There is nothing more refreshing that sitting down with a good book after devouring the souls of your enemies.

  -Zeus, husband of Evirynn

  It turned out that the book was a guide to medicinal plants, for children. Apparently, slimes were considered a ‘medicinal plant’, or at the very least, the Squishy creature’s type of slime. None of these interested Catacomb, particularly, but Sanctuary seemed enraptured by the pictures, and the Slime’s story telling.

  Catacomb duplicated each of the seed and plants that the goblin runt had found, and laid them in front of his ((CORE)). He pushed ((MANA)) into the ‘pine cone’ and was surprised when a moment later a large tree shot out of the ground, crashing into the ceiling. He memorized the schematic and melted it.

  He tried the next, a handful of small white seeds. They grew and bloomed into two different species of flower. A Blue and a red with twisting petals. He grabbed them as well. In this manner, he did the rest of the seeds.

  He ended up with three types of trees, several grasses, seven flowers and two bushes. Catacomb didn’t tend to spend time decorating his floors, but…

  He looked over his new plants, and he could only think of what he could do with them. He jumped to floor one hundred.

  Floor hundred had always been a sort of eclectic mess- he had figured it should be a major milestone, but he had never quite figured out what was supposed to be there. That was pretty much how most of his lower floors were.

  Floor three hundred was practically empty, but Catacomb figured that the more miles between his ((CORE)) and the surface was safer. He wished he could do the same for Sanctuary, but if he put her so low, then how would she ever be able to gain experience?

  He shook his ((GAZE)), and turned back to floor one hundred. He sectioned out a blank area, ordered the half completed necromantic constructs away and began to plant trees. He covered the ground with a layer of dirt, seeding it with pines. They sprouted up and brushed the ceiling, the smaller trees he scattered around the larger, surrounding those with bushes.

  Then flowers. He liked flowers. He’d never seen the before, but they were… pleasant. The forest, really, more of a forest then anything he’d made in the past pleased Catacomb, he hummed as he worked, shifting a few branches, or moving a bush a few inches to the right. He really hadn’t done any creative work in… well. Suffice to say it had been a long time.

  WARNING, YOUR DOMAIN HAS BEEN INVADED! RESOLVE THE INVASION, OR PERISH.

  Catacomb flinched- what? Now? It had barely been a month since the last invasion. Something must’ve followed that Goblin.

  Sending him out was a bad idea. A handful of plants to play around wasn’t worth another invasion this soon. His troops hadn’t yet recovered from being ((TORN))-

  He appeared in the Entrance, the door was still swinging shut, Sanctuary and her monsters were nowhere to be seen, he threw out his ((MANA_SENSE)), and quickly found them, walking toward her ((SANCTUM)), well, that was one relief at least.

  There was no sign of an intrusion. The Goblin Camp continued on with its constant reveling as if nothing had happened. He flung his ((GAZE)) over the entirety of the First Floor, then the second.

  It was empty, completely, utterly undisturbed. Part of him watched to call it a ((SYSTEM)) glitch, but the more rational side knew that somehow, the Mortals had found a way to evade him. They must’ve tested it before, and that was why he didn’t get the INVASION RESOLVED message until later.

  He hissed. Catacomb knew he was better than that, perhaps he had gone soft, so sure of his own safety that he let them plot against him.

  Loss led to escalation, and he hadn’t scaled with them.

  He looked for anything- anything that could indicate where they were. He weakened the molecular structures of the skeletons that made up the floors, making them brittle so they creaked under weight. He listened, not for the sounds of people, but for the absence of sound.

  This was his Domain. He knew every inch of it. He knew the way ((MANA)) flowed. No one, NO ONE, could hide from him inside this place. When they entered, they read the Mantra that he had long ago bound to his soul.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  DEATH COMES TO THOSE WHO ENTER HERE.

  And death would come to these insolent tricksters. There, he found it. A disturbance.

  The ribs of one of the ribcages had cracked, but hadn’t made a sound. Catacomb instantly flooded the chamber with fire.

  He didn’t like using fire, it was costly, and it used up the oxygen in that area. But there was one thing about fire that Catacomb did like.

  It was hard to miss.

  Seven outlines appeared in the red blaze. Then six, as one of them vanished, somehow. The second it was gone, the sounds of screaming filled Floor Four. The other six Mortals burned. Catacomb felt a little sympathy. If only they had gone in the normal way, then he would’ve killed them swiftly.

  After a few minutes, he was greeted with another message

  CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE RESOLVED THE INVASION! +2,000 MANA

  You may want to duck.

  “What?-“ Catacomb began,

  ((MANA)) rushed out of the charred corpses. It shivered and coalesced, then began to whine.

  His ((GAZE)) expanded in realization, and he warped into Sanctuary’s domain. She floated up to meet him, the beginnings of a question slipped out of her ((GAZE)), when the world exploded.

  A searing green, blue and orange light tore through his carefully constructed Domain. Pain blared in Catacomb’s ((CORE)). He let out a cry, and his ((GAZE)) plummeted to the floor.

  Years of hard work, vaporized, he felt the absence of ((MANA)), the empty hole where the invaders had been. Sanctuary’s door fell off its hinges, only to reveal the blue sky and the blinding pain of the sun.

  Catacomb felt his influence fade, no! he lashed out with ((MANA)) struggling to rebuild the cave in which he had been placed as a youngling. Notifications poured in, but there was only one that he truly noticed.

  “Father?” his daughter asked, she was afraid.

  YOUR DOMAIN IS NO LONGER CONNECTED TO THE DOMAIN OF SANCTUARY, THEREFORE, YOU CAN NO LONGER ENTER HER DOMAIN.

  His ((GAZE)) was pulled back into the open crevasses of his damaged Domain, his ((MANA)) leaked out into the open air. He threw himself against the pale void, suddenly blocking him from the territory that was rightfully his.

  He sealed the holes with bone, only leaving one small gap. It declared itself his Entrance, and he finally stopped bleeding ((MANA))

  He needed to get back- he couldn’t leave her out there, she was still too young- He had meant to leave her at some point, but not now! He needed to protect her.

  He needed to protect his baby.

  Name: Catacomb

  Mantra: Death comes to those who enter here

  LV: 273

  EXP 88,633/980,000,000

  Gender: Male

  Affinities: Bone, Ice, Mana… EXPAND?

  Class: Scourge (Uncommon), Commander (Uncommon)

  Race: Undefined

  Nodes: Creeping Lilly LV 49, Basic Necromantic LV 90, Tusnaj Mushroom LV 21… EXPAND?

  Spawners: Feral Goblin LV 60, Basic Necromantic LV 84, Crypt Bat LV 152…EXPAND?

  Retainers: Necrodragon 1 (LV 100)

  Bosses: Necrodragon 2 (LV 87) Necrodragon 3 (LV 87) Necrodragon 4 (LV 87) … EXPAND?

  Tethers: N/A

  Traits: Desecrator, Ouroboros, Violent… EXPAND?

  Blessings: Blessing of Bastion, Fruitful and Multiply

  Curses: Murderer, Odysseus, Vampire

  Titles: Son of Bastion, Line Ender (LEX), Terror of Ridoum (XII)

  Notoriety: 800,932,033

  Fame: 33

  Infamy: 800,932,000

  Kills: 30,983,237

  INT: 117

  SOUL: 117

  WILL: 117

  MAG: 117

  STR: 117

  DEF: 117

  CONS: 117