It was nearly time to go. The longer Ray waited, the more he wasted the opportunity afforded him by the sacrifice of the Infected outside. And his Imitator construct pretending to be his dead body too, of course.

That was a good reminder. Casting Lifeblood Soulform to call up another Imitator construct allowed him access to Mimic Mana. Abstract Conversion and Origin Resonance let him cloak himself. It was vital. Otherwise, getting through a heavily-guarded palace would have been impossible.

The power of Mimic Mana to basically look like anything at all was incredible. Ray made sure that his appearance was… not appearing. He was basically camouflaging himself by looking like the wall behind him.

It took a good amount of Mana to maintain the illusion. After all, it wasn’t constant. What lay behind him would continue to change and shift as he moved, so the Mimic Mana would need to change as well. In other words, Ray would need to constantly keep up a supply of Mimic Mana with Origin Resonance and Abstract Conversion.

His heart thudded louder than he would have preferred as he headed out. At least his skin wasn’t itching with tension.

It was like walking through the haunted house at first. Almost no one was there on the lower floors. Most of the guards and soldiers were outside, dealing with the invaders. No doubt a good number of them would return to their original posts inside the palace, but for now, Ray could enjoy the privacy.

He could also enjoy the opulence. Because geez, the ruler of the Everstead was loaded.

Every wall either had a mural made of small, carefully-arranged ceramic tiles or a large painting adorning it. Ray wished he’d had the time to stop and take in what exactly was being depicted. The scenes felt glorious with heroes standing on precipices and kings being crowned. Some seemed really familiar, though, like he had seen them before.

The windows of the palace were edged with gilt. The floors were carpeted with rugs that probably cost the same as a house back on Earth. The ceiling held golden chandeliers the size of small satellite dishes in every hallway.

Ray shook his head. Opulence.

He wasn’t able to remain alone for long, of course. Patrols stalked through the corridors. Lone guards were posted at strategic points, holding their position at choke points and entryways like certain windows near trees and vents in the wall.

Ray frowned. These guys had a ventilation system? That was so odd, it almost took him out of the moment.

He focused on his journey. That he hadn’t been detected yet was a pretty big blessing. There had to be some soldiers with abilities like Primordial Gauge that would tell them if someone was in the vicinity. No matter what Ray did with all his Mana variants, he couldn’t completely cloak his presence.

For most, Ray simply had to sense out the soldiers before they could get near him. The range of Primordial Gauge was enough for him to look through their list of skills and abilities. When he saw that the ones before him didn’t have any detection skill, he forged on.

Of course, Ray still tested things out. Even if they didn’t have a skill apparent to him via Primordial Gauge, what if they had an item or something.

Ray summoned a small invisible bee using Lifeblood Soulform and Mimic Mana. He sent it out to sneak past the soldiers. When they didn’t detect it, he gave himself the go-ahead.

Of course, there was the case that the bee might have been too small. Maybe their item didn’t detect abilities, only actual people. But if Ray hesitated at every hypothetical obstacle, he was never going to make it to the end of this palace.

The soldiers didn’t even look in his direction as he passed by.

That said, there were times when Ray couldn’t go ahead. Primordial Guage did indicate that some of the sentries actually possessed skills that would flush him out. And then he’d be in big trouble.

The bee test came in handy again. His construct shot past the soldiers too fast for them to detect anything. Even the buzzing went by too fast for anybody to even frown.

As soon as the little bee had situated itself well past the guards, Ray used Spectral Step.

He had never really thought he would need to stealth through a castle in this fashion. The kinds of spells he had started off with hadn’t given him the impression that something like this would even have been possible for him. But things had changed rapidly when he had learned his summoning skills, when he had started picking up abilities from the monsters he defeated.

Ray was tempted to simply marvel at all the variation he could count on. He basically had a tool to get through any sort of situation he encountered. Weaknesses? Fuck that. It felt absolutely empowering to feel as though there was no obstacle that he couldn’t find a way past.

That was what he loved after all. Problem solving. He just had a lot more tools at his disposal to solve a greater variety of problems.

As he passed by some soldiers, he caught snippets of conversation that tempted him to stop and listen.

“Those bastards aren’t dead yet,” one gruff man was saying, standing by a window with his companion alongside him. “They need to gut those fuckers from distance.”

“They came prepared,” the second one said, a lot more grimly. “These Infected aren’t dying that easily. That they can still use their skills…”

“They can’t! It’s got to be some kind of trick.”

“I don’t care what it is, so long as I don’t have to deal with it.”

Ray grinned as he kept walking. Bless the Infected for continuing to survive.

“Did you see?” another soldier was saying excitedly to her older compatriot. “They’re saying the Denizen leading them was finally killed.”

Her companion breathed out a sigh that made his beard ruffle. “Glad he didn’t make it inside.”

Ray was tempted to laugh. Maybe yell out boo.

Things got a little spicier when he reached the higher floor. He had to teleport up the stairs because of the sheer density of guards everywhere. But if the stairs were bad, the actual higher floors were even worse. Armed and armoured soldiers patrolled every hallway, every single one of them possessing skills that could detect Ray as soon as he was within range.

There was a solution to that too. No, it didn’t involve carefully calculating the ranges of the soldiers’ detecting abilities and making sure he didn’t step into their line of sight.

Instead, Ray summoned up more of his bees and made them infiltrate the rooms along the corridors. He sent out a whole array of bees everywhere, after making sure they were all cloaked with Mimic Mana to keep them hidden.

Then he used Spectral Step. He disappeared from one spot to quickly reappear at another location, ready to use the spell again as soon as another patrol swung by.

At times, his teleports allowed him to keep himself in the corridors, where he could keep walking. But in a lot of cases, he was forced to secret himself in a room lining the corridors. It gave him time to observe a lot of weird shit. Things that made him figure he would have done well to check out what was in the rooms in the lower floors too.

The first chamber was basically an oversized closet filled to the brim with clothes. Suits, dresses, fashion of all kinds. It was too dark and there was nowhere near enough time for Ray to actually check out his discovery, but the idea of opulence was strong here too.

He passed through another room that had a bunch of armour and weapons. Yet another room held nothing but a giant safe.

And then Ray got caught in a trap.

He had been about to teleport again with Spectral Step—after having replenished his dwindling Mana supply with a True Mana shard—but he halted himself. The location he had selected would have him stepping right in front of another group of soldiers possessing detection skills. He couldn’t return to his older location either, since a different patrol was passing nearby.

Ray had to bite down on his lips to prevent himself from cursing. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He had come too far to get caught now.

The only saving grace was that he was inside another room. Not out in the corridor. There was still some separation, a small moment in time before he got caught.

Stolen story; please report.

But no. He wasn’t getting caught now.

Ray cast Lifeblood Soulform to call up the Imitator construct. The black-red blob moved towards the door and as it emerged into the corridor, it transformed into one of the Everstead soldiers. The patrol was only just swinging by into the corridor, so they didn’t see the transformation.

Only one odd soldier standing by himself.

Conversation started immediately. Ray’s heart pounded.

“Hey, what are you doing here all by yourself?” one of the approaching soldiers asked.

“I’m here to deliver a message,” the construct said.

Ray’s breath caught. He hadn’t been certain if imbuing enough intelligence into the construct would allow it to actually talk. But he was vindicated now.

“What message?” the soldier asked.

The Imitator construct remained undaunted by the gruff and suspicious tone in the soldier’s voice. “The attacker. We’ve confirmed he’s dead.”

There were a lot of surprised gasps and relieved noises from the gathering. Even the gruff man who had done the talking sounded relieved.

The Imitator construct tried to convince them to move out of the corridor and head out to a better position to actually observe Ray’s supposedly dead body. Meanwhile, Ray himself used Lifeblood Soulform to construct a tiny bee coated with camouflaging Mmic Mana and send it crawling out of the door. Hopefully, the distraction would make sure no one would spot it.

Thankfully, the timing worked out just right. As the Imitator construct finally convinced the guards to move, the bee made it past them. Ray used Spectral Step to teleport, arriving far enough from the soldiers that he wouldn’t be detected by anyone in the group’s rear.

His thudding heart started returning to its regular pace. Fuck, that had been close.

Ray continued moving on. He did his best not to get caught up in such situations again, making sure his bees were spread out enough that he wouldn’t lack for options to teleport.

But damn, he was using up so many True Mana shards. Spectral Step was not inexpensive. He had stockpiled quite a lot over his travels across the Second Floor, but still. At least, he was in a dungeon. Hopefully, by the end of it, he’d get another little boost to his shard collection.

At one point, Ray arrived at a large gate, peeking at it from behind a corner. He knew it. The soldier he had captured had highlighted it as an important milestone. This was the only way through if Ray wanted to reach the higher floor that had to hold the ruler of the Everstead.

Stealth would still be his best option. He just had to sneak another bee through and then teleport—

The whole palace shook violently, Ray’s heart shaking alongside it. The hell was going on? Even the soldiers looked frightened, running around and yelling like panicked ants with their anthill under assault.

A moment later, he was able to make out the soldiers’ words. His heart froze a little.

“Intruder! We’ve got an infiltrator inside the palace!”

“The attacker wasn’t dead! The corpse was fake. He’s inside.”

“He’s already far up the palace. We’ve got to find and kill him. Now!”

More such shouts and yells reverberated through the entire palace even as it continued to tremble. Were the two related? Was the shaking part of what had revealed his deception? Not a question worth pondering just then. First, Ray had to get through this obstacle. With his trick discovered, he had to be even smarter about things.

[Warning!]

Primordial Gauge indicates that your presence has been detected by Lord’s Measure [Tier 8]. Primordial Gauge has failed to block the effects of Lord’s Measure [Tier 8].

Just as the warning popped up, Ray felt the aforementioned effects take root on him. In him. It was as though he had a thousand little ants scurrying around inside his body with a thousand tiny magnifying glasses, bringing up everything within to the focus of some distant observer.

An observer who wasn’t distant for long. In just a second, as Ray hadn’t even begun to figure out which direction to go, Cory appeared.

The same instant that Primordial Gauge warned him about a new presence, the lord of Cliff Two broke through the ceiling and landed. Ray had just managed to throw himself back, shedding his disguise as he called up Soaring Wings.

“I underestimated you,” Cory said. The dust from the broken ceiling wasn’t affecting him in the slightest. “I never imagined you would be both powerful and crafty enough to come this far into our royal palace. Truly, you’ve outdone yourself.”

Despite the situation, despite his heart jack-hammering in his chest, Ray grinned. “Ha, you haven’t even seen how far I can go yet.”

“Oh, I think I have. You’re not going any farther.”

“You really think you can stop me?”

He probably could, and more. But Ray was only biding time to take a peek at what Cory was actually capable of with Primordial Gauge.

[Primordial Gauge]

Cory Colrin [Denizen]

Race: Human

Path: Path of Unchained Lordship [Epic]

Class: Lord Commander [Epic] [Tier 5] at Level 50

Perk: Lord’s Domain

Skills:

Valiant Strike [Tier 8]: Valorous spell enhances your attacks with divine energy, causing a radiant explosion after crossing a threshold. Successful detonation raises the Valour Reputation. At Tier 8, this spell requires 4 consecutive hits to activate the threshold.

Lord’s Might [Tier 9]: Channel Mana into pure aggression and power. At Tier 9, this skill boosts your next blow by 18%.

Sundering Passage [Tier 9]: Charge through with a coruscating aura, boosting your speed and power the farther you travel. At Tier 9, this skill pushes through up to Tier 9 defences and imbues wielder with 9% boost to speed and all sources of damage per 5 meters travelled for 45 seconds.

Absolute Rule [Tier 10]: Channel your right as a lord to take control of your surroundings and everything within. At Tier 10, this skill allows direct and indirect control of all non-living matter at a radius of 40 meters.

Absolute Shield [Tier 8]: Golden barrier that negates all incoming damage. At Tier 8, this shield resists up to Tier 8 levels of damage, while also reducing effects such as knockback and stun.

Radiant Assault [Tier 7]: Craft armaments of burning sunlight to assault your foes. At Tier 7, this skill can create an assortment of 7 different armaments at the same time.

“…be falling,” Cory was saying as Ray checked through his skills, happy to blather while Ray pretended to be a mouse caught in a trap. “Any last words before I end you, Raymond Dominick?”

“Yeah,” Ray said. He stood straighter. There wasn’t enough time to formulate any strategies, especially since the abilities Cory did possess were powerful and needed clearer thought to tackle. But then, Ray’s goal wasn’t to tackle Cory. “How about you go and fuck yourself, Cory.”

Ray used Spectral Step. His network of bees would be his greatest asset here. Cory might be strong, might even be good enough to beat Ray in a fair fight, but good luck getting the opportunity to do so.

Not that Ray intended to simply run from his adversary. There was no point in doing so. If he didn’t stop Cory at all, then the bastard would simply show up at Ray’s final destination and start bothering him there. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be appreciating any annoyances over there.

In other words, Ray just had to be a little tactical in how he took care of Cory now.

The lord of Cliff Two was barrelling through the palace to get to Ray. Sundering Passage was causing a commotion that grew closer every second. He had a lock on Ray’s location thanks to Lord’s Measure, so complete scape was impossible anyway.

Cory wasn’t the problem. The other soldiers were looking for him too. Complications, complications.

When Ray appeared at the location of his next bee, several soldiers were already waiting there. He cursed. Thankfully, he was far faster to act than the surprised guards. Two quick casts if Soulstrike crushed two of the soldiers with bludgeoning True Mana arms.

The third screamed and charged at Ray with his sword, an ability crafting a deep purple aura around him. Ray pointed both his arms at the soldier. Draconic maws had wrapped around his hands, their laser breaths firing through whatever defence the guard had conjured and sending him flying back.

Ray didn’t necessarily need to fight the soldiers. He could have just teleported again. But he had activated Vengeful Plunder, and that necessitated some battling.

But the soldiers weren’t done. Their bodies started floating. They revolved, their dead limbs flopping and blood spraying out of their wounds. Then they flew straight at Ray, a glint of golden-white light about them.

Ray grimaced. This was one of Cory’s skills. Absolute Rule. Controlling anything within the skill’s vicinity, even the dead bodies of others.

He made it work for him. First, Ray dodged. Afterwards, a little test revealed that when he struck the flying bodies with Mottling Spiritguard orbs, Vengeful Plunder continued raising his stats.

“Suck on that, Cory,” Ray said, before using Spectral Step to teleport to his next location.

Too many soldiers had been rushing to the location of his little fight, not just Cory himself. He couldn’t get caught.

His reappearance brought him near some more soldiers. They were rushing away from his location, but Primordial Guage was just capable of noting them before they got out of its range. But they were going in the wrong direction. He needed them to come to him.

Ray exited the room, then fired off a laser breath at one of the soldiers. The other one shouted, twisting to rush after Ray himself. Perfect.

The next teleport got him too close to Cory. Ray didn’t curse, even when Cory saw him and yelled out. The palace broke apart with golden gimmers, chunks of the walls, ceiling, and floor all rushing at Ray’s location. His Spiritguard orbs saved him, allowing him to go on.

Although Ray still needed to use Soullife Cloak to outpace the sheer speed displayed by his opponent. Cory’s Agility must have been nuts.

More teleports brought into range of more soldiers. They were all gathering to his location. Tension rode Ray’s skin like a thousand ants, the slightest hint of fear edging his every use of Spectral Step. This might or might not work.

No. He was going to make this work.

When Ray used Spectral Step next, he found himself surrounded. His bee had been placed right where three hallways joined together. Soldiers were all around him, bristling with skills and weapons bared. Just father off, Cory was approaching, crashing through the walls in his haste to get to Ray.

His enemies yelled in triumph as more of them joined in, all preparing to chuck their various abilities at him all at once.

“Got you now!”

“Die!”

They attacked. And killed.

Except, that wasn’t Ray himself. He hadn’t actually teleported into their midst. Instead, he had only appeared inside a room just near enough to see and hear what was going on, his Mana all but depleted after he had used Spectral Step and converted the bee into an imitator construct to take his form.

The detonation of all the skills crashing in gave Ray the cover he needed. Too much Mana sizzled in the vicinity, their local area shaking badly enough to rival the tremors from farther above.

Ray had no trouble crushing another True Mana shard and immediately using Spectral Step again. No one saw him with his cloak of Mimic Mana and no one detected him in the commotion.

Spectral Step took him straight next to the gate. The one and only way to go up higher.

Ray killed the only soldier guarding the post from behind with his draconic maw. The distraction had worked great. He had successfully led the majority of the soldiers away from the gate, leaving it unguarded enough for him to make his way through.

He smiled. His final destination, the throne room, wasn’t far off at all.