The desert was draining their souls of any enjoyment possible. Weeks, they had been walking for weeks.

Even Erebus’ smile had faded. He was tough-skinned (more or less), but this just was not entertaining.

If possible, he was even more bored than he was when he had entered this dungeon. Everything looked the same, everything felt the same. There hadn’t been any monsters coming to attack them, it was just the sun rising and setting in the horizon.

“I’m starting to feel as if we went the wrong way,” Tear muttered in a crackly voice. Due to magic, she had been able to drink ‘water’, but it wasn’t the same refreshing taste.

It was just to keep her alive.

Tear looked straight ahead, the heat distorting her vision. “Anyone else getting that feeling?”

All the others nodded their heads. Erebus regretted his decision of finding an easy way out because this was just mind-numbing.

There was the sound of something falling into the dry sand, the others turned their heads. Tear had given up on walking and was now sprawled out on the ground.

“Just kill me here, I quit. I’m sorry Lord Erebus, you’ll have to go on without me. But, I’d rather it be your sword that pierces my hea-- wait, wait, what are you doing, Vyne!”

The demon had aimed his sword above Tear’s heart and was about to grant her wish.

“You said kill you,” Vyne responded.

She scrambled to her feet. “That was a joke! A joke, I don’t actually want to die. Are you an idiot?”

Vyne shrugged nonchalantly. “I only take things as they are said.”

“Not you don’t, liar.” Tear folded her arms and pouted.

From a distance, Lilian’s voice called, “If you two are coming, you’d better catch up.” Erebus and she had kept walking! They had managed to cross an astounding amount of land for such a short period.

Tear and Vyne had to run to catch up, much to the former’s dismay. When they did, Lilian and Erebus did not spare so much as a glance in their direction. So cold, yet Tear didn’t mind the feeling. In fact, it made her excited.

Yes, this is why she would always follow him! His attitude towards her was the only thing that could make her feel such warm delight.

“Wipe that disgusting smirk off your face,” Vyne spoke. “Honestly, it’s making me want to vomit.”

Tear chose to ignore him, no way would she allow her happiness to be dampened by that man. Ah, just thinking of Erebus gave her a wonderful idea. “Lord Erebus, I have a question.”

“And what would that be?” he answered with absolutely no interest as to what her question was in his voice.

Her smile grew broader. “If I may, could I give some input as to what we should do?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, if you don’t mind, perhaps you should shift into your dragon form and we could ride on your back until we find a way out.”

Erebus’ eyes widened a little. “That would make it go faster, wouldn’t it?”

The woman nodded her head.

“Then let’s do that!”

Without waiting for (or caring about) the opinions of the other two, Erebus transformed into a grand-bodied dragon.

Tear beheld the magnificent sight with nothing but love and appreciation in her clear eyes.

Erebus lowered his head for them to climb onto. Doing so was a tedious task, as his getting to the top of his head felt as if they were scaling a mountain. His size was entirely inconvenient to them. But, they digress and think of how quickly they would travel from now on.

The dragon ascended into the air and then shot off. The force of the wind pressing against them made it even harder to hold on. They latched onto whatever they needed to so that they wouldn’t go flying away to a nearly certain death.

It was the reckless speed that he was moving at that had almost killed Weryn months before.

“Ugh... think I’m going to be sick,” Tear said and her words were snatched away by the air almost instantly.

Still, they lingered long enough for Lilian and Vyne to hear.

“Loosen up on your grip! Are you trying to rip my scales out, huh?” Erebus yelled at them in his native tongue. In this form, he couldn’t speak the delicate language that the others did.

So, because of this, his subordinates had absolutely no idea what he was saying.

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“Is he asking if we’re still here?” Tear asked.

“Idiot, he can obviously feel us here. I’m pretty sure he told us to hold on tighter,” Vyne refuted.

“Maybe he wants us to enjoy the view?” Lilian suggested.

Damned fools, Erebus thought. Those words were nowhere near what he originally intended.

He would have to break down and use telepathy in order to speak to them, and he hated using telepathy. It was something about entering the minds of others that just felt wrong. He felt like an invader, he could learn more about a person by just entering their mind to speak than that person may have known about himself.

It wasn’t as if every species of telepathy could delve so deeply, it was only those with immense power who could. The unipegasus Guardian probably was capable of doing so, too.

And the communication stones he normally used to speak to them were of a completely different nature.

I said, stop gripping my scales so tightly, Erebus said through a telepathic bond.

“Oh.”

His three followers released their death grips into something of a slight, very slight, difference of strength.

Erebus rolled his eyes, understanding that they had absolutely no intention of slackening their hold.

In the distance, a thundering roar could be heard. Erebus’ excellent eyesight was able to see miles away, so he could make out what was there. There was a random door that seemed to reach up to the heavens. The door was chained and had a giant lock on it.

In front of the door, something that could only be described as a goliath stood there, lying in wait.

“This’ll be interesting...” Erebus muttered.

As they grew closer, the goliath was starting to look more like an overgrown bug. It was like a rhinoceros beetle. But it stood on two overly muscular legs. And it had equally as grotesque arms which were holding a thick lance.

Erebus landed not too far off, shifting back into his human form after the others climbed off his head. The monster turned its head toward them, but made no move to attack them.

Instead, it watched them with beady eyes and grunted loudly. It slammed its lance on the sand and shook its head. It was telling them to go away, not that they would listen.

“Is that what I think it is,” Vyne said softly.

“It would seem so.”

The aura could be felt from here, it was weighing even Erebus down a little.

This was a Demon Emperor ranked monster. And without a doubt, it was even more powerful than Yvick.

A smile pulled at Erebus’ lips. “This could prove to be very, very entertaining. A nice way to make up for what we had to go through.”

Tear looked like she was about to scream and run off.

She was tired.

She was hungry.

She was thirsty.

And now she had to fight a giant bug.

But no, it couldn’t be any giant bug. It had to be a giant bug that could undoubtedly kick her ass. That was what made everything even worse than it originally was.

“Fight it on your own.” Erebus plopped down onto the sand, he snapped his fingers and a book appeared. “If you look like you’re going to die, I’ll come and save you. But I’m confident you won’t need my help.”

Lilian’s eyes bulged. “Certainly, Lord Erebus, you cannot expect us to be able to overpower that... that thing.”

“Of course, I do.”

Lilian looked ready to cry. “Didn’t you want to fight something?” she tried instead.

“Watching is fine, too.”

The rabbit-eared woman gave up and turned to Vyne and Tear.

“Maybe it’ll let us sneak past and try to open the door?” Vyne chuckled nervously.

Erebus shook his head and pointed at the creature. “Look at its neck, there’s the key.”

“Key...”

Tear let out a loud groan.

Around its bulky neck, there was a short chain, and attached to it was a huge, bronze key.

“So, we have to fight it?” Lilian asked.

Vyne nodded his head, exhausted already.

“Maybe if we ask it nicely, it’ll give us the key?” Tear input hopelessly.

“No way in Hell,” Vyne snapped. “Nice try, though.”