"Huff... Huff... Huff..."

Jurgen panted as he wiped the sweat dripping form his wrinkled forehead. His clothes were soaked and not to mention the heat inside the dungeon gradually increasing, causing him to sweat even more. Cautiously looking around him while occasionally staring at dozens of magical beast cores dropped by the high embermans that he and Johan has slain.

"Hey, old man. What are you standing there for. You better not slack off." Johan sneered and joyfully casted explosion while swinging his sword towards the lava creatures. His spirit form is still activated and he was also tired of all the fighting. But his body seemed to enjoy a death battle against this flamy monsters.

Meanwhile, Jurgen was just standing there with a worried face. Something has been bothering him as he fought against those monsters and doesn't know what it was.

Jurgen clicked his tongue. 'Tch, did I forgot something at home? Or perhaps something worse happened?' he thought.

All of a sudden, while the old man was still drowned in thoughts, an emberman went dashing and swung a sword to his direction, causing him to jump by instinct. "This monsters—" He gritted his teeth with an annoyed face as he barely evaded the hot flames that came from its sword, leaving a shallow burnt cut on his chin. After the sudden jump to dodge, he lose balance and completely fell on his side before he rolled over and got his back shove to the ground.

After he saw the old man distracted by his thoughts to even fight back in that state, Johan quickly came to his aid and slashed the monster's head that tried to bother Jurgen. "Hey, hey, are you okay? You seems completely bothered and out of weather." He asked worriedly while looking around, being cautious.

"It's nothing." The old man slowly stood up, removing some dust from his clothings. "Anyway, thanks." He added before letting out a ling sigh. 'I might be overthinking things.' he thought.

"Wel—" Johan quickly leaped and got back to fighting the lava monsters. "—come."

On the other hand, Jurgen pulled another bottle of potion that extends the limits pf his spirit mark. "This is the third one." He whispered, before shoving the liquid intl his ajar mouth, gulping it down. 'I don't know how long will take us to exterminate all of this monsters. But I'll try to do it faster so that we can get out of here sooner.'

Jurgen saw a few high embermans coming ahead of him. He grinned and exhaled a cold smoke from his mouth and nose before swinging his sword vertically and hitting the ground. In an instant, everything from 20 meters in front of him froze and turned to ice, freezing and hindering the movements of every monsters that were coming at him.

"I'm gonna try to hold back just to keep the ceilings intact." The old man sneered at the frozen monsters that were seemingly staring at him from inside the ice formations. Jurgen then proceeded to aim his palm at the frozen monsters in front of him, eagerly smiling.

"Destroy, Mana art 28: Devine ray!" Jurgen chanted as a blue light was concentrated in his palm. Then, all of a sudden, an immense amount of blue colored mana was fired from his palm all at once, destroying and swallowing everything in front of him as the further it got, the wider the mana ray becomes, causing a lot of destruction.

"Now we're talking." Johan commented as he was lucky enough to jump before it was fired close to his direction. Now he stood and watched as almost all the monsters in that room got obliterated by the old man's tremendous power that sent strong shockwaves into the underground, causing him to slightly fell off balance.

"This is my main damage dealing mana art when I was still a bit younger. It sure bring back memories." Jurgen smiled as he felt the nostalgic feeling of happiness as he heard the frozen monsters shatter like glasses in front of his eyes, hearing the sound of cracking and watching shards of ice flying across his vision. "It must be good to be young."

It took a few seconds before Jurgen deactivated the destructive spell and the moment when all the energy discharged by the massive mana ray completely calmed down, Jurgen saw the aftermath of his attack with his own ice.

With a large dent left on the dungeon wall, it was quite lucky that the attack didn't penetrate the layers of rocks that forms the mountain. But his attack distorted the ground and left no trace of the enemies. Everything in its path was obliterated and reduced to shiny crystal dust that flew through the air.

"I guess that saved us some time." Johan spoke as he float in the air, looking at Jurgen with a smirk.

"Yeah, seems like we're getting out of here early." Jurgen responded, looking at the few more high embermans who weren't caught by the attack. And then planted his rear foot vigorously onto the ground, sending himself off of his feet and came flying towards the small group of enemies. He held his sword up in the air with both hands and with a powerful rotating swing, followed by releasing a sharp focused mana from the tip of his sword, Jurgen decapitated seven of them, all at once.

Then, suddenly, before Jurgen could even land his feet on the ground, a large wave of mana frequency came to his senses before he noticed that the surroundings were shaking violently.

"Wha—What the heck is up with this abnormally enormous amount of mana?" Johan sensed it too. The dense amount of magic filling the air, making it harder to move with so much pressure. Even in his spirit form, he could feel it overwhelming him.

"Hmmm," Jurgen analyzed the surroundings shake through the corner of his eyes. "It seems like we got ourselves involved into another troublesome foe." He said, trying to locate the exact origin of the powerful magic that drowns his senses. "And it's inside this room." he uttered as he looked at Johan, giving him a "go" signal. He then continue to slay the left over monsters that survived his attack earlier.

After receiving permission, Johan quickly flew towards the direction that he assumed where the strong mana was coming from. Since he had his senses enhanced by his spirit form, he could easily tell where it was coming from. "This amount of mana... I've never felt this before." He whispered as he noticed his skin having goosebumps. The mana covering his body in spirit form also started to be torn apart because of too much active time, not to mention the sudden increase in mana pressure inside that dungeon, causing his own mana to be suppress completely inside his body.

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When Johan reached the other end of the dark dungeon room, the overwhelming force that sends waves of energy towards them started to increase rapidly. The more he got nearer the stronger it gets, causing him to almost collapse on his knees as he silently landed onto the ground. "This power..." At that point, he was already eager to go back to Jurgen's location as he felt uneasiness through his nerves.

Johan stared at the darker side of the dungeon as he carefully wandered with his eyes. He saw nothing but some reflections of light that came from the faint flames of embermans that they just slain. But he knew that there was something else. He could feel it. A presence of a monster that thirsts for destruction.

Upon feeling the strong presence, Johan tried to take a step closer as his lungs seemingly froze and forgot to breath in.

Then suddenly, the moment he took a single step forward, two giant eyeballs of flame lit up above him, followed by two gigantic scaly wings that closely resembles a bat's, burning with fiery yellow flames, completely lighting up the dark dungeon and revealing it's form. With red scales that resembles a snake's, a tail that almost look like a flaming salamander's and a head that looks like a giant lizard's.

Johan knew what it was, but he couldn't believe it. That monster was something he could only see in fairy tail books about mythological creatures. But it was there, right in front of his eyes, staring at him like some kind of sweet delicacy.

It blinked a few times as it fiercely glance at him before instantly, an alarm went off inside Johan's head. He had to run. He must get away. Without looking back, he pushed his dominant foot onto the ground with all force and immediately sprang in the air, flying towards Jurgen's direction. "That appearance... that monster." He could feel it's wrath completely directed at him as he flew away for his life. He must reach Jurgen by any means.

By the mana waves, Johan could sense that the monster is somehow following him as he flew away from it. "Damn it. This is worse than I thought. We're only down to two people, the old man was also at his limits and my spirit form wouldn't last a few more minutes. How are we supposed to fight that thing." He gritted his teeth pathetically before he got a sight of Jurgen and landed in front of him.

The old man already knew what's going on when he sensed a monster moving at their direction. "The fact that you came back hurriedly only means that it's already on Its way towards us." Jurgen assumed, stroking his beard. "We can't help it. We must fight—"

"It's no use." Johan shouted. "That thing is..." He took his time to inhale before blurting out the last words. "... a dragon."

"W-What?..." Jurgen seemed very surprise as his eyebrows sprang up immediately after hearing it. "... a dragon?"

"It must've been awakened by all the mana frequency were emitting. In any case, we must get out of this cramped space. Or we're going to be toasted!" Johan desperately pulled Jurgen's arms and tried to drag him out.

"But we can't. If we left that thing wander around, everybody will die." Jurgen insisted to stay in that dungeon, holding his sword with full resolve to fight the flame beast.

"There will be nothing left if we die here today. Everyone we wish to protect will be destroyed if we die here." Johan argued and forcefully tried pulling Jurgen but the stubborn old man got his feet planted on the ground and wasn't moving even an inch. "We must survive, even if it means to drag you out here by force."

"Don't be absurd—" Jurgen was ready to scold the younger guy, but suddenly, he stopped upon hearing gigantic footsteps that shook the ground intensely everytime it occurs.

The footsteps stopped them from making any noise as it was soon followed by a fierce roar.

"Roooooooooooaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" A long deafening roar echoed throughout the dungeon.

'Damn it, it's here—' Johan could only let out a grunt as he forcefully grabbed the stubborn old man's body and jumped aimlessly, carrying Jurgen. After all that pressure, he knew what comes next, so he ran for it.

Soon, the roar has calmed down and left a resonating sound through their ears before, suddenly, the entire atmosphere turned into a sea of orange flames that engulfed Jurgen and Johan.

The flames was pushing through their skin as they we're trapped inside the sea of flames that was being blown by the fierce monster. Luckily, Jurgen was covering his body with mana arts and Johan's body was still protected by his highly explosive spirit armor. But even with magic protecting their bodies, they weren't spared by the intense radiation that seeped through the outermost layer of their skin. And soon, the mana protecting their body started to crumble and torn away.

'Damn it. This is the power of a single breath from that thing?' Johan desperately struggled to breath inside the sea of flames, seeking oxygen.

Jurgen was also trying to hold his breath just to spare some air as all the oxygen around them has been burned by the dragon's breath. And one more thing bothered him as he stare at the direction where the flames has gone off to.

Soon after, the violent flames has settled down and the surroundings unsurprisingly turned to black charcoals. Jurgen suffered some minor burns and got his entire right arm's skin peeled off by the hot radiation. Johan was unharmed, but the mana armor of his spirit form was completely torn apart after being exposed to the flames for a long time.

They saw the giant hole on the wall that most likely penetrated through the outermost layer of the mountain. When they turned their heads at the direction where the flames came from, they also saw the eyes of the terrifying beast, moving from a distance keeping it directed at them.

"We can't fight that dragon inside here. We have to take the battle somewhere outside." Johan suggested, cautiously watching the dragon's eyes slowly getting nearer towards them.

"So we have run then." Jurgen agreed, glancing at the giant hole on the wall that created by the dragon's breath earlier. If he was right, it was supposed to lead them outside.

"Rooooaaaaaaaahhhh!"

But before they could even take another step back, another blow of flames engulfed them in an instant, disabling them from moving and causing them to pour mana through their skin to protect themselves.

This time, the flames are more focused and as a result, the speed of the moving flames has gradually increased, giving it more penetrating power to negate their defense.

Jurgen quickly raised both of his hand and chanted, "Wind of nature, bestow me your protection!"

His body released a huge amount of mana and created a wind barrier just to push the flames and suspend it around him, not letting it touch him. The spell was enough to protect him, however, he must not move from where he was as he was also protecting Johan behind him.

Everytime the wind barrier got heated by the flames, Jurgen uses his ice magic and wind magic simultaneously to quickly replace the hot air around the barrier, also keeping both of his hand raised at the moment. 'Damn, I can't keep on doing this. To win we must strike back.'

Just when the thought occured to his mind, the accelerated flames suddenly disappeared before he saw the head of the mythological creature raising from the darkness, eyes glowing with flames. It started approaching them with it's claws buried into the ground everytime it took a step towards them.

When Jurgen was about to charge in to try and somehow combat the monster, all of a sudden, the rocky ceilings above the dungeon cracked and collapsed, dropping pieces of rocks and blasting a giant hole that is slightly positioned above them. Luckily, they managed to see it coming and dodged the rubbles of rocks but the dragon unfortunately didn't saw it coming and was buried in pieces of rocks.

But what surprised them the most is the figure of a man that flew out of the giant hole on the ceiling. The person was wearing a black coat and landed on the ground in front of Jurgen, revealing his red hair and releasing a familiar color of aura from his body.

Suddenly, the man spoke in a familiar voice, almost screaming: "Seems like you've got a big problem here... stubborn old fart!"