Fenrir

A few months later

I’m snapped out of my cultivation as my CL reaches level 12, sending the usual ruckus throughout my dungeon in the process. Then Dawn immediately appears in my core room with her flame glowing yellow in surprise.

“You already reached CL 12? After just a few months since reaching CL 11?!” she exclaims with a mixture of shock and excitement.

I begin digging down to make the thirteenth floor while answering her, “Yep. Turns out that orb gifted to me by the eel had a lot more void World Energy than any of the other orbs we’ve had by quite a large quantity. I still have quite a bit of it left a-” I cut off as I feel myself digging into an open cavern. “Wait a sec. I just found something.”

Dawn seems confused for a moment before she understands and focuses on the cavern that I’m now spreading my territory into. But we both end up getting pretty startled by the sight of three unknown creatures swimming around in lava. Or at least, they’re unknown to me. Because Dawn literally turns white at the sight of them.

“Dragons…” she mutters before shouting at me, “Seal that hole up and move your dungeon to the void starting on the thirteenth floor! Do it now! Before they realize we’re up here!!!”

As if acting on instinct, I immediately pull my territory back and seal up the hole I had begun digging to a degree before opening a rift into the void and spreading my territory into that instead. It isn’t until I make sure that the walls and ceiling of the tunnel are fixed, and that nothing out of the ordinary is happening there that I focus on Dawn again to see her white flames having gained hints of blue again.

“Dragons?” I ask, prompting her to explain what just happened.

It takes Dawn several minutes to calm down, but she eventually does before slowly saying, “Dragons are some of the strongest creatures in Midgard. This is because they’re literally born at Tier 3, so most of them end up living to become at the very least a Lord. They’re probably some of the most unfair creatures in existence. And not all of them are friendly.”

I stare at her for several seconds before glancing back in the direction of the dragons.

“The fire dragons in particular are well known for being hotheaded and very much interested in fighting anything they deem strong enough to challenge them,” Dawn continues, making the light from my core suddenly stop shining for a second before continuing again.

So I just dug into a cave of sleeping monsters that could’ve and quite possibly would’ve torn my dungeon up and maybe even my core along with it? Just for a challenge?

Also, that being born at Tier 3 bit is just unfair.

“We’re just lucky that they were asleep…” Dawn mutters, still with fear audible in her voice as she slowly makes her way over to Fang before cuddling with him. “Please don’t ever dig down again. Just move the rest of the dungeon to the void.”

I watch her for a few seconds, only to turn away, deciding to give her some space after what had just happened.

Guess I don’t have much of a choice. It’s time to make my first floor in the void.

But first…

I quickly make a cool looking spiral staircase that lowers into the void before making a large building around it. The building looks a lot like those churches that I got the blueprints for from that annoying princess, back when I asked her for the blueprints to a lot of the intruder structures a little while back.

She was quite confused as to what I needed them for, but I never answered. And she didn’t care enough to push on the subject.

I’m suddenly broken from my building trance by the feeling of two intruders suddenly appearing in my core room and looking down the stairs.

“Are you alright, Fenrir?” one of the Emperor Tier Vampires asks in a rush, “We sensed a powerful presence down here a moment ago.”

Huh? Oh, wait. He must mean the dragons.

‘It’s fine,’ I tell them without any hesitation before returning my focus to my building, which seems to pique their interest. Albeit not enough to make them come down to check out the void.

Although that might also just be because they know that if they tried then it would block me from building.

“Might we ask what it was?” the other Vampire asks, seemingly not mollified by my reassurance.

‘Sure,’ I answer while still working on the church-like building. ‘I found a few dragons taking a nap beneath my dungeon.’

Of course, I say this in a way that Dawn can’t hear me, because I don’t want her reacting to the mention of the dragons again. Not while she’s still recovering from that shock.

I guess she had it much worse than I did because she actually knows what dragons really are? Because I didn’t sense anything outside of their physi-

Wait a second. The Vampires sensed them?

But I didn’t feel any sort of auras. Just saw the three sleeping winged lizards.

Actually, in hindsight, that probably makes sense. They’re asleep after all, so why would they broadcast their presence to every weaker being around them?

The Vampires are probably a higher Tier than them, so they could-

“That would explain why we sensed a Tier 9 creature coming from down here,” the Vampire says, making my attention snap straight to him.

‘Tier 9?!’ I practically shout at him before glancing at Dawn, then in the direction of the dragons, then at Dawn again, then finally at the Vampires.

One of those things was Tier 9?! A Demi-God Tier being?!

What the hell are the chances that there would be a Tier 9 dragon sleeping beneath my damn dungeon!?

“Yeah,” the Vampire says before the other one adds, “It’s a good thing that you seem to be moving the rest of your dungeon to the void. Because I doubt you’ll be able to move the dragon.”

I stare at them for a few seconds before looking at Dawn again and feeling very appreciative of her being here.

If she hadn’t stopped me from continuing my investigation of them… that could’ve been bad.