Pov Ace

  It was weird to have my senses open. Usually, I hide my power, but the time for secrecy was over. It took me a bit to get used to the sensory overload, but the skills I was using helped me interpret the things I wanted to know from the things I didn’t.

  My talent also let me feel the amount of panic and worry my people were experiencing. At this moment, what I wished for the most was that things could just stay the same. It would be so nice if those in power would actually recognize our sovereignty, but that would be a fool’s wish.

  My citizens were actually coming around. Most of them had already decided to go to our new home or had already left, bringing everything they could with them. The bigger problem was the adventurers.

  Many of them had come from far away, and they had families they wanted to return to. Even they heard my announcement in every corner of the dungeon, thanks to ETG. He even helped some of them get out faster from where they were if they wanted to leave the dungeon.

  Those who didn’t want to stay were obviously incredibly worried about what would happen when diamond ranks reached this place. That’s why a large portion of my Navy was currently helping load up everyone who wanted to leave onto airships so they could escape this place.

  My army was helping anyone else, and of course, I wasn’t going to leave the wealth of my nation behind. So we were also transporting that to our new home, even if there wouldn’t be much use for it there, at least at the start.

  My mind flashed back to when ETG opened up a gateway for me to see the home he built for my nation. I was floored when I saw the city, empty and just waiting for people to occupy it. Then I let my senses go and felt how large the place actually was. I couldn’t feel the end of it, and then he told me that it was bigger than the real world, with continents and oceans and wildlife that was mostly safe, but there were more dangerous areas.

  I still don’t know how to feel about him building us an entire world. How was that even possible? I know how big his dungeon was in the real world, and it was minuscule in comparison to the world he made for my nation. Then he told me the other secret: that this was just one of 50 such places.

  He did admit that the starting floors were minuscule in comparison, but that didn’t matter to me. He had still hidden so much—no wonder I felt such power when he allowed me to take strength from his realm.

  Now it makes more sense how I managed to get so strong in so short a time when I fixed my skills. I was able to pull on the power of multiple worlds. That means my talent wasn’t as efficient as I first thought it was, but that didn’t matter anymore.

  There were so many intelligent creatures and so many civilizations inside ETG, not to speak of the fact that he could make humans, dwarves, and the other races that were thought impossible for dungeons to copy.

  Not only that but apparently, when dungeon monsters have offspring, their offspring are no longer bound to the dungeon and can leave it. They were as real as me, except they still had a strong connection to the dungeon of their birth and would never betray it.

  Then there was the Academy, the Line, and the Labyrinth—things I would never have expected a dungeon to have. Well, perhaps the labyrinth, but not in the form that it’s in.

  Everything was going smoothly for now, but I knew that it wouldn’t last. News was already spreading about what was happening here, but everyone was still too far away to do anything to stop it. I wondered if they were going to let other people settle back here, using the fact that the trade winds weakened here so people could use it as a resupply spot. Perhaps the Masters and the Beasts will try to take full control over this place and only allow their own people to work here. I guess we will see in the future.

  I also didn’t doubt that they would try to take the dungeon by force, but now that I knew the extent of his power, I understood that anyone who wanted to take this dungeon would need to use tremendous force. I was certain that they had the strength needed if they came together, but would the four powers that were on the brink of war act fast enough to stop the progress of this dungeon before nothing could stop it? I guess we will see if they succeed in that or not.

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  Time went by fast, and I was quite busy guiding my people to get to the problematic places. A lot of people started to loot, but I wasn’t going to have it. My concentration was broken when I sensed something fast approaching. I looked north. It didn’t take long for me to sense a massive object flying at incredible speeds. “That is my creatures.” I heard a soft voice in my head that I immediately recognized as ETG.

  He seemed incredibly busy, and it didn’t take long for me to have a visual of the airship that was closing in. It was entirely made of metal, something I hadn’t seen before, and, of course, the speed at which it was moving was incredible. The front of it seemed quite damaged, perhaps it had gone through a battle, or maybe the speed itself had caused this.

  They did notify air control of their approach, but their last sentence was quite worrying. They said that three hours behind them, there was still one diamond rank following their escape from wherever they came from.

  What was worrying was that they weren’t slowing down, but then I sensed a part of the mountain turning into a large gateway, and the pieces fell together. They were simply going to fly at this speed into the dungeon and probably slow down there. But that meant I would need to deal with the diamond rank that was following them.

  It took another hour before I felt his power closing in. ETG assured me that if I needed it, I could get help from the peak diamond rank. But now that I felt the power closing in, I knew I didn’t need it.

  While he was more powerful than me, it was obvious he had focused on travel speed more than anything else. Also, the fact that he had been burning so much mana to continue flying here at such speed meant that he would be quite spent.

  I flew up and waited floating in the air for his approach. He noticed me and started to slow down, eventually stopping a few kilometers away, breathing heavily. “Why don’t you go back to where you came from? This is the sovereign ground of the Eternal City-State, and you have no permission to enter it.”

  “You traitor! No one has recognized anything, and you can’t just declare yourself a sovereign nation apart from us. You’re our subordinate, nothing more. Why do you have the flying skill? I swear, it’s the incompetence of the younger generations that has led to this idiotic incident. Do you really think you can stop me? Don’t make me laugh. And you actually think that a newly ranked-up platinum dungeon can even defend against me? Let me show you true strength!”

  He teleported past me, but I managed to get one of my hooking skills on him. Damn, he was fast, and before I was able to properly activate the skill, he had flown past me and into the gateway where the airship had gone through.

  Of course, ETG didn’t let him enter the dungeon, but that didn’t stop him from flying through the mountain, causing a portion of it to crack and start tumbling down. He seemed quite pleased with himself and started flying toward the city itself, but he didn’t get far before the skill snapped into place. I yanked him back like he was tethered by a rope.

  That must have hurt, but he didn’t fall far before he managed to regain control of his body. Now, he looked mad but also confused. “You think I would let you destroy this city and the people in it? I love how all of you underestimate anyone who isn’t you.”

  He tried again, but he wasn’t getting away from me. It took quite a lot of power, especially with him resisting, but I kept making the rope shorter and shorter.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to fight me?” I said in a mocking voice. He immediately turned around and flew toward me at incredible speed. I had to give it to him—he really was fast in the air.

  What he didn’t expect was for me to let him hit me. As soon as he did, I wrapped myself around him, increasing my weight while pounding him with my fists. The flying skill took quite a lot of concentration, and soon we found ourselves on the ground.

  He started to throw spells at me, and I needed to defend. He was still stronger than me, but obviously, he didn’t actually know how to properly fight. Yes, he was doing damage to me, but he was spending so much power to do so. I just let him think that he was winning. It took him quite a while to understand what was happening, but by then it was already too late.

  When his eyes widened a bit with the realization that he was running on empty and hadn’t done any real damage, I appeared in front of him and headbutted him hard. He tried to defend himself, but he was more of a spellcaster than a close-in fighter. I slipped past his every punch and delivered my own. He tried to escape a few times, but he was always pulled back by the rope.

  “Stop! Please, don’t! We can talk!” he tried to say with his broken jaw, but I just pretended not to hear. Just a moment ago, he was ready to kill innocent civilians just to show his superiority. I never understood how killing or hurting someone weaker than you made you stronger. It just made you a pathetic bully. It didn’t take long for him to be on the ground while I continued to rain punches on his head.

  I stopped when he was properly unconscious and barely living. That took quite a lot—diamond-rank bodies were tough. When I looked around, I saw the devastation. A part of the mountain was completely destroyed, and the land was filled with scars for about 100 kilometers around us. The forest that we had fought in was on fire in multiple spots, but most of it was now black dirt or rock. In fact, I was currently in a hole about 100 meters deep just because of the punches I made.

  I kind of wanted to kill him, and I knew that I could, but there was still a chance that we could postpone hostilities. Every moment ETG got to continue advancing meant there was a better chance for all of us to survive.

  So I went and brought some special rope and handcuffs and tied him up so he wouldn’t be able to do anything. What I didn’t do was heal him. I could already see his body slowly healing itself, so it meant he wouldn’t die, but I also wanted him to stay unconscious for as long as possible.

  I was still going to stay close to here, just in case he managed to do something, but I focused back on guiding my people to help my citizens relocate and anyone who wanted to escape this place board airships that would take them far away. I wondered if I was going to need to fight again, or if we would get the evacuations done before that.