The dungeon master grinned and vanished just before the beams struck his position. He reappeared in front of Seero before she could respond and threw a fist towards her face. Her sensors hadn’t even registered the movement.

And the master had not used Transfer, or teleportation of any sort. He had simply moved fast enough that most of Seero’s sensors had lost track of him. That made him the fastest being that Seero had ever faced.

But not all of her sensors had failed.

Her Dungeon Field Generator had registered the movement, and ever since she had learned how dungeon walls work she had applied her own space-bending defensive field around herself. This field bought her enough time to cast a Blink spell and get out of the way.

Only to find the dungeon master right on top of her. He smirked.

“You think you’re the first archmage to challenge me? Spatial distortions are easy to find if you know what you’re looking for!”

At this point though, Seero had canceled all extraneous threads, and turned all of her attention to sensing and prediction. With her AI’s speed and power, she had barely detected his movement towards her teleport point. As such, she had just enough time to prepare a response.

As the dungeon master’s fist entered the spatial field expanding the distance to her armor, she began to twist it. The dungeon master blinked and quickly withdrew his hand as the the spell cracked, taking the tip of his fingers with it.

He grinned and started laughing.

“That’s a cute trick! You’re a clever one, aren’t you?”

And then he sneered.

“But now there’s a hole in your defense!”

And then the entire room began to glow purple. Seero had bought just enough time to change her Prismatic Bombardment spell to the Prismatic Plane spell, now covering the entire floor in a magic circle. And in this case, she had chosen the Gravity element once more. The force of Gravity increased dramatically across the battlefield. Even Seero was affected, and her HP started ticking down now that her Spatial Angling field was disabled. She couldn’t even move, and had to devote some of her mana to defense just to maintain her structural integrity.

But, of course, the dungeon master was affected too. He grunted as the invisible force attempted to crush his body. But, as a being who had focused all of his growth into his physical attributes, he could not only resist the field, but could continue to move within it. He laughed again.

“Impressive. This would be excellent for training, perhaps I’ll make you my subordinate when this is done.”

And then he charged towards Seero, still moving at great speed. However, his speed was reduced to the point that Seero’s normal sensors could track him once again.

And more importantly, to the point that she could effectively adjust her aim. Because for Seero, becoming immobile didn’t reduce her offensive power in the slightest.

A Prismatic Bombardment circle formed behind her, and opened fire. The dungeon master tried to dodge, but with his reduced speed he could not completely evade the hail of fused beams. He gasped and his eyes widened as one of the beams struck him.

Thanks to the combination of Holy Mana, Spell Penetration, and Heroic Challenger, the dungeon master’s defenses were pierced with ease, far beyond what he expected. But he had no time to process that surprise. Even since High-King Xavlaeron had infiltrated one of her magic circles, Seero had practiced controlling her mana in active spells. Now, she attempted to do so with a different purpose. The Beam circles within the larger strategic spell began to shift as they struck the dungeon master. This would normally cause the spell in progress to collapse, but Seero held the spellform together with Holy mana as she had learned from Ateia, and as a result the beams remained active even as their circles of origin changed.

And so, the Beam circles successfully transformed into Chain circles…while their beams were still striking their target. The beams then transformed into chains, wrapping around the dungeon master. He grunted and pulled on the chains but Seero’s Supercharged and high-density mana was resilient even to his strength. And with each chain that formed, his speed dropped even further, allowing more and more beams to find their mark. Soon, Seero could stop transforming Beam spells, and just cast Chain spells directly.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

At that point, Seero formed a new Prismatic Bombardment circle, Supercharging it with all the spare mana she had at that point, while pointing her palm at the immobile dungeon master as she also charged the Equalizer.

“Warning: Hostile dungeon master is about to be terminated. Recommendation: Please initiate surrender protocols to avoid this outcome.”

The dungeon master took a look at the situation, and then started laughing.

“...from the very start of my dungeon, I told my monsters and challengers alike that they could take my dungeon from me at any time, so long as they beat me in a fight. Not once in all my life have I lost. Now, not only have I lost, but I was completely overpowered.”

He bowed his head towards Seero…or rather, slightly vibrated the mana chains preventing his head from moving.

“My dungeon is yours. You’ve earned it.”

Seero, with all of her sensors and AI active on the dungeon master, noticed a small shift as he gave verbal confirmation of the surrender. A small connection formed between her mana and his. The connection didn’t react further once formed, as if waiting for something to occur.

Seero focused her attention on the connection, analyzing it. It bore some similarities to pieces of her Contract connections, but its scale was so much smaller that she couldn’t be sure. With nothing occurring, the connection then began to fade. Seero extended some mana towards it, intending to reinforce it so she could continue analyzing it.

But as her mana contacted it, the connection began to grow. At first Seero was going to cut it off when she picked up a data packet. She quarantined and then analyzed the packet, discovering it contained some basic data…from the Tower of Heroes.

The connection now allowed the two dungeons to exchange mana and data.

Given the circumstances, Seero predicted this was the method by which dungeon surrenders occur, but that the loss of the Dungeon System meant that key follow-up protocols had failed to trigger. As such, she began to send her mana through the connection, intending to investigate what could be done with it.

Her mana surged through the Tower of Heroes, joining with the flows of mana coursing through the dungeon. The dungeon’s mana did not resist, opening a path for her wherever she went. She was able to see and perceive different parts of the dungeon as her mana expanded onward, but she ignored that data. She continued onward until she reached the end of the flow…and her mana arrived at the dungeon core.

She attempted to convert her mana to Holy, and succeeded. The Holy mana quickly purified the corruption in the core. Seero then attempted to form her mana into the dungeon core connection process.

And succeeded, immediately, even beyond her most optimistic predictions. The Tower of Heroes’s mana moved to assist her the moment she began forming that shape, as if it had been waiting for that very protocol.

And so, Seero managed to purify and subordinate the Tower of Heroes, many floors from the core room. The dungeon master was just staring at her and blinking.

“...you’re a dungeon master? But you can use Holy mana? Oh, is that why your core isn’t going rogue like mine?”

“Affirmative.”

The chains vibrated again as the dungeon master attempted to nod.

“Impressive. No idea how you figured out how to do that, and it’s not often someone surprises me.”

But there were other people in the room who were also surprised. Some of the knights had begun to draw their weapons as the dungeon masters conversed. Grandmaster Publius narrowed his eyes.

“Your Majesty, did we hear that right? Did you say you’re a dungeon master?”

“Affirmative.”

Grandmaster Publius grimaced. One of the knights next to him frowned.

“Grandmaster…a demon lord is masquerading as an Amiciti Populi Elteni…and just conquered the Tower of Heroes. Isn’t that really bad?”

“Objection: The term masquerading implies deceit and falsehood. This unit has officially been designated as Amiciti Populi Elteni, and so is not masquerading as one. In addition, Imperial authorities are already aware of this unit’s identity.”

A panel popped open in Seero’s armor, and she retrieved a sealed scroll from it. She utilized Blink to send the scroll past the Gravity spell, making it appear at Grandmaster Publius’s feet.

“Statement: That record contains an official Imperial order regarding the situation. If additional confirmation is necessary, this unit recommends contacting Imperial command units.”

Grandmaster Publius raised an eyebrow at her. But he also glanced at the multiple strategic spell circles lighting up the room and the completely immobilized dungeon master of the Tower of Heroes, a foe he knew he couldn’t light a candle to. So he decided to take the risk that the scroll was a trap and picked it up.

His eyes widened. The scroll had the Emperor’s seal on it, and it appeared genuine. More so when the Grandmaster channeled his mana into it and it reacted as it should. The scroll opened up and he took a moment to read through it.

It was an order from the Emperor to all Imperial personnel, informing them of the Queen of the Dobhar’s identity, confirming that her relationship with the Empire and status as Amiciti Populi Elteni remained unchanged, and then ordering them to assist her during this crisis.

Grandmaster Publius took a deep breath.

“...let’s contact Corvanus, and confirm this situation.”

The knights around him frowned. One of them spoke up.

“But sir…”

Grandmaster Publius then turned around.

“I’m going to go contact Corvanus. If you feel you cannot agree with that course of action, then do what you feel you must. Just know that the consequences are also your own.”

With that, he began walking back towards the room’s entrance. The knights glanced at one another, then at the big magic circles and the Imperial scroll in the Grandmaster’s hands. One by one, they lowered their weapons and began to back away, eyeing Seero all the while.

And so Seero conquered the Tower of Heroes.