think about with the hope that I covered all my bases. I basically wanted a fortress in space when I was done.

We moved over to the command center near the launchpad. “Sir, mana batteries are done charging,” Jarvis reported as he examined the screens in front of him.

“Thank you, begin countdown!” I said with some excitement.

“Ten!” Jarvis began.

The rocket began to glow from the intermix of technology and magic working together to ready the vehicle for takeoff. Four large rockets around the bottom started to release smoke. I was already pumping liquid nitrogen and water into the site, as I wasn’t sure how much sound this thing would actually put off. Ice coated a good ten meters around the launch site.

“Nine!”

Several automata and goblins sat around me in the command center at various stations, checking and double-checking the systems. They were on high alert, as I didn’t want anything to go wrong. It might have been bad for their hearts, but they would only have to work at this high-tension level for this first launch.

“Eight! . . . Seven! . . . Six! . . .”

The rocket started to shake as the engines were primed. I turned my eyes from the screens to the rocket outside the window. It had a sleek design with a silverish coloring from the materials that went into it. Built as a large tower structure, I planned for it to be the heart of the new station when it reached space.

Thanks to Louella, I’d gained quite a bit of materials that helped with higher-level technology. Just the experiments that my current workers were doing would take a few weeks to finish. If I could have focused on it myself, it might have sped the process up. But with the recent invasion, I had too many distractions to fully devote my attention to it.

“Five! . . . Four! . . . Three! . . . Two! . . .”

The magic around the launchpad and the vehicle activated with a bright flash. Mana surged from all three cores, while the fourth, the Steel Spire core, only gave a trickle. All the runes activated as the engines flared.

“ONE!” Jarvis yelled.

I slammed my hand down on the big red button in the center of the console. The rockets fired with one of the most beautiful flames I’d ever seen. The water managed to suppress the sound considerably, but the roar could still be heard for kilometers. There was almost too much power as the launchpad and the surrounding ground cracked from the crater that formed.

With a boom, the rocket shot into the sky. I connected to the cameras on the outside of the ship. My uplink to it was also in the green for now. As it left my aura a few kilometers in the air, the resistance I was feeling from the undead forest struck with force. Launching next to the mountains allowed me to use their aura to collide with the presence, which allowed the rocket to slip through the proverbial cracks during the clash.

The rocket quickly gained speed and was soon going near Mach 40. The escape velocity of Earth was twenty-eight kilometers per second, but this planet was much larger than Earth, thus I went ahead and boosted the velocity as much as I could. The cameras were shaking from the vibrations, but the rocket was holding steady as some of the scripts turned the kinetic energy into mana for the batteries. The rocket only continued to gain speed and quickly reached thirty-five kilometers per second and was still climbing.

This would have been so much easier if I could have just teleported into space, but I was missing some type of variable for the magic to function properly. I’d tried it with a few devices in a few experiments, but they were all subsequently ripped apart by something as they crossed a sort of barrier around the planet. I was thinking that in the atmosphere there was another layer like the stratosphere but made out of mana that prevented something like teleporting from the planet. Possibly, an ancient Celestial or god had placed it there to protect the mortals, but it was all assumptions.

The rocket quickly gained altitude, and the wind drag was reduced as it passed the heavier layers. When one of the cameras hit something and was then covered in red for a few seconds, I guessed it had pulverized some type of monster bird that happened to get in its way. The heat on the outside of the ship reduced as it started to leave the atmosphere.

Finally, the rocket reached low planetary orbit. As I’d suspected, it was nearly double that of Earth. The boosters died and the rocket slowed as the gravity of the planet started to assert itself on the vessel. When it was at the three-thousand-kilometer mark, I activated the ship’s second phase.

The metal started to shift and get rearranged. Two wings emerged, with multidirectional hydrogen thrusters at the end of each so that the ship could move in any direction. It shifted its direction so that it would be in high planetary orbit over the northern lands. I planned on starting the station there in case something happened when I activated the core. If for some reason it exploded, I wanted the debris to land on the enemy and not regular mortals.

The vessel reached its destination, or at least that’s where the spells and calculations I’d made put the craft. Back on the planet, I let my body fade into mana, as I wasn’t sure what would happen. I mentally cracked my knuckles, then began to allow my aura to leave the core. The craft was almost stationary when compared to a satellite, but it was technically moving just a bit until it froze as if it had gotten stuck in concrete. Then I felt it start to move again, but it was locked into place over that spot on the planet. I felt a surge of mana as the aura expanded in the form of a bubble.

I nearly got a head rush from the mana, as it felt completely different from what I absorb on the planet. Compared to any of the mana I’d absorbed before, this felt . . . purer. I looked past the rush of mana to analyze the situation. I was absorbing all the emissions that would normally be bombarding the planet in this area. I made an active effort to allow sunlight through my aura; otherwise, it would have been nearly pitch-black under it.

The space core quickly broke through to the second tier, and it hadn’t even been ten minutes. Thankfully, I was able to just barely push the core. Any more and I could tell the core might fracture. I set up the core to take the mana and transfer it back to my main core. I could break through to tier three if possible. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a requirement once I gained that amount of mana.

I left the original structure of the vehicle alone and started to expand the form into a proper station. I wasn’t sure if people would be living there or not, but I did have the goblins that could potentially end up there one day. I went ahead and made it where they could live in the station without problem. Long-term, there were a lot of magics I wanted to test up there.

As I have certain abilities as a dungeon core, I was able to cheat a bit. I expanded from the original structure to create a central tower. Around halfway down I expanded the surface out in a disk shape, much like the city I’d created in the north, and went ahead and created as many of the buildings as I considered necessary for my people to survive while living on it.

Just to be safe, I covered all my bases by adding greenhouses and recycling systems for any inhabitants that I might move to the station in the future. While I was quite busy on this planet, apparently I could live a very long time and might consider taking a journey into space someday. I would have to figure out how to free my dungeon core for this permanent orbit going on, but like I said, plenty of time to work on that.

To complete the station, I added a tower emitter every forty-five degrees around the circle. It would emit a barrier that would serve as an atmosphere for the inhabitants. At its low setting, it could be maintained indefinitely by just absorbing the sunlight, but if it went into defensive mode, then it had a battery life of roughly twenty-four hours, depending on the attacks it was sustaining.

As I was putting the finishing touches on the station, I felt someone call for me from my main dungeon. In the forests on the tenth floor, a pair stood with their entire bodies covered, except the man, who exposed his face, knowing I would be able to see it. I grinned conspiratorially as I went to see what they wanted.

Chapter 2

Louella

“Crime is at an all-time low, but morale is also down.”

That was the final line in a report sent over from Ezal. The obelisks that Regan had created had indeed found quite a few necromancers, but we couldn’t be sure that we’d gotten them all, for obvious reasons. Regular crime was down, as the report said, but without an outlet for the more . . . dirty types of people, these people were just sitting around the town. Usually at the bottom of a bottle of mead.

We were trying to think up ways to get them up and moving, but it was hard to turn a thief to honest labor. The gnomes had basically set up their own foreign embassy, but Izora was reporting everything to me. Not that they could hide anything from Regan. Last I’d heard he had claimed the entire valley in his aura. Though, thinking of Regan, I felt he’d been a bit distracted as of late.

At least the town was still growing at a staggering rate. People were literally streaming into the valley from both countries. We implemented several laws to keep discrimination down, as more than one bar fight was between citizens of Lecazar and Thonaca going at it over stupid reasons. The last census that Ezal had sent over placed the head count at nearly seventeen thousand people. The town was about to reach a point where an inspector would come from the capital to make sure everything was in order and reclassify the town as needed.

The Construction and Building Guilds were working around the clock to fulfill everyone’s requests. At least they were always hiring for labor. The town had felt crowded to me before, but now it was even harder to make it around town. The biggest problem was that everywhere I needed to frequent due to my position, nearly everyone else had to go as well. The rural sections were nearly as bad as the market and central streets. I was glad the valley in which the town was in was able to house so many people and buildings. According to Thrad, the Construction Guild’s master, we would be able to build a city that would rival the capitals. With Regan there, I wouldn’t have been surprised if we surpassed them. He wasn’t too big on the word, limits.

It was only a matter of time before the nobles tried to bully their way into the town. I’d already received several requests for manors and whatnot to be built for them. To each I sent back a nice little note that basically said piss off in polite speak. I could be a little ruder to Lecazar nobles, but for the Thonacan ones, I needed to word it a bit nicer. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a political issue.

Looking around my office, I thought it might be one of the nicest rooms I’d ever been in. Regan had redone the townhouse like he said he would, but he went a different route from the giant tower in the forest. It was more of a castle now. There were two towers on each side that emitted a barrier that seemed to bend space. When people walked into the area of the castle, there was a lot more space than there appeared to be outside. I just wrote it off as Regan doing his dungeon thing.

“Little lady, there is a guest for you,” Julie said as she walked into my office.

She’d at least started using “lady” when addressing me since the battle. In fact, quite a few people made sure to talk to me with care, though Wrakras still didn’t. I glanced at the small mirror on the wall. My beautiful black hair had turned a platinum blonde, the one change I wasn’t too happy with. My clothes hid most of them, but lightning marks were tattooed over most of my body. The biggest change had to be my eyes, though. The pupils had turned into a miniature night sky.

I motioned for Julie to allow the person in, and a large beastkin made his way in from behind her. He was a bearkin who looked like he’d been on a rather long trip, as he was pretty rough for wear. I tried not to be rude by covering my nose, but it was hard to resist the temptation, given the smell he was giving off.

“What . . . what can I do for you?” I asked.

“I heard you were offering slaves sanctuary,” he said as he moved to expose a part of his chest. The purple ink the slavers used for the space crest popped out even on his sunburnt skin. Regan had told me about this a while ago. His forest town was letting slaves live there like normal people if they allowed him to subvert their slave crests. He’d given me a similar device in case they came here instead.

“Indeed, I can offer you a type of freedom. The dungeon here has made a device that binds the crest to him. With this you can live as a normal mortal, and I have been assured that he doesn’t have time to do anything with the slaves he binds,” I explained.

“As long as I can be free, I don’t care!” the man almost roared.

“Very well,” I said, then pulled the device out of my desk. I walked up to him. “This will hurt a bit,” I warned. I placed the rune-marked dagger against the center of his slave crest.

“Hmph,” he scoffed.

I smiled, as this wasn’t the first time a slave had scoffed at the mention of pain. I tapped the end of the device to the center of his crest. A surge of mana entered it, and he roared as if he’d been stabbed by half a dozen swords. I hopped back quickly in case he went crazy. It had happened before, after all.

He collapsed to the ground as he writhed in pain. I frowned as I noticed Julie seeming to enjoy it. I couldn’t see her face to be sure; however, her body language said that she was having the time of her life. The process usually took roughly a minute to complete, longer for a larger body like this guy.

The process ended exactly one minute and twenty-nine seconds later. I had to hand it to the man. Most started begging for it to end, one way or another, by that point. But other than the first roar, he didn’t make a sound louder than groans of pain. After he lay on the floor for another minute or so, he sat up.

“I guess . . . freedom . . . doesn’t come pain free,” he said with a groan.

“Indeed. Now, what’s your name?” I asked as he got to his feet.

“Boris Lut, ma’am,” Boris said with a bow.

“Well, Boris, now that you’re free, want to join the town guard?”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Fair enough,” I said with a smile. “For now there is a bunkhouse set aside for freed slaves while they get back on their feet.” It was a little hard to expect someone to be able to provide for themselves right after rebinding the crest. This allowed them to feel a little indebted to the valley for all we did for them. However, I didn’t feel wronged if they decided to leave after they got more comfortable. They wanted to be free, after all.

“Thank you for everything!” Boris said, then bowed as he backed out of the room. A guard saluted from the hallway, then escorted him from the building.

After he left, I turned to Wrakras and Julie. “That’s the twelfth slave this week. The rate they are arriving is also increasing.” It wasn’t too bad to get the slaves in the valley. I just worried about the ones who had . . . less than pleasant owners before. I didn’t need a former slave attacking one of my citizens.

“Master’s other town has a whole operation set up to free slaves. They are being . . . selective at the moment so they don’t free criminal slaves. But even with that, it might reach unprecedented levels compared with the history of the war on slavery,” Wrakras explained, then added, “The number of slaves in the forest has already hit triple digits.”

“I never thought I would be near the center of history-altering events like this,” I said as I rested my head on the desk. It was just one thing after another. We’d already suffered two attacks from necromancers. Hell, there were two in the room with me.

“Only very few people are born knowing they will achieve greatness, and even fewer will know if they will fulfill that destiny. Just think about that marquis . . .” Julie said from her seat until I glared at her. Val would have been one of the strongest leaders on the continent if he had been allowed to flourish.

Wrakras glanced into the hallway, then commented, “Ezal appears to be doing a good job training the new force.” I followed his gaze and saw the hallway lined with guards. There was a pair almost every ten meters.

“She even gained a new nickname. Ezal the Fire Demon.” I wasn’t sure if it had always been a problem or if it was a recent development from her pregnancy, but she’d gained a wicked temper. Quite a few people had learned the hard way when she quite literally burned them. The new hospital that Regan had set up was getting a lot of visitors.

That was another hot topic in town. This medical center had been a very big hit with the adventurers, as they didn’t have to donate to a priest to get a healing. They only paid coppers on the silver for healings that would have been hard for a Lelune sanctioned priest. The biggest thing was that the healings were consistent. If someone went in to heal a broken arm, then the arm was healed as stated. There were issues while using the priest’s magic, which may heal an injury such as severe pain for several weeks, but later, there might come swelling or any number of “bonus” issues that people sometimes needed to deal with.

Some of the Light mages who were hesitating about joining the church had already joined Regan’s healing center as students, but there was a long training session that they had to work hard at. While it was free to join, if you quit halfway through, there were fees.

Last I’d heard, a woman wanted to be able to regenerate limbs, and an automaton head doctor, as they called themselves, had told her it would be nearly six years of learning to be able to do so. The only requirement for joining was to magically sign some type of oath about doing no harm. It was very adaptive, as it made a man who tried to learn secondhand sign it before he could actually hear what the other man was trying to teach him.

The hospital took care of any Light mages who signed the oath with a division of automata that were assigned to guard the men and women. They used light mana and were quite powerful, from the reports I got from Ezal. They were led by two automata that called themselves Apollo and Aurora. Before the obelisks were installed all through town, one of the students made their way into the sea of tents outside the town to try to help anyone who might have gotten hurt in the dungeon.

He was jumped for his coin, but Apollo happened to be with him. It managed to incapacitate all the attackers with a single weapon that fired some type of canister that exploded out with pure light. The men were unable to see for several days before they crawled to the man and begged him to help them.

It was becoming so normal for the valley to be in a state of change that I was actually dealing with all this relatively well, in my opinion. Ezal was doing a good job with security, Cassie was keeping the adventurers in line, the guilds were all happy about the continued increase to their membership in the valley. Personally, I was pleased about the valley doing so well, considering that it was where I’d come to basically run away from my family.

I pulled myself from my thoughts and looked down at my desk. The downside to having a large desk was that it was able to fit more paperwork. I decided I needed a break and stood up to go on a walk. Regan had made this place nearly impenetrable, according to my understanding, so I had no worries while in the castle. Not that I was too worried about being attacked again. My comprehension of lightning had reached a new scale thanks to me quite literally fusing myself to it. While my memory of that event was spotty, I would probably break through to tier three without much difficulty as long as the universe didn’t throw a curveball.

Chapter 3

Regan

The hooded pair looked me over as I appeared in front of them. I, of course, wasn’t taking any chances and had appeared a few meters away. I’d learned the hard way that few people can be trusted in this world. Even if you thought you knew them. Magic was capable of great good, but more often than not it was used for evil by people with too much ambition for their own good.

“I have to say, I’m pleasantly surprised to see you,” I said to the person who was supposed to be dead. While I didn’t personally care, I knew someone in the valley that would have been quite happy to see him. Plus, I liked seeing people reunited.

“As I am, you. I need to ask that you not use my name,” Valamar said with a grimace.

I nodded in agreement. “Fair enough. Never know who might be listening. What can I do for you?” I asked.

“I need an edge against our common enemy,” Valamar growled.

I could almost feel the anger radiating off him. “Ah, a little revenge is always a good motivator,” I said with a knowing nod. “But are you sure? Taking this path might lead you down a road that will be hard to return from.” I wanted to know he was certain. From what I’d found through various experiments, such as with Azra, once I changed a person, it was very permanent. At least to the magic I had access to as a dungeon, which was considerable.

“I am well aware of that from my journey here. If there is to be a future for me and mine, then I have to do this.”

“Very well. Do you want low or high? Note that if I use the high, I will be binding you to me,” I warned.

“I need as much power as I can get. Do what you have to do!” he declared with force, then deflated a bit as he turned to his partner. “No matter what happens, thank you for all your help during this trying time. You’re free to do as you please.”

“Thank you, my lord, but I have as much a reason to stay as you,” the woman said with a slight bow, then turned to me. “This may be out of line, but I would like to request the high-level as well.”

“Loyal servants as always, I see,” I said with a sly grin.

“I probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. She did save my life, after all.”

I laughed. “Men are supposed to protect the women, isn’t that right, V—” I started to say before I remembered he didn’t want me to use his name.

The man frowned, then sighed. “How is she?”

“Well enough, I would wager. Your friend Bruce has been keeping watch over her. Quite disturbing actually. The way he tries to do everything for her. If you didn’t know the man, you would think he was in love with her.”

“He is loyal to a fault, but I trust him to protect her. When I finish my quest, I will repay him with whatever he wants as long as I am capable of delivering it,” the man said with one of the most serious faces I thought I’d ever seen in either of my lives.

“But enough of him. I would like to hear how you survived,” I said, unable to control my curiosity.

“As for my survival, I have Urena to thank for that,” he said as he glanced over to the woman.

“Oh, I do love a good mystery, but the suspense is killing me.”

He sighed, then explained how Urena had been thrown under the building when it was bombarded with the spells. She’d survived more due to her dwarven stature than any martial skill, and quickly realized what was going on. As the dragon had attacked, she’d pulled clear the body of a servant who was roughly the same size as him.

When Neldor gave his life for them in a truly heroic moment, they made the switch with Valamar, casting an illusion over Valamar’s face, which kept it simple enough to be unnoticed with the large amount of mana in the area. She then buried them almost fifty meters underground for nearly a week to be sure there weren’t any watchers.

“And I could bore you with the happenings as we made our way here, but I have necromancers to kill!” Valamar growled.

“Alright, then, let’s have ourselves some fun!” I said with a little more excitement than I meant to.

“I leave myself in your hands,” Valamar said as he bowed, switching to a calm state unnaturally fast. Urena bowed as well.

I moved them to the north where there was more free space to work with. Then I teleported us to an open lot to one side of the fort. Hundreds of automata were working on one project or another. Just as we appeared, one team of automata was hauling a hulking creature that reminded me of a giant but with rotted patches all over it. I would have to look at the reports from that later.

Valamar looked around in awe. He’d probably never seen a place with such a uniform and smooth structure before. I pointed to the middle of the lot and told him to stand there as I tried to decide how best to go through with this. I already had a general idea but wanted to be sure it fit with his style. Unlike my automata, he wouldn’t be able to learn how to use a weapon that he’d never touched before.

As I thought through my options, I decided to let magic decide. There was a simple but effective method to increase his power that I hadn’t used in a while. It would also bind him to the dungeon so I could keep tabs on him. I planned on giving him a collar, but extra protection never hurt.

I channeled the Bind Creature spell I’d acquired so long ago. In fact, the last time I’d used it had been on Azra. A giant complex spell structure formed around Valamar with a diameter of ten meters. Thousands of runes and scripts were woven together to create a spell that was more complicated by a hundred times than the one I’d used on Azra.

Something interesting happened at that point, as mana didn’t just flow from my main core but from my three subcores as well. The Spire core seemed to be far and didn’t provide any more mana than a trickle. I’d noted this occurrence while working on the station. Distance really did play a factor on certain functions of my cores.

Valamar screamed as more mana than a human should have been capable of handling collided with him. I wasn’t positive of my analogy, but it probably felt like a million needles trying to force their way in through every spot of his body. I quickly gained control of the flow of mana and slowed it to a more manageable level. I allowed it to keep flowing until the spell stopped on its own.

With roughly two million mana coursing through his body, Valamar literally glowed at the moment. He collapsed to his knees from the pain, breathing heavily. Cracks formed over his body as the mana transformed him. Slowly, Valamar stood up with a surge of power, and his body exploded suddenly, then condensed.

A much more powerful version stood where he’d been a moment ago. Three halos floated behind his back in the form of large gears, probably an influence from my mana. Two blades, one that seemed to be formed from a sun, the other from the blackness of space, rested in his hands.

It reminded me of Asura from Hinduism. It also looked like I had pushed him over into tier three in the process. I could feel my underlying control over him, however, so I wasn’t worried. I’d learned a lot since the time with Azra and all the continuous creations that I’d been doing. Just to be safe, I materialized a collar around his neck and wrists before he came completely back to himself. It was easier to affect his personage when he was “part” of the dungeon.

Valamar roared loudly enough to shake the surrounding forest as he surged to his feet. The ground cracked under him as he “flexed” his new level of mana. Something farther in the forest roared back, but I ignored that for now. Steam was released from Valamar as he calmed down from the mana high. I looked closer and saw that his skin was metal now, though it still looked like regular skin. Internally, he had completely changed. He was almost a living machine, as most of his body had changed but the parts that made him mortal had only been upgraded and optimized. I guessed you could call him a cyborg now.

Panting, he looked over to me, then said, “You’re one scary being, Sir Regan.”

“Aw, stop that, you’re making me blush,” I said as I laughed.

“Don’t tell her about me, please,” he pleaded, his eyes sincere.

I debated telling him that she had already gotten some upgrades herself but left it alone and just nodded. They could sort that out for themselves later. As they say, love can cross all boundaries.

He stared at me for another moment before he fell over backward. His eyes rolled back, and he breathed heavily, but I knew that he was quite well. His soul was still adapting to the massive change in shell and amount of energy. In Louella’s case, she’d been able to expel most of the energy. With this, however, he was forced to endure the molten fire that was locked in his veins.

I looked down at Urena next to me. “Still want to go?” I asked with an evil grin.

“Yes, Sir Regan,” she said without hesitation.

In a sense I felt she was almost braver than Valamar. It took a lot of guts to witness something like that and still want to go through with it. Especially since she was essentially giving up her freedom.

“Well damn, I was hoping for a slight shudder or something,” I said, a bit disappointed. I moved Valamar’s body out of the way, and the woman walked onto the stage.

The spell began the same way, as I didn’t plan on holding back with these two. I would basically be able to control them if something were to happen. As I’d mentioned before to Louella, pawns were useful. I was more prepared this time as I grabbed the tremendous rush of mana that surged toward her. I let it flow a bit slower, but too slow would affect the transformation, as well as be painful longer.

Soon another cyborg stood in front of me. There wasn’t as much change as with Valamar, as I believe she had been a rogue and was keeping true to her roots. I could see that quite a few of her systems were set for infiltration. I collared her when she collapsed from the intense power that was rushing through her veins. Looking each of them over, I felt sorry for whoever got in their way.

As I teleported them to an out-of-the-way section of the west forest, I made sure to copy their designs. With a few alterations, I could make fully functional automata to fill my ranks. I left them a map marking where they were, then let my body dissipate. They would be more than able to handle anything that came their way, and the area was empty due to the recent horde battle. The ecosystem was still repairing itself.

~~~

Now that the distraction was over, I moved back to my space station. Just thinking that phrase made me a bit giddy. I wanted to be able to see the entire north, so I needed to build a network of satellites. I went to an assembly area that I’d designed so that the station could build anything from spare parts to ships. As long as this area was undamaged, it would be able to repair the entire station, provided they were able to get power and materials to it.

I designed an advanced satellite that only used one magic script, which was to draw in mana from sunlight and convert it to electricity. The rest was created using good old technology, or magi-tech, technically. While it didn’t operate on pure mana, it still used magic to function. It was all hardware based, hence only one script was needed. I felt that this way it would last longer.

The satellite was a cube, each side roughly two meters. An array of cameras and sensors lined the surface of each side. Compressed ion thrusters were able to keep it moving without any troubles for the task I had in mind. I launched it out into the upper atmosphere.

This one was set to watch the area right below the station. I could have put the camera on the station, but I felt a good network should be uniform. It moved below, then activated its communications array. I used a quantum link so the network should never have any lag, while not requiring as much hardware to function. An easy feat with magic.

With the uplink established, I set it to start mapping the area directly below the station. The first images came up on the center console, while a large holographic image appeared over a sizable table located in the command center. It’s nice being a dungeon core, as I can spread my consciousness over a large area.

Down on the surface, a hellscape appeared. The still-compiling image seemed to make it worse. A very dead-looking forest surrounded a castle made of pitch-black stone and what looked like milk-white bones. I felt it was a little cliché, but they wouldn’t know that. A fog covered an area of roughly a hundred kilometers, which was most of the initial coverage my satellite managed.

The satellite finished another scan, and the image cleared up considerably. Undead as far as the eye could see. It looked like every mortal who had been in the north was changed. I couldn’t read their mana levels from the satellite, but there were several hundred that must have been over tier three. I tapped my chin as I looked over the image, coming up with a few ideas that would remove most of the surface issues, but the ninety-four floors were going to be the real issue.

Unlike me, Alara had most likely built her dungeon to keep everyone out at the command of her masters. Every step down would have been a battle. At least I had Anubis. I could replicate his design into a troop of soldiers who would be able to fight their way down as a nearly perfect enemy against the necromancers. For now, I just needed to get my forces there. A space drop was ideal, but just to the outskirts of the north since some type of presence was already interfering. Until I found the source of that, I would hold off on a space insertion.

I plotted out the network that I wanted the station to set up so that it would automatically produce the satellites. Even if I was moving my forces over ground, I needed to have a decent map. There were at least a thousand kilometers between Alara and me, not to mention the fact that the rest of the continent also needed to be mapped accurately.

With that in mind, I created a larger probe and sent it out to start sweeping the planet. When it reached fifty kilometers, there was suddenly a discharge of energy. The mana that was being absorbed by the cube surged and the satellite exploded. I tried again but only got the same result. I mentally rubbed my chin as I examined the problem, while pausing the assembly line.

I created a third probe and set it with a feedback link to the core. Launching the probe, I waited to see what would happen. When it reached the fifty-kilometer mark, its mana surged again, but it flowed back to my core, giving me nearly ten thousand mana all at once. It quickly reached the seventy-kilometer mark.

The mana surged again, this time too much for my link. This reinforced my theory that a race had done something to protect the planet. For now, I created a new version of the satellite that possessed a mana stone the size of a small car. It increased the cost and size of the satellite by a considerable amount but was required.

From there, I set the network to transfer the energy among the satellites. That would keep the surges under control until I learned more about the cause. For now, the networks showed that the cause was a certain distance from my aura, and the surges happened every hour or so. I welcomed the mana but knew it would put stress on the devices. However, there was little I could do about it at that point.

I moved over to another section of the assembly and set it to create some worker automata for the station. They were multipurpose robots that could operate a workstation or sweep the floor, basically drones for all intents. The station was feeling empty, though. I did a few more “chores” on the station before I decided to take a break.

It grew quiet as I reduced all the information I was getting from all various sources around the dungeon. Ignea, Jarvis, Saga, and my all my children had been told to let me know if something happened, and even if something did, not much could get to my core that fast without me being violently aware of it.

Sensing through the multiple links I could form, I connected with the one I’d begun visiting at least once a week recently. The world faded, then the two-sided room formed as it had the first time. I looked forward to the day I could see her in person. As the black throne with the hundreds of black chains bearing bloodred runes formed in front of me, I couldn’t help but smile sadly as the figure being restrained by them came into view.

I’d done a lot of self-analysis since the second time I’d seen her. Not understanding why, I was drawn to her, wanted to rescue her. While she was beautiful, as a man from Earth with access to the internet, I’d seen plenty of women in my time. The only guess I had was due to how similar her situation was to my own on Earth. She was being forced to serve the necromancers against her will. Whether I felt love, as a scientist, I wasn’t quite sure. As a man, I had to say probably. As a dungeon core, who the hell knows?

Ignea had informed me that dungeon cores could create offspring between two cores, but it came at the cost of half of each parent’s current cultivation. A steep price to pay for most any being on this planet. I wondered to myself how that would affect me, considering I had multiple cores, but that was for the future. The very far future, hopefully.

Alara slowly opened her eyes, then looked at me. She could barely move any part of her body, but her eyes were able to speak volumes. Having these one-sided conversations with her, I was getting better at the subtle cues that she gave. At least, I hoped I was.

“Afternoon, Alara. It’s that time of the week,” I said with a smile.

Her mouth twitched as her eyes danced.

“Haha. It’s good to see you, too.”

She squinted at me, then looked at the ground.

“No, a few more weeks I’m afraid. I can’t afford to take the necromancers lightly. They would take it out on you,” I said as I shook my head.

Her eyes got visibly sad, then they hardened.

“I know you’ll wait for me. As I said before, I promise to let you see the sun on your own terms again.”

The link lasted for about thirty minutes to an hour if I forced it, so I spent that entire time with Alara. A one-sided conversation doesn’t last very long, so I started telling her stories from Earth, like “Little Red Riding Hood,” all the various Disn . . .  princess tales, especially the alien princess one. That one had been one of Disn . . . ’s best sellers. Basically, I just kept her company.

Afterword

Thank you for reading! Did you enjoy the story? If so, please feel free to leave a positive review on Amazon. Reviews can make or break a story after all! Check out what happens next in the Dungeon Robotics Universe or explore one of my other stories on Patreon!

The Dungeon Robotics World

Regan Earle was a robotics scientist that inadvertently caused the robot takeover of the world. When his last creation completes a decade long plan to end his own life, he ends up surprised. Creation offers him a second chance to test his wits and cunning in another world. Fate, however, is fickle and Regan ends up as a Dungeon Core... with ALL his memories. Is the world of Murgin ready to face such a dungeon? Let's find out...

Earth 2150. Nearly twenty years since the robot uprising, where all AIs designed by inventor Dr. Regan Earle went rogue and started to take over the world. Or at least, that’s what everyone thought until a year later Earle himself sent out a message. A message that stated his creations would shut down if he were killed. He even went so far as to place a beacon on top of his building that broadcasted his location. The humans fought against the machines for decades in a futile attempt to destroy the tower.

Book 1: Establish

Book 2: Expansion

Book 3: Escalation

Book 4: Cascade

Book 5: Cataclysm

Book 6: Conflict

Book 7: Collapse

Book 8: Delve

Book 9: Descent

Book 10: Arrival

Dungeon Annihilation

Regan was a robotics scientist that caused the robot takeover of the world. When his last creation finally completes his plan to free himself destroying the world in the process. Destruction offers him a second chance to test his wits and cunning in another world. Now tasked with a goal that would upset the balance of a new world, Regan might be a bit more than the people of the world can handle.

This is an alternative retelling of the first Dungeon Robotics book: Establish. All the characters have been altered slightly and there are new characters. Only the initial chapters have a resemblance to the first book and quickly change paths to a darker side of things.

Book 1: Overshadowed

Book 2: Overrule

Book 3: Overlord

The Revenge of the Sorcerer King

Oberon Blackphoenix almost united all the races on his part of the world. It would have meant a term of peace yet unheard of. Sadly, he was betrayed by one of his most trusted advisors. With his once friend's sword piercing his chest, he cast his last spell. Unintended by even him, his spell incorporates a legendary item that results in the world being cursed. Now over a thousand years later, a certain sorcerer once again wakes... and he is not happy.

Book 1: Resurrection

Book 2: Mayhem

Book 3: Upheaval

Book 4: Dungeon (Coming Soon)

Station 64: The Doll Dungeon

The Aether Shift. An event that changed the world forever. Unleashing untold powers onto the minds and bodies of humans on Earth. Some were chosen, against their will, to become something new. Azaria, finally allowed leave the house on her own for the first time, ends up as a Dungeon Core, however, the situation gets turned sideways during the process and she's left alone for nearly a year. Lance, an individual with a hidden past has been struggling in the changed world that is Earth. Meeting Azaria through a twist of fate, what will change with the two brought together.

Book 1: Frenzied Rebirth

Book 2: Dollish Takeover

Book 3: Dimensional Hopscotch

Book 4: Abyssal Charge

Kinetics

Grace lives a relatively normal life, aside from being an orphan, until she is abducted from her bed and experimented upon. This transforms her into a super-powered being with the ability to control fire. She has to come to terms with the raw destructive power of her ability and learn to control herself.

Grace finds that she isn't the only person with these abilities, and soon discovers that her past is much more complicated than she could have imagined. Her new volatile abilities force her to choose between either being alone or risking the safety of others. As they say, passion burns bright.

Returning to amazon after three years of work, editing, and polishing, get ready to enjoy the adventure of Grace and the gang with all new content to bring the story to life.

Book 1: Kinetics

Book 2: Daedalus

Book 3: Morpheus

Book 4: Jericho

Tomes of the Supernatural Halfway House

Waylon Dalton was doing all right, right up until he lost his job. On the advice of a wise elder that works at his favorite restaurant, Waylon decided to get a roommate. Everything turned upside down, and he found out more about himself and the rest of the world than he thought he ever wanted to know.
Kaylie needed somewhere to live, and the spirit she was chasing led her straight to a perfect place, then she found out there was a Warlock living there that had no clue what he could do. With her past making things complicated, she tries her best to stay on the right side of things.

My Roommate is a Reaper

I Can't Believe I'm A Warlock

My Girlfriend is a Pixie

I can't believe I work for vampires