Chapter 123: The First Summit of Dungeon Overlords I

First, everything went black.

Then the black began to fold in at the sides, slowly warping, and in each of its folds appeared colors of every kind, violet, deep blue, gold, stretching out as the darkness folded beneath them.

It reminded Freya of the space travel in the science fiction movies she used to watch on Earth, but without the discomfort or the jolts: everything was twisting around her, and yet her body felt none of it, as though what was happening had nothing to do with her.

Still, she felt a mix of wonder and fear, because she felt infinitely small in the middle of all this and understood nothing of what was happening around her.

What reassured her was the warm touch in her hand: Kaguya was there with her, and if anything unexpected happened, she could count on her.

Well, I hope so.

Then, all at once, everything stopped.

The colors vanished, the black as well, and Freya found herself in the middle of the void.

At least, that’s what she thought at first, because looking more closely, it wasn’t the void, but something that looked far more like space.

At the center rose a large table, and all around it, a little way off, other silhouettes stood waiting, but she didn’t dwell on them for now, her gaze drawn to everything surrounding them.

Because they were definitely all in space.

Stars stretched out in every direction, by the thousands, some so close that she could make out their color, white, bluish, or reddish, others reduced to mere twinkling points. Farther away, great nebulae stretched out in violet and pink veils, and beyond them, she could still make out the pale glow of distant galaxies, all of it steeped in perfect silence.

Then Freya noticed that a stronger light was coming from below, and she lowered her eyes to her feet.

Beneath her stretched a gigantic planet, with its deep blue oceans, its brown and green continents, and long trails of white clouds coiling over the land, while along one of its edges, the light of a distant sun traced a thin golden crescent.

She understood at once.

That’s our world.

But at the same time, she understood something else.

She was breathing normally, wasn’t cold, and was standing on nothing, neither floating nor falling, while Kaguya’s hand in hers was as warm as it had been in the meadow, when in real space, none of this would have been possible.

Freya raised her eyes to the stars, but not one of them moved, not even slightly. The planet beneath her feet wasn’t turning, the clouds hung frozen above the oceans, and the crescent of light didn’t shift an inch.

Time doesn’t flow here, just like the notification said.

None of this was real: they were above their world without truly being there, and what she was looking at was only a representation of space, a kind of image held outside the laws of this world, while their bodies had never left the place where they stood.

Tap.

The sound rang out in the absolute silence of space, sharp and clear.

Tap.

Then another, just as sharp, and Freya understood that they were footsteps, ringing out on a floor that didn’t exist.

Tap.

She turned her head toward the source, and she wasn’t the only one, because everyone standing around the table had turned toward the same spot and no longer moved.

A black silhouette was walking alone above the void.

Faceless, with no clothing that could be made out, its body seemed to be made entirely of shadow, and the only thing that stood out was the crown resting on its head, a brilliant white that contrasted sharply with the black of everything else.

It advanced slowly, step after step, in no hurry, its back perfectly straight and its chin slightly raised. Beneath its feet stretched the entire planet, and it passed above it without granting it a glance, any more than it granted one to anyone watching.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

At last, it reached the end of the table.

There stood a single chair, placed at the head of the table, facing all the others, and the crowned silhouette, laying a hand on the backrest, slowly drew it back without the slightest haste.

Then it sat down, leaned back into the chair, and crossed its legs with a sweeping motion, before setting an elbow on the armrest and resting its head against its closed fist. Only then did its gaze travel over those still standing, from one to the next, slowly, from on high.

Freya studied the arrangement of the table. All the other chairs were lined up along either side, facing one another, and only one stood at the head, the one the crowned silhouette had just taken without hesitation, as if it had been reserved for it from the start. She drew a conclusion at once.

Probably the Overlord who convened the Summit.

And as if to confirm it, the silhouette spoke, in a strange, almost mechanical voice that was neither a man’s nor a woman’s.

"Well, then."

A silence hung in the air, the crowned figure in no hurry at all.

"Since you have all been gracious enough to answer my invitation, it would be a shame to leave you standing any longer."

With a careless gesture of its free hand, it indicated the chairs along the table, without even straightening up.

"Sit. Shall we have a little chat, dear Overlords? After all, it isn’t every day that one is granted the honor of sharing my table."

A low growl immediately rose from one of the silhouettes.

"Say that again...?"

Somewhere else around the table, a small, amused laugh answered it.

Freya felt a slight anger rising in her, but above all the urge to test something, and she raised her hand.

In that moment, she noticed that a white ring adorned each of her fingers, but she paid it no further attention for now, too focused on the crowned silhouette she was now pointing at.

"Kaguya."

At that name, everyone turned toward her, wondering what she was doing.

"Kill it."

No one had time to process those words: Kaguya had already raised her arm.

"Space-Time Slash."

Her voice was just as mechanical as the crowned silhouette’s.

And everything stopped.

The silence, already absolute, grew deeper still, until Freya could no longer even hear her own breathing, and for an instant, the entire representation trembled.

Kaguya brought her arm down.

No one saw the motion. There was only a thin white line, drawn in a single stroke across the place where they stood.

And the place itself split in two.

The table, the crowned silhouette, the stars behind it, the planet beneath their feet: everything the line passed through came apart cleanly, each side slightly offset from the other. It wasn’t just the table or the silhouette’s body that had been cut, but the entire representation, sliced from one side to the other.

And inside the gash, there was nothing left. No black, no stars, no space, only a white plane, perfectly empty, still blank of anything at all.

The line ran straight through the crowned silhouette.

For the first time, surprise showed in its movements. It recoiled slightly, its shoulders stiffened, and for a brief moment, something resembling fear passed through its whole posture.

Then it slowly lowered its gaze to its own body, cut in two from top to bottom, and raised its hands in front of itself to look at them, one on each side of the gash, separated from each other.

Then it understood, and began to laugh, softly at first, then louder, a mechanical laugh that echoed through the silence.

Because the attack hadn’t truly reached it.

At the same moment, letters and numbers appeared everywhere in the white plane, scrolling at full speed along the gash by the thousands, entire lines of symbols no one could read.

Then, slowly, the gash closed. The two sides came back together, the table and the stars mended, the planet became whole again, and the crowned silhouette’s body re-formed, as though nothing had happened.

Around the table, no one had stayed still. One had raised its arms in guard, another had stepped back, a sharp crack had rung out somewhere, followed by a rattle of metal, and some had stepped forward to place themselves in front of others.

Only one hadn’t moved at all, and even let out a small, delighted laugh.

"Nice try," the crowned silhouette said, still shaking with laughter. "Seems that without this room’s protection, I’d be dead."

And it went on laughing even harder.

"...Tch."

Kaguya, already ready to strike again, raised her arm once more, but Freya simply held out her hand in front of her to signal that it was enough.

She had gotten what she wanted to know: here, no one could be hurt, not even by an attack capable of cutting through space and time. And as a bonus, she had been able to see how each of them reacted to a possible danger.

Not bad, for a simple test.

She stepped up to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

"Looks like that crown won’t be mine today..."

The crowned silhouette laughed again, then its gaze fell to Freya’s hands, and to the ten white rings adorning each of her fingers.

The others followed her lead and, one by one, stepped up to the table to take their seats, some, like Freya with Kaguya, keeping a follower standing behind them.

Now that everyone was seated and still, Freya could finally make out the white mark each of the seven Overlords bore: a crown, ten rings, a heart-tipped tail, eyes by the dozen, a gaping maw, four extra arms, and chains weighed down by heavy weights. Kaguya and the other followers, for their part, bore none.

So these are the seven Overlords, and their respective sins.

But right away, her gaze dropped back to her own hands, and she understood something else: if she could read their sins on them, then they could all read hers on her, and every one of them already knew, at that very moment, who was Greed.

Then a smile spread across her black silhouette.

Gotta have at least that much to keep things fun~

At the head of the table, the crowned silhouette joined its hands.

"Shall we begin?"