TtOW! - Chapter 44: Dark Plots Fulfilled

As NSLICE-00P ran through the town, a massive energy signature appeared on her sensors. Mana readings grew off the charts, right next to her destination. The readings from her conventional sensors started to distort.

She put a bit more power into her boosters, shooting through the city.

And eventually, she arrived, just above where the rat monsters were waiting. She filled the ground below her with Earth-attribute mana and pushed it out of the way, opening an entrance for her to jump through.

She floated down on her repulsors into the sewers.  Rattingtale and the other two rat monsters were waiting on a ledge to the side, crouched down behind a rock with their ears flat on their heads.

“Urgent Request: Please provide situation update.”

Rattingtale looked up and jumped.

“Boss-queen! Finally!”

He scrambled off the ledge and jumped onto NSLICE-00P’s foot, climbing up her to take shelter inside the monster hangar. The other two rat monsters rushed to follow suit.  Lilussees and the other monsters were already sitting in the common area.

“Heh, happy to see us, snack?  You were, like, that scared, or something?”

“S-Shut up, wretched spider-thing!  This is dangerous-risky, yes yes!  That treacherous man-thing conducted-performed some kind of ritual, yes yes! This is the result-outcome!”

“Acknowledged.  Investigating non-standard phenomena.”

Just up ahead there was a hole in the wall of the sewers, leading to an area that had been recently dug out. The massive mana signatures were coming from that area, throwing waves of mana out at random intervals. In fact…

[You have leveled up!  Dungeon Level is now 35!]

Mana was surging into her core.  Her Dungeon Field was attempting to absorb as much of the mana as it could, but there was still enough to raise the ambient levels of mana.  The air was hissing and crackling, flashes of light could be seen from the entrance to the dug out area.  And her sensors were having trouble penetrating the area, as if the air itself was being distorted along with the electromagnetic radiation passing through it.

“Query: Hostile Cassius is located in that area?”

“Y-Yes, I think-believe.”

“Acknowledged.  Moving to engage.”

Rattingtale jumped.

“W-What?! Stupid man-thing, you must run-flee!”

Lilussees nodded.

“I hate to, like, agree with the snack, but that’s, like, a mana-storm, or something.  Those are, like, pretty dangerous, or something.”

Just as the monsters were warning her, the mana surge intensified.  Stones and pebbles began rising all around the cyborg.  The sewer slimes started shuffling away from the area, even as the ambient mana caused them to rapidly split and multiply.  Arcs of lightning began criss-crossing the walls of the sewers close to the target area.

[You have leveled up!  Dungeon Level is now 36!]

“Acknowledgement: Updating risk level due to non-standard environmental phenomena.  Deploying countermeasures.”

NSLICE-00P began forming mana barriers around herself when suddenly the surging mana died down, along with the hissing sounds.  The mana didn’t vanish, but rather began surging back towards its point of origin, concentrating into an extremely dense signature.

And then, there was a loud explosion noise, and a final surge of mana.  A gust of wind impacted NSLICE-00P’s barrier.

And then all the strange readings stopped.

In fact, all her sensor readings into the area ahead stopped, returning no data in a very familiar fashion.  The area itself had twisted and warped, turning into a stone arch.  The arch’s entryway was pitch black, and nothing could be seen on the other side of it.

But well, NSLICE-00P didn’t need her sensors to determine what she was looking at.  She already knew exactly what it was.

Rattingtale and Lilussees’s eyes widened.

“I-It’s…a dungeon.”

“A human made a dungeon?  That’s…like…is that supposed to be possible?”

“How should I know, wretched spider-thing?”

“Weren’t you, like, ‘the Great-Super King’, or something?  Don’t you know, like, everything?”

“S-Shut up!  And it’s Great-High King, yes yes!”

And how did NSLICE-00P respond to this turn of events?

“Status Update: Situation determined.  Risk factor decreased.  Activating dungeon termination protocols.”

She went into full combat mode and marched straight inside.

***

Cassius stood in a wide, circular room made of stone.  It was empty, save for a single pedestal at the center, holding the largest mana-core Cassius had ever seen, glowing with bright blue light.

He grinned.

He had succeeded.

Inducing a localized, artificial mana-storm was perhaps the riskiest thing he had ever done.  But everything had gone as his benefactors predicted.  A new dungeon core was born on the spot to absorb the mana storm, lest it tear through the fabric of reality itself.  And as this storm was artificially produced, the dungeon core was rushed, incomplete.

So it had no master to defend it.

Cassius pulled out a black knife that had red magic circles engraved all over it.  He closed his eyes and grit his teeth as he cut his own palm with it.  The blood absorbed into the knife, its magic formations now glowing with red light.

And then he stabbed into the dungeon core.  Murky black-red fog poured into the core, and its blue light began to turn red.  Suddenly mana exploded out from it, striking Cassius and knocking him to the ground.  He cried out as fire filled every inch of his body, and his mind felt as if it was dipped in molten magma.

And then it stopped.

He held his aching head and groaned, stumbling to his feet.  As he rose, he felt his perception expand, encompassing the entire room.  Mana now surged through his veins…and back into the blood-red core.

He had done it.

Now he was the master.

An immortal ruler of a dungeon, who could go without food or rest and who was free from the ravages of time.  Who could control all of reality within their domain, practically a god.

He had access to theoretically infinite land, infinite wealth, infinite resources.

And of course, an infinite army of vicious monsters chained to his will.

He grinned.

With the huge surge of mana from the mana storm, he had more than enough to get started.  And the binding ritual had done more than make him the master, the core itself had been modified, changed to draw reckless amounts of mana from the Source.  As a result, he could produce a vast army almost instantaneously.

And he was directly underneath the keep of Castra Turannia, the toughest Legion fortress in the entire province.

He would pour out his armies of monsters from right under their feet, bypassing the walls and defenses entirely.  And the comitatenses, the real fighters, were already gone, and would not return until Magister Caelinus was done with them.  Without the walls, the limitanei would fall like stalks of grain before the reaper’s scythe.

And once Castra Turannia was his, the entire province would have no choice but to bow at his feet.  He would have all of Turannia to feed the power of his dungeon, such that by the time the Empire might return he would be invincible.

He would form a new Demon Lord’s Realm, just like in the days of old.  Before the bright times, before the Empire.

And then…well his dungeon would only grow stronger, ever stronger.  Turannia would only be the beginning.  If the Empire did not stop him now…soon they would not be able to stop him at all.

It was then that he received a message from his core.

There was…an intruder?

Cassius quickly sorted through his new powers.  Fortunately the process of binding himself to the core had jammed some instinctual knowledge into his head, so he knew what to do.  He jumped into the ‘Rooms’ section and placed a huge stone labyrinth between the entrance and the core room.  And just in the knick of time, as someone walked through the entrance hall.

Cassius blinked.

It was…the strange knight?

Cassius blinked again.

That shouldn’t be possible.

Because first, that meant she had survived the Ursanus Alpha, which should have been higher level than her.  Which…to be fair was actually possible.  Ursanus Alphas are raw bundles of power, but they are fairly straightforward and not the most nimble of monsters.  If she evaded the countless vines of the Strangling Salicum, she could escape from an Ursanus Alpha.  Still though, he had expected she would at least take some time attempting to fight the monster, and then shaking it off her tail on the retreat.

Of course, the idea that she had defeated the Ursanus did not cross Cassius’s mind.  Even if it had, he would have assumed it would be a long, drawn out affair requiring intense preparations and the use of a countless number of traps to wear the beast down.

And then…she had gotten past Spurius and his men.  Cassius…expected that, to be fair.  But this wasn’t Spurius’s first ambush, not even the highest level target he had gone after.  So Cassius had at least expected Spurius to slow her down, and give her a wound for the trouble.

For her to be right here, right now, implied that she spent barely any time at all on either the Ursanus or on Spurius.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.  That wasn’t what sent a chill down Cassius’s spine.

No, the worst of it was the fact that she was here.

She had followed him to a location he had never shared with her.

So either she knew about this place ahead of time…or she had a way of tracking him he hadn’t noticed.

But Cassius shook his head and cleared his thoughts.  It didn’t matter now.  Now?  Now he was a dungeon master, and this was his domain.  Everything that occurred here now occurred according to his will.  This strange knight could not overturn that, no matter how unexpectedly capable she might be.

In fact…

Cassius grinned.

This would be a good test, actually.  He would test the capabilities of his dungeon and figure out this knight’s tricks all the same time.  It didn’t matter how unexpectedly powerful she was, it didn’t matter how many powerful monsters she had taken down.

Because this was a dungeon.

Even if she could handle every monster he could summon, he could keep throwing monsters at her, for as long as it took.  If she took down one, he would send a dozen.  If she took down a dozen, he would send a hundred.  If she took down a hundred, he would send a thousand.  Even if she could kill them all without injury, she would make no progress, would screech to a halt against a wall of flesh.  No matter how many monsters it took, she would eventually run dry.  She would run out of mana, the dungeon would not.

Cassius’s grin grew wider.

After all, even the Legion knew not to fight a dungeon in a war of attrition.

Author’s Note:

Well…you’re right about that last part at least, Cassius, fighting dungeons in wars of attrition is a bad idea.  So I’m sure everything’s about to go great for you!  Some strange wandering knight can’t possibly take on an entire dungeon alone, right?

Haha.

Anyways!

Can NSLICE-00P overcome the infinite might of a dungeon?  Or will Cassius complete his plan to conquer Turannia?  Tune in next time, to find out!