System Change

Inside the cave that held the entrance to the raid dungeon, two mid-tiered guards stood. They had been stationed there since not long after Prince Edgar led the raid team inside. Honestly, their station in the cave had been more of a blessing than a curse. Because of it, they hadn’t been involved in any of the fighting since the invasion began.

In fact, it seemed more like the kingdom had forgotten about them. They did feel ashamed for a time, but when they contacted their commander, he had told them that it was more important for them to stay there and contact them again if they felt that the enemy kingdoms were on the verge of finding the cave entrance, and thus, the raid dungeon orb.

Luckily, both had been picked because neither of them had a family to worry about, so they wouldn’t be missing much if they were stationed somewhere long term. And they made sure to keep up with whatever ongoings in the kingdom that they were privy to.

It looked like the two guards were in for another long, boring day in the cave, so they settled in with a deck of cards and began playing. If things went on like this, they would become some of the best card players in the kingdom. Well, that wasn’t true, as they only had each other to play against, and neither were particularly good at cards.

“When do you think the raid team will be back?” the first guard asked.

“You ask that question every day. I know just as much as you do,” the second answered.

“And you give me that same answer every time I ask.” The first guard grinned and laid his cards on the table. “Two pair. Sevens and twos.”

“Really?” the second guard asked him in a deadpan voice. “Sevens and twos? Are you ser…”

Before the second guard could finish his question, the dungeon orb, which had the faint glow indicating that there was a team inside, began glowing brighter. “I think they’re finished,” the man said with wide eyes and a smile on his face.

“What?” the first guard asked. “Finished? Who?” His back was to the dungeon orb currently, and he hadn’t saw the change in it.

The second guard pointed. “The dungeon orb, it’s glowing. That means they’ve completed it, right?”

With that, the first guard jumped out of his seat and turned to face the orb. “It really is,” he said with giddy excitement. “But why is it taking so long? Shouldn’t it be instant when it starts?”

The second guard shrugged and continued to watch. A few moments later, the cave began to shake. It was bad. It felt like a massive earthquake was beginning to form. Then, in front of them, beside the orb, a man faded into existence. A man they recognized. Not from personally knowing him, but from seeing him from far away when he visited, or was forced to visit, his brother. He had the same look as the rest of the royal family.

The first guard was ecstatic, and took a step forward to greet the prince, but the second guard held his hand out and stopped him. “What?”

“Don’t get in the way. The rest will be coming out, too,” he whispered.

“Oh… right.”

But the rest didn’t come out. Instead, the already massive earthquake grew in power. Soon, the stalactites growing on the cave ceiling began falling and clattering on the ground. Neither guard could figure out what was happening.

“Where are you?” the guards heard the prince whisper, but it didn’t seem like he was talking to either one of them.

Then, just as the prince had slowly faded into existence in front of them, something else did as well. Something big… no, something huge. It was so big that both of the guards were forced back and had to hug the wall to avoid being crushed by it. The rumbling grew even greater in power as whatever it was came to form.

Then, all at once, the thing was there, and the cave exploded. Whatever just appeared was massive, much bigger than the cave, and hadn’t been able to fit its body inside. By some miracle, both guards had made it out of the cave explosion with minimal scratches. It wasn’t really an explosion, after all, just a cave falling down on their heads.

There wasn’t any deadly force or magic in the destruction of the cave. It was something that any user of the Great System would be able to withstand with just a small investment into their endurance.

“Are the two of you okay?” a voice let out, but neither could find where it was coming from. “Up here,” it said.

The two guards stared up at the prince, slack jawed. Eventually, the first guard managed to nod his head in affirmation.

“Good!” the prince yelled from high in the sky. “I’m off. You take care of the dungeon, here. I expect the rest of them will be back soon. I’ve got some business to deal with.” Then, the prince was gone.

The first guard saw something deadly flash in the prince’s eyes before the man was carried away… carried away by a…

“Dustin…” the second guard said. The first guard, Dustin, turned his head to meet the second’s eyes. “W-was that a dragon? D-did the prince just appear… on a dragon?”

Dustin opened his mouth to talk, but he couldn’t find the words to speak. Eventually, he could only nod. The prince had, in fact, appeared from the dungeon orb and left on a dragon. Who were they to report to on this? What were they supposed to say?

Dustin took a red communication crystal out of his storage ring and tried contacting his direct superior, but he received no response. Then, he moved through a few different contacts, but couldn’t get through to anyone. He really hoped nobody blamed them for not reporting it when the prince of the kingdom shows up wherever he’s going on a dragon.

***

Alanah hovered in the air inside her nice, cozy sleeping bag. Not really, but that’s what it actually felt like. Ryven had tried to squeeze it a few times, but failed to cause any harm to her. In fact, it just made the feeling a little more comfortable. She rolled her eyes at the man as he attempted it again.

His barriers that he attacked with were extremely weak currently. She guessed that was because of all the energy and mana he had to used to keep her locked inside the barriers. And, from what she gathered through their fight, Ryven wasn’t exactly physically strong to begin with. So, she may have been ‘captured’ but he couldn’t do anything with it.

Something impacted the back of her head and she flinched. It was one of those dark ice bolts from the Crown Prince of Astrus. Those were getting annoying. They were strong enough to make her bleed a little, but the boy couldn’t attack fast enough with them to overcome her own natural healing. Plus, she had her headpiece that lessened the force of his attack before it hit her.

She shot the boy a glare. She would make it fast when she killed him. He wouldn’t suffer, he wouldn’t even know he was going to die before he did. The boy was also the person who had crippled Edward, so nobody, except for maybe Edward, would care when he died.

“You can’t do anything anymore. It’s only a matter of time before we overrun this city. Give up. Make a contract with me that you will stay out of any further conflict, and I will release you and we won’t bother any of your people.” Ryven finally decided to weather her resonance and brought his personal sound barrier down to talk.

Alanah snorted. “Silvi is part of ‘my people.’ I’ve already told you that. Besides, you do know that she isn’t even here in the city, right?” She smiled. “And when Derek gets out… oh… you and your army, no… both you and your nation are going to be royally fucked. And I mean that literally. Indria and Astrus will be holding events to elect a new royal family, because neither of your countries will have one any longer.”

Ryven’s face went ashen. “Is he… that strong?”

Alanah rolled her eyes. “Normally, I’d tell you to fuck off, but I’m feeling generous today. Yes. He is that strong. No, he’s even stronger than you think.” She actually wasn’t sure of his strength, but she was having fun toying with the duke. According to what she knew, Derek was gaining strength at a rapid pace. And according to Natalie, it shouldn’t be long before his overall stats caught up to Alanah’s own.

That was, of course, if he continued to grow at his outlandish speed. She couldn’t help but wonder how many levels he had left until he hit the cap. She would also like to know which class upgrade it was when he received his legendary class. He must have gotten it very early on to have such stats at his level. He wasn’t that much stronger than Shae Holmes when he first arrived at Savannah, after all.

‘Are you going to do something, or is it really up to me?’ While she was talking with Ryven, she focused her Telepathy skill and send a message to Natalie. Ryven’s sound barrier didn’t prevent telepathic messages, and Natalie had slowly moved as she attacked and was no longer inside the elven commander’s barrier that disrupted communications and teleportation.

She actually wasn’t sure if the barrier would block Telepathy. She hadn’t tried before Natalie made it outside of it. She shrugged and waited for a reply.

‘Do you know how much money I’ve already spent? If I go all out, the expenses will be astronomical. What will it cost you to do your thing? You know, I’ve heard about it. Heard about the stories from the other continent. The ones about the Dawn Siren. It can’t be that bad,’ Natalie replied back. ‘Besides, other than expending some mana, it’s free, right? I’ll pay you in mana potions. Don’t make me waste more money. It’s your fault for letting yourself get captured, after all.’

Alanah couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. She didn’t know that Natalie had gathered information about that… about her. About one of the biggest reasons she left and started over on this continent, in Cydaria. But, of course, she had. The woman had as much, if not more, money as anybody from over there. It would be easy enough for her to find the information if she looked. Alanah’s actions over there weren’t exactly subtle.

“What?” Ryven asked and broke her out of her thoughts. “Why did you just roll your eyes?”

“I was just chatting with Natalie. She has that effect on people,” Alanah answered with a smile.

“You two think you have time to chat with each other? In this situation?” Ryven sneered.

“Ryven, let me ask you a question,” Alanah said coyly. “Exactly how strong do you think your barriers are? Specifically, your sound blocking ones?” In her adventures, Alanah had learned some things about classes, even legendary ones. Usually, you received a bunch of skills with each upgrade.

That was especially true for the more rare classes. An epic class could sometimes get six or more skills with the upgrade. But, sometimes, someone would get a high rarity class, but only receive a few skills with the upgrade. Those skills, however, were very stronger. Three skills at a level 200 epic class upgrade could be vastly stronger than the combination of six skills at a level 200 epic class upgrade.

Alanah was in that boat with her skills. Well, she had gone through her epic upgrades quite normally, getting four skills here and six skills there. But, at her level 200 class upgrade, the upgrade that she received her legendary Dawn Siren class, she only received one skill with it. And it was a skill she detested and hadn’t used since her days overseas.

“My barriers are more than enough for anything you can produce. I think we’ve figured that out by now,” Ryven replied.

‘If I’m going to do this, you better retreat back to the city and use what ever defenses you can. I’m not sure if I can control it. It’s been a while,’ she sent back to Natalie. She had yet to use the skill after increasing her wisdom or intelligence stats to such levels. Things could either go much better than she remembered, or much worse.

“I hope you don’t regret that. I really do. Though, I probably won’t be able to recall whether you do or not.” Alanah looked inward and focused on her skill before. The one skill she received after getting her legendary class. The skill simply called Metamorphosis: Dawn Siren.