Chapter 469: Before the Dungeon Opens

They didn’t leave the buried ruins immediately.

Now that Sage understood what was forming beneath Greyfen, the strange events of the past several weeks were no longer separate mysteries, and Rowan wanted to reconstruct the sequence before they returned to Dunmere.

They climbed back toward the upper ruins and stopped inside a chamber that had survived their battles relatively intact, where Iris cleared centuries of dust from a broad stone platform and Sage unfolded the rough map Garran had prepared from the Guild’s accumulated missions.

Rowan added everything they had discovered during the expedition: abandoned nesting grounds, reversed migration trails, the dead Gravehorn Ravager, territories emptied of smaller creatures, the abnormal Cindermaw and every report collected from Dunmere.

By the time the marks covered half the map, the pattern had become impossible to miss. Rowan rested one finger near the northernmost section and slowly traced it south.

"We were thinking about this backward," he explained, his expression thoughtful as he followed the chain of disturbed territories. "Nothing began near Dunmere. The problems reached Dunmere last because the disturbance started here."

Iris leaned over the map while several strands of silver hair fell across her cheek, and after comparing Rowan’s markings with her mana readings, she nodded.

"The dungeon began drawing mana long before the effect became strong enough for us to notice directly. Creatures living closest to the formation point would’ve sensed the change first." Mina frowned as she followed the marks southward and asked what those creatures had done when the mana started changing.

Rowan tapped several abandoned territories before answering that most had apparently fled. "Imagine a 4th Order Elite Beast abandoning a territory it has controlled for years," Rowan continued. "It doesn’t politely search for empty land. It enters another creature’s territory. That creature either fights it or runs. If it runs, it enters the next territory, and the same thing happens again."

Lucan finally understood why they had encountered normally territorial Magic Beasts moving beside creatures they should have attacked on sight.

He pointed toward the southern marks and said, "So the monsters attacking roads aren’t actually the beginning of the problem. They’re the end of it."

"Exactly," Rowan replied, giving Lucan an approving glance before moving his finger across the map again. "The deeper beasts flee first. They displace whatever lives farther south. Those creatures displace others, and eventually the weakest ones have nowhere left to go except farmland, roads and settlements."

Mina’s expression darkened as she remembered the damaged fields around Dunmere.

"Then it’ll get worse," she said, looking toward Sage rather than the map. "If the dungeon keeps changing the mana, more beasts will keep moving."

Sage nodded slowly. That was the immediate problem. Discovering the dungeon gave the Guild an extraordinary opportunity, but the dungeon didn’t care about opportunities, property claims or who discovered it first.

Until manifestation stabilized the surrounding mana, Greyfen could continue producing waves of displaced Magic Beasts, and every settlement along the forest’s southern boundary would suffer the consequences.

Iris placed both palms against the stone platform and studied the crude map.

"There’s another possibility," she said, her excitement from discovering the dungeon replaced by professional seriousness. "The mana density isn’t increasing evenly. Near the forming dungeon, the ambient mana is being drawn downward, but immediately around the convergence region there’s considerable leakage and turbulence. Certain Magic Beasts might flee from that instability, while others could be attracted to the concentration."

Rowan’s eyes narrowed at once. "Like the Cindermaw."

Iris nodded and explained that the salamander had probably discovered an area where escaping mana was unusually rich and remained there long enough for its body to begin changing.

Sage looked toward the northern edge of the map and realized what that implied. If a 4th Order Elite Beast could become abnormal after feeding near the forming dungeon, then there was no reason to assume it was the only creature that had done so.

They resumed their journey toward the surface shortly afterward, retracing their route through the buried structure until afternoon light finally appeared between the roots covering the old entrance.

The silence of northern Greyfen remained oppressive, but now Sage understood it. This wasn’t an empty wilderness. It was evacuated territory.

The creatures that once filled these trees had either fled, died or moved toward the dungeon’s influence. Rowan immediately began searching for signs they had overlooked on the way in, and with the cause now known, previously meaningless details acquired new significance.

He found deep scratches high on several ancient trunks, a crushed stone outcropping and an enormous depression in the soil that had been partly concealed beneath fallen leaves.

Whatever had made it was far larger than the Gloomstrike Mantis.

Rowan crouched beside the depression and measured it against his forearm before his expression hardened.

"This isn’t a footprint," he said, brushing away leaves from the curved edge. "It’s where something rested part of its body."

Lucan stared at the enormous impression before looking toward the surrounding forest and asking what kind of creature could leave something that large behind. Rowan didn’t answer immediately.

He walked farther north, examined another depression and then found a tree whose bark had been stripped away nearly thirty feet above the ground.

Embedded inside the exposed wood were several dark metallic scales, each larger than Mina’s hand.

Rowan carefully removed one with his knife and turned it over. "I know what these are," he said, and the absence of his usual calm made everyone pay attention.

"Stormcrown Basilisk."

Iris’s expression changed immediately. "Those live in the northern highlands."

"Usually," Rowan confirmed as he held the scale toward the light. "And adults don’t wander without reason."

Mina looked at the scale curiously before asking, "What Order?"

Rowan’s jaw tightened slightly. "Normally 5th Order."

That changed the atmosphere immediately. A 5th Order Commander Beast wasn’t simply another step above the creatures they had fought.

The difference between Orders became increasingly severe as Magic Beasts advanced, and Commander Beasts were capable of dominating enormous territories filled with weaker monsters.

A mature Stormcrown Basilisk could grow beyond a hundred feet in length, with six powerful legs beneath a heavily scaled serpentine body and a crown of backward-curving horns capable of accumulating storm mana.

It didn’t merely bite or crush prey. It generated violent electrical fields around its body and discharged lightning through its horns, while older specimens could manipulate the charged air surrounding them to accelerate with terrifying speed despite their enormous size.

Lucan slowly sheathed the sword he had been cleaning and looked at Rowan. "You said normally 5th Order. I dislike the word normally whenever you use it around Magic Beasts."

Rowan turned the scale between his fingers before answering, "Because this one isn’t behaving normally. Stormcrown Basilisks prefer elevated rocky territories where storms are frequent. This forest shouldn’t interest one, especially this far underground from its natural range."

Iris looked toward the ground as realization appeared across her face. "Unless it sensed the mana concentration."

Rowan nodded once. "A Commander Beast would notice something this large long before humans did."

Sage activated the Aetheric Insight Eyes briefly and examined the surrounding forest. The underground currents still converged toward the forming dungeon, but now he deliberately searched the surface rather than beneath it.

For several moments he saw only trees, roots and residual traces left by creatures that had passed through days earlier. Then he turned northwest.

Something enormous had contaminated the mana there.

The traces weren’t fresh enough to reveal the creature directly, but they were unmistakable. Several areas contained lingering storm-aspected mana so concentrated that faint electrical currents still travelled through nearby roots and stones.

More importantly, the trail curved around the dungeon’s formation point instead of moving away from it.

"It’s staying," Sage said as he deactivated his Eyes. "Whatever Rowan found isn’t fleeing from the dungeon. It’s circling it."

Iris immediately understood. "It claimed the area."

Rowan stood and surveyed the trees. "That would explain why even creatures attracted by the mana aren’t remaining nearby. The Cindermaw survived because it was underground. Anything approaching from the surface enters the Basilisk’s territory."

They spent the next two hours confirming it. Rowan discovered feeding sites scattered around the northern forest, but unlike the chaotic kills left by displaced beasts, these were deliberate.

An enormous armored beetle-like Magic Beast had been torn almost completely in half. Farther west they found the remains of a massive antlered creature whose bones had been blackened by lightning.

Several trees nearby had exploded from internal heat, leaving their trunks split open and smoking despite the attack being at least a day old. The Stormcrown Basilisk wasn’t passing through Greyfen.

It had established a hunting territory around the forming dungeon and was feeding on both the unnaturally rich mana and powerful Magic Beasts drawn toward it.

What worried Sage most was the final discovery.

Near dusk, Rowan found a newly shed scale beneath a shattered tree. It was considerably larger than the first, but Iris noticed something else. Thin veins of pale blue crystal had begun growing through the dark metal surface.

She formed a small blue Magic Circle above her palm and carefully tested the mana within the scale before looking toward Sage.

"It’s changing too," Iris said, her expression grave. "The same kind of abnormal mana saturation we saw in the Cindermaw, but this creature began from a much stronger foundation."

Nobody needed her to explain what that meant.

Somewhere in the abandoned northern reaches of Greyfen, a 5th Order Commander Beast was feeding upon the energies released by a dungeon before manifestation, and none of them knew how long it had been doing so or how far the transformation had progressed.

Rowan looked toward the darkening forest and tightened his grip around his sword. "If it remains here when the dungeon manifests, it’ll control the entire approach. Anyone trying to reach the entrance will enter its territory first."

Sage studied the crystalline scale in Iris’s hand before turning toward the northwest, where faint thunder rolled despite the evening sky above Greyfen remaining clear.

The dungeon itself wasn’t open, and whatever existed inside it was still being created, but Greyfen had already produced a guardian of its own.

Sage’s expression hardened as another distant rumble travelled through the forest, and he finally understood what they had to do before they could think about claiming anything beneath it.

They had found the dungeon.

Now they had to take its territory from the monster that had found it first.