The infinity dungeon 265

Chapter 265

Michael was dozing off, more than two weeks straight spent awake and working taking a toll on his mind. It had not felt like this in the dungeon, but the need for constant alertness and intervention all over the world had left him taxed and at his wit’s end. Right as his eyes closed, and he felt the world escape down a tunnel of black, an alarm jolted him awake.

Travis stormed into the room, a projection already above the central table. A map.

“The broken mirror shards have activated,” the man said. “Traced back to here.”

“Australia?” Michael slurred, then shook himself awake and up from his chair. 

“Yes.” The data in the projection switched to magical, and then Faith. “Faint mana readings, originating here and spreading out. A single homestead near the source, with a single person living there–as far as we know. First readings are from about seventy-two hours ago, but we had dismissed them at the time because we were too busy. After the initial readings, our satellites picked up Faith activity around the area, and then the area went dark. It didn’t warrant intervention, until now.”

“Do you need me to go check it out?”

“Yes, we need to know what they are doing there.”

***

The homestead was a single wooden shack propped up against a stone outcropping. All around it, red soil and dust were blown by harsh winds. Behind it, a gaping maw in the rock loomed, a hole so dark and deep it defied logic.

Michael had flown up into the sky, all the way to space, and had landed a few miles away from the area, right outside of the far reaches of the Faith energies lingering about and jamming the senses. Because of that, he could only rely on sight, although enhanced by magic.

“There’s a thin film of Faith surrounding the area. I’m going in,” he said, speaking into the comms.

“What about the cave?” Travis’s voice came from the other side.

“Hard to say from outside, I’ll let you know in a moment.”

He let Icarus control the spiral at the center of his inner space, making it absorb and neutralize the effects of the Faith as he passed through. It was thin enough that it posed no challenge to them. 

Once inside, he felt the familiar taste of dungeon mana. He had suspected the cave had to be a dungeon, but now that he was sure he felt the electric tingle of excitement.

“Shit,” Travis muttered into the comms. “The day has finally arrived.”

“They are keeping it contained with a dome of Faith.”

“Shouldn’t it blow up?” Travis asked. His voice was slightly muffled by static, and no matter what Michael did, he could not clean it up. His connection to the domain was still strong, though.

“Eventually,” he replied. “This is probably a young dungeon, and they covered a huge area with the dome. The magic is still very thin. I’m going to move closer now.”

He cloaked himself with magic, using mana to refract the light around him and the spiral to absorb any passive Faith attempting to reveal his location. Keeping his aura tight, he slowly creeped toward the homestead.

Poking his head inside, he confirmed what his senses and his magic had already told him. There was nobody, but with Faith at play one could never be sure. 

Icarus manifested beside him, wearing tactical gear and wielding a rifle. While Michael searched the ground floor, the AI went upstairs. His steps were soft, feline, and they did not disturb the old wooden boards. 

After a few minutes, he whispered. “You might want to see this.”

“What is going on here,” Michael cried out when he reached him. Even though he had spoken loudly, Icarus was making sure their noise did not reach far, burning magic to do so. They had mana in spades.

Before them, a pentagram was drawn on the old wood of the house with blood. It was still fresh, but flies had already arrived and were buzzing around in deafening flocks, making the air thick with wings and tiny dark bodies.

A wave of Michael’s hand and they were gone, but the look of disgust in his face remained. A body lay dismembered at the center of the pentagram, surrounded by candles, the wax half melted. On the far wall, they could see scratches in the wood, from a claw that had to be at least as big as a man.

Michael called for the power of the Origin system. Of course, Johanne had been among the first to connect to it, and had uploaded all of her spells into it. Through it, he channeled the power of Window into the Past.

He felt the mana gather, flicker and then wink out. Sighing, he reached into the inner space, through the white lines of the data room he still used as temporary coin storage, and pulled out a gold coin. He let it unravel before his eyes, keeping its power under control with his aura. 

Then, he used the Qi and Intent of the coin to bolster the mana he was providing to the skill. It snapped into place, a distorted view of past events.

Priests were chanting. A man was screaming. Wind, dust, a wave of terrible agony made manifest. The view window wobbled and flickered like a faulty analog connection, but one last photograph of the past managed to slip through. A portal into a place of blood and fire, a claw rending the wood and three of the priests. A flash of something. The face of Don Casellaro wielding a shard.

“The shard of the broken mirror,” Icarus said. 

Michael paced around the room, bending down to study a dusty corner. From there, he looked into the window that was still showing the events that had happened. 

“Rewind,” he said.

Icarus manipulated the spell. It was unstable now, its magic almost fully spent fighting the Faith. They saw a priest slash the air with it right above the pentagram, then the portal, and then blackness.

Michael felt his jaw tense as he reported his findings to Travis.

“I’m dropping my stealth,” he said when he was done. “If there are demons in here, we need to know.”

“Aknowledged,” Travis replied.

A wave of pure mana exploded out of Michael. It washed over the land, reaching the Faith shield and stopping just shy of it. It revealed nothing out of the ordinary, just a thin mist of dungeon magic, increasing in density the closer one got to its source.

“The place looks clean,” Michael said. “There is nobody here.”

“Did they just… leave?” Travis asked, dumbfounded. 

“Looks like it. Do you want to come and investigate the dungeon?”

Travis nodded, only just faintly visible through the static. Shrugging, Michael punched the air and a portal wobbled open, bypassing the Faith around them. Through it stepped Travis, before two dozen Operators flooded the place and took position around them.

“We are–”

They all felt it when the portal, which had been slowly collapsing behind them, suddenly changed. Its edges turned red, and a screech split the air. Icarus immediately appeared next to Michael, rifle aimed at the aperture.

“Something is hijacking the spell,” he said.

A clawed hand, scales darker than night, pushed itself through the narrow portal. 

“Shoot!” came the command from Travis. Everybody opened fire, raining down spells and bullets on the thing. The portal wobbled, something was pushing itself into it, slowly widening the opening.

“Hell no,” Michael said. He activated the spiral, unleashing it against the portal. “Everybody out!”

The pulse of power from the spiral traveled through the inner space, gravity increasing a millionfold as the powerful glyph activated. Around it, the data lines rearranged themselves, creating a corridor for the energies to pass through. The Aura Accelerator thrummed with power as the shield projector ring came online, and a sphere of blue hexagons surrounded the whole solar system and its many devices.

It was different from the last time it had been activated, though. The shield had a hole now, right where the data lines had created a tunnel leading from the chaotic clouds outside straight to the spiral. 

The gravity finally reached the edge of the space, and vanished.

The purple clouds did not move. The gravity had not been intended for them. Instead, the gravity manifested in the material world, pulling the demonic energy of the portal toward Michael. It entered the inner space, wild and unpredictable, lashing out against the cage of white lines and Datascript, turning it red and smashing it into pieces.

More lines replaced the damaged script, repairing all damage. The shield made sure that no energy entered the inner space from anywhere but where it was intended to, burning coins to keep the chaos and the demonic energy at bay. Some of it bounced off, but most was held firmly in place by the gravity of the black hole, flowing across the shield and falling down the passage like water down a drain.

Outside, the portal snapped shut, severing the devil’s hand from its body. The flow of energy ceased, the shield was lowered, and the spiral wound down. No damage had been done to any of the structures.

“Worked like a charm,” Michael said. 

“The upgrade had been long overdue,” Icarus replied, keeping his rifle aimed at the unmoving devil claw.

The spiral was still disengaging when a powerful Faith presence blanketed the area.