Lucien found himself in a jungle-like area, though calling it a jungle felt somewhat inadequate for what surrounded him. Dense vegetation covered every available surface. The air was thick with moisture and carried the smell of salt water mixed with tropical plant life.
But what caught his attention more than the jungle itself was the fact that he was standing on a small island. Not a large landmass - maybe a kilometer across at most - completely surrounded by endless ocean that stretched to the horizon in every direction.
And above him, shining down through breaks in the canopy, was the sun.
An actual sun. Or at least something that looked and felt exactly like one, providing natural light and warmth to this dungeon. Lucien stared up at it for a moment, trying to understand the mechanics of what he was seeing.
An artificial sun for the dungeons? Some kind of magical construct that mimicked a real star? Or was this dimension somehow connected to a real solar system, just isolated from the rest of reality?
The how didn't really matter, he supposed. The dungeon system had proven capable of creating pocket dimensions with their own rules and physics. A false sun was probably one of the simpler things it could manifest.
He turned his attention back to his immediate surroundings. The island was quiet - too quiet. No birds calling, no insects buzzing, no animals moving through the underbrush. His senses swept the area, searching for threats.
There weren't any monsters on the island. He could sense it clearly. As his perception had grown stronger over the weeks, he'd started to sense things in a way that was almost like having eyes scattered across a vast area. Not true sight, but an awareness of living presences, their locations, their movements, their approximate power levels.
The island was empty of hostiles.
But the ocean wasn't.
Lucien walked to the edge of the beach and looked out at the water. His expanded perception reached outward, past the breaking waves, into the deeper waters beyond. And there he felt them - dozens of presences moving toward the island. They were still several kilometers away, but they were definitely coming.
Their mana signatures registered as roughly equivalent to his Elite-grade shadows, the typical mobs of a B-Rank Dungeon.
A slight smile crossed Lucien's face. "Another Knight-grade existence."
He raised his hand and pulled up his status screen. It had been a while since he'd checked his actual numbers, and he was curious to see how much progress the past three weeks of constant dungeon clearing had yielded.
Name: Lucien Reynolds
Title: The Monarch of Shadows [+2]
Job: Shadow Monarch
Level:109 Fatigue: 0
HP: 6900/6900 MP: 7200/7200
Strength: 311
Health: 300
Agility: 310
Perception: 211
Mana: 338
Stat Points: 0
Gold: 4,200,235
Passive Skills:[+]
Active Skills[+]
Job Skills[+]
Lucien looked at the numbers with satisfaction. All of his stats except perception had broken through the 300 barrier.
His mana stat was 338, but his total MP was over 6,000. The correlation between the stat and the actual mana pool had shifted dramatically. It wasn't growing linearly anymore but rather exponentially.
Since the relationship was exponential, that meant each point in the Mana Stat was worth progressively more MP as the stat increased, which was why he had been investing more points in Mana Stat.
That was a good thing, obviously.
He scrolled down to check his shadow army statistics.
Shadows: 294/ 430
The storage capacity had increased significantly. He'd started with a much lower cap, but as his level and stats grew, so did the number of shadows he could maintain. Though he noticed the growth pattern wasn't consistent - it seemed to increase in irregular jumps rather than steady increments.
He couldn't fully understand the exact mechanics behind the numbers. The system operated on rules that weren't always transparent, and trying to predict precise growth patterns was proving impossible. However, since he was the one benefiting from all of it, he didn't think too much about the specifics.
At that moment, the water around the island began to churn. Ripples turned into waves, and waves turned into surges as something large - many large somethings - began to emerge from the depths.
First came the claws. Massive, razor-sharp appendages that dug into the sand and stone at the beach's edge, pulling bodies up and out of the ocean. Then came the creatures themselves.
Nagas.
Lucien recognized them from various mythologies and fantasy media from his previous life. Serpentine lower bodies covered in blue scales, powerful humanoid torsos, arms ending in those giant, sharp claws. Blue shoulder fins that looked both decorative and functional, probably helping with swimming. Whitish underbellies that stood out against their darker upper scales.
Many of them wielded weapons - tridents, spears, curved blades designed for underwater combat. Their eyes glowed with a faint bioluminescence, and their mouths were filled with rows of needle-sharp teeth.
They emerged from the water in a coordinated assault, dozens of them pulling themselves onto the beach from every direction. Their hissing calls echoed across the island, a sound that was part serpent, part war cry.
Lucien didn't move from his position. He simply raised one hand, and shadows began to rise from the ground around him.
His army manifested in waves. The High Orc warriors from Tusk's dungeon, forming ranks along the beach perimeter.
The Nagas charged forward, their serpentine bodies allowing them to move with surprising speed across the sand.
The shadows clashed with them.
An orc shadow's blade cleaved through a Naga's torso, the clean cut separating upper body from serpentine lower half. A Naga's trident punched through a shadow knight's chest, but the wound closed almost immediately as the shadow retaliated with a devastating counter-attack.
Blood and ichor mixed with sand and salt water as the battle spread across the beach. The sounds of combat filled the air - metal on metal, flesh-tearing, the hissing screams of dying Nagas, and the silent efficiency of shadows that felt no pain and knew no fear.
More Nagas kept emerging from the ocean. Fifty became a hundred. A hundred became two hundred. They came in seemingly endless waves, as if the ocean itself was spawning them.
But Lucien's army held firm.
Tusk materialized near the center of the defensive line, his massive form immediately drawing the attention of a dozen Nagas. The orc mage began chanting, and magical circles appeared in the air around him.
Hymn of the Blazing Fire sent waves of flame across the beach, catching multiple Nagas in the inferno. Their scales provided some protection, but not enough against the intensity of Tusk's magic. Those that survived the flames found themselves weakened, their movements slower, their scales cracked and blackened.
Belasco appeared on the opposite side of the battlefield, his shadow form radiating dark magical energy. He may have been reduced to Elite-grade after losing his connection to the Elder Gods, but he was still a formidable sorcerer. Soul manipulation magic lashed out at the attacking Nagas, causing several to simply collapse as their life force was drained away.
The battle raged on, but Lucien himself didn't join the fighting. He stood on a small rise overlooking the beach, hands in his pockets, watching his shadows systematically dismantle the Naga assault force.
This was one of the advantages of having the shadow army. He didn't need to personally engage in every fight anymore. His shadows could handle the majority of threats while he conserved his energy for truly dangerous opponents.
A particularly large Naga managed to break through the shadow line, its twin tridents carving a path through two orc warriors. It spotted Lucien standing alone and apparently undefended, and a predatory gleam entered its glowing eyes.
It launched itself forward with impressive speed, tridents raised for a killing thrust.
A shadow intercepted it mid-charge. One of the High Orc guards, his blade already in motion, caught the Naga across the neck. The creature's head separated from its body, both parts hitting the sand separately while its momentum carried it forward another few feet.
Lucien didn't even flinch. His eyes remained focused on the broader battle, watching how his shadows adapted their tactics to deal with the Nagas' aquatic combat style.
The fight continued for nearly twenty minutes. More and more Nagas emerged from the ocean, but the rate of emergence was finally slowing. The shadow army had established complete control of the beach, their defensive line unbroken despite the sustained assault.
Bodies littered the sand - dozens, then hundreds of dead Nagas. The ocean water near the shore had turned dark with their blood, and the beach was slick with ichor and viscera.
Finally, the last of the regular Nagas fell to shadow blades. The ocean grew still, no more creatures emerging from its depths. An eerie silence settled over the battlefield, broken only by the sound of waves lapping against a beach now covered in corpses.
But Lucien knew it wasn't over. He picked up something new approaching from deeper in the ocean. A single presence, but one that dwarfed all the others combined.
The water began to churn again, but this time it wasn't multiple small disturbances. The entire ocean surface seemed to rise, as if something massive was pushing up from below.
A figure emerged that made the other Nagas look like children by comparison.
The boss, Jima.
The Naga King stood easily fifteen feet tall, with a serpentine lower body as thick as a tree trunk and covered in scales that gleamed like polished sapphires. His humanoid torso was impossibly muscled, each movement showing the kind of power that could crush stone.
He wielded two massive tridents, each one easily eight feet long and crackling with what looked like water-based magical energy. Blue lightning played along the weapons' surfaces, and the air around Jima seemed to shimmer with moisture.
The Naga King's eyes locked onto Lucien, intelligence and fury burning in those glowing orbs. Unlike the other Nagas, this one understood exactly who had orchestrated the slaughter of his forces.
Lucien checked Jima's status.
Name: Jima- The Naga King
Strength: 450
Health: 694
Agility: 325
Perception: 190
"Sukuna. Artorias," Lucien called out calmly. "He's yours."
Two forms materialized from his shadow, stepping forward to face the Naga King. Sukuna's four-armed form radiated mana, his multiple hands already moving through the gestures for his techniques. Artorias stood beside him, his sword giving a silver shine.
Jima roared, the sound shaking the very air, and charged forward with speed that shouldn't have been possible for something his size.
Artorias met the charge head-on, his blade intercepting one of the tridents in a clash that sent shockwaves across the beach. The knight-commander's superior swordsmanship immediately became apparent as he deflected the second trident strike and countered with a cut that left a deep gash across Jima's chest.
Sukuna attacked from the side, his technique activating. "Cleave." The invisible slash carved through the air, aimed at the Naga King's serpentine lower body.
Jima twisted, avoiding the worst of the attack, though it still left a bloody line across his scales. He retaliated by slamming both tridents into the ground, and water erupted from the sand in a massive wave enhanced by his magic.
Artorias simply walked through the wave, his aura burning away the water magic before it could touch him. Sukuna dodged to the side, his four arms moved as he prepared another technique.
The Naga King pulled his tridents from the ground and launched a flurry of strikes that would have overwhelmed multiple opponents.
Artorias drew Jima's attention with aggressive sword strikes, forcing the Naga King to focus on defense. Sukuna exploited every opening, his techniques carving chunks from Jima's body whenever the boss's guard dropped.
Blue lightning erupted from Jima's tridents, arcing toward both shadows in a desperate attempt to create space. Artorias's blade absorbed the lightning aimed at him, neutralizing the magical attack.
Sukuna took the hit but seemed barely affected, his nature making him resistant to most forms of magical damage.
Sukuna used Dismantle as multiple cutting attacks materialized around Jima from different angles.
The Naga King's scales provided some protection, but the technique was designed to cut through defenses. Blood began flowing freely from dozens of wounds as the invisible blades found their marks.
Jima roared again, this time in pain rather than fury. He raised both tridents high, and the ocean behind him began to rise in response. A massive wave, easily thirty feet tall, formed and began rushing toward the island.
Tusk stepped forward, his chanting rising above the sound of the approaching water. Hymn of Protection manifested as a shimmering barrier that enclosed the entire island. The wave crashed against it and simply stopped, held back by magical force.
With his desperate gambit neutralized, Jima had no more tricks left to play.
Artorias's blade took the Naga King in the side, punching through scales and muscle to reach vital organs. Sukuna's technique followed immediately, "Cleave" carving through Jima's spine and nearly severing his upper body from his serpentine lower half.
The Naga King collapsed to the sand, his tridents falling from nerveless fingers. He tried to push himself up one final time, but Artorias's blade descended in a clean arc and removed his head from his shoulders.
Silence fell across the battlefield once again. The ocean had calmed, the magical wave dissipating with its caster's death. Bodies covered the beach in every direction - hundreds of Nagas and their king, all fallen to the shadow army.
Lucien had watched the entire battle without moving from his position. His shadows had handled everything perfectly, from the initial assault to the boss fight. He hadn't needed to lift a finger.
This was the power of having a well-developed army. Individual strength mattered, but having strong subordinates meant he could tackle multiple threats simultaneously or handle situations without expending his own energy.
He walked down from his vantage point and approached where Jima's corpse lay.
Lucien felt the residual magical energy still flowing through its scales. This one would make an excellent addition to his army. Water magic, lightning techniques, and those trident skills would give his forces new tactical options.
The word came easily to his lips, as natural as breathing after all the times he'd spoken it.
"Arise."
...
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