At first, it was almost eerie how there was nobody inside the giant castle. Everything looked pristine, as if it were all regularly cared for, and yet not a single worker could be seen anywhere. It was to such a degree that I was scanning every hall, just in case there was some kind of mimic or something.

Yet, I did not find any such monsters. What I did find, however, was a treasure chest tucked away in a small alcove. Rather than opening it, I mentally marked the location, about to move on when a message came in from Bella. I just found a treasure chest in the courtyard, tucked away at the side!

I've found one too, in a guard tower. Diane responded. There are probably more hidden around here. Did you open yours?

Yeah! I got a chunk of 'Shadow Whale Fat'. She responded, and my brow twitched.

Drake, you found anything on your end, yet? Diane asked, and I looked at the chest in front of myself.

I found a chest inside, too. This whole place is one big dungeon… but all the monsters have already gotten out?

It's probably more accurate to say that this is how the dungeon was designed. Diane countered. The whales outside should be the monsters here. And the castle… it's like a tower defense game. Basically, the defenses on the walls keep the regular whales in check. However, the damage repairs itself regularly. The ballista that got taken out on our way in is already firing again.

If the dungeon is clearing itself, doesn't that mean that we can just sit back and collect the rewards? Bella asked, but Diane countered that as well.

I said it was dealing with the regular whales. There are bound to be elites and even a boss in the higher stages. Even the regular whales will probably overrun the castle's defenses if they come with enough numbers. Following this pattern, any monsters left after the castle is considered beyond hope are able to leave. There are probably entire schools of boss monsters swimming around. Though, at their level, they'll just be food for the stronger monsters.

I nodded my head in agreement. Although the whales seemed to be around level one hundred and twenty from my initial appraisal on the way in, that was still only in the middle of the food chain for the ocean, considering the ghost ships. For now, let's quickly search. Mark the location of every chest you find, and then we'll collect the loot together. After that, we can worry about whether or not we take advantage of this dungeon's setup.

The other two quickly agreed with that suggestion, and we all began to rush through searching our respective areas. Although I was primarily looking for more treasure chests, I was also keeping an eye out for any more hints about this dungeon.

Unfortunately, such hints seemed completely absent from the castle. After half an hour, the three of us got together, and we went around to the chests that we had all discovered. In total, there were ten chests scattered throughout the dungeon.

Aside from the typical loot like random equipment-- which for some reason gave us a total of three black, ominous scythes-- there were three different skill books. We received two copies of each, as well as a third copy for one of them.

After our lesson with the last dungeon, Diane immediately handed a copy of each skill book over to me to learn. With a nod, I accepted the three books… only to learn that they were all three magic skill books.

First, there was Shadow Beam, which appeared to be a simpler version of what the whale shot at the ballista earlier. Then, there was Shadow Wave, which was just an area variant that also inflicted blindness. Finally, Shadow Pulse was a self-healing skill usable in darkness.

Diane's eyes widened as she listened to the descriptions of each skill, clearly growing more and more excited. With a sigh, I handed out a quest for her to learn all three skills. The requirement was simply to assist the castle's defenses to kill ten Shadow Whales.

Without a moment's hesitation, Diane turned and rushed for the castle's walls. Meanwhile, I turned to look at Bella. "Are you interested in the skills?" I asked, and she paused.

"Maybe the healing one? I don't have any first-aid skills right now, so it would be better than nothing. The other two don't really appeal to me." She said, and I nodded my head, assigning the same mission to Bella for Shadow Pulse.

With that, the three of us walked up to the artillery installments, where Diane was taking manual control over one of the ballistas. "You can manually control these?" Bella asked in surprise, and Diane nodded.

"Yeah. I tested a few things out while I was checking the walls. Normally, these turrets will just randomly shoot at targets. They don't aim for vitals or anything. If you grab it, you can manually aim them without losing any damage output." When Bella heard that, her eyes widened and she ran over to another ballista.

Curious, I appraised the one Diane was using. "It looks like it also has some other skills you can use. There is a Fire Arrow, Ice Arrow, Bomb Arrow, and Snare Arrow." Diane's eyes lit up when she realized that.

"Now this is turning into a proper tower defense." She said, before turning her head to look at me. "What are you going to do? Fire one of the ballistas yourself, or take a more personal role?"

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I thought about that for a moment. "I'll focus on defense. Now that you two are taking over attacking, they'll probably notice something's wrong. You'll need shields to stop their counterattacks. If I can work in some attacks of my own in the meantime, I will." I told her, before walking along the wall to find a good position in between where Diane and Bella were stationed.

Given that there were only two of us, we had no real way to cover all sides of the castle. Though… as I thought about that, my eyes lit up. "Diane, we can send our familiars to man other ballistas, since they don't rely on the user's attacks."

Diane widened her eyes, and she nodded her head. Bringing one hand to her mouth, she bit down on her thumb, hard enough to draw blood. This blood surged out of her body, forming a Diane-shaped red avatar. Without hesitation, the avatar ran along the wall, towards the other side of the castle from where we were fighting.

Naturally, I did the same, allowing our avatars to run off together. The experience wouldn't be incredibly high, but it was more corpses that we could potentially feed to them later. And the less damage the castle sustained, the more likely we would be able to defeat the final boss later. I thought about sending my clones to man more turrets, but keeping our respawn anchor safe seemed like the highest priority.

Among the few dozen ballistas mounted on the castle wall, four of them became far more accurate, targeting the heads of the dark shadows lurking beneath the water rather than just randomly firing at their bodies. Whenever one of the whales surfaced to launch an attack, I prepared barriers around both Bella and Diane to protect them.

Diane, the gaming enthusiast that she was, seemed to quickly adapt to the situation. Whenever multiple whales clustered together, she would shoot an Ice Arrow to freeze that section of water, followed immediately after by a Bomb Arrow. If one of them started to stray from the pack, she would use a Snare Arrow to slow it down and focus fire.

Although it didn't seem like much of a difference at first, having a few properly manned ballistas proved to be a game changer. The initial wave of whales fell in just a few minutes with Diane changing towers as need be when her area was empty, and I took the brief interlude to gather up thirty whale carcasses.

Of those thirty, six evolved into Dark Whales, while most of the others received only a basic enhancement. However, before I had the chance to investigate the value of these corpses, the second wave was starting to arrive. This time, the shadows were larger, reaching up to forty meters.

In addition, their hide was thick enough that they could no longer be taken down by a single shot to their skull. This forced Diane and Bella into a more frustrating battle of attrition. On the bright side, there were only ten of them, though there were also fifteen of the normal Shadow Whales.

Every time our familiars were killed, Diane and I immediately resummoned them to send them back to their posts. There was no time to enhance them for now, so this was the best that we could do. As for the ballistas that weren't manned, they had become all but useless, unable to inflict a severe injury on the new whales.

"This must be when the castle usually falls." Diane spoke through gritted teeth. "Bella, we're falling back into the castle! Drake, your turn to fight!"

I nodded my head, covering the two as they retreated back to safety. Normally, Diane would have been more than enough to deal with some of these monsters, but the thickness of their blubber made most of her attacks useless even if she did jump into the water. At best, she could use her gun to fight, but then she would need to repeatedly ask me to reload it for her.

Once they were out of the splash zone, I got to work, using my True Dragon Manifestation. As for the skill I chose this time, it was Shallow Palm, which was perfect for fighting monsters like this with thick hides.

My draconic form slimmed down, becoming more streamlined and with yellow scales. After I finished transforming, I launched a breath attack at one of the nearest Dark Whales, taking advantage of Shallow Palm's ability to penetrate defenses. The whale let out a deep, resonating cry as it was pushed down below the water, black blood spilling into the ocean.

As for me, I was already moving to the next one, jumping down from the walls to run along the surface of the water. Well, on a projected surface on top of the water, but close enough! Whenever I came across one of the whales, I projected a giant hammer, smacking their backs with it to channel Shallow Palm.

Unsurprisingly, this method caused Shallow Palm to level up quickly. By the time I killed the eighth whale, it had evolved into Internal Strike, further increasing its lethality.

Like this, it only took me a few minutes to clear out the wave, circling the castle to collect the bodies. However, I did not immediately call for the other two to return. After all, I wasn't sure when the next wave would show up, which would undoubtedly be more difficult.

As I was thinking about that, the sky above turned dark. Lifting my head, my eyes widened at the sight of a truly titanic whale, measuring more than two hundred meters in length. Its skin was black, with wavy, dark blue patterns, and a crown of black crystals floated above its head. It flew down from the sky, letting out loud bellows that shook the entire castle.

I clenched my fists, acknowledging the power of the final boss, which my skill identified as a level one hundred and thirty Nightmare Whale. I felt like an ant compared to this creature, which was almost as big as the entire castle itself.

Still, this was a battle I had to fight. There wasn't enough time to get the others and run before it was upon us. I jumped up with Glancing Steps-X, appearing on its underbelly, and thrust my hands forward together with a giant projected fist.

The whale let out a long whine, but didn't seem overly damaged. Its body dropped further towards the castle, a black ball of energy forming in its mouth.

My eyes widened briefly, realizing it was about to launch a devastating blast. I shifted to near its mouth, delivering a powerful kick that forced its head to shift to the side. Although the blast was still fired, it shot into the ocean, creating an explosion of water that rained over the area.

Before the giant, flying beast could recover, I moved above its body and activated Greater Detect Weakness while charging up a condensed ball of energy. My eyes scanned across its body, looking for the most vulnerable point, which appeared to be the base of the skull.

Once again, I shifted my position, landing just beneath the rotating crystal crown. Using all the strength I could muster, I slammed the ball of energy in my hand down towards the boss's skull. Thanks to the fact that I was still in my draconic form, the ball passed through the skull without issue, only detonating once it was near the brain.

The giant body of the whale spasmed, its tail flapping in the air. Its eyes rolled back, and it began to fall limply towards the castle below. Naturally, I wasn't going to let this behemoth crash into the castle, so I crouched down, and stored the entire thing in my body with Scavenge Mastery-X. The giant body shimmered briefly, before vanishing, allowing me to return to the castle safely.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.