Seero flew through the hallways of the dungeon, analyzing the flows of mana and the structure of the dungeon to determine the correct path. Everytime she detected a living or animate thing, a small Beam magic circle of the appropriate element would appear and wipe it out long before it came within visual range.

Most traps were simply bypassed through speed and flight. Pitfalls and sticky floors were irrelevant to a target not walking on the ground. More active traps like arrow launchers or dropping boulders were counterattacked by offensive spells, such that they failed to even reach Seero’s defensive barriers. And magical traps were shut down by the Equalizer. There was even a Spatial Magic spell engraved in the floor that Seero predicted would have resulted in a forced relocation. Seero dedicated an entire anti-mana bomb to ensure it wouldn’t have an ounce of mana remaining in it when she passed it by.

She passed through several floors in minutes, diving deeper and deeper into the dungeon.

Eventually she came to the end of a stone labyrinth floor, only to find a door blocking her path. There was a carved mural on the door with several conspicuous holes, as if part of the artwork had been removed.

Seero fired the Equalizer into the door, followed by a Beam with a Spatial Angling field layered over it. Seero’s own experiences with Spatial Magic and the boundaries of material planes and the Realms of Mana, along with the data from Shialnor she continued to sift through, had informed her why dungeon ‘walls’ did not behave as their physical appearance might suggest. They were not purely physical matter, but magical constructs placed inside distortions in space that existed partially in the boundary on the Material Plane. As a result, any attempt to attack them would be deflected through a longer than expected route, during which the dungeon would focus its mana absorption capabilities on the attack in question. The attacks were, thus, long drained of their power by the time they arrived at the actual wall, assuming they arrived at all. The same feature appeared to be applied to this door.

Seero counterattacked the magical enchantments with the Equalizer, and counteracted the Spatial Angling with one of her own. As a result…the door became just a door for her. She blew a hole through it and continued on her way.

Next she found a ‘room’ that contained an ocean as far as the eye could see, with narrow stone bridges leading the way forward. When she arrived at the exit, she found it deep underwater. Several pedestals with empty gem holders depicted scenes of large spheres being placed upon them and the water levels rising and falling.

Seero ignored them and dove into the water. She wrapped a bubble of Water Magic around herself in the same manner that the Imperial naval vessels did, propelling herself through the water as fast as her Water Magic could go. She arrived at the underwater door, finding it locked much like the previous one. She applied the same method of breaching and carried on.

She found a volcanic cave system, with the exit door under a pool of lava. Or possibly magma given the underground terrain, but as Seero only was programmed with the combat relevant data regarding molten rock she was not particularly concerned with the exact designation. There were also several empty pedestals on the last bit of solid ground before the pool.

Seero ignored these as she analyzed the situation.

Simply wrapping herself in a lava bubble like with water would still expose her components to the heat, with a noticeable risk of overheating, so Seero attempted something else. She created a Spatial Angling field around herself, modeled after the dungeon wall effect, in order to increase the distance between herself and the lava. She then wrapped a lava bubble on top of this field to keep the lava from entering it directly. As a result, the heat transfer between herself and the lava bubble was negligible.

Seero continued on with hardly a moment’s pause.

In the next room she had to pause for a moment. Her different sensors disagreed on the path forward. Her mana sensors indicated the signature she was following led to a particular room, yet, her ground-penetrating radar suggested this room was a dead end. Seero took a moment to analyze the data more closely from each.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Command: Friend Ateia, please conduct reconnaissance.”

“Got it!”

Seero continued her own analysis as Ateia, waiting in the Primary Home Base, turned her Aesdes sight towards the room in question. Seero noticed small fluctuations in the flows of mana when she examined them with her Dungeon Field, indicating not all was as it seemed to her mana sensors. She concluded some sort of jamming or interference was likely occurring.

And a moment later, Ateia finished her task. Under normal circumstances, dungeons, existing in the boundary of the world as middlemen between the Realms of Mana and the Material Plane, were not directly connected to the flows of Holy mana through Aelea. This, considered a necessary safeguard to keep the Realms of Mana and the Material Plane from direct mana contact, also made it more difficult for the Aesdes to see into dungeons with their divination abilities, unless they did so via Shialnor’s core in the Blessed Land.

But Ateia was no normal Aesdes.

Ateia was Contracted to Seero, and deeply connected to the Primary Home Base’s core. And Seero was a living dungeon core, with a Dungeon Field Generator projecting her dungeon mana into her surroundings…including the mana of any dungeon she happened to be present in. As a result, Seero created a compatible contact with the dungeon’s mana Ateia could use to extend her divination sight into it.

“Um, it looks like there’s a boss monster or something waiting there. I don’t see any doors besides the entrance.”

“Acknowledged.”

With that, Seero boosted ahead. She extrapolated some of the discrepancies in the flow of mana and compared them to radar scans to determine the likely location of the true exit.

And she was right.

Within moments, Seero found the true exit, hidden behind a door with a lock, underneath a mural of the boss monster.

Seero simply breached the door as before and moved on.

Such things continued for numerous floors. Seero encountered all manner of traps, monsters, and strangely inefficient door designs.

None of them could stand up to over a thousand points of mana jammed into singular spells with support from Spatial Magic, the Equalizer, and anti-mana bombs.

And so Seero stepped into the core room after defeating the final boss. That monster had even endured a Beam spell equivalent to her old Aurora Barrage’s fused superbeams. It did not, however, endure the new Prismatic Bombardment spell.

“Warning Query: Would the hostile dungeon master like to surrender? This unit will allow the dungeon master to retain ownership of their dungeon as a subordinate core if so. Otherwise, this unit will engage termination protocols.”

Seero found what appeared as a human woman in an elegant dress, staring into space with blank eyes.

“…my dungeon core stopped responding to me, and started getting all weird. Then, it started dumping out monsters that wouldn’t listen to my commands, ruining a deal I kept for centuries. Then, some girl bust through my dungeon in, what, an hour? The dungeon that centuries ago required an entire campaign by the Empire’s finest to get through and that I have built up significantly more since? And just blows up the supposedly indestructible dungeon doors, while disabling guaranteed-trigger traps? All while wiping out my entire army like it’s not even there? You know what? Fine. Do whatever you want, as you clearly can.”

“Surrender acknowledged, please standby for dungeon integration.”

Seero stepped towards the core and placed her hand on it. She detected a concentration of corrupted mana within it. Strangely, the core itself was not fully corrupted, but the corrupted mana appeared to be forcing the core to operate.

Seero channeled Holy mana into the core while applying the dungeon-subordination process she had recreated.

The woman screamed for a bit, then stared at Seero while panting for breath.

“Of…course…you’re a dungeon master who has Holy mana. Let me guess, you also summoned an Aesdes to work for you too? That would be the next logical step, right?”

“Confirmation: This unit’s friendlies do, in fact, include a being classified as an Aesdes.”

The woman’s jaw dropped, before she heaved a sigh and held her head.

“Of course they do. Well, thanks for fixing my core and all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lie down and rethink my life.”

“Acknowledged.”

With that, the woman turned and shuffled her feet towards a private room to the side of the core. Meanwhile, Seero contacted Uscfrea through the CELIU network.

“Mission Report: This unit has successfully integrated the affected dungeon. The dungeon appeared to be partially corrupted, this unit has successfully purified the corruption. No further assaults should occur. Please inform the allied forces of mission success.”

“Ah, My Queen, as expected of you. Will you be returning soon? We have a situation to discuss with you.”

Seero’s robotic eye flickered as she accessed Uscfrea’s records, determining the situation. He had held back while she was engaged in what he believed to be intense combat, but now gave her the full rundown.

It seemed…the Imperial Family’s dungeon was not the only one affected.

In fact…

If the reports coming in from the Legion and Imperial allies were accurate…

Seero’s projections indicated that every dungeon not subordinated to her might be affected.