A/N:
" " : Dialogue,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy,
"Bold text": Shadows,
[ ] : System,
| | : Artificial Intelligence.
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Omniscient POV
Location: Earth, USA, New York, New York City, Central Park
June 25, 2006
The sun had long since gone down, turning the skies dark, with only the waxing crescent moon providing natural light. The streets were bright with the light of streetlamps and lightbulbs from the buildings nearby.
In an alleyway close to the park, a dark spot seemingly came into existence from out of nowhere and began expanding until it reached a height of 6 feet and a width of 4 feet. Ashwani walked out of this dark spot, his piercing eyes scanning the area around him. Then he activated Stealth, vanishing from perception.
Under the concealment of Stealth, he made his way into the park, then Blinked a few times, until he eventually reached the Delacorte Clock. He reached into his inventory and pulled out the blue key, then put it forward, towards the passageway. As he did that, the key let off a bright golden glow, as a Gate, visible only to him, opened up. He then stepped into it without hesitation.
…
Ashwani POV
[You have entered the Instant Dungeon.]
The blue window pops up in my eyes, then I feel the mana at the Gate seemingly solidify, locking me in here until I clear the dungeon. Deciding to get right into it, I create 4 drones with cameras that have Stealth and Detection skill chips in them, allowing them to stay imperceptible to the monsters in here while seeing through any stealth or camouflage that the monsters may have, all on top of the usual enhancements that I give them.
I quickly release the drones, sending them to help me create a mini-map of sorts. While they do that, I'll just wait here at the 'entrance' of the dungeon. If any monsters are unlucky enough to come here, then I'll kill them and add them to my army.
While I wait for the drones to go all around the dungeon, I look around and notice that a lot of the structures here are dilapidated, with some even having their walls broken down, and most of the plant life here is now growing over everything. Most of the street lights were out, with the majority of them being broken, but seeing in the dark was hardly an issue for me, what with my high Perception stat and ELITE giving me even more enhancements.
|Boss, the drones are done.| I hear ELITE's voice after 10 minutes of waiting. Immediately after that, a large AR hologram of a map popped into my vision, with over 349 small red dots on it, and a large red dot at the furthest end of the map away from me.
"Turn it 3D, and show the enemy types. Wouldn't want to go in unprepared." I instruct her, and the projection turns into a 3-dimensional map, with a total of 4 enemy types; 3 mobs and 1 boss monster.
I bring up the mobs, and the monsters are all familiar. The weakest were Dungeon Jackals, C Rank canid monsters that lived and hunted in packs. The other mobs, however, were elite variants of monsters that Sung Jin-Woo faced in his first Instant Dungeon; Elite Steel-Fanged Lycans, and High Razor-Clawed Brigas. In comparison to their normal D Rank counterparts, they were far stronger at the low end of B Rank.
The boss monster is an elite variant of a Werewolf, that's sitting at the low end of A Rank, meaning that it's about as strong as I am stat-wise, for now at least. After checking everything, I move into the dungeon to begin clearing it.
I walked in relative silence for the next 5 minutes, until I came across my first set of monsters. A pack of about 10 hyena-like monsters with black ears, legs and tails come running at me; Dungeon Jackals. Manipulating the darkness around me, I send a large spike through each of them, impaling them and killing them almost instantly.
[Level Up!] x8
Letting out a breath, I create a shortsword that's a foot long and add two skill chips to it, then inspect it.
[Item: Shadow Dagger
Item Class: A
Type: Dagger
Attack +130
A high quality dagger created from nanomachines and infused with the power of darkness. Due to its makeup, it can be altered to gain other abilities at a moment's notice.
Effect 1 'Butcher': +70% additional damage when fighting unarmored opponents.
Effect 2 'System Shock': +60% chance to paralyze enemies upon hitting, +50% chance to cause an additional random debuff.]
With that, I dashed further into the dungeon, ignoring the Dungeon Jackals corpses which were being consumed by my nanomachines. I come across another pack of Dungeon Jackals, then create copies of my Shadow Dagger from Darkforce, then use Dagger Rush to kill all of them. "That's 27 down." I say as the AR HUD in my eyes crosses out the Dungeon Jackals, showing that the last one of them has been killed.
[Level Up!] x5
But before I move away from these dead dogs, a red dot approaches me from behind at breakneck speeds. My senses picked up on the monster approaching me even before it got close, and just before it hits me, I go intangible, causing it to fly past me and slash deeply into the ground, as its face contorts in confusion.
It's a High Razor-Clawed Briga, and unlike the leaner, monkey-like monsters that I'm more familiar with, these guys are stockier, and their claws are longer. Unlike the regular Brigas, whose fur is normally brown or green throughout, these guys have white and red fur, and they look more like mandrills than monkeys.
After quickly making the observation, I lunge forward while gripping my Shadow Dagger, plant its blade into the base of the Briga's neck and slash, beheading it. "Arise." I say, raising my first monster soldier. Unlike the Shadow Ninjas, this one is an Elite Rank Shadow, meaning that it's even stronger than Gao and Alexandra. It retains all of its power after I raise it, meaning that despite the fact that I'm only level 19, I've got a soldier that's easily level 30.
After the nanomachines finish consuming the corpse, I send my newest shadow soldier into my shadow, then move further, and come across another pack of canine monsters. But unlike the Dungeon Jackals, these guys resemble wolves. These are the Elite Steel-Fanged Lycans. They are much larger than their non-magical counterparts, as most Beast type monsters are, and unlike regular Steel-Fanged Lycans, they have steel armor that seems to have been fully grafted to their body.
Choosing to not give them a chance to make an attack, I activate Quicksilver and Bend Time, speeding myself up and slowing them down. I use Domino and link 5 of them to the one closest to me, then behead it in a flash of darkness and blood. The other five suddenly have their heads removed in a similar fashion, causing the Lycans that notice to go into a Fear state.
I quickly repeat the sequence nine more times, using Domino and killing the Lycan closest to me, shaving down their numbers at breakneck speeds. By the time I had finished with them, the 8 second active time of Bend Time was yet to elapse. "Arise." I say, raising the 60 Lycans that came after me, increasing my soldier count to 526.
[Level Up!] x6
Shortly after I had dispatched the Lycans, a horde of Brigas barrel towards me from the trees. But unfortunately for them, they couldn't have chosen a poorer timing. "Get them." I order my Shadow Lycans, then use Ruler's Authority to telekinetically slam all the Brigas into the ground. The Lycans rush the downed Brigas and begin tearing them apart posthaste. Sixty Lycans against thirty bound Brigas is a fight that can only end quickly.
After the Brigas are killed, I raise them, increasing my army's soldiers once more. Deciding that I want to finish up as quickly as I can, I summon all of my soldiers, then let out a large cloud of nanomachines. I cover them all in the nanomachines, making a thin layer that lightly rests on their bodies. As for their weapons, I replace all of the Shadow Ninjas weapons with nanomachine versions, and I coat the claws and fangs of the Shadow Lycans and Brigas in the nanomachines, making them much stronger and sharper.
After kitting them out, I build a Boogie Pack on my back, then fly upwards to watch my soldiers take care of the monsters in the rest of the dungeon. "Kill them all." With that order, they all rushed off at speeds no normal human could ever hope to achieve on their own. Screeches and loud barks echoed from the park as the living Lycans and Brigas were mercilessly overwhelmed by my army.
Fifteen minutes and eight level ups later, there was only the one large red dot on the mini-map. Every other monster in the dungeon had been killed. I descend a bit, then begin flying around the areas where the monster corpses were, and raise them, after which, I send my nanomachines to consume the corpses and replicate some more. All of that takes another five minutes, but I'm done with the mobs. It is now time to face the boss.
I quickly enter Stealth, then open a portal with the other end being an area a few metres above the boss. I build a BFS and enhance it to vibrate at a frequency of 50mHz, making it a High-Frequency blade. I shoot forward into the portal with my BFS at the ready, and once I'm close enough to the boss, slash downward, cleaving the boss in two with frightening ease.
[Level Up!] x5
[You have defeated the Darkblood Werewolf, Ul-Rakan.]
"That was… underwhelming." I say as I retract the nanomachines that make up the BFS. Turning around, I look at the two halves of the boss that are laid out on the ground. It was considerably large, with its height at 13 feet and 2 inches. It had jet black fur and red eyes, and its claws were about 8 inches long.
"Arise." I command, raising it from death, and the now familiar screams came from its shadow. In front of me now stood a 14 foot tall werewolf that pulsed with power.
[Soldiers of a high grade can be named]
[The name will stay until the soldier is dismissed]
[Please set the soldier's name.]
Seeing the notifications brought a small smile to my face. After only two days of possessing these powers, I had already gotten a soldier of the Knight grade. "Garou. Your name is Garou." I said, giving my strongest soldier the moniker of a ravenous wolf. After naming him, I turned to his corpse, where the loot he had dropped after death was staying.
Among said loot is a pair of clawed gauntlets, fangs and a leather bag of gold coins. I put the fangs and the bag in my inventory, then inspect the gauntlets.
[Item: Wolf Warden's Gauntlets
Item Class: A
Type: Gauntlets
Attack +100
Defense +35
Effect 'Combo Frenzy': Every consecutive attack that hits the enemy increases the next attack's power by 20%]
*Wolf Warden's Gauntlets*
While they didn't have any flavor text in their description, that in no way took from the effectiveness of the gauntlets. They're black with some golden accents, and they end in short claws on the hand, and tufts of fur at the opening. After inspecting them, I make my nanomachines consume them and assimilate the Combo Frenzy ability.
After that, I choose to check my status, for the first time since I used the reconstruction.
[Status]
[Level: 38
Strength: 137
Vitality: 137
Agility: 137
Intelligence: 137
Perception: 137
Remaining Points: 6]
After checking my current stats, I recall all of my shadow soldiers. After they all finish returning to my shadow, I build a souped-up version of the Rex Ride, and head back to the Delacorte Clock, where the exit Gate had opened. Walking through it, I create a portal that drops me back at my room over at Kamar-Taj.
"Well, tonight was productive, but I'm gonna be busy for a while, so I'd better get to it." I say as I move to work on the spells that I had memorized from the Library, and from the memories of the deceased.
…
Omniscient POV
Yao was in her chambers, using the Eye of Agamotto, a relic that had the ability to show the truth of things, and also had a secondary function that only she and a select few Masters of the Mystic Arts knew: It was used to house the Time Stone, one of the Infinity Stones that were physical manifestations of the building blocks of existence.
At this moment, she was using the Time Stone to look into the future, which was something she normally did every once in a while. But ever since Ashwani awakened his powers, she's been doing it more frequently, and every time, the future would change. But she didn't even want to try and stop it, because every change was an improvement on the last future that she saw.
She deactivated the Eye and sighed. For years now, she had been seeing the point when she would perish, and had been preparing for it. But now, that had changed. No matter how many times she looked into the future, she saw herself alive, and in some of the more recent ones she checked, she seemed to have more than recovered from her contract with Dormammu.
"The Shadow Monarch. A being bearing that moniker, as well as those abilities, has never been heard of. I wonder, just what are you, Ashwani?" She wondered to herself, as she returned the Eye of Agamotto to the stand where it was usually kept. Despite her looking into the future, she noticed that as she tried to look further, she failed to see Ashwani himself, only seeing the effects of his actions on humanity. She didn't know exactly what this meant, but seeing as there were no negatives, she chose not to look into it.
She would have continued thinking about Ashwani's peculiarity, if she hadn't felt the slight prodding on the dimensional borders of the Earth. With a sigh, she left to attend to her duties as Earth's Sorcerer Supreme.
Chapter End.
Word Count: 2,405
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