Dungeon of Niflheim

While Void and Queek left to arrange their Dungeons for their war the rest of the Dungeon cores, heralded by Dark started making bets.

"10,000DP on Void." Without even the slightest hint of hesitation Chronos, Void's closest sibling and Dungeon neighbour placed a large bet in support, drawing the eyes of those around him as well as his father.

"Bold bet Chronos, seems you have a lot of faith in your brother." Dark said with a smile.

"I know him and his Dungeon better than anyone else, he's got this in bag." Chronos replied with even greater confidence. Though he and Void avoided developing their Dungeons to the same degree as Frost, Indra and the other upper ranked cores the development they did complete was quite thorough.

The twin Dungeon cores had an almost unbridled fascination with magic, spending the vast majority of their time invested in studying the boundless possibilities of mana. Thanks to this both Void and Chronos were already at the B-rank, prominent mages that could hold their own in duels.

Alas even with Void being forbidden to take to the field personally Chronos knew from experience that Queek would struggle against him, especially given the short 4 hour time frame.

Chronos' bold bet spurred the others on.

"3000 on Void!"

"2000 on Queek!"

"3500 on Void!"

With his children calling out their bets one after another Dark quickly summoned a large board to write them all down. Soon it was clear that Void was favoured as the victor over Queek with a ratio of roughly 7 to 3.

"Anyone else?" Dark asked with a wide grin, his excitement spurred on by everyone's enthusiasm.

"15,000 on Queek." Suddenly a gruff voice threw out the largest bet yet. Pyro who'd been silently stewing glared at Frost with provocation.

'Pyro.' Frost grimaced as his brother's voice battered his eardrums. He just finished placing a bet of 8000DP on Void, this was a clear challenge, Pyro likely didn't even care about the outcome as long as he was opposed to his younger brother. The Dungeon core of ice and the Dungeon core of fire stared at one another, their hatred for one another's guts palpable.

Pyro didn't forget about Karrick's failure not for a single second but what really pissed him off was the change in Karrick's attitude. Before his war with Frost his younger brother was a dutiful subordinate, listening to his orders with rapt attention and gave his all to complete them.

Now though Karrick barely interacted with him and whenever he did he'd look him in the eye with a raised head full of confidence and strength. He still accepted Pyro as stronger, but he was no longer superior, a clear difference and one that Pyro struggled to accept. All this happened because of Frost, of this he was sure thus he redirected all his anger toward his most hated sibling.

Dark kept silent, enjoying the discord between his children, a thriving competition led to innovation and excellence plus it was quite enjoyable to watch.

"Haaaaaaa I'll put 18,000 on Void then, what about you Yami?" Eventually unable to stand Pyro's smug arrogance Aqua placed a bet that surpassed his own, swiftly cutting down his pride.

Pyro was the 3rd sibling and ranked 3rd on the DP rankings (at least during the last gathering), he was strong, more powerful than most, but he was still a far cry from Aqua and Yami, they were the true king and queen of the Dungoen cores.

"I'm good, I'll save my money for the duels." Yami held very little interest in this betting event, if Aqua didn't call on him he would have kept silent throughout it. He briefly glanced at Pyro, blaming the whole situation on him. Yami was not fond of talking, rarely did words escape his lips thus he found Pyro's actions irritating.

The looks from both Yami and Aqua sent cold shivers down Pyro's back forcing him to look away, his wrath hidden within behind his gaze.

Dark added Aqua's and Pyro's generous bets to the board before bringing an end to polls. Now they just had to wait until Void and Queek were finished with their preparations. Dark made a few quick rounds during that time, interacting with his children on an individual level.

Once the hour time frame had passed the large screen turned on revealing the forms of both Void and Queek in their private spaces, ready and waiting for Dark's signal.

"Are the two of you ready?"

"Yes."

"Un."

"Very well, the Dungeon war between Dungeon core Void and Dungeon core Queek will now begin, good luck to both of you." Dark waved his hand causing a spatial corridor to appear between Void and Queek's Dungeons, thus starting the battle.

The large screen in the ball room then spilt into two, the left side for Void and the right side for Queek. It then further split into smaller screens showing different areas of their Dungeons, granting the observers panoramic views so nothing would be missed. A similar set up appeared during the last gathering when Frost fought against Gobuske. Now though Frost could experience it for himself.

"How interesting, we can see the major areas of their Dungeon in real time, there's even a highlight screen for the most active areas." Frost found the display to be most satisfying.

"It's better this time take a look." Indra who watched as an observer during the Frost and Gobuske war drew his attention to his forearm. There displayed in a miniature form was one of the many split screens. "Last time we couldn't shift between the different screens, father clearly improved the system."

The actual battle teams would take at least a few minutes to meet one another so Frost used the time to inspect Void's Dungeon along with Maya who sat by his side.

"It's completely different from ours." Maya commented almost instantly.

Void's Dungeon lacked the open and varied feel that the Dungeon of Niflheim had. Where Frost's Dungeon mimicked the outside Void's seemed to be a set of varied mazes, multiple dead ends as well as locked routes which made passing through difficult even without the presence of monsters. It was clear that Void had gone a completely different route.

He relied on complicated and changing paths, riddle barred gates and doorways as well as sophisticated traps to delay and kill intruders rather than the common monster blockade.

Frost had to admit he was quite curious as to how such a design would playout. "This style suits Void to a tee." He muttered with a smile, his gaze glancing over at Chronos. The two of them were quite similar, he guessed that their Dungeons would be as well.

After getting a rough feel for Void's Dungeon he brought up the images of Queek's. "….Queek's is rather standard, nothing really stands out."

"It's like a subpar version of ours, similar to what Gobuske had."

"Agreed." Queek's Dungeon lacked an impressive environment, complicated layout or highly defensible bulwarks. It was akin to a monster lair, built through instinct not careful planning. His monster forces also seemed to be rather lacking, mostly F and E-ranks with a small number of D-ranks and like Queek they all seemed be rat based, with the occasional marmot. Find your next read on m_v l|e'm-p| y r

"Frost pay attention the first clash is about to happen." Indra knocked Frost's shoulder and cajoled him to look up at the big screen's highlight window. There Queek's forces of rats could be seen charging out of the black barrier that served as the conduit between the Dungeons.

Queek's forces charged ahead in large numbers, the weakest at the front and the strongest at back, apart from that there was no solid formation to speak of. These large groups were swiftly narrowed into the tight corridors of the Void's maze and after the second turn the first trap was activated.

Underneath the paws of a couple G-rank rats no bigger than 30cm a silver magic crest appeared and spirited them away. 200 metres west those same rats appeared in another part of the maze but waiting ahead of them was a black cat roughly 1 metre long. Upon noticing the sudden appearance of the rats the cat's eyes sparkled as it revealed a predatory smile.

A moment later the cat vanished, somehow swimming through space it appeared above one of the rats.

Crunch! A sharp bite brought an end to the small rat's life, with its comrades following quickly after it.

While Frost started off with frost mines Void had spatial mines. These traps had little to no offensive power instead they teleported victims through space.

Dozens of such traps were littered throughout every room, some led their victims to one of Void's monsters, others dropped them straight into a hazardous area such as a spiked pitfall or in range of a more deadly trap and a scant few simply teleported their targets to random areas throughout the floor.

An hour could be spent reaching the very end of the maze only for you to step on one of these mines and be instantly transported back to the beginning of the Dungeon. Void Dungeon was in one word, frustrating.