The kingdom of Esteria was a massive stretch of land with so many cities, towns, and villages that no single person would likely ever be able to visit them all.
Most of the cities were well protected by the Arcane Knights and were either right next to a guild or were part of a guild's patrol routes. The rest had military bases placed in them or near them.
Towns were less secure and mostly got by by having talented guardsmen or former soldiers. Finally, you have villages, which were the weakest of all places in the kingdom and existed more or less to fend for themselves and pay taxes for the kingdom.
After the loss of three cities and several villages and towns, the kingdom grew more aware and began to set up defenses to make sure something like those events wouldn't happen again.
Daisy had been a town and was rather average as far as most places went. Susie had never thought she'd ever escape from it and spent most of her life wishing she could get a way out. After the death of her mother and father, as well as the destruction of Daisy, however, she changed her tune, and now she deeply wished the place could come back.
And as it just so happened, today she was bearing witness to another town that had been wiped off the map.
The town known as Gladioli had been wiped off the map.
"W-What the hell?" Susie spat out when Alice's truck came to a stop outside the ruins of the town. "Why did you take me here?" She demanded, fighting the urge to puke.
Alice looked at the town, her face filled with various emotions. "I had hoped we'd be able to do some help and rescue and could find people, but it seems like whoever came to this place didn't leave any survivors."
Gladioli had been completely obliterated. It was impossible to know what it once looked like, but now it was a gray and red battlefield with craters scattered across the ground and charred buildings everywhere. Jagged blue crystals also sprouted from the ground, impaling the people who had once called this place home, suspending their corpses high above. Blood poured from their bodies, which were mangled and had giant teeth marks through sections of their flesh.
The entire area reeked of death, and the mana that was in the air was still hostile…
Several Arcane Knights from the Umbra Mortis guild were gathered at the edge of the destroyed city, most looking as uncomfortable as Susie did.
A few of the Knights were also making their way over to Alice when her truck pulled up. "This place is off limits." The Knight called out. "You need to leave. Now."
Alice rolled her eyes. "Relax, Mr. Rowan Zyne. We came to help."
The Knight flinched, and his eyes narrowed. "How do you know my name?"
"I watched the exam the recruits took," Alice said, casually looking at her nails. "You and Mr. Bruno Moore are the only two non-Branch Noble members to ever get into one of the top three guilds. A shocking fight, considering you lost to a Squire that went on to enter the Phoenix Flight guild. Tell me, have you and Mr. Davi Hawker had any rematches since?"
Rowan's frown just grew, and the image of the black-haired Knight who he had lost to twice went through his mind. He especially hated the memory of Davi pulling him into his Vault and having that 'talk' with him.
"Cain!" Rowan called out. One of the other new Squires, Cain Lunar, walked up. "This lady is bringing up that Davi guy who you don't like."
"Seriously…" Alice shot Rowan a dirty look, then turned to Cain, who now had his hand on the katana that was at his side. "Look, we just came to see if there were any survivors."
"Well, there weren't," Cain said flatly. "By the time we got here, everyone was already slain."
"Really?" Susie felt her mood sour. "So you guys failed to save them."
Rowan looked down at his feet, seemingly feeling a bit of shame, but Cain just shook his head. "There was nothing we could do." The Lunar family member said in a blunt tone. "Our base isn't far from here, and we arrived as soon as we could. I'd say about ten minutes passed between then and when we arrived."
Alice's face paled. "You're saying this entire thing happened in less than ten minutes? Is it the same thing that happened with that terrorist group?"
"No." Rowan shook his head. "These attacks were different. Maybe that group is involved, but the method drastically changed. The terrorists that wiped out three cities had some way to do it without alerting the kingdom. No signal or mana reading was able to reach anyone, and three cities were simply massacred. With this place, a signal did escape; however, it sadly didn't matter, as the people who called this place home were killed so fast that we couldn't even arrive on time."
"How could such an event like this happen?" Susie demanded. "What could do this that fast?"
"There was a lot of radiation in the air," Cain said quietly. "I am a mage who is very akin to it. By now the radiation has vanished, but when my guild first arrived, I could tell with a glance that dungeons appeared here."
"Dungeons? As in plural?"
"Yes." Cain nodded. "If I had to guess, I'd say at least six or seven dungeons opened up throughout the town. Judging by the radiation, they were all open-barrier ones rather than subspaces that lead to other realms. These dungeons simply overlapped over the town, and the monsters slaughtered everyone before the signal even had time to reach us. Then, by the time we arrived, all those dungeons had vanished, taking the monsters with them. And as you can see, this is the end result."
"Is that even possible?" Susie gulped. "Can multiple dungeons appear like that?" She had heard of a double dungeon or even a triple dungeon, but six open barrier dungeons? That was unheard of. Also, the fact that they all closed themselves made almost no sense. When it came to an open dungeon, the boss would have to be killed to close it.
"There is one method I know of that could cause this," Rowan said, looking uncomfortable. "I studied it once out of curiosity but assumed it'd never happen."
"What is it?" Alice asked, though she had a pretty good idea; she also knew what it was.
Rowan glanced at her and then let out a tired sigh. "I think a Raid Boss is in our kingdom."
"A Raid Boss?" Susie glanced at Alice. "Do you know what that is?"
Alice nodded her head and looked a bit somber. "I do. As the name suggests, it is a type of boss monster."
"Yeah? Is it really that bad, though?" Susie questioned. After facing someone like Neptune, regular boss monsters didn't seem like they should be that big of a deal.
"It is kind of hard to explain." Cain rubbed his head, seemingly getting a headache already. "A boss is created when a monster becomes the only living thing in a dungeon. This happens either because they find the dungeon or they kill every monster in that dungeon. The dungeon will then promote them into a boss and in a way 'level' them up."
"Okay?" Susie nodded, following along so far. "That makes sense."
"As you also likely know, the air of a dungeon is very dangerous for normal people. It is something like radiation that turns them into a mutant. Mutants are usually stronger than regular monsters. Usually, a boss will make minions that are around one-tenth of its power, while a mutant is half as strong as the boss. As you can imagine, this can get bad if a mutant becomes a boss since it means an already strong monster is getting stronger and evolving."
"And that's how you make a Raid Boss?"
"No, not exactly." Cain shook his head. "The process is more complicated than that. A mage becoming a mutant, then fully becoming a monster, then becoming the boss of a dungeon, is very dangerous, and the boss would indeed be strong and likely require a Vice Captain or even a Captain, but at the end of the day it is still just a monster. What makes a Raid Boss is one simple thing. The power they had before they even became a mutant was grand."
"What do you mean? Like they were strong?"
"Stronger than even the boss." Cain nodded. "Basically, you would need a mage who was on the level of a Title Knight or higher. They need to be so strong that they could easily defeat the boss of a dungeon by themselves. Then the mutation they get must be really powerful, so the dungeon must have a strong boss already. This will result in that mage becoming a very powerful mutant monster, and their power, which already dwarfed the bosses, will rise even higher. Now, if these things happened, then the monster would be very dangerous but still manageable, even if they became a boss. The issue truly becomes bad if they manage to evolve in a way besides becoming a boss. This can happen if they devour enough humans or are a one in a million mutant. Their body will evolve and grow yet again, and then from this point on should they devour the boss of the dungeon they were born in, they'd gain their final and strongest evolution."
"The Raid Boss?" Susie gulped. Now it was starting to sound bad. A powerful mage turned into a strong monster who evolved two times on top of that? That was dangerous, and even a Captain would likely lose.
"As you can imagine, such a thing is beyond rare," Rowan said, looking extremely tired. "The process is something that shouldn't happen, and yet…" He glanced at the destroyed town. "In the book I read about them, they claimed that Raid Bosses transcended the laws of a dungeon and had the ability to freely spawn them as they wanted."
Six dungeons randomly appearing and then simply vanishing…
Alice closed her eyes, and her nails dug into her palm. "So, it seems a new great evil is running around."
"And the worst part is, we have no idea where it is or where it'll appear next."
***
Lightning rained down upon Sieg, striking his body over and over again. The blonde-haired man let out another high-pitched scream that sounded like his vocal cords were being torn, and Zhuque also yelled as the pouring lightning fried the circuits in her body due to her being a bit too close.
Genbu yelled in rage when he saw what happened to his partner, and he crouched low to the ground. "Kill them!" He roared. His turtle shell lit up, and then the spikes that ran along it fired out, revealing themselves to be hidden missiles. The other guards and the large robot also fired into the warehouse.
Guns and other such things were considered powerful tools for regular mages; however, they had almost little effect on even weak monsters. Once a mage was around an Arcane Knight's level, their mana and speed were far greater than even powerful bombs, and only something like a nuke could harm them in terms of firepower.
And indeed, Genbu's eyes went wide when a flaming pillar erupted out of the ground and formed a barrier, blocking the bullets. The rockets erupted when they hit the fire, and the cyborg took a cautious step back.
"That was enough firepower to level a city block!" He spat out. "What gives!"
Ken cracked her knuckles, her hair now a bright blonde. Her eyes also blazed with an angry red light, and her tail whipped back and forth. She could feel Yujin's energy swirling through her body, and her muscles felt alive. It was good to cut loose after holding all her energy back for weeks.
She smirked and took a single step forward. "Arcane Knights don't need to wear armor," Ken said softly. "They don't even need weapons. With the amount of mana they have, they can easily shatter steel, and their flesh is so sturdy that no amount of bullets would ever harm them. So, why do they wear armor? Most do it for the enchantments or buffs it supplies, the same reason why they carry a weapon, but the other reason is much simpler. They don't want the gap between you and them to be so obvious."
"The gap?" Genbu's face turned a little pale. "What are you babbling about?"
"The gap of power." Ken flexed her claws. "You have all your shiny toys, but that's it. You capped out at your strength level a while ago, whereas a Knight kept on growing. They're walking monsters who could destroy an entire city with absolute ease. They wear their armor and their weapons to make it seem as if their gear is the threat or to downplay their strength, but the reality is, a true Arcane Knight holds more power than any other mage. Unfortunately for you, I'm a Martial Cultivator. Not only are we simply far superior to your silly Knights in every way, we also don't feel the need to hide that strength." Ken snarled, and her tail wagging grew faster. "I think I'll go nuts."
Ragna watched Ken, and he sighed, shaking his head. "You flared your mana. The King knows where we are and will likely be sending Knights our way any second."
"So what?" Ken shrugged. "We'll just quickly hurry this up. If I turn my mana off, the signal will fade, and we can hide again. Go get Ock's master and Biggie. Take Sieg with you. I'll catch up soon."
"Right." Ragna nodded, then he turned back to where Sieg was and frowned. "Umm… This is unexpected."
The lightning barrage had finally stopped, though the storm above was still ongoing. In fact, it had grown worse, with random tornadoes starting to form. Now that lightning wasn't raining down on Sieg, Ragna was able to get a good look at the blonde man, and what he saw was quite shocking.
Sieg was curled up in a ball, and his clothing, save for the oni mask, was gone, having burnt away. He was completely naked with only the mask over his face. The red had faded, and it had become a charred black and was badly cracked and splintered.
The area around Sieg was also melted and smoking, the stone having been turned into puddles of lava.
Zhuque's body was charred and ruined. Her fake flesh had been fried away, showing the metal bones beneath, and she was still twitching. She somehow wasn't dead, but she was out of the fight and likely wouldn't be getting back up any time soon.
Besides all of that, what truly baffled Ragna was the thing that was around Sieg. The mutant was now suspended in what looked like a blue crystal that had formed along his body. It encased him safely and was filled with the same mana that had poured down from the sky. Sieg appeared to be fine and had signs of life within but was totally unconscious.
What was also alarming was the fact that he wasn't damaged. As an electric mage, Sieg naturally had resistance to lightning, but the number of strikes he took still should have injured him if not outright killed him, and yet instead all it did was put him in some sort of stasis-like state.
Ragna could barely make heads or tails of the situation. It was unlike anything he ever saw.
The muscular man quickly shook his head and grabbed the large crystal, throwing it over his shoulder. It was pretty heavy, and he was forced to activate his own mana just to hold it.
"Ock, come on!" Ragna used a Mana Step and put some distance between him and the warehouse. While he did that, the sand flowed and followed him, Ock's head forming midair. "Let's go save your master!"
"Yes sir!" Ock said happily.
Meanwhile, back in the warehouse, Ken Yuan laughed, and she dropped to all fours, sprinting forward. She reached Genbu and threw out a powerful palm strike directly at his body, but he managed to turn around and blocked with his shell.
The force of the attack still sent the cyborg flying back, and he let out a loud yell of rage, crashing into the wall. While that happened, Ken made quick work of his men.
The guard tried to fire at her, but she flickered around faster than they could follow, and she unleashed chops to the back of their necks, quickly knocking them out. The large robotic suit swung its lance at her, but fire erupted from her arm, and she swatted its weapon away, melting it.
The large suit stumbled back and threw the shield at her, but she caught it and twisted it into a ball and then chucked it at the suit so hard it shattered the front of it and sent it smashing into the ground. It sparked and buzzed, then grew still, now too broken to work.
Genbu screamed in rage and threw himself at Ken, slashing out with his claws, but the cultivator easily dodged his strikes and just laughed.
"You bitch!" Genbu raged. "You're only this powerful because of that spirit! If you didn't have it, I'd kill you-" Ken's hair returned its normal red glow, and her eyes stopped flowing. Her ears and tail also vanished, and Yujin now floated above her head. "What?" Genbu looked confused.
Ken motioned with a finger for him to come, and Yujin chuckled. "The great Lord Yuan does not need my power to deal with you."
"How dare you mock me!" Genbu once more threw himself at Ken, but this time she struck out and pressed her finger into his stomach, jabbing him hard. Genbu froze and felt a weird sensation run through his body, but before he could react, Ken began to poke various spots all along him with her finger. The next thing Genbu knew, his eyes had swelled, and his flesh was turning purple. His tongue expanded, and he flailed wildly, falling onto his back.
"Cyborg or not, you go enough fleshy bits to you." Ken reached down and patted Genbu's cheek. "You won't die, but I did hit your nerves in such a way to make your brain think you're having an allergic reaction. It'll settle down soon. Now, don't come after my teammates or me. Or else." Ken grabbed Yujin, and she began to walk away.
Over in the destroyed robot, the captain of the guard groaned and winced. "T-They're monsters. I knew the gap between us and Knights was grand, but to think it is this wide…"
Usually, when a mage was running around causing issues, the Knights were the ones who stopped it because that mage was typically someone who could grow in power just like a Knight. He had always assumed that with hard work and tech, the difference in level could be negated, but it seemed like that wasn't the case.
"They're truly monsters."
Meanwhile, with Ragna, he followed Ock, who led him to a large, square-shaped metal building. It looked the same as all the others, but Ock claimed it was the prison.
Ragna was about to enter but stopped when two people appeared in front of him.
The last two Beastly Stars arrived, but he barely paid them any mind. One was some woman whose cybernetics gave her lion-like claws, and the other was a guy who could breathe fire and had a whip-like tail.
"Sorry about this, you two, but I can't play." Ragna flickered forward and slammed his fist into both of their stomachs, knocking them out instantly; then he flickered back to where Sieg's crystal was, catching it before it could fall to the ground. "Alright, let's go."
Ock's mouth was agape, and he stared at Ragna. "You're so powerful!"
"Perhaps." Ragna smiled softly. "But we can discuss my power another time. Come. Your master awaits."
'Sieg…'
Meanwhile, in his soul realm, Sieg curled up and watched the lightning above begin to twist.
'Sieg, won't you please help me?'