Hera, Blue, Bonnie, Helena, and Alex were walking up the tunnel towards the Sky Ruler's nest. Alex got home very late the previous day, so they decided to come here in the morning. The path to this dungeon was very different from what Hera remembered. During the past year, the guild worked with the dwarves to create a more comfortable tunnel that could allow people to come here without much trouble. Another new addition was the presence of an elevator that would cover most of the climb. Now, instead of taking hours to get to the dungeon, people took just around 20 minutes, including a very long elevator ride. Some people tried to make that ride shorter. However, making it too fast freaked the dwarves. They weren't used to elevators in general, and having one that could go up at 50 kilometers per hour or some crazy number like that, made all those who rode it get sick even with stabilizing spells.

The group had just arrived in front of the entrance. Here, there was a small waiting area much like one would see near most dungeons away from the city. Some people were around, mostly humans who had either just arrived or were passing by the town, but a few dwarves were here, ready to face the Griffons that haunted them for so long. Hera greeted some dwarfs that she knew who were part of the guard before they went inside the dungeon.

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Sky Ruler Nest

Type: Dungeon

The nest of the creatures known as the Sky Rulers. For eons, they lorded over the mountain, but now they have become vulnerable to attacks.

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Hera had forgotten how, unlike most dungeons, there wasn't a notification asking if she wanted to enter the Sky Ruler nest. Even though the idea that someone could just accidentally go inside that was very far-fetched. If anyone tried to push against the cloud barrier that was blocking the entrance, they would feel some resistance, and it took an actual level of effort to push through the barrier.

As soon as they got inside, Blue grabbed Hera's shoulder, "OK, let's see what you got. Summon your floating weapons or whatever you call them."

"Aren't we going on the hard mode? If so, I'm only gonna call one of them now. That way, I still have enough mana to call them all later," Hera explained.

"That's fine, that's fine. Blue shrugged.

Hera concentrated for a moment and called, "Beam," That should be the one that helped her the most in this dungeon. From what she remembered, the Griffons here would mostly be flying, and they would have to deal with creatures at long range. Among her blades, only one could do something like that without being constrained by her own range.

"So, what does that one do? Actually, what do all of them do?" Bonnie asked.

"Can you please don't do that thing you did while we were away? I mean, answer the questions, but don't just talk about it all the time. Please?" Alex sighed. She could see that if no one stopped Hera, she would return to that moment where she only talked about her legacy, not that it wasn't understandable, but it was already getting old.

"I'll be careful. If I start just talking about it nonstop, let me know when I'll stop. I won't be mad, I promise," Hera replied to Alex, then turned to Bonnie, "So, let me be careful here. I don't want to say something that will give me a penalty or something."

"You can talk about the legacy all you want. It isn't like the guide skill," Daskka replied from Hera's shoulder.

"Daskka!" Hera gasped.

"What? They can't hear me. It doesn't matter how many times I talk about the guides. I'm positive about it. I even asked Peaches. There's nothing, absolutely nothing in the entire system that can make other people hear the herald of a legacy," Daskka shrugged.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Helena asked.

"Oh, sorry. Daskka told me that I can talk about the legacy all I want, and it's not like the thing that I have on my relic that I can talk about. But she spoke the actual name of it, and that freaked me out. Anyway, I can put any weapon inside my legacy. It's called adding them to my court. It's weird because the whole concept of the legacy it's kinda like I'm an Empress, a name that was given by the legacy, not by me. My court is the name given to the weapons that can fight with me and help me. So if I 'court' A weapon and get familiar enough with it, I can add them to my court, to the roster, if you will. Each weapon maintains some of its attribute scalings and gains a bonus from my status, not like a full scale, but it can be improved a bit the more familiar I am with that weapon. And they also keep their skills. So far, they kept all their skills, so I'm not sure if that's going to keep happening if I have a weapon that has like a bunch of different skills and abilities," Hera glanced at Daskka for an answer, but the snake gave her a look meaning 'I don't know.'

"And they can move on their own?" Helena walked over to Beam, "I have tried making mana constructs that could work as weapons, but they are very expensive. I mean, mana expensive. Well, if you're talking about buying something that can make a mana construct then that's also it's stupidly expensive," she stopped for a moment while staring at the handaxe floating in the air, "Wow, this is so weird. I can't feel any mana coming from it. It should have some sort of leakage or signature, but there's nothing. It's like I'm looking at an actual weapon."

Hera nodded, "Yeah, it's not like I'm feeling a spell or something. It's actually closer to how I feel with Daskka. And that only happens because of our shared Naga Poison."

"Right, So what are the other weapons? Like what they do?" Bonnie asked.

"Well, Brute is good at dealing damage to structures. And apparently inside a dungeon that also counts for trees and pretty much every foliage that's not like a trap or something made by a monster," Hera started explaining what she had learned from Berthellemy, who was the one who answered her question in a group chat she had with all of the guides, "Then we have Swift, who just deals elemental damage when it activates its spell. Executioner, who deals more damage when hitting a vital spot. Lurize is the one I got by completing the tests of the legacy. It allows me to get more familiarity with it faster. And beam," Hera pointed at the handaxe flying beside her, "Can shoot laser beams. Also, when I'm using it, I lose the ability to use light mana. I still can use light spells, but they get more expensive. For the others, in the same order are earth, wind, strength, poison, and light. I can't use their respective types of mana when they are out and about."

Helena frowned, "So the one you got for the legacy it's kind of a problem for you, isn't it? I know you have been focusing on ailments, and poison is the biggest one you have."

Hera nodded, "Yeah. I talked with Daskka about it. Even if I don't want to, I might need to change it at some point. The problem is…."

"That you feel attached to a thing you have for barely a week," Alex scoffed, "Look. I'm sorry, but you already told me that a hundred times. We walked inside a hotel room. You set up the silence spell thing and started asking me the same questions over and over. We get it you are nice, you are kind, and we love you for it. But please either decide that you're gonna get rid of it or decide that you're gonna keep it. I can't hear you talk about this again."

"Sorry… I didn't realize I was being so annoying," Hera looked back at her blade, "I'll do my best to not talk about the legacy unless someone asks or I really need some help."

Alex sighed, "That's fine. I mean, I get why you're so excited, but it was just too much at once. Can we keep going? We still have to figure out how to open the hard mode."

Blue nodded, "We can, but we need to move closer to the boss to trigger it. And Alex," Blue turned to the assassin, "We are going to ask Hera a bunch of questions about her legacy. If you don't feel like listening to everything about that, this might be rough for you."

"I know, I know. And I'll do my best not to be annoyed by anything."

With that, the group started running the dungeon. Saying that this was a group effort was a bit of an exaggeration. In reality, Hera was the one doing most of the work. Beam was responsible for killing almost all the Griffons and only a few of them passed through, being dealt with by Hera. Part of her wanted to take advantage of the situation to increase her familiarity with some weapons. But summoning them now could bring problems when they finished that dungeon. The entrance wasn't as empty as Hera hoped, and having constructs floating around would bring too much attention to herself. Instead, she focused on increasing the familiarity of the two weapons she had in her hand. The Dwarven Hope axe, and the Screaming Ooze chakram. Both weapons had interesting abilities, and they could be nice additions to her court. At the same time, it was a bit tricky to think about what blade that she would have to let go of for these new ones to join.

The group traveled through the dungeon without any issues. Killing the first waves of monsters, going through the stone labyrinth all the way to the boss near the red lake. Helena and the others were increasingly more impressed with Hera's legacy. It wasn't simply because of the many constructs but for the individual actions of her blade. Beam showed a level of strategy and cunning that shouldn't be possible for a construct. Or, at least, it will require years and years of practice controlling a single construct before reaching the same level of versatility. The handaxe would make faints, create traps for the monsters, and even decide to target the Griffons that were preparing a big spell. When Hera asked the blade to protect her friends, it even prioritized their well-being, albeit never making them more important than the Empress.

"Do we kill the boss, or do we have to do something before killing it?" Alex asked.

"Apparently, it doesn't matter. The hard mode can be triggered before or after the boss, and the Sky Ruler being alive doesn't affect it at all. So people tend to kill the boss first before going for the next part, just for convenience sake," Blue explained.

"And the rewards," Helena added.

"OK then," Hera walked over to the area where the boss would appear and waited for a moment. The Sky Ruler appeared from the cave on the cliff and jumped towards her. Before the monster even hit the ground, Hera tossed a poison needle at a creature while Beam launched a barrage of attacks. As a follow-up, Hera used her poison control spell to strengthen the poison in the Griffon's body. The sky ruler was killed before it even touched the floor, dissolving in the air and dropping one of its claws.

Everyone kept staring at Hera for a moment, and Alex was the one who broke the silence, "I know we are much higher level than the boss, but one felt wrong."

"What are you talking about? If you use your scabbard, you would kill that thing even faster than I did," Hera rolled her eyes while waving off the notification. She only got a few thousand gold as rewards for the dungeon quest.

"Yeah, but still…."

"Either way, now we need to trigger the hard mode," Blue pulled up five vials from a pouch on her waist, "We need to fill this with the red water and then toss it on the top of the sculptures surrounding the nest," she gestured towards the large Griffons statues that frame the edge of this mountain peak.

"That's it? Do we just need to cover the statues in red water?" Bonnie asked.

"Pretty much yeah, or at least that's what people told me. I haven't tried it yet. I waited so we could do this for the first time together," Blue smiled at Hera.

"Aw, you are too sweet," Hera replied.

"I mean, it was just fair, you know. This is our dungeon."