Conquering His Cold Heart

"So in creating us your soul became fragmented and thus you've had to endure bouts of mania and extreme aggression." Frost summarised what Dark told them.

"Yes and it seems to be far more problematic than I first anticipated…right now I'm too dangerous to be left unchecked so I'm having Diablos call an old friend. With him helping me out I should be able to find some solution to my current predicament." He had great faith in Erebus' discretion and capabilities.

"I see….is there anything we can do to help?"

"No, not now at least. Just keep developing and living your lives, seeing that brings me joy." Though he appreciated their willingness to help there was nothing his children could do at least with their current strength.

As the rest of the Dungeon cores came to, the older siblings helped ease the fears held by their younger siblings thus saving the relationship between them and their father.

Diablos returned to the ball room a few minutes later and whispered in Dark's ear. He had met with his grandfather and relayed his message; Erebus would join him in his palace once he was finished with his little family gathering which now that he was back in control and his kids didn't look at him with abject fear could continue.

However before that he owed a special apology to Tovar. Because of his condition he thought that it was ok to brutally humiliate him in front of his siblings, he had erred greatly in this regard.

Thus after bowing nearly 90 degrees and begging for his son's forgiveness he promised to have a one on one chat with him once the gathering was over wherein he'd receive a unique gift, something that was strongly encouraged by the rest of his children.

The naked nine however wouldn't receive anything extra, it was agreed upon that their punishment was actually rather fit, not too extreme, not too lenient and no one was singled out in their shame.

"So….where were we?" After apologising to Tovar Dark asked with obvious embarrassment.

"The punishments had been completed so I guess it's the so called forfeit challenges right?"

"Yeah, dinner, war, duels, DP rankings rewards, punishments and finally forfeit challenges before we move onto discussing the current Dungeon system." Gaia listed out the progression Dark first outlined with his fingers, earning a round of agreeing nods.

"The forfeit challenges eh?" Dark stroked his chin in thought. The point in offering forfeit challenges was to grant those falling behind their siblings a chance to catch up, allowing them the opportunity to rise from being eternally ranked at the bottom. Thus they needed to be quite specific, to focus solely on improving one's ability to generate DP.

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"The forfeit challenges will only apply to the bottom half of the rankings and will include many tiers." Dark stood before his children and expounded upon his plans. "The first tier will apply to all bottom fifty, if you can increase your monthly DP income by at least 20% within the first three months you'll be granted a free G-rank spawner, F-rank if you can surpass 40%."

"The next tier will apply to just the bottom twenty. If you can surpass 75% you'll be granted a free E-rank spawner as well as a free 2 star environment while surpassing 100% will grant you an additional floor and an extra F-rank spawner."

"The final tier applies solely to the bottom ten and comes with detriments alongside benefits.

Surpassing 100% will instead grant you an additional E-rank spawner rather than an F-rank one however if you fail to increase your monthly DP income by at least 20% in the first three months you'll lose access to your latest developed section, and if your monthly income actually becomes lower than what it is currently you'll lose access to the entire floor, all of your developments on it becoming erased." This was the rules Dark had formulated after a great deal of thought.

Granting the lower ranked Dungeon cores free spawners would help revitalise their attraction to adventurers while also not granting them too many unfair advantages. If they worked hard they'd be rewarded for that effort and if not they'd continue to fall behind, simple as that.

Dark's revelation resulted in a fierce chorus of murmurs, the bottom fifty were quite enthusiastic about his prepared forfeit challenges. The different tier system was quite novel and catered well to how badly each Dungeon core ranked on the leaderboards. Even the bottom ten who would be subject to quite severe losses if they didn't improve their income accepted the terms with smiles.

Each of them had sworn to improve their standing by the next gathering as their naked run left quite a mark on their hearts.

As for the upper fifty only those ranked in the forties found the situation a little unfair, if only they'd raked in a slightly lower amount of DP then they too would have been able to enjoy the fruits of the forfeit challenges. Those ranked higher could easily afford the offered rewards based on their own income so there was no skin off their backs.

Following the agreement on the forfeit challenges Dark, his children and the remaining guardians sequestered themselves to another room wherein they took part in a grand debate regarding the current Dungeon system. The pros and cons, what could be improved, what served no purpose and what they wanted to see happen.

This discussion lasted close to 24 hours before they were finally happy to walk away and return to their Dungeons. In the coming weeks Dark was sure to roll out a great many updates to the system so as to accommodate all the new changes he and his children had agreed to.

"Hopefully this time trade between them will be far more common." Dark muttered as the last of his children left the space he had created leaving just him and Tovar. "Now Tovar let's discuss how I can make up for my transgressions against you." Dark stretched out his hand to his son who happily grabbed on, feeling quite special in this moment. "Un."

Several minutes later Frost and Maya were deposited back in their private space, back home after a gruelling two days of dealing with family and drama.

"Haaaaa feels good to be back home."

"Un." Maya nodded her head in agreement as she leaned against Frost's shoulder. Ever since Dark had rewritten her soul contract limiting her strength to below Frost's her body had felt rather weak, and occasionally tingly. She wasn't used to having her strength so fiercely restrained.

Before she could chose to not use her overwhelming power but now she had no choice in the matter, even an instinctual flare-up was no longer possible. She was now well and truly bound to Frost, something that she found to be incredibly romantic.

Just as she was gazing up at him and about to kiss his lips to express her affection the sound of an excited scream pulled them apart.

"Master! Maya!" Loki in all his cuteness dashed out from his bedroom the moment he heard their arrival and leaped into their arms. By this point there was very little left of the shy and fearful young boy that Frost saved.

"You're lucky you're adorable." Frost shook his head before taking hold of Loki in his arms, letting him sit on his forearm as the three of them walked.

"Hehehe" Showing not even the slightest level of guilt Loki giggled in glee as Frost carried him to the sofa. There he and Maya regaled to him what transpired over the past two days, embellishing when necessary of course.

The young phoenix kin was completely transfixed on his every word, his eyes sparkling when Frost spoke of the grand battle between Terra and Pyro and his mind whirling with ideas when he told him of the Dungeon war between Queek and Void.

It was only when they were wrapping up that the rest of the family made their way back to the private space, sporting rather weary expressions. Without Frost at the helm a lot of the duties fell to Daki and Nanna, and they never worked out as smoothly.

To up their spirits Frost started his story from the beginning, bringing an official close to the family gathering and bringing back the usual order to the Dungeon of Niflheim.

"So Maya's no longer at the top of the food chain." Daki couldn't help but smirk at her sister girlfriend's possible plight.

"I'm still stronger than you Daki." Maya bit back resulting in Daki sticking out her tongue in a playful manner.

"Yes, father bound her soul to mine thus heavily restricting her natural strength." Frost only felt closer to her because of this, shown by the level of affection in his eyes as he gazed at her. Her power was never what he cared about after all.

"A lot of changes will come into effect in the coming weeks because of the recent gathering so we'll have to change how run things.

First of all the training space no longer has access to free equipment and even using it as is has a small charge." Any training dummies, battlefields or targets now needed to be exchanged for with DP and there was a 100DP basic charge for every hour the space was in use thus adding to the Dungeon's daily costs.

"We'll also likely be in contact with more Dungeon cores in the future as trade has been heavily encouraged." Frost had already put out some feelers with Void, Indra and couple others, keen to add their specialities to his own Dungeon.