Chapter 64

AN: Long time no see! My girlfriend and I are finally settled into our temporary place. Moving took way longer than expected—and she graciously shared her cold with me—but the worst is behind us. Next time, we’re definitely hiring movers; I am never doing that myself again.

Quick heads up: I have another short break coming up. I’ll be out of state the weeks of 11/9 and 11/16 for my best friend’s wedding. He lives in Washington; the venue is in Oregon, and since I’m the best man, it’s going to be pure chaos from the second I land. Wish me luck!

---Evening---

Darkness enveloped our party as the canyon floor emerged through the haze. No signs of monster activity had appeared during our descent, leaving everyone on edge. Eager to reach the safe zone half a mile ahead, the women broke into a dead sprint.

The moment their boots struck bottom, a jolt of precognition tore through my skull. The world stuttered; phantom heat and the scent of ozone rushed across my senses as raw temporal awareness flooded my vision.

Deep within the gloom, a massive crystalline cocoon stirred. Veins of radiant, icy-blue flame erupted from widening fissures, surging through the canyon like a hellish tidal wave. Four piercing orange eyes glimmered through fractures in the shell, hungry to consume the surrounding world.

'Son of a… I am fairly certain that is an Elder Dragon. I was never a die-hard fan of the franchise, but that looks identical to the beast from the old game trailers. This is exactly what I was worried about…'

Unable to turn back now, I focused on preparing our party for a grueling clash with the juvenile titan.

“Everyone get back here on the double! I figured out why the floors have been deserted!”

My voice boomed off the rock face, shearing loose brittle stone shelves. As shale crashed against the canyon floor, the women halted mid-stride and sprinted back. Fenris took up a flanking position at my side, baring her canines while flexing claws eager for blood. The rest of the party fell into rank behind us, bracing for an assault.

“Ladies, hold on, there is no—”

Pale radiance flared from Olivia’s staff as she raised an expansive barrier over our heads. Sheltered beneath the translucent dome, the women scoured the darkness for approaching threats. Unable to spot a single target among the shadows, the women turned toward me.

“As I was trying to say, the dungeon is empty because an unborn Elder Dragon has been parasitizing the ley lines, siphoning mana to gestate.” I channeled a thread of mana outward, weaving an illusion spell that flared against the canyon gloom. A shimmering, life-sized spectral projection of the translucent, multi-eyed behemoth unfurled across the rock face, casting sharp blue highlights over the limestone shelves. “It is about to hatch, and I intend to bring it down.”

Lucoa lowered her blade, her brow furrowing. “Are you saying one of those creatures you spoke of has been feeding directly on the dungeon’s core? I have never heard of such a thing.”

I pressed along the rocky path without breaking stride, my mind already calculating the tactical logistics of the encounter. After breaking the newborn terror’s spirit with overwhelming force, I would bind it under my command with subjugation magic. A living siege weapon of that caliber would prove invaluable against the armies massing on our borders, assuming dungeon-spawned physiology accepted foreign obedience seals. If the beast proved impervious to magical dominion, my blade would strike it down.

Yunyun scampered alongside me, her eyes sparkling as Olivia dismissed the ward. “Leon, did you foresee the dragonling through your prophetic eye?”

Awe colored her tone, her fingers twitching against her staff as if witnessing the incantation of a legendary seer. The Crimson Demon's obsession with legendary magic was impossible to suppress.

“Yes, I did.” I looked down at the eager brunette mage beside me. “When I first mentioned the gift, you seemed intrigued. What sparks your interest?”

She nodded, her grip tightening on the pearlescent staff resting against her shoulder. “Like my fellow clansmen, I want to carve my name into the annals of history. Instead of sowing chaos and destruction, my dream is to be counted among the few who bend reality to their will. The first step toward that goal is grasping Chronomancy. Fewer than ten people in history have ever cast magic of that tier. I want to be the tenth.”

“That is an admirable goal, Yunyun. Just to be clear, though, my control over prophetic sight was never refined to begin with. If you want my guidance, I am happy to provide it, but we will trudge through the fundamentals together.”

Most visions in my first life had arrived during deep meditation or slumber. The rare occasions I had forced them to manifest, the psychic backlash left me drained, bordering on comatose. Within my current physiology, summoning those glimpses demanded no more effort than flexing a knuckle, yet learning to direct those temporal ripples on command remained an ongoing endeavor.

Yunyun’s smile widened, a radiant glow washing across her features.

“That works for me. It means I will have you all to myself for a few hours every week.” She leaned forward, peering up into my eyes with undisguised affection. “I look forward to working with you… fiancé.”

As the word left her lips, her crimson irises flared with sudden, brilliant intensity. She dropped her gaze to the rock, attempting in vain to hide the pure delight lighting up her face.

I let her savor the quiet triumph while my focus swept across the ravine. The temporal glimpse had revealed the impending catastrophe, yet obscured the exact origin of the cocoon. All I possessed were fragmented impressions of the vault surrounding the cocoon. The primary indicator was crystalline formations: solidified mana leeched directly from the subterranean core.

The gorge widened as we pressed further along the chasm floor, jagged stone giving way to patches of subterranean moss and a shallow mountain creek. We paused at the safe zone to replenish our canteens, then plunged deeper into the dark. Two hours later, the telltale formations appeared.

Clusters of luminous quartz sprouted from the rock face, swelling in scale until jagged spires loomed like palatial estates, then towered as massive monoliths of petrified energy. As our party approached the threshold of the boss chamber, the crystalline growth choked the passage, forcing us to slip through the humming fissures in single file.

Emerging onto the wide stone terrace outside the boss chamber, we came face to face with a gargantuan, chrysalis-like egg. The titan had anchored its lower shell directly into the stone teleportation circle, drawing fuel straight from the floor’s spatial mana conduits. The glowing runes of the circle were warped and pale, their geometric lines bleeding thin ribbons of energy upward into the dark, pulsing veins of the shell.

“Holy crap!” Lucoa craned her neck, staring up at the monolithic shell in awe. “If the egg is this enormous, I do not even want to imagine the size of the mother. I am so glad my ancestors evolved to give birth to live young. Can you imagine trying to push that thing out?”

“Well, I mean, if Leon takes you in his Primarch form, you might pull it off.” Fenris flashed the women a wicked, toothy grin. “It would be like trying to ram a massive log into a—”

“Alright, that is quite enough!” Hertrude covered her younger sister’s burning red ears while glaring daggers at the wolf girl. “If you cannot conduct yourself without vulgarity, you can remain behind on the flagship next time. What we do with our future husband is none of your concern!”

Roxanne nodded in firm agreement, eager to see Fenris banished from future excursions so she could reclaim her undisputed position at Leon’s side.

“Watch your tongue, mortal!” Fenris bared her fangs, golden eyes narrowing to predatory slits. “We may be temporary allies, but I am your superior by blood and rank. Lecture me again, and see what happens.”

The canyon wind died.

The air around Fenris stilled until time itself seemed to grind to a halt. A suffocating, apocalyptic pressure—identical to the dread that emanated from the All-Father Odin and her death-goddess sister Hela—descended like a collapsing star onto her shoulders.

Fenris stiffened, her breath catching in her throat as she turned toward the source.

My gaze met hers with quiet, glacial fury. No words were needed. The psychic intent burning behind my eyes carried a razor-sharp certainty: threaten my family again, and you die where you stand.

“Err… apologies for my crudeness. I have spent most of my existence alone in the icy wilds of Asgard.” Fenris backed down, unwilling to test who was the stronger of the two. “Out there, the only ones who approached my cave were the bold or raving drunkards. Everything I learned came from them…”

Yunyun stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She understood better than anyone the ache of spending years without someone to call family.

As the two exchanged a silent glance, the rest of our party turned back toward the glowing cavern.

“What is the plan for all these mana crystals, Leon?” Lucoa brushed her knuckles against a faceted spire, her slitted pupils dilating as she gauged the resonant hum of the stone. “We could channel the mana back into the labyrinth core, elevating it into a Rank 1 dungeon. There are none in the capital region. Creating one could yield a massive fortune to revitalize the territory you acquired upon becoming a Marquis.”

Angelica stepped forward, concern etched across her features. “Wait, won’t that allow the dungeon to spawn monsters again? Fighting an Elder Dragon and a horde of Rank 1 beasts simultaneously sounds reckless. What about channeling the mana to attack the cocoon head-on?”

“Mana crystals are a fundamental reagent for high-grade restoration draughts, are they not?” Olivia walked toward a crystalline column, resting a gloved hand against the smooth facet. “These formations are pure. We could refine them into draughts for our allies ahead of the impending war with the Rachelle Holy Kingdom.”

The women turned toward me, leaving the final verdict in my hands. While each proposal held merit, another possibility presented itself—one none of them had considered.

“Agamotto, could I get your assessment on something?” I tilted the amulet to give an unobstructed view of the crystalline forest. “With this volume of condensed mana, do you believe it is possible to fuel additional summons? Since I cannot dictate who answers across the multiverse, the more attempts I can fuel, the better my odds of securing capable reinforcements.”

The golden talisman flickered to life, its mechanical iris parting to bathe the surrounding spires in an ethereal gleam as it surveyed the chamber.

<Hmm… You could secure one or two additional summons beyond the original five. Are you certain you wish to expend all this dense energy on a gamble, though? Alternatives remain at your disposal, such as reinforcing your companions' abilities or suppressing the adversary's strength.>

“Your reasoning is sound, but I must consider the broader campaign. Fleeting tactical advantages will not sustain us in the long run. I require capable specialists who can hold their own in a fight, not a temporary buff for an isolated engagement.”

<Fair enough. In that case, would you care for assistance in orchestrating the summoning matrix?>

I accepted without hesitation. My personal spellcraft was formidable, but dismissing technical guidance from a primordial Sorcerer Supreme who had manipulated the arcane for eons would have been sheer arrogance.

My fiancées assisted in carving the geometric formula into the stone, their blades and claws tracing conductive channels across the terrace. Over the spatial conduit, the massive chrysalis gave a dull, subterranean shudder, its glowing veins dimming as our matrix began vying for the dungeon’s mana.

Once the circle met Agamotto’s approval, I set the translucent summoning crystal gifted by the Vishanti dead-center into the array. Stepping back, I began intoning the ancient mystic phrases. Chantless casting would have degraded the ritual’s delicate alignment; deliberate vocal cadence was essential to extract the greatest possible yield.

As the final syllable echoed off the rock face, the inscribed runes blazed with blinding violet luminescence. The surrounding crystal spires liquefied into ribbons of pure mana, surging like roaring torrents directly into the circle. The light mounted to a deafening roar, engulfing the canyon terrace in a radiant flash.

The blinding radiance collapsed into wisps of fading ozone, dumping seven distinct silhouettes in an unceremonious heap across the stone terrace.

A single glance was all it took for a throbbing headache to take root behind my temples.

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