Chapter 5: Tyrant

Time left: 00:45:04

Edard waited for Calgon to regain consciousness, he needed to ask him specific questions on the corpse. He tried reading Calgon's stamina. Like any other Acquired skill the notification popped up.

You have gained the skill Dragon Pupils.

You can detect the stamina of your opponent by focusing your energy on them.

Activate skill? Y/N?

You have one slot remaining. Choose wisely.

He had one slot remaining, if he lost it he would have no chance no matter which skill popped up. Besides, he needed no magic to know Calgon was unconscious. The next few minutes would decide whether he kept the corpse or not.

A few minutes later, Calgon woke up and the first thing he blurted was, "you are a Dé, you are from that family of Dé! How did you get our Contract?"

The sudden revelation came as a shock and Edard took it as another attempt to deceive him.

Intimidation activated.

Target will be stunned for 2 secs

Calgon spaced-out for two seconds and when he regained his composure he was visibly terrified. Besides stunning the target, Intimidation left an aftereffect that would make the target more cooperative. The aftereffect was mostly from fear and failure of the target to control his senses. It could last up to ten seconds after the initial Intimidation.

"Why?" Edard asked, holding a Dragon-essence dagger to his neck.

"Only they could cast a Curse on longevity as... you just did."

Although he stuttered, Edard understood what he had said. Apparently, magic was fragmented between the superpowers. In the same way the Báyir empire controlled earth element the family of Dé controlled the longevity Curse. You could easily be identified from the magic you used. Did that made Kalhari a Dé since he used the Curse? Maybe that was why he couldn't withstand the Curse?

"Tell me everything you know about the family of Dé." Edard felt it was necessary, considering the identity of the first person who had tried to kill him.

"Nobody knows much about them. They like to seclude themselves, away from any civilization. They hunt Outsiders."

"Outsiders?!"

"You know, people who came from an outside realm." Calgon explained.

He supposedly belonged to a family that hunted his kind. Wasn't that the definition of an irony? He didn't believe it and had no intention of discussing it with Calgon, so he changed the topic, pointing at the corpse on his back. "What do you know about this woman?"

"Princess Nusi Déniz? She suspiciously went missing immediately after last year's slave auction, together with a hundred thousand slaves."

"Princess Nusi Déniz? Are you sure you are not mistaking. This one is Nusi..."

Edard stopped to confirm.

Nusi Kil'zanki, Human, Female, Deceased.

"...Kil'zanki. Except if the two names meant the same."

"Kil'zanki? Never heard of it. I'm certain that woman is Nusi Déniz, the crown princess of House Déniz."

Edard sighed inwardly. Maybe they were twins? But twins would have the same surname.

As if reacting to Edard's confusion Calgon pointed at his pocket. "Check my pocket."

Edard carefully retrieved a medium-sized bounty poster with the picture of Nusi on it. She looked exactly the same and the name was Nusi Déniz not Nusi Kil'zanki. Maybe she was secretly adopted but why would a noble house resort to such a roundabout method?

"How much for her head?"

"One-billion." He answered.

"One-billion?!" Edard exclaimed. Even if it corresponded to the poorest currency on Earth one billion was crazy.

"The bounty was assigned by the royal family, it would have been higher if the Salvation Army was behind it. After all, the princess is a suspect in a major slavery scandal." Calgon explained.

Salvation Army and slavery scandal, a question for another time. It reminded him of the slaves in the Reservoir dungeon. Edard mulled it over before he pocketed the bounty poster and moved to the next topic.

"Why is everyone claiming the ownership of this dungeon?" He asked.

"The dungeon dimension is very competitive, young dungeons tend to be unstable because they don't have enough nature energy to hold them in place. The older a dungeon is the more nature energy it has and the more stable it becomes. Unstable dungeons can be easily moved which means they can be stolen. Dungeon thieves, especially among the rebel leagues, are quite common. This is definitely their doing." Calgon explained with a blank expression.

Edard blinked several times before he responded. "Dungeon thieves?"

"Yes, very smart and capable thieves!" Calgon exclaimed, "to think they even stole Luffy of the Báyir empire... Luffy is one of the oldest dungeons we have, the Fly City was built around it. But somehow they emptied all the nature energy that hold it in place, and then stole it."

Luffy? Edard's heart skipped a beat. He remembered the name, it was among the dungeons he had emptied. The information said it belonged to Báyir empire. But Edard stole no dungeon, he only depleted the nature energy. What the hell happened?

"How do you plan on getting the dungeons back?" Edard asked.

Calgon sighed. "It will be difficult. In the last five centuries the thieves have developed a terrifying technique. They use dungeon crystals to build isolated dungeon entrances without the real dungeon. It looked foolish when they started it, but we later realized such dungeon entrance serves as a powerful suction that attracts unstable dungeons. The older an entrance is, the more its suction power increases. Last two decades, the empires formed an alliance and started hunting such dungeon entrances. Over ten-thousand have been destroyed, but the rebels always build more. Normally, after the theft the thieves will hide the stolen dungeon for years, but this thief is overconfident. He even advertises his position. Look at this."

Calgon pointed at the map on the back of the poster. Edard wasn't good at reading maps but he could see large dots that represented mountains. In between the mountains was their position, represented by two red dots. On the other side of the mountains was another dot of green color, representing the stolen dungeons.

"He advertises it?" Edard asked, looking shocked.

"Yes, he does." Calgon said, "Any Enhanced map can pinpoint its position. I'm sure people all over are already on their way here. The longer you wait the more difficult it will be to claim the dungeons back."

Edard finally understood. He didn't build the entrance but he brought the dungeons there which made him the accidental thief. Who built the entrance and why? How did they even knew he would empty the dungeons? Heck, he didn't even know he would do it three hours ago. Coincidence or conspiracy? Either way, no one knew he was the culprit and he intended to stay that way. He considered killing Calgon because of the corpse but Sinta and Dario had also seen it, making Calgon a lesser risk. What really bothered him about Calgon was the Contract, left alive he would undoubtedly pursued the matter which would create further problems for him. After minutes of deliberating he decided to silence Calgon. Giving the opportunity, the man would kill him right away and then broadcast his improper usage of earth element to the empires.

You have killed an enemy at the secondary awakening.

+4 free attributes points.

After that he ran to the opposite side of the mountain and dug a grave. He reluctantly put Nusi inside and replace the earth. He had forty-five minutes from Calgon and he was pretty sure he could get longevity in the dungeon. Taking the corpse had its benefits but it just couldn't outweigh the risk. Especially, after realizing she had two identities: a Déniz princess and a Kil'zanki whatever.

He made a note in his mind.

Never pick a corpse again.

Stay away from the (real) dungeon thieves.

Raid the dungeon for longevity

Check out family of Dé and the Curse

Find a library

He scouted the area using his Interracial Communication for any useful information but most of the teams in range had decided to keep their mouths shut. He headed toward the entrance.

Ten steps away from the corpse and he received a dangerous warning.

You are running low on longevity!!

Net longevity: -4:05:44

You will die in three seconds.

Minus four hours? He immediately understood what happened. It had been four hours since he found the corpse which meant he'd been running on credit ever since.

No time to deliberate. He used his fastest speed to dig up the grave and took the corpse out.

Time left: 00:00:01

The forty-five minutes was used to pay the credit and he only had one second remaining. He wouldn't be doing any experiments anytime soon and he was taking the corpse. The risk of dying outweighed everything.

Tyrant

One-hundred dungeon cores came together to form a Master Core with only one purpose: to survive. The Master Core had one-hundred floors under its control, each of which had enough power to stand as a dungeon. This made the Master Core a Hybrid, a rare and intelligent dungeon. Because of this its enemies were also great. They came from powerful organizations, claiming its ownership and planning to loot it.

The body of this Master Core was a large polygonal blue crystal that lived inside a secret room on the last floor. All the Master Core could think about was survival. In his memory, there was only one way a dungeon could survive; becoming more powerful. And there were two ways a dungeon could increase its power. First, it could attract adventurers into it and then devour them to take their longevity and life energy. Second, by producing abundant nature in its surroundings to attract cultivators to live around it. Whoever cultivate using the dungeon's nature energy would give the dungeon ether in return. The ether would be used in building the dungeon.

If I can create enough nature energy in the surrounding, people are bound to come. This was the Master Core's first instinct before he checked his status.

Name: Master Core (assign a new name, Y/N?)

Hierarchy: Hybrid

Composition: One-hundred dungeons

Assign dungeons: [Tier-1? Tier-2? Tier-3? Ancient-rank? Archaic-rank? Immortal-rank?

Longevity(years): 1,217 years

Life energy: 2050/2050(20/sec)

Internal Body

•Monsters: [Choose a starting monster for every floor?] [Keep original monsters for every floor?]

•Floors and Puzzles: ????

•Time limit: Assign time limit for every floor, Y/N?

External Body

•Surrounding adventurers: 92

•Nature energy density: 0.4/m²

•Longevity gain: 1 day/10 hours

•Ether gain: 12/minute

The Master Core sighed in his own way. He knew there were things he needed time to sort out and there were things that could not wait. Things like his name, he thought.

What the heck is Master Core? I need a new name. A dominating name that will inspire fear in the heart of whoever hears it. A name like.... The Master Core fell silent again thinking about it. After a while he smiled, he had finally found a suitable list.

Bloodshed, Tyrant, Monster, Black, Fire, Acid, Death, Blood, Hell, Demon...

He looked at the names for a long time before he nodded.

Tyrant it is!! His choice was because 'Tyrant' sounded evil but not evil enough to send adventurers away. He needed those adventurers to gain power and popularity. Death, Bloodshed, Fire, and the rest would send his prey away.

Are you sure you want to change your name to Tyrant? Y/N?

You can't change name again.

Master Core changed his name to Tyrant. After that he turned his attention to the 'Type' of dungeon he should assign as the first floor. As a hundred floor dungeon, adventurers would come no matter what type of dungeon it was. The question was what type would serve his best interest?

It was simple. What Tyrant cared about the most was survival, so he chose the Tier-1 dungeons to occupy the first floor. He put the Tier-2 on the second floor and the Tier-3 on the third floor. For the first three floors he set it as a one-way dungeon: no one would go out without conquering them all. He also chose the time-limit for the first floor to be four-hours.

His ether, longevity and life energy would come in handy when he decided to create a monster, an additional floor or to set up a trap.

The Internal Body was almost set with every floor retaining its original monsters and traps. All he needed was to rearrange them based on the difficulty from the first to the last floor. He would change the setting but that would take time and resources he didn't have. Since many teams would be on the first floor he assigned different doors to the different dungeons. Such that only one team would be in a dungeon.

As for the External Body, Tyrant started with a low nature energy. He needed to produce enormous amount of nature energy to attract more adventurers so he could gain more power. At first, Tyrant thought there was no need to haste, it could wait. However, to his surprise, in a few hours over two-hundred powerful foes had arrived. Their intentions wasn't to cultivate in his nature energy or to adventure in his floors, but to disband him. They wanted to unmake him.

A sudden hatred came to his mind, he was friendly to them. Yet they took his friendship for granted. But no matter how much hatred he harboured he couldn't kill them until they entered. He needed adventurers to come and cultivate in his nature energy. Tyrant thought for a while before he decided.

If they won't cultivate here then I'll just attract other people to cultivate. Maybe even build a city. As he decided, he created a live interface that could transmit the things that happened inside the dungeon to adventurers. People would definitely come to watch. He needed to be careful about his puzzles and traps: under no circumstances would he broadcast those.

Set up a live video feed to the audience, Y/N?

Tyrant hit yes.

Edard

Edard used his undershirt to cover the corpse from the neck up. He took a minute to collect himself before he jumped through the entrance. Everything blurred for a second before he found himself in the dark void that connected the entrance to the new gate. The temperature was normal and there was nothing but silence.

Welcome to Tyrant.

You are allowed to use a three-man team.

Failure to finish the first floor in four hours means death.

Three-man team? Edard mused as he saw Dylas standing in front of the second gate. Edard had seen a similar body in adventure movies but this one had three pairs of legs instead of the usual two.

Dylas Ji Chi, Horsekin, male, Runic Healer level 10/10(secondary), Warrior level 10/10(secondary).

His little brown eyes stared at Edard curiously.

Edard wasn't sure Dylas could speak but he decided to break the silence anyway. "Waiting for someone?"

Dylas positioned his ears closer to Edard as if he couldn't hear him.

"Waiting for someone?" Edard repeated in a louder voice.

"Strange, very strange!!" Dylas blurted and then completely oblivious to Edard's confusion he trotted closer and sniffed the air around him. "Speak again, please."

"What are you doing?" Edard snapped, "haven't you seen a man before?"

"But you are not a man."

Edard was a dragonelf but he didn't expect Dylas to know that. Sinta, Dario and Calgon didn't.

"I'm not a horse either." Edard probed.

"You are not but you are a demon, a Greater Demon unlike myself. What's the story behind the 'human' corpse?" Dylas pointed at the corpse. He was the first to recognize Nusi as a corpse.

"What are you doing here?" Edard asked, trying to deflect the focus away from him.

"I'm trapped." Dylas answered.

"Trapped? I don't understand, since when?"

"One-thousand years ago." Dylas answered with a smile. He was happy to have finally met a life after all these years. The conversation wasn't much but it gave him relief.

"One-thousand years? Where did you get the longevity?" Edard couldn't imagine how many hours were in those years.

"I was Blessed." Dylas said, looking at his timer. "Anyway, forget about that, people are coming." He pointed at the dim light behind them. It increased slowly and took the shape of a door.

"That is a sign someone is coming." Dylas said, "you and I make a team. What role would you fill in? I can tank and heal."

"Why should I team up with you?" Edard asked.

"I'm blessed with the ability to see a glimpse of the future through my dreams. I can draw expensive runes that can be sold for thousands of stones. Most of my runes are healing in nature but I can also erect a shield. This is my dungeon, I can kill you for trying to steal it from me but since I like you I'll give you an offer. Become my subordinate and let's conquer the damn thing."

"How does it becomes your dungeon?" Edard asked, ignoring the 'subordinate' part.

"Because I created this entrance one-thousand years ago." Dylas answered.

So much for avoiding the real thieves. "You are the thief?"

"Thief? What are you talking about? I stole from nobody!"

"Why did you build the entrance?" Edard asked, giving him the benefit of doubt.

Dylas hesitated but apparently he didn't have the restrain that Edard had. He went on to tell Edard everything that led to his imprisonment.

"What a nice story, if only it were true..."

"It is true." Dylas interrupted.

Edard pretended to believe him for the sake of continuing the conversation. "It sounded more like someone is playing with your mind, controlling you from the shadows."

"I know, I know but why? There is no purpose...no obvious purpose. I spent the last thousand years trying to figure it out but..."

"No luck?" Edard asked.

"None. But I will figure it out, eventually."

"Why don't you just go home?" Edard asked.

"Home? I can't go out." Dylas said.

"Why is that?" Edard asked.

"Because this is a one-way dungeon! We can only go out after we have conquered the dungeon and you can only enter as a three-man team. This is why I have been waiting. It's your choice, either you team up with me or somebody else."

Edard didn't know what a one-way dungeon was but he had realized the entrance had closed behind him as soon as he entered.

"Why didn't you join the other teams?" Edard asked.

"They were complete."

No matter who dylas was he needed him, he couldn't afford to wait. Besides, if he refused Dylas he would have to team up with another stranger.

"We still need another person, unless you are counting this one." Edard pointed at Nusi.