Finally, Leon was finished with the Containment Blocks. The total number of them? Eight-thousand-six-hundred and forty-six! 8646 times that Leon had had to Rip giant chunks of materials off the walls of his core. Now spinning around his Source, the rings had formed into what essentially looked like a rainbow donut in the center of his Core. All Leon had to do was focus a tiny bit to set them all rotating and the draw on mana from both the outside world and his Source skyrocketed. Which meant that pretty much at all times Leon was able to keep a tiny bit of his concentration on doing just that and permanently keeping his draw much higher than it had any right to be. It was actually helping to push him closer to Tier 3 mana density faster than should be possible.

The affinities were many and varied, and some of them, like Madness, were disturbing. Acme was another one that was odd that particular Containment Block had been the final one he’d made. He’d finished the Containment Block and allowed the last little bit of mana in his Core to touch it but nothing had happened. It hadn’t been absorbed into the ring. Leon had had to fiddle with the ring for hours until suddenly the mana flooded into it. Leon wasn’t sure why Acme affinity mana was different from the rest, but it apparently hadn’t wanted to enter the containment block until he’d done something to it. He still wasn’t sure what he’d done that made it acceptable to the mana, but it was in a Containment Block now. Another thing that Leon had discovered was that he had had Eldritch Affinities as well. But in tiny quantities.

Now that all of the Containment Blocks were made Leon was hopeful that he would never have to do anything as painful as that again. It had taken nearly five months of daily self-torture to get to this point and Leon was praying to any god that would listen to make it so he never had to do that again. Although making the Containment Blocks had done more for him than just increase his mana regen rate and the like. It had also given him a few new skills. Soul related skills.

Soul Regeneration+ (lvl 35), Soul Resiliency+ (lvl 45), Soul Strength+ (lvl 25), and Soul Shield+ (lvl 1). The regen skill made his Soul heal from damage faster at the cost of Soul affinity mana. Resiliency made his Soul tougher and harder to damage passively using any mana available. Strength was pretty much the same thing as it was for physical strength, it just made his Soul able to do things with more force and again it was a passive effect that continually ate up any type of mana. Soul Shield was the biggest win in Leon’s book. It was like having a forcefield that he could toggle on and off at will. It resisted physical, magical, and spiritual attacks. It was like Leon now had an extra layer of armor. Leon would need to test it out, but he was pretty sure that both Resiliency and Strength contributed to how power the Shield was. Just creating the Containment Blocks had leveled the skills quite drastically.

Luna Everthorn

The Island containing the Dungeon was only a few days away. Their fastest ships had made better time than Luna had expected. The scouting skills that had been thwarted at range had started getting through though. And it wasn’t looking good. The Guild had practically already built a city. There were tall walls and a rotation of guards posted at all times. The Guilders knew that they were coming. The Empire had confirmed that that was what they were seeing as well. There was even suspicion that the, now city, that they were going to have to take even had anti siege weaponry.

After gathering all of the Tier 3’s and designing a plan that revolved around them getting the invasion force onto the island itself without suffering massive casualties due to the enchanted weaponry Luna was feeling better about their odds. The only thing that bothered her was that she felt like the Empire was being cagey. They were only willing to commit five Tier 3’s to establishing a beachhead in order to take the Island. But they were committing all of their Tier 2’s. And Luna was having trouble understanding their plan.

But their current plan had even odds of succeeding in getting all of their troops safely to the Island. What happened after that? Well, they would either succeed and take the Island. Or they would fail and most likely die or be captured by the Guild. This whole thing relied on the empire fulfilling their side of the plan though. And she felt like they were about to try and pull a fast one on her, but she didn’t know how.

Leon Crumbl

Leon was cradling Nadia in his arms as she wept uncontrollably. She was already Tier 3 but had never created any containment blocks of her own. She was the only one among the women living in his house that had the ability to see inside her own core. It wasn’t from a skill like Leon’s ability to see inside there, but an ability she developed through hard work and determination through truly learning to sense her own being. She had asked him about the process and how he had done it. She had been very skeptical about it, as she had never heard of the practice and knew that fiddling with things within your core was a recipe for death and things worse than death. When she learned that he’d made 8646 different containment blocks though. She had decided that it couldn’t be that hard, and she could tell it was having a massively beneficial effect on Leon’s body. So, she had asked him to be there and walk her through the process.

Nadia had taken every word that Leon had to say about the subject with the utmost of seriousness. She’d paid attention and did as Leon had done. Only once, mind you. She had created one containment block that was more than sufficient for her single Affinity. But her experience was far different from Leon’s. The walls of her Core were slow to heal. Very slow. She’d managed to fight through it and had created her containment block even with the existential pain that came with doing it. But her Core, her Soul, was healing at a dreadfully slow pace.

It had been three hours now and Nadia was still inconsolable. Simply curled up in Leon’s lap as he held her and stroked her long silvery hair. Leon had tried to lay her down to sleep but the moment he’d started to pull away she had practically screamed that she needed him to hold her. So, he was doing just that. Her sobs were not nearly as intense as they’d been, but her eyes were a level beyond puffy, and all of the snot and drool was a terrible look on his otherwise perfectly beautiful lover.

“H- How?” she mumbled through a sob.

“What was that?” Leon asked in a whisper as he continued to stroke her hair.

“How did you do this thousands of times?” She managed to get out between gasps.

“For me the pain only lasted a couple of seconds each time. I don’t know why it is taking your soul longer to recover. I’m sorry.” Leon spoke gently into the crook of her neck as she leaned into him.

“I kind of want to have sex.” She suddenly muttered as she rocked back and forth.

“No.” Leon said firmly, “Not right now while you are like this. You need to recover first, then I’ll do whatever you want.”

Nadia’s tastes were a bit… Extreme? Leon didn’t know how someone as powerful as her could like the things she requested of him. She could fairly easily snap Leon in half if she wanted, but what she liked was bordering on the extreme masochistic side of things. She’d even brought chains that could hold her. She liked to be forced to watch, forced to participate… basically she liked to be dominated and forced and made to feel pain. It wasn’t what Leon liked, but he tried his best to satisfy the cravings of his women.

“Please?” she gasped out, “Would be so good to remember after.”

Leon chuckled and shook his head, “Once you are back to normal, I’ll do that thing you like with whatever that thing is called.” He spoke. He didn’t like whatever that thing was, he couldn’t remember its name for the life of him, but he didn’t like using it. It made him feel all sorts wrong. It would have probably killed someone to try it back on Earth.

“Promise?” She whispered

“I promise I’ll use the thing on you for an hour straight when you get better.” Leon said.

Nadia didn’t respond, instead she curled into him. Muttering things under her breath that even with his vastly superior senses he couldn’t translate.

+++

Three days later and Nadia was still a wreck. But Leon couldn’t be there with her right now. Instead, he was with the rest of women and in fact the rest of the Islands inhabitants, looking out over the ocean from the walls. In the distance they could see Enchanted ships driven by mana bearing down on the island.

The ships were approaching at a fairly decent clip but appeared to be slowing down. Arranging themselves into different formations. Leon wondered why they were using ships that traveled on water when there were plenty of AirShips out there. Maybe a poor nation? But AirShips weren’t exceedingly expensive as far as Leon understood it, he’d even considered buying one himself. Maybe it had to do with expertise and personnel? Either way, the attacking force was arriving by sea and not by air.

Gerald Crumbl

Gerald supervised the unloading of yet another shipment of cargo. They were currently in a city that he wasn’t too happy to be seeing, but business, and family politics had seen to it that he’d needed to bring the ship here. To the city where his mother-in-law called home. Ameillia’s mother, not Annise’s. Annise’s mother had been pleasant and cordial. Amelia’s mother? Let’s just put it this way, even though everyone referred to her as The Matriarch, her real name was Karen. Enough said right? Gerald had never met a Karen that he’d found pleasant to be around. This particular Karen had lot of power and sway. Not just within the family but over the entirety Evenfall City.

Gerald, Ameillia, Annise, and the kids, were expected in the familial Mansion come sundown. There he was sure that he was going to have to quietly sit in a corner while the women talked about important matters that effected his life. He was going to have to listen to Karen drone on and one while she practically said nothing at all but managed to use the entire dictionary of words to convey that nothing so that she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. He couldn’t wait to put this city behind them. But he knew that they’d be back all too soon.

Gerald had a plan that might get them away from familial politics. But it was going to require a lot more money. He needed to upgrade the AirShip to get it up to snuff for inter-layer travel. It could make it to the second layer just fine… but it wouldn’t be able to cross the vast expanses between layers 2 and 3. If he could get the ship to the 3rd layer, they would be out of range of the family and its influences.

Luna Everthorn

Luna Stood on the bow of the ship looking out at what the Dungeoneers Guild had managed to create in only a couple of years. The scale of it was mind boggling. Only 100 people were on that Island. It was the traditional Founders of a Dungeon Town. The Guilds resources went well beyond the physical. The fact that through the correct application of skills something like this could be achieved in only a few years made Luna realize how behind the times her kingdom really was. Perhaps the Isolationist policies of the king were not as good for the country as she had believed.

But all of that aside, Luna was beginning to think that they should actually just leave. Not risk the loss and simply engage in trade and visas. But she had her orders. And it would take too long to get e response back from the king or queen if she did send a recommendation to abandon trying to take the Dungeon. Not to mention that they probably wouldn’t understand her hesitance and probably deny her recommendation anyway.

The operation would begin within a few hours. The plan was set and there was no turning back. At least the island city she was looking at possessed several very large piers that made their plan a lot easier. Their beachhead would gain a foothold on the island easily enough. And from the positioning of the mounted defenses, it looked like they would only be taking fire from two weapons. Between the Tier 3’s on her side. Luna was confident that they could establish landfall without taking casualties.

Leon Crumbl

The enemy forces had arranged themselves into an odd formation around the island. Odd in that the ships that were running a flag that looked like a coat of arms were currently in a wedge formation that looked like it was getting ready to charge at one of the Piers. While ships that were running a flag that looked disturbingly like the Nazi flag were arranging themselves into some kind of star pattern around the island as a whole. To far away for the mounted weaponry to do anything about them, but it seemed really odd.

Anyway, Leon was currently standing by, waiting for the battle to begin. Once those ships committed to the assault, he was going to release 25 Fell Beasts and direct them to harass the ships and possibly take a few fighters out of the equation. Leon wasn’t really sure how he felt about the fact that he would be fighting and killing other people. It felt morally wrong, but also… Leon thought about the girls, the people he cared about. Technically they could just surrender and by doing that the enemy forces would have to treat them honorably or else the Guild would come down on them like the fist of an angry god.

But surrendering would mean losing access to the dungeon that Leon had practically built himself with all of the animals he’d fed it from earth. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was fear that the attackers would do unsavory things to his lovers even if they weren’t supposed to. Maybe it was that Leon felt like this was his home. A place that he’d made himself.

Perhaps it was selfish of him. But he had literally built the city he was in. And the people who were coming wanted to take it away from him. So, he would fight. And more importantly, he wouldn’t hesitate. He was going to kill. And he would deal with the emotional fallout at a later date. If he and the others failed now. It would mean years of work going down the drain, and potentially the loss of multiple people that he cared for.

“What are you thinking about?” Cynthia asked him.

“I was just pondering the ethics and morality of our situation. Nothing that is really all that important right now. Why?” Leon responded.

“Oh, you just had this ‘Leon’ look in your eyes. The look that you get when you are thinking about things in your weird, twisted, short lived races kind of way. It’s cute most of the time. But it always leaves me curious.” She explained.

Leon looked at her clear face with an eyebrow raised, “What even is the average lifespan of a Crylanth?” he asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She said playfully, whipping her hair back.

“Yeah, that’s why I asked. Duh.” He said and quickly flicked her forehead.

“Ouch.” She flinched back rubbing her forehead, “Sometimes I forget that you are stupidly fast.” She said, “A tier 1 Crylanth has an average lifespan of about 5000 years. We are one of the longest-lived races in all of the Heavenly Spheres.”

“Damn. Only the Draconids have a longer life expectancy than that as far as I know.”

“Crylanths, Draconids, Oni, Devas, and Azura are the longest-lived Races as far as I know. At least at Tier 1. As you go up the Tiers lifespan starts becoming more of a suggestion than a fact.” She spoke.

“Well lets all be careful today. Wouldn’t want any of us dying with out even getting to 1% of our life expectancy.” Leon spoke with as cheerful of a tone as he could.

“I’d drink to that.” Cynthia said with a smile.

“How’s Nadia doing?” he asked.

“Still the same. Maybe a little better. She doesn’t just freak out the second you’re not there anymore. I don’t know why she’s so attached to you all of a sudden. It’s weird for an Elf to be like that. Especially a female Elf towards a Male of any kind.” Cynthia said, shaking her head.

“Probably something to do with Soul Damage. I’m sure that when she heals up she’ll be back to her normal self.” Leon half chuckled.

There was a lot that he didn’t know about the Containment Blocks. Like what even were they? And what exactly they were for. The knowledge he’d absorbed about them purely clinical, stating that they were necessary for achieving higher levels of power. And that they would control the impact that higher tiers of the contained mana would have on the body. But the information was woefully incomplete. It felt weird to him that he needed to have a mana container inside of his mana container. But it had worked. And he was pretty sure that it would continue to help. He would need to find more information about it someday.

“When do you suppose they are going to attack?” Cynthia asked.

“Beats me. I have no idea what they are waiting for.” Leon replied.

“Well, I wish they would hurry up and get it over with.” Cynthia huffed, “Some of those look like fairly nice boats and I wouldn’t mind having one to go out for a little cruise now and again.”

Leon gave her an incredulous look. “You want to take their Ships? Are we even allowed to keep them when we win?”

“Of course!” Cynthia said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Their boats, their people. Everything that they sent against us is ours to do with as we please if we win.”

“Their people?” Leon asked.

“Yup, of course, it’s usually in good taste to ransom them back to their nations. But if we happen to capture a nice-looking female, we want to keep no one would blame us.” Cynthia said suggestively.

“Whoa there!” Leon said feeling horrified that this was even a thing, “I will not be keeping slaves. And certainly not Sex Slaves. I didn’t think Slavery was even legal.”

“Oh, Slavery isn’t legal. This isn’t slavery. It’s called The Right of Retribution. Because they are the ones attempting to take our island, and will be attempting to kill us or capture us, our Right of Retribution allows us take everything that they are if we win. They all know the risks. The items you take, you are allowed to trade and sell. If you capture the people, you are not allowed to sell or trade them, except for ransoming them back to their country. But you are allowed to keep them, kill them, or otherwise use them as you see fit.” Cynthia explained.

“That just sounds like slavery with more steps to me. If we capture people, we are just going to send them back to their homes. I’ll kick you or anyone else out of the house if they try to keep and use people.” Leon said vehemently.

“Ok, wow.” Cynthia spoke with an apologetic tone in her voice, “I don’t know what your issue is with this shit, and it sounds like something that I’d rather not get into it about. So, I’ll just accept that if I happen to capture people, they are just getting sent packing. I don’t want something so unimportant to damage what we’ve got. I’ll make sure to tell the others too. Don’t worry yourself about it.”

Leon wasn’t entirely satisfied with the exact way that Cynthia had phrased that answer, but it did mean to him that she valued their relationship more than she might let on.

“I appreciate that. I just… I don’t believe that anyone should ever have their freedoms taken away to that extent. It’s a violation of everything that makes life worth living. I don’t even know how to express how appalling I find the concept and practice of slavery.” Leon shuddered as he processed his own words.

“Oh, it looks like they are starting.” Cynthia said, pointing at the ships that were now kicking up massive rooster tails of water as they accelerated towards the Island. “I gotta get to my post. Don’t Die Leon. Love you.”

It took Leon a second to register what Cynthia had just said, but she’d disappeared already. She had never told him that she loved him before. That was a first. And also, a death flag in his mind. He’d read way too many novels, seen way too many tv shows, and far too many movies where someone says something like that and ends up dying in whatever conflict was brewing.

Suddenly Leon found that he was very determined to fight as hard as he could. He activated his stealth skills at full blast. They were so cheap mana wise that his draw rate overshadowed their costs by a huge margin now. He made his way to the end of the Pier that the ships were headed towards and began releasing the Fell Beasts.

Luna Everthorn

The charge towards the Island had begun. Their ships were in an inadvisably tight formation and moving at top speed towards the Island. They had just entered range of the enemy weapons and already enchanted bolts were slamming into the shields that the Tier 3’s maintaining around the ships. The giant bolts packed a lot of power, but the shields were holding. If the Islands forces only had this to throw at them on their approach, then it would be damn easy to take the Piers at least.

Luna had her eyes forward and for a moment she thought she saw a lone figure on the end of the Pier they were aiming for. But it had to have been her imagination because the moment she focused on it there was nothing there.

Then out of nowhere a flock of very large bird like reptiles was flying directly at the ships. The monsters unleashed unnerving screams as they ate up the distance between them and the ships. The beasts were fast. But they didn’t seem to even be in Tier 2 by the feel of their mana. But they were definitely close.

The monster flock didn’t divert or show any hesitation in slamming headlong into the shields of the foremost ship. One after another screeching with malice in their beaked faces.

Luna didn’t know where the beasts were coming from, but they were plowing one after another into the shield of first ship. Not the ship that she was on. But after fifteen of the beasts had slammed into the shield it shattered like glass and the beasts didn’t even bother trying to slow down or land and attack. No, they were just suicidally slamming themselves into the deck and people. It was unnatural, and unnerving.

That was when she noticed that their numbers hadn’t diminished at all. Even with the corpses of the creatures floating in the ocean and already dead ones that had slammed into the ship itself, there were still 25 of the creatures in the air.

The Tier 3 on the foremost ship was doing his best to protect it from the onslaught of suicidal monster birds. But there was only so many that he could hit at any given time and his attacks were not at all suited to stopping the momentum of the birds who were smashing into the Tier 2’s that were above decks.

So much for reaching the Island without casualties. The monster birds suddenly stopped coming after the ships were almost to their destination. Then Luna saw a group of 25… Humanoid monsters? Standing on their destination pier. The creatures were very large and had huge hammers and clubs and maces in their hands. The were roaring and screaming at the ships that were approaching.

Luna had no idea what the monster were. But again, they were just Tier 1’s. Nothing that would make a significant difference in the battle to come.