Chương 8: [LD-1] 7. Cull

VII Cull The high-pitched, repeated cry of the air raid alert roared through the Guardia. Aircraft thundered past and made the window frames shake.

"They certainly are active," Julius whistled. His enhanced senses picked up on the small lettering on the outside of a vehicle. Explorer XQA.

'That's the new model.' Hadn't their request to get that thing in the air been denied? MageTech had been getting more daring lately.

"They're preparing for when the dungeons break." Ruby crossed one leg over the other. She was sitting ramrod straight in the leather seat like a teacher was about to call attendance. With her hair falling past her shoulders to the small of her back and her sharp face, she would've made a great target for a street painter. The Chancellor of Guardia cleared her throat, and Julius turned back to the centre of the conference room.

On the other side of the round table, the old blonde's eyes were as piercing as they'd been in her prime, when the soldiers still whispered the moniker 'The Slayer' whenever she passed. The other officials in the room, among whom the headmasters of the schools currently under 'attack,' stared Julius and Ruby down.

"Are we even sure they're dungeons?" Julius said. A dungeon appeared when a 'slice' of a shadow realm got disconnected and merged with another realm. A rift always accompanied the appearance of a dungeon that locked once enough people entered. And while that was the case, multiple dungeons spawning like this was unheard of.

'Is Nemesis making a move?' Julius disregarded the idea before the thought completed. If the Monarch of the Shadowlands was going to act, he wouldn't warp a bunch of neophytes. Levelling the entire city and slaughtering everyone in sight…that would be a Nemesis move. An opening one. But a move nonetheless.

"We're not." Chancellor Janna sighed.

"I take it you cannot do anything?" Julius grinned and opened his mouth—"Which doesn't involve stranding and killing our precious students," Headmaster Jose interrupted. The Destroyer huffed and crossed his arms. He understood that the man was pissed—his daughters had been sucked into the gates—but was that a reason to interrupt him? His huff turned into a pout. He made to speak again—"Master Julius is afraid he cannot do anything," Ruby said.

"The dungeons are localised, so forcing our way in may destabilise the space."

"Killing everyone within," Chancellor Janna finished. Ruby nodded and inclined her head.

"We're terribly sorry. Our White Dragon guild will not be of any help." The Chancellor's shoulder sagged.

"If you cannot help, then neither will any of the other guilds. The last spatial mage worth their salt died in the War." That wasn't true, technically, as Demiurge had died in an ambush that took place days before the War began. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Julius raised his hand— Which Ruby immediately pulled down as the others began discussing how to solve this."

One more word," she snarled with only the most minute movements of her lips, "and you'll have hell to pay when this is done." Julius mimicked zipping his mouth shut.

'Scary.' There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," the Chancellor said. A servant entered and bowed.

"I announce Master Kaiser of the Red Society." Kaiser sauntered in with an amiable smile, his long, flowing robes skirting an inch above the floor.

'He's crazy,' Julius thought. Kaiser was wearing thong sandals. To an official meeting! Even Julius was wearing boots (though Ruby had forced them on him).

"Oh my," Kaiser said, "seems I'm the first one here of the Societies. Are the others held up?"

"Master Oro is indisposed," the Chancellor said.

"Hauntzer isn't interested in attending, though the actual reason he gave was 'I'm unwell.'" Kaiser chuckled.

"I bet. Not after you stripped him of his title." He passed around the table, nodding to both Julius and Ruby as he did—Julius stuck out his in return—and took a seat to the right of Ruby.

"So," Kaiser said.

"Do we have any indication of how long it will take for the dungeons to break?"

"Why don't you tell us?" Headmaster Jose said. The bald, elder man's muscles bulged through his suit. Kaiser raised his brow.

"I would if I knew?" The headmaster flew out of his seat.

"Don't play dumb, Kaiser!"

"Headmaster Jose," the Chancellor began, but the principal raised his voice and continued:"Chancellor!" he spit.

"This man and his faction have been pushing for a more difficult Initiation for the last two years! And now, all of a sudden, a bunch of dungeons spawn? Don't tell me you're letting them get away with—"" Sit down, Headmaster." The Chancellor didn't raise her voice, but her words thrummed through their bodies. Jose snapped his mouth shut and grimaced. A few heartbeats passed, then he reached for his upturned seat. The Chancellor fixed him with a stare.

"I understand your concern, Headmaster Jose. It's not only your child going through this predicament." She herself had a son who'd got caught up in this.

"However," she continued, "pointing fingers will get us nowhere. Master Kaiser and his faction have always gone through the legal pathways and submitted their motions, which our governing body has rejected. Neither Master Kaiser nor his faction would circumvent our laws." Here, she turned to Kaiser.

"To do so would elicit unimaginable punishment. I'm certain Master Kaiser understands that." The last part of her dialogue was phrased as a question. Kaiser bowed.

"I wouldn't want to end up like Michael." Janna paused on him a few moments longer, then nodded.

"So, square one. Every second we waste is another second one of our precious students could be lost." They returned to brainstorming. I stepped over a thick vine running rampant through the entire hallway.

"Are we really inside a shadow realm?" Shadow realms were realms outside our own, complete with their own worlds and native populations. No one but government sanctioned mages, called Explorers, could enter them.

"Technically," Kil chimed, "we're neither in a shadow realm nor your own world, Master. We're in a combined slice of two dimensions that was separated from their origin: an Instance." I side-eyed him.

"An Instance?" He nodded.

"You may know it better as a dungeon. It's a space with its own rules that does not belong to any one realm. Not yet." I lightly shook my head as I parsed the information. So, shadow realms were alternate realties separate from our world. When the two realms merged, a dungeon was created.

"What kind of rules do dungeons have?" I asked.

"Whatever the system thinks best fits the merged realms. Usually, it has something to do with pitting the native populations of the realms against each other. The winners get to own the realm." Right. Which was the whole reason guilds were so keen on training mages to send into shadow realms. The resources that could be gained from a conquered realm had no comparison. My mind flicked to another term related to all of this.

"Isn't there also such a thing as shadowlands?"

"Those are shadow realms under the control of a Shadowlord—powerful monsters from one of the Ten Great Monster races." Kil paused.

"We should stay far away from those, Master."

"Are they that dangerous?"

"Monsters have higher stats than humans of the same level. The Ten are many times more powerful than regular monsters. We wouldn't stand a chance." I suppressed a shiver. There really were too many damned things in the world that could kill me. For a few moments, the two of us continued to scale the network of roots in silence. Well, I scaled them, Kil just flew over. Another question popped into my head.

"Say, if this is supposed to be a different world merged with ours, why are we in school?" This place was just our warped campus. Had someone copied our homework and changed it up a little?

"That's simple," Kil said.

"This dungeon was man-made." I stopped in my tracks.

"What?"