Stepping through the portal, Mathew saw he entered what can only be described as a wasteland. There was nothing. No trees, and no grass, the sky was covered in clouds, and the land was flat.

Mathew saw not far away dozens of figures. Animals, beasts, and humanoids, are all on the ground, and a few were flying in the air.

“Shit, I wasn’t expecting to fight as soon as we got in here,” Agnox said as he ignited his armor with flames using his [Wrath Armor] skill.

Mathew already started to channel a [Mana Bolt] through his rod. “Don’t hold back. Nothing leaves this dungeon, no matter what. Agnox, you and the bird are on destruction duty. Focus more on finishing them off rather than outright fighting. Everyone else but Cherry focus on harming but doesn’t worry about killing. They can’t die until the bodies are completely destroyed.”

Cherry and Agnox both nodded. “Cherry, I’m counting on you to keep us alive.” He pulled out pills from his bag and tossed one to her. “Mana pill. Only use it when you are almost empty, only lasts for ten minutes after that you are done.” He tossed one to Agnox, “Healing pill. You know how to use it.” Mathew had his own stockpile ready to summon to his hand when needed.

He watched as a section of enemies started to charge toward him.

“Go!” Mathew shouted. “Before they get too close and we can’t stop them from escaping the Dungeon!”

All of his summons par Cherry and the wisps took off. Mathew threw several bolts of mana as he focused on wings or legs to knock them down for Agnox to burn away. He noticed the sheer number disadvantage he had and frowned.

“I’m going to have to fight as well in the melee. There are too many for Jeffery to handle on his own.” He quickly swapped his rod for the spear and Cherry noticed this as she fired a thorn from her hand.

“Really? Do you think that’s the smart move right now? What if you get infected!”

“I don’t have a choice. Either I go in and help them, or they die quicker. This isn’t a single enemy we wear down slowly. This is an onslaught that we have to overpower.” Mathew said as he looked up at his wisps.

Cherry placed a hand on Mathew and used her [Pink Touch] spell. “Hopefully the regeneration effect lasts long enough. If I see you go down I’m coming to get you.”

“I don’t plan on going down,” Mathew said as he ran forward.

He had his spear ready to pierce the first enemy that came close to him. With his Axiom of Bolster empowering his body, Mathew was in the fray in a matter of seconds. He stabbed through a wolf with his spear, very little blood spewing out of the wound.

Mathew left his spear in the wolf, creating one with his own mana. The wolf was pinned and couldn’t move. It thrashed around as Mathew took two steps to his left moving to the next nearest enemy.

Agnox was flying through the air letting loose jets of flames and adjusted his flight path to not hit Mathew. A large bobcat narrowly avoided the flames to just get rammed by Jeffery who slashed at its exposed side with his giant claws.

Mathew pinned the bobcat down to the ground and looked to find something else to kill or pin down. The entire time he was looking for what could be considered the ‘boss’ of the Dungeon, or the Dungeon Core. Either one would allow him to shut the Dungeon down and claim it.

His one fear was that the boss wasn’t in the Dungeon currently. If it was a single parasite, then that would make it impossible to find it and confirm if it is the boss. Mathew raised a [Mana Shield] as a human appeared from nowhere in the air and was falling down at him with a sword.

Mathew didn’t recognize who it was but could tell it was human. He created a short spear in his hand and stabbed forward. To his surprise, the human blocked it with a [Mana Shield] of its own.

“You possessed or can you actually talk to me?” Mathew asked it, in hopes to capture it alive if it could talk.

Instead, it let out an inhuman screech, its mouth opening wider than should be possible. Mathew blasted it with [Mana Bolt] before starting to stab at it repeatedly.

Multiple bolts of mana flew through the air as Wispy and Whis sprayed their attacks across the field. Wispy’s torrent of rapidly fired blue energy rarely hit, but it forced the enemy infectred to dodge randomly, throwing off their rhythm. Whis on the other hand fired calculated attacks. Choosing each one carefully before firing a powerful attack.

Mixed into those attacks were thorns from Cherry. Who kept a watchful eye on Mathew, Jeffery, and Agnox, ready to jump in and start healing them if it was needed.

She watched as the total hoard of enemies grew closer, and she couldn’t help but think that this was possibly a bad idea.

Agnox fought off a bird that had reached its claws out to him. His flaming armor prevented it from getting too close as he sliced at it with his flaming sword. Sweat was covering his head, using far more mana than he was used to in such a short period of time. “I’m not a mage anymore, I gotta keep my mana usage low. But damn it feels good to use a constant use spell again!”

Agnox dove down, cleaving through a deer that was about to charge Mathew, leaving behind a blackened wound. Mathew took the chance and lept to the side to stab through the deer with an ice-made spear.

He looked back and saw the wolf his main spear held down was mostly melted by the spirit bird and recalled it to his hand. The physical weapon soon found itself used again to pierce down another human, this one wearing nothing on its body and fighting using its hands.

Mathew counted seven humanoids thus far. Six were humans, but one was another elf. He noticed the crowd around him was thickening and needed to lock down more enemies before he was overwhelmed.

He shot out three chains of ice at the most dangerous looking infected. The [Frostrim Chains] wrapped around and tightened around his targets. He didn’t empower them, keeping his Axiom of Bolster working hard so he stayed mobile enough to dodge and weave through attacks.

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Thanks to the Lightning Elemental paired with the Axiom, he was nearly 50% faster than he was before. He panicked as he saw Agnox fall out of the air, but didn’t see anything near him to cause it.

That was until he saw a large explosion of dark flames flash over the hoard. Mathew then saw him fly back into the air, smoke trailing behind him. He used his spear's reach to keep creatures far from him, but he was finding it hard to keep himself from getting totally surrounded.

He panicked as a deer and wolf charged him at the same time. He jumped out of the way, only for a large hawk to fly at him and rake its claws over his side. Mathew fell to the ground, forced to roll to the side.

His robes had protected him, but the attack still stung. He needed a way out of the surrounding monsters. He didn’t have a large area of attack like Agnox did to push them back. He needed to make something, but using a ritual would take forever, and none of his weapons could be used as a step.

He considered using his spear as a pole vault, but he wouldn’t be able to move in the air after that just for another bird to attack him. With a grunt, he accepted that he was stuck here for a moment. A quick mental check showed him where all his summons were. To his surprise, he noticed Cherry was running latterly with only Wispy following her. Whis someone was taken out recently, which meant something was chasing them.

Mathew looked to try and see Agnox or anyone else to shout at, but couldn’t. “Shit, okay new plan. Kill everything.” Mathew swapped out his spear for a throwaway staff and started to flood it with mana.

He held it down at his side and aimed at the thinner part of the monsters that were surrounding him. At the last moment, he swapped to his Axiom of Endurance and focused on his hands as the staff exploded from the overcharge of mana.

He ran through the smoke and debris that fell around him as he dove over a bear that had been tossed onto its side. He stood back up and threw more chains at anything near him before stabbing it with a spear made of his own mana.

With a glance, he could see Cherry running from a red-skinned humanoid, “Is that an Infernal? What is he doing here!”

Mathew didn't have time to question why he was in the Dungeon but assumed it was yet another infected creature. He summoned his rod and charged a powerful [Mana Bolt] that he infused with his Axiom of Piercing.

With a throwing motion, the bolt zoomed forward as he controlled it to dodge random monsters that got in the way thanks to the craze of battle.

He struck the infernal in the chest where its heart would be. That stopped it long enough for Cherry to get away. Mathew was too focused on saving the dryad that the bear had broken the [Frostrim Chains] and pushed Mathew down on the ground with its heavy paws.

Mathew rose a shield stopping the bear from stomping on top of him again. His back was slick with blood, but he didn’t focus on that right now. Instead, he pointed the rod and fired multiple [Mana Bolt] spells into the chest of the bear.

The bear slumped on top of the shield, and Mathew rolled out from under it. He was breathing heavily, not used to fighting this intensely at so many monsters. The idle thought of what the Apprentice rank floor in the World Dungeon’s floor hoards would have been like. He wondered if this was worse or on par with that.

These creatures had a far range of levels. Mathew thought the archer human had to be around forty to fifty. Most of the monsters here were around fifteen to thirty. The infernal to go down from a single strike was a similar level range.

Mathew ran back to Cherry backing away from the somewhat thinner hoard that still had a few dozen alive members. Mathew could see several spears of his sticking out of wounds that had broken from the ones he had pinned down, but Agnox nor the Spirit Bird didn’t get to in time to finish them off.

Cherry put a hand on Mathew, healing the wound on his back. “I thought your robes had a shield effect.”

“Didn’t think to use it yet. Saving it for something more life-endangering.” He huffed as he threw yet another [Mana Bolt] before draining mana from his rod that was stored inside thanks to his [Staves] skill to store mana.

Mathew noticed his Ice elemental was gone sometime during the fray of battle. He didn’t expect it to last long anyways and wasn’t worried about something that could be summoned again.

“Mathew, we need to leave. I don’t think we can kill them all off.” Cherry said with concern.

“No. We end it here,” he said with determination.

Cherry looked at Mathew’s face, seeing something in his eyes that wasn’t there often. It was anger. Her mind went to the screen that popped up from the ritual. “There is no way he is doing this to fight that he is Fate Marked is it?”

“Mathew, this doesn’t have to do with what was on that screen saying you were Fate Marked does it?” She asked.

“No,” Mathew said, not looking at her. Instead, he watched as Agnox landed next to Jeffery to help get a pair of bobcats off his back.

“Mathew, this isn’t the smart thing to do here. We need to retreat and come back better prepared. You are injured, and Agnox and Jeffery are on wit's end. Whis is dead, no more elementals, and that bird can’t last forever either.”

“I told you it doesn’t. If we leave, the parasites can spread. We need to just get to the Dungeon Core and close the Dungeon or kill the boss.”

“Then do that instead of fighting. You are going to get yourself killed.” She finished healing him and stepped back. “I’m not going to die because you are blinded by rage.”

“I’m not angry,” Mathew said. Cherry knew it was a lie.

“Mathew I’m serious here. I don’t care what that screen said. But if you die here, then everything you’ve done so far is for nothing. Think here for a moment before you go too far and can’t take it back.”

The summoner clenched his jaw as he looked at Cherry.

Mathew was tempted to unsummon Cherry to shut her up. He knew what he was doing. He was doing this because he wanted to. For Blue Oaks. For everything, he’s done so far. “Why couldn’t she see it my way?”

Mathew’s head spun back to the fight as yet another explosion from Agnox killed more of the infected. “I’m ending it here,” Mathew said sternly. “Because I want to. Either help me get to that core, stay here, or leave. I’ll even unsummon you if you want, but I’m ending it now before it gets out of hand.”