Chapter 36: Searching for a D-tier Dungeon

The small apartment in Jiston fell into a quiet, heavy stillness. Frost clung faintly to the edges of the windowpane where Vanessa’s arrival had chilled the air, but inside, Raphael felt completely at ease.

He remained seated on the edge of the creaky bed, looking down at the pale Saintess who still held her subtle, reverent bow before him. The shift in her posture was palpable. The cold, mocking contempt that had defined her every word in the Throne Room was gone, replaced by a quiet, watchful reverence.

"Stand, Vanessa," Raphael commanded, his deep baritone carrying an effortless weight. "We have work to do."

Vanessa straightened gracefully, her dark robes falling back into place as her violet eyes locked onto his luminous silver irises. "As you command, Sovereign. I am at your disposal."

Raphael unlocked his smartphone, the screen illuminating his carved features in the dim room. He opened the regional gate-registry network, a public database managed by the Bureau and local Awakened guilds to list registered rifts, active dungeons, and hazard zones across the city. His thumbs moved with rapid, calculated precision as he applied filters: D-Tier, Uncleared, Local Sector.

He scrolled through the results, his brow furrowing slightly as page after page yielded nothing useful.

"Nothing," Raphael muttered, his tone flat. "Every single D-Tier gate within fifty miles is either fully claimed by major guilds or under twenty-four-hour Bureau lockdown for resource extraction. The public ones are picked clean by commercial raid teams before the mana signatures even stabilize."

He tossed the phone onto the nightstand, resting his elbows on his knees. "The quest timer gives me twenty-nine days to clear a D-Tier dungeon and claim my castle. But the Bureau controls the gate registry. If I try to enter a registered D-Tier rift through official channels, my name gets flagged immediately, and Captain Vale’s assault squads will be on my neck before I even cross the threshold."

Vanessa stepped forward, her dark relic-staff making a soft, hollow tap against the wooden floorboards.

"You seek a path through mortal institutions, Sovereign," Vanessa said softly, her silk-like voice echoing through the quiet space. "You forget that the dungeons of this realm are not born of human architecture. They are tears in the fabric of reality, bleeding corrupted mana into your world long before your mortals ever detect them with their crude machinery."

Raphael raised an eye, looking up at her. "The Bureau uses high-grade mana radar array networks to detect spatial fluctuations. Are you saying there are gates open right now that they haven’t spotted?"

"Precisely," Vanessa replied, a dark, subtle gleam dancing in her eyes. "Mortal scanners only register a rift once its mana output pierces the upper atmosphere. But a gate festers like a wound long before it bursts open. Its corrupted mana seeps into the earth, infesting the shadows of forgotten places."

She paused, bowing her head slightly. "If it pleases my Sovereign, I can summon a familiar from the void- a scout capable of tracking the faintest scent of corrupted mana across vast distances. It can hunt in the places your electronic networks cannot see."

Raphael considered her proposal for a fraction of a second. It made perfect sense. He needed an unmapped, unregistered D-Tier dungeon; a wild rift where he could execute his objective without Bureau interference or surveillance cameras tracking his every move.

"Do it," Raphael said.

Vanessa inclined her head. "By your authority."

She raised her left hand, extending two slender fingers toward the center of the room. The ambient shadows beneath the bed and in the dark corners of the wardrobe began to stretch and twist, drawn toward her palm like iron filings to a magnet. A dense, swirling vortex of pitch-black, violet-laced mana gathered in the air, lowering the room’s temperature even further as a low, unnatural wind rustled the curtains.

Vanessa spoke in a low, melodious ancient tongue- a chant that vibrated in Raphael’s chest like the hum of a distant engine.

The swirling shadow condensed, solidifying into a physical shape. With a sharp, sudden snap of static energy, the dark mist cleared, revealing a creature perched atop the wooden backrest of the room’s single chair.

It was a ravenous, crow-like entity, roughly twice the size of a standard raven. Its feathers were not organic, but constructed from obsidian-like shards that caught the light with a subtle, iridescent violet sheen. Where a normal bird’s eyes would be, two burning orbs of pure, piercing silver-white fire glowed within its dark skull. Its talons were long, razor-sharp needles of hardened dark glass, digging effortlessly into the wood of the chair.

The shadow-crow turned its head with unnatural, jerky precision, its silver eyes locking onto Raphael.

The moment it registered his presence, the creature lowered its head, spreading its obsidian wings wide in a silent, rigid bow of absolute submission to the Sovereign.

"This is an Umbral Corvid," Vanessa explained, lowering her hand as the summoning circle faded into nothingness. "It feeds upon the decay of spatial boundaries. To its sight, corrupted mana leaves a bleeding, crimson trail through the air, completely invisible to mortal eyes and immune to electronic distortion. It can range across the entire district and return with the exact coordinates of any hidden, forming, or unregistered rift."

Raphael stood up from the bed, stepping closer to the creature. The shadow-crow remained entirely motionless, trembling slightly not from fear, but from the overwhelming aura of authority radiating off its master.

Raphael extended his hand, his long fingers hovering over the creature’s head. The crow leaned into his touch, its cold, obsidian-feathered head pressing gently against his palm with a low, rhythmic clicking sound that echoed like grinding crystals.

"Can it communicate what it finds?" Raphael asked, feeling the cold, dark mana humming within the familiar’s small frame.

"Through your bond, yes," Vanessa answered. "Its eyes are your eyes. What it discovers in the dark, you shall see as clearly as if you stood there yourself."

A cold, calculating smile spread across Raphael’s face. The strategic map had just completely shifted in his favor. While the Bureau scrambled to lock down registered gates and searched the city’s main transit hubs for a rogue asset, he would be hunting in the unseen blind spots of the metropolis.

Raphael looked directly into the shadow-crow’s burning silver eyes.

"Go," Raphael commanded, his deep baritone cutting through the silence of the room. "Scan the outer sectors of Jiston and the surrounding industrial zones. Find me an unregistered D-Tier rift. Bring me a hunting ground."

The Umbral Corvid let out a sharp, silent cry that vibrated directly in Raphael’s mind. It launched itself off the back of the chair, its obsidian wings fanning the cold air as it glided toward the open window gap. Passing through the wooden blinds like a phantom slipping through a crack, it burst into the morning sky above Jiston, transforming into a streak of pure shadow before vanishing into the urban landscape below.

Raphael turned back toward the center of the room, his luminous silver eyes burning with quiet, lethal anticipation.

"Now," Raphael murmured, looking at Vanessa as the countdown timer hovered quietly in his mind. "We wait for the hunt to begin."