Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice watched EDI’s group for a while, and picked a target for his infiltration mission. Voice trapped one of the people in EDI’s group, and stole his identity. After fighting for a while through the dungeon, the group finally made it to their first boss room. Voice killed the only magic user, aside from himself.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment and rate!

I got another rating yesterday! I am pretty stoked about almost having four stars. I’m glad the readers think so highly of my work!

My next victims were the long range users. If there were only melee people it wouldn’t be that hard to destroy all of them after they beat this and one more boss room.

The way I had Kretchof use the dungeon is a bit different than what he wanted at first. Instead of just unleashing death on the people, I was using them for data and experiments.

This time Kretchof would only unleash the insects after the insect boss room was defeated. That way they couldn’t come up with a way to deal with it. The same for the spiders.

Anyway, I began to search for the targets I would destroy. I already knew which users were the long rangers, so I had Kretchof show me where each of them were.

Unlike most bosses Kretchof could actually see where everyone in his dungeons were. That gave an almost infinite amount of possibilities for contending with the enemy.

I obviously went for the strongest archers first. One of them even had bombs! That was unacceptable. Those bombs were made from my hard work! … of obtaining info for Susan.

I put away my staff as I went towards the location Kretchof indicated. My fairies regenerated some mana from all of the battles before, but it was considerable low. I had to do this without their help if my plans were going to go off without a hitch.

I obscured myself in darkness, and slowly snuck towards the archer. She was fighting three of the insects at once. It was a decent feat, but she couldn’t attack very well. Her shots were all aimed at keeping the beasties at bay, and slowly damaging them.

When I was close enough I sent a small earth spear, the size of a finger, through her left calf. She let out a harsh gasp. The pain dial might be only a fraction of real pain, but it was enough to make her falter.

That was all the insects needed. They took the initiative instantly, and jumped at her. While she tried to get her balance back, the insects landed on her. Her bow fell a foot away. She grabbed for it, but a tight gust of wind came out of nowhere.

It didn’t blow her bow away, but the string had been cut. She gripped it and attacked the insects with the wooden shaft. Not bad. I’ll give her that.

I was slightly impressed by the tenacity she showed. However, that wasn’t enough to beat me. Suddenly her bow caught fire.

Using fire in an enclosed area is always a bad idea. The carbon dioxide buildup is toxic after only a few minutes. Especially when there is all this flammable spider thread everywhere.

She almost let go of the bow as it lit. She managed to keep hold of it, and used the flames to her advantage. She continued to pummel the insects with it.

Unknown to her, I had been absorbing the water mana near her, and feeding it to Tear. Suddenly a large wisp of flame attached to the webbing. It spread more quickly than I thought it would.

The already hectic battlefield, became even more disorderly. Before there were small skirmishes with only one or two players vs. a few insects. Now the users were getting chased by falling flaming web. Not only that, when the flame attached to one of the dead bodies it fell to the ground.

The undead would raise and attack the closest target. They took considerable damage just being on fire, but the fear effect they instilled on the users was worth it. I found out about it on one of the many experiments I did between fights with the groups before EDI and Wolf’s.

Flame-Cased Undead ZombieA zombie that has been encased in flames. The flames deal constant damage, but the effect ‘fear’ is added to the zombie. The zombie has a 25% chance to cause a fear effect to an entity below its level. A group of zombies will add half of their level each to determine the level of effectiveness.

Fear EffectAny NPC, Monster, or User that is inflicted with fear will have their stats cut by 15%.

I didn’t know why undead by themselves didn’t cause this effect, but at least I found a new way to utilize this dungeon. Of course, the zombies here were some of the higher-level ones.

With the dozens of high-level zombies, they could even effect ShortDwarf! The flaming zombies began to congregate to the largest amount of users. Fighting a fearful monster, and the insects, proved too much for most.

Several users were caught off guard, and received the debuff. While they were preoccupied I began my next set of plans.

The bow girl was dispensable. I used the blindness debuff on her. Her movements stopped for a fraction of a second. In that time the insects surrounded her, and began to consume her still living flesh.

Her shrieks were only amusing for a few seconds. After that I used some wind mana to silence her. The voice changing idea could also be used to delete the sound altogether. It was quite useful in a variety of situations.

After her death, and my points gain, I continued on to the next person. As soon as I encountered a lone person, I used the blindness debuff, and pushed an earth spear into one leg. It was a brilliant tactic.

Occasionally I would also have to help the insects. I would either use another debuff, or directly use my magic to attack them. In that case it was mostly water around the head method.

Like that I continued to deplete the numbers of the group. Sadly they began to wipe out the insects, and the flaming zombies died out. When that happened I had to give up on my killing spree.

When not in a direct battle, I did quite well at taking out the higher leveled users. Still, I was sad not to get any experience from killing them, since technically it all went to the dungeon.

Through using the boss room, I managed to kill off all but 7 of the people. EDI had managed to be a part of that 7. My points were getting high though.

I was technically the eighth, but I didn’t have enough confidence to be part of such a small group of people. I might look and sound like the guy I was impersonating, but I knew that I didn’t walk or act the exact way as he did.

I made a strategic retreat before they finished clearing the room. I was below them, and sensing their light mana again. I decided I had to go back to stall Wolf.

They still had to battle the boss anyway. The boss was a giagantic queen insect. She could spew up to two insects every ten seconds. She was always surrounded by at least 20 insects as well. She had actually made her home on the top of the spider silk, seeing as she was immune to the stickiness.

Kretchof told me he was lost in the maze, but if he found his way out of it, then he would find the boss room. Of course I had made the maze a mite bit more difficult than it normally would have been.

I asked Kretchof for the remaining time. Two hours. All I had to do was wait two hours. Hehe. This is why I’ve been stalling you lot this whole time.

Thinking about it seriously though, EDI’s group was a lot less coordinated, and easier to kill. It was kind of sad to think that my former partner was that weak at leading a group. I guess it works out for me though.

I quickly made my way to the maze, Eli’s power needed to regenerate, so I was on my own. Thankfully Kretchof had sent one of the moles to assist me. All I had to do was put the earth mana back together.

Getting to them took about ten minutes. Five to get to the maze, and five to catch up to the group. The mole stayed with me while I devised a plan, keeping pace with Wolf’s group would have been hard otherwise.

The maze was littered with traps, with a few monsters thrown in.

“MASTER!” Kretchof yelled in my ear.

WHAT! WHY ARE YOU YELLING!

In a more subdued voice, Kretchof continued to speak inside my head. “Sorry Master. I’ve connected to another dungeon. I thought you should be notified.”

My displeasure instantly abated. Really? Which one? I ignored the logical chance of actually finding a dungeon that fast. It had happened so why ask how?

“I do not know the name, but it has a large amount of monsters. Rats, bats and a few vampires are all there. The overflow rate isn’t very large, but you can get about one monster a day.”

It wasn’t as great as I thought. There was a percentage chance of each of the monsters coming in. If it only happened once a day, it would probably be months before a vampire, even a weak one, came through. It was the same for the worm dungeon I had conquered.

The worms only left once a year at most. That was why I didn’t have any. Well at least there will be a slight bit more variety in the dungeon

I contacted Kretchof. Kretchof. I want you to breed whatever comes through there. Make more space for the moss and things to grow if you have to. And since they are bats, they will most likely want to eat insects. Breed the bugs more. Reduce the rodent population if you have to a bit.

The bugs had been caught while i had been in the dungeon. I instantly made Kretchof make the boss room, and breed them like crazy. The queen came out after a while, and all other bugs stopped reproducing.

Back into the maze.

The maze had been littered with my few remaining undead summoning stones, as well as many homemade traps. The two hundred foot pitfall was my favorite. Sure someone could try to slow their fall, but 200 feet was a long way.

Thankfully, it ended in water. Unfortunately, some of the amphibian monsters infested the water. A large fish dump also connected it. I watched with delight as one of his crew fell into it.

He had been through so many traps that he was actually forcing one of the scouts to try to find any trap before hand. That was great, but I had places where there were three or four traps. Or multiple ways to activate one trap.

When the scout came back to say he disarmed the trap, he fell into the pit he didn’t know was there. To be fair to him, it only was noticeable from one direction, and only activated from that direction.

Poor guy.

Wolf was down to 12 people, including himself. That was bad. The maze was the most difficult part of the dungeon. If it didn’t even manage to kill 10 people, then I was in trouble. The amount of traps he had to go through should have been able to wipe out a small army. (at least 50 people).

Damnit! This Wolf guy is getting fucking annoying.

He had already passed the undead asylum, the falling spike walls, even the pouring water spout trap. Those could have, killed, crushed, and drowned ten people each.

Wolf is obviously some sort of expert at this type of thing. He definitely has military background. Gotta think militaristically then.

If his troops were designed to mimic the military, they would have rations somewhere. I needed to find the people holding the rations, and take them out. The contest only had another few days, but the maze would change in only another couple of hours.

If I could kill that guy, then Wolf would have a damaged supply line. Taking out supply lines is one of the most basic military strategies. If I had a supply unit who would it be?

Warriors were out. Even if they had the best defense, they were the most likely to face potentially hazardous situations.

Mages were out, they faced danger less often, but had a higher chance of dying versus intelligent monsters. The only logical choices were archers, or Wolf himself.

It would most likely be Wolf. He generally stayed in the front, but was well versed in dodging, and typically took little to no damage.

I had Kretchof unleash the insects, and corral them to the maze. The traps were specifically designed to only work on things that weighed more than the rodents. While the rodents weighed about 75 pounds. It was a lot for a rodent, but very little for humanoids.

Stealing the supplies was a no go if Wolf carried them. I continued to follow them as the insects entered the maze. Kretchof perfectly directed them so that they would surround the enemies.

I stalled the group by blowing them with the occasional gust of wind. The lost balance forced them to be slow and steady. Their speed dropped to about three quarters. They were well trained to only drop that much.

The insects that were making it to the front of the group were taking longer than the insects at the back. Kretchof seemed to be having a hard time getting everyone into position.

I continued my delay tactics until they were surrounded. As soon as they were, I sent the blindness debuff to the priest. He instantly stumbled as the insects swarmed them.

Wolf seemed to notice the hitch in the mage, and took action to protect him before the insects even attacked.

Come on! Is he really that good!?

I could understand some of the stuff he did, but he managed to steadily beat the entire dungeon I had been preparing for days, months if I included the time to start the dungeon.

I sunk the mage in the ground a bit, and he fell over. The monsters began swarming him, but Wolf repelled them with apparent ease.

The other groups weren’t having such an easy time. They were being assaulted from all sides after all. The warriors invariably blocked the attacks, and the distance fighters thinned the numbers of insects steadily.

Honestly it was really annoying. It would have been great if they just obediently died when I wanted. Alas, tis never as one would wish.

I selected a few key targets. They were archers or warriors that seemed to be distinguished in battle. I cast the darkness debuff on them, and Kretchof quickly sent the insects to attack.

I also cast the minor petrification on Wolf. His movements suddenly dropped to the level of a trained warrior, from the level of absurdity he was previously at.

After that the battle went my way. … Or so I wish I could say. While it’s true they took some damage, it was only minor. They still managed to eradicate the bugs. The battle did take a while though.

As a means of slowing their progress, it was successful. I didn’t kill anyone though. I kept the darkness debuff of the group members I had casted it on.

The main ones I targeted were those that were most successful at detecting the traps. Their speed again dropped after that.

But this was all delaying tactics. I couldn’t really manage to off any more of the people in Wolf’s group after that. I decided to let them play it out while being blinded. I had to go to the boss rom ahead to prepare something that might actually stop them.

So I created a few nifty traps in the next boss area. Like this I was at least hoping to be able to lower their numbers a bit. They got to it faster than I had hoped, but it looked like one of them was still damaged.

Either Wolf ran out of bandages, or he is so low he needs to ration them. Both ways are helpful to me.

The group stepped through to the next boss area. They entered a cramped room, with low curved ceilings. The ceiling was just tall enough for someone to have to hunch over to walk. The walls spread out a far distance.

All in all it gave a very… squat, feeling. The feeling was amplified by the stark raise in temperature. Rotting flesh was especially prevalent in the area.

As each of the members gazed at the room, I cast the blindness debuff on all of them. Of course I had to take off my buffs, but it was a worthwhile sacrifice.

A group of blinded combatants wasn’t that big of a deal. Since there was only 12 people left, it only cost me a total of 1788 mana to do. Some were resistant to it though. I got a notification that two of the people had ‘dark vision’.

That is to say they could somehow see without any light. I guessed infrared or something. The heavily armored units wouldn’t take much damage from simple earth spears, so I had come up with something unique.

The only two that could see what was happening were Wolf, and one of the archers. The mage was busy trying to cure the darkness on the others.

The mage had cured herself, and the others of the darkness debuff. I had to cast the blindness on them several times. My mana regen was faster than the mage’s.

I could keep casting the blindness for longer than she could cast the spell to delete it. It was basically a game of tag where the person that was it could stop time to look for people. Completely unfair to the girl.

She kept casting the removal spell on herself so she could see to cast it on others. As she was doing that I made sure my fairies were ready to go.

Tear had absorbed all of the water mana near the entrance, and most of it throughout the rest of the room. Drake had applied a large amount of fire mana to the area.

Eli loosened up the ground enough that small cracks could be seen, but not to drop anyone into a hole. Moro was out doing the task in the final boss room.

Just to keep things going I even had SparrowHawk add in wind mana to swirl the entire mana density to perfection.

The swirling heat showed immediate effect. The entire group had been battered for hours after entering the labyrinth. Their wills were weakening. Only the command abilities of Wolf kept them on their feet.

I gave up on the darkness debuffs for a minute. The mage managed to heal everyone from the blindness. Just as she finished with the last person, I activated one of the biggest fire balls I could.

My mana had regained a nice bit, so the amount of fire poured into the room wasn’t insignificant. The fireball blinded many of the group just by its intense light.

That wasn’t the point though. The mage instantly threw up the shield used in the last fire trap. Heh, you think that will work twice?

Drake dragged all of the fire mana into the ground. With Eli loosening any hard bits, the floor started sucking up a massive amount of heat.

The group realized the problem, but it was too late. The floor began to bubble. With Eli’s and Drake’s help, I had turned the entire floor into lava!

The lava was some of the weakest you would ever find. It could be put out with just a bit of water, but it was still lava.

The mage, seeing what had happened, changed from the shield into a water attack. The water splashed the ground, and steam raised instantly.

Of course Tear and SparrowHawk were helping to guide all of that steam. The steam collected as I continued to pour fire mana into the ground.

It was a lot easier to put the fire out than maintain the fire. That was fine though. My final plot didn’t need the floor to be lava anyway.

I moved the fire mana from the edges of the room closer to the group. As the steam increased Wolf noticed the other members were starting to have trouble breathing.

That was my plan. Not killing them with fire, but suffocating them. I didn’t know how to manipulate oxygen, but I could fill the room with gas at the very least.

The steam released wasn’t cooling down as quickly as it should have. In fact, it was spreading out. It was filling the room faster than should be possible, at least without the help of mana fairies.

When Wolf shouted for the mage to stop, it was too late. The entire room had been flooded in the steam that refused to cool.

That also could have been due to my adding in pure mana to excite the fire mana further. The mage tried to cast a wind barrier to blow the steam away from her gasping colleagues, but SparrowHawk stopped that.

Undead began to drop from the ceilings. The undead lost small chunks of hp when they hit the heated floor, but not enough to hinder their movements.

With the undead attacking, and his soldiers in an unfit state to fight, Wolf was in trouble. Sadly for them, that wasn’t all I had planned in this room.