Damien had an arm under Fay and Olympia's chests as he flew through the massive hole towards one of its rock faces; slowly being pulled up the slanted surface by a cable was a metal box on crude rails. As he approached the elevator, he whispered to Fay, "Activate your mist."

She nodded and softly chanted the spell, "ᚠᛟᚷ ᛞᛟᛗᚨᛁᚾ (Fog Domain)". Within seconds a dense mist appeared all around them, even Damien found it somewhat difficult to traverse the mist, but the low screeching of metal wheels on rails led him to his target.

Under cover of mist and the loud scraping from the Thralls rapidly ascending the stone walls, Damien used Phantom Form to turn his arm into an ethereal state and pushed his arm through the elevator's door. He ignored the high-pitched screams from within and instead focused on undoing the door's lock from the inside by rematerialising his hand.

With a click that sealed the occupants' fate, the door screeched open on its hinges, exposing a well-dressed human family cowering in the corner of the box.

"Feast quickly and then throw them out."

Olympia obeyed her Master's command and mauled the family. Five corpses were thrown to the horde of Thralls below a moment later.

The trio sat in the elevator. Damien looked at Olympia's blood-caked skin and fangs dripping with scarlet, "Fay, clean us-" He saw the red stains covering the elevator's seats, where Olympia had slaughtered the family, "-and the elevator too."

A gush of water left the eager woman's hands, followed by a pleasant breeze, "Your fire control has certainly improved." Damien remarked, and Fay sweetly smiled in return. "Of course, darling, I suspect I have reached within the realm of B grade already." Her eyes flickered like a primordial flame, "And after tonight, who knows, A grade may be within reach."

"Now, now." Damien chuckled, "Please restrain yourself. We need some people alive to become blood slaves and Thralls. Not to mention, a city-wide fire would greatly inhibit our force's fighting potential considering they avoid fire."

Olympia nodded with fear in her eyes. The sight of Fay absorbing that Firestone and unlocking her Fire affinity potential was terrifying. Of course, fire was scary while she was still human, but as a Vampire, it had shot up the list to become her number one fear. 'Why can Master's Queen wield such a dangerous power? Unless Master plans to use her to kill his own kind...'

There was a slam as Damien closed and rebolted the door. Everything now looked clean and presentable apart from Olympia. "Wear this." Damien brought out a simple blue dress from his spatial storage, "Just to get past the guards; after that, you can wear whatever you wish."

Olympia held the blue dress as if it was precious; not only was it a gift from Master, but she finally had clothes!

After a few minutes, the elevator stopped. Damien could hear guards rushing to open the door, but to avoid suspicion with the broken lock, he opened it himself.

A frantic middle-aged human guard with an impressive moustache started blabbering after noticing the elevator's occupants, "Good sir! What the hell is happening down there?"

"Well, I was visiting a family friend in the dungeon's town when the most horrifying event occurred!" Damien began narrating as Fay and Olympia put on their most scared faces without revealing the monsters they truly were.

The guard listened intently to this well-dressed noble. Then, after hearing the audacious tale, he put a hand on the noble's shoulder, "Quickly, sir, come this way!"

Damien raised his face, and his scarlet eyes pulsed with power as he activated Hypnosis. "Lead me to the formation room."

The mundane guard's eyes glazed over as if he was daydreaming; without a word, he turned on his heel and brought the nobles towards one of the fort's most important rooms.

Damien smirked as he followed the hypnotised guard, he obviously knew the location of the formation control room from completing quests within the game, but he needed a person to vouch for him-

'Or so I thought... I guess it's different in real life.' Damien watched with amusement as the guards standing upon the walls in front of him scrambled around with no sense of order or leadership.

'I guess they all picked this job for an easy paycheck. Being the final line of defence at the entrance of a dungeon is rather pointless most of the time; it's mostly long boring days and nights filled with lounging around and filling out the occasional paperwork like the guard that looked at Jake Ravenhalls identification card.'

Damien composed himself and casually followed behind the absent-minded guard with Fay and Olympia close behind. They walked from the elevator station and joined a long line of residents attempting to pass through the wall before the monsters crested the hole's ridge.

"JUST LET THEM ALL IN!" Damien heard someone shout, and the line became a rushed frenzy. Within a minute, Damien was ushered into the inner wall right as the gate slammed closed behind him. A second later, a golden barrier appeared across the entire wall as the formations sprang to life.

Thralls appeared at the edge of the castle walls; light from burning torches illuminated their monstrous faces as they smashed past the elevator station and surged towards the gate.

"FIRE!" Another person screamed, and with a deafening impact, the golden barrier shimmered as a sea of flames descended upon the Thralls.

Olympia lightly hissed at the flames; the smell of burnt rotten meat tickled her nose as she backed away like a scared cat. She then felt her Master's hand on her shoulder, and then she was quickly led by the guard past the many residents and deeper into the fort. The group passed many hysterical soldiers as they ascended the stairs, but one look at Damien's clothes, and they didn't even stop to chat.

The night helped to obscure Olympia's fangs and claws as she dutifully followed her Master along the wall. Soldiers armed with crossbows fired down upon the hundreds of Thralls cresting the dungeon's entrance.

"What the hell are these creatures?" A young man shouted as he reloaded his weapon behind the safety of a battlement. Another man took his place and fired an arrow into the flames below, "Some kind of zombie?" He replied over the screams, "But the Staedbergh Dungeon has only ever housed Earth-type monsters; the appearance of an undead horde means a lich might have made the dungeon it's home!"

"Shit. We need to inform the Guild Master!"

Damien smiled as he walked past the soldiers and looked around. The hole to the dungeon was vast and reminded Damien of those massive open-air mines back on Earth. Only the immense castle walls surrounding the hole topped with turrets hurling fireballs at an undead horde below reminded him that this was no longer Earth but a fantasy world.

Due to the dungeon's entrance being at a slight incline, the castle's defences were focused around the elevator station as this is the most likely side for a monster siege.

'And therefore, the formation room would be on this side too...' Damien thought happily as the group approached the largest tower. In his mana sight, it radiated like a beacon of power and was almost blinding as it sucked in a vast amount of mana pouring out from the dungeon's depths.

The guard placed his hand on a door, and the golden barrier protecting it rippled out before collapsing. Then, before the guard could even turn around, Damien used his spatial storage to summon his metal cards and decapitated the hypnotised human.

Without missing a beat, Damien shoved the guard's body to the side, "Kill quickly and destroy everything," Damien shouted as he smashed down the door with his foot. Splinters showered the room as the trio stormed in. Olympia moved first and jumped upon the closest mage. The mage was wearing grey robes and focusing intently on a runic control panel displaying a hologram of the fight outside. Unfortunately, his hands were inside two tubes, so he couldn't even protect himself from Olympia biting his face off.

A woman at another console slowly reacted to the situation and tried to extract her hands from her own control panel.

Damien strolled in, black cane in hand and calmly observed the situation. His eyes locked with the woman mage. Her skin had a green tinge, and two small tusks protruded from her lower jaw. 'A half-orc in a city like this? She must be a rather powerful mage to work here...'

Looking around, Damien discovered the room was poorly lit from a few pieces of glowstone embedded in the ceiling. 'Time to test my new Darkness Affinity spells...' While training Olympia and waiting for Fay to absorb her Firestone, Damien had not been idle. Every day he practised magic within the mana-rich depths of the dungeon and fought with various beasts and delvers.

"ᛋᚺᚨᛞᛟᚹ ᛒᛁᚾᛞ (Shadow Bind)"

Damien felt his body seize up, but he smiled. This was the drawback of such a powerful spell. He was a control mage who thrived at fighting things from range. The loss of his mobility was a small price to pay compared to others...

All the other mages in Damien's line of sight paused. From this angle, Damien could see black hands emerging from the dark floor and grabbing onto the other mages' shadows, locking them in place. Damien had sacrificed his own mobility to disable everyone else.

Olympia ripped apart the first mage's face and lept onto the half-orc woman with surprising speed. The woman screamed, but even with the impact of Olympia smashing into her, she remained perfectly still as she couldn't move at all; her body was locked in place. So instead, her bones took the brunt of the impact. The half-orc mage coughed blood as Olympia bit deeply into her neck.

"ᛚᛁᚷᚺᛏ- (Light-)" A mage in the corner began chanting a simple light spell.

Damien quickly switched targets and directed his swarm of metal cards towards the mage.

The mage's eyes went wide as he saw hundreds of metal cards rapidly approaching, he stumbled back and raised his arms, but they cared not for his weak resistance. Instead, the impact threw him across the room into a control panel, and his head rolled to the side as he slumped against the wall with his mangled arms across his chest.

With a simple wave of his hand, Damien directed a card to cleanly decapitate the mage's head.

"ᛋᚺᚨᛞᛟᚹ ᚺᛟᚢᚾᛞᛋ (Shadow Hounds)" Two average-sized dogs that flickered in and out of existence charged forward from Damien's hands and ran around the room.

Damien watched the hounds for a while and concluded, "No traps then..." So, without hesitation, he disabled his Shadow Bind spell and followed his companions into the room.

Fay had spirals of fire surrounding her arms, and she mercilessly pounded a human mage to death.

This was honestly the first time Damien had seen Fay truly fight. Her technique was crude even from his limited knowledge, but the power behind each punch and the screams from the mage confirmed to Damien that she was somewhat effective.

Damien's cane clanged on the ground, and he strolled forward. Lifeless bodies lay all around, covered in harrowing deep gouges from claws. Damien saw Olympia happily feeding off a half-dead mage on the room's far side.

Damien navigated around the various runic control consoles. They were constructed out of white stone and reminded Damien of a control room in a power plant. Hundreds of various controls were tended to and operated by the now-dead mages that littered the floor in pools of blood.

Walking towards the centre, Damien stood before a stone that shone like a star in Damien's mana sight. It was hovering above a heavily enchanted metal dome.

Damien looked at the control panel in front of the dome. Although it was written in the runic script, to him, it was simple English. He quickly located the option and pressed it.

The golden barrier surrounding the stone rippled and shattered; Damien didn't waste a second and activated his Spatial Inventory. A moment later, a rift in space opened and swallowed the stone.

The control room went totally dark, and screams came from outside.

Damien chuckled as he left the control room through the broken door and saw the Thralls smashing their way through the gate, "Let the slaughter begin."