“I’ve failed the mission.” Those were the first words that came out of Hyacinth’s mouth. He hung his head down, the black sword hovering above his neck. Viv’s heart dropped.
“Explain.” Agares’ voice was like the void - cold and devoid of any emotions.
“I don’t know what happened, really. One moment I was exploring the city, the next I was lying on the ground, staring at the sky. When I opened my backpack, the letter was no longer there. Someone must have stolen it. Maybe it was one of your enemies?” Hyacinth raised an eyebrow. After several seconds of silence, he coughed and continued.
“I went back to draw the runes, hoping to meet up with someone, but no one showed up. I wish I knew who stole the letter. I’d rip them into a thousand pieces myself.” Hyacinth’s face contorted, his claws extending.
“What about the other thing?”
In response, Hyacinth overturned his backpack and emptied it on the floor. Out of it tumbled a myriad of different things, each more menacing than the other. Severed body parts, sparkling accessories, ancient pieces of paper, and pitch black stones were only some of the things present.
“I had to sell most of my magic items, and even then, I couldn’t get some of the things on the list. The ghost market provided the rarest items, but I didn’t sell parts of myself no matter how much the ghosts asked.” Once again, silence reigned supreme on the first floor. Hyacinth slowly lowered Agares, breathing out a cautious sight of relief.
“Are you stupid? Do you not remember how many times I told you to prioritise the mission? If you can’t even do something that simple, then what use do I have of you?” Agares’ usually cold voice was now like an erupting volcano, burning Hyacinth with mere words.
“Go to the third floor and seclude yourself. Leave me here, one of the goblins will take care of me. I don’t want to see you until you’ve turned your heart into lightning. Only by becoming stronger can you redeem yourself.”
Hyacinth slowly nodded, carefully placing Agares on the ground. With clenched teeth, he turned around and started walking away, his back hunched and his head hung low. There were no emotions to portray how he was feeling at the moment. He had disappointed someone who had given him life, given him purpose.
Viv forgot about Hyacinth seconds after he left, examining the pile of objects on the ground. For the first time since becoming a dungeon, he was ecstatic. The expedition outside was a grand success. Even though he said that to Hyacinth, how could he not know his own subordinates’ innate abilities? Besides, it was a good chance to make him disappear for some time, to make him slightly stronger.
He carefully went over each item, determining which one to absorb. The body parts would become mana, and high grade magic items would only refund a fraction of the cost, making it expensive to create new copies of them. Considering his options, he absorbed everything that could be re-created, hoping one of them would be branded as a grade 6 item. That hope shattered as soon as he opened the [Magic Item] menu. Still, the various materials made his mind race with possibilities.
First, he checked his mana. He didn’t do it often nowadays - his ideas would get shut down as soon as he started calculating how much everything realistically cost.
Mana - 4193
Mana Regeneration - 824 / day
It was a solid chunk of mana, and it could be more if he removed a few treasure chests, but it kept adventurers flocking to his dungeon. He had realised the importance of greed. Humans were base creatures. They had needs and emotions, but they liked to hide them under the pretence of society and rules. But, when no one was watching them, when emotions were raw under the threat of death, greed was something that ruled society. If he had to spend mana so that humans would eagerly come to die here, then so be it.
Casting his vision to the second floor, he looked at his first project. Devourer was expanding the plains to enormous proportions, much faster than grass and trees could grow, and certainly much faster than the animals could repopulate. Viv had certain plans for what he would do with all the extra space, though that was low down the list of projects.
Thanks to Devourer, he had found the limits of a dungeon. The worm couldn’t burrow to the surface no matter how far away he was from the entrance. When Viv directed Devourer to burrow only to the east, he ran into another magical barrier, this time preventing them from heading further to the east. It was tens if not hundreds of kilometres away, but the existence of such a barrier meant something. Viv wasn’t sure what that something was just yet.
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He didn’t conduct any experiments of digging down. He wasn’t ready to deal with the void just yet.
In his spare time, Viv had thought long and hard about what Devourer needed to gain more strength. It would either have to be something incredibly magical, a large quantity of faint magic, or something in between. The [Magic Item] menu made the choice easy. That and the lack of a hundred thousand gold coins.
“This is an earth elemental’s core, also sometimes called a lump of gravity. It’s what allows earth elementals to attract nearby dirt and rocks, compacting them in their bodies.” Viv explained to Lyn, who was standing on top of Devourer, a knife in hand.
It was a tiny piece, and thus it only cost ten mana to make. A pitch black pebble appeared out of thin air, dropping to the ground with a heavy thud. Almost immediately, it started attracting loose dirt toward itself, crushing and squeezing it tightly. It wasn’t strong enough to rip out earth from the ground, but the grass and flowers close to the pebble started flying towards it, their fates similar to the dirt.
“Earth elementals are oftentimes compared to natural disasters,” Viv said, creating another lump of gravity. Immediately, the two collided, attracting one another. The process lasted several minutes, but in the end, the two had fused into a larger pebble, which had a solid sphere of dirt around it in seconds. “And this is why.”
“Lead Devourer and go back,” Viv commanded, his two minions obeying him without a second’s hesitation.
One by one, he created pitch-black stones, each being absorbed quicker and quicker. It took ten for earth to start being ripped apart, and by fifty, there was a huge ball of earth floating in the air, ravaging the plains. When it reached a hundred, the dungeon began to be savagely ripped apart, parts of the ceiling collapsing. An earthquake ran through the cavern, making every beast run for cover. Viv looked past the titanic layer of earth to a pebble the same size as when he had started. Even his mana sight was displaced by the sheer amount of heat located in the core.
“It’s a shame I don’t have the means of creating earth elementals or else I would already have an A rank creature. Lyn, coat it with the potions.” Upon Viv’s signal, Lyn began to pour a blue liquid on the worm. Almost immediately, Devourer’s flesh froze, vapour coming from its body. It shrieked and thrashed in pain, but Viv kept it still.
“Go. Devour the core.” Forcing his will on the creature, Viv flooded its primitive mind with greed. The huge sphere of earth would be its greatest meal yet, and perhaps it could even fill its endless stomach.
It sprang forth from the earth, its maw angled towards the titanic sphere. It only had to travel a short distance of its own volition - after only a few seconds, it couldn’t stop even if it wanted. It hit the tightly packed ball with incredible speed, breaking a few of its teeth, but piercing through the outer layer.
Then, it was a slow battle of attrition. Devourer had gotten through most of the layers but had completely lost its momentum. Its teeth spun like a tornado as the pebble pulled it ever closer, crushing its body.
Still, Devourer persevered. With each spin of its teeth, it got to taste the essence of earth, a treat unlike any other. Even when its head began to burn, its flesh half-melted from the heat, it was consumed by greed. After a long and arduous battle, the red vortex merged with the pitch-black pebble, and for once in its life, Devourer’s greed was satisfied. Then, it imploded.
A shower of blood, flesh and dirt exploded from the ceiling, coating the ruined landscape. Anyone not already crushed by the pebble was impaled by shards of rock travelling at tremendous speeds. Lyn was one of those unfortunate victims, his body torn to shreds.
Impatiently, Viv drained mana out of his core, resummoning Devourer. If he had a face, a smile would’ve broken out when he felt the guardian demanding more and more mana. A hurricane of mana began to compress itself, turning grey and black, falling to the ground unable to carry its own weight. From the centre, mana wove itself into a pebble, and around the pebble formed a titanic worm.
Its body had a metallic sheen, a dirty, rusty black that was worn with time. The once red concentric rings had moved downwards, creating a jagged metallic tail that weighed tons. The red vortex was now stained with black, a weight to it unlike ever before. Almost immediately, Devourer started burrowing to the ground, but with one major difference - it was the ground that was moved, ripped apart and sucked into the vortex by a horrible force of gravity.
Although Devourer’s new body was heavier, it was moving faster than ever before. It emerged from the ground like a force of nature, sending deadly shrapnel when it did. As it reached the apex of its ascent, it turned to the side, its vortex crackling, turning entirely black.
With a grinding noise that spread through the cavern like lightning, it exhaled a black storm that plummeted towards the ground, much heavier than air. The storm moved rapidly, spreading across plains like a plague. Tiny, practically invisible, motes of darkness whizzed around, striking anything that was in their way.
A lone wolf, exiled from its pack, was caught in the storm. It growled, the noise quickly turning into a yelp as its body was crushed to the ground, barely able to move a muscle. It struggled, wriggling around in pain and agony, but that wasn’t enough to save it. Devourer was aiming straight for it, descending like a fallen star.
It mustered its entire strength, bounding away, but it was so slow. It looked up, but a spinning death was all that it saw. In a final burst of strength, it leapt to the side, away from where Devourer was going to land, but even that wasn’t enough. It yelped as gravity suddenly swapped, its body becoming light as a feather. Then, both it and a chunk of earth rose from the ground, only to meet their dooms in the jaws of a horrible beast.
If the adventurers thought they had the second floor figured out, they would be in a world of hurt when they met the beast. Viv was only getting started - they would pay in blood, every single one of them.