Some time had passed before I started to wake up again. I could feel Terra carrying me, and we were moving somewhere quickly. I reached out and grabbed Terra’s arm.

“Stop…”

“Master… we need to keep going…”

“No, stop!”

Terra complied, finally kneeling and lowering me to my feet. My head was throbbing and my body still felt as weak as a kitten, but I quickly cast a few refreshes and heal spells and forced myself to my feet.

“We can rest for a moment, but that thing might still be after us.”

I shook my head. “No, she’s not following us.”

“Can you be sure?”

I nodded. “Yeah, she’ll be trying to finish her unity with King Diorite. Until that is completed, she won’t be moving forward.”

It was hard to say how I knew that so certainly. Part of it might have come from me already accepting some of Twilight’s lore and then her trying to engulf me forcefully. Then, there was what the king had given me as well. Whatever it was, I was almost certain that his ploy had worked, and that we’d have a least two weeks before she’d start trying to move up and connect with hell. I also had a rough idea of where the dungeon was compared to us.

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King Diorite’s position had been very specific. That spiral-like pattern was a shield. He had somehow managed to break the dungeon in two, with the lower sections being abandoned to Twilight and the upper sections be blocked from continued growth.

“Excuse me… Mr. um… Deek?” A gentle voice came from within my soul world. “Did you say that my husband is gone?”

Hearing the words of his wife, I stiffened slightly. I gave Terra a look to guard me and then I entered my soul world. There, I appeared into a once peaceful place that now looked crowded full of a youthful-looking group of redheads. They were the deep dwarves I had resurrected. At their head was a beautiful woman who resembled an older Sapphire. She stepped forward, although she still was holding Sapphire’s hand.

I tried to give her what I felt was a brave look. “I’m sorry, but he did what he had to so that we had the chance to escape.”

She bit her lip and lowered her head. “I understand. In truth, many of us had been captured early on. We saw him as a traitor.”

I shook my head. “He gave up everything to protect the surface and the fleeing deep dwarves. In the end, he gave it all to save his daughter.”

“Yes… S-sapphire was just filling me in on what she knew. I understand.” She nodded. “Then the next question I want to ask… what is your plan?”

“He’s given us enough time to escape, but if we just flee, then it’ll all be for nothing. Twilight will come to the surface, and the people on the surface will barely have any time to prepare.” I explained. “That’s why… I plan to finish what he started. I need to build a dungeon that can give us more time. I need to rebuild the shield that he created.”

“Then, it’s time to get started.”

“Hmm?” I looked up at Lapis, her face filled with determination.

“Did you think we’d do nothing? The last time we encountered the darkness, our people fled and died. This time, we’re going to fight back. Do you want to build something on a time crunch? Just give the deep dwarves the go-ahead; we’ll show you building!”