Charlie blinked.

What was Convergence? It was the first time that he had received a skill without any explanation attached to it. When he’d first received the Tantrum ability, he hadn’t been given a name or a description. The only information he’d received was that the skills conditions hadn’t been met. But the Convergence ability had already activated on its own.

So, what did it do?

“Interface! What is Convergence?” he asked, hoping for some clarity.

“Ability information requested. The Convergence ability is a conditional ability that activates automatically when conditions are met.”

Charlie frowned. “But what are the conditions?”

“When two dungeons come into contact and one or both dungeons attempt to achieve dominion over the other, Convergence occurs. The dungeon who successfully exerts its will over the other seizes all, or a part of the other dungeon’s mass. This can cause destruction, or significant weakening of the losing dungeon.”

That was interesting. Sange’s dungeon had already turned Charlie’s powers against him, and Charlie had successfully manipulated the material outside his own dungeon as well. Both sides had already affected the other.

The question now was which dungeon would achieve dominance.

The dungeon of Sange, or Charlie.

The Core Guardian certainly seemed eager to find out. It glowed, and a bright green aura surrounded it. Charlie recognized it immediately. Partially because it was the same aura that had been around Luc as he transformed, and partially because it was the same color as the green fire the snatchers produced.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Charlie thought.

The sphere didn’t move. But the surrounding aura did. It was as if the Nae Glera had created a flaming spherical clone of itself and flung it in Charlie’s direction.

So far, he’d only tested using the other dungeons material in smaller ways. Charlie hoped this worked.

“Dungeon Manipulation!”

A large wall of rock exploded from the ground to intercept the flaming attack. The resulting explosion sent the remnants of Charlie’s defensive wall scattering around the room. But it held up long enough to protect him.

Charlie was way too exposed on the ground. He also worried about the still recovering Luc and Lyra getting caught in a stray attack if he stayed where he was.

He activated his ability again, and a pillar shot up under him and rose into the air at a slight angle. Charlie intended to ride it all the way to a section of the staircase that looped around the room’s wall. But halfway there, the pillar turned to dust.

It seemed it wasn’t as easy as he thought controlling the dungeon. The dungeon had found a way to override his instruction.

“Dungeon Manipulation!”

The dust reformed into a pillar, and Charlie landed on top of it. He quickly waved a hand, and the pillar took him through the air and disappeared again just as he landed on the stairway. The sudden fall caught him off guard and he tumbled against the wall.

It had taken several seconds both times before the dungeon had gotten control over its material again. So, attacks that took too long would be difficult. Mobility would also be hard. He’d have to make shorter, quicker movements rather than rely on any single pillar to move around.

But the interface had said Convergence was about achieving dominance over the other dungeon. So, maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way. Did he need to plan around the dungeon’s ability to take control of its material after Charlie borrowed it, or did he need to beat the dungeon into submission?

Either way, he wanted to end this as quickly as possible. His dungeon had already collapsed and the effects of that were still wearing down his body. He also worried about what would happen if he took much more damage.

Parent had told him before that repeated dungeon collapse could lead to permanent structure damage, and in turn, Charlie’s death. He was sure getting beat up with his dungeon integrity at zero wouldn’t help, either.

He crawled over to the stairs’ edge and looked down. He was about two stories high.

The Core Guardian wasn’t looking for him at the moment. It had turned his attention toward Luc and Lyra.

Lyra was holding her face with both hands. Just under her hands, her mouth was barely visible.

She was grimacing.

“Luc, is she okay?” Charlie asked.

The green aura that surrounded her body answered her question.

But that made little sense. She was nowhere near the core guardian.

Tomas’ warning came rushing back to his mind.

He’d told them not to let the core guardian touch them. Lyra had been all but covered by the creature. Apparently, it still had some kind of influence on her.

Luc answered back. But to Charlie’s surprise, he didn’t call out with his words. He spoke in Charlie’s mind. “Not sure. It seems like it’s still trying to turn her. This aura is similar to Burst. I may be able to control it and slow it down. But we’ve probably gotta take the core guardian out if we want to stop it completely,” Luc said.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Charlie nodded. “Leave that to me!” he said. He didn’t have time to dwell on how Luc had figured out speaking telepathically. What did matter was he needed to cover their retreat and defeat the guardian.

Luc picked Lyra and hurried toward the tunnel where Sophia, Bonehead and Kyo waited.

Charlie looked down and focused on the Nae Glera sphere below. He held out a hand, imagining several large rocks falling on top of the core guardian from above. But when he activated the ability. Nothing happened.

It dawned on him that while he could control the dungeon material here; he wasn’t summoning it from his own dungeon. Usually, he could rely on portals to control the speed, angle, and positioning of his attacks. But now, he was limited to altering the dungeon immediately around him. It meant he would need to get more creative.

“Dungeon Manipulation!”

Several sharpened stakes shot from the wall just above him and over the stairs’ edge toward the Nae Glera below. But Charlie knew precise attacks were unlikely to be successful since the core guardian could shift its organs around. That was okay. Charlie had an idea.

He’d sent out four stakes and aimed each one so it would land one after the other in a straight line.

The Nae Glera moved the organs inside it around to avoid the impact. It shifted most of the organs in the strike zone to the larger section of its body. But Charlie’s strategic aiming had worked out well. While most of the organs were moved to the larger section, the stakes had also created a much smaller sliver of the Nae Glera on the other side.

The organs there were bunched up.

Charlie knew he didn’t have much time. His ability quickly activated, and he sent a large rock from the wall behind him. The Nae Glera was focused on dissolving the stakes inside it when it sensed the rock. It started working to shift the organs on the small side past the stakes. But as it hurriedly moved the organs from one side to the other, they were damaged. The stakes weren’t just pointed on the ends but had a series of sharpened edges along their outsides as well.

The core guardian could damage the organs by moving them to safety, or it could allow them to get crushed by the falling rock. Either way, Charlie would hurt it.

The creature split in two.

Charlie hadn’t known it could do that. Sure, it could break apart and reform, but he didn’t expect the process to be that seamless. The two halves separated quickly, and the rock smashed down on the dungeon floor below.

Then the counterattack began. The green aura formed again.

But the creature had taken a note from Charlie’s strategy.

It had learned to fake an attack as well, to set up something even better.

While Charlie was focused on the fireball forming below, he was completely unprepared for the wall behind him to shoot out.

He didn’t realize what had happened until it was too late. The attack pushed him right off the staircase and into the air, right above the core guardian.

Charlie shrieked and succumbed to gravity.

“Charlie!” Lyra and Luc each called out.

“Arh!” Bonehead said.

Charlie’s hands flailed through the air as he fell.

He couldn’t use portals to his own dungeon, and he wasn’t close enough to any of the dungeon walls to create a stolen pillar to catch himself.

Charlie didn’t have any choice but to fall below into the only available cushioning, straight into the center of the translucent aquamarine sphere.

Just before he landed, he heard the voice. “You lack experience. But do not fret, I will share mine with you. We will become one.”

Charlie hit the creature with a splash, sinking inside it until he floated there near its center. His body didn’t move. His limbs wouldn’t respond. As far as first swimming experiences go, Charlie thought this one sucked.

“Who are you?” Charlie asked, reaching out toward the voice with his mind.

There, in one of the organs floating around him, a beating heart, he saw a glint of light. He realized it was a dungeon core.

He was speaking with a dungeon core.

“I have searched a long time for a human body capable of being my vessel. I believe yours will do once I purge it of your current bond. The process will not be unlike the creation of a limbling. But first, you must grow older.”

Charlie’s eyes grew wide. It wanted to turn him into a snatcher.

The green aura surrounded his body.

No…it was going to turn him into an adult. It wanted to change him into something else. He didn’t want to become a snatcher, a limbling, or even just grow older right now.

He enjoyed being Charlie.

This stupid dungeon core thought that after everything, it could just do whatever it wanted with him. That made him so angry. It had hurt so many of his friends. It wanted to hurt even more people. If the dungeon thought it could use Charlie to help it with any of its goals, it was crazy.

His fist clenched. His entire body tingled.

System Notice: ability access denied.

System Notice: ability access denied.

The Nae Glera trembled, and waves exploded over its surface. Droplets of its body fell to the ground and then quickly rejoined it.

System Notice: ability access denied.

System Notice: ability access denied.

“What is happening?” Charlie asked, feeling more than slightly annoyed at the situation.

“Why won’t you transform?” the dungeon core hissed in his mind.

Wait, the notice was about the Nae Glera being unable to make him older? Why couldn’t it? Charlie certainly wasn’t complaining, but it confused him that there had even been an announcement about it.

A system notice, he realized, he hadn’t gotten one of those yet. It was interesting, even if he still had no idea what it meant.

At the moment, he really didn’t care, because he was angry.

He was furious.

Charlie was starting to think that everyone in Orb’s family was evil and that his dungeon core buddy was the only one with redeeming qualities.

He was frustrated that he couldn’t move. He was angry he’d gotten captured. Charlie had too many people counting on him to lose now.

The idea of failing was infuriating.

So much so that when the next message popped up, Charlie wasn’t even surprised.

Conditions met. Tantrum available.

Warning - activating this ability while at zero dungeon integrity will result in permanent destruction of a portion of the dungeon’s mass and possible foundational damage.

Charlie’s brows drew inward. That didn’t matter. None of it did, as long as he could make the dungeon of Sange pay for everything it had done. Knowing it was sentient like Orb just made it all worse.

“Tantrum!”