“THIEF!”

Alaxia’s furious roar shook her sanctuary all the way down to its very foundations.

She’d been lounging sideways on her gold-and-emerald throne, back resting on one armrest, legs dangling off the other one, a platter of crystalfruit grapes resting on her stomach. Someone should have been feeding her, but her old servants were either dead or traitors and no one in this new world had had the wisdom to accept her offer.

Instead, they’d stolen from her.

Sure, she’d left the main door open to allow for supplicants to enter, but she’d also made sure to move the valuables behind her, that way, no one would be able to steal stuff until they’d gotten past her. They’d walk down the corridor from the entrance, reach the throne room, and either swear fealty or face her wrath.

Or so had the idea been. But something had managed it. Oh, if she were still at her full power, her mana would have suffused the entirety of this space and she’d have noticed even a flea entering, but now … now she hadn’t been able to do that.

And someone had stolen from her!

All she saw was a flash of black fur as she charged deeper into her vault, and a blast of fire erased it alongside several cubic meters of floor and all the loot. The price of doing business, she supposed.

And then, something else flashed past her, holding a vial of potion.

This time, she caught it, her fingers ripping clean through it in a spray of blood.

A monkey?

The creature’s corpse dissolved at her feet.

A Dungeon monkey? No, that couldn’t be it, no Dungeon could control its creatures this far out and inside someone else’s magical domain.

And yet here it was, vanishing away into motes of energy.

Yet another piece of gear vanished from her senses, and letting out a furious roar, Alaxia gave chase.

It didn’t matter what these things were, she was going to stop then. A wave of her hand filled every corridor that led deeper into the sanctuary from her throne room with flames and she took off after the gaggle of creatures that had dared to take what was hers.

Of course, she wasn’t an idiot, she activated the defenses behind her, fully protecting her new home.

The defenses wouldn’t be at full power since the amount of ambient energy in this world was low, but since the strength of the locals was even lower, that wouldn’t be an issue. Not even if it took her days to punish the thieves.

***

The entire jungle shook under the fury of the draconic brat, making it abundantly clear what was going on with the plan.

Step one, piss off the empress, complete.

Step two … pray.

No, really, that was basically Jaclyn’s part of this play for the next five or so minutes.

Daedalus’ spider monkey boss had gone in with a series of summoning tokens for regular, E-Rank, spider monkeys, who could not only teleport stuff into their hands but also had a short-range telekinetic field around them that not only served as a powerful defense but was also capable of enhancing their throws.

They’d gone in and stolen a few things to piss off their target, then run towards the Dungeon with the help of a few of her people, mainly Evans.

The stoat Anima Monk had decided to ignore the conventional wisdom of “small bonds project, big bonds transform” to walk down the path of transformation at E-Rank. He was already plenty fast as a human, reaching around three-quarters of Jaclyn’s despite being almost a full rank below her, but as a stoat, he was practically untouchable.

Especially when he used it dynamically, flashing into his smaller size anytime an attack was incoming. And he’d even managed to master how he transformed, so that his smallest size could appear in any point his body had occupied previously, making it almost impossible to anticipate where his smaller form would show up.

Of course, he was also well-stocked on monkey-summoning tokens, so that he could constantly shift the treasures around, between him, his summons, and those of the Dungeon’s boss.

That way, even the furious dragon would have a hard time hunting him down, since he was the only one of the fleeing group that wouldn’t pop straight back to life. Not to mention that Holmes was on the roof of the museum with a dozen sniper and anti-materiel rifles, each one ready to be overpowered with his power and promptly fall apart after just a few shots.

And everyone else was waiting in the entrance hall, ready to ambush their target.

Ideally, they’d have used as many Dungeon creatures as possible as meatshields, but there was one small issue with that. Specifically, their summoning tokens. If they were used inside the Dungeon, for the Dungeon, they’d count against Daedalus’ creature cap, at least that was what the fairy claimed.

So while being further back might have allowed them to put more creatures between them and the entrance, it would have also badly cut down on their defensive power.

Which had left them hiding on the mezzanine, with plenty of cover but also the space for the melee fighters to engage. Once Alaxia arrived, everything would end, one way or the other.

***

Alaxia’s jaws opened a split-second before emerald flame erupted from her throat, reducing a centuries-old tree to charcoal and killing one of the monkeys that hadn’t quite gotten far enough away yet. She hadn’t even landed a clean hit, all it had taken was the wave of heat that spread from the flames and the creature’s fur had seemingly spontaneously combusted from sheer proximity alone.

But even as the creature died, an impact like a small meteor hammered into her forehead and hurled her back on her ass. Where in the realm had that come from!

This was … more frustrating than an imperial senate session, despite the fact that here, she was freely able to unleash her wrath upon her foes without consequences.

And yet, more and more monkeys appeared no matter how many she killed, and that weasel-man was a whole other issue.

She stumbled to a halt, glared into the distance, and unleashed her energy. It flooded into her surroundings, connecting to what was already present in the plant life around her, having started to seep inside from the very seconds she’d arrived.

Then, the plants began to move, giant trees folding in on themselves, compressing, while bark transmuted itself into brilliant green scales which wrapped themselves around the swiftly forming bodies.

Five massive mid-D-Rank monsters dropped onto all fours, draconic minions that could now rip apart these monkeys for her.

But that weasel, him, she’d tear apart limb from bloody limb!

***

So, that bitch had chosen the smart option and summoned her minions before entering the Dungeon, which really wasn’t good. But when Thomas and Elias put their heads together and really worked on it, they could come up with some really thorough plans.

Specifically, in this case, that involved splitting their foes. The monkeys would run off with the lesser loot and head towards the British Museum, and Alaxia would almost inevitably send her summons after them while chasing the officer herself.

Given everything he knew about her, the information Elias had passed along, Alaxia would focus on the “worst offender” herself, meaning the one with the most valuable loot, instead of the annoying gaggle of monkeys she really wouldn’t have the patience for.

But the defenses of the British Museum would have to run on their own, Alaxia was literally one minute away from his main location. If he lost his sub-core, that would suck since he couldn’t recreate it, but if his main core was destroyed, that was it. He’d be dead.

And until she arrived, he’d be stuck here, passively, waiting. That was the dark side of being a dungeon core. Being unable to relocate was a big issue when an enemy with enough power to threaten him knew where he was, and an even bigger issue when he was on the losing end. He couldn’t retreat, couldn’t flee if shit truly hit the fan, so everything was on the line here.

Yet he couldn’t have just sent everything to the British Museum, Alaxia would have caught the runners well before they reached safety.

Alaxia’s entrance to the clearing around the Natural History Museum was explosive. A wave of flame ignited everything between her and her targets, followed by a gigantic blade of emerald light that flashed from her right hand and swept clean through half a dozen trees, which promptly toppled over.

“So, this is where you’re hiding, then?” she roared while the projection vanished, replaced by vibrant green flames that popped into existence in her palms. Then, she thrust them out to the side, where the fire ate through all the foliage there. If those flames retained their strength when she was no longer actively projecting it outward, there would be nothing remaining of the forest come morning.

It was at this point that countless small metal tokens flew out through the open door and bounced off the ground, scattering. That was when they began to glow and manifest their bound creatures.

They’d spent quite a lot of time thinking about the best composition, and eventually, they’d decided that while there was no perfect combination, however, they could come up with some pretty good combos.

E-Rank, fire-resistant tyrannosauruses to draw attention, boomslangs, and fer-de-lances to hide in the underbrush and attack when everything else was distracting her. Saber-tooth tigers to attack first, dragon raptors to distract her in the air, toxic hippos and toxin-fuelled crocodiles for point-blank attacks, and two camarasauruses to bind her long enough for the final strike to land.

Alaxia seemed to freeze briefly before she went on an all-out attack, aiming right for the biggest threats as she saw them.

Half a dozen emerald snakes erupted from her left hand and wrapped around the first camarasaurus and began to bite into it while the lady herself exploded into motion, ripping into the second one with her bare hand, flashes of fire and emerald light causing all wounds to become infinitely worse.

However, even if the biggest creatures failed at fulfilling their initial task, they were still a nice distraction when the ludicrously fast saber-tooths attacked. They lacked the strength to fully rip through her flesh, and chomping down usually broke their teeth, but it still worked, fully worked, if just the tips managed to pierce the skin, at which point they’d immediately fall apart into razor-sharp fragments that remained embedded in the skin or even entered the bloodstream.

But these critters were E-Rank, with a secondary power based on the flesh-destroying toxin of the fer de lance infusing every single atom of their teeth and claws.

A detonation of emerald light ripped the big cats off, energy-forged thorny vines tearing apart the next wave of attackers, but a t-rex managed to bull its way through, tank a fireball to the face, and stomp on her.

And once she was on the ground, the snakes could swarm her, along with the vines controlled by the horde of boomslangs.

Yet another emerald blade bisected the dinosaur holding her down but when she jumped to her feet, she was still covered in vines and had countless snakes stuck in this foliage, along for the ride biting for all they were worth while the vines just grew and grew, until there was so much foliage on her that all ripping herself free did was drop more plant matter on her from above.

Suddenly, all plant matter around her withered and died to reveal her standing there, skin transformed into bark, with countless snakes hanging off her like the world’s strangest party decorations.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

Alaxia grinned, and charged straight at the nearest hippo, moving so quickly that all the serpents bitting her were ripped off, leaving their fangs behind in her flesh.

The big animal popped like an overstuffed balloon and she began to scream.

When the second hippo lumbered into range, it was utterly incinerated by a gigantic fireball in a display of ludicrous overkill, clearly, that stunt had pissed her off.

Practically throwing a temper tantrum, she went on a rampage, kicking and stomping her way through the remaining monsters, which went well … until she ran into the crocodiles.

The moment the toxins covering her splashed onto them, they likewise went crazy, biting and clawing, succeeding in doing damage despite the power difference.

But despite the damage, she was still able to keep going, keep fighting.

***

It was a bloodbath out there. A scene of carnage straight out of, well, something. Jaclyn saw enough grizzly stuff in her line of work, she didn’t need more of it in her private time.

And they’d be fighting her now.

Just as the dragon-woman entered, a massive waterfall hammered into her face from above as Daedalus cracked open the reservoir he’d prepared well ahead of time. The tatzelwyrm blood applied via the hippo had done some damage, but she was the only one who could fight her while she was covered in potent contact poison.

“So, was that all you can do, Dungeon?” Alaxia growled, stalking inside, radiating what Jaclyn could best describe as “wet cat energy”. The energy of a creature that wasn’t hurt, exactly, but it was upset and more than willing to commit murder despite the fact that they didn’t consider the slight to have been particularly bad.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

The smug voice echoed from all over the place, coming from the various dirt-cheap capuchins Daedalus had used as mouthpieces a while ago.

“But are you brave enough to find out?”

This time, there was only a single speaker, a monkey that stepped out at the far end of the entrance hall, and was promptly annihilated in a flash of light.

Bit by bit, they were causing her to expend her energy, but they had no bloody clue just how deep her reserves were.

So after half a dozen more monkeys had lost their lives, the signal was given. Half a dozen flashbangs, uplifted with Arcane Adjustment, detonated in Alaxia’s face, and while she was blinded.

A hail of fireballs and lighting bolts hammered into her, igniting her bark-like skin, with Jaclyn striking a split second later. She’d launched herself off the mezzanine at just the right moment, manifesting her wings only for the purpose of accelerating her downward momentum, a single beat flying her earthward, until her feet landed directly on Alaxia’s face.

Her feet, clad in the heaviest boots Daedalus could manufacture, holding some kind of mass-bosting enchantment that had sucked up all her mana, slammed into her opponent’s face like a meteor, the claws of the ancient apex predator closing around her face even before her skull hammered into the ground with a thud so loud that the guys back at the precinct probably heard it.

From there, Jaclyn spun, causing the claws sprouting from her feet to rip up Alaxia’s face, and executed a straight punch down, only two knuckles extended, straight into her foe’s larynx, feeling something crack, only to immediately grasp her foe’s throat, causing a giant eagle’s claw to manifest around it and drive its claws in.

The plan had been to wrench her hand back, carving wounds as deep as possible, but a blast of energy threw her backwards and off her target, achieving much the same to happen.

Wooden splinters flew, as well as drops of what might have been her blood in this transformed state, it didn’t seem like either attack had managed to do much more than mar her previously pristine features.

“YOU DARE!” Alaxia screamed, not even bothering to make it a question. It was just pure fury as she began to rise to her feet, but Henderson was right in her face at that point, one arm transformed into an almighty bear’s paw and gave her the mother of all slaps. He’d boxed previously, but as it turned out, bears weren’t really built for straight punches.

A mighty impact with his flat hand, followed by all five of his claws being dragged across her cheek as his hand continued onwards, did plenty of damage regardless.

And his bear bond was perfect for hits like this, boosting not only his strength but also the weight behind his blows and Alaxia was sent flying, straight into a pile of old-fashioned dynamite, which promptly blew sky-high.

That hadn’t been lying there the whole time, of course, Holmes had used a monkey to deposit upgraded explosives there the moment her trajectory had been set. Or, more specifically, he’d sent in the summoned monkey before, then had it summon the bombs at just the right moment.

She went flying, and Jaclyn flew towards and intercepted her, inadvertently canceling her wings when she punched the dragon, a straight shot to the temple that should, once again, have been lethal.

Evans intercepted her there, getting off two quick strikes at the eyes before he left again, only for a barrage of tiny yet supremely well-aimed magic missiles from Granger to hit, each individually guided. One for each eyeball, one through each ear and hammering into the eardrum, and Jaclyn was pretty sure she even saw two slip up her foe’s nostrils, hammering into the fragile bones that separated the nasal space from the brain.

Alaxia stumbled, the hit to the ear having disoriented her, but Evans was behind her by that point and clapped his hands on either side of her head, massively exacerbating the initial strike.

She whirled, hand thrust out, and it would have taken his head off, but he simply transformed into his adorable alternate form and scampered away through a small hole in the wall, leaving Alaxia to rage.

It was a constant in and out, ducking and weaving, landing strikes before running like hell, with spells aimed straight at the eyes or ears inflicting as much damage as possible and disorienting their enemy, but it couldn’t last.

Granger was the first to go, having run out of mana and ducked behind a column to recover.

Henderson went flying into a column and didn’t get up again.

Holmes’ arm was ripped off when Alaxia spotted him and annihilated his rifle with an energy blast.

But they were wearing Alaxia down. Her wooden armor was hanging in shreds, and she was breathing heavily but it sounded deeply wrong, labored, as though Jaclyn’s punch to the throat had actually managed to do something.

Jaclyn flung herself forward again, this time aiming for the dragon’s stomach since Alaxia had learned to keep her head and throat protected by now … and the world went white.

When she came to, the entire room was still covered in floating sparks of emerald energy, and people were still sliding down from where they’d impacted the walls.

Jaclyn groaned despite herself, causing Alaxia’s head to snap over to her.

The other woman was in a truly horrific state, her wooden armor having likely been sacrificed to fuel that explosion, and the clothing underneath had likewise been mostly gone by the time she’d ever raised the defense, but she was by no means nude.

Instead, cracks had appeared in her skin, and in the place where Henderson had torn off her wooden mask, her human out layer was entirely missing, granting sight at a reptilian visage with a neon-green eye that observed her coldly.

“You would truly make an impressive imperial guard, chimera woman,” she said, her voice having gained a hissing quality since she’d last spoken. “That kind of dedication, that kind of ferocity, that kind of willingness to self-sacrifice, oh, you’re perfect.”

She grinned at that point, causing her skin around her mouth to tear and expose a mouth with razor-sharp teeth, but only half of them had been replaced, the others were still perfectly human. It was horrifying.

“But you raised your hand against your rightful empress. If you haven’t chosen to submit by the time I’ve destroyed that damnable core, you’ll pay the price for that.”

Jaclyn tried to get to her feet, but something felt broken inside of her. Daedalus had healing potions, he’d promised he’d use them, but he certainly couldn’t do so inside the room.

And with that passing remark, Alaxia walked out, heading deeper.

***

Five dragons chased a gaggle of monkeys through a jungle. They were powerful, deadly, sure, but not exactly as agile as their quarry.

In the distance, a building rose up in the jungle far more pristine than anything else around it. The monkeys went inside, so the dragons gave chase.

The first room was filled with self-levitating vases and animated armor, which the dragons were able to fight their way through but lost one when it bit down on a vase just as it was exploding.

Four left.

The second room was dedicated to education, while the third one, well, the marble hoplites let them enter, summoned marble pillars to cut down off a single creature, and tore them apart in formation.

Three left.

A Guardian bull managed to tackle and curse one as they went up the stairs, it was promptly incinerated but its victim was badly limping at that point, only to be torn apart in the Chinese gallery.

Two left.

Both dragons decided to flood the Egyptian section with fire before advancing, but one was swarmed with undead cats and cursed to hell and back before staggering into the boss room while the other was weighed down by every surviving mummy, who wrapped one bandage around their target and the other around something solid, fully trapping it until the cats could return and tear it to shreds.

One left … for all of two seconds. Then, the Guardian Gestalt trampled the final survivor into the ground.

Thomas sighed as he got the information of the happenings in the other museum. At least that was done, things weren’t going nearly as well over here.

***

Alaxia marched into the first room and unleashed a blast of blame from both hands, causing flames to leak up between the lower layer of scales and the upper layer of skin, causing more to flake off, while roaring in fury.

Most dinosaurs were instantly annihilated, a camarasaurus managed to clip her around the back of her head with its tail before dying, but that was just about the end of it.

Except for the draconic tyrannosaurus, who charged at the invader, and chomped down on her torso. It seemed to be the end of the road for the dragon lady … and then the dinosaur’s head exploded from the inside.

What emerged was an even more grotesque sight than before, a huge mess of shredded skin, broken scales, patches where both were merged, and a crippled wing emerged from one shoulderblade, nonfunctional but clearly very much present.

“What’s happening?” Thomas asked, relaying the information to Elias.

“Sounds like everything she’s done to herself is in conflict. She got stuffed into a human body but has the Draconic Physiology power, she started out in harmony with her body but her power started to return and disrupted everything, she probably took a whole bunch of those cultivation tonics she stashed away in her bolthole, and now, she’s burning through all this energy.

“Everything is coming apart now, and instead of trying to slow down and make things happen normally, she’s desperate to take her revenge?”

“Is that going to happen to me?” Thomas asked, suddenly very nervous.

“Did you eat a bunch of magical medicine while I wasn’t looking?” Elias asked.

“I mean, kinda?” Thomas was now even more scared. “I absorbed that magic potion …”

“I meant actually eat, not absorb for their pattern,” Elias sighed.

“No …”

“Did you have a whole bunch of power that you lost and is now flooding back in to disrupt the equilibrium of your existence?”

“I jumped straight to E-Rank from nothing,” Thomas pointed out, feeling the need to make sure that wasn’t going to be an issue now that the seed had been planted in his mind.

Elias sighed. “Yes, but you were transformed into a Dungeon core, they’re notoriously durable. That scaly bitch got stuffed into a fragile little human, and she’s basically done everything she could do to make that meld go horribly wrong.”

That … that was a relief.

“Any chance it’s going to kill her before she kills us?” Thomas asked.

“No …” Elias sighed. “In fact, I think she’s getting stronger.”

Over the course of this conversation, Alaxia had reached Cheshire’s room and was charging in, only to have her feet immediately go flying out from under her, and Cheshire snatched her from midair with her mouth, then hurled her into the far wall like a frisbee.

Alaxia tried to stand up, slipped again, then unleashed a furious wave of energy that swept away all the grease on the ground, allowing her to get to her feet.

“YOU DAMNED …”

Whatever she was going to say next was drowned out by Cheshire’s furious roar, and she barely managed to get her hands up to defend herself. Vicious strikes ripped open the invader’s arms and legs, but a single powerful blow sent the boss sprawling, and Alaxia advanced.

She’d grown to three meters tall and was visibly malformed, her head entirely a dragon’s but half her teeth were still human, one wing shattered and twisted but appropriate for her size, the second having appeared but entirely remained tiny, one arm longer than the other and attached to a hugely muscular shoulder.

Her head snapped to the side when a projected claw raked across her cheek, but she eviscerated the big cat with a single swipe of her claws and that was the end of Thomas’ first boss.

Alaxia continued to mutate as she tore her way through the next two rooms, dropping back down onto all fours but her limbs had the same length as before, making the whole thing even more bizarre.

If she’d stopped for even a second, realized what was going on, she might even have been able to stop it.

But the empress from the other world was too busy screaming profanity and ripping her way through giant sloths and sabertooth tigers until she reached the modern-day area. It mostly went well, though she’d seemingly forgotten about her experience outside and bit a hippo in half only to spend the next thirty seconds rolling around on the floor in agony.

She didn’t even say anything after that, whether it was due to brain damage, a destroyed tongue, her sulking, or having fully become a beast, Thomas didn’t know. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Dexter was her next stop, and she didn’t enjoy it at all. His elongated arm shot out, grabbed her wing, and yanked.

With a startled roar filled with pain, she slid into the room while the bones grasped in the giant sloth’s broke with a loud crack.

But she was immediately met with Dexter’s other fist, which slammed into her torso, and her injured wing tore off with a sound that Thomas wished he could forget, but knew would haunt him for the rest of his life.

However, she didn’t go sliding right back out of the room, instead, she slammed into a freshly-summoned stone pillar, and Dexter took that as his chance to hit her again, doing so with enough force that the ludicrously durable dungeon stone behind her cracked.

Alaxia launched herself at him and he took it, managing to trap her head under his right upper arm before winding it around her neck while his left arm managed to trap most of her limbs. She cursed and struggled, but he took off at a run, deeper into the Dungeon. He had her trapped, but slowly suffocating her while he scratched at her with his envenomated claws wasn’t really doing much.

So he found a pitfall trap, lined with spikes, and threw himself in, increasing his mass as much as physically possible, crushing the invader between him and the deadly trap beneath her.

Emerald light began to shine from beneath him, illuminating the entire room, until there was an explosion bright enough that even Thomas had trouble seeing what was going on in his own Dungeon.

Dexter was gone, and the perfectly square hole in the ground had been turned into a round crater, but Alaxia was barely able to drag herself out.

Yet, she didn’t flee.

She just kept going, kept advancing, using fire breath to annihilate the relatively weak creatures in the next room, and just rolled over the snakes in the one after that, though by the end, she was visibly loopy from the venom.

It was the next room that ended her. Or rather, the staircase.

Thomas had set up this particular “trap” a while ago, channels connected to all the various bits of water upstairs, and once he removed the plug via a monkey teleporting it away, his foe was blasted across the room and into another pit full of spikes, one that was now rapidly filling with water.

When a standard giant sloth started piling stones on top and pouring barrels of Tatzelwyrm venom over everything, that was just adding insult to injury.

Thomas sighed in relief.

He’d already revived the survivors of the police unit, re-created the armored personnel carrier they’d let him absorb, and sent them on their way with a bunch of samples from Alaxia’s body, so that they could decide which they wanted in the loot table.

But for now, peace.