Kazue shoved aside the still unfolding plethora of information from Satsuki's 'tris', both those gifted to them in their aspect as a faerie court and the ones she ter gifted to them in their aspect as a dungeon. That sed set had hardly seemed needed, given how much the neckces had given them.

  She also resolutely blocked out her avatar's thoughts aions. She couldn't afford any distras right now, this was going to be the first time they'd cimed a new zone sihey'd also bee a faerie court.

  The past couple of months of stant delving by the Trionean soldiers, the less stant delving and fing of the Kuic troops had supplied, and the hunting and delving by groups of kitsune had supplied them with plenty of mana, though speeding up their domain's growth had ed a portion of it. Their biggest dey had simply beeing both sides to bance.

  Now she sed over the wetnds zoo make sure no one was he edge. Things were about to get messy, and possibly dangerous.

  Once she was satisfied with that, Kazue sealed this entrao their rooms, which left only the entrance from the sewers to the arena as an open path. There was a bit of resistance, but this was just a temporary measure to avoid any problems.

  Kazue spread her awareness past the final se of the dungeon and to the very borders of their territory, including the side edges of this se. Through her sciousness, their mana flowed to cim more territory for the dungeon.

  Deeper, farther, and wider, all at o was their biggest territrowth so far and even with that, she was handling another flow of mana desigo expand the internal space of this erritory.

  Expanding their spaternally also redistributed much of the solid earth she was g. Mordecai showed her how a dimensionally maniputed space could have a firm border without any physical barrier, but that sort of non-space bothered even her core to look at, let alone what it might do to brains not desigo hahis sort of information. It was much better to let that earth be redistributed as part of their border, the rest was going to o be absorbed anyway.

  Once she had spent most of their reserves on g their zone, Kazue shifted toreparing it properly.

  Within the limits of maintaining a roughly oblong shape and keeping a thiough 'edge' for their warrens and sewers, she absorbed almost all the stohat had not already beeributed to their borders. With this giant hollow space readied for further work, it was time to their core chambers with her power and carefully move the entire plex to the very bottom and end of their new zone.

  This was only inexpeive to the massive amount of mana she'd just expended g the zone.

  It was also the first time that the movement of the plex could be seen by a the cores, and the way this massive se of stone slid noiselessly along and down the newly opened space was eerie.

  After Kazue had settled the plex into pce, plete with having simultaneously created a straight tunnel for the sewer e, she reformed some of the earth she'd absorbed before into a giant e of earth remi of a small mountain. Which is what it was sort of supposed to be. When Kazue was satisfied with its shape it was time to ect the chambers to a wide pteau that rihe mountaiively he top.

  While she'd been doing this, the normal recmation of excess water from their various waterways was stopped.

  They'd always been as effit as they could be, but the wetnds and the sewers could only hold so much. But now there was this vast, hollow basin to be filled, and the briny water of their wetnds began draining into it.

  It was insuffit on any reasoime scale, but Kazue had a low-energy way of speeding up the process. While creating matter was always one of the more expehings they could do, abs aributing matter cost very little energy in parison. Almost all of the accumuted snow inside of their territory abruptly disappeared, only to reappear at the bottom of the basin. Kazue then 'cheated' and grabbed a seass of snow from Faerie to create another yer of snow iheir basin.

  Oddly enough, bringing the snow across did not rid it of its eerie 'too real' appearand sparkle. Mordecai had warned her that bringing in this much substance from faerie was going to affect how the 'o' they were creating would work, but in this case, Kazue felt there was little to worry about. A strange o erfect, and there was illusionary work to be done on the zoill.

  Work on their new zone was far from plete, but she'd deliberately pushed as far as she could while retaining a stable structure. Major work would have to wait until they had more mana again, but she did still have enough to reshape the edge of their wetnds zone.

  The bri the end of their zone was now part of aensive shallows area that was also riddled with deeper trenches and the occasional tuo ect otherwise isoted areas. For those here to fight, the terrain for bating the eletsima dragon bosses had bee a lot more treacherous. Their final destination, should they win their way through, was a wide circur isnd that jutted out into the deeper o. The isnd itself was simply a bare disc at the moment, the proper setup for their challenges would e ter.

  As for those who had made their assed Carmil's challehe hedged-in path now led to an underground tuhat passed beh the enrged bat area and resurfaced on the isnd. The path for batants was not so clear as there was only one unbroken path of shallow water and sand that led through the boss area and when they had the mana to spare, the sandbars and trenches would shift after every battle against Nezha and Ysi.

  Kazue examined her work and was satisfied for now.

  While the dungeon might not have much ma for direct work, Mordecai's avatar was making his way to the isnd to begin some of the manual work he had pnned. What he had in mind was tricky and she appreciated that he was going to put ira work to make sure that the path would be safe for their delvers.

  While her husbao work there, Kazue took the opportunity to shift her attention to the Other Side. She wao see how Faerie had reflected the ges to their duerritory. It had been hard to ighe portion of their mana that had been siphoned off to keep their domain matg their territory.

  Like the rest of their domain, this new area arsely inhabited.

  Saraag was the oy other than themselves that could simultaneously exist on both sides of the border between realms, and like the cores, his main body was entirely on the mortal side. But his tendrils were still able to grow along with the matrix of living crystal that had bee an automatic part of building new borders for the dungeon. These tendrils had sprouted into a sprinkle of glowing mushrooms and other fungi inside of the cavern on the faerie side, which gave soft illumination to the dark waters of the undergrouhere.

  Overall, this cavern was a lot smaller than the o pnned for the dungeon. This left a lot of the erritory left in stone ah, but that should be fine. After all, some of the fey that they had accepted as immigrants to their realm included beings that preferred an underground life. The blue caps in particur would be happy to be able to create mihis deep uhe surface.

  Really, it was more of an undergrouhough oddly enough, Kazue found it hard to determily how deep the waters went. The far end of the sea was strangely indistinct.

  An eerie, underground faerie sea that was located far beh mountains.

  Oh waters far too dark and deep for the space they occupied.

  Oh no.

  "Mordecai," Kazue sent, "Um, how far from normal living nds do you have to be to no longer find Faerie oher Side?"

  Her question grabbed his attention quickly and she could feel him shift his focus to the new se of their faerie domain.

  While he was examining the space, Mordecai replied to her question, "To my knowledge, Faerie should be ected to almost all of our world, outside of a few dangerous fluences. But those areas are usually extremely dangerous enviros on the mortal side as well, with little only meager life scraping by."

  He sounded frustrated to her, and Kazue couldn't bme him. If her feeling was right, they were toug on dangerous realms.

  Mordecai tinued his musings as he probed the area. "This is still part of Faerie. It has to be, no Court has a domain that extends past the borders of Faerie, the idea is tradictory. If it is part of a faerie court, it is part of Faerie. Though not all of Faerie is cimed by a court, there's always the Faerie Wilds."

  Kazue felt a new presence approag their domain and shifted her focus toward it. The presence was ing across the underground sea and that painfully indistinct border.

  It wasn't the most powerful being that had been inside of their domain or territory, but direct power was not the only way to be passively terrifying.

  The pale, ethereal woman walked serenely across the surface of the dark waters as her hair streamed behind her on ent winds. She wore a white dress that looked fit for either a wedding or a funeral, and her bare feet made no noise wheepped oer's surface.

  Behirailed a pair of hounds who glowed softly and padded across the sea with the same silent ease that their mistress did.

  The woman's soft humming was beautiful, but it did not set Kazue at ease. At least she wasn't singing.

  Mordecai sighed and said, "Yet, despite all that, we have this visitor. If we were a winter court I could uand the e existing, but we have not decred an allegiance. Well, the three of us are going to o talk with her, but we'll need a representative first. Carmil is closest, other than my avatar, and I think the three of us should arrive together, so I will send her ahead."

  Kazue's avatar had already realized that something was wrong, even with the dey in the information flow between them. Moriko had started listening in as soon as Kazue had spoken up, and both of them were scrambling to get ready.

  Carmil was distinctly unhappy with the idea of beio speak with a Pale Lady apanied by a pair of spectral hounds. "Lord Mordecai," she said in a tight voice, "while I have been happy to bee your adopted daughter, I am currently w if I should be residering that opinion. If I uand you correctly, you and Lady Kazue have mao ect our realm to an Underworld ke? Now, if I thought this was deliberate, I could at least cim you were beiremely bold, but I am fairly certain that Lady Kazue and Lady Moriko would have put a stop to it if this had been part of a pn."

  As she spoke, Carmil used her magic to hastily ge out of her normal outfit for a dress more befitting of a princess. A dark faerie princess, to be sure, but a princess heless.

  "Very well," she said when she was done, "I am as ready as I be on such short notice."

  Kazue watched nervously as Carmil crossed into their domain and strode toward the edge of the dark sea. Carmil mao use Kazue's information to time her arrival to cide with the Pale Lady stepping onto the shore.

  With a weling smile and perfect poise, Carmil curtsied to the ued visitreetings visitor. I am Lady Carmil, Princess of the Azeria Court. On behalf of Queen Kazue, Queen Moriko, and King Mordecai, I should like to wele you into our realm as a guest. My parents will be arriving shortly to meet you in person."

  The woman's humming stopped for the moment as she sidered Carmil, then she smiled iurn and said, "I accept your invitation, and look forward to meeting your Lord and Ladies. My name is Cliodhna, and I am here as a servitor of Lady Kikoi Muerte and Lord Yamaraja. They are very curious as to why a faerie realm has e into tact with the realm of the dead."

  Zagaroth