Chapter 3 - Guts, Steel, & Mana III

  The operation at Fort Haden had not slowed—if anything, it had narrowed, all of its chaos funneling into a single point of violence in the courtyard.

  The scraping of steel dragged across stone, a long, deliberate sound that set Seth’s teeth on edge. The Cuirassier drew its straight saber along the rain-slick ground, sparks hissing as they died in the steam. It wasn’t just posturing. It was mocking him.

  A heartbeat later, the saber rose to meet Seth’s greatsword, and the courtyard rang again with the brutal music of clashing metal. The exchange came fast—too fast. Seth grunted as the Cuirassier slipped past his guard, the narrow blade punctured into him twice in quick succession. The strikes were shallow, nothing immediately fatal, but Seth felt it at once: the wrongness crawling along the wounds. The saber carried the Blight itself. The infection took hold the moment steel left flesh.

  Tch… Seth steadied his breathing, forcing the pain down. So that’s how you planned to end this.

  He knew then—this fight could not be drawn out any longer. Every second bought the Blight more ground inside him.

  The Cuirassier pressed its advantage, its movements tightening, sharpening. Seth shifted fully onto the defensive, parrying and redirecting as best he could, but he could feel the toll this battle had taken—not just on his body, but on his weapon. His greatsword glowed a dull, dangerous red, the metal stressed beyond its limits. The tip sagged, beginning to soften, edges blurring as heat and impact finally caught up with it. One more prolonged exchange, and the blade would fail him completely.

  I'm going to end this now.

  Seth surged forward in a reckless, sudden, and utterly predictable way. The Cuirassier faltered for the first time, its calculated rhythm breaking as Seth closed the distance instead of retreating. Before it could adjust, Seth’s free hand snapped out and crushed the undead knight’s wrist, bone and armor giving way with a sickening crack. The heavy saber clattered uselessly to the ground.

  With a roar, Seth drove his greatsword straight into the Cuirassier’s abdomen.

  The Blight screamed—not with one voice, but many, layered and overlapping, a chorus of agony torn loose as the blade pierced through it. The heat Seth had been restraining until now surged unchecked. The greatsword could not withstand it. The red metal detonated into molten fragments, exploding outward in a violent spray that scorched the courtyard and rained down upon Seth himself.

  He groaned as burning shards struck his armor and skin, pain flaring white-hot—but he did not release his grip, pain was secondary to the objective.

  “Cherre!” Seth shouted.

  The air above the courtyard shimmered, mana folding in on itself. A blink of blue light split the rain, and a young man with flowing blue hair appeared, suspended high above the ground. He hovered just beyond the reach of Seth’s oppressive heat, his cloak and hair fluttering wildly as rain streamed past him. Cradled in his arms was another greatsword, wrapped tightly in layered bindings.

  Without hesitation, he released it.

  As the weapon fell, the wrappings ignited the instant they crossed into Seth’s heat field, burning away to ash midair. The naked blade descended, glowing faintly as it met the inferno below straight into Seth’s waiting hands.

  Seth barely had time to tighten his grip around the hilt of the newly fallen greatsword before a brutal impact smashed into his chest. The Cuirassier’s armored boot connected with crushing force, hurling him backward across the courtyard. His heels gouged deep lines into the stone as he skidded several meters, heat rippling violently around him as he forced himself to stay upright. He planted his foot, muscles screaming in protest, and came to a stop in a cloud of steam and dust.

  He lifted his gaze just in time to see the Blight recover. With its remaining functional hand, the Cuirassier extended its fingers, and the heavy saber—lying abandoned moments earlier, shuddered, then rose from the ground as if pulled by an unseen tether. It snapped back into its grasp with a solid thud. Seth exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing as he took in the state of his opponent.

  The monster was far from whole. The molten remains of Seth’s shattered greatsword were still embedded deep in its abdomen, glowing faintly as corrupted flesh hissed and bubbled around the intrusion. Its layered voices leaked out in low, broken grunts of pain, the sound distorted as if filtered through water and rot. One arm hung uselessly at its side, the wrist completely shattered, armor crushed inward where Seth had grabbed it. What remained of its uniform was scorched beyond recognition, the dark blue cloth reduced to blackened tatters clinging to its frame.

  It’s still standing, Seth thought grimly. Reckless as his charge had been, it had been worth it. Even the burns crawling across his own body from the molten metal felt insignificant compared to the damage he’d inflicted. This thing could bleed. It could suffer.

  “D?o? ?y?o?u? ?h?a?v?e? ?a?n?y? ?i?d?e?a? ?h?o?w? ?m?u?c?h?…? ?t?h?i?s? ?h?u?r?t?s???”

  The Cuirassier spoke again, its voice dragging itself out of broken throats and fractured intent. Seth didn’t hesitate.

  “Can’t imagine it,” he replied coldly, raising the new greatsword into a ready stance. “Now die.”

  They collided once more. The Cuirassier shifted its grip, drawing the saber within range to its chest to bait him into attacking first. Seth recognized the posture instantly, the telltale setup for a counter meant to skewer his heart the moment he committed. However he stepped in anyway.

  A sudden crack of blue lightning split the courtyard.

  The bolt tore down from above, shattering the rain in its path. The Cuirassier reacted on instinct, twisting just in time so the lightning struck its tall shako instead of its skull. The hat exploded off its head in a spray of sparks and scorched cloth. But the reprieve was short-lived.

  Its own vision warped. The world fractured into impossible angles and shifting into geometric & asymmetric forms, colors folding over one another in nauseating patterns. Depth vanished. Orientation dissolved. Vertigo seized it like a vice.

  “W?h?a?t? ?i?s? ?t?h?i?s?!???” the Cuirassier groaned, staggering as its senses betrayed it.

  Inside one of the garrison buildings overlooking the courtyard, Ashe knelt on the stone floor, hands clasped tightly together, knuckles white. Sweat beaded on his brow as he forced his way deeper into the Blight’s mind, teeth clenched in concentration. Penetrating something that old with such a strong mental veil, reinforced by a dungeon’s hivemind, had taken agonizing minutes.

  Beside him, Mina leaned forward, eyes wide with excitement as she watched the effect take hold below.

  “Was that it!? Nice one, Ashe!”

  “S-shut up,” Ashe snapped back, eyes still shut as he fought to maintain control.

  “I’m trying to focus! It finally took me a while to invade its mind!”

  Outside, the Cuirassier reeled, its momentary opening finally laid bare.

  Mina pressed closer to the window, one hand braced against the cracked stone as she watched the battle unfold below. Even from this distance, Seth’s heat rolled through the air in suffocating waves, prickling against her skin like standing too close to a forge. The Cuirassier staggered beneath Ashe’s illusion, its movements uneven and delayed, yet it still fought back with stubborn ferocity, forcing its ruined mind to focus through the invasion, parrying Seth’s blows by instinct alone. Still, Mina could feel it in her bones: the tide had turned. With every nest across Fort Haden destroyed and the remaining Blights being hunted down by other squads, this fight was no longer a desperate standoff. It was a countdown.

  Support finally came in earnest.

  From the surrounding garrison buildings & rooftops, spells from operatives erupted into the courtyard in staggered bursts. A jagged bolt of lightning tore through the rain, slamming into the Cuirassier’s armor and punching clean through one of its pauldrons. Flames followed, a roaring wave that engulfed its head and shoulders, setting what remained of its uniform ablaze. The creature’s layered voices rose into a chorus of shrieks, its once-disciplined form breaking entirely as it swung its heavy saber in wild, panicked arcs. Then came a sharp, thunderous crack—a gunshot from a rooftop. The dense slug tore through its chest, blasting corrupted flesh outward in a spray of steam and ichor.

  The Cuirassier was no longer an elegant knight of the Blight, but just now a wounded animal.

  Seth seized the moment right there.

  He launched himself forward, boots cracking stone beneath the force of his charge. The greatsword in his hands blazed, its surface glowing a furious red as heat wrapped around the blade like a living thing. With a roar, he swung in a wide, merciless arc. The cut was clean and satisfyingly devastating. The blade passed straight through the Cuirassier’s torso, splitting it in two and scattering its armored halves across the courtyard in a violent crash as silence followed.

  The oppressive heat that had smothered the courtyard began to fade as Seth drew his aura back in, the steam thinning, as the rain reclaimed the space & the sound. He stood over the fallen remains, chest heaving, rain hissing as it struck his still-glowing armor. The red light in the Cuirassier’s eyes flickered weakly once, twice before finally fading into nothing.

  The Dungeon-Borne Commander of Dungeon 21E was no more.

  Fort Haden

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Operation: Containment of Overflow Event – Hardship III

  Status: Success

  A few hours after the fall of the dungeon-borne commander—designation: Cuirassier—Fort Haden finally settled into something resembling calm. The rain had thinned into a steady drizzle, steam no longer rising from shattered stone, alarms silenced, blades sheathed. The fortress was now secure in Westerne’s hands.

  Yet Mina knew better than to mistake secure for finished. There was always more work after the fighting ended, a much quieter work and dirtier work.

  She moved through the courtyards at a measured pace, boots crunching softly over debris and broken masonry. Priests and priestesses traced sigils through the air, their hands glowing with gentle gold as they purified walls, floors, and blood-dark stains etched into the stone. Lotha stood among them, her light more focused and more deliberate as she burned away Blighted residue clinging to corpses & walls that hadn’t yet been removed. Watching them work stirred something unpleasant in Mina’s chest.

  So that’s it, she thought. The real ending. Not the big fight. This.

  She rolled her shoulders, irritation simmering just beneath the surface. Handler or not, Trevus had still assigned her salvage duty, that meant—looting through corpses, picking through rot for anything useful. Not exactly the heroic follow-up she’d imagined while watching Seth cleave a monster in half. A leather pouch hung heavy at her belt, clinking softly with every step. Pearls. A warped metal pocket watch. A few necklaces, charms, bits of “shiny junk” that might fetch something later if cleaned properly.

  Great, she thought dryly. I risked my life for this.

  Still, she continued to work.

  Mina straightened after pulling her hands free from another Blight corpse, wiping thick black residue against her trousers with a grimace. Her gaze drifted across the courtyard before she stopped.

  Her eyes layed at the Cuirassier where it had fallen, massive and unmoving. No priests. No handlers. No one had dared to even touch it since Seth ended the fight.

  Her pulse quickened. Of course they’d leave the big one alone, she thought.

  Too ugly. Too dangerous. Or they’re just waiting for orders.

  Either way, that hesitation was her opening.

  She approached slowly, boots echoing faintly against the stone as the sheer scale of the corpse became clearer with every step. Up close, it was monstrous—far larger than it had seemed from the windows. Eleven, maybe twelve feet tall. Nearly twice Seth’s height. Even split and ruined, it radiated a lingering pressure that made the air feel heavier around it.

  A chill ran down her spine.

  You’re dead, she reminded herself. Stay dead.

  Kneeling beside the corpse, Mina swallowed and got to work. She dug through the scorched uniform, fingers slipping beneath burned fabric and twisted metal. Medals came free with dull clinks, their markings warped beyond recognition by Seth’s heat. Old clasps. Bent insignia. Useless to history, maybe but not to salvage.

  Still… something felt off.

  There’s more here, she thought, frustration mixing with anticipation. There’s always more.

  Her senses prickled. Not mana exactly—but something quieter, denser. It pulled at her attention from deeper within the torso. Mina hesitated only a second before leaning in, bracing herself, then thrusting her arm into the creature’s chest. Her fingers cracked through ribs already weakened by heat, pushing past hardened organs and congealed ichor.

  A laugh rang out nearby.

  From one of the operators lounged atop a crate by the garrison building, shaking his head at her with a crooked grin. Mockery, plain and simple.

  Mina didn’t look at him, she didn’t need to, because she was used to it.

  Laugh all you want, she thought, jaw tightening. You weren’t the one watching this thing almost kill Seth.

  She pushed even deeper as her fingers brushed against something solid—wrong in a way that made her breath hitch. It did not feel like bone nor metal. It was something more smooth. Cold. She closed her hand around it and pulled.

  When her arm came free, it was slick with black ichor. Mina wiped it roughly against her sleeve and unclasped what she’d retrieved.

  A crystal.

  Stale white, faintly translucent, light catching strangely along its edges. It didn’t glow, didn’t pulse with obvious mana—but it felt heavy in her palm, like it carried weight beyond its size. Mina stared at it, unease and excitement twisting together in her chest.

  What are you…? she wondered as she twirled the dirty pale crystal around her fingers.

  Whatever it was, she knew one thing for certain.

  This wasn’t junk.

  “Yeah… this is totally junk.”

  Ashe said it flatly, holding the pale white crystal up between his fingers as if the verdict were already final. Mina groaned the moment the words left his mouth, her shoulders sagging in exaggerated defeat.

  “Ehh? Really? C’mon, there’s something about it—c’mon check again,”

  Mina insisted, leaning closer, eyes narrowing as if sheer will alone might coax a reaction out of the thing. Ashe didn’t even humor her; he simply shook his head with a calm but almost bored expression.

  The crystal rested in his palm, as in his view, it was cold and unresponsive. Ashe closed his eyes for a moment, letting his perception widen, mana senses brushing against the object again and again. Nothing answered. No pulse. No residue. No echo. It wasn’t masked, even he could tell the difference. Even the tiniest shard of crystal usually held something, a faint rhythm, a whisper of mana circulation. That alone could sell for forty, maybe eighty Crowns on a good day.

  But This one? It was totally Dead, Empty, and Perfectly inert.

  “It’s fascinating, sure,” Ashe admitted, opening his eyes, “but it’s still worthless. A crystal with zero mana might as well be a fancy rock.” He handed it back with a small shrug, as if the matter were settled beyond appeal.

  Mina clicked her tongue and snatched it from his palm.

  “Whatever you say,” she muttered, curling her fingers around it protectively, “I’m keeping it. I don’t care. It feels like something.”

  Ashe snorted. “You say that every time like. This is it, Ashe, this is the big one!” he mimicked, pitching his voice up just enough to be annoying. “And then it turns into what?—another weird trinket in your pouch?”

  She shot him a glare. “Hey! One of those trinkets paid for our meals last month.”

  Ashe opened his mouth to retort then paused. His eyes dropped to her hands.

  Black ichor still clung to her fingers, dried in the creases of her skin and beneath her nails.

  “…Eugh,” he recoiled instantly, wiping his own palm against his trousers with visible disgust.

  “Did you even wash your hands?”

  Mina blinked as she looked down at herself.

  “…Not yet?”

  Ashe stared at her in horror.

  Mina leaned back against the cold stone wall with a quiet sigh, the tension finally draining from her shoulders now that her assignment was done. She reached for the pouch at her hip, unclipping it from her belt and dropping it onto a nearby crate. The bag hit the wood with a heavy, unmistakable thud, the sound dense enough to make Ashe glance over.

  “Wow,” he said, eyebrows lifting. “What’s in that thing?”

  Mina shrugged as if it weighed nothing at all, then hopped up onto another crate, legs dangling as she reached over to the mana-powered lantern beside her. With a practiced twist, she adjusted its output, the glow softening from harsh white to a warmer, steadier light that filled the corner of the garrison.

  “Just the usual metal junk,” she said casually.

  “Bits and pieces. Blights are such a pain to scavenge. There’s way too many of them, and you have to check every corpse one by one just in case something’s actually worth keeping. It’s gross. It’s slow. And somehow it’s always my job.”

  She wrinkled her nose, then let out a small breath that was half a laugh, half resignation.

  “But… yeah. I’m used to it.”

  Her eyes flicked toward Ashe then, curiosity creeping in as she tilted her head.

  “Hey—why aren’t you assigned to salvage duty anyway?”

  Ashe stiffened, just a little. “Oh, I was, uh…” he said, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “Hauling crates.”

  Mina followed the motion of his hand, then looked pointedly at the stacks of crates piled neatly beside him, untouched, clean, and very clearly not in the process of being hauled anywhere. She smirked.

  “Oh,” she said lightly, amusement dancing in her voice. “Figures. Makes total sense, considering you’re sitting right next to a bunch of them~ You’re tired aren’t ya?”

  Ashe looked away, scratching the back of his head as the lantern’s glow caught the faint flush creeping up his ears.

  The Dungeon Maw was finally sealed shut.

  Before the new barrier could be placed, the remnants of the original seal, the one that had catastrophically failed and allowed the Overflow Event to spiral out of control—had to be carefully stripped away. Cracked plates, burnt sigils, and fractured runes were dismantled one by one, until the stone mouth of the dungeon lay bare again, silent and ominous. Only then did Harlen get to work, kneeling at the threshold with tools and chalk in hand, muttering under his breath as he etched and rewrote layers of complex runic geometry.

  “Ugh… finally,” Harlen groaned, rolling his shoulders as he finished carving the last line into the barrier plate. He adjusted the metal disc with a sharp twist, inlaying additional runes and reinforcing their connections so the flow of mana would cycle back into itself. This wasn’t a temporary patch job—he was installing a self-sustaining barrier, one designed to endure for years without maintenance. The Heavy Mana Capsule Mina and Ashe had hauled in earlier hummed softly at the center of the formation, its output feeding the seal with a steady, reliable pulse. Overkill, maybe but after Fort Haden, no one was taking chances.

  “Is it done?”

  The voice came from behind him.

  Harlen clicked his tongue before turning halfway, already annoyed. Cherre stood there, posture straight and hands folded behind his back, short hair fluttering slightly in the wind that still carried the dungeon’s residual chill. Despite being only fourteen, his black-and-white guild uniform was pristine—untattered, unstained, untouched by the chaos that had consumed the rest of the fort.

  “Tch. Yeah,” Harlen replied flatly, a hint of mockery threading his voice. “It is done.”

  Cherre’s eyes narrowed.

  “What was that?” he asked, his gaze sharpening, cold and focused eyes that had seen killing and were fully prepared to do it again if necessary.

  Harlen snorted as he stood, brushing dust from his gloves. “I said it’s done, Cherre. This thing will hold for years. Call me if it cracks or something.”

  With that, he turned his back and walked away, clearly uninterested in prolonging the exchange. He didn’t slow, didn’t look back, didn’t bother hiding his disdain. Cherre remained where he was, watching Harlen’s retreating figure in silence, his expression unreadable.

  Only when Harlen was gone did Cherre turn back to the sealed Dungeon Maw. The barrier shimmered faintly, its structure clean, efficient, and undeniably well-crafted. Despite himself, Cherre acknowledged it—Harlen Sprieggen’s barriers were always like this: precise, resilient, expertly tuned. Still, a thought lingered in the back of his mind, dark and unresolved between the two of them…

  — Guilds —

  Operators & HandlersOperators300s, first emerging across the Central Continent within the Elynthian Monarchy Imperium of BarrylUnion of Kovianyskan in the Northern Continent, the Kingdom of Esterisa in the East, and the Lipadiyan Empire across the Southern Seas.

  western regions of the Elynthian Monarchy, where royal authority is thin and increasingly unable to respond to the rising threat of the Western Anarchist. In these frontier lands, guilds have effectively stepped into the Monarchy’s absence by providing security, commerce, and governance where the crown cannot.

  Springer Guild, Grille, Dotore Fakshyun, Ambre Corp, and the Tropico Guild now hold territories across Hollows, Mediya, Alpinato, Heinirirc, Kalisso, and Drosser. Their influence is not merely economic or martial; it is political. In many regions, guild authority rivals or outright replaces that of the Monarchy itself.

  Royal Directorate of Guilds & Commerce formally legalized Corporate Wars——

  Felle, guilds are not side factions or background organizations. They are the engines of power, the architects of modern conflict, and the forces shaping the world’s future with one contract, one territory, and one quiet war at a time.