Chapter 59

  Dimensional Mole Hole?

  Upon seeing the Dragon, Elijah moved. His actions were swift but silent. Without a sound, he tore off his nose and threw it in front of him. The bloodless lump of flesh sprouted furry legs as it flew, landing upright, before scurrying off into the foliage. The now-ancient vampire’s nose seemed to have instantly reappeared, so he threw another legged nose behind him. Six more flew in quick succession, covering the eight cardinal directions.

  The Dragon continued to snore, oblivious.

  Once Elijah’s Nosey Scouts had been released, he dove headfirst into a molehill. To the surprise of physics, he didn’t crash into the ground, instead shrinking in mid-air and slipping through the earth and into the hole beneath.

  However, he did not end up in the ground. Light bent around him, and space flashed as he was transported to another dimension, courtesy of one of his most used Skills: Dimensional Mole Hole.

  Dimensional Mole Hole: A

  Transform any hole in the ground into an entrance to the Mole Dimension.

  Elijah appeared in a familiar hallway of earth that gave the appearance of a tunnel, except it was large enough to admit two carriages stacked atop one another. Belioz secreted out of the young-looking man’s skin, taking his regular, bear-man form. The two looked at the intricately carved wooden door that barred the tunnel.

  Long ago, the vampire had realised that this dimensional Skill opened a hole to the same place every time, and thus he had built a home for himself inside. The only problem was the moles. A dozen of their bus-sized, scorched corpses lay stretched out in front of the entrance to his home.

  “The inscriptions look dull. I think you’re going to have to refresh them again,” Belioz commented, inspecting their front door, which lacked its normal orange glow.

  Elijah grunted non-commitally.

  “Are you finally ready to try that plan? We won’t have to keep refreshing the defences.” Belioz the Blood Bear encouraged excitedly.

  Elijah grunted with resigned acceptance.

  Withdrawing a key from his Inventory, and placing it into the lock, he turned it and entered his home. A hallway stretched out a hundred yards before terminating in another wooden door. No other entrances marred the tubular corridor.

  The walls were lined with small, dark-green enamelled bricks that curved to match the tunnel and were individually inscribed with enchantments for toughness, animal repulsion, and a single fireball.

  The giant moles who infested this dimension didn’t only travel the tunnels; they also dug through the endless dirt. After one crashed into the vampire’s dining room while he was enjoying dinner, he was sure to reinforce the structure of his home.

  Creating and placing the bricks had been one of Elijah’s many acts of meditation, as was refilling each and every brick with the manna required to function when they inevitably ran low.

  Slits in the walls disguised themselves amidst the mortar, and the white, paved floor hid a number of pressure plates, all of which Elijah and Belioz avoided unconsciously. Sometimes it was nice to have a mundane backup, in case the magical solution failed. If a mole ever made it through the first door, they would be shot full of poison arrows.

  Opening the second door, the pair found themself in an entranceway that wouldn’t go amiss in a Victorian manor house. The floor was constructed of giant slabs of marble. Two staircases, on the left and right, curved up towards an entrance to the second floor that was blocked from sight by the stuffed sculpture of a Wyvern whose grey-scaled head scraped against the mosaic of its defeat on the ceiling.

  The ceramic tiles above depicted a bear-man with his claws out standing opposite the Wyvern, the creature rearing up on its hind legs, its wings outstretched, mirroring the position of its taxidermied counterpart. In the middle of the battlefield, a chain descended from the ceiling, holding aloft a crystal chandelier that dispersed the light from the magic stones embedded within it in a magical way.

  Two human(ish) golems, their bodies made from silver, stood at the entrance with their backs straight but their head and shoulders slumped over. The two sentries had run out of mana centuries ago, and since no moles had ever made it as far as the defenders, it didn’t seem worth recharging them.

  Everything in the spectacular chamber, and indeed the entire complex, had been made either by Elijah or Belioz’s hands, save for the few scraps they were able to salvage from the Trials.

  The pair strode past the opulent display, up the stairs, and onto the second floor without a second's hesitation. The sites had become normal to them. The hallways and rooms that they continued to walk through followed a similar design. Paintings hung on the wall, rugs warmed the corridors, and fine tables and chairs decorated the hallways every so often.

  Elijah and Belioz headed straight for the command chamber. As soon as they entered through the thick, banded-metal, enchanted doors, they found themselves in the sort of windowless room that anyone might mistake for a castle’s war room.

  A great table stretched across the room – no chairs anywhere to be seen. Maps, figures, and markers were littered across the polished oak surface, depicting strategies, tactics, and troop movements. Tapestries of past victories hung on the wall, all of them Belioz’s. Elijah was the one to make such works of art, but he found it distasteful to celebrate his own achievements in such a way. Thankfully, Belioz was vain enough that he loved it.

  The teen pulled a roll of magically enchanted hide as big as a car out of a cupboard at the side of the room, and, sweeping aside the mess, rolled it out on the table. Using one of his more niche Skills – Maps! Maps! Maps! – he was able to transform the confusing mix of scents his Nosey Scouts were sending him into a usable map.

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  As he held his hand over the monster hide, lines of all colours started to swirl into existence, creating a relief of the mountain central to this Trial. In addition to the elemental biomes they had already seen, the scouts depicted regions of ice, deep water, jungle, and one spot completely void of anything.

  “Do you think this Dragon is able to use every type of mana in this Trial?” Belioz asked, examining the ever-expanding map.

  Elijah grunted in frustrated assent.

  “You’re right,” Belioz agreed, having spent enough time around the evermore distant Elijah to discern his various noises. “Why else would the Trial host such a diverse array of mana if Dracsimus God Slayer lacked the understanding and willpower to use it all?”

  Elijah nodded, his mind already turning over the problem. The other nine Tier X monsters all had exceptional power, but they had been limited in their diversity.

  The Reaper, Wielder of the Sacryn Bell, although its existence was truly undead and nothing could kill it, had been limited to spells and Skills using death, undeath, rot, decay, and sound mana – automatically implying it was weak to life and fire mana.

  An opponent with power great enough to be Tier X, and the last of the Tier Xs at that, with such a versatile array of mana at their disposal had no obvious weaknesses. Dragons were seriously something else. Unless…

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Belioz asked, having figured something out.

  Elijah grunted in response.

  “Exactly!” The bloody bear exclaimed. “With all this mana at its disposal, the only obvious weakness would be physical attacks.

  Elijah grunted.

  Belioz deflated slightly. “Yes, I did see its thick scales, but still, it’s the only thing we have to base our plan on. The scouts won’t dare get close enough to risk waking the monster, so this is the information we’re limited to. If I act as a distraction, you can try and get in close.”

  Elijah grunted.

  “What do you mean you don’t want me to get involved?” Belioz asked, annoyed and confused.

  “This is the last Trial; it’s something I have to do myself.” Elijah said, his voice hoarse from lack of use.

  “We’ve talked about this,” Belioz countered. “All of these Tier X monsters have required everything at our disposal. How do you think you’ll be able to win without the both of us giving our all?”

  Elijah retorted with a blank stare that he held until his Familiar caved.

  “Fine,” the bearkin huffed, “But you're not stopping me from cheering you on.”

  Elijah sighed with resigned acceptance. He knew that meant his friend already had something silly planned.

  The pair continued to discuss how Elijah would approach the Trial for nearly an hour. They could have spent much longer talking strategy, but neither of them wanted to wait until the Dragon awoke. The area of void in its domain all but confirmed Dracsimus held dominion over spatial magic; there was no guarantee of safety in the Mole Dimension.

  Once they finished talking, the pair headed in separate directions. Elijah departed towards the armoury, and Belioz headed towards whatever he needed to fulfil his own plan.

  Upon entering the plane stone chamber that hosted nearly a mile of mannequins and weapon racks that once displayed some of the strongest weapons and armour Elijah had ever made, the immortal teen sighed. All of his best works had been destroyed by the preceding Trials, not that he could bemoan their loss. Each and every item had served its purpose before being destroyed.

  Still, a part of him mourned his destroyed creations. Each one had held memories, memories he increasingly needed in order to stay connected to reality. On the plus side, there were still hundreds of weapons and armour; the only problem was they were unable to live up to a fight at his current level.

  Elijah still had the broken weapons from the goblin Trial, displayed on a red velvet cushion, and what remained of the hundred-times-repaired king’s sword, his first real weapon, hung on the wall – signs of his sentimentality.

  The immortal vampire let out an unnecessary breath; there was nothing left that could stand up to a dragon, which meant he had no choice but to make something. Before leaving the armoury, Elijah waved his hand, storing everything inside his Inventory. He didn’t want to risk losing any of it during the change.

  Walking through a door, he found himself in his workshop. Vats of different coloured liquids boiled away. Disparate monster parts, metals, and various tools were sprawled haphazardly across the workbenches – half-finished projects, never likely to be finished.

  Striding past all of the mess, Elijah made his way to a tiny box. From within he retreated a grey-scaled tail twice the size of himself. It belonged to the Wyvern in the entrance. The tail had to be removed in order to fit the stuffed creature in the room.

  Material from a Wyvern, the lesser cousin of a Dragon, was Elijah’s best bet when it came to creating something that might hold up against Dracsimus, at least for a moment.

  Normally, Elijah would meditate while he made things, going slow and giving his soul a chance to recover. Now, however, so close to escaping the Trials, he didn’t have the patience. Using all the Skills and Traits at his disposal, Elijah turned the scales on the tail into a full suit of plate armour, and the giant spade-like scale at the base swiftly became the blade of a massive, two-handed axe, for which the bones of the preserved sample were the haft.

  Suitably attired and with an appropriate weapon, Elijah made his way towards the centre of his home, through the gardens, past the bees, over the lake, through the library, and around the tree of life, adding everything into his Inventory that he didn’t want to lose in the process.

  Finally, he made his way to what was essentially a metal-lined cupboard. The walls were covered in mana crystals of all different shapes and sizes, surrounded by silver lines that led in all directions throughout the complex. This was the heart of his home, the place from which all the enchantments were sustained.

  Many of the crystals were dull, having sustained functions he no longer bothered to maintain, but many more sparkled with the numerous colours of a hundred different mana types.

  Elijah withdrew what looked like a massive crystal ball from his Inventory. Unlike the other mana crystals, it wasn’t coloured by its aspect. This was a conduit for pure mana, but it was so much more than just that.

  The perfectly smooth sphere was once the heart of a dungeon, a monster in its own right, and one of the ten; it was able to manipulate the terrain, set traps, and spawn monsters.

  Using this modified dungeon core was a gamble, but if it worked, Elijah would never have to recharge or replace any enchantments again. His home would become self-sufficient, with only the slight possibility of trying to kill him.

  With no more hesitation, Elijah took two pounds of silver from the currency section of his Inventory and fashioned a plinth for the object, ensuring it was properly plumbed into the rest of the mana lines.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then, in an instant, he was teleported outside his home, right next to a suspiciously beaming Belioz who seemed surprised by Elijah’s sudden appearance.

  “Is it done?” the bear man asked excitedly.

  Instead of answering, Elijah approached the front door, intent on investigating. Before he could get too close, an invisible wall stopped him, and a notification appeared.

  Dungeon Forming!

  A dungeon is forming ahead! No one can enter until it has finished. Time remaining: 1 year, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 49 seconds.

  “It would seem so,” Elijah replied, his voice distant before he shook off his hesitation. There was a dragon that needed killing.

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