"See the other holes, Lambert?"

Despite the wording, the Goddess pointed at tunnels nearby. I blushed for thinking about it, avoiding looking at her perfect but colorless shape. She was too close since we left the village, and would not slow down, dragging me along the way.

The creatures that attacked her stood no chance. I didn't have time to get scared, she wiped them all out with her glance alone. The saying 'looks could kill' got a new meaning, and she held back quite a bit.

"I felt them on the surface, but they were further apart. This means the dungeon's plane stretches thin underneath the continent." She explained, but I was at a loss for what she meant. "We could walk a few miles and dig another hole to find ourselves dozens if not hundred miles from where we started. Fascinating, time could be different too."

Did she read my mind, or expected that I'd be too stupid to understand without further explanation? I envied how anything could fascinate her while she decided to save her comrades.

For me, things happened too fast to react, the only emotion welling up inside me was fear. And I couldn't decide if I should fear the dungeon more, or the Goddess of Luck instead.

"You mean Nati's expedition spent more time down here than we thought?" I asked, stealing glances at the destruction she caused.

The place was strange, I had no words for it, but there was no time to analyze everything around us. Was it something exclusive to deities, or women, how they perceived everything at once? All the while she focused on something else. Or could Alexandra be this special?

Frozen in an eternal sunset, the sky was purple, but I saw no real sun. A dense forest covered the vast expanse, but the leaves were blue and red, not the green I expected. Filled with strange creatures, most of them hid themselves. The Goddess incinerated the rest without a warning.

"Either more or much less. But we better hurry." She nodded at a flickering light in the far distance. "There is something big going on. Careful with your spells, the mana is so thick here, if you try to create a candlelight, it would appear as a campfire."

So she wasn't this overpowered, only the place and the mana made her more destructive than usual. I never saw her fight in earnest so I wouldn't know, but two lines of thoughts fought each other inside my brain. One feared her for being this powerful, the other wished she'd be stronger to deal with what awaited us.

"Are all dungeons like this?" I could only stumble after her, lost in these thoughts and the alien sights. She held my wrist, her hand firm, and if I didn't follow her fast enough, I bet she would tear my arm off before slowing down. But she answered my questions in great detail.

"No, Lambert, this one is old. I don't recall ever hearing about a dungeon that lasted a decade, or grew this big." She noted, pondering for a moment. "It's strange, I don't even feel the infernal creatures. It's all a weird mix of abyssal monsters and diverse mutations among them."

But answering in great detail didn't mean her words made sense to me. The smart student I believed myself to be, struggled to decipher her words. Or to find the connections between the sudden jumps in logic.

"In a way that I understand too, Goddess, please," I begged, already out of breath. She rushed into the woods, but it was like a jungle. We needed to find a trail to advance, and even those were too narrow.

She didn't mind and opened her own. She cared not about collateral damage, with a single goal in mind. And if she had to destroy the entire dungeon to reach it, she wouldn't shy away from it either. With those colorless eyebrows furrowed on her pretty face, I wouldn't want to stand in her way either. And her fingers grabbed me like a vice.

"What happened here is this dungeon started from an infernal plane." She explained, breaking through all the obstacles. "Then someone powerful, let's say Addas came down and decided to take over. He must have wiped out most infernal life but didn't remove the dungeon core, so he became the new boss or something."

She wasted no time, her body was almost indestructible anyway. She knocked over trees if she had to, or disintegrated monsters that came close. They should have known better than to approach her, especially when she was in a sour mood. But these creatures had no survival instinct.

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Compared to her strength, they were less than a speck of dust. I don't know what spells she used, but she melted everything that would stand in her way without lifting a finger. All while she educated me with her theories. I struggled to concentrate on her words.

"Then he could find this place lacking." She continued like nothing happened. "Infernal dungeons tend to be dark and claustrophobic. Full of caves and fire, but this does not look like that. He had to terraform it, which would take a tremendous effort."

Again, I'm sure it all made sense to her, but I was a mortal and needed a better explanation. This all sounded impressive, but I couldn't comprehend the reason. She ran so fast, her fluttering hair covered the view from me, and while it lacked color, it smelled cinnamon.

"And why would he do that?" I asked, getting scraped by all the branches and strange vegetation that survived her. She took longer to give a detailed answer this time, only shrugging first.

It was a good thing this place had a crazy mana flow. Even thinking about healing magic mended all those annoying little wounds. Once I focused on reinforcing my skin, it reached the hardness of diamonds. It made life easier.

On the surface, this would only save my skin from the smallest bruises. Now I was sure it could stop an enchanted blade. But I hoped I wouldn't have to test this theory anytime soon. If the Goddess of Luck praised someone, he had to be stronger than her.

And after her casual show of force, I didn't want to meet a man like that, let alone fight one. I couldn't see inside her mind, but her expression told me she thought about Nati and her friends. She seemed angry for whatever reason but also fascinated by this place.

"He could have many reasons. To hide from the Inquisitorias, or make this a new home. Or who knows, he could have created an army here to invade the surface when he is ready." Alexandra listed a few options but lost her patience soon after. "Screw this forest, let's take a flight over it."

With that, she skipped into the air, without a care in the world.

"I can't..." I wasn't fast enough to protest. She still held my hand and took off with me. The place looked even more amazing from above, but hanging by my wrist made it less enjoyable. "You'll rip my arm off!"

The fingers only tightened around me, but she cast a spell that made my body lighter so my wrist no longer hurt. It was still bad though, I was close to throwing up, showering the vegetation below us.

"Aw, hang on, Lambert. I'll speed up a bit." She promised, making things worse. The forest turned into a red and blue blur, and the wind almost gauged my eyes off. She wasn't kidding when she said speeding up, the air rushed past us so fast, that my reinforced skin heated up.

"You are insane! Please, Goddess, slow down before we burn up." I tried to reason with her, but the wind washed my voice away. I repeated it through telepathy, but she ignored it too, focusing far ahead where she saw the flicker.

Considering the distance, whatever happened there must have been big. The lights were still visible from this far, so it was safe to assume, Nati's party or the dungeon's boss was there. My guess was both.

"Sorry, but if we came this far, we can't be late to the party." She glanced back with a grin, that was more terrifying than a glare. I attempted to reinforce my skin against the heat, hoping we would get there fast. I noticed a murder of birds, reminding me of harpies from the old codexes, but before I could warn her, we flew past them.

They had no chance to follow, the whirlwind trailing us disrupting their formation. If I kept my eyes open, I became dizzy, but if I closed them, I would throw up right away. I held my breath and only looked up when she sent a telepathic message.

"Look, there is a castle ahead, where all the flickering happened. I bet it's the boss and our guys." She claimed, but I had no chance to confirm what she saw. We reached it and she stopped, floating above the enormous structure.

It was so abrupt, she almost tore off my arm again, and now I hung below her like an empty sack. But I could see our surroundings, a sight to behold. A huge swarm of monsters fought a tiny group below, and the battle was one-sided but didn't go their way.

"There they are." Alexandra pointed with her free hand and started our descent. We were too far up to make out what happened, but they were sure busy down there. I recognized Ember's flames and Omerta's chain lightning. Once we got closer I could no longer believe my eyes.

"Isn't that Princess Elizabeth?! And the Captain of the Guard." I yelled, to overcome the noise of their struggle.

"And another human I don't recognize." She added, slowing down as we got closer. "What in heavens is going on down there?"

It was hard to describe for sure. Their small group fought a thousand monsters at once. A small creature flew around them, sowing destruction on a scale only Alexandra could. A formation of minotaurs marched towards them, their frontline fighters holding their own.

Even the Princess fought with a sword, an image I never expected to see. But there could be no question about it, from how her purple hair fluttered around her. Cath covered her blind spots with Nati's younger sister. She used her bare hands to knock some creatures out.

"It seems we came in the last second," I noted, understanding why Alexandra was in such a hurry. But she stopped in the air, shaking her head. "What? You're not going to help them?"

"There is no need, look." She nodded towards Nati, who unleashed a spell more powerful than I'd ever seen. She launched a near-invisible ring, and whatever it touched, turned to ashes.