Chapter 0: The birth of a nightmare.

Inside of an asteroid floating in space a silver ball appeared at its hollow core, the ball swirled on its axis as it begun emitting a dull light “-Scanning local area-“A robotic voice sounded from the ball which repeated for several seconds. The ball stopped spinning “-Area suitable for dungeon creation-“ The ball then slammed itself into the wall, embedding itself into it as it pulsed. The dull light becoming brighter, patterns lighting up and spreading into the room, warping it and making it take on a silver hue.

“-dungeon created-“the voiced boomed into the room “-absorbing local mana-“ The patterns lit up even brighter, illuminating the room. “-Passive mana absorption established, moving onto next step-“ the patterns remained illuminated as a dull buzzing sounded.

The ball remained in the wall doing whatever it was trying to do, hours passed, days passed and yet the ball remained silent until an alarm sounded, a high pitched beep “-Warning, intruders detected-“ The ball stated “-Enough mana gathered, summoning monsters-“ The lights in the room flashed blue and several magic circles appeared in the air and a diverse assortment of monsters dropped from the circles

A white slime, few goblins, an orc, and wolf “-Acceptable-“The ball said then flashed, drawing the monsters attention to it “-Attention minions, an intruder is approaching from above. Depending on the results of battle, one of you shall be named the master of this dungeon-“The monsters cheered and growled, the slime, meanwhile started moving towards the orc and started climbing up its body “-awards will also be rewarded to those who survive, intruder arriving in 3 minutes. Please prepare-“The ball said as more magic circles appeared in the air, dropping swords for the monsters that could use them as the monsters cheered again and armed themselves.

As the ball, or dungeon core, watched them grab the weapons it noticed the orc, standing still with a blank expression on its face and drooling “-Orc, arm yourself-“The core stated, noting the lack of change in the orc “-orc, respond!-“ the core demanded the other monsters growing un easy and lined up between it and the core “-one goblin, check it out-“ The core ordered, one of the goblins immediately getting shoved to the front of the group. It growled back at them, only getting the combined anger of the group in response as it begrudgingly turned around and approached the orc.

The goblin growled, flailing its sword around. After not getting a response its nostrils flared and it swung its sword at the orc, cutting deep into it. The orc shook, its mouth opening wider and wider, blood red mass exiting its mouth as bones cracked and split, then the orc fell backwards the slime landing ontop of it. “-monster death confirmed-“ the core said, trying to process what just happened as the slime leaped off of the orc’s stomach and landed on the goblins head, swallowing it whole.

“-rouge monster! All monsters defeat the slime! I repeat! The slime has gone rouge!-“ The lights in the room turned red as the unfortunate goblin struggled to get the slime off of it, grasping into the slime and trying to pull it off but was grasping at nothing as it’s head dissolved in its body. The goblins friends rushed towards it and tried to assist, but only ended up getting their hands partially eaten “-Cut it!-“ the core yelled, immediately one of the goblins raised its sword and slashed. Cutting the top part of the goblins head clean off as the sword cut effortlessly into the slime, doing zero damage.

The now half headless goblin fell limp to the ground, the slime gurgling before it jumped in defiance and then jumped onto the next goblins head, repeating the process another goblin slashed at it, chopping off the goblins head but leaving the slime unaffected. This process repeated until there were only three goblins left “-wolf! Eat it!-“ The core shouted. The wolf leaped into action and as the slime was about to latch onto its next victim, found itself flying into the jaws of the wolf. It chomped down a few times before swallowing. “-….good, now to summon more monsters-“ The core said but didn’t get a chance to summon anything else as a drilling sound was heard, and a mechanical grey pod fell from the ceiling of the cave and dug into the floor before stopping and emitting steam. “-intruder breached the core room, unable to summon anymore monsters. Current monsters, prepare for attack-“

The remaining goblins pointed their swords at the pod, as it let out one more spray of steam and releasing a hatch that hit the floor with a thud. A single hand grabbed the side of the pod, and lifting herself out of the pod a woman in a heavily armored suit stood up and jumped out of the pod. The woman stood up straight, taking a quick glance around before speaking, placing a finger up to her pointed ears “Scout to ship, scout to ship.” She said “Reporting, You were right captain, fresh dungeon, only had enough mana to summon a few monsters…” she glanced towards the corpses littering the room “And apparently couldn’t control all of them”

The wolf growled along with the goblins, the woman smirked, unhooking a cylinder from her belt and pressing a button, and with a click a sword extended from the tool “Yeah, should be no problem, keep in orbit to pick me up once I’m done” the room flashed red and the goblins charged with the wolf running behind her. A quick sidestep to avoid the wolf, and another quick motion to avoid a goblin and cut off its head.

“Too easy, good to have an easy scouting mission for a change” she mused, avoiding the wolf again and dealing with another goblin leaving only the wolf and a single goblin remaining. The goblin took a step back, shivering and dropping its sword “aww, poor guy, scared shitless eh?” The women mocked, avoiding the wolf with ease “Also been fun guy but I want to get back to the ship soon so..” she faced the wolf and met its leap head on, slashing into the wolfs skull. Blood and flesh splattering all over her “gonna need you to die, hrm?” She raised an eyebrow, the blood dripping on her felt weird, squirmy and moving like she had a bunch of worms moving on her “what in the hell…?”

Before she had time to react, a torrent of blood erupted from the wolfs split skull and covered her face, then formed together into a ball of liquid that began to quickly dissolve her. The girl screamed in panic, slime flowing into her now open mouth, she tried to close her mouth but it was forced open as more and more slime entered it. The women dropped to the floor, head now clear and bits of her skin dissolved. She shakingly raised a hand to her ear “r-requesting e-evaaaaaa-“ she started gagging, then held her head in pain as she screamed.

The woman’s head inflated a bit, blood leaking from her eyes before she dropped to the floor, limp. Her then limp body shook, the head inflating a bit more before exploding, bones and gore splattering all over the place. “-….intruder eliminated…-“ the core said as a the red slime poured out of the corpse, now a good size larger then when it was first summoned. The slime gurgled and shook once more its body lifting itself up into the air and spreading out into five points.

It formed arms, legs, and even formed a face that closely resembled the women who it just killed, pointed ears and all. At first it stood there, stark naked and all a single red color before a smirk spread across its face and its body shifted, changing colors to match that of the dead woman. It lifted its arms up to inspect them, flexing its fingers before glancing to the dropped sword of the woman, cathrine, if it remembered correctly. The naked slime walked over, extending her arm to pick up the sword then facing the goblin and cutting it down, its blood pooling out of its body.

The slime stuck its foot into the blood, sucking it up like a sponge and shivering in delight as it did the same with the rest of the blood in the room before it stood up and inspected the mess it made, taking it all in. “-….-“ The slime perked up, facing the core and pointing its sword at it.

“And now that leaves you.” It said with a chuckle.