Chapter 309
Sir Maximilian is bent over a sheaf of paper in the dim light of the war room, the quill in his hand moving in short, deliberate scratches that pause for a heartbeat between every two lines, as if the man has trained himself out of writing faster than he can think. A second pile of notes sits to his left, a third to his right, and the candle on the corner of the desk has burned down to roughly half of what it had been at dawn. He does not look up when Janus knocks. He simply finishes the line he is on, sets the quill down at the precise angle that lets it not roll, and reaches a hand out for whatever Janus has brought.
“Sir,” Janus the Scribe says to the Knight Commander, looking over some data. “There seem to be a few weird reports here.”
Sir Maximilian looks up from the mountain of paper he was examining and takes more paper from Janus.
Looking through the numbers, the columns, and rows, Sir Maximilian raises an eyebrow. “The Knights are consuming a lot of True Diamond and even Imperium food.”
“Why would this concern us, Janus?”
“Sir, please look at the total, then look at the daily market movements.”
Sir Maximilian does as told and, indeed, finds something weird.
“With how much food at True Diamond costs and all the Merchants here offering rare wares, I would not have expected our people to spend so much on food.”
“Well,” Janus clears his throat, “it appears that about 35% of the entire volume of purchases has been made by the same person.”
“Janus, we’re talking about hundreds of True Diamond Coins each day. Even with the finds from the Dungeon, with the monster body parts, with the treasures they might have found in the Intermediate Grounds… we’re talking about a ridiculous amount of money.”
“The merchants all say it was the same man buying so much. I’ve asked around. But no one seems to have recognized him.”
“Maybe someone is buying them on behalf of a team. It wouldn’t be the most preposterous thing we’ve seen when a Primordial Dungeon appears. Much less an Original Primordial Dungeon. Let’s just drop this matter for now. Anything else that you found weird or out of place?”
“Well… someone has flooded the market with True Diamond Runic Notation, but it is to be expected in such conditions. Runic Notation experts have flocked before to Primordial Dungeons to sell to Knights and Adventurers.”
“And why are you even reporting this to me?” Sir Maximilian frowns.
“The sheer amount of them,” Janus bites his lower lip, “and the quality, sir. Check this one out. I bought one for myself.”
Sir Maximilian takes a piece of parchment from Janus and stares at it together with some papers.
[How to Level Oceanic Soul to Level 100]
Sir Maximilian blinks a few times.
Oceanic Soul is an extremely popular and powerful Skill, one of the most available at such a Rank, and virtually omnipresent in the build of every single water magic user. But it was equally common as it was hard to perfect. In fact, most people barely had it reach level 50 before evolving it into its Imperium Rank equivalent.
The fact that this piece of paper claims that it could let someone level Oceanic Soul to Level 100 is preposterous.
“Were you scammed?” Sir Maximilian frowns, looking over the runes themselves.
“Sir, Oceanic Soul is a Skill easy to level up outside of combat, despite being a massive pain to level up after level 40. My Skill has just reached Level 67.”
Sir Maximilian stares at Janus, speechless.
“Sixty-seven?! In… how long?”
“Three days, sir. This is the best Runic Notation I’ve ever laid hands upon. I was thinking of telling my children to switch to water magic, sir.”
Sir Maximilian doesn’t doubt that. To think that someone would be insane enough to sell a legitimate guide to level up a Skill to level 100 at True Diamond meant that someone must have just betrayed their entire bloodline. Usually, it takes generations upon generations, or one prodigy whose insights must be unrivaled for them to not only bring a Skill to level 100, but be fully conscious of how to correct all the mistakes and flaws and put them down in Runic Notation.
“This someone must be making an absolute killing ,” Sir Maximilian says in wonder. “Good, though. It will make the teams stronger if anything.”
“Sir, yes to both, but… this is one of… twelve True Diamond Runic Notations that recently went on sale.”
Sir Maximilian blinks a few times.
“What?”
Janus shows a list of the Skills available, which makes Sir Maximilian just more perplexed. They are some of the most common, but also hardest to level True Diamond Skills.
He has no idea how this is even possible. And, somehow, it appears that it was all from the same person.
“This is just madness,” Sir Maximilian says. “Whatever, it’s not the weirdest thing to happen in recent memory.”
“Well, sir, you might want to hear this too, then.”
“There were just a few rooms full of monsters. The rest was empty here as well.”
Captain Lagrange, hearing Jacob Cloud’s words, huffs.
They’ve just gone through a second set of ruins that were completely empty, with the same ash and scorching marks all over them.
“Primordial Dungeons can be weird. This being an Original Primordial Dungeon, there’s clearly a lot wrong with it,” Captain Lagrange sighs. “Let’s send word back to the Knight Commander and push on tomorrow morning. The scouts showed us reports that four more sites have been discovered around here.”
As they board enchanted carriages that hover over the dunes and will bring them to the next site, Captain Lagrange gestures at Jacob.
“Cloud, you ride with me.”
Jacob boards the carriage, getting a seat right in front of the Captain, with his second in command, Junt, to Jacob’s right, and Narzla to his left.
“I received a very detailed report on you, Cloud. The Knight Commander says you have an extremely strong sense of justice and an, I quote, ‘urgency to take matters in his own hands that could lead him to make reckless choices.’ What do you think of that? Do you find it resembles the truth in your opinion?”
“Reckless is not a word I’d use for myself,” Jacob replies with a smile. “I have no idea why the Knight Commander would write something like that about me.”
Yet, Captain Lagrange has read all about the tavern incident, straight from the Knight Commander’s pen. The problem is that the Jacob Cloud that was described in the report and the apparently-meek one in front of him are radically different people.
“You don’t seem to be making reckless choices. I know that two of your people, very essential fighters from my understanding, were sent to Team One.”
Jacob makes a thoughtful face, as if he is hearing the team structure for the first time — though Captain Lagrange had laid it all out the very first day, in plain words: who Team Five was for, where the fastest learners ended up, why the slowest rotation was also the safest.
“Don’t play dense, Cloud. You were sent to me because you were the most likely to cause trouble.”
“Trouble?” Jacob asks, blinking a few times with wide eyes. “Me?”
“The Knight Commander wrote down that he felt killing intent from you when he told you that we would sacrifice the civilians so that the Blackmere kid would be able to join Team One.”
“I probably ate something heavy that day and had some acid reflux,” Jacob says candidly. “I would never release killing intent toward the Knight Commander, sir.”
Narzla and Junt turn toward Jacob, staring at him from the sides while the Captain stares at him from the front.
“What?” Jacob asks.
“ Why are you not doing anything?” Captain Lagrange asks. “You are one smart bastard with a lot of Rainbow Skills among your people. You kids might not have reached Diamond Rank, yet, but I wouldn’t enter a fight blindly with any of you . So, what gives?”
“Captain, are you asking me if I’m plotting something against direct orders that would give either you or the Knight Commander reason to kick me out of the Dungeon and be imprisoned?”
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Captain Lagrange doesn’t even blink.
“Yes.”
“I’m not.”
“Heh, I tried, at least,” Captain Lagrange sighs. “You guys are entering the rotations at the next site. I really want to see what you’re capable of.”
As it turns out, Jacob Cloud’s group is pretty underwhelming in Captain Lagrange’s opinion.
Jacob Cloud himself almost gets speared to death by the Lancer he’s facing, and he’s barely acting. With all his years of experience, Captain Lagrange knows a fighter who’s faking it, especially in a Dungeon as dangerous as this one.
Jacob avoids facing the Lancer directly, slashing at all the monsters around him, which riddles them with Afflictions that make him stronger while Baal, the Blood of the Devils, runs interference on it to keep it occupied.
The rest of the group, especially the Champions, is not faring well even against normal monsters. The Dark Champions are clearly stronger, but even they can just be compared to a normal Intermediate True Diamond Rank, much less to the elite that makes the cut for the Intermediate Grounds of the Primordial Dungeon.
He feels the message in his pocket that the Knight Commander had sent him.
Upon reporting the empty-Dungeon situation, the Knight Commander had immediately suggested that Jacob Cloud and his team must have been sneaking around to kill all the monsters with their Rainbow Skills or some secret strategy.
Yet, Captain Lagrange doesn’t see it.
The Void Mages are able to punch through any monsters, and some of the swordsmen like the Elf and the Highblood of the Dark Champions are scary martial artists. Yet, having seen Rainbow Skills in action before, Captain Lagrange can’t imagine they would make a huge difference.
At best, they would struggle less. But there’s absolutely no way for them to clear an entire ruin in six hours. Even though they’re hiding their Rainbow Skills… yeah, twenty spots, rooms and corridors, at best. That’s the upper bound of what I imagine them clearing in the six hours they disappear for. And it checks out with what we’ve seen around the Dungeons.
Captain Lagrange scratches his chin.
But then, what am I missing here? What the hell is happening with the Primordial Dungeon?
As soon as the fight finishes, all the Champions and Dark Champions are covered in grime from head to toe.
Sure, when I think that they’re still Platinum Ranks, I want to dig a hole and hide myself in it, but not even if they went to Diamond Ranks overnight would they acquire the kind of power they’d need to cleanly sweep an entire ruin.
“Rest up,” Captain Lagrange tells Jacob and his team.
He made them fight alone so that he could see their real capabilities. But if he continues to do so, not only would they slow down too much even for Team Five, but they would definitely get hurt.
“So…” Jacob pants hard. “How did we do?”
“You… it’s a start, I suppose,” Captain Lagrange sighs. “But I’ll be honest, Cloud. You guys are too weak. Everybody here is at the very least Peak True Diamond Rank in fighting power, with the majority of them being Imperium Rank. You guys… I’ll have to talk to the Knight Commander about this.”
Five Weeks Later
“The market reports for Skill Crystals are out. They have unearthed some incredible things from the ruins, sir. We estimate that yesterday alone, eleven thousand True Diamond Spirit Coins worth of Skill Crystals were sold.”
“Huh?” Sir Maximilian raises his head from what Janus recognizes as…
“Sir, is that a Runic Notation Scroll?”
“Hu-hem,” Sir Maximilian clears his throat and sneakily puts the scroll away. “I was just doing some market research. Anyway, what did you say?”
“The market in Ashenmere yesterday recorded sales for eleven thousand True Diamond Spirit Coins in Skill Crystals. I had the merchants compile reports at the end of each day so that we could look at it.”
Sir Maximilian takes the sheets of paper, but there’s so much on his war room desk by now that he knocks over a large pile of papers, accidentally showing a black folder underneath.
He looks at it for a moment before using a Skill to pile up the papers on top of it again.
“Sir, do you want me to look at—“
“No,” Sir Maximilian sighs. “We know the trends. Unless something happens, we’re not looking at the civilian deaths, Janus. Nor are we making them public. We’re not bringing down morale since things are getting more complicated than we anticipated.”
In fact, even the first forecast that Sir Maximilian had made when they breached the Intermediate Ground was now being reworked. There seems to be virtually no end to the amount of ruins in the Primordial Dungeon, making the Knight Commander wonder how long it would take before they found the Advanced Grounds and the core.
Looking through the Skills, Sir Maximilian sees that, at the very least, a bunch of great Skills have appeared. For some reason, he notices a few of them that would perfectly suit an Affliction specialist — despite their insane price tag, they have already been bought.
“Jacob Cloud probably bought these ones,” Sir Maximilian says.
Even if he tries to, the Knight Commander keeps having the feeling that the Leader of Champions is plotting something, despite all the evidence pointing to the fact that he’s having a very mediocre run with Team Five.
“Speaking of the Devil,” Janus sighs, handing out another paper. “This is what Captain Lagrange suggested.”
Sir Maximilian reads the brief and raises an eyebrow.
“I guess that we can’t keep worrying about them. There are priorities here. Let’s sit on this for a little longer, though.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good job!” A guy shouts at Jacob, who just killed a Lancer after the casters immobilized it.
“Thanks,” Jacob pants in the middle of the now empty room, dispelling his Reverse Domain and The Devil’s Engine.
A few people of Team Five give Jacob a thumb-up.
The role of Jacob and his team, so far, has been to fill in for anyone who’s too tired or drained from previous fights. The Champions and Dark Champions have grown, but not as significantly as one might have imagined.
They still do their mysterious training away from everybody every single day, but as for the rest, they’re now just looking like mediocre fighters that can lend a helping hand in a pinch.
“Those Soldiers from before were pretty scary,” Jacob says to Narzla, one of the casters who helped him fell the Lancer. “Their defenses are crazy.”
Nightmare Soldiers of Apocalypse are a variant that uses a massive shield and a longsword to attack. Unlike the Lancers and Archers, they’re a more defensive variant of Nightmares. Yet, their incredible defense is also paired with nasty curse-attacks that can drain your health and Mana faster than you can imagine, which also allows them to regain health and power themselves.
“They’re like a stronger version of you,” Baal chimes in, wiping some sweat from his forehead and gold-blonde locks.
“Kids, don’t fight,” Narzla says affectionately.
But before she can say something else, Jacob’s head snaps back.
“The ceiling! Careful!”
Jacob tackles two people, throwing them to the edge of the room as a shadow falls at meteoritic speed toward the ground, missing him by inches, and creating a massive crater on impact.
[Nightmare Juggernaut of Apocalypse - Level 1590 (Elite)]
“A Juggernaut?!” Captain Lagrange shouts in shock. “Everyone, defensive formation! Cloud, put your damn Class to use and cover that thing in Afflictions!”
The Juggernaut is a Peak True Diamond monster. It is the size of a small siege engine. Where the other Nightmares of Apocalypse are thin and angular — bones pulled out into lances, joints sharpened into points — the Juggernaut has been built the opposite way. Every edge of it is rounded, every limb thick, every plate smoothed at the corners as if a sculptor had taken a chisel and then thought better of the chisel and used his palms instead. It stands close to ten feet tall and it is white, the white of polished marble that has spent a hundred years in a cathedral, and somewhere beneath the surface of that white the Mana does not pulse so much as breathe — a slow, even glow that brightens and dims at intervals long enough to forget, just before it brightens again.
It’s the highest leveled monster they’ve faced so far.
Jacob immediately uses Diavolo Hypercut. He uses the Skill to barely cut at the enemies, just dealing enough damage for his Afflictions to take root. The Skill generates a hypercompressed blade of Mana that has never failed him before.
“Fuck,” Jacob swears under his breath. “It didn’t go through.”
The Nightmare Juggernaut of Apocalypse turns its bright white eyes, like two blinding lanterns, toward him.
Jacob realizes something.
That thing has eyes unlike the rest of them.
And before he can use Diavolo Hypercut again, the Juggernaut moves at impossible speed and raises a massive sword, swinging it immediately at him.
Jacob uses the Primordial Grimoire to see the trajectory, but then realizes that he’s not going to be able to move out of it.
Yo! Drop the—
Before he can finish the thought, Nimirea and Baal, with their auras reaching their maximum output, use their black and pink swords to block the blow.
They both feel the blow deep in their cores and their bones groan under the pressure. But Jacob is alive.
The trio retreats as the Juggernaut evaluates them.
“Jacob, we should—“
But before they can say anything, all the Breakers from the group suddenly step forward.
“Star Formation!” Captain Lagrange says, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Cloud, retreat! Now!”
Jacob hesitates for a moment, but then gnashes his teeth. “Fall back, guys.”
The casters rain as many debuff and restraining spells as they can, but the Juggernaut seems almost unstoppable. Slowed down, it parries the attacks from all the Breakers.
Massive blades barely chip the marble-like surface of the Juggernaut, which threatens to kill someone every time it swings its sword.
It doesn’t have flashy Skills nor particular abilities, but it seems to combine in one the strongest features of Lancers and Soldiers, perhaps surpassing them both.
The battle is terrifying, and more than one Breaker loses a limb from a counterattack.
It takes ten minutes of Imperium Rank attacks to completely drop the thing dead.
From it, a chest falls right in the middle of the room. Captain Lagrange walks up to it and makes it disappear in his Interspatial Ring.
“Everyone,” he pants, “out. Now. We’ll look at the loot later.”
Reattaching a limb at True Diamond Rank is not the hardest task. Yet, even with such a thing being possible and swiftly done right before leaving these ruins, meeting the Juggernaut clearly has had an impact on everybody.
“How the hell did we find a Juggernaut in the Intermediate Ground?!” one asks.
“Yeah, what the fuck was that?!” another asks, almost on the verge of crying. “That’s for the three teams! How did we find one here?!”
“Fuck, this Original Primordial Dungeon shit is getting out of hand. We need reinforcements! That was insane! The Academy needs to send more people now!”
“Guys,” Captain Lagrange says, “don’t worry. The Academy is sending more and more people every day.”
In fact, even Team Five has swollen to an incredible two-hundred people the past month, not counting Jacob’s group.
But still, despite the constant influx of new people, it almost feels like they’re not making any progress. They’re dividing the people up in several groups, but despite the number of elites arriving, it’s too many people to coordinate properly.
More is not always better.
“Listen,” Captain Lagrange says, “there should be a big batch of people arriving today on the Headmaster’s orders. This is being taken very seriously.”
“Lagrange,” a guy calls out the Captain, “if a fucking Juggernaut can be found in the ruins at the Intermediate Ground, we’re fucked. The Headmaster needs to get his shit together and send us the best of the best! We need the Three Great Races or some shit to come together and help us! A Juggernaut, Lagrange. A fucking Juggernaut!”
Seeing the confused face of Jacob Cloud, Narzla whispers to him, “Juggernauts are something you usually only find right before the Primordial Dungeon’s Core. It’s the strongest monster bar the Boss itself.”
“Makes sense that people are scared,” Jacob replies in a low voice.
Captain Lagrange looks at the man and nods, “this group is full of scouts. The orders the Knight Commander received said that these people are here to scout for us and let us know what the problems are. Once the extent of the problem is known, we will receive help from the best of the best, don’t worry—“
Captain Lagrange looks down at his bracelet, suddenly lighting up.
“It appears that the reinforcement just came. We’re going back now and getting them up to speed so that we can get out of this hell as soon as—“
[Dungeon Notification.]
[Those gathered are those who shall face Lyra.]
[Ashenmere is sealed.]
[No one else may enter. No one else may leave.]