“Ah hah! Perfect!”
The angelic being looked around happily at the cavern around him, his radiant form throwing deep shadows behind the stalactites and stalagmites that littered the damp space.
His face was sculpted perfection; sharp cheekbones, paired with a long aristocratic nose and sharp, intelligent green eyes gave a him a look of indomitable superiority. His grand, white wings fanned out slightly behind him, framing his body with its majestic splendour, the glowing purple runes etched onto each one of the feathers making it difficult for any regular mortals to look at him directly without their brains overloading.
It didn’t look much different to the previous three locations that he had been to, physically at least, but the way the Origin Qi pooled here told him this was the spot, the thick ozone smell almost sparking on his metaphysical senses. The room was just about tall enough to allow him to stand easily, and wide enough for him to fully extend his wings if he felt the need to.
Kaz’miel took a moment to sense the area around him, activating his [Spatial Awareness Map] skill, which threw out his soul force, easily mapping out the system of caverns that he had teleported to, confirming that there was a path to the outside.
Even the [Divine] had to follow the rules that governed the creation of [Dungeon]s, and they required the [Dungeon] have a way to be accessed easily by the sentient beings of the world. He had hoped that levelling up into a [Divine Lord] would mean rising above the need to follow any rules. However, he had found that in the Divine Realm, he was just a little Serpent in a sea full of Leviathans and balancing the desires of all the Celestial and Divine Beings called for a slew of rules and regulations.
He made his way to the centre of the cavern, waving away the annoyance he felt at the rules that had been imposed on him. Hopefully, this little facet of his numerous plans would help him reach his ultimate goal. He stopped at the spot where he could sense the Origin Qi was thickest, the Qi almost visible to the naked eye, growing a grand altar of marble with a wave of his hand, and an unconscious use of [Divine instinct], before placing a small pyramid on top of it.
He looked at it and stepped back, smiling slightly.
“Perfect!” He exclaimed, admiring how it looked, it was still tiny at the moment, a small dull grey, crystal pyramid, barely bigger than the tip of his finger, but he could imagine just how grand it would look once it had grown a little in a few years.
He suddenly picked it up again, “No, no, no” he muttered, “I’m not thinking properly!” he removed the altar he had just created with another wave of his hand, before looking around for a better spot. “I shouldn’t place it in a way that makes it so easy to find. Who knows what luck some random stranger might have and leaving it in the open would be foolish.”
He moved to a spot on the wall of the cavern, stopping before he got to it. A short stubby stalagmite looked perfect for his needs. He bent down and created a small hole in the stalagmite, making sure to make it as natural looking as possible, placing the pyramid in the hidden nook. He grew some glowing green moss on top of the hole making the moss droop down and cover it. He also threw some of the glowing green moss around the rest of the little cavern so it didn’t look quite so out of place.
He took a step back then, and went over his plan for this [Dungeon] again in his mind, making sure to go over all the details necessary so that he could activate the [Dungeon] in precisely the way he needed to.
He had allied himself with a small group of Lesser Divines who thought similarly to him in regards to the amount of rules and bureaucracy that had built up over the aeons that the Hegemony of [Divine King]s had ruled for, and hoped to topple them from their seat of power. Of course, he hadn’t told them all of his true plans, for though their plans seemed to be ambitious, they still fell short of his own lofty goals.
Creating [Dungeon]s was one of the many plans he had in mind to achieve these lofty goals of his. Though the Hegemony had a plethora of rules and regulations for creating [Dungeon]s it was much harder for the Hegemony to make sure these rules were followed for [Dungeon] creation due to the fact that the base rules that came into being when the [Dungeon] core interacted with the [System] were actually created by [The Divine Origin] - the being that had come before the Hegemony of Divine Kings and had come into the universe, made everything and left.
Because of this, the [Divine Lord] could tweak some of the Hegemony’s rules without them noticing. He had created a few [Dungeon]s in specific areas of the world where his chosen race resided. At the moment the Greenskin tribes of [Orc]s and [Goblin]s had been overlooked by nearly all the other Celestial beings due to them being more interested in the more ‘civilised’ races of the world, or more accurately the ones that were more likely to pray to the stuck up, arrogant bastards. These [Dungeon]s would help give his chosen race a little leg up during the wars he had planned for the future, though this specific one had been placed in a location that could be located by nearly all the races. That was because he had a special experiment planned for this [Dungeon] that may or may not work. If it worked he planned on giving the local Greenskin tribes a little help in conquering it, and if it didn’t it would tie in nicely with one of his tertiary plans.
Speaking of which, it was nearly time for this secondary goal of his to tie up with his primary. He pinged Gnoriell to come to his location as soon as possible and got started with creating the [Dungeon].
The first step was to make sure that the [Dungeon] core was working, he injected some of his Divine Qi into the crystal pyramid to jumpstart the Qi creation engine. It was a beautiful piece of work that even the eldest of the [Divine Kings] couldn’t understand. The Divine Qi he had inserted wound its way through the crystalline lattice, slowly shifting each piece until they all lined up to create an ever shifting masterpiece of a four dimensional rune. Even with his [Divine Instincts] in active mode, the rune still made his brain hurt and his teeth ache as he looked at it, the rune rotating slightly around its non-existent axis changing forms and dimensions between blinks and yet still taking up a mere fraction of the space within the crystal.
The rune started to generate its own Divine Qi that slowly permeated the rest of the crystal, slowly powering up lines upon lines of slowly shifting runes. These lines of runes were the rules that were imprinting themselves on the very structure of the crystal. Or, at least, that was the best guess that the [Celestial Scholars] had come up with.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Kaz’miel waited patiently for the Divine Qi to work its way through the rest of the crystalline pyramid, making sure that there was no energy leakages and the energy looked to be flowing properly. He didn’t particularly like not knowing how certain things worked, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much that he could do about it this particular time except make sure everything looked right.
After making sure that everything looked the same as the other [Dungeon] cores he had activated and double checking that the Divine Qi was flowing easily, he got started on the next step – collecting the soul needed to drive the intelligence behind the [Dungeon].
This was also the part where he could put a little extra into the instructions of the [Dungeon], through [Soul Domination]. Normally, it was a tightly regulated skill that the Hegemony only allowed in very specific conditions, however, dominating souls that weren’t actually in a body yet was not controlled at all. After all, why would anyone want to [Dominate] a soul that didn’t even have a body yet – well, actually he could think of a number of reasons, but the point was that this had been overlooked.
Kaz’miel stretched his wings, the individual runes etched on his feathers aided him in focusing his [Divine Might] skill, which allowed him to alter the base building blocks of life itself. He stretched out his senses, feeling for the veil that separated Life and Death. The veil appeared to his senses as shimmering green strands of energy, separate from reality, yet the strands permeated everything he could see. It was a sensation that mere mortals could not conceive, and even a [Divine] being like himself had trouble ‘seeing’ the world clearly this way.
He hunted around for a soul to insert into his [Dungeon] core, looking past the threads and into the Ether beyond. The Ether was something that even [Divine] beings could not see properly, instead the Ether translated itself into a format that was understandable by the viewer, a mechanism that had been implanted into it by [The Divine Origin] itself to protect the beings lesser than it.
To Kaz’miel, the Ether looked like a plain that he looked down upon from a peak of unimaginable height. Upon that plain were millions upon millions of paths, half hidden in a thick fog that swirled around in mesmerising patterns, upon which countless numbers of beings tread. He looked down upon the plain in satisfaction, basking in the feeling this view brought him, but only for a moment.
He concentrated on what he was here to do, he wanted a soul that would have the imagination required to build a unique dungeon, and yet had the ruthlessness required to run one efficiently and without remorse.
He switched [Divine Instinct] into its active state, which, when mixed with the active [Divine Might] skill, allowed him to sense what he was looking for a little more clearly. Even with these two skills active, the plains were still clouded by the fog. The skills, however, let him instinctively find the type of soul that he was looking for. He reached out with his metaphysical hand, and plucked one his instincts told him was the right match for what he was looking for from the paths below.
He deactivated the active skills with a snap of his closing wings, the soul held safely within his palm. The soul appeared to be a unique mix of green blue, that swirled irately on his palm, as if annoyed that it had been so rudely plucked from where it had been.
The [Divine Lord] activated his [Soul Domination] skill, intoning his orders precisely in the [Divine] tongue “You, the soul before me, shall henceforth follow my orders alone and no others” it was a little awkward addressing the soul in this manner, as the skill required the user to have a name that the target referred to themselves as, and found meaning in. His past instances in using the skill on souls he had put into dungeons, however, showed that these souls did not have this requirement, or understood that he referred to them when he referred to the soul in front of him.
“You will build the [Dungeon] in secrecy, and try your very best to make sure no one discovers it before I tell you to. If you are discovered, make sure to appear to be as weak as possible unless you are in danger of being killed. And, of course” he said with a smirk, “You will think me as your God and worship me unconditionally.”
He thought that these orders may be a little overkill, but it never hurt to cover all possible avenues, even if he planned to monitor all his [Dungeon]s remotely. He gently inserted the soul into its slot in the core, taking care to make sure it sat in its place properly. The domain of the [Dungeon] snapped into being around him, as the core was completed, but before he could double check that everything was in its place a pop of displaced air sounded behind him signalling the arrival of the first step of his primary plan.
He spun around with a grin on his face, the [Celestial King] in front of him flinching slightly from the sudden movement. “Perfect timing, my dear Gnoriell!” he cried, upon seeing the [Celestial], his arms open wide in greeting.
Though the [Celestial] was the highest possible rank that a born [Celestial] could achieve, he was still many levels below Kaz’miel. The [Celestial] barely came up to chest height, and his pure white wings looked drab in front of the luminesce of the [Divine Lord].
The [Celestial] bowed low in front of Kaz’miel, his back straight and posture perfect. Even though the [Celestial King] was much lower in levels and standing compared to Kaz’miel, he still had enough experience with the [Divine]s to keep his poise.
“This lowly one greets [Divine Lord] Kaz’miel” he said in polite greeting, his eyes darting around the cavern with a hint of confusion that was quickly wiped away and replaced by his normal meek mask.
The [Celestial King] was a slim, unassuming man of above average height for mortals, though rather short when it came to [Divines]s and [Celestial]s. His brown hair was slicked back in a professional manner and his Purple robe of office was clean and simple.
This being was part of his little group of allies, but Kaz’miel had found out recently that he was actually an insider for one of the [Divine Prince]s. Thankfully for Kaz’miel, the [Divine Prince] merely thought that his group of allies were just another little group that wanted to take over from the Hegemony, and even in the [Divine Realm] politics were the same.
Unfortunately for the [Divine Prince] and especially for the [Celestial King], Gnoriell was a little too nosy for his own good and had poked his nose a little too far into Kaz’miel’s business. And the [Celestial King] had come to the [Divine Lord]s attention at just the moment when he needed a high levelled test subject.
Kaz’miel wrapped an arm around the shorter being, drawing him closer to his body, “Now, you must be wondering why I brought you here” he said, guiding Gnoriell until he was standing just in front of the hidden [Dungeon] Core.
“Yes, sir, you said that you were going to show me the progress of one of your plans?” he asked disconcertedly, knowing that the [Divine Lord] was extremely secretive and knowing that he himself was not on anywhere near good enough standing to be brought into his plans. He had tried to contact one of his higher ups in the [Divine Prince]s employ, but had found his usual avenues of contact blocked, and turning up late when this particular [Divine Lord] asked him to find him would cause even more problems.
“Yes, my dear Gnoriell, you are going to be witness to my greatest achievement” he whispered into the shorter beings ear, activating the rune that he had subtly placed onto the [Celestial King]s neck.
Gnoriell froze, the rune freezing his nerves, and effectively sealing his magic.
Kaz’miel stopped in front of the immobilised being and pulled out his special dagger, the one that he had spent the past few decades of his life working on. It looked to be nothing special, the blade was fashioned from iron, the most common of materials, a thin line of runes lined the middle of the blade, each one etched with exquisite care and detail, and filled in with Divine Mithril – the rarest and most magical material available.
The [Divine Lord] bent his knees so that his eyes were level with the panicking [Celestial King] “Thank you for being my first” he said with a genuine smile as he slid the blade with ease through the layers of protection embedded onto his robe and straight into Gnoriell’s heart.
A moan of pleasure escaped Kaz’miel as the rush of Celestial and Divine Qi escaped the [Celestial King]s body and made its way through the dagger and into his body.
The escaping Qi filled Kaz’miel up to the brink and beyond, the excess Qi flowing straight into his Dantian and flowing into the pattern that he had already set up for it. As the storm of Qi within him grew, the vitality of the [Celestial being] before him faded as he withered away into nothingness. The excess Qi from the process eased its way into the [Dungeon] core and gave it a nice little starting boost from having such a high levelled living being die within its [Domain].
Kaz’miel sighed in satisfaction as he grew a whole three levels from absorbing all this Qi. He held up his dagger to the soft glow emanating from the glowing green moss, not realising that the glow that normally emanated from his wings had faded until it started coming back.
With a quick order for the [Dungeon] to absorb the remains of the [Celestial King]s robes, he teleported out of the [Dungeon] his brows furrowed in consternation at this hitch in his bodies function.
As the displaced air settled from his abrupt departure, a lone pure white feather drifted down, gently settling into a little nook, the rune etched onto it glowing feebly in the darkness.