RISE OF THE SWARM

Horizon stood across from the cave. His sensors fired in the surroundings. Despite being much, much more powerful than the previous drone, it still wasn't reading the cave as being there. Interesting, he thought to himself.

Around him stood a group of ten freshly constructed sentinels. According to the information he had, dungeons were spaces set away from the real world where monsters were located.

The objective of these dungeons was essentially to go through them, defeating the monsters, and claim a treasure at the end guarded by a powerful beast otherwise known as the dungeon boss. But Horizon wasn't satisfied with this information. It left too many things unanswered. Where did these dungeons come from, and what exactly were they?

He signaled the sentinels to enter first in case there was a surprise attack awaiting them. Sure enough, right as the sentinels entered, Horizon instantly lost communication with them. He could still tell they were functional; he just couldn't converse with them anymore.

A low hum escaped from his figure as he stepped inside the dungeon. His vision turned hazy for an instant as his optics flared and became static.

His vision cleared a few moments later as his bearings steadied shortly after. Horizon looked at his hand, instantly conducting a self diagnostic check.

<All systems running at 100% efficiency.>

He nodded. It seemed everything was running smoothly, but his mind still wondered what that brief period of interference was that he had encountered when entering the dungeon.

He looked around, turning on his mana vision. The air around him was saturated with mana, much denser than the world outside. Fascinating.

Around him, the sentinels knelt. Red energy crackled through their armor.

"Let's proceed," Horizon said.

The sentinels stood up with a mechanical whirl, unsheathing their weapons. Their hands unfurled, unleashing long plasma blades crackling red with raw power. They turned, heading forward with efficiency, searching for signs of life with Horizon in the lead.

According to the information Horizon had gotten from the adventurers, the deeper one went, the tougher the enemies and the more danger there was, but it was also where one would find the boss monster. Defeating it was the only way to escape from the dungeon.

Horizon and his group advanced forward. As they went, the cave corridors began to grow larger. Blur gems were embedded in the wall. Mana stones. Another reason why adventurers were so eager to enter these dungeons was due to the abundant mana stones inside. They served as currency as well as a power source.

The inferior life forms seemed to have also defined a method to grade these dungeons based on their threat level, Horizon thought as he continued skimming through the memories of the adventurers.

The dungeons were graded using a letter system from F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, and finally SSS. The higher the grade of the dungeon, the more danger it posed, but so did the rewards for clearing it. Horizon was interested in the final grade, SSS Dungeon, but according to the adventurers, such dungeons were extremely rare. Only one such existed on the Adrian continent.

Another future conquest, Horizon thought, shelving that information for later.

Horizon wondered what grade this dungeon was. Normally, humans would use some crude apparatus to determine the grade by checking its mana level, but he had no access to one. However, he was moderately sure he was in a grade F dungeon.

A figure appeared in front of the group. A small green skin with a cloth tied around its waist hiding its privates. Its ears were elongated, ending in a point just like its nose. Its teeth were crooked and brown but still sharp enough to tear through flesh.

A goblin, Horizon recognized. But something was off about this one. Its eyes were blank and white, as if completely devoid of thought and instinct. Goblins weren't the smartest of creatures, but this one's stupidity was abnormal.

It looked up at Horizon and charged. In its hand was a wooden club. But before it could reach, a single shot was fired from one of the sentinels, instantly blowing the creature's head off.

But the expected gore was missing; instead, the creature melted into a steaming puddle of black goo that seeped back into the ground.

Horizon watched as his interest in the dungeon grew even larger.

He signaled the sentinels to continue forward. Soon they came across another goblin, only this time it carried a stone dagger. Just like the first one, it also had blank eyes. It stared at the group for a couple of seconds before rushing them. One of the sentinels hoisted their weapon, ready to eradicate the pest, but was stopped.

Horizon's tentacles lashed out, grabbing the goblin and holding it stationary. He brought it closer for inspection. Another tendril began scanning the goblin as a red light bathed it.

Hmm, as I figured, these aren't real goblins. A crude but effective imitation of the real thing, Horizon thought, for the first time actually impressed by another being.

This goblin was nothing but a pile of mud given shape through mana and given instruction; it had no organs of its own nor a brain to make its own decisions.

They were a lot like robots, made to carry out the purpose of their creator. As to who the creator was, Horizon had no doubt that it was the dungeon itself that made these copies. As for how, he also intended to find out.

He crushed the goblin's head, watching it melt into a puddle of goo that got absorbed into the ground, the mana it was composed of being absorbed by the dungeon. What was left was a small green core that pulsed.

Horizon took it in his hand and began examining it. The same red light bathed it for a couple of seconds.

His figure hummed with amazement after the information about the core reached his mind. Who would have thought that he would be impressed by something of this world, let alone twice on the same day.

Fascinating, he thought.