Chapter 137 – Van Driver
After the disaster that the ball at the Vespertine mansion had been, Tessa, Priscilla, and Dryad sisters returned together to the Threadweaver mansion in foul moods.
Luckily Noah could contact them through their true mate connection and could converse with them freely, explaining his situation.
Priscilla was a bit jealous of her sister who got to be on an adventure with Noah alone but didn't want to ruin the fun for her sister with complaints.
However, when Tessa and Priscilla found out that Noah was going to enter a black market dungeon to try to save his acquaintance, they pleaded with him to return to the mansion through his skill "He who hears the call" and take Priscilla with him as a safety precaution.
With his skill, allowing him to get back and forth almost instantaneously, he found a chance to sneak away at night, while everyone rested, and returned to the mansion to take with him Priscilla, as well as Dahlia and Zinnia, who offered to help.
As The Guardian of a pseudo core Tessa could not leave her mansion for too long or go too far away from it, so she could not help but leave Noah's protection to her daughters and Dryads. Instead, she busied herself producing a lot more medallions that Noah could cast his establishing connection skill on and a bunch of mana recovery potions as he would need them in great amounts.
Noah of course was not going to dumbly barge into the dungeon without a plan and hope nothing bad happens. The entire time that Noah and Brianna traveled with Samantha's team, they were having a secret conversation using his true mate bite connection. After a long discussion with everyone including the Dryad sisters, Ugy and Yuko they came up with a plan on how to get Samantha and her friend out of the dungeon relatively safely and keep some of his secrets as well. Which is how they came up with a diversion plan.
Black Market Dungeon was a defective dungeon that had no monsters spawning inside it. Everyone knew this and took it as the norm forgetting what a dangerous place a dungeon really was. If for some reason monsters were to start appearing there, it would, without a doubt, bring panic and chaos to the place.
In fact, such a possibility was not impossible. If something unexpected were to happen to the Labyrinth that prevented dungeon breaks in this area, the Black Market Dungeon would start spawning monsters, creating a dungeon break disaster right under the city. Deep inside everyone living in Black Market understood such a possibility yet did not believe it would take them by surprise as the Labyrinth was well monitored and functioned without problem. Even if the Labyrinth was going to die, that would not happen in a single day. The signs of that would appear long in advance allowing everyone to abandon the black market dungeon and close it to not bring a disaster to the city above it, or at least escape to another place in advance.
For Black Market dwellers the danger that the dungeon represented was a minor risk that everyone took for granted.
And this is what Noah decided to use. If monsters were to start appearing, the general panic that would follow would allow him and Samantha's team to get out in the middle of that chaos.
Of course, he did not have a way, nor any intention to make a real dungeon break. What he planned on was to fake it, making everyone believe that a dungeon break was about to happen.
For that, he needed Priscilla, Dahlia, and Zinnia to act behind the scene, while he and Brianna were infiltrating the dungeon and the auction house.
Noah already put the final part of the plan in motion when he was riding an elevator into the basement to break open the auction house vault. It needed some time to escalate, so he had to choose the timing right. Assuming that he had about half an hour until the fake dungeon break would bring panic in full swing by the time they would leave the mansion, the diversion plan would go in full motion. And as he and Samantha were riding an elevator with hypnotized servants, the situation in the Black Market slowly degraded into chaos.
*****
The sound of people's loud cheering was coming from the arena agitating the caged beasts in the cells below it. Dangerous predators were deliberately starved to make them especially ferocious on the fight ring and the constant sound of vicious roars and the smell of blood seeping into the prison cells from the arena above drove them almost mad.
In this prison filled with mad howls of enraged monsters a black mist started to creep through the seams in walls, forming a dark cloud in the air. This cloud started to concentrate, becoming less transparent and a black-furred paw with sharp claws stretched out of the fog, Black Mist cat fully appeared in the prison a moment later. It gazed around at all the imprisoned monsters locked in cages and met the gaze of a huge angry monster looking at it through the thick bars of a nearby cage. This was the biggest and most ferocious monster in this prison.
A huge Saber-toothed Tiger monster with large fangs protruding from its maw and spikes growing from its back and tail towered over the human-sized Black Mist Cat like an adult tiger over a newborn cub.
For a few moments, the two monsters measured each other staring into each other's eyes through the bars of the cage with angry scowls and hissing at each other. Then Black Mist Cat backed off, turning away and walking down the corridor of prison on its two back legs looking at the angry monsters staring back at him from the cages.
Gradually the mad roars of these angry beasts diminished until they all finally went totally silent.
"Good," Said the Black Mist Cat looking around. "At least you all have enough sense to understand who is your true enemy." Then he walked up to one of the cages and the claws on its paws turned to mist sipping into the lock of the cage door. With a clang, the lock opened and the door slowly opened.
The monster with the body of a gorilla and the head of a wolf stared at the black mist cat with wary eyes, while backing off slowly to the other wall as much as the chains locking it in the center of the cage allowed it.
Black Mist Cat walked up to the chained monster staring into its eyes then slowly lifted its paw and touched the collar on its neck. Black mist seeped into the lock and a few seconds later the collar slid off the monster's neck fully freeing it.
As the monster rubbed its neck with its huge ape hands, the black mist cat backed off, slipping out of the cage and the gorilla-like monster's reach.
Every monster in this prison was far stronger than the Black Mist Cat, if they were to attack it would only have a choice to escape in its mist form, luckily monster did not throw itself at it, a spec of its beastly sanity prevailing of its monster instincts to kill and destroy.
After that Black Mist Cat walked to the other cage and where another monster looking at the freed gorilla monster, that walked out of its cage looking around before running off toward the prison exit.
The loud booming sound of torn and bent metal came a few seconds later with screams and wails of people followed shortly after.
The monster stared at the black mist cat, then kneeled on the ground showing that it would not attack, allowing it to enter its cage safely as well. Once it was free it rushed toward the exit just like the Gorilla monster before it.
One by one Black Mist Cat freed every monster from its cage. Some of them simply frowned before turning and walking away, others licked his furry face in thanks before rushing out of the prison.
The huge saber-toothed tiger monster was the last that the black mist cat approached. Two monsters locked gazes once again, but this time it was the tiger that showed humility and sat on the ground showing it was not a threat.
Breathing out with a nervous sigh, Black Mist Cat walked up to the cage and turned to mist seeped through the bars of the cage entering inside without opening the cage door. It materialized at the tiger's side warily gazing at the huge monster, without moving for a few moments. It deliberately did not open the cage door leaving a chance to escape in case the tiger showed hostility. Only after it was sure that the tiger would not attack it came closer to its collar and unlocked it, before swiftly turning back to mist and escaping from the cage.
Once the tiger was freed from chains it stood up straightening fully, it's back touching the ceiling, then it huffed out a strong breath that hit the black mist cloud with a gale of wind, sending it spiraling away from the cage and lifting a cloud of dust from the floor. Then it slammed its huge paw on the cage bars, bending them severely. With another hit, the bars gave way breaking apart. With a third hit, the whole wall of the cage fell off.
The tiger monster walked out of the cage with a proud gate, waltzing toward the exit without turning back even once.
"Yeah. You're welcome." Said the black mist cat monster materializing in an empty prison a few seconds later wiping off the dust from its fur with an annoyed expression on its face. "Damn monsters, not a spec of civility." It breathed out before turning to mist and seeping through the walls, leaving the prison the same way it came.
*****
"It's time." Said Dryad gazing at the black mist cats that dragged the body of a sleeping monster, carefully placing it on the ground. "Let's go."
Both cats quickly rushed back toward her, swiftly dodging from place to place to not step on anyone laying on the ground.
As they came over to Zinnia they noticed that Priscilla suddenly appeared out of nowhere, now standing at Dryad's side.
"Is it really necessary to put us to sleep or whatever that thing you do, before you transfer us? It feels very uncomfortable." Said The Black Mist Cat monster gazing at the Dryad and the metallic round medallion in her hands.
"That's how this skill works." Answered Priscilla instead. "To travel through the dream realm you must be asleep or be in a dreamy state. Don't be afraid, humans fall into this state every night, Dryads go back and forth into that state all the time. There's nothing dangerous. Now get on with it or we'll leave you here."
"Tsk. Fine." Said Black Mist cat, and they both sat down on the floor in front of Zinnia. The Dryad put her hand on their heads putting them quickly under her illusion, and a few moments later the cat monster's eyes glazed as they sat with expressions of total emptiness as if they were sleepwalking.
Then Priscilla took out a medallion similar to the one Zinnia held in her hands and touched both sleeping cat monsters with it. With a ripple in space, the two cats disappeared.
After that, Zinnia grabbed Priscilla's hand and the two of them vanished in the same way.
Once they were gone something steered in the darkness of the warehouse that they were in. Monsters one by one started to come to their senses, shaking off the illusions that put them to sleep. One by one they stood up from the floor looking around with confused looks on their mugs. Then their confusion changed to anger. A few moments later big doors of a warehouse were broken with a loud bang, falling in the middle of the dungeon road, and loud roars of monsters came from the darkness of the warehouse, shocking the people that were nearby.
Then monsters started to rush out of the broken door of the warehouse jumping at everyone they first saw. One after another all kinds of monsters streamed out of the warehouse.
Dozens of agitated monsters barely roused from their sleep before rushing out of the warehouse finding themselves in the strange unknown environment filled with delicious-looking humans. One after the other they roared to the sky before rushing at their prey
At the same time, other warehouses in different parts of the Black Market Dungeon were facing the same scene, bringing screams, fear, and confusion. Chaos has begun in the dungeon.
*****
"This is the last one in this area." Said the Black Mist Cat walking up to the two women sitting on the big rock chatting quietly. Dozens more cats appeared out of the mist behind him. Two of them dragged a struggling monster that they captured and bound. "We would need to change the hunting ground." He said as the two Black Mist cats placed a bound monster at her feet.
"This is good, we rared enough monsters for the plan." Said Priscilla looking at the monsters lying around her, while Dahlia slowly stood up from the rock and carefully placed her hand on the wiggling monster's head and a few seconds later it ceased to struggle laying on the ground with glazed eyes just like all the others monsters at their feet.
Black mist cats undid the ropes that bound the now limply-lying monster's body and backed away.
"Would it really be okay, with only these low-ranked monsters, Lady Priscilla? Maybe we should get a few monsters from the lower levels?" Asked one of the Black Mist Cats.
"It takes too long to catch a single higher-ranked monster from deeper levels of Labyrinth. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of time. We will have to make do with a horde of these weak monsters. Besides, we are just making it look like a dungeon break to raise panic. We don't plan to slaughter everyone inside the black market transferring strong monsters there. The monsters we will free from the basement of the arena would be enough to preoccupy high-level warriors in the black market, while hordes of low-level monsters that we transfer from this labyrinth wreak chaos all over the place in the black market." Explained Priscilla.
"Alright. This one is asleep. With this we are done with monster raring, thank you all for your help." Said Dahlia once she was sure that the newly brought monster was under her illusion.
Priscilla took out a round metal medallion and walked around touching with it every monster that lay on the ground. One by one monsters that she touched disappeared and were transferred from the Moonhowl Dungeons third level where they stood to one of the warehouses in the Black Market dungeon, where Zinnia received them. Soon a whole mountain of sleeping monsters disappeared into thin air.
Then Priscilla touched Dahlia and the same as all the monsters that they kidnapped from this Labyrinth they both disappeared without a trace.
Noah's plan was quite simple yet shocking when someone heard it. They asked the Black Mist Cat monsters to capture hundreds of monsters in the Moonhowl Labyrinth where they lived, then after the Dryad sisters put them to sleep, they sent them through the dream realm to the Black Market dungeon and let them roam free. These monsters of course were all captured on the upper levels of the Labyrinth, which even a novice adventurer and warriors would be able to subjugate. But it is their numbers and the suddenness of their appearance that would be the main factor in bringing chaos.
For this plan, however, Ugy had to show off his skill creation mastery yet again. Noah's initial skill could only allow him to travel through the dream realm when he was called or when he had a connection with an object and could not allow him to transfer others unless they were already inside his mind realm. Yet to bring someone into the mind realm, he needed to be in close proximity and needed the help of Dryads just like when he brought Tessa, Priscilla, and Brianna into his mind realm for the first time.
After that day, when Ugy and Tessa worked on the creation of a firewall barrier that blocked the Dryads from freely entering into Noah's mind realm through dreams, Ugy also analyzed all the data and managed to come up with another skill.
The new skill allowed Noah's mates to enter Noah's mind realm through the medallions when he allowed it and also drag someone inside with them. The only limitation was that whoever they dragged in had to be sleeping or be able to enter the dream realm like Dryads.
Once they were inside Noah's mind realm, Noah could send them toward another medallion left in a different location with just a thought. This allowed Priscilla to send the Dryads and monsters to different locations with Noah's minimal involvement, working on the realization of the plan behind the scene while he was acting his own role of their plan.
With the help of Dryads and the Black Mist Cat clan, they captured and put to sleep monsters from the Moonhowl Labyrinth, then transferred them to the Black Market Dungeon when Noah infiltrated it and left a few medallions laying around when he passed through it.
As he and Brianna sneaked into the auction house, Priscilla appeared at the medallions locations while dragging a team of Black Mist Cats and Zinnia into the dungeon, starting to place the kidnapped monsters in different locations, where Zinnia maintained their sleeping state until it was time to let them free.
The three Dryad sisters were amazed by this skill when Noah described it at first, but as their plan progressed they started to get wary, finally realizing how much their mother, The Queen of Dryads was right in making a friend of this man rather than an enemy. The skill to drag the monster army and transfer it through the dream realm. Who if not Dryads understood the threat it held in hands of an enemy? So they tried to analyze the skill as much as they could.
The only thing they could not grasp was the hidden meaning of that skill's name. They were sure that the name that Noah's system gave this skill had some hidden meaning. Maybe even a special way for its utilization or a way that it may evolve in the future. But even with a long discussion they still could not grasp why it was called a "Gang Van Driver" and what does the word "Van" even mean? They felt this name was somehow off.