Artdraen stared at the newly formed black doorway in the side of a moderately impressive mountain. Mainly impressive due to its biodiversity rather than its size. The low monster to biota ratio did bring down their opinion of the mountain however. While they stared, they made sure to loom their vision just outside of Ian’s sphere of perception.

Uncountable universes away, their body shivered in delight. They had thought him lost in both life and soul, but with barely time to notice his absence, he returned. Although, in a far different form. When they had first noticed his new form, they almost cried out in horror, thinking him captured, but soon realized his new form was not the….evil they imagined.

It was an unusual idea, and would require an investigation into the creator of these ‘dungeons’. They supposed they should have paid more attention to Ian’s surroundings, beyond the fact that the universe was made out of mana, all those years they observed him.

However, this new form, while physically strong, could only be described as weak in Artdraen’s opinion. They supposed if it was the equivalent of having his soul reborn, then his current strength could be considered a transcendent toddler.

They sighed internally. If only they had chosen to partner with him sooner, then they wouldn’t have any worries. They should have taken the plunge and ignored the fact that he was made of mana. Now they would have to wait until he was stronger, otherwise the bond would break his soul.

After staring in happiness at the black doorway, they moved their vision to observe the surroundings.

Creatures climbed and flew from tree to tree. Metal humanoids fed their children in displays of parental love. Groups of non-humanoid sapients were scattered throughout the mountain and the surrounding area. Monsters made their home here and there, but their numbers were too low for the mana density. Last but not least, the strongest and most unusual being on this mountain: a bird only a couple of feet tall, nondescript besides the two luminescent golden feathers extending from its head to the middle of its back.

The brown bird with a white belly was perched at the peak of the mountain with its head turned towards the same thing Artdraen’s attention had been focused on, Ian’s door. Unlucky for them, the songbird esque monster did not seem the type to speak its thoughts out loud, so they did what they had to and read the intelligent bird’s mind.

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Isifil pondered the dungeon entrance that had appeared on her mountain. They had said the walls between universes were too strong for a dungeon to appear here, and yet….no wait. They never said a dungeon couldn't appear here, only that the difficulty of doing so would prevent almost all dungeons from having the choice to do so. She crossed her breast with her right wing and sighed with relief. They could not be wrong and something as simple as this would not shake her faith.

Still, she glared at the new dungeon, there would be consequences due to its appearance. If the Elves stuck to their promise, the lack of settlers indicating they had done so, then her mountain was now open to settlement by whoever ruled over them.

The only hope was that their ruler did not have the strength to fight her. Then she could dictate terms and prevent them from hunting her protectees.

She shook her head at those who deemed everyone different than them as monsters. Monsters themselves had to be hunted as long as a way to free them from their hatred was not figured out. Even They did not know why monsters possessed such hatred, her hatred having only disappeared after reaching the rank of EX.

The rules They gave were simple: fight monsters and don’t fight each other. It was simple to differentiate monsters from biota simply by whether they had a rank or not, or the presence of a mana heart, and yet wars were still fought and unusual biota killed.

She hoped whoever came was reasonable and followed her directions. No matter how useful it was to Them, destroying nations was not something she enjoyed.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Artdraen observed the mountain and the surroundings. So she was the cause. Although, if she was supposed to be protecting them, why did they still have to fight with monsters? None of them seemed in immediate danger of extinction, but plenty of individuals died. In fact, an enormous creature was making its way from the outer edge of the forest towards the mountain. Dangerous creatures were being chased out of their territory and into the villages of sapients.

Still, they gave Isifil quite the detailed look. A creature with True Faith to Lesser Gods? It wasn’t supposed to be possible. Only Greater Gods and up could bestow True Faith. ….That meant it wasn’t bestowed.

They contemplated the possibilities of using a Lesser God’s power rather than a Greater God’s. It would be weaker, but the power could be used for longer. Many of what this universe called EX rank individuals approached demi-god level, and if someone of that level could borrow the power of a Lesser God, then they might even be able to make it their own. They would have to report this to the others as it could increase their war potential. Although, where they got the information would be a secret.

Their intrigue into the mountain’s situation soon fizzled out as nothing proved to be dangerous to Ian, so they ignored the creatures that infested the swamp, the large caverns that made the canyon porous, the newly burgeoning underwater city at the bottom of the lake, and the numerous villages sprinkled up and down the mountain.

Their focus flew past the waving grass of the plains on which the herds of Buff Buffalo, six legged creatures of pure muscle, with spiral horns as tall as their body at eight feet tall, roamed. Villages slowly trickled into view at the edge of the plains, these villages soon turned into towns with brick roads, and eventually led to a large city with concrete roads.

Sectioned stone walls, two hundred feet high surrounded the city. The city itself was a vast expanse starting from the shacks that were present outside the walls, to the towering palace in the center. Smaller walls of only fifty feet separated the city into districts both parallel and perpendicular to the outer wall. The most prominent feature, besides the palace, that interested Artdraen was the Tower District.

Towers that came in all shapes and sizes sprung up from the ground, from ones that extended above the outer walls to ones that most would hesitate to call a tower. One tower would normally have been called an arch except for the fact that its roof was, in fact, resting on the ground. Others spiraled like double helixes. A few split to form two roofs, while more had multiple bases that merged into a single roof. However, the most interesting tower was not a tower at all, but an enormous daisy that moved throughout the Tower District.

Their focus shifted to the moderately powerful entity present on the top floor of the daisy. It seemed they were still out of luck, this one didn’t want to speak their thoughts out loud either.

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Ruth Arber stared out window towards Broken Sky Mountain. Her face, wrinkled with age, maintained intense focus on the mountain. The potted plants on the windowsill peared out the window with her in an attempt to see what had her so serious. However, they only saw the same view as always.

Eventually Ruth’s face sagged and she sighed to herself before muttering, “Nothing.”

Her finger brushed her short, grey hair over her ear in contemplation. She could have sworn she felt a familiar mana signature coming from the mountain, but it had been barely a blip. To even receive a blip from such a distance and in such mana density meant whatever she felt was powerful. Except it was now just a part of the mass of mana that constantly emanated from the mountain.

A chair formed of the softest cellulose beneath her as she sat down giving an occasional glance out the window. Her shimmering robe laid perfectly upon the chair to prevent wrinkles, every edge embroidered with the finest jewels and fossilized sap. She reached her hand over and the table with her steaming tea moved over within reach. A quick sip of the blueish-green tea calmed her.

Even if it was just a minor blip that she could have easily mistaken, it needed investigating. However, no matter how much influence she had over her son, there was no way he would agree to a mission based of off that specific mana signature. If only she hadn’t been so manic about finding the mage who could make the entire night turn to day, then convincing him would have been easier.

Ruth stared into her tea contemplating what would make the Emperor agree to such a trip. As the steam from her tea slowly disappeared, it clicked. The Elves! She knew they had mana readers constantly trained on that mountain, even if her son’s orders were to focus all of them towards the Bug Lord. She chuckled to herself. If they detected a change in mana over a couple month period, then they’d have to check to make sure it wasn’t a dungeon. Of course, it would still take longer as the Elves would fight tooth and nail to say it wasn’t a dungeon, but she had a reason to go, so they wouldn’t get their way.

Now all she needed to do was apply some pressure to the Elven Council and Ailen. She’d get her trip.

A knock on the door broke her wide grin, converting it back into the often assumed stoic wisdom and comfort of the elderly. She internally scoffed at the idea with so many individuals living longer than average, with most not showing signs of wrinkles until hundreds or thousands of years after the average person.

“Come in.”

A middle aged butler with slicked back blonde hair and a well trimmed goatee, wearing a white suit entered the room and kneeled, “His Imperial Majesty, Vel Armor Arber, requests the presence of Her Imperial Majesty, the Prime Magus, Ruth Lollia Arber.”

“Very well. Tell my son I will meet with him within the hour. You may leave.”

The butler stood up, bowed, turned on a heel, and eloquently left the room.

She sipped her now lukewarm tea. It seemed it would be a good time to tell Vel her plan. Her leaving the imperial capital would necessitate his permanent presence here for an unknown amount of time along with a possible recall of part of the army. He would definitely not be happy at that.

She stood up with a flutter of her robe and walked over to the staff floating in the center of the room. Black wood pulsed with energy as it entwined with a globe of fossilized, golden sap at the top. Encased within the sap was a white lotus with red veins running through its leaves.

The Prime Magus, Ruth Arber, grasped the staff and felt its power rush through her. Prepared to meet her son, she walked out the door.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Most of the contents were quite boring to Artdraen, but they were glad to find another admirer of Ian’s magic usage. That day was quite the impressive light magic display. They had only seen something similar in mages that sealed away their ability to use anything but light mana. The fools they were.

They checked out the Emperor the mage was going to meet, the only EX rank in the nation that broadcasted it. His lust for power and superiority complex were droll, at least his mother had an interest in magic. The other EX ranks were the reclusive sort and unlikely to even go to Ian’s dungeon, except for one. And they almost felt sorry for that last one. Most dungeons wouldn’t do anything about him, but they knew Ian. If that man moved his process to Ian’s dungeon, then he was liable to die.

Artdraen gave cursory glances at the Gnome Protectorate and Naga Protectorate to the south of the main Thubian Empire, the State of Dragonians to the east of the protectorates, the Elven Forests that encompassed the northeast, and the Dwarven Stronghold that situated itself in the puny mountain range of the southeast.

The only thing that drew any interest whatsoever from them was the gnome’s ability to enchant. The gnomes provided the empire with quite the technological superiority. Some of their inventions looked similar to the technology they were familiar with, but the gnomes’ guns had far less fire power but fewer drawbacks such as drop distance and loading time.

Eventually their vision moved past the eastern mountain range into a decimated land. The buildings were collapsed, wooden structures had rotted, and uncared for roads were broken. However, that did not mean this area was uninhabited.

Bugs swarmed over the land, living in every nook and cranny. They constantly produced more and more bugs, as the ones not in combat near the mountains or on the eastern front had sex over and over again. The creatures inhabiting this region did not simply consist of insects, but arachnids and myriapods too.

While the abundance of biotic bugs was itself amazing, the number of monster bugs larger than the size of a human head was what was truly impressive. Swarms of low rank monster bugs bashed themselves against the magic barriers maintained by the armies present in the Thubian Empire’s mountain range. Periodically the swarms would break the barriers allowing the more powerful monsters to launch their attacks.

When these monsters launched their attacks, they knew they weren’t coming back. As suicide fighters, they proved immensely dangerous and each barrier break slowly reduced the number of able bodied individuals. The worst part for the Thubian Empire was these suicide fighters were quickly and frequently replenished by the high fecundity of the Bug Lord’s minions.

The current stalemate maintained at the Thubain Empire was not present on eastern side of the Bug Lord’s territory. Her boundless armies were currently marching into the Kingdom of Heroes, Unsung. However, Unsung’s mighty armies marched to meet them.

The two armies were currently fighting it out on a large open field. The cavalry of Unsung charged at the flank of the bug horde, their speed breaking the sound barrier. Their charge cleaved the army of low rank monsters in two. Body parts flew hundreds to thousands of feet into the air before falling back to the ground with enough force to splat a few more monsters.

The bug army was endless, but the army of Unsung proved proficient in providing breaks and efficient in mana usage. All on the frontlines never tired as they were quickly replaced by a more able bodied individual. However, no matter how well the fight seemed to be going, the general of the army seemed unhappy.

After a quick mind read by Artdraen, it seemed the general was unhappy about the Heroes returning to the capital of their own accord approximately a week ago. The only reason given was a bad feeling. They could win without the Heroes, but it would take much longer leaving the capital without protection. The general wanted to send a contingent with them, but he could not leave the approaching army alone.

Artdraen was about to move their vision to the capital as a beam of light deposited itself into the generals hands. The light soon transformed itself into words that appeared before the general.

‘The capital will soon be lost and your army flanked. Save as many as you can. Unsung is no more.’

The general’s face shifted from a frown and grimace to a blank stare. Tears started to drop down his cheeks as he started issuing orders. His officers saluted him with tears in their eyes and started to fulfill their orders.

Artdraen shifted their vision away from the lost battle and moved to the capital. Two shimmering black centipedes, three hundred feet tall, had devastated the wall half their size and were now crushing house after house. A butterfly, with a body of pulsing flesh, stubs for arms and legs, and a face consisting of black holes for eyes, a nose, and a mouth, spread dust throughout the burning city. Each individual that was touched by the dust decayed within minutes. Plenty of other creatures performed their duties of destroying and consuming all life in the city, but Artdraen’s focus was on one individual in particular: the Bug Lord.

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A humanoid insect stood on the head of a towering centipede. Polished dark green chitin as hard as adamantite covered her body. Enormous compound eyes and protruding mandibles made up her head. Wings similar to a dragonfly’s sprouted from her back. Her fingers, thumbs, and toes were pointed into sharp claws rather than the rounded tips of most sapients.

She glanced at the devastated city with an impassionate gaze. These deaths were required as her subordinates reproduced at a much faster rate, but killing so many sapient individuals would be a net loss in the short term. She needed to find a way to increase the fecundity of her more intelligent creatures as the mana cost for allowing them out of the dungeon was even higher since she disconnected.

She noticed a dungeon in the center of the city and sent out a thought order to make sure none of her subordinates entered it. They would deal with the dungeons only after they had firmly established themselves.

The Bug Lord glanced at the scratch on the chitin of her forearm before looking towards the palace. Those heroes were quite strong for people that spouted out about justice. That kind usually died out early or were recruited by the Dungeon Fighters. If she could capture them, they would make great dissection subjects.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

“You fools!” roared John Rescola the Fifth. “I told you the Bug Lord was far beyond what you are currently capable of! Yet, you rushed off like idiots!”

“But the people of the city are being massacred!” shouted the buxom blonde wearing white priest robes.

“That’s right! Are we expected to sit back and do nothing?!” the black haired, round faced, pale, skinny man, with single-edged eyelids growled angrily.

“Yes! You must accept that the Kingdom is lost and live to fight another day. Why? Because the Bug Lord will not stop at our Kingdom, she will continue until she loses or all sapient life is gone!” the king argued.

“So we just sit on our asses and wait to die?!”

“Do you never listen, you pigheaded hero?! I already said we are making a teleportation formation to transfer all of you to what we hope are strong individuals that will train you. Once they do, then you can come back and defeat the Bug Lord!” finished the king as he covered his face with his right hand and sighed. “Sarah even helped located the individuals over a year ago.”

The six foot tall, dark skinned girl with a short afro nodded at the black haired man, “I told you multiple times, Hiro.”

Hiro scratched his cheek, “Jessica? Conor?”

The buxom blonde and the burly, bearded, redhead of six feet five inches tall nodded back.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“We assumed you knew,” Jessica’s high pitch voice spoke up. “Besides, we all wanted to fight the Bug Lord anyway!”

Conor simply nodded in agreement.

Hiro spun towards the king and pointed at him, “That’s right, your Majesty! We knew and went anyway!”

John Rescola the Fifth had his face in both his hands and muttered to himself, “Why are the summoned heroes always so strong, but such idiots.” He brought his face back up and glared at the four causing them to flinch, “It seems all of you still have much to learn and the teleportation formation is completed, so leave and become stronger. It may seem like you are abandoning us, but as long as you return to slay the Bug Lord you will keep your promise you all made to me on the day I summoned you. As with all summoned heroes, you do not have the common sense of this world and believe that everyone can be saved. This is not true. So go Heroes, and return before the Bug Lord destroys the world.”

“Why are we the only ones being sent?! Can’t we save more people?!” pleaded Jessica, her short height contrasting with Sarah and Conor.

“....I did not want to say this as it would burden you, but the mana cost of just sending you four over such a distance will likely kill all the Royal Mages.”

Hiro yelled angrily, “They didn’t die when you originally summoned us! Why would they die now?!”

“The Gods help us with summoning now. The first summoning that was performed took the lives of more powerful and ten times as many mages. Before the Gods interceded, our ancestors were adamant to seal the summoning formation away.” Loud bangs and screams echoed outside the grand doors to the throne room, “Enough questions. We’re out time. Will you four go willingly or must I force you?”

“We’ll go,” Hiro snarled as he glanced at the man with two daggers at the king’s side with grey bed hair.

The heroes left and walked down the stairs with heavy steps. As they left, the king stood up from his throne with a grunt and heaved the greatsword behind his throne onto his shoulder. His long garish robe fell to the floor and all that remained was an old warrior, with full sideburns, covered in scale armor.

“Ready, my friend?” the king asked the dagger wielding rogue.

“Always,” he responded as the two daggers, glowing white, appeared in his hands.

The doors burst open, and they met their fate.

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Artdraen followed the teleportation of the heroes with interest over the vast ocean to the north. A couple of nations later, and they arrived in a very familiar place.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Estella listened to the king drone on once again about finding a mage of Ian’s calibre. She felt like punching him again. Most wondered why he was still alive after suggesting it the first time, but she knew this was his way to cope with Ian’s death. Besides, killing a good king for such an inane reason wasn’t politically sound.

She ran her hands through her shoulder length brown hair as her piercing green eyes stared at the king. He had moved onto discussing future plans for the dungeons. Should they stick with Ian’s plans or move back to how they used to do it? Ian’s plans had reduced the amount of deaths overall, but now good adventurers were dying to new hidden traps instead of just the overwhelming number of stupid ones.

If Ian was here, the new traps would have been figured out in no time. Her eyes drooped in memory before she shook herself out of it. She needed to stop moping around. While she would never forget how much she loved him, her combat and political skills had decreased enough to even be observable by the other nobles over the last year. Moving on was hard, but it needed to be done.

Space distorted and a loud explosion occurred in the central square of the city. In less than a second, before the explosion had finished, Estella had sprinted through the entrance and the city, took in the four young individuals that appeared, leg sweeped all four of them, tied them up, and gagged them.

Soon after a pair of robed mages with pointy, wide brimmed hats appeared with a blink. A musclebound, auburn haired, statue of a man landed after he leaped from the adventurer’s guild. One of the books currently in the hands of a spectator flew up and transformed into woman with long, abyss black hair. Said spectator simply stared at the woman before throwing his hands up in the air and walking away.

“Fast as always Estella,” joked Nina, the book woman.

“You’re all just slow,” Estella smirked back.

“No injures. It seems the explosion was simply loud,” interrupted Mackenzie as she adjusted her hat over her dark green hair and pointed ears.

Andre, his long orange hair tied up in a ponytail, piped up, “There are traces of space and time magic present. I don’t know why they used time, space would have been sufficient.” He began stroking his cleanly shaved chin, while his pointed ears twitched, “Although, this seemed to be a movement through space rather than a single step. It’s possible time magic is needed to prevent the transfer from taking forever and those involved from being lost to whatever it is we traverse through.”

“Sounds good,” Seth, the adventurer’s guild master, gave a thumbs up. “Estella and I’ll interrogate these four, while you two and Nina investigate the area.” He hoisted two of the captives on each shoulder, making sure to split the weight as evenly as possible given their different sizes.

“Wait, Seth,” Nina called out. “You always forget you need a mage to make sure they can’t cast curses or their voices don’t have some sort of charming power.”

“I know that Nina,” he scoffed, “I was going to get-” he stopped and bit his lower lip, “Right, you come with us Nina.”

She only nodded in response as the happy-go-lucky attitude they all presented faded with the burgeoning memories.

The three of them walked back to the castle, waving at the guardsman that rushed to the scene. While Seth took the four to the interrogation room, Estella informed the king of the situation. Afterwards, she went with Nina to begin the interrogation with Seth.

It took Nina around half an hour to cast all the spells that prevented every kind of magic from minor to major that could be used to interrupt or prevent their interrogation magics and techniques. At the end she was sweating up a storm, and still wondered how Ian could do it in five minutes and still have enough mental power to do a deep dive into multiple minds.

“All right let’s begin,” said Estella as she removed the gag from the glaring, black haired youth.

“How dare you tie us up?! We are Heroes! We have come-” his voice became muffled as Estella placed the gag back on him.

She and Seth glanced at each other before shaking their heads and moving on to the next one. The blond haired priest just shivered in fright and the red haired man didn’t say anything. However, the dark skinned mage spoke quickly and to the point.

“Hello, my name is Sarah. We were sent her by the king of the….former Kingdom of Heroes, Unsung. We are the four heroes they summoned from another world, and he sent us here in the hopes that you would train us to defeat the Bug Lord that is terrorizing nations across the ocean.”

“Another world?” wondered Seth with a raised eyebrow. He turned to Estella, “Is that where Ian stored all his stuff?”

“No, he made his own pocket dimensions for that,” she said with a smirk.

“Right.”

Sarah began, “Another world is-”

“Little lady, I don’t really care,” said Seth as he brought his hand up. “Tell me about this Bug Lord.”

Sarah stuttered, “A-Alright. She is believed to be a rogue dungeon. However, no one knows which dungeon. All we’ve seen is her and her boundless armies.”

Seth, Estella, and Nina’s faces showed no difference, but they all internally twitched. Seth and Estella turned to Nina who nodded.

“Fine, we’ll train you.” Sarah grew a smile on her face and hope started to appear in the other three’s eyes before Seth interrupted them, “However, if we don’t like how you’re training or your progress after a year, we’ll kick you to the curb. You all have problems. Even though the little lady ended up being right, she should have tried to figure out if we were the right people before telling us all of that. What if we had connections to the Bug Lord?” She paled at that. “Still,” he turned to the other three, “she’s the best of you four. Especially compared to the one with the black hair and his shitty god complex.” The black haired one glared and struggled in his ropes, while the other two had their heads down and looked sullen.

“Also, before we begin your training, we need more than the fact that the Bug Lord is believed to be a rogue dungeon. Such as what she looks like,” Seth ordered. All but the god complex nodded in response.

Seth rubbed his brow. This was going to be annoying, but a rogue dungeon needed to be dealt with. They couldn’t leave Soris unprotected, so they would have to train these little shits. They were even worse than snot-nosed adventurers. At least snot-nosed adventurers soon realized that no matter how arrogant they were, they were still weak. These Heroes, however, had strength but not maturity. He wanted to strangle the king who called them Heroes. All that did was stroke their ego. He glanced at Estella who only gave him a shrug.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Artdraen’s vision flew back across the ocean. They were glad for Ian. It seemed his friends and loved ones were doing well.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Nina glanced towards the disappearing presence. Was it looking for Ian? It had disappeared the same day Ian died, so she had assumed it knew. Was she wrong? If she was wrong, then….no. She wouldn’t do that to herself. Hope had nearly destroyed her before she found Ian, and she couldn’t go through that again. The presence continued to tickle the back of her mind, but most of her focus shifted to the task of teaching the heroes from another universe.