Chapter 485: Making Headway
Kaiden settled back in, eyes drifting toward the corner of his interface where numbers ticked steadily upward.
600 DMP.
Already.
Six hundred points gained from less than ten minutes of carnage.
'Holy crap…'
"… Having high-level invaders show up might actually be insanely profitable," he muttered. "As long as you manage not to die horribly, I guess."
Calypso hummed, pleased. "The danger-to-profit ratio is perfect~"
He ignored the seductive lilt, barely, and focused as a new text box flickered into existence.
A remnant of the demonic pornstar system that was now fused with his dungeon interface, or rather, devoured it.
Then his focus moved on to something else. A new feature.
[Creation Mode: Accessible at will. The Successor may enter edit-state without waiting for Dungeon Tier-up.]
Kaiden blinked.
"… Wait. Really?"
That sounded way too broken.
Creation Mode was supposed to be a highly regulated mechanic used only after the system gained a whole new tier, going from low to mid, meaning from rank 3 to 4. This meant that aside from the initial Creation Mode he entered upon inheriting the dungeon from its predecessor, Kaiden was supposed to enter it only two more times, letting him rearrange the dungeon from the ground up.
He narrowed his eyes and soon received a new notification, which immediately expanded into a clarifying add-on:
[Clarification: This function is limited while hostile entities remain inside the Domain. Time Flow cannot be paused. No edits may be applied within proximity to hostile invaders. Global revision parameters are locked. Proceed accordingly.]
Kaiden nodded.
"Okay. Yeah. That's way more reasonable, but still damned op."
If he genuinely had full, unrestricted Creation Mode while time was frozen…
He could literally just delete the floors under the enemies and watch them fall into the abyss beneath.
Instant victory.
Zero effort.
Way too cheesy.
It seemed even the Heavenly Demon wasn't mighty strong enough to make such nonsense become reality.
He slapped two juicy monster girl thighs as he decided. "Alright. Let's see what the Heavenly Demon's version of creation mode looks like."
He willed it open.
The world folded.
…
[Creation Mode (Demonic Variant) — ENGAGED.]
Kaiden wasn't transported physically.
He didn't appear in a hovering, indestructible body like the original dungeon system would've done.
Instead…
He rose, but not physically. It was his conscience that was being lifted. While he remained pinned between two sexy monster girls, his focus ascended high.
He viewed everything from above.
Not as a ghost.
Not as a floating camera.
But as though the dungeon became a massive, living diagram beneath him. Rooms, tunnels, magma chambers, monster habitats, support structures, trap mechanisms, laid out like a meticulously organized blueprint.
Like a chess player studying his board.
Every piece.
Every line.
Every formation.
No flashy visual tools, no glowing grids, none of the "build mode" aesthetics the dungeon system originally used.
This was colder.
Sharper.
More structured.
A mode designed by someone intensely methodical.
Someone who saw the world not as scenery, but as a machine to be disassembled, rearranged, perfected.
The Heavenly Demon…
Kaiden thought to himself.
Yeah.
This felt exactly like the kind of system a man like that would create.
No wonder it didn't freeze time.
No wonder it demanded planning.
It wasn't a toy.
It was a strategy interface.
His mind hovered above the two dungeon paths, watching invaders move like ants.
He saw Melty in her lava chamber, coiled proudly atop her molten nest and surrounded by her two friends.
He felt the heartbeat of every Abyssal Nightclaw as their wings flapped, and even saw every trap, their current states, and cooldowns. Even their kill counts were visible, showing him which placements were proving more efficient.
"Powerful…" Kaiden muttered as he realized that this tool was truly OP.
And terrifyingly efficient.
Kaiden exhaled.
"Yeah. This is definitely different."
Calypso's voice drifted faintly to his ears. Even though he wasn't mentally beside her, he could hear her sensually seductive voice.
"Darling~ Are you planning something~? Tell me! I'm too excited…"
Kaiden smiled faintly as he ignored her for now and let the creation-mode vision sharpen into perfect clarity as rows of sleek menus unfolded before his mind's eye.
[Dungeon Management - Shop]
Tabs opened like the pages of a divine grimoire:
— Monster Expansion
— Trap Expansion
— Automatic Defenses Expansion
— Path Restructuring
And more.
His consciousness drifted over the two dungeon paths, calculating.
Left Path, defended by Melty and her two friendly wyrms, was holding strong. The environment itself, that being the magma rivers, was an incredibly potent deterrent in itself. Three level 99 predators who thrived in that exact environment were only the cherry on top.
Right Path, Abyssal Rock Tunnel
This one… could most definitely use some reinforcement.
The Abyssal Nightclaws were performing beautifully, hovering perfectly above the spike traps, herding their prey like monstrous sheepdogs, but the invaders were still making headway on the path, slowly and through extreme bodily cost, yes, but they were moving forward.
And Kaiden did not like to see that.
He flicked open the shop category.
…
Destro, the towering, broad-shouldered man leading Squad A, clenched his jaw beneath his metal mask.
"What the hell is this design?" he growled.
The abyssal path stretched ahead of him. It was dark, narrow, and uneven, with jagged ridges forcing the team to abandon their preferred formations, making everything so damn scuffed.
No side-by-side formation.
No rotational coverage.
No shield wall.
He hated it.
And within that small radius…
Traps.
Dozens of them, if not hundreds.
And just in case that weren't enough already…
A chorus of wings could be heard, accompanied by guttural screams that came straight from hell.
Those things.
Those fucking things.
The winged nightmares hovered perfectly above the floor traps. They were lean, predatory, and merciless. It felt as though the whole dungeon path was designed around these creatures, giving them the perfect battlefield to become as effective as possible.
What made them truly annoying was the knowledge that if the damn path wasn't so narrow, he and his team would've dispatched them already. These creatures had high-level stats, but didn't seem to harbor any difficult spells. They fought with their herd, using their fangs and talons to kill.
It was something they could've overcome in a matter of minutes. But now he was losing the lives of highly trained men and women to the fucking flying bats.
And worst of it all, they were smarter than they looked.
Destro hissed. "They're staying exactly above the trap line…"
He was right.
The Nightclaws hovered just low enough that ranged attacks from the backline couldn't target them properly, but not low enough to trigger the traps themselves.
And whenever the subordinates tried to push forward…
*SHNK!*
A spike trap would slam up inches from their feet.
"SCREEEEE!"
The Nightclaws would dive low, coalescing on a single target altogether, tearing them apart.
It was such a simple strategy, such a flairless dungeon. They were used to epic monster battles, not this abomination of a dungeon.
But while Destro might've hated it, he had to admit. Despite its simplicity, or perhaps because of it, it was one hell of a killzone.
Destro's lips curled behind his mask.
"This is too coordinated. These creatures aren't acting natural. Did the target make it all happen?"
He felt the oppressive presence of the dungeon master.
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