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His clones were still fighting the army—holding their own but slowly being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Kaneki left them to it. The moment he engaged the Dullahan directly, the throne room became a different kind of battlefield.
The Dullahan was fast. Unnaturally fast for its size, the ebony sword moving in patterns that cut through blood constructs and elemental magic like they were suggestions. Every time Kaneki's tentacles got close, the sword's Magicule disruption field degraded them on contact.
Kaneki adapted.
He stopped using his tentacles as weapons and started using them as distractions, keeping the Dullahan's sword occupied while he attacked with his body—Diamond Scales active across his fists and feet, Death Kagune crackling along his strikes to counter the Dullahan's regeneration.
The Dullahan learned. It started targeting him directly, ignoring the tentacles.
Kaneki learned faster. He started reading the sword patterns through Universal Sense, letting Great Sage calculate them even while he'd told Great Sage to stop giving advice. The data came in passively, and Kaneki incorporated it without consciously thinking about it.
Three exchanges. Four. Five.
Each one closer than the last.
The Dullahan landed a hit with the flat of its blade against his chest, and the Magicule disruption deactivated his Diamond Scales for three seconds. Kaneki hit the ground on one knee.
The Dullahan raised its sword for a finishing blow.
Kaneki's expression didn't change.
"First," he said calmly, "your army."
He released his blood clones.
The twenty-five percent power allocation he'd given each clone snapped back to him, and for a moment he had it all again. He pushed every bit of it outward in a hemomantic pulse—not the gentle control of blood constructs, but a raw command. An order to every Zombie, ghoul, skeleton, and wraith in the room with blood in its veins or splashed ichor on bones.
They burst. Every single undead in the room detonated simultaneously, blood and ichor exploding outward in a wave that filled the entire chamber.
The Dullahan's sword was still coming down.
Kaneki reached out and grabbed the blade with both hands. The Magicule disruption tore at his palms, burning through Diamond Scales and searing flesh. He held on.
"Second," he said through gritted teeth, "your power."
He activated Apex Predator on the Dullahan directly. The skill reached through his grip on the sword and began consuming—not the Dullahan's body, but the death energy animating it. The power that made it a Catastrophe-rank entity. Draining it directly through the point of contact.
The Dullahan thrashed. The sword disruption intensified, tearing at Kaneki's hands until they were bleeding freely. He didn't let go.
The death energy poured into him like a river. His wounds healed as fast as they formed. His magicule count exploded upward. The necrotic injuries across his torso sealed. His blood soaked into the floor around him and he felt the dungeon's entire network through it—every passage, every floor, every stone.
The Dullahan's movements slowed.
Its sword arm lowered.
When Kaneki released the blade and stepped back, the Dullahan stood still, its power reduced, unable to maintain its Catastrophe-class output. Just a very large empty suit of armor with a very powerful sword.
Kaneki rolled his shoulders, his hands already healed.
"Third," he said, walking toward the throne.
He grabbed the cracked stone with both hands and pulled.
The throne resisted, then gave. It split apart in his grip, revealing a cavity in its center—and within it, cushioned in layers of death energy, was a skull wearing a crown of cracked black bone.
The dungeon core.
The moment his fingers closed around it, the Dullahan collapsed. The army didn't reform. The purple flames guttered and went steady blue. The entire dungeon went quiet.
Kaneki lifted the skull and looked at it. The cracked crown sat at a slight angle, giving the whole thing a vaguely undignified appearance for something that had nearly given him a real fight.
[Dungeon Core acquired]
[Dungeon: Conquered]
[All dungeon monsters now recognize Master's authority]
[Monster Sovereign: New domain established - Death Dungeon]
[Predator: Successful (Dullahan)]
[Acquired: Death Sovereign, Undead Command, Spectral Form, Soul Cutting]
[Notice: Dullahan has been reduced to a bound entity. Fate: Master's discretion]
Kaneki looked at the skull, then at the empty armor that had housed the Dullahan. The armor had settled to the floor but remained intact, the ebony sword resting beside it.
"You fought well," Kaneki said to the skull, without mockery. "The best fight I've had yet."
He stored the armor in his Predator stomach, picked up the ebony sword and weighed it in his hand—lighter than it looked, and even now the red veins pulsed with residual power—and stored that too.
Then he started walking toward the dungeon exit.
[Final status update: All 40 cleared floors are now under Master's control. Level 5 exists but remains unformed. Estimated formation time: 6-10 weeks. Master's skill count has increased to 189. Magicule capacity increase: approximately 340%. Significant evolution conditions may be approaching.]
"Six weeks to come back and do this again," Kaneki said. "I'll pencil it in."
There was no need to absorb the Death Energy in the dungeon. It would reform after a while, with a new Dungeon Core and hopefully a stronger boss monster than the Dullahan.
He climbed. The Dungeon crumbling around him as it went into stasis.
Outside the dungeon, in what remained of the ogre village valley, a visitor had arrived.
She looked like she'd been assembled from spare parts by someone with a very specific aesthetic. Mismatched eyes, one gold and one blue. Clothing in alternating diamonds of black and white. A painted face with tears drawn below each eye in colors that didn't match. She carried two short blades at her hip and moved with the casual confidence of someone who'd never met a problem they couldn't solve through sufficient application of chaos.
A Harlequin Tear—one of the traveling infiltrators and intelligence gatherers known across the continent for their network of information.
She'd sensed the new dungeon labyrinth from forty kilometers away. A fresh S-class labyrinth appearing overnight was the kind of event that paid very, very well to report first.
She'd come to investigate.
She'd made it three hundred meters from the entrance when she felt the power building below the ground.
Not monster power. Not dungeon overflow.
Something else. Something that her every survival instinct recognized as being fundamentally above her ability to process.
"Oh," she said softly, in the tone of someone who has just realized they've wandered into territory they absolutely cannot handle.
She turned to leave.
The ground erupted.
Stone and death energy exploded upward in a geyser that turned the valley into a crater. She was thrown off her feet and hit the ground rolling, coming up with both blades drawn—
And stopped.
Standing in the settling debris, shirtless, one hand holding up a skull with a cracked crown, was a young man with blood-red eyes. His torso was covered in what appeared to be healing wounds that were visibly closing as she watched, dark necrotic marks fading back to pale skin in real time.
His wings were out—massive draconic things of crystallized blood—and he was grinning.
Not the grin of someone who'd just survived. The grin of someone who'd had an excellent time.
He looked down at the skull in his hand, then up at her, seemingly noticing her for the first time.
The Harlequin Tear's Appraisal skill activated automatically. It was a professional habit—assess every target as a potential threat.
It gave her nothing.
The skill, which had never failed to at least give her a threat level estimate on any being she'd used it on, returned completely blank. As if the being in front of her was so far outside its measurement parameters that it had simply decided not to bother.
She'd heard of this happening. Had never experienced it herself.
Demon Lord tier, at minimum. Possibly higher.
Her blades went back into their sheaths very slowly and very deliberately.
"Good afternoon," she said, because Harlequins were professionals even when they were terrified.
Kaneki tilted the skull slightly, making the cracked crown wobble. "Were you watching?"
"I arrived recently," she said carefully, which was technically true. "I mean no intrusion."
"You're not intruding." He stored the skull in his stomach dimension and his wings folded back, the grin fading to something more neutral. "What brings you to my territory?"
His territory. She filed that away with rapidly increasing alarm. "Intelligence work. I sensed a new dungeon. I investigate new dungeons."
"Professionally?"
"Yes."
He nodded, apparently finding this reasonable. "The dungeon is mine. I created it, accidentally. I've just finished conquering it." He paused. "You can note that in your report."
She hadn't mentioned having a report, which meant he'd inferred it or—more alarming—already knew what she was. "Noted. And your name, so my report is accurate?"
"Thanatos," he said, and the name carried a weight she felt in her chest. "Lord of the Jura Forest."
She bowed, carefully, the practiced bow of someone respecting a power differential without committing to subservience. "Lord Thanatos. I'll leave you to your territory."
"One more thing."
She stopped.
"Whoever you report to—make sure they understand something." His crimson eyes found hers. "The Jura Forest is mine. The dungeon is mine. Any monsters, any people, any powers who enter this territory do so under my authority. Not the demon lords, not the Human or Dwarven kingdoms. Mine."
He let that settle for a moment.
"Pass that along."
"Of course," she said.
She left at a professional pace that was just below running.
Kaneki watched her go, then looked down at where the dungeon entrance swirled below him, quiet now, its monsters settled under his authority.
His injuries had finished healing. His new skills were queuing up for integration. His magicule count had tripled.
Not a bad afternoon.
He pulled out the ebony sword and turned it over in his hands, feeling the red veins pulse against his palm. Then stored it again.
[Master, Rimuru Tempest is attempting to contact you through the Pact bond.]
Kaneki sighed. "What now?"
[He appears agitated. Message reads: 'The Orc Lord himself just appeared outside my walls. Please advise. Also please come back. Please.']
"He said please twice."
[Three times, actually.]
Kaneki's wings spread.
There was always something.