Glenn, Isadora, Nora and Lioras continued to proceed in the direction indicated by the Recorder. They soon found themselves in an area rid of snow, a cavern with a tall ceiling barely letting through the moonlight. They had killed a few more snow Dragonoids, as Lioras had so adeptly decided to call them. They weren't very dangerous as fighters, and would just run around like headless chickens when spotted. Their only missions seemed to be contributing to the bad weather, which got better and better the more Dragonoids they killed.

'Wouldn't it be more fitting to call them headless lizards?' Diamanes commented very seriously. Glenn didn't even bother giving him a thought.

"The signal is getting closer and closer," Lioras said, his eyes glued to the Recorder, "We should be able to find something soon. Well, I'm saying we, but maybe you guys should leave me here before heading in—"

"I'll be taking the vanguard," Nora declared, disregarding the scholar's fears, "If anything happens that I can't handle, we quickly retreat and plan things out again, alright?"

Glenn and Isadora nodded. They carefully stepped inside the cavern, Lioras' magical light guiding their steps.

"Keep in mind that flight magic is still restricted," Isadora warned as they walked. The cavern was immense and reminiscent of what Glenn saw at the Blumar Quarry. No Blumar Golems were there threatening to wake up, though, so that was a plus.

"I think I prefer the easily slaughtered magical, snow dinosaurs to the stone golems impervious to damage," Nelg grunted. Glenn scoffed. He couldn't agree more. The cavern had a slight downward slope leading into the depths of the Dark Wall, hinting that they were indeed going in the right direction.

"Just to ask, does anyone here have any mastery over space magic?" Glenn suddenly asked, wondering about something. His companions shook their heads.

"Vilroy Lancer was the only one with spells related to space, and he's gone," Lioras mentioned dejectedly before frowning, "But why would you want any of us to cast space magic here? The Dark Wall makes it—"

“—Impossible, yes, I know,” Glenn finished the scholar's sentence with a hint of annoyance, ”But think about it. How else could a gigantic cube high enough to obscure the sky move inside a mountain range? There's no other explanation...” He rubbed his forehead and grimaced.” Although I wonder how the Blumar that makes up the Cube didn't disrupt the teleportation - or whatever magical means it used to suddenly get here,” Glenn added, rolling his eyes at the dubious expressions of his companions.

"Shh!" Nora suddenly stopped, her raised fist clenched. Glenn stood back, his sword drawn and his Mana ready to party. Lioras made his magical light leave the group's surroundings, instead lighting up a random place inside the cavern. Glenn couldn't help but salute this decision. Ordinarily, the normal reaction would have been to dismiss the magical light in a realistically stupid attempt to hide the group's presence. But by instead relocating the light, it would fool the incoming supposed enemy, while allowing the group the continued use of their sight.

'Quite the birds with one stone, if I dared so say myself,' Glenn thought. Once again, he was surprised by Lioras' sudden sound decisions. Maybe he was more than just an annoying, cowardly scholar. Glenn glanced at the latter and found him trembling from head to toe, his Mana twirling with poor control.

'... Never mind,' Glenn restrained a sigh and activated his Mana Sight.

'How did he even reach the Fifth Circle?' Diamanes asked in disbelief, 'That guy is spineless!'

'That's a question for later. Now...' Glenn gazed through the cavern's darkness, his eyes widening slightly as he found a massive mass of Mana moving with muffled steps in the direction of Lioras's light. Nora tensed up, exhaling a silent breath. The steam coming out of her mouth was peerlessly white, her eyes steeled with a single goal. She broke her katana's seal and grabbed the hilt tightly.

Glenn couldn't even try to see her move next. She flashed forward instantly, a snow-like Aura cutting through the darkness like a lighthouse's light in the storm.

GRAWR!!!

The wounded beast roared, shaking their surroundings with incredible strength.

"It sounds quite angry," Nelg noticed calmly.

"Fuck!" Nora cursed, "Scholar, we need light NOW!"

Lioras didn't even waste a second replying, "Magnus Lux Solis!"

The cavern filled up with warm light, chasing away every shadow and revealing a massive scaled beast whose head was dangling dangerously off its neck. A large gushing wound was carved at the base of its collar, permeated with snow-like Aura. Despite the Aura, the flesh grew back like nothing, and the scaled beast roared once again. It looked...very much like a dragon, a wingless dragon. It had two small black eyes that were angrily squinting at Nora.

It was large enough to fill a good part of the cavern. Glenn glanced behind it and almost gasped. There were two massive doors on the floor, the same ones he passed with Sahro to find the Laboratory.

There was no doubt. This was the same Cube they found back in the Blumar Quarry. And for some reason, a massive lizard was keeping it safe. Nora sheathed her katana back as she jumped to safety, ready for another dash and slice. Isadora's eyes lit up with powerful Mana as a big sword of light appeared above her head. She grabbed the ethereal hilt and suddenly slashed down, sending a large blade of light hurling at the creature.

The giant lizard shrieked as Mana appeared around its jaws, forming an ethereal layer over them. The creature then bit on the incoming blade of light, shattering it as if it were glass. Nora dashed forward once more, cleanly cleaving through its left hind leg. The lizard used its large tail to keep it balanced and opened its mouth wide in Nora's direction.

"Oh, my turn," Glenn suddenly realized. The corner of his lips curved upward slightly as he channeled his Mana into two spells at the same time. A Lord's Shield appeared between Nora and the lizard, just in time to block the breath of white flames from the creature. The fire licked the Lord's Shield, which only managed to hold on for a measly three seconds. Only, these few seconds were more than enough for Nora to reposition herself for another attack.

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"Requiem Saxum Restrictio!" Lioras chanted, conjuring thick stone pillars from the ground and ceiling that restrained the lizard's movements. Isadora's Mana exploded in a wave of burning light as it washed over the lizard, pale flames charring and melting its scales. The lizard roared in pain and slammed its front paws on the floor, destroying the stone pillar while using the opportunity to swipe its tail at Nora. The Aura user nimbly jumped over the tail before carving a big chunk out of it.

"Pebble, it's on you," Glenn grinned as he finished empowering his tiny, probably-sentient stone with Sun's Touch and Gravity Manipulation. The Shooting Star flew out in a ray of light as it cleanly pierced through the lizard's skull with fiery strength. The lizard's head exploded into smaller charred bits, the flesh struggling to keep up with the regeneration.

"Nice! All thanks to me, of course—" Lioras exclaimed victoriously, only to be copiously ignored by the other fighters. Nora gritted her teeth and released her katana once again, slashing through the beast's scales with close to no effort this time. Isadora's feet lifted off the floor, her entire being empowered with Mana. She raised her hand and a hundred swords of light appeared in her back. With one, silent wave of her hand, she ordered them forward, piercing the beast in every possible part and pinning it to the ground.

"And for the finale—!" Glenn's grin only grew as he used one of his newest spells, Sword Grave. A good tenth of his Mana faded away as hundreds of swords exploded out of the ground and dug through the lizard's belly, destroying its body completely. The shock made a huge chunk of the cavern fall on the creature, burying it.

Lioras yelped in horror, "What—you barbarians! Why do you keep raging at this poor beast?!?"

Glenn snorted and willed Nelg to change into his double-bladed axe form, "Look, scholar, and tell me if this is too much."

The lizard was missing most of its head, its limbs mostly separated from its shredded carcass, and yet it stood back up, breaking through the numerous magic swords stabbing it. Its flesh grew back at incredible speed as white flames appeared in its jaws once more. Glenn jumped forward, artificially increasing his weight with Gravity Manipulation and hacking down with all his strength, shutting down the lizard's attempt. The effects of Cleave & Double It were instantly shown as chunks of the beast flew out in a gory show, the blood burnt off by the powerful Mana.

Under the scales, muscles, and bones, Glenn caught the glimmer of a concentration of incredibly pure Mana with his magical sight.

"There!" He exclaimed as he raised his axe once more. It was for naught though, as Isadora shot down another massive sword of burning light that opened the way to the concentration of Mana. Nora didn't hesitate and lunged forward, the tip of her sword as peaceful as a falling snowflake, and yet as devastating as a raging snowstorm. The concentration of Mana exploded, and the lizard's head finally fell, defeated.

"Well, that was a good warm-up!" Glenn declared with a wide smile as he cleaned the little blood that had touched his Imoogi suit with a quick Mundare. Lioras fell on his buttocks in awe.

"It...It wasn't dead? What—how?" He uttered, trembling.

Nora wiped her blade on a rag meant to this effect and snorted, "That just shows your lack of experience, scholar. Most beasts I fought have incredible regeneration powers. This one was no exception..." She frowned, "...Even though my Aura should have had more effect on stopping the healing process than it did. Incredibly potent healing factor..."

Isadora rubbed her eyepatch, her nose creased, "Meh. With how big that thing is, I thought we would have a harder time taking it down. I didn't expect your spells to be so powerful and varied though, Glenn. It's impressive."

Glenn laughed dismissively, "Try getting almost killed a hundred times, and you start picking up a few things."

Lioras shook the awe and confusion off and approached the beast's corpse closer. He pried the half-destroyed jaws open with a small pillar of stone and frowned.

"Incredible..." He turned to the others and pointed back at the body, "I need to give it a sharper look, but I think this beast is the same species as the snow Dragonoids we met outside."

Nora grimaced, "No ball sack in sight. We might have just killed the brood mother of the shitty, little snow Dragonoids."

Lioras' eyebrows creased as studied the corpse closer, taking out a small notebook and writing down observations. Glenn turned Nelg into his hand-axe shape when the latter stopped him.

"Wait. I think...yeah, you'll have to do the rest without me, Glenn," Nelg warned, "I'm almost done digesting the souls back from the war, I'll need some time to process it into another Circle."

Glenn nodded slowly, 'No problem. Do hurry, I don't want to be stuck alone with the other idiot for too long.'

'Hey!' Diamanes' complaint fell on deaf ears.

"Will do. See you around," Nelg saluted before his presence faded away. Glenn exhaled slowly and gave a closer look at their surroundings. Of course, the main thing that was drawing his attention was the two massive Blumar doors on the floor some distance away. Unfortunately, unlike last time they were closed. Glenn could hardly imagine fighting off gravity to even pry open those two massive Blumar gates. In another corner of the cavern was a large nest built out of large and small bones, with broken eggshells littering it.

Isadora grimaced and crossed her arms, "Seems like the lizard and the snow Dragonoids could have been family. I wonder where the dad is."

Nora sighed, "That's certainly a question worth keeping in mind. Lioras, can you come take a look at those doors?"

"One second!" The scholar replied as he finished taking notes of the massive, fire-spitting, wingless lizard. He then hurriedly scrambled to them while adjusting his glasses' position.

"Yes, yes, what do we have here then?" He almost took a step onto the Blumar door but stopped himself at the last moment, "Ah. Blumar. So we did find the Cube. Excellent, even though I can't say I'm exactly pleased to be forced to work within the action of that cursed material."

"The dislike is shared," Nora grunted. Glenn and Isadora nodded in agreement.

"How the hell are we going to open this, though?" Isadora asked as she glared at the two closed massive doors, "It's not like we can use magic or Aura to open it up, after all. And I don't doubt your strength Nora, but..."

Nora shook her head without hesitation, "Oh no, don't even think about it. I didn't reach almost a century of age to break my back on a goddamned Blumar door."

Glenn glanced at her in awe. 'She's a century old? She barely looks forty!'

'Magic, Glenn, magic...why does it keep surprising you?' Diamanes muttered tiredly.

Glenn's lips curved upward, 'Isn't that the essence of magic? To keep on surprising, again and again with how possible the impossible is?'

'How deep.'

"Let's try and see if there's another entry," Isadora declared, "If there isn't, we'll just have to think of how to create one. Whoever created that Cube of Blumar didn't do it using magic after all. There has to be a way, maybe a manual one or something."

Glenn looked at the hand-axe hanging at his waist and pursed his lips.

He knew that Nelg had the capabilities of cutting through Blumar, but...no. This was too disgraceful to the sleeping weapon. To be used as a shovel when it could slay dragons and gods alike?

No, that'd be way too disrespectful, and abusive of Nelg's trust.

'Digging through the Blumar with Nelg...No, that's the very last option,' decided Glenn. They still had a lot of the cavern to explore, maybe they could find something interesting.

'Hey, imagine if Nelg's next form is a pickaxe?' Diamanes suddenly laughed in his typical, sarcastic tone.

Glenn gritted his teeth, 'No, I'd rather not.'