The five of us shift our appearances as we float in a circle around the Vice Region's director.
It's a clear morning on the Dark Continent, with barely a cloud in the sky. With my advanced perception, I have a crystal-clear view of the entire Crimson City to my left and the slowly retracting abyss leading to an enormous black tower to my right.
The director is held up by my telekinesis, but his face contorts in confusion as we've all come to a stop.
The complete change in appearance from the man he knew as Mr. Freeman, and the distortion of the four guards sent here to greet him, only adds to his questions about the situation.
"What's all this about? Did I say something wrong? Is the Flame Emperor's origin a taboo subject? Am I not supposed to know?"
I shrug, looking the man in the eyes, then slowly spin him around in a circle so that he can get a good look at each of us while I continue to speak.
"No, of course you haven't said anything wrong. Out of any of the Regional Directors, I think you actually know more than even Mr. Freeman himself."
I can feel his heart rate speeding up as he takes in the new appearances of everyone, feeling the increase in pressure, realizing something is wrong here but not understanding what it is just yet. All he manages to reply once a full rotation brings him back to me is one line.
"You're... not Mr. Freeman?"
His face has returned to its pale state, as he's now positive something is terribly wrong, but I reply in a slow and calming tone, completely ignoring his last question.
"The Flame Emperor's origins? That is quite a long story... One that starts far back in the Vice Region, actually, if you look back far enough..."
I sigh, then grin and continue.
"However, I think it's best we start at a point that we can connect on. Earlier this year, there were some terrible surges that came out from the abyss and struck the Dark Continent pretty hard, especially in Sector 4. In fact, there was a labyrinth on the verge of collapse in Solara. Are you aware of this event?"
Brutus' mind wanders back in time, but as his face grows more pale and his heartbeat pounds out from his chest, all he can muster are a few more words.
"I—uh—yes, I do remember this..."
He gulps loudly as I use telekinesis to turn him slowly around in a circle again to get a good look at each of us for a second time.
"I don't know if you recall, there was a team of four new elites and a duo of seasoned elites tasked to handle this mission for you, yet betrayed on a whim for nothing more than a little business transaction with the current Sector 4 leader."
His face pales more, and sweat starts to trickle down his forehead as his eyes meet with each of ours, and he finally begins to recognize who is in front of him.
After multiple rank-ups, thousands of levels, trillions of mana control gained, and even multiple tiers of divine cores earned, all of us look far older, stronger, and more mature than we did the last time we met face-to-face.
I add to the point, looking off into the abyss, then back toward the director as he finishes his spin to look at me again, so I can set my point in stone.
"It's a shame only five of us could make it to our reunion. I'm sure Arie will meet you in some shape or form one day."
I let out a chuckle as I turn, unable to hold back my delight in seeing the psyche of this man crack once he hears me say one of my teammate's names.
He coughs, trying to murmur something out, but no words escape his lips.
The man shivers and shakes, while more sweat trickles down his temples, and I enjoy every second of this moment.
"It's me, Jay, the Flame Emperor."
With one hand, I create a small ball of black flames, and with the other, open a spatial magic portal to let the burnt remains of Mr. Freeman float out beside me.
"If it wasn't for you, I never would have had the extra push to become stronger. Exiled to the Dark Continent, forced to fake my own death, with the only path available to me being to rise through the ranks of the black markets rather than follow the simple rules of the Eight Great Regions..."
His pupils dilate, and he looks at my flames, then the charred bones and half-melted, barely recognizable gear that the Apex Region's director used to wear, and finally back into my eyes.
"This is all thanks to you. I took over each sector one by one and gained control of the trade industry on this continent. It was my only way to make connections with the powers back on the mainland, and eventually find my way into the Apex Region and kill your boss when he least expected it. I've got to say, without you, the downfall of the Eight Great Regions wouldn't have been possible."
I don't fully mean the words I say, but there is an underlying truth to it.
If I was never cut off from the association when I was, there's no telling where I would have ended up.
Back then, I was still naive to the world and the simple hierarchies of power and control that shape our everyday lives. It really was a blessing in disguise that I was thrown away from the structure that almost chained me to the Eight Great Regions, but it still feels awfully good to get revenge on the one who wronged me.
I extinguish the flames in my right hand and let Mr. Freeman's remains fall back into my storage, then rotate Brutus again in his shocked state.
Fisher is to my left, and he's the first to speak up next, with a similarly arrogant look on his face.
"Not so tough now, are ya, Mr. Director? I moved on to better things, but if Jay brings me an old enemy to vent my pent-up stress after a long day of work, who am I to refuse the chance to rub it in your face? Over four years of loyal work, and all you did was throw me away like a worthless tool..."
He shakes his head in disgust.
"Jay does have a point. If I wasn't thrown out to die, I probably wouldn't even be a B-Class hunter yet. Crazy how life works, isn't it?"
The director looks as if his soul has left his body as he stutters out a few words.
"N-No... You were all dead—there's no way—"
Lydia sends a kick flying into the director's stomach before he can finish his words.
He spits up an immense amount of blood and falls into a coughing fit.
Even though the kick used hardly a hundredth of her full power, just making physical contact with the man leaves divine threads in his blood-bonded armor and flesh that ripple through his body and instantly begin eating away at him.
The white-haired ice mage curses at the old man with an angry tone I've never heard from her before.
Abby creates a restoration circle beneath the old man to keep him from dying in the next few seconds, and this only gives Lydia more punches and kicks to let out her frustration.
For almost a full minute, the man is repeatedly beaten within an inch of his life and healed back to normal.
It's quite grotesque, but out of all of us, Lydia suffered the worst from the director's actions. She was captured and tortured for days, yet never gave up any information about us and believed wholeheartedly we would come to rescue her. She never even brought it up, or blamed anyone afterward.
It's only right I keep the director floating, and we all watch with straight faces as blood splatters through the air.
As all the life in the director's eyes fades away, and he's nothing but a husk of his former self from just minutes ago, Lydia finally lets out a sigh, and Fisher summons water magic for her to wash the blood from her fists and boots.
"That is all... I'm satisfied. It was nice meeting you again, Brutus. This will be our last encounter."
I continue turning him in mid-air, straightening his bowed head and slumped shoulders to look Abby in the eyes next.
She shrugs too and shakes her head.
"You know... At first I was mad at you, really mad. In my eyes, the Association was honorable, helping new hunters become strong and protecting citizens of the world from the monsters that escaped from dungeons. The day you let us die in the Dark Continent is the day I realized you're nothing more than a cog in a bigger system. This is all business to you, and every other higher-up in the Association is the same. Humans are just your tools to get tasks done. We're numbers and nothing more, so that's how I'll treat you now. It's a shame your territory is being taken over, but it's just business, right?"
She smirks, then nods to me to continue the rotation.
Maria's sharp blue eyes pierce through the director.
Deep down within her gaze, the carefree, bubbly, oblivious Maria is still present, but it's clear that countless battles and the betrayal that put her own life and those she cared about on the line has played a major role in shaping her new reality. It was one of the catalysts that allowed her to begin reaching into this endless pit of power she's been granted, and become ruthless.
"I wanted to show up to the Vice Region's headquarters and freeze that entire building to ice... Many times I considered it, but Jay always has a plan so I waited it out... I knew this time would come. A man who sacrifices his subordinates with no rhyme or reason, not even warning us that our mission was dangerous, selling us out for a partnership with Sector 4 just to make a little extra profit..."
She shakes her head, and her eyes glow blue while orange divine threads circulate around her body, ready for use.
She looks toward me, and I nod.
"I have no further questions for this man. All I wanted to do was show him how far we've come, and how big of a mistake he really made. I think Abby said it best: this is merely business. You decided to kill and replace us on a whim, so I guess we're just doing the same."
I smile, and we all activate our elemental magic to summon identical manifestations of handheld spears imbued with our soul energy.
Mine is dark red, Fisher's is cyan, Lydia's is white, Abby's is green, and Maria's is royal blue.
Simultaneously, we throw our spears forward, aimed at the man's heart. Some fly toward his chest, while others fly toward his back, but they're all aimed to kill.
The sky is lit up with colors as the five spears move toward their target.
Simultaneously, Abby activates her area of restoration and restore skill, and imbues her divine threads deep inside the skill and buff. Maria also activates her ice age buff and uses her royal blue soul energy to create a wave of ice, all imbued with divine threads as well.
The two waves of magic freeze the entire moment in time.
The director is hit in the heart by five spears, yelling out in pain as he realizes the world-ending error he's made. Yet, he's frozen solid milliseconds before he's killed. The man's mind and body are being constantly restored, while in constant pain on the edge of darkness, not allowing him to feel the bliss of death.
His yells cease as he's trapped inside the eternal prison of ice glowing with orange, blue, and green light.
All of us stare ahead at the scene and have a moment of silence, appreciating how far we've come.
____________________________
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying Dungeon Diver and want to follow Jay on his journey 20+ chapters ahead of schedule, check out the Patreon link in my profile bio.
There's custom chapter art for every new daily upload too!
Thanks for reading:)
____________________________
The sun continues to rise, and I proudly let my aura gently seep through my growing lands.
Business as usual goes on all throughout the Dark Continent, and a surprising weight of relief is lifted off my shoulders.
The Crimson City is growing faster than ever before, forming many new links of loyalty every few minutes during this morning rush hour, and the new connection to the 8 Great Regions will only make this growth skyrocket further.
The Abyss is retracting at a slow and steady rate, while simultaneously, my doubles are creating new dungeons to make new areas of dead land viable for new settlements to be built, making expansion more natural and appetizing for citizens.
My last remaining double is scouting out the island of Palmyra, watching a new shift of hunters coming out of their identical housing in a structured military fashion while the hunters on duty hand in their night's worth of loot.
The patterns and procedures are all being noted down, and after another cycle, my double will begin to look at the Finger Islands.
–
I share this moment of accomplishment with my teammates only for a matter of minutes before I break the silence.
"Well, good riddance. I'll need to extract some information from him in the future, but this is a fitting fate for him now."
My attention turns to the direction of the prison far out in the desert that was created to store and interrogate members of the association after the attack on the Crimson Dome , so I speak up again.
"I know just where to keep him until then."
I pull the block of ice imbued with soul energy and divine threads closer to me, then reach into my storage to pull out an item box and toss it to Maria on my right.
"That's for your next core progression. The yellow core. There should be enough inside there for all of you to make it to the next stage. Compressing them into true cores will be a far different issue..."
I turn the conversation back to business and explain exactly what's happened since I left them in an emergency state, and the shockwaves, surges, and Abyss are explained as best I can.
I let them in on the details of Mr. Freeman being a member of a society that rules this world, and that others like him, even stronger, are coming to battle for whatever is making itself known inside the Abyss.
Many questions are asked back, but I still don't have much information at all to share. I'm in the dark almost as much as all of them.
I fill them in on the expansion plans I've worked out with Rodrigo and Bri, then bring up the fact that I've made an alliance with the nation to our south; however, I leave out the small detail about Raven being close by right now.
We just had quite the moment, tying up the loose end by defeating the Director that screwed us all over. I feel it's best to introduce her on better terms; once the tinge of betrayal isn't fresh in our minds, and once everyone here is a bit stronger as well.
While my teammates are, in fact, the strongest hunters in all of the Dark Continent and 8 Great Regions, mere red and orange cores aren't going to be able to stack up against the overwhelming might of a True Core.
It's hard to even conceptualize to them right now that if I let down my protective barriers, they wouldn't be able to survive my aura alone...
I think to myself about possible tactics to expedite the process of awakening a True Core, like the time I used Green Divine fruits to speed up the process by thousands of times.
It usually takes decades, or even over a century to grow to the state I managed in a few weeks. Replicating the process with different tools won't be easy...
While the circulation of divine threads inside the bunker does expedite the process by 3-4x, it is nowhere near enough efficiency to bring them near my level of power within the mere days we have left until the other members of the order said they would arrive on the Dark Continent.
My head spins thinking of ideas, while Abby and Maria come up with a creative way to continue training while they wait for Lydia and Fisher to awaken their orange cores.
I nod once I'm done thinking and their planning comes to a close.
"Good. Get ready for another war... I don't know when or how strong you'll have to become, but that never held us back before. Train hard and plan for the worst."
I share my body double skill with Fisher and Lydia while giving my Absorption skill to Abby and Maria.
Fisher and Lydia will have to use constant Restoration potions made from Abby's skill, and the healing process will be a bit slower than if she was in the room with them; however, the small lag in progress will be beneficial.
During this time, they'll be able to farm levels in the labyrinth with their doubles, and Abby and Maria don't have to halt their progression either. They will be farming both levels and Mana Control on the highest floors until they're all ready to begin the Yellow Core awakening process.
Flashes of white light leave me floating above the desert alone with the Director trapped in a block of ice before me.
I turn and bring him back to the prison far from the city.
–
Once I touch down in front of the facility and greet the Crimson Army guards I left on duty before, I give them new instructions.
"We will be releasing the current prisoners, and adding a single one that you will continue to watch. There's been a change in ownership of the nation they came from."
Before, the only reason I was keeping them all here was because they followed orders from Mr. Freeman to attack the Crimson City.
While I resent them for it, and they should be thinking for themselves, some of them were incapable of that fact; under the elusive mind control of that man's ranked up buff.
"Line them up all outside the prison once I leave. They will receive new temporary contracts tasked to 15 to 45 days of labor to help us expand our borders. They will be paid out a standard rate once their contracts are complete and seen as free men if they wish to go separate ways. That is, as long as they don't act up during this probation time. I'll have a man sent here soon to pick them up."
One of my doubles creating dungeons in the Sector 2 deadzone is seeing all of this play out in real-time and knows that I'm talking to it specifically, so it comes flying this way while the guards separate and let me walk inside the prison while carrying a massive compacted ball of floating ice containing a single prisoner.
As I walk through the rows of cells, I use telekinesis and mana manipulation to take off their restraints and open the cell doors that hold them. I let the small pieces of black originator stone fall into my item storage.
Then, use a [Heavy Hand] to increase the gravity in the room while I speak up.
"You're all going to be free soon. I have a single job to be done, then you may all go back to the Apex Region in peace."
Many of the prisoners wince under the pressure, but as I lift it, many become interested in my words as they've been starved of stimulation for a few dayst.
"I know this attack you all took part in was not the result of a direct choice from all of you. Some didn't have the correct information, and others were under the influence of subtle mind control. I'd like to give you all a second chance, and I'm only doing so because luckily no one was killed during your stunt. The Dark Continent and 8 Great Regions have made a trade alliance, so you will work together with citizens here and show that we can get along... The process will take a few weeks, maybe a month, and in the end of it, you can all go back to your comfy suites in the Apex Region Headquarters for all I care. Understood?"
I increase the gravity one more time, then let the pressure go as I make it to the end of the hall with the Vice Region's director floating before me.
"You either agree, or you stay in here with him."
At this, everyone in the prison leaves their cells and walks out to be pushed into a long line at the entrance of the prison, waiting for my double to arrive and get them started on the half-Dark Continent, half-8 Great Regions team of workers that will take down the wall that separates our nations.
I plan to have many news outlets get a hold of this sight to get the word of the merging of nations out in a more natural way than just the Association workers leaking it to their friends and family.
The doors to the prison shut, and all that's left is the Director frozen solid, staring straight ahead in constant pain, shock, and dread.
I let out a sigh while using my soul energy, mana manipulation, and small amounts of divine threads to seep into the floors and walls of this prison to reinforce its strength; then let the Director down with a thud.
"Enjoy your stay, it's going to be quite a while..."
I stare forward at him for a few more seconds, then turn around and crush all of the lights on the way out with telekinesis to make the prison go dark, and the only glow comes from the back wall where the frozen man rests in eternal solitude.
While I open the door to leave, three new wells of gravity tickle my senses far away. One seems strong enough to be a yellow core, while the others are a similar strength to Abby and Maria.
It's coming from Valor City, but this is close enough for me to use my enemy detection.
Once I take a step out the prison's front door and send a pulse to get a scan; for some reason, these three beings don't have any normal stats or levels and don't appear on my system interface at all.
The only energy sources within them I sense are Divine Energy and Qi.
____________________________
Author's Note:
If you're enjoying Dungeon Diver and want to follow Jay on his journey 20+ chapters ahead of schedule, check out the Patreon link in my profile bio.
There's custom chapter art for every new daily upload too!
Thanks for reading:)
____________________________
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