**diamonds point of view**

We had just entered the opposing dungeon. When i think of how those dirty anarchists made these walls I just shake with anger. How dare they destroy a bond as sacred as a dungeon and their assistants. Neither are meant to be controlled. And yet never does anyone think of this. Power. That’s all they care about.

We navigated for awhile, getting away from the endless streams of monsters going through the portal. How were there so many? We got two rooms in and saw a forked path, in which we went left, as there were no monsters coming from here. This proved to be both a good and a bad decision. Good, because there were no monsters, bad because it was a dead end. We’d be cornered if we’re found. I gesture, showing that we’re safe.

“That was epic!” Said Malaya, before splitting. She burst into light, before hematite and topaz were revealed, both panting with exhaustion and covered in sweat. An interesting development, considering they were made from crystal. I guess a fusion takes a lot out of you.

“Alright, you two stay here. Lapis, watch over them.” I did this to test lapis, the other gem with us, control. Should she fight, I’d know wether we can trust her for future battles. Fortunately she nodded. But hematite and topaz not so much. Before they could say something I intervened.

“Ok guys, this is how we’re continuing. Hematite, topaz, you to are exhausted. You can’t do anything right now, and we’ll need you later to help us get out. You saw how many monsters there were. They don’t just die when a core’s destroyed, no, all that happens is the dungeon loses control of them. There’s not a snowballs chance in hell in killing all of them, and even less of getting out without you guys. You two need to recover to get us out. We need you.” They nod, and while they’re reluctant, they still decide to stay and recover.

“Lapis, you need to guard them. Wit them focused on recovering they won’t be much use in a fight, should monsters discover you, your their defence. Jett, alexandrite, I want you two to focus on assassinating any big targets. With the dungeon focusing on making so many monsters, there won’t be that many. The only reason we don’t have any tier four monsters right now is because of bismuth building your cavern. Any big monsters will be a problem.

No direct confrontations, fight dirty and aim mostly on crippling. I’ll fly off for the core.” As they argued over my safety I cut them out.

“Even though I can’t access my gems powers, please remember, I spent over twenty years focusing on mana, spells and dungeons. I’m the best for the job.” They looked at me, grin a bit, and let me go. I sigh. How can a dungeon as young as bismuth, literally not even a day old, have sentient life. I’m supposed to have at least another twenty years to prepare for this sort of thing.

No, now’s not the time to focus on such things.

Closing my eyes, I sent out a pulse of mana, looking for a higher then usual concentration. I felt multiple, fast moving mana signatures closing in on the connecting portal. Bismuth will have his hands full. I felt all five other gems, and felt alexandrite closing in on a cluster of tightly packed mana, while jett moves towards a bigger mana signature.

Next I felt out the dungeons pathways. Usually the core is in the deepest one.

The biggest issue with this method is how mana intensive it is to use it, and dangerous. If someone doesn’t have an unyielding control over their mana and near perfect imagery for the spell, they will see it.

A being of such regard even the titans bow to it. It is omnipotent. It is omniscient. It is both death and life. It is the source of all mana in the entirety of the multiverse. It spans across all of the multiverse, and beyond, should the rumours be true.

All teleports, summons, time shifts, special anomalies and fluctuations, disturbances, elements, and more are the result of this being. Everything It dreams, thinks, ruminates, broods over all come true.

If someone were to draw its attention, then not even the gods or titans can help them. Even just witnessing its body, or the fraction that exists in our universe, can destroy a mortals mind. Their soul will leave their body and experience thousands of lifetimes worth of pain in a yoctosecond

(1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000th of a second. It is the second smallest unit of time.)

Usually their soul implodes under such suffering, or worse yet, the poor beings experience this pain eternally. They die, reincarnate and die again. Something about witnessing a being of such vast proportions destroys the mind and condemns them to an eternity of pain. When this happens their souls are no longer constrained under there universes law, and are free to reincarnate anywhere in the multiverse. We know when this happens, as the creature, be it infant or not, literally scream until their voice box explodes under the strain. They drain every bit of ambient mana and life energy before they die. Every universe has a monument at the direct centre, and on this monument is both the true name, and every other name given to each being to have this happen to them.

One of the best, possible outcomes almost always ends in insanity. It’s when the soul survives, and the being sends a piece of mana, tinier then even the smallest of molecules, towards the victim. It stops almost all the pain, and works to heal the tiny bit left.

The being takes an interest in you, however. It follows your life, and makes everything worse. Challenges are harder, and your luck is horrible. It goes from a ‘oops, I fell.’ To a, ‘oops, I fell, a sink hole opened up under me, and when I crawled out a building fell on me.’ And this becomes a normal thing to happen.

That tiny bit of mana has a cost. It takes things. Things that most don’t even know about. These are random and can’t be predicted.

The last recorded experience of this case was a dungeon that had over reached. It went insane, lost its sense of compassion and happiness. All things were a power source, or an advantage. It’s assistant tried to help it, but the dungeon was gone. Eventually the assistant was forced to kill the dungeon because of its heinous crimes.

*drip*

the sound of a tear hitting the floor came to me. I wiped my eyes. The only reason I’m taking these risks are because of the gems.

I told a small lie earlier to keep hematite and topaz still. When a dungeon core is destroyed, all creatures, including sentients, become feral. They slaughter all that is not of their own. I don’t know about gems, with their soul being inside of a gem, for all I know they could consider even the gem monsters kin, but I doubt it.

I have seen the footage of a dungeon, over one hundred floors, destroyed. It had a city of sentients on the fiftieth floor. Humans, elves, resonated, elemental, orcs, dragonewts, beast kin of every type and more lived here. They weren’t dungeon born. It was A genocide. Over a hundred thousand souls destroyed in an hour. Even the visiting family and merchants with no dungeon mana in them turned on one another.

Normally i wouldn’t care. Even cherubs and imps aren’t sentient until there fifth evolution, and they’re the fastest of every type of monster to become a type of sentient. but the gems were another deal entirely. After the first twenty, none were born.

And that’s the issue. One rule of the multiverse is that sentient races all start with twenty at first. Only twenty. Even if they are evolved monsters, only twenty can evolve. After that, never again can they be made. They can breed, spawn, split, create and more. For instance, demons and angels ‘bless’ or ‘curse’ imps and cherubs to become part of there sentient race. But only those original twenty sentients can do this. It’s A rule as old as time. if we lose, a sentient race will forever be gone. I can’t allow that.

I flew along the path that the monsters were coming from with a determined face. Nothing noticed me, flying as close to the walls as I could. I flew at break neck speeds. Through four rooms I went before I appeared in front of the core room. What was inside of it left me in shock. Two blue portals stood in the room. Coming out of one was goblins, and the other wisps. A goblin came out of his portal and immediately hunched over, evolving. after a second a gremlin stood in its place, before running off.

“How? Why? How could anyone willingly do this?” I was in shock

A soul devourer portal. All creatures have souls, from the smallest blade of grass to the most monstrous Eldridge horror. These portals are made by destroying the soul of a being, which not only causes immense pain, but also makes sure that never again will it ever reincarnate. It will then continuously create the same creature, and if you sacrifice more souls, more creatures appear. None created from these portals have a soul. Mindless robots designed for obedience. They evolve, like the original, and keep those evolutions after death, but why? Why would someone do something so horrendous.

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Said a voice behind me. Turning around I saw a water fairy. There was something familiar about her. I don’t know what.

“The perfect soldier. Remember me?” Seeing my confusion she continued while a crown formed atop her head.

“I was once mermaid empress.” Seeing my recognition, and subsequent horror, she laughs.

“Yes, you see what would have happened to your beloved bismuth. Well it matters not. You stole something of mine. I may never get it back, but I can get revenge.” She says, glancing at the portals. Realising what she was saying, I immediately screamed.

“NEVER!” A vine shot from the floor, reaching for her, but a high power shot of water cut it off.

“You think you can destroy my core. In my realm. Foolish child. I have waited years to become a dungeon, and never will I ever fall to such an ignorant...” before she could spit something else out, I shot five concentrated bolts of life all around me, mixing in some crystal into the mix. This was my most powerful spell, and had a massive boost of power after my bond. At the spots the bolts landed, a crystal plant or animal arose. One was a vine, and the other a flower. The other three were all animals, a wolf, a snake and a dove. These were my guardians. All twenty years of magic experience shot into one spell.

“You little ...” again interrupted, and growing more and more annoyed a thin needle of crystal was shot from the vine, almost hitting the fairy, but a quick turn made it merely leave a scratch. She winced. I looked closer and saw the scratch crystallise, and start crystallising the rest of her arm, albeit at an incredibly slow pace. Well, we’ll have to fix that won’t we. But first.

“Keep her busy, aim to wound and distract above killing blows.” I mentally commanded the guardians. I felt there acceptance. Next I flew towards the portal. First let me destroy the goblin one. To do so I would need to corrupt her portal with my mana and make it unstable. It would take awhile, but it would kill all the remaining monsters, and save bismuth. Slowly I started corrupting the portal while the other fairy fought my guardians. She tried to stop me, but every time she launched an attack she would receive a blow, speeding up the crystallisation. Bismuth must be doing incredibly well considering how she couldn’t call the goblins to her. I couldn’t out right destroy the crystal, as when it was gone, the portals would start expanding, and I can’t take the risk that they wouldn’t infiltrate our dungeons before the connecting portal cut, which would destroy the gems souls. They were elementals after all just like the wisps.

Slowly but surely I corrupted the goblins portal, managing to destroy one of the beings and get a count of the rest. There was fifty souls in here, I guess there’s forty nine left. Looking up I managed to catch her cut off the paw of the wolf, and saw the snake struggling to manoeuvre with a frozen tail. Slowly my guardians were losing, but at a price. Her left leg was crystallised completely, and her right wing had a crystal needle pierced through it. Unfortunately I couldn’t stop this, as now I had started, if I stopped, even a tiny bit, the portal would become unstable.

“AHHHHHH!!!” She screamed aloud as a glancing blow shattered her crystallised leg. To do this however, cost the dove it’s life, as a retaliating blade of water cut it in half. While she did this the wolf managed to get a good slash across the back, dismembering both wings and rendering an arm useless. At a pitch I thought impossible to reach, the fairy screamed out while her blood streamed down her back, creating a small pool under her feet. I noticed the flower pulse before the bleeding stopped, and it crystallised. I guess that’s what that does.

The snake lunged forward, but was caught by a bolt of high pressure water, shattering its head. This wasn’t enough to stop it however, as The shards from its body were still hurtling towards her, and with a horrified look she raised a barrier, but couldn’t stop a small chip from gouging out her eye. She screamed a haunting, mind bending orchestra of pain as her eye exploded. Red hot blood shot out, before bleeding enough to make her pale. The flower pulsed, and the wound crystallised. She continued screeching her agony to the world as she fought, using more and more vicious attacks. She completely forgot about me, focusing on the instruments of her pain.

Covered in blood, crying out unholy wails, missing her left leg, both wings, a few fingers, her eye and still fighting. and yet all I saw was a hypocrite. This wasn’t even half the pain those souls she destroyed had felt. And if she died, she would come back fine. But these creatures won’t. So while I didn’t enjoy her pain, I did not stop it. It was recompense for all she had done.

I was done. Not shouting the triumph I felt, for fear of being discovered, I realised that I had control of the portal. I destroyed the portal. The goblins stopped leaving. That should have stopped the flood. Looking towards the wisps, I saw a couple becoming humanoid. The third step. They gain consciousness here. Nothing special, they were like an animal, but still, they could fight. They were now tier two. I ran to the portal and started corrupting it, taking over, but I new one thing for sure. I won’t survive this.

My dove, my snake, and my vine were gone. The wolf had a missing leg, and big chunks of it missing. The only reason it was still alive was because the fairy was so blind with rage, she couldn’t focus enough to form more powerful spells. She was also crippled, now missing her right leg. The flower was fine, but not for long, as it was more for support. As well as that, my mana was nearly empty.

Suddenly I felt a flash of panic, and then of pain. It was coming from the bond. Bismuth was in trouble! What can I do. This pain, it’s immense. WHAT IS SHE DOING TO HIM!!!

I saw the wolf sacrifice it’s self by taking the the fairy’s remaining arm. Now a quadriplegic, almost entirely crystallised, she turned her head and crushed the flower. Next, water gathered around her and lifted her, allowing her to get closer to me. She started laughing a deranged laugh, but was silenced as her mana faltered, dropping her and shattering her. With just a head remaining, she screamed out.

“SAVE ME!!!” Before she died.

Now it was just me and and the portal. Normally I would have no problem, but if had to keep up my most powerful spell and still destroy another portal. I’d spent my whole life practicing, and while I could draw from bismuth, he was in trouble, and I couldn’t risk it. I’d only destroyed ten beings, and while the river had turned to a stream, it wasn’t enough. I saw a silhouette appear in the door way.

“Diamond!” Shouted jett. He sprinted towards the core.

“Stop!” I Said when he was next to me. He nodded, and then alexandrite appeared with a tired hematite, topaz, and lapis. Lapis immediately asked.

“How can we help?”

“I need mana!”

“How?”

“Imagine it flowing towards me.” It was all I could say. I felt their mana come to me, but it still wasn’t enough. I guess this is it.

There were ten beings left. But we had no mana left. It was all I could do to keep it stable. I was even siphoning off of bismuth. It was over. The gems would die. I would die. Bismuth would die. What can I do. Bismuth and I can regenerate, but the rest couldn’t. Stop thinking of this like a real life diamond, it isn’t. Using this logic, I started scraping my being. I took every scrap of mana left. Mana exhaustion had previously set in, but now, now it was mana starvation. Not fatal if treated to soon. I carried on gathering mana, and it became mana separation, where my mana starts to rebel. This was fatal. I focused on the portal and closed it. I managed to shut it, and tell jett to shatter the core.

Then, with an exhausted, slightly pained sigh, I smiled, and let go. I died.