“A miniature dragonator!” Maagneil's muffled voice exploded from the cockpit of the blackened gundam. “Weaker compared to its original demon counterpart, but still a masterwork of engineering! My son never needed you to smith for him in the first place, Grimnir! You held him back! This creation is the proof!”

Striking a victory pose, the gundam held the bloodied drill up high, relishing in its ability to pierce through the drake’s body with it. However, this impromptu celebration was short-lived as Manethala’s body jerked up. Roaring, the giant drake threw himself off the golem, but was quickly assaulted by a crippling amount of pain, stopping him from attacking his assaulter.

The giant drake grabbed his chest where a giant hole could now be seen, large enough to fit a car through. My [Sun, Consume all] was healing him quickly, closing up his wounds, but the drake himself wasn’t feeling better from the healing. His head fell onto the ground, gasping for air, causing me to notice his eyes turning red.

Sorry! Mana Eyes.

Name: Manethala Level: 26 Race: Earth-Rolling Drakarno

Age: 411 Years

Effects: [Poisoned (Winter’s Gift) (Major)] [Mental Corruption (Moderate)] [Bleeding (Minor)]

[Adrenaline (Major)] [Music Resonation (Major)] [Shield of [The Light]]

[Earth Ruler’s Protection] [Various Spell Buffs] [Drakonian Fortitude]

Information Blocked

You gotta be kidding me?!

[Winter’s Gift] may have been made to hunt dragons specifically of the fire element, but at such a high dosage, it would be poisonous for anybody! I couldn’t cure that fast enough; he needed the antidote!

However, just as I was about to call either Vifi’Yok or Tatsuya to give him one of the dosages reserved for me, a System message appeared before me. As my attention wandered over to it for a moment, my eyes widened and I couldn’t help but condemn the System for doing this to me.

What was worse? Multiple knives slicing you in a row but with enough time to steel yourself against the pain, or a straight punch to the gut too strong to properly defend against?

41 human, beastman, elf, dwarf followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 22377

My head snapped up top. My parallel minds quickly reminded me that nobody important to me—those I gave [Hestia’s Retainer]—could have died, otherwise the System probably would have told me about it, even though I wasn’t sure. The people who died were probably strangers to me … or they could have included Pradreo and Skardrvo.

Don’t think about it!

Regardless, the fact of the matter was, that damn dragonslayer had re-entered my mind. He was living in my head rent free! Galg! It had to be him and his party, considering they did the same with the rescue team, even though I didn’t think everyone should be struggling against them.

On the one side, there were only a bunch of rank Bs, some wyvern slayers, and Galg’s party. On the other hand, we had a ton of very strong people on our side, but so many people already died?! How many of them weren’t my fans? Dammit, what was going on up there?

“Hestia!”

[“I know! Flash Fire!”]

Despite my distractions, I’d been listening to my skills all this time. I knew Maagneil had his damn cannon trained on me, and I wasn’t about to die to this bastard until I found out what was happening above.

I activated [Flash Fire], dashing right out of the explosion of the cannon, making my way towards one of the flames surrounding the gundam. My explosive speed while Maagneil hadn’t reactivated his gravity ability allowed me to use [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] and [Hellblade Edge] to slice off a portion of the golem’s leg as I sped by, causing it to fall down.

I stared at the fallen gundam, realizing exactly how this terrible father managed to survive Saori’s spell; multiple earth shells covered the entire colossus like armor, leaving no hints of metal body to an outsider’s perspective. Charred pieces of earth were cracking off, revealing more and more layers of protection. Clear signs were there that showed Saori’s [Hadaen Dragon Thunder] had very nearly managed to break through.

Maagneil’s possession of the Earth Elemental Emperor, the former but weakened ruler of the earth element of Peolynca, was giving him that extra edge on the defensive side, while his gravity control through the aberration inside his son’s body gave him a lot of crowd control. This wasn’t even mentioning those two weapons he had designed to kill dragons with.

Now, I didn’t know if this would solve all the issues, but I really had no choice. I needed to get in close and touch Broggart’s body. I had to usurp that aberration to remove the gravity powers. The fact I couldn’t do before when I broke through the golem’s head was all the proof that I needed to directly touch the demonic being to usurp its power … The only issue was that Broggart was now hidden behind a rock chestplate.

Now’s the time! Solar Beam!

Channeling the solar energy [Sun, Consume All] managed to obtain for me, I unleashed my last available solar beam of this entire trip, drilling through the gundam’s rocky exterior. Gravity suddenly got stronger, pushing my body down, forcing me to control the magma and [Hydra] around me to stiffen my body up with obsidian, holding my head up just so I could keep my assault up. Meanwhile, I also made sure to have my sun heal Manethala just enough to keep him alive.

However, against my expectations, Maagneil forcibly blocked the beam from melting more through the chest by blocking it with his cannon barrel. The earth around me also stirred, opening a hole up, causing me to fall through the floor.

I broke through the corrosive obsidian and activated my rocket boosters, trying to intensify [My Darkest Thoughts] so I wouldn’t fall down even further. A chill went down my spine as I saw the hole closing above me, only for me to hear the voice of King Fugnarus and the hole widening. Rock pillars rose up from the side, knocking the gundam back, allowing me an angle to keep beaming down at his chest, which had its armor already fully regenerated.

In the next moment, something flew right at the gundam, totally knocking it down. The gravity effect weakened, allowing me to fly out of the hole but unfortunately I had to stop my [Solar Beam] as I escaped. Regardless, I was still in my overdrive mode and ready to end this battle.

Once I was back on top, I saw Ellaine’s figure; her bone wings were repaired and she morphed the mana around her arm into a giant sickle blade, using it to rip and tear into the entire construct. Her whipblade separated into its individual blades, held together by a mana string, with fleshy bits growing on them. These pulsating pieces of meat expanded, connecting each blade into one single eldritch tentacles with razor-sharp claws.

“Attack!” Ellaine screamed as she pushed the gundam further back with her viscous-yet-acrobatic demonic swordsmanship.

Eventually, though, gravity struck her and she was forced onto her knees, but only for a couple seconds as Vifi’Yok appeared from behind the gundam. She struck with my glaive, nearly severing the cannon barrel arm with a single fiery slash.

“You’re telling me exactly who you are after this, ‘human!’” she demanded before grabbing onto the golem, but was quickly knocked away by the growing rocky vines.

Maagneil tried to recover his bearings, but my spells blasted him down and kept him off balance. Using wind, lightning, holy, and fire moves, a barrage of spells covered Ellaine’s and Vifi’Yok’s escape before I unleashed a purple [Hellflame Breath], corroding through the rock armor like acid, while using [Aerokinesis] to assure my allies wouldn’t inhale any of the lung-disintegrating fumes.

Whenever Maagneil would increase the gravity on me to the point I couldn’t fly away from his attack, somebody else would cover for me. King Fugnarus would control the earth, Saori would distract with her shadow pack, and even Tatsuya and Kyouya could help by using their unique skills to support whoever was in trouble. Even Grimnir, although still injured, gave fire support with his blasthammer.

All of us were slowly understanding the limitations of this gravity ability. Although I still couldn’t use [Mana Eyes] on Maagneil or the aberration, as both were blocking me from accessing their information, our battle intuition allowed us to understand the gravity ability.

While being nerfed by [My Darkest Thoughts], he really could only perform either a full gravity suppression or reduce gravity’s pull on somebody one at a time. Meanwhile, his wide-range gravity suppression was weak enough that we could stand up with a bit of effort, although it was noticeable. This probably would be a great training method, if this guy wasn’t our enemy.

“Raaaaagh!” And it was clear that Maagneil was starting to notice this. That wild roar was filled to the brink with irritation, and this showed when he continued to speak. “Manethala! These people want to steal your gold, ore, and the stories you’ve written down! These people are responsible for the destruction of Dravlia Kongun’s workshop! Manethala the Avaricious, they are stealing from your wealth!”

“Huuuuraaaaaaarrrrrrrgrh!”

What?!

All of us snapped our heads around as our [Danger Perception] skills all activated simultaneously. The drake and dungeon master of this rank A dungeon roared out, his wounds still not fully recovered. Our skills determined him to be a threat, and that became clear when he smashed the ground with his tail, causing the ground to quake so much, King Fugnarus and I had to redraw our aggression from Maagneil to fortify the ground, protecting everybody.

This issue was exacerbated when Maagneil caused ravines to open in the ground, even turning them into slopes. Manethala’s crazed rampage caused even the ceiling to start to break apart and his amassed mountains of gold and ore to spray around the battlefield like a fountain. With blood slowly dropping from his open chest wound, the drake stood back and lashed at us, forcing King Fugnarus to lift the ground up into the air and block the claw attack.

“Distract!” Maagneil’s order caused Manethala to jerk back, clutching his chest in agony. With a loud roar, he coiled himself into a ball and began to bounce.

Shit!

“I gave him the damn antidote, Sensei!” Tatsuya suddenly shouted, meaning Saori had instructed Tatsuya to cure the drake from the winter’s gift when I couldn’t. So, what the hell was going on here?!

With us faraway, Maagneil used this chance to escape, using the Earth Elemental Emperor’s ability to morph the earth into what looked like two serpent golems, the same ones I fought during my encounter with the emperor. Those fodder were sent after us, forcing us to defend ourselves while Manethala was causing the room to shake as if we were inside a doll house.

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The earth underneath Maagneil propelled him up before he began to drill himself through it. That should be impossible! The ceiling and walls of a dungeon were unbreakable, unless … that damn rebellion orb! Maagneil used that same trick in our last encounter to escape from me, and he was doing the same thing again by moving upwards!

Move!

[“I’ll cover us!”] Saori’s voice erupted as her shadow suddenly burst up like a fountain, when Manethala’s bouncing body was about to crush us.

Allied Territory detected! [Yomi] has been activated!

Her Territory grabbed us like a tidal wave before it sunk us into the world of shadows, saving us from the incoming impact. She swam with us attached to her towards her [Shadow Dash] target, only for us all to suddenly fall towards the ground. We were on the ceiling.

“Me, next! Get ready to fly!” Vifi’Yok clapped her feet together.

Allied Territory detected! [Magnetic Storm] has been activated!

Red electricity covered the demonkin in its veil before we suddenly felt a force pushing us away from Manethala. All of us crashed against the ceiling while Vifi’Yok stood in the air, but this short moment of rest was quickly dissipated when we saw the hole Maagneil went through slowly closing, while the drake himself was attempting to push himself through the magnetic force of Vifi’Yok’s Territory through sheer power.

I called for Saori to wrap everybody in her liquid shadow and to attach everyone to me. Once that was done, Vifi’Yok reversed her force, causing all of us to be pulled towards her, sticking together as if we were glued onto each other.

“Fucking hot!” the demonkin exclaimed, and that was the case for everybody since in my overdrive mode, every single scale-dust under my scales were exploding like crazy. I was melting everybody until I replaced [The Heir of Hope] with [Dragon Fire].

As I was healing everybody with a [Sanctified Blaze], I noticed Manethala being pulled towards Vifi’Yok, too, prompting me to sicc my [Sun, Consume All] at Manethala, burning and holding him back. With the biggest question mark distracted, I directed my head to the hole and unleashed my own Territory.

Mana Release activated. Aura used as control unit: [Draconic Aura Lv. 5]. Territory [Magmakammer] has been established

Like a soaring, burning rocket, Hestia Airlanes once again was in business as I flew through the hole while melting everything around me into magma. Even if this hole was closing up, I would just make my own way forward! Maagneil would not escape us!

The sound of Manethala in pursuit was, naturally, quite unnerving as my sun couldn’t stop him for long. The light at the bottom of this tunnel showed the earth drake crawling towards us like a bloodhound hunting a rabbit through its den, all while searing white flames were slowly burning through its shell. The sight was horrifying, to say the least, and it was made worse as he kept shouting and shouting after us in a mad frenzy.

[“[Mental Corruption (Major)]. Maagneil did something to him!”] Ellaine correctly deduced the real cause behind our temporary ally turning against us, reminding me how Grimnir’s actions and personality were extremely eccentric after he spent hours with the fake Broggart and the aberration in his chest.

This was demonic encroachment, as Vifi’Yok called it.

With that guy in hot pursuit, I flew higher and higher, until light appeared before my eyes. I flew right through the tunnel, only for all of us to gasp as we saw where we ended up at—the battlefield where we left our allies to fight Galg and the dragonkin slayers.

There, we saw numerous corpses littering the ground. Some enemies, and some—may their souls rest in peace—our allies sent by the respective kingdom to support our endeavors. I grimaced even further when I saw some of the members of our expedition force injured or unconscious, being healed by Asaka through a [Room] portal.

While this was definitely bad news, there was also some good news, as I quickly identified the frozen statue of the dragonslayer mage, while the body of the katzune archer was torn into two amongst the bodies of five human knights all bearing the insignia of Artorias’s Knights of the Lionheart. All our allies gave their life to fight them, killing practically every enemy … except for the most tenacious.

“… Dragons.”

Surrounded by a sea of blood, Galg stared at us as we all burst from the hole. His armor was worn down to the point there were holes we could see through, including exposing his right eye. With his two bloodied blades in hand, he was so focused on our entrance that he even showed his back to a group of worn out expedition members. There were four blessed in that group, including numerous strong members from Aurora and my family there, so why hasn’t that damn Galg died yet?!

However, all of these thoughts were futile as I snapped my head to the ceiling, where Maagneil was drilling himself through again. I asked Vifi’Yok to pull in our allies, as to rescue the living and deceased so we could all escape and survive. However, just as that happened, the very ground splintered up.

“Gruuuhhhhaaaaarrgh!” It was the very sight of a monster movie; that Manethala knew how to give us goosebumps. It also didn’t help that my bloody white flame sun was still following behind him like some sorta spotlight!

Ruuuuuun away! I mean, fly away!

Vifi’Yok clapped her feet, reversing the magnetism to send everybody away, before undoing it to make everybody pulled towards her. Midway through, Tehmrayn caught onto Galg, making sure he wouldn’t get on Hestia Airlines by bashing him with his trident, before Master mauled him with a water triceratops.

As that dragonslayer was sent back to the ground and kept there, I ordered my sun to continue what it was doing before, until everybody was back together. Although they were confused, I left the explaining to Saori as I blast away in hot pursuit of Maagneil.

13 floors; we flew through 13 floors of this rank A dungeon without any stops as Maagneil kept using the powers of the Earth Emperor to try and slow me down, but nothing would stop me while I had [Battle Frenzy (Minor)], [Solar Beam]’s overdrive mode, and my Territory active. All that was missing was my [Symphonie des Feuergottes] here, too bad I couldn’t cast it with how fast I was flying.

We need to stop him! He can’t escape!

The rebellion orb’s purpose was to break a dungeon, causing it to go into a rampage. The moment he got back to the surface, I could already imagine the destruction he could wreck with the powers of the Earth Emperor, not to mention how Manethala was still following us.

Crack!

And the bad news wouldn’t stop as my core cracked again, and this time, it was quite severe. I was overstressing myself again. Even if my solar core could handle more pressure now, it was still not strong enough! However, I had to push myself. There was just no time to waste!

[“Vifi’Yok, I need you to catch him!”]

She nodded to my request. “Throw me!”

Clapping her feet again to reverse the magnetism, its force pushed everybody away except for me as I kept a tight grip on Vifi’Yok’s arm. Still, no matter how much I tried, it wouldn’t last long and I knew it, but only a second was enough for me to twist my body, throwing the demonkin as close as possible to Maagneil as we reached the final floor before we hit the surface.

In this giant forest, there was finally enough room that Maagneil couldn’t obstruct us. Even if he tried to control the earth, King Fugnarus was able to stop him by counteracting the earth manipulation. As such, Vifi’Yok flew up into the “sky,” finally close enough for her Territory to take effect on him.

With a single clap, the gundam flew towards her as she readied my glaive to attack. All of us on the ground were also naturally drawn towards her, aiding us in this last-ditch effort to stop this madman from fleeing, but nothing was ever so simple as Manethala also caught up.

With the earth exploding, letting the humongous drake through, a savage roar escape his mouth as he attempted to bite all us, forcing the majority of us to defend ourselves, leaving Saori, Ellaine, Tasianna, and Grimnir as the only ones left to help Vifi’Yok out.

“Wind!” One of the Saints of Zephira—Azelfa—drew his bow, releasing an arrow that dug right into Maagneil’s gundam while creating a slipstream. He then blew himself out of a claw attack from Manethala, weaving himself through the air like a dancer.

Due to the many injured—the students, several members of the support force, and even Akast—the rest of us had to help them escape from this chaos as they had no other way to survive. Thankfully, the slipstream Azelfa created allowed all of us some leeway to fly and dash away with [Air Walk], while the four last people responsible for Maagneil’s apprehension used Vifi’Yok magnetism to fly away.

“Maagneil!” Grimnir shouted before shooting out a flamethrower with his blasthammer, causing him to crash against the others to fly higher.

Tasianna, instead of flying, threw her ice blades into the sky and used [Wind Blast] to send them flying even higher. Saori caught them with her [Dark Tendrils] and dragged Ellaine with her up even further, before allowing the latter to shoot up. Morphing her arm into a long, stretchy tentacle appendage, Ellaine threw it towards Vifi’Yok, prompting the latter to catch it with her glaive to throw the demonized right at the gundam, allowing Ellaine to land a massive punch right into the chest of the golem with [Musclemass] strengthening her arm.

As Ellaine’s attempt broke through several layers, Vifi’Yok’s Territory was still active, causing Maagneil to close into her impending lightning attack. He could still use his gravity to push her away, but her magnetism would just pull him after her. As such, there was now no chance for him to escape except for aiming his cannon at her in a desperate move.

But that was why Ellaine was there. With her arm now morphed into a sickle blade she hacked right into the arm, causing it to slightly bend to Maagneil’s chagrin. His last possible move was removed, and that meant we finally caught this bas—

“This is not where it ends!” Maagneil’s ghastly voice interrupted my thought process.

Through the slits of the gundam, red light erupted as the entire chamber began to rumble. The ground below us was moving towards the ceiling like one of those spike room traps. The rock tendrils on the gundam activated as well, pushing Ellaine and Vifi’Yok back, even sacrificing his cannon arm to Vifi’Yok’s slash to make his plan come to fruition.

As we all landed on the ground with the floor closing up on us, including Manethala, it became clear Vifi’Yok’s Territory was working against us. Everybody was being pulled towards her, forcing her to deactivate it.

Allied Territory [Magnetic Storm] deactivated

And just like that, Maagneil’s gambit worked as he flew up to the ceiling, drilling himself through, while people like Tehmrayn, Yorshka, and Master were forced to fight against Manethala before the earth drake’s head eventually touched the top. With our strongest fighters fending the drake off, Saori gathered the rest with her [Yomi] around me so I could fly everybody up through the hole Maagneil created.

With gritted teeth, we could only watch as we saw the real sun once again in the clear, blue sky of Peolynca … only, we had a clear problem behind and in front of us. Maagneil’s gundam had crash landed right in front of the Event dungeon, sending the festival held there into a massive panic. A ton of people were hurt by the move, a number of whom died upon impact.

71 human, beastman, elf, dwarf followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 22306

… You unforgivable skorr!

All we could do was only watch as the rocky tendrils of his erupted, digging themselves into the ground, causing widespread chaos and destruction. People were sent flying. The ground began to tremble as gnomacotta warriors were being created from all this, all to serve one purpose: delay us for his escape.

… Whether he knew I was a goodie two-shoes or not did not matter, as I couldn’t help but grimace as the screams of everybody below me tormented my mind. The sight of siblings being separated, children crying over their lost families, and friends trying to save each other from the sudden terrorist attack.

172 human, beastman, elf, dwarf followers lost

Total follower count updated. Total followers of [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]: 22134

It took 243 fans of mine and how many more to die before the information was finally processed. It wasn’t due to shock or confusion; this was just the time I needed to understand what Maagneil had done the moment we reached the surface. All this happened in a couple of seconds; so many people’s lives were ended in a matter of seconds.

And it wasn’t over, for the roar of Manethala erupted from behind us. Even more seconds passed where it was impossible to help the people before me, as I had to focus on my own survival and to not get crushed by Manethala as he burst through the ground, destroying the entirety of the dungeon’s entrance and sending everything else flying. The fighters we left to fend him off were also included in the latter portion.

As my heart dropped in despair, the glimmer of my white flame sun finally graced me once more, preserving anybody hurt in their attempt to stop Manethala. It helped to clear up my mind. It reminded me that I wasn’t a hero … but I was still an idol and it was my job to assure the rest survived.

Those who died were gone. I could mourn for them later on, for the resolve I built up since Eshe’s death had trained me for this moment. I wasn’t a hero, for a hero was somebody who could save everybody. I was, however, a blessed of Aurena, the Origin Goddess of Light, Healing, Miracles, and Kinship.

I needed to do my job.

[“Woooaaaahhhhaa … ”]

However, there was one last distraction I had to face first. A sultry, almost disgusting, voice greeted me once more after so long.

[“Hello, darlings. The game of hide-and-seek seems to be over completely. So …what did I miss?”]

Klea’Hatma had awoken.