A set of large doors were opened and a man dressed in a colorful tunic walked through them. He had his head lowered and quickly dropped down to one knee. Silence filled the room only when he heard the order did he reply.
“Speak.”
“Yes my King, we have news concerning the dungeon.”
“Mmm, how far have they gotten? Don’t tell me that they weren’t able to even get to the 10th floor?”
“No my King, actually…”
The man that came with the news stopped himself before speaking out as if scared to utter the next sentence.
“Get on with it!”
A malicious magical aura filled the room and brought the man down to both his knees.
“T-they completed the dungeon all the way to the 99th level and the heroes managed to find all of the holy weapons!”
The man was quick to reply and felt the weight be removed the moment he finished the sentence. He managed to peek up and noticed that the King had an unusual facial expression. Most of the time he looked mad and grumpy but this time around he seemed to be confused.
“It’s only been two weeks, how is this possible. The heroes of old were said to have spent many months before being able to complete it.”
“W-well my king… actually…”
“What is it now!”
The king smashed his hand into his large chair which made people flinch.
“They had apparently reached the 98th level within a week…”
The messenger painted a picture for the king. From what they knew the spirit that belonged to Beatrice was helping the youths gain levels at an increased pace. He would disable monsters for them and they would only deliver finishing blows.
The dungeon was a magical place built by an old sage from days past. No one really knew how it worked but it activated when the heroes arrived. The creatures inside would somehow miraculously regenerate themselves after a while and give the heroes power after they were slain.
This place was used to get the heroes up in strength to face the demon lords. It was there to put them on a somewhat equal footing or so said the legends.
Due to Leigong’s involvement what should have been a tiresome process of combat changed to a small expedition. The man reported that this spirit bulldozed through the lower levels not even giving the heroes a chance to level up. Only at about the middle level did he start letting them perform attacks.
Unbeknownst to the king and his aides, Zhang Dong was just performing a basic power leveling tactic. There didn’t seem to be any restrictions so he chose the strongest monsters available for the heroes to kill.
This was just basic mathematics. Why let the heroes fight monsters that gave 10 experience at a time when he could just let them deliver a critical blow to one that gave 1000 experience points. Holding them down didn’t seem to work against him, it was as if the system didn’t see his involvement as anything out of the ordinary.
The dungeon would end after the last boss was defeated so after arriving at the 98th floor he took the chance to level the kids up as far as they could. Only after the monsters started giving meager rewards did they move up to the final boss.
“It seems that the last floor was actually completed by the heroes without the spirit’s involvement…”
The king had retainers keeping an eye on everything happening in the dungeon. They did allow Beatrice and Isabella to participate thanks to their spirit. The king wanted to keep an eye on them and there was nothing better than examining how the spirit does against the dungeon monsters.
He had no way of knowing that they would finish it in about two weeks. The people that he sent inside weren’t even able to send consistent reports. Everything was happening too fast as the whole hero party steamrolled through the monsters inside the dungeon.
The magical devices that they had to communicate with the outside were apparently also not working correctly. There was always static and it was hard to make out anything. Also due to the fast pace, there wasn’t that much time to make a proper report. Even less when the scary Lightning Emperor was looking over their shoulders.
“So they managed to complete the secret dungeon?”
“Yes, my Liege!”
The man replied after being finished with the report. The dungeon went down and the party had food to last them for a month but no one expected for something like this to happen. The king thought that he would have half a year to slowly work on the heroes.
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When they were weak and gullible it was the perfect time to place a seed of doubt in them. He was afraid that if they got too powerful they could turn against him. This was also why he was using his offsprings for courting.
He hoped that they would control the people from the other world through their emotions. The king even encouraged his kids to have sexual relations as a baby would tie the heroes to the royal family. Only with strong bonds like those would he be able to relax.
“It's that blasted spirit isn’t it? No… could it be…”
Before continuing with his train of thought the king waved his hand to indicate that the messenger was allowed to leave. The man just bowed and quickly removed himself from the throne room glad that he could finally go rest.
“Bernard.”
“Yes, your Majesty?”
The man that looked like a high-class butler appeared from the side and bowed before the king.
“What do our spies say at the Hohenberg house? Did they start moving?”
“Our people haven’t been able to find anything out of place, it would seem that the Duke isn’t involved.”
“Impossible! Damn incompetent fools, tell them to get more information!”
The king started to rage while also causing his throne armrest to splinter into tiny chunks with his fist. The man called Bernard remained standing while being able to hold his composure. It was as if he was used to these outbursts.
Others could feel the castle rumbling as the King continued to let his emotions out. In time he managed to calm himself and sat back down on his destroyed throne.
“The Hohenbergs might still be holding a grudge since ‘that’ incident. This spirit might be just the beginning, prepare the men, make sure that everyone is on alert, and increase the guards. Be sure to question the members that were with the hero party, we need to know if those Hohenberg’s are plotting anything!”
Since Leigong showed up the King couldn’t stop worrying. The spirit outmatched him in strength, the magical soul attacks were unable to harm it in any way. He was quite certain that if he struck fast he could take out the summoners before this spirit could act. The king was a very cautious man, there were far too many unknown factors here.
There were situations where a spirit went berserk the moment their summoner was slain. It could function for a couple of minutes which could be enough to deliver a deathly blow. This was mostly the reason why he hadn’t done anything, fearing that this overpowered spirit could kill him after he crippled its summoner.
There was also the whole predicament with Duke Hohenberg. The man had a large territory and army of flying dragons. The man could also come asking for trouble or even go to another kingdom for aid. There was too much risk in acting for now but something had to be done as the heroes had progressed away from schedule and before he could prepare more contingencies.
Before a new plan of action could be thought through the whole castle started to rumble. It started off slowly but soon transformed into a giant earthquake that caused the marble floors to crack.
“What is this? Is the Demon King attacking?”
The magical king spread his senses to try to find the cause of these tremors. But even when he looked far and wide he couldn’t spot any demonic energies or any foreign attackers coming from outside. His attention was then moved towards the lower regions and he noticed something.
“T-the secret dungeon is crumbling?”
He could feel that the many tunnels that were below the castle started to cave in. It wasn’t an attack from outside, nor did any monsters pour from within the premises. The dungeon that was under the castle for many generations started to crumble.
“How could this be, the legends never said anything about this?”
The man looked to his retainers that were running around like headless chickens. The castle was shaking violently while slowly sinking down. This wasn’t the first time that a hero summoning had been done. The dungeon was used by previous generations and even after the last boss was slain nothing like this was written down in the texts of old.
During the chaos, he also felt something, a massive surge of power coming from below. His eyes went wide as this strange power even overshadowed his own. Soon the person to whom this power belonged appeared.
He was hard to distinguish due to the large golden bubble of light surrounding him and his companions.
‘It's that damn spirit again… how could he be this powerful?’
The large sphere of holy energy burst through the ground and was now floating above the whole castle. It continued to shake and sink down into the ground for a good couple of minutes before about one-third of it was below ground. At that point, the shaking finally subsided.
Soon the inside of the sphere was revealed to have people inside. Beatrice, Isabella, and the heroes were all there. So were the people that the king had sent along on the expedition, all royal family members included.
Beatrice and Isabella were holding hands while channeling their power thus allowing Zhang Dong to reach his powered-up state. This state had gone up slightly since the start of the trip and was above the King in power.
“What is the meaning of this!”
The same king wasn’t amused after spotting Zhang Dong and the others. It was clear to him that they were somehow responsible for this disaster. In a fit of rage, he gathered his magical energies and flew towards this large bubble of power. Heading straight on a collision course for the group.
But as soon as he was near he saw the spirit called Leigong look at him. His eyes were glowing and he had a strange otherworldly aura of holy energies covering his body.
“An Emperor doesn’t take orders from a King, begone human!”
Leigong’s eyes glowed in a fierce hue before a massive surge of energy descended on the King of humans. He tried to protect himself but was unable to fight against this massive aura that this spirit gave out.
For the first time in his life, he was forced to retreat and this was done by his enemies' aura attack that overtook his own magical energies. Other people looked on from the sides as they saw their king fall down like a wet noodle and leave behind a small crater on the ground.
What was left was an astonished group that finally floated down from the sky. Leigong’s face remained without emotions as he looked at the human king that wasn’t able to contend with his power.
‘Hm, did I overdo it? Think he did receive the message though…’
Zhang Dong could see a glint of fear in this man’s eyes. Which was what he was aiming for. The expedition was more fruitful than he anticipated and he also received a nice reward at the end.
In his hand was what looked like a square box. This cube soon crumbled into dust and faded into the scenery.
‘This brings me closer to my goal… Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.’