I sat atop a nearby mushroom-shaped building and watched the dome entrance carefully. One, two, three… fifty-eight, fifty-nine… Yep. I frowned as another small squad of guards left the dome, followed by a singular captain. Doing a little mental arithmetic, I judged that it had been eleven minutes since the dome rose. That meant around a dozen extra squads in the city.

The dome was a monster spawner, completely belching out the five-man groups with abandon. Just one of those quintets would have been able to run rampant in my city a week prior. My right eye twitched at the thought. I need to be so strong nothing can be taken from me, I reconfirmed. I took a steadying breath. As long as I defeated the dungeon, these enemies would disappear. On a large enough scale, that was true forever, I mused.

It was better not to waste time. I had taken an extra two minutes to understand the spawning rate of the guards which already felt like too long. I resisted the urge to take care of the two groups which had walked out of the dome as I watched and instead slipped in just as a third group left.

The inside of the dome was bathed in a dim light which appeared to seep from the rock itself. It was still brighter than outside, so I moved forward while squinting. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the absolute maze of hallways and rooms inside was not it. I would have much rather a large, singular arena, but you can’t always get what you want.

My blood growled at that platitude. Of course I can get what I want. I prodded the nearest wall. Sturdy, but I can scratch it easily enough. I made a mark to show where I had been and walked a little deeper into the dome, becoming increasingly confused and frustrated. The scratches on the wall told me this was a dead-end, but the strange formation of halls had given me the feeling of progression even when I could tell I hadn’t moved.

The sweltering blanket of power still pressed down on me from all angles, but something about the frustration of being lost mixed with the constant nervous energy of expecting to find an enemy and created pure apathy. This whole place was designed to do exactly what it was doing, and I wasn’t going to let it work anymore. I punched the nearest wall with all of my strength.

“Ow!” I yelped, looking confused from my fist to the wall. “That hurt,” I moaned quietly, useless after my shout a moment prior, “what the…” My eyes widened. I rolled my shoulders. I hadn’t been stifling myself intentionally, but I realised now that I had been holding my magic frozen to avoid detection.

My every sense told me that to use my powers right now was suicide. The thought seemed so natural, yet now that I had cracked the veneer, the whole illusion started to shatter. Waiting to see when fodder would spawn? My slow thoughts began to move quicker and quicker, the apathy which just set in being burned away by rage.

“Fuck this,” I cursed and began to hop in place. As energy gathered in my limbs and tension started to fall away, I started to feel more like normal. Why was I being such a wimp? I asked myself. Dao and mana began circulating my inner channels and more of the cobwebs were pushed aside. Was I scared?

“Oh, you sneaky…” I refrained from more cursing and instead had to smirk at the audacity. With my own dao now working as a shield, the oppressive energy around me became muted. My trepidation and caution were valid - if the boss was as strong as it had felt. “It’s a goddamned paper tiger,” I rolled my eyes.

The energy which had covered the city felt exactly like it would if a higher tier being were looming over you. The quality of the mana had seemed impressive and potent, like the magic itself was judging my every movement and thought. If I was being generous, I would admit that it was a vaguely intelligent manoeuvre which probably would have worked against anyone but myself.

The insidious power had made me forget my own strength, and in doing so, made me weaker. If I hadn’t already decided I was done with these games, I would have flipped the table at this point regardless. “You want intimidation?” I asked the air, hoping the boss monster could hear me somehow. “I’ll give you intimidation.”

I was affronted that my dao had been squashed so easily by another, but that was likely a facet of the specific energies being used to tamp down my spirit. The aura had become more potent as I moved closer to the dome. With a roar which echoed through the stone hallways, I began bouncing off the walls. With each slam and crash, I unleashed a little mana and let Divergent Strikes do the rest.

Fuck your traps, I repeated over and over, I’m a dragon.

———————————————

Viewed from the outside, the dome started to bulge. As though impossibly large balloons were swelling and bursting within, the structure shifted and morphed. Javed grunted in approval, but Toulou began to doubt. “Do you think he’s alright in there?” The younger brother’s voice was quiet, as remaining hidden was paramount, but Javed heard it shake.

The smallest seed of disdain planted itself in Javed’s mind for his brother but he quickly unseated it. Toulou’s Dao was different to his own, and it worked differently in every way. Toulou could feel the shadows shaking inside the dome from here, but his brother’s Dao was much more internal. They were both good at different things.

That had been drilled into him by his mother growing up. “You must always look after your brother. He doesn’t know how to do the things you do.” Javed had been a hard child from birth, and only became more sharp as the world chipped parts of him away. He would never decry his brother’s softness, as it was more precious to him than anything. Shaking his head of the thoughts, Javed chuckled lightly.

“That, I believe, is all the City Lord’s doing. The little dragon man is far more powerful than he looks, or even feels.” Indeed, now that their group had entered the higher echelon of power, the difference between themselves and the kobold was becoming more pronounced. While he didn’t give off the feeling of a powerful monster from a dungeon, monstrous was definitely a word one could use.

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While Javed’s Dao of Shadows was intrinsically different from the Dao of Earth or Dao of Blood, even more so the Dao of Revolution, they each felt similar, in the way the night sky of today was similar to the previous, though in truth they were never one and the same. Javed liked the imagery of the night sky, so he stuck with it. If they were the night sky, then Izaark felt like the things which dwelt within. It would be insane for Javed to fear the dark now, yet still he shivered at the thought.

Woe befall any, he thought, who hear him go bump in the night.

———————————————

“There we go,” I crooned, enjoying the echo. Now that the debris had stopped rippling and crumbling, it was quite silent other than myself. “As I walked through those halls, I thought to myself ‘Izaark, you are much more suited to fighting in an arena than a corridor’. It was such an obvious thought, I said to myself ‘hey, why not make one myself?’”

Unmoving and seemingly unfeeling, the boss monster of the dungeon remained seated. I had actually gotten quite lucky, I felt. The initial batch of hallways I had found myself wandering were a trap all on their own. A series of straight, long passages which every-so-slightly inclined or declined, turning at just the right angle to throw off the mind. Coupled with the confusing Dao which still rumbled from the stoic boss monster, it had been a fairly potent illusion. Even now, I was as close as I could get with the monster’s aura pressing me back.

I snarled, angry that banter wasn’t going to happen. I had vague notions of bouncing around walls, quipping at my enemy to make them lose their cool before heroically defeating them, but maybe that was best left for comics. Instead, I focused on the anger I felt from being placed into a cage of any kind. I let that emotion push me through the final barrier the final enemy was creating.

I took a few steps closer and it was like a veil lifted away from my eyes. That wasn’t far from the truth, as all of the Dao the large humanoid had been bellowing out was suddenly sucked into one pinprick. All my cockiness disappeared and I knew, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, if I didn’t move, I was dead.

Even then, it was a close thing. Maybe not fifty-fifty, but if I had dodged the other direction, it would have gone much worse. As it was, I managed to throw out a panicked dropkick, launching myself away from the enemy and sending him bouncing off the floor with a Divergent Strike. I was still processing what had happened when the dungeon boss was at my throat again.

Its movements were fast. Easily the fastest thing I had ever experienced. I couldn’t even say “seen” because I did not see the attacks coming. The only saving grace seemed to be that for now, it was only travelling in straight lines. After my third dodge, the dungeon boss seemed to pause and consider, giving me my first look without the confusing Dao throwing me off.

Dungeon Boss - Prince of Segacea, Geran - Level 70

Wait, level seventy?!

It explained the explosive movements. Not only was this guy’s Dao clearly something much more complex than the guard captains, his physical attributes eclipsed mine. Was it even in the same tier? Given that I could read its level, I assumed so, but it must be right at the peak. Was the dungeon trying to kill me?

Actually, that’s not out of the realm of possibility, I reminded myself. “Outsider” the System called me. Getting rid of me would probably make sense. Rather than let myself get bogged down in paranoid ramblings which didn’t matter, I redoubled my focus. The prince began to prowl in an arc, remaining a constant distance but circling me. I sized him up in turn.

A gleaming silver sabre rested well in his hand, clearly an expert judging by his grip alone. He wore understated armour, unlike some of the more gaudy pieces I had seen in this city and my own. Dungeon rewards seemed to lean towards being ostentatious and ridiculous. His silence, stance, equipment and level were all aligned. This guy was dangerous.

I’m glad the party isn’t here to be torn apart. I ignored the thought. “Still got nothing to say?” I asked. “Even Ledge here was full of clichéd lines.” The skull at my waist had been well behaved and remained silent, though they took my reference to them as permission to speak.

“As I explained, the Dungeon informs our actions within…” Ledge trailed off, still embarrassed about threatening to take over the world and whatnot. Honestly, I had found it charming, and tried to encourage them back to the energy they had once held but alas, poor Ledge. Now, their personality was somewhat based on general Earth etiquette, myself as the closest most powerful being and some other factors.

“Right, so why is buddy over there completely-” I felt the quiver of danger in my spirit and threw myself to the ground. Wrong choice. I dodged the blade, but the prince’s boot caught me in the ribs and sent me flying. Soaring, I cringed as I knew there was no dodging the next blow. I had been kicked right into the forward path and the Prince took advantage.

“Aha!” He emoted for the first time, and it was nearly as shocking at the pain which tore through my knuckle. At the exact right moment, I had lashed out with my left fist and caught the side of the sword. Its piercing power was where it was most dangerous, and my punch forced the momentum of the charge to the side. I still howled as my middle finger fell to the floor.

“Son of a motherfu-” Forced to dodge again, I swallowed my curses and returned to the zone. This was a bad matchup for me, but only because of the difference in strength. If I had spent more time killing random guardsmen for months, I might have been closer in power. Instead, I was losing digits. Soon it might be limbs. Even as I had the thought,

Some things are meant to be lost to time.

Like a second pulse had been unlocked, my Dao thrummed within me like a guitar string. That one chord, that time will take everything, reverberated not just through me, but through the whole room. The smashed stone from my chaotic destruction of the dome shook violently before becoming pulverised. I frowned, feeling like I was floating.

The Prince wasn’t moving, even though he was close. I tried to turn my head and realised that I was frozen. A feeling of claustrophobia crept up my throat as my locked limbs became desperate to move. The Prince wasn’t just waiting, he was locked in time, just as I was. Except, I could feel a thread to pull on.

I decide what time will take.

If I wanted to keep something, not even time itself would be able to wrest it from my grip. I would find a way, or die trying, to hold onto the things I considered important. What those things were might change, but my zealous defence of them would not. Be it companions, wealth, my own life, I would decide when they ended and no one else.

Never again.

I am The Arbiter.

The world locked in place, but it let me go. I wasn’t bound by its rules anymore, at least not at this moment. In that singular moment, expanded for as long as I wanted, I was the only thing that truly existed. Me, my target and my rage. I didn’t want some new ability to save me, even if it was really just me using my own energies differently. I wanted to beat the shit out of this thing.

I wasn’t foolish enough to not take advantage and, gritting my teeth, I clenched two fists and through a flurry of blows unlike anything I had ever done before. When they collided with the prince, there was the slightest of give as his armour began to buckle, as his flesh consumed the damage without being able to move. In that soundless, timeless void, I screamed out in anger.

A colour returned to the world and the most ungodly thundercrash I had ever heard rang out. I was thrown back and upwards, into the curved roof of the dome which I bounced off, face-first. I eventually came skidding to a halt after pinballing around the room a little. Or a lot. It was fuzzy. “Ouch,” I complained.

“That was rather a lot,” Ledge agreed. “Did you…?”

“I don’t know. Feel like I’m dying. Help.”

I fell to the floor, unable to say anymore. I felt drained in a way that literally wasn’t possible before magic. I had used every ounce of mana and Dao at once to do something far above my paygrade, and now it was costing me. I knew there was nothing Ledge could do, and frantically tried to put the kill energy from the dungeon boss into my spirit.

Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough to stave off unconsciousness, and I faded to black.