The infinity dungeon 255

Chapter 255

In a remote corner of Site 00, barely inside the dungeon’s Area of Influence, a strange current upset the normal comings and goings of the ambient magic. The flow from the dungeon was disrupted by an accumulation of Qi and traces of Intent, slowly probing the area around it.

Nobody reacted to the building of magic. There was no sign that the owners of the place had even detected the intrusion. The magic, despite being of a low tier, had done a good job at disguising itself this time. From it, out stepped the Renegade.

He looked around, breathing in the rich air, absorbing the magic with greed. Then he vanished, disappearing without a trace. He scouted the area from afar, seeing no movement.

A grin appeared on his face. Just to be sure, because curse that wretched spiral that could kill him if he wasn’t careful, he teleported inside the area touched by magic again.

He was out seconds later. He had stayed longer, this time, and still saw no reaction. The grin widened. He tried yet again, going even deeper. Already he could feel his pool of Renegade Energy begin to fill up.

And thus came the reckoning, because when all the suns dried up and the depths of space froze, all that was left was the little spirit, hugging the dark.

The grin became something sinister, halfway between manic and feral. 

It was because he had fooled them all, the Champion and the dungeon, the pitiful protectors of this place and their stupid inhuman intelligence overseeing it. Most of all, however, he had fooled the mafioso, the don and his stupid priests, the idiotic church of this world that somehow had managed to get their hands on a strange sort of power that not even he had found a way to counter yet.

Faith, they call it. The Buddha asked the follower of God, what is your religion if not a cult? The follower of God, instead of speaking, cut him to pieces and nailed him to a cross and burned him. Not once was a trace of his god visible on him, but the cruelty of mankind and its folly. Yet, the Faith it commands is real, and towers over even magic with power aplenty.

He took in the magic of this place. Now he could begin to plan and scheme. He was not going to tell anyone about this exploit. In fact, he was going to keep pretending. He would keep begging the don to give him access to the magic, so that the man would not suspect a thing. Then, once he managed to overcome the power of Faith, he would strike and kill that man. 

The moment of peace was shattered when a gigantic bullet sailed through the air. Glowing gold, it moved quicker than anything the Renegade had ever seen on this planet. When it hit him, it almost hurt.

As he turned around to meet the incoming threat, he realized that it wasn’t the wielder of the spiral. The grin on his face remained, and he thought to himself that perhaps this was going to be a good chance to vent some of his pent up stress. He amended his earlier plan.

Now he was going to kill the spiral wielder’s underlings, the Champion’s champions, causing some loss and sorrow. After eons trapped in the depths of the dungeon under the sight of the spiral, patience was not something he was known for.

Had he known, he would have recognized the taint within him. 

Instead. He needed some stress relief, he decided. Because after escaping from the dungeon, he had fallen from one trap into another. He had thought that he could finally be free to fight the evil entity on his terms, and instead had found himself in the clutches of the hateful mafioso and his strange ways of speaking. Of a man who didn’t appreciate poetry and refined language.

Of a man who had promised him many things while he was still trapped, claiming to be working on a way to free him.

Then, when he had been freed, and not by the mafioso, the man just raised the bar again. Sure, he would get what he was promised. Just… another little thing. Then another. And another.

No more. It was time to play by his rules now. He was going to make the helpers of the Champion suffer. Then, with easy access to a free source of Renegade Energy such as this, he didn’t need the don anymore. The Champion would try to stop him, but he would just keep playing the game of cat and mouse with him now that he had a way to arrive undetected. He was going to kill his friends. Make him angrier and angrier. Until the Champion finally slipped up.

Then he was going to kill him.

***

Travis emerged from the canopy, watching the Renegade’s hand glide toward where he had shot him with the power of his gold card. It came out bloody, and the grin on the man’s face quickly transformed into a snarl of rage.

“The frog has only seen the moon from the depths of the well,” the man said. “And yet it has the arrogance to call it the sky.”

He attacked immediately after, charging at Travis with magic and raw physical might. Travis met the charge, another of his cards glowing golden and surrounding him with powerful armor. A sword appeared in his hands and from above, golden lightning split the clear sky.

“Where are the others?” the man asked as he met the attacks. “Is it only you?”

Thunder rumbled, but the Renegade shrugged off the attack. When they met, it was a clash of powerhouses, kicks and punches. Travis distracted the enemy with his sword while also summoning grenades on the ground, lasers from behind and bullets from weapons that appeared and vanished moments after. He teleported around, baiting the Renegade, slipping away time and time again.

The ebb and flow of battle had them standing off for a moment. Travis was panting, covered in sweat and bruises, while the Renegade looked utterly unfazed.

“The monk asked the Buddha,” the man said. “What does the sky mean when it cries? The Buddha replied…”

“Behind you,” Travis said with a smirk.

From the vegetation emerged David, covered from heat to toe in the blackest stone Travis had ever seen. He was an engine of destruction, an unstoppable force directed at their foe. 

The Renegade turned around lazily, swinging an arm to meet the incoming monstrous force. When the arm met stone, David was stopped in place in an instant. His stone cracked and bent, entire plates of armor turning to dust. He was about to be backhanded when Travis was suddenly back in the fray, golden knife glowing with energy.

The man reacted immediately, aborting David’s attack and focusing on the new attacker.

“Not so easy,” David taunted him. He attacked with all he had, and as Travis defended himself, from the sky came artillery fire and bullets.

Johanne joined the fight, using her time element to slow the Renegade down. She cast a million spells in the span of a few seconds, burning coin after coin. 

Operators from several vantage points, former Vanguard and Candle Light alike, carpeted the area with magical fire, ice, lightning and every element under the sun. Mana built up, Qi attacked and Intent roared.

Jennifer arrived, her tome washing the area with cleansing flames. Trevor unloaded magazine after magazine of magically enhanced high ordnance onto the enemy.

A laugh reverberated through the cacophony of war itself. It was the Renegade. He was shrugging off all of the attacks, repelling them with Qi and Intent mastered to an impossible degree. His magic was swift, and it was brutal.

The tide of the battle was turning. A man against an army, and the man was winning.

The Renegade yelled through it all, his crazed voice a shrill blare that managed to overcome any other noise. “What did the disciple think, when he challenged the master?”

He mocked them, twisting the poems and koans to his perverse need to belittle his opponents.

Travis joined in again, was repelled, entered the fray once more, was sent into a tree. He felt his arms snap, chugged a strange concoction and the arm was whole once more. He called for his cards, both of them glowing gold. 

A spear of pure Intent cut through them, searing his skin. He coughed blood, snarled, got back up again. Around him, he saw everyone do the same. Everyone chugging the strange healing potion Johanne had given them before the fight.

Then came a presence. It was vast, and wide. 

Icarus. Everyone looked up, Renegade included. His face was twisting in what almost looked like fear. The presence manifested as a physical, magical weight, feeling like the Gaze of the dungeon itself.

Icarus’s presence enveloped the battlefield. This was his domain, a place where he had absolute control. Magic flooded the inscriptions buried deep under the rock of the mountains and manifested as power over the world. It was like Site 00 was a miniature dungeon, and Icarus its Gaze.

The Renegade scoffed. “You dare imitate the monster?” he snarled. 

Travis saw how the man’s rage was mounting, building its momentum, rising and rising before the inevitable climax. It was all part of the plan.

The Renegade shrugged off the weight of Icarus’s domain, wading through it like it wasn’t even there. His attacks became wilder, stronger. David was hurled into a mountain, half a mile away. The impact was that of a demolition charge tearing up half the mountain itself.

Johanne was hit. Then the Renegade turned to Travis. He walked up to him, his steps appearing unhurried and slow, yet managing to close the distance in the span of a moment. Travis felt the man’s hands around his throat before he could react and defend. He was lifted up, and the man looked at him with disdain and mockery.

Travis clawed at the hand constricting his airways. He coughed, kicked, cursed. It was no use.

“Why have you sided with the enemy of all life? Why have you chosen the destructor of worlds?” roared the Renegade.

A dome of energy manifested. It was enormous, encompassing the whole Site. A blue dome of hexagons, cutting them off from the rest of the world. It preceded what had to be the largest gathering of energy Travis had ever felt. He almost cowered in fear before it, every single hair on his body standing up, shivers running down his spine.

The Renegade moved away from him, hand unclasping from around his neck, discarding him like a useless, broken toy. As Travis hacked and coughed, he saw the other man’s face twist into an unrecognizable mask of many emotions.

“He finally comes,” he said. “This was fun, but it is time to leave. You will come to learn the folly of your ways.”

The Renegade began to weave his spell to teleport out. But as he did, another dome of energy appeared. It was smaller, trapping him inside. Above him, the spiral made its appearance. It was so big it blotted out the sky, devouring the light of day. Its edges were traced in color, but its gravity banished the brightness of the sun and plunged the forest into purple and yellow twilight.

Michael stepped out of thin air, walking to the Renegade. The man struggled against the shield trapping him, but his punches laced with Qi and Intent only deformed it a little, hexagons glowing bright while the weight of the spiral sapped him of energy.

As Michael got close, he ceased all attempts at breaking the shield. He looked at Michael, contempt in his eyes, face tight in an animalistic half-snarl that he only half suppressed.

A moment later even it was gone, and the man became a mirror of calmness.

“You have grown strong,” he told Michael. “One day, the sea gazed upon the horizon, and realized that it could not see it. Do you know, servant of the dungeon, why the sea failed to see where water met the sky?”

Michael approached the shield. It was glowing blue, hexagon patterns visible like a mesh of laser grids. Travis felt the energy behind them, easily dozens of platinum coins being burned every second to sustain it. Above them, the spiral watched, hungry. He dared look at it for an instant, and immediately regretted it.

“Spare me your stupid games,” Michael spat. “This shield is reinforced with the same Renegade energy you used to command. How does it feel to be served your own medicine?”

The Renegade smiled placidly. “You think yourself a great magician, but all you have are tricks. I can see that you are using a power that is not yours. Borrowed, like tricks learned by watching others. You remind me of myself, my old self. Brilliant, but no genius.”

The air around the man shifted. “You are drawing from deep within yourself, but it is not your power that you are using. I can see it. I know I could reach it. Grab it for myself!”

“You are trapped,” Michael said. The spiral flared, sucking the magic from the air itself. The shield glowed.

The Renegade laughed. “You are hesitating! You will not sacrifice your friends to stop me, will you?” 

He looked up at the spiral.

“I don’t need to,” Michael replied.

He was about to speak again when he felt the Renegade gather his magic. Qi, then Intent, then…

“Everybody leave!” Michael ordered. “Now!”

Renegade Energy exploded out. The shield shattered in a million shards, fragments of hexagons. The backlash impacted Michael like a punch to the gut, and he stumbled to the ground, dizzy. He felt a presence trying to breach his defenses, reaching straight for the Coin Vault he was using to power everything.

He tried to teleport out, but the teleportation was the reason the backdoor leading to the Vault even existed in the first place. 

He felt the moment his defenses crumbled. The Renegade had access to the most sacred part of his Inner Space. From there, the man saw Icarus, saw the spiral and the shield, the collectors and the batteries. For a moment, the sight stunned him, and Michael smirked.

“What is this place?” the Renegade asked, looking around confused.

“Got you,” Michael said arrogantly. “Didn’t think you’d have your Platinum-tier magic back, but it’s not a problem.”

The platinum coins, which had been around the Renegade at the center of the Coin Vault, disappeared.

“You are right, they were borrowed power,” Michael said.

They reappeared close to the spiral’s event horizon.

“But they were power nonetheless.”

The spiral greedily ate them all up. A gigantic gravity wave erupted from it, washing over the Inner Space in the span of milliseconds. Then the spiral began to pull, eager to get more, locking onto the Renegade and dragging him down. The man found himself trapped in the Coin Vault, with no way to escape.