Huge, truly tremendous magic waves were scattering throughout the structure of the castle.

The sun lost its stability and was mere moments from exploding. I inhaled deeply—in fact, the deepest I ever did. And screamed,

"Gate, come to me; I summon you."

The Gate appeared in a loud flash. Such a situation required exiting the car; we had already killed at least twenty vampires so we were qualified for the next car.

As I reached for the ticket, I felt a bit of regret for leaving Lillian vanish; what a waste, but we had no choice. Then Jinhyung grabbed me and threw me on top of the gate, leaping near me.

"No time; cover your head."

Not even a second after his warning, everything was swept away by scarlet flames.

A powerful magic pressure crushed my spirit. But the Gate didn't burn at all. Everything bathed in ruthless flames, but somehow this hellish destruction avoided the Gate.

Flames above us curled; we were completely isolated. If this continued, the heat and the lack of air would lead to our demise.

Luckily, no amount of magic couldn't sustain this hell for long. The flames gradually thinned and, after some time, completely disappeared.

It felt good to breathe freely again. As I looked around, the castle around us completely collapsed.

For the first time, the second car bathed in sunlight. The terrible magic shock wave from the explosion breached through the eternal storm clouds.

Everything around us was now ruined, turned to ashes or crumbled under the terrible power that was unleashed.

Nonetheless, one single tower still stood straight, I felt a fearful power from it; mayhap was it the residence of Lillian?

The Gate floated about 40 meters above the remains of the chimera garden.

The crushing presence of the abomination was clearly gone, but a strong magic source still remained. I looked down, its corpse wasn’t completely gone.

I shivered, thinking even the sun, although fake, couldn't completely erase such a monster. Beneath some of the bone, a crimson light shone. Its location correlated with the origin of the remaining magic power.

"Hey Jinhyung, how do we get down?"

Nothing. I asked again,

"Are you ok?"

Still nothing. I turned around; he was sleeping. Did he pass out from the lack of oxygen? Or maybe from the excessive heat?

Usually, I didn't worry about him. Should I start doing that? It seemed that he enjoyed his nap… I didn't want to wake him up just yet.

I didn't have any idea how to get down, and as long as the Gate summoning was maintained, we should be safe.

The clouds have already started to fill the gap and hide away the warm sunlight; soon, this world would turn back to its sad, grey palette.

The aftermath of the explosion left an insane amount of magic energy in the atmosphere. Turbulences got so strong, they pushed me around. It was a perfect opportunity for me to strengthen my spirit.

As before, I closed my eyes and looked within. My spirit hadn't progressed a whole lot since the first car, maybe apart from the core being a bit more stable.

I used my old trick to increase my magic intake and started to refine my spirit paths by pushing an increased load through them.

If I increased the maximum amount of magic I could control at once, I could use the full potential of the Witchstone pendant. Right now, using it overloads my spirit, making me quickly lose control.

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I pushed far beyond my limits. I had to surpass my old self anyway. A burning sensation overwhelmed me, my already strained body ached even more.

Blood started to fill my mouth and cramps riddled my muscles. I wanted to stop, but I couldn't. I could feel my strength growing, and my longing for magic was far greater than my fear of suffering.

I would have probably continued meditating until I lost consciousness, but before that happened, I was punched in the neck and lost concentration.

"Stop it; you cannot gather all of the strength of this world just because you are stubborn. Cultivation is a long journey, and shortcuts will always end up destroying your progress," said Jinhyung as his voice trembled in anger.

He was right; I risked wounding my body and spirit, but refusing strength was too hard for me.

"You are already awake?" I changed topic as I felt quite guilty.

"Of course, you moved a lot of energy; I couldn't stay asleep."

He still looked angry, I felt a bit of sadness upsetting him so much.

“I will take care of myself… promised…” I mumbled looking down.

Half convinced, he looked away from my sorry face.

“We should get going, I feel her gaze.”

"Do you have any idea how to get down?"

"I still have my rope."

He took out a pretty sizable coil.

"But how to attach it?"

The Gate was quite flat and had nothing to tie a rope to.

"Can you try to freeze onto the wood?" Jinhyung scratched his chin in wonder.

I took the rope from his hands and depleted a bit of it on the ground. I then opened the grimoire on the second chapter and started to channel magic into it.

Although my spirit vessels were slightly damaged and were still painful to use, I felt a significant difference in power. If my previous magic throughput was compared to a straw; now it was more akin to a water hose.

A crystal of ice appeared on my palm. I held the end of the rope to the ground, and soon it was cast into large chunks of ice.

"Are you sure this is safe?"

"Do we have a choice?"

He was right.

"I will go first, if anything goes wrong, my body is stronger."

Jinhyung took the coil and immediately jumped. I just realized we didn't know how long the rope was. Before my worries became worse, I heard from the ground,

"ALL GOOD YOU CAN COME."

He was the one lecturing me on patience while he acted that recklessly? I grabbed the rope and started slowly climbing down.

My heart skipped a beat when I heard the ice crack, but it held on. My body shook a lot as fear took over, climbing was definitely not for me.

Once I reached the ropes end, I felt relief. But I couldn’t find the ground with my feet, I looked down; I couldn’t hold my voice. There was about 20 meters of void left before the ground.

"WHAT? HOW WILL GET DOWN."

"You want me to catch you? Just drop; I will get you."

I really didn't want that eventuality, but it seems I had no choice. I closed my eyes and let go of the rope. Air swirled in my ears, the seconds I spent in midair were unending.

A relentless war took place in my heart between my trust for Jinhyung and my fears.

He mercilessly slashed all my doubts, catching me in his wide arms.

"Thank you,” still all tensed up.

"It's nothing," he said with a smile.

We landed near the giant corpse; it was way more intimidating from up close. The crimson light emitted a strong magic flow; it was strong enough to blow my clothes like real wind.

As I walked toward the corpse, he wondered,

"Wait, are you going to let the Gate and the rope stay up there?"

I looked at him with a surprised expression.

"Is there even a way to get rid of a Gate without entering it?"

"Huh? Don't you know? You can just ‘intend’ the Gate to disappear..."

What? I didn't believe him. I looked up and screamed,

"Gate, be gone!"

And against my expectations, it disappeared leaving some sparks behind. Somehow, I mastered the art of being oblivious to the most simple solutions.

I quickly rolled the fallen rope back into a coil and stuffed it in my pants. Urgh, without my cloak, I barely had enough space for the empty grimoire and the rope.

We quickly arrived at the chimera's remains, we climbed the charred bones and finally reached the origin of the crimson light. A shiny rock, about 15 centimetres in diameter, laid amidst what was once the thoracic cage of the monster.

From its excessive energy content, I assumed it was the monster's core. Of course, it made sense that such a creature couldn't exist without an artificial energy supply; the vampires forced this amalgamation of flesh in motion.

"Hey, if I use this to supply you, could you sustain the complete Dawnbringer's stance?"

"I think I could, for about a dozen minutes; my body would break if I used it for any longer. And even then, you would need to create a steady flow; are you sure you can withstand such a tremendous force?"

"Trust me; I am not that weak."