[Chapter 284. The Commander]

He could barely see the room through the barrage of explosive spells flying in his direction. Each flash of magic momentarily illuminated the chaos, revealing glimpses of the crumbling architecture before another spell would detonate nearby, sending a fresh wave of dust and rock shards flying. The air was thick with debris, the sound of constant explosions making it difficult to think as each impact vibrated through the stone floor beneath his boots.

Every now and then, there was a small window where he could see the room for a fraction of a second—a glimpse of tapestries ablaze, of shattered stained-glass windows, of the frantic figures of the Gatura as they unleashed their magical fury. Then, another spell would detonate, and the world would dissolve into chaos once more. Several spells later, with a sound like shattering ice, the first layer of his drone barrier cracked and broke. The hexagonal pattern fractured into fragments of light before dissipating completely.

His drones began shooting randomly into the cacophony of spell-fire, their beams cutting through the haze but often striking nothing but empty air or already-dead bodies. During a gap of perhaps a second between spells—one of those rare moments of silence where the ringing in his ears subsided—his drones locked onto a target. With a sudden, focused burst of energy, one of them incinerated a creature at the far end. Its death shriek was cut short as it dissolved into shimmering System energy.

Then, another spell flew in from the side—a bolt of crackling purple lightning that struck his remaining barrier, causing it to flicker violently. This chaotic dance of offense and defense went on for another minute before all four of the mages were dead, their bodies dissolving into the same ethereal light that had claimed their companions.

`Noted. If there is a mage, the room is gone.`

He thought this as he looked over the ruined room—or what was left of it. The last time he had seen something similar was when he first reached the ruined city that was now Androxis. The entire chamber looked like the aftermath of a warzone. The walls were blackened by fire, the ceiling had partially collapsed, and the floor was littered with debris and the remnants of the Gatura's magical onslaught. The air was thick with the smell of pulverized rock and burnt fur. The silence that fell after the last spell was as deafening as the explosions that had preceded it. The drones barrier flickered back to a steady state, their blue light casting eerie shadows across the destruction, a stark contrast to the devastation they had just withstood.

`I have to find a better way to deal with the mages... I can't just randomly shoot into the dust and spell-fire.`

He rubbed at a phantom ache in his temples from the repeated magical detonations. The chaotic approach had worked, but only barely; the room had been obliterated, leaving nothing but scorched stone and a lingering stench. He needed a strategy, something more precise than 'shoot into the chaos and pray.' The castle's layout, with its shifting corridors and fog-shrouded chambers, demanded more than brute force. It demanded patience, and patience was a luxury he was running short of.

A couple of rooms further in, his path once again ran into a blocked section, the thick fog swallowing the corridor ahead. Just as before, he sent his recon drone in. Slipping through the wall of gray, its silent form disappearing into the unknown. What the drone sent back was unexpected: the room beyond was massive, easily hundreds of meters across and tall enough for a mature tree to grow inside. The only reason he knew it was an indoor room and not the outside world was because his drone had collided with the ceiling when he'd sent it soaring upward to get a better vantage point. The space just below the ceiling was partially free of fog, and through the haze, he could make out large glass panels.

After waiting a few minutes for his recon drone to scout out the space, in his memories he saw three other potential exits, each were shrouded by more of that impenetrable fog. There was no clear path forward. He recalled the drone, its sensors clicking softly as it settled into position beside him.

`Alright, where do I go from here?`

Frustration bubbled under his skin as he tried to reconstruct the dungeon's layout in his mind. This entire castle was a massive, interconnected labyrinth made entirely of rooms and hallways, each blocked off either by a physical wall or this unnerving fog that gave him the creeps the moment it brushed against his senses. The feeling was strange, deeper than simple discomfort—as if every cell in his body was screaming at him to get out, to turn back and not enter. It was a primal warning, one that clashed with his logical need to press forward and understand.

`There is a second floor, but I haven't found the way up there yet.`

He mused on this, pacing slowly in front of the fog wall.

`I mean, I could cheat and use my drone to get up there... but there has to be a way to actually ascend without being able to fly. The System wouldn't design a dungeon that was impossible to clear. Maybe there's a hidden mechanism or trigger.`

He'd seen it before in the days before the System—a lever in one room unlocking a passage in another, pressure plates activated by moving a statue, even cryptic riddles that, when solved, revealed hidden paths. This castle, with its corridors and fog-shrouded chambers, had to have its own logic, its own set of rules. The question was, what were they? And how much time and blood would he have to spend to figure them out?

He pondered this while backtracking, checking every room and corner once again. His boots scuffed against the uneven stone floors that had been worn smooth by countless passing generations of the Gatura. The silence of the castle was broken only by the distant, echoing drip of water from the ceiling and the low, guttural sounds of the creatures lurking deeper inside. Each room he entered seemed to blur into the next, a monotonous collection of decayed furniture, torn tapestries depicting ancient battles, and the occasional pile of bones. The air grew thicker with each step, carrying the damp, earthy scent of mildew and something else that clung to the back of his throat.

As he reached the room where the mages had devastated the entirety of the floor, he paused at the threshold. The destruction was absolute: walls were blackened by arcane flames, the stone itself seeming to melt in places where the most powerful spells had struck. The ceiling had partially collapsed, exposing wooden beams that were now charred and splintered. He shook his head as he passed through the space, careful to avoid the gaping holes in the floor that dropped into the darkness below.

"There is nothing," he muttered to himself, the words swallowed by the vast emptiness of the ruined chamber. Even the dust had been scoured from the air by the magical onslaught.

Half an hour later, he was already running into beasts that had respawned, their forms materializing from thin air as if the castle itself was giving birth to them anew. The fights went just as before, except this time he approached from the opposite direction, which threw the Gatura off balance. Their tactics were predictable, but coming from behind meant their ranged units were rendered useless, cut off by their own elevated positions. He dispatched them with clinical efficiency, his drones cutting through the creatures like scythes through wheat.

After clearing the room again and dealing with the snipers, he used a travel drone to carry him up to the second floor. The ascent was smooth and silent as the machine hoisted him through the air.

The balconies the snipers had shot from connected to hallways on the second floor. As he stepped inside the first, he found himself standing right between two groups of beasts. The sudden appearance caught them off guard, their eyes widening in surprise as they turned to face this new threat. Within the span of a second, his attack drones positioned themselves on his right and left flanks, blocking off the space with shimmering energy barriers that hummed with power. His offensive drones dealt with the warriors, their attacks precise and lethal. After the infantry was dead, he killed off the remaining Guards—their heavy shields offering little protection against his fast movement and precise stabs with the dagger—and walked down the left path, his footsteps echoing in the narrow corridor.

Once again, he checked all the rooms and passages where the corridor split, finding mostly nothing: more decay, more dust, more evidence of the Gatura's primitive existence.

That was until he ran into a group of them that was far more coordinated. They didn't simply charge him; instead, they took up defensive positions behind their Guards. The mages in this group didn't just blow up the room blindly, but fired their spells with precision. Their purple crystal staffs glowed as they unleashed bolts of lightning and streams of fire that forced him to keep moving.

It took him a moment to notice that one of them appeared to be giving the other beasts orders. Its gestures were sharp and deliberate as it directed the attack with chilling intelligence. All of his drones switched over to this new target, adapting to the threat with mechanical efficiency as they prepared to eliminate the commander and break the enemy's coordination.

However, his drones were proving useless against the commanding Gatura. The beast stood perfectly positioned behind the vanguard, its heavy halberd held at a defensive angle as it moved in sync with its protectors. Every beam of energy that his drones fired was intercepted; the metallic shields of the Guards deflected the attacks with a resonant clang that echoed through the corridor.

Even when he commanded the drones to overcharge, pushing their energy output to the maximum, the beams struck the shields and scattered harmlessly. The Guards barely registered the impact aside from a slight grunt. All the while, the Gatura Mages continued their onslaught, their crystal staffs glowing as they unleashed a torrent of spells—shards of ice, bolts of crackling lightning, streams of searing fire, and projectiles of raw energy—that hammered against the hexagonal barrier in front of him. The Gatura Warriors armed with crossbows added their own contribution, their heavy bolts thudding into the barrier with rhythmic precision, each impact sending a faint, deadly vibration through the air.