Everybody looked at Gerald.

[What?]

“Well… We do need a strong frontline if we are going to do this…” General Red said.

[Why are you just looking at me then? You got Torin too.]

“Hey man, don’t bring me into this.” Torin backed away.

[Why not? You even got that big shield and-]

The large, door-sized piece of metal clanged on the ground at Gerald’s feet.

“There, now you have the shield. Good luck!”

Gerald looked at the shield and then at Torin, lifting his eyebrow. [Really?]

General Orange just stared stupefied as the group bickered about who was going to go inside the mansion. Were they mad?! He just told them they got slaughtered without the chance to resist, and yet they were throwing around jokes and not taking his warning seriously at all!

And just when he thought they would finally stop and come to their senses, something even worse happened.

[Fine, fine! I’m going. Just watch me, you bunch of chicken. Scared of a little death. Bok, bok, bok!]

General Orange nearly lost his jaw on the floor as the guy went toward the mansion walking backward, all while imitating a chicken.

“Wait…” General Orange said weakly, but he was ignored.

Without any further ado, Gerald came to the entrance and stepped forward, disappearing into the darkness.

“Should we bet if he’s going to die?” Sunfire suddenly suggested.

“Ah!” General Orange gasped in disgust at her words. They were betting that their teammate would lose his life? What kind of teammates were they?! Did they hate the guy that much? And, worse yet, the guy was the weakest among them. He was sure of it. The guy was at the First Level while the rest were all at Four or Five.

“No thanks. That bet carries way too much risk.” Torin immediately declined and picked up his shield. Yes, Gerald didn’t even take it in the end. Just as he thought, it was all a ruse to expose him. Unlike him, he was afraid of death, but so what?!

“Hmm, how about we bet how many times he should die instead?” Astrid suggested. General Orange cocked his head at that. What could she possibly mean? Did he have a life-saving treasure he was not aware of? That would make sense then.

“Three times.” General Red quickly said. “I bet he’s going to go down three times in total. I’ll stake a hundred Spirit Stones for it.”

Magnus chuckled. “Cheepskate. Afraid you wil lose, eh, boss? Fine, I’ll bet he gets minced four times then!” He pulled out a pouch and counted out a hundred white shiny rocks.

“Hmm, I’ll go with…” Astrid tapped her finger on her cheek, thinking.

“Madness, you are all mad!” General Orange exclaimed. He wanted to pull out his hair in frustration, but then he noticed a figure returning from the depths of the ancient mansion.

[Hey guys!] Gerald called and waved at them from afar. Beside him floated a small diamond prism slightly larger than a basketball. It was a dull shade of brass and slightly dirty on a few edges.

[I found this little guy! Is this the one?]

“Ye- Yes!” General Orange shouted, his voice trembling. The other five quickly ran closer to see.

[That’s what you were afraid of? But this guy is completely harmless!] He said. The floating prism bobbed up and down around him, spinning while flying in a spiral.

“Watch out!” General Orange shouted. “It's a trap!”

[Hmm? What is?]

“That thing! It also acted peaceful when we met it, but then it suddenly began killing without mercy!” The man continued to shout. “It's probably measuring your strength!”

[Oh, well, that's smart.] Gerald grinned before turning to the prism. [Isn't that right, little-]

The diamond prism disappeared and a split second later, they heard a loud bang. Gerald stumbled back and groaned. The thing just smashed into his head at full speed.

[Hey! That the heck!] There was a mark on his forehead. A painful mark in the shape of a plus. The thing tried to ram its sharp point into his head!

Before Gerald had time to recover, the flying prism smashed into him again. And then again, and again, and again… The sound was like that of a machine gun firing, just that instead of bullets the explosions came when the metal drone collided with his head.

“How… How is he still alive?!” General Orange exclaimed. The rest of them smirked at him, having expected the result.

“Looks like nobody is going to win.” General Red murmured.

“Wait, it's not over yet. Who knows what might happen?” Astrid said while watching the beating with interest. While Gerald was not getting wounded, he was getting pretty messed up. After all those hits he was sure to at least get a bruise. Or, so she hoped. There really weren't many opportunities to examine his healing up close. It all happened so quickly, you could blink and miss it.

[Hah! Gotcha!] Gerald suddenly exclaimed, bringing the attention back to him. In his hands he held the drone, the little thing vibrating aggressively as it tried to escape.

[You guys were worried about this little thing? Easy peasy!] He laughed.

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“I… I don't believe it. General Orange murmured.” The rest just laughed and approached. It really was easy. But then they heard a soft click, and the drone split vertically, revealing a glowing metal core inside.

[Ah?] Gerald blinked a few times. A moment later a thin white line flashed across his body from head to toe, splitting him perfectly in half.

“That's one! Sunfire celebrated.” She bet that Gerald would die two times. She was the lowest on the bets.

The two parts of the body began to tilt in opposite directions, when suddenly, under the shocked gaze of General Orange, they merged back together.

[Ah! That hurt!] Gerald shouted, smashing the prism drone into the thick walls of the mansion. The drone responded by bisecting him for the second time.

Gerald regenerated. [Son of a-!] And got cut again, ending his curse mid-sentence.

“Damn it.” Sunfire's mood instantly soured. She had lost her bet. The only question was by how much.

[What the hell is the point of Cultivating indestructibility?!] Gerald roared. He got cut again, sideways that time. [If I can still get hurt?!]

Even though he could regenerate and not die from the seemingly mortal wound, Gerald still felt all the pain that came with the damage. Worse yet, because he was always in his top shape, he felt everything perfectly. Sometimes he could ignore the pain, if he was in the heat of battle, or even use it to fuel his rage, but against an inanimate object, such feelings developed differently.

He was getting goddamn frustrated!

Transforming into his battle form, he grew tail, scales, and horns, and gripped the diamond-shaped enemy with both hands, pushing his claws into the opening. He roared as he pulled, trying to tear the prism apart at the seams. He kept pulling, and there was suddenly a click.

Gerald grinned, thinking the thing was breaking apart, but it just opened some more.

All eight sides split apart and the core inside began to glow with even greater intensity.

[Huh?]

Suddenly the light exploded from the core, spitting out a web of lines that completely cut apart anything they touched. Gerald was instantly turned into thousands of roughly equal chunks of meat and then collapsed on the ground.

The floating diamond prism remained in its spot before closing up again and began bobbing side to side as it continued to scan the area for more intruders.

“He's… dead?” General Orange said, sounding uncertain. Many gazes from the other five were somber, expressing grief.

“Damn it. I lost the bet.” General Red finally said. General Orange felt like spitting out bile and his organs alike. Just spitting blood didn't feel like enough to express his emotions when he heard that statement.

[Roar!]

Gerald, having already regenerated, expanded his body, and pounced on the drone. He gripped it in one hand like a baseball and hurled it into the wall at full force. The thing bounced off the stone like a bouncy ball and kept bouncing for a while.

As soon as it stopped, Gerald was already upon it, smashing and tearing at its hard, dull golden shell with his claws. Seeing that they did little damage, he threw it on the ground and proceeded to stomp on it.

At first, the damage was nonexistent, so he increased his weight. All enchantments keeping him light went away and even reversed, giving him that extra oomph he needed. Each of his stomps shook the ground and General Orange ran towards safety in case there was another cavein.

Beating, punching, stomping, biting... Whatever you could think of, Gerald did it. He was going apeshit on the ancient guardian, doing his best to break it. It didn't freaking work!

He used swords and axes to beat it, but whatever the metal it was made of was, it didn't take any damage.

[This is insane!] He roared in exasperation. Having an enemy that would not die was bullshit! How was that even allowed?!

The prism split apart once more, and he saw the glowing insides for the second time.

[Do it then, coward! You won't! I dare you!] He taunted the prism. His tail flickered anxiously behind him as the thing powered up for longer than usual. The light inside was getting brighter and brighter, showing that it had plenty of energy left.

Then, it fired. A supercharged beam straight at his center of mass.

But Gerald was faster. He predicted the shot and summoned a small mirror in his hands. The mirror he got from Elder De Danw all those years ago. There weren't many uses for the spell-reflecting mirror, but once in a while…

The blast was instantly reflected, striking the drone directly into the core, and blasting it into the opposing wall. Gerald grinned as the drone began shaking, unstable in its flight, and also began glowing brighter, but unlike before, the power core seemed unstable. It glowed ever brighter until it was like a miniature sun. And then… boom.

The entrance of the ancient mansion was blasted apart, the thick stone walls and pillars around it were turned to rubble in an instant, the reinforcing arrays like paper against the blast. The group of five long since realized the danger and quickly formed a bunker of stacked barriers, each Cultivator forming one on his own while at the same time adding energy to the main one.

Even then they just barely managed to hold. General Orange shouted over the sound of the blast, frightened out of his mind. That explosion was enough to tear a Sky Realm Cultivator to pieces if not instantly killing him outright. He was fully convinced of that.

If the structure didn't exhaust most of the blast's energy, he was sure they all would have died.

Good thing they didn't stand directly before the entrance too. Anything in front of it was evaporated, be it buildings or the cavern walls themselves. The cave just gained another expansion to it, that one freshly filled with rubble. Somehow all that shaking didn't trigger another cavein, a small relief to his already strained heart.

“Oh, man! The madman actually did it, haha!” General Red laughed after the dust settled. Rubble was everywhere and the dangerous drone was gone.

The rest of the team chuckled with him, waiting for Gerald to return.

“Ah, maybe he’s under the rubble.” Magnus suggested after a few minutes of waiting with nothing happening. He threw himself at the collapsed entrance, tossing large rocks and stones to the side.

“Alright people, let’s dig!” General Red ordered and began swatting away boulders as easily as a Mortal would fluffy pillows. All five of them began to shift the crushed rocks, be it with their hands or magic.

Meanwhile, General Orange kept watching them while shaking his head. “Madmen, they are all crazy… Who are they kidding?!”

The guy was dead, why were they digging?! Nobody could survive such a blast even at a great distance, let alone taking it directly to the face. They were just fooling themselves thinking he was still alive, but considering all that happened, he didn’t think it too much if shock made them unable to think straight. He certainly nearly lost his right there. He couldn’t imagine how he would feel if he lost someone close. Just his warriors dying was already a hard blow, let alone losing a friend.

However, eventually, after what must have been an hour of digging and clearing out the rubble, there was still no sign of the body. How could there be? The man was vaporized.

“Guys…” General Orange began, trying to get them to stop.

“Oh! I think I found something!” Sunfire called and was quickly joined by the others, revealing a small black crystal shard.

“Isn’t that… Gerald had something on his chest, didn’t he?” Astrid thought out loud.

General Red’s face turned somber. He had been suspecting it for a while already, considering how much time had already passed with no sign of Gerald, but he didn’t want to say it out loud. The fact that their new friend was most likely dead.

“Wait, what are you saying?” Sunfire said, holding the broken crystal tightly.

“I’m sorry, but… He probably didn’t make it…”

There was a moment of silence.

“You guys suck!” Magnus suddenly shouted. “There’s no way my younger Brother is dead! You’ll see, we’ll find him!” And he threw himself back to work, soon finding more of those black fragments strewn all over the site.

“No… No, no, no! It can’t be!” Sunfire suddenly shouted unable to accept the possibility. “He can’t be gone, he can’t be! He promised to teach me more, he promised…”

General Red squeezed his eyes tight and clenched his teeth. That was reality, yet he refused to accept it. “Let’s continue.” He said eventually and began breaking rocks and tossing them aside with increased speed. He had to distract himself from the dark thoughts swimming in his mind.

The fragments of the black crystal, the only thing that remained after the explosion that could possibly belong to Gerald, were slowly gathered into a small pile.

Hours already passed since the incident with the work continuing, yet there was still no sign of change.

Until there was.