“Wow, they did it without a single loss,” Matthias marveled. “Good for them. That druid was really on the ball. He turned a loss into a one-sided win.”

  “Indeed,” Chloe responded. Her hand rubbed his core again—something she only did when she wanted to soothe him.

  “So,” he began. “How do I bring her back?”

  “What?” Chloe asked.

  “Bosses can be brought back, right?” he asked, worry tinging his voice.

  Chloe was silent for a long moment. “I am not sure where you got that idea,” she said slowly, her hand still moving in gentle circles. “That is not how life works. Elizabeth is dead.”

  Matthias stopped. Every thought, every project halted. Even his influence froze. The change was so abrupt that Lucy woke from her nap, feeling his sudden numbness through the bond. Panic began to leak through the bond from Chloe, but Matthias could not process any of it right now.

  “What happened?” Lucy asked as she rubbed her eyes and fluttered up to his core.

  “Elizabeth is dead,” Matthias responded mechanically.

  Lucy froze, her eyes going wide as she looked to Chloe. They both looked as though they had no idea what to do. But Matthias could not process that either. All he could think about was how he had failed. He had named Elizabeth. He had placed her as his first boss. And now she had died.

  That was when he noticed some of the adventurers eyeing Elizabeth’s eggs.

  Anger roiled off Matthias, and his dungeon responded—not with quakes or tremors, but with intent. Every monster on the surface began moving toward the clearing. Every dungeon denizen in the swamp rushed to its edge and simply watched the adventurers with eerie stillness. All of them waited for the order to fall upon the intruders.

  “Matthias, you are not thinking,” Lucy urged. “You need to calm down. I know you are in shock and pain, but harming them won’t bring her back.”

  That was when Steve lumbered to the top of the steps. Matthias was on the verge of giving the order when Peter spoke. Matthias did not listen to the words, but to the intent behind them. Slowly, his numbness bled into lethargy rather than wrath. He gave the mental order to let the adventurers leave. From what he could see, they were all too eager to comply.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I wish I had known,” he whispered.

  “You hit the ground running with so much, but this tripped you up?” Chloe asked carefully.

  “I thought my monsters were bound to me in some way,” he admitted. “That as long as they were within my influence, they could be brought back. I can control just about every aspect of reality here—so why not death?”

  “Because death is the domain of the gods alone,” Lucy answered softly. “You can create another monster like Elizabeth. You can even give another the same name. But you can’t bring her back.”

  A flash of anger surged through Matthias. The swirling violet within his core became turbulent for a moment before calming almost as quickly. All Chloe and Lucy felt through the bond was weariness.

  “Then it sounds like I will need to change that,” he sighed.

  “You can’t,” both fairies said at the same time.

  “Dungeons are bound to the land, so they can’t ascend to the heavens to claim true divinity,” Lucy explained tentatively.

  “It is why so many dungeons in the past became demon kings,” Chloe added. “They wage war to claw at the power they can’t obtain any other way.”

  “No demon king has ever come close to properly threatening the heavens,” Lucy said with a roll of her eyes.

  “That’s because no one has found the chink in the defenses of the gated community that is the heavens,” Chloe countered. “But just because no one has doesn’t mean no one will.”

  “I know the weakness of gods,” Matthias interrupted. “If the knowledge I carry from my old world applies at all, I know exactly how to kill a god.”

  Both fairies stared at him with wide eyes—Lucy in horror, Chloe in awe.

  “Please don’t become a demon king,” Lucy begged.

  “How?” Chloe asked, almost pleading. “Even if you don’t join them, the demons would pay a heavy ransom for even a hint of that knowledge.”

  “And what if I don’t want to join either side?” Matthias asked.

  “This war has been going on since before recorded time,” Lucy said. “Everyone picks a side eventually. Neither side will tolerate a rogue element. If you refuse both, then both will try to end you.”

  “All forms of power translate into political power,” Chloe continued. “Think of it as a two-party system. They would never allow a third party that could tip the scales. They won’t risk the balance shifting out of their favor.”

  Matthias let that sink in as he stared out into his dungeon. His attention fell upon a familiar sight: goblins hunting another turtle. Then he noticed a swamp troll joining the hunt. That detail set his mind racing.

  He tore through his menus until he found what he was looking for. With a flash of defiance, he equipped two passives. A searing sensation crawled across his soul as he finalized the decision.

  “Then there is only one thing left for me to do,” Matthias said at last.

  “And what is that?” Lucy asked nervously.

  “To adapt. To evolve faster than those who seek to harm me can compete with.”

  “Some dungeons are primordial,” Chloe warned. “They command monsters older than history itself. There is power out there you can’t imagine.”

  “Is that a challenge?” Matthias asked, a competitive edge creeping into his tone. “Because I have a very vivid imagination.”

  With that, Matthias began adding new forms of life to his dungeon once more, restarting his chimeric experiments. One way or another, he vowed to find his own answers.