My Dungeon Life – Chapter 1647-1649

Chapter 1647

After we finished, I got up and cleaned myself off. It was night outside, and that strange moon shone through my window. It was the same moon that opened the fey path under the dungeon. It looked somewhat different from the normal moon. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it gave off a much bluer light. At the time, I had just thought it was because we were near the ocean, but now that I was in my room, I was certain it was the moon.

I wondered if this was even the real moon from this world. This world did have a single moon. It was larger and brighter than the moon from my world, but it was still pretty normal. Of course, some stories and tales suggested that people could travel to the moon. If I used my blessing, I could travel there, but then I would be stuck on the moon for a week, and there was no certainty there was anything there.

In some stories, the location of the moon was called the faerie plains. I knew better than that, at least. The fey didn’t live on the moon, and the faerie plains were just a continent on the other side of this planet. However, there was no reason that the moon couldn’t contain some other world I couldn’t see. From personal experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if the moon was a dungeon or some kind of dormant lifestream. It was best to not visit it and stir up whatever might be there.

Speaking of dungeons, the current moon was being viewed through the lens of a dungeon. We were inside the Champion’s Gauntlet, and there was no saying what part of this place was real and what part of it was manufactured by the dungeon. Dungeons were kind of strange sometimes. They both occupied a physical space but also existed outside of the physical space of our world. The entire sky I was observing might have been a fabrication created by the dungeon, just like the open skies I had seen in various underground dungeons. I wondered how high I’d have to get before I left the boundary of the dungeon and if the sky would look any different after breaking it.

I bet the star configurations in the sky were from the year the time this dungeon was created. I hadn’t read enough about the dungeon to know that. It was just a hunch. The moon was also in a different spot than it would have been outside of the dungeon. This was only the dungeon’s moon, replicating its appearance at the time of the story that created such a dungeon. Was the dungeon even blue back then, or was that a representation of the melancholy feelings and hopelessness of the dungeon’s creator?

None of that mattered at the moment. They were just idle thoughts. I often wondered about the nature of dungeons, especially right before a large and dangerous battle. If I fret too much about my upcoming dangers, it would only cause me to grow nervous and frightened. I felt a familiar body press against my back. Carmine gave me a soft and intimate hug.

“Are you ready, Master?” She asked.

“No amount of time will make me any readier,” I admitted with a sigh.

“I will stay by your side and protect you.” She declared. “I promise.”

That was Carmine showing her affection in her own way. I reached out and touched her arm gently.

“I’m counting on it.”

The pair of us finished dressing and then headed to the main council chambers to begin the ceremony. I was going to become a king.

Chapter 1648

“Six hours still feels like a really long time.” Eliana sighed into my chest.

When I had walked into the room, she had immediately run to me as eloquently as a princess could and threw her arms around me lovingly. Unlike Carmine and Alysia, she wasn’t able to hide the worry that painted her face.

“Six hours minimum.” I reminded her.

“I still don’t understand why you can’t just absorb the lore like you did with former Master.” First spoke up, a small frown on her face.

“I haven’t absorbed everything from King Roth yet. Furthermore, what I did process has mostly been chopped up and fragmented. To absorb something in its complete state is very different. Calypso said that if I tried to absorb it too quickly, I wouldn’t be able to handle it and I would lose myself or something.”

First gave me a somewhat confused expression. Calypso had explained it better than I was. It wasn’t that hard to understand. You are your lore. If you tried to absorb an entire other person without chopping their memories up, then both people and personalities would exist. It would be like when I merged with Lydia, except when I merged with Lydia, she gave her soul to me and ultimately let me be in charge.

If I tried to merge with someone who didn’t want to be subservient, we’d end up in a power struggle for control. Normally, that would cause the two souls to be imbalanced and then the merge would fail with the two souls forcefully repelling each other. That’s why Calypso had to show me some soul-binding tricks so that I could remain in charge over the other soul.

However, that was only the start of it. I wasn’t binding a single soul here, but a fragment of the origin of the human species. It was the origin of all humans, and it contained a kind of history of humanity. If I absorbed it all at once, then I would be lost inside it. I’d be like Twilight, a million voices controlled by a single will, and that will wouldn’t be my own. I had to become the master of the lore, instead of becoming its slave.

Either way, I had to make it work. I was certain it was the only way that I would have the power to throw back the fey, and it was the only way to keep the fey from getting the lore. I couldn’t take the lore with me, or it would only return to the dungeon, and if I destroyed the lore, there was a chance the fey would still be able to find enough of it to do what they started out doing. I couldn’t hold it and guard it indefinitely, I didn’t have that kind of strength on my own.

“Is everyone ready?” I asked.

“The lionesses have a perimeter around the room. No one is allowed in or out except the approved personnel.” First declared.

“Titan’s Fall is reinforcing the entrance to the building,” Alysia spoke.

“The other factions have all taken up their defensive lines as they discussed.” Eliana nodded. “I will remain by your side. Cici will run orders for me.”

“I will stay by your side too!” Anne spoke up.

“Y-you?”

“I d-don’t know what you’re planning,” Anne spoke quietly. “B-but if it goes wrong, you’ll need a healer, won’t you?”

I frowned slightly. I had not explained things to her clearly, but it was impossible to get the protection I was looking for without admitting I was going to do something. Thus, everyone only knew as much as they had to.

“I suppose…”

“Then, I will help! F-for Sapphire! It’s for Sapphire! I’m doing it for Sapphire, okay?”

“You said it three times…” I frowned, but after a bit, I began to see the potential benefits of having the church here. “Fine, you can be in here, but no paladins.”

“Ah!” She blushed and then put her hands on her hips. “F-fine… my inquisitor will run the orders for me.”

“Fine.” I agreed. “Eliana, First, Alysia, Cici, Chance, Anne, and the Inquisitor. No one else is allowed inside until the ceremony is complete. Agreed?”

Everyone nodded and the doors were finally shut. It was time to begin.

Chapter 1649

It wasn’t like there was a particular rune I needed to draw or a ceremony I needed to follow. It was just a matter of using my accumulated skills and knowledge to manipulate souls. It was the Soulsmith job and the knowledge I gained from Twilight that allowed me to do this. Calypso had never asked where I had gotten such a job from. She had just taken it for granted that I had the ability.

I sat in the middle of the room and pretended to meditate. I was just wasting time waiting for everyone to settle down. I didn’t want there to be any surprises. About ten minutes passed by, and the messages to and from the room finally slowed as everything was discussed. I had considered leaving Eliana out there and using Slave Communication, but I didn’t think I’d be able to waste the mana or the mental capacity to open up such communication while doing this.

I also wanted everyone I cared about where they were safest. This was an extremely delicate situation. The fey had already attempted to use someone I cared about against me once with Carmine, so I didn’t want to risk it. It was even more dangerous when it was considered what I was doing.

My birth as a human king might be good for Aberis and the humans of the Ost Republic, although becoming potentially and unwillingly subservient to someone has a questionable quality to it being good, this action would in no way benefit beastkin, osterians, demons, or any of the other tribes at this peace talk. If they knew their soldiers were being used to protect the humans as they gained more power, they would assuredly have been thrown into a rage. Once it was over, there would be no turning back. They only knew I was attempting something that would stop the fey, but they would have assuredly rejected it had they known it would have overthrown the balance on this continent too.

If I became the human king, then humans would be a dominant force, even more so than they already were. I also knew that one day, I would be pitted against the demon king Aberon. As for the other perks, like immortality or being able to boost the strength of my allies, those were benefits I was already familiar with. As long as I kept drinking from the waters of life, I would be immortal, and most of my skills had always been geared toward enhancing my allies. In other words, doing this seemed almost like a natural conclusion to the path I had started when I first came to this world. I would be the support unit for all of humanity.

With that thought, I began the process. It would take upsetting my soul world, so I had pulled out everything of value and left it in the new treasury room at my palace. The first step involved compressing my soul world, essentially overlaying my soul with the core. As I began to work, I didn’t realize that every blessing on my body had started to glow at once, catching every eye in the room. I also didn’t realize that the markings that had always remained static on my body from wherever they had burned started to move, crawling around my body like brightly lit serpents of text.

There was a sudden distance booming sound and the ground shook ever so slightly. This was followed by the sound of sirens. The fey was beginning their attack.