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Late Evening - Late Summer : The Dungeon of Colossus | Western Sirathan Mountains

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"Hooh..." Readying my mana with a short breath, I pulled my gaze from Father and locked it onto the creature I sensed through almost a hundred kilometers of forest. -Let's make it quick...-

*crackle-FWO-* Everything instantly went quiet as I blew through the sound barrier several times over, accelerating into the sky until I was practically splitting it apart.

To most normal beings, a hundred kilometers was quite a distance, to humans, it was even a few hours of travel, but to me, it was essentially nothing.

*FWOOOOSH* Zipping over the forest at close to Mach 40, I closed the distance in a matter of seconds; however, when the area I felt the aura finally peeked over the horizon, rather than seeing the continuous forest canopy, I saw an endless stretch of canyon-like cracks covered with toppled trees, and huge pillars of rock jutting out of the ground.

-Huh?- It wasn't a place I was familiar with, and considering its extremely unique and unnatural look, I thought it was a place I should have been aware of.

But, unlike what I was thinking, the reason I had never heard of it had nothing to do with irrelevance or happenstance.

Just as I got a good view of the area and started looking for my target, I found a weaker aura under the canopy at the edge of the canyons, but the moment I went to read my aura to see what it was, the entire forest shook. *RRRRUUUMMBBLLEE*

In an instant, the ground beneath the creature bulged and split apart before countless beams of stone formed to try and pierce or crush the creature.

And even though the creature darted off instantly, the crack and continuously forming spikes followed it, winding through the forest and destroying everything in its wake before eventually catching up.

*SCREEECH* Finally falling into the ever-growing crack, the creature let out a horrific screech. By the looks of it, it was a forty-meter-tall.. thing.. akin to a spider, scorpion, and larvae all morphed in one.

-How disgusting...- It truly looked like something that crawled out of hell, and as it was finally impaled by a stone spike, splattering its green blood across the forest, I felt nothing but disgust...

However, the creature hunting it didn't share that sentiment.

*CRRRRACKLE* With a violent shake, the bulge in the ground disappeared before a colossal creature, about three hundred and fifty meters tall, burst out of the ground, swallowing the insect-like creature with a huge clump of stone like it was nothing.

It was the owner of the aura I was looking for, an incredibly bulky drake-like creature with a massive row of spines along its back, stubby, muscular limbs carrying spaded paws, and battle-scarred scales that looked like a mix of iron and mythril ores.

In a way, it looked as if it was sculpted out of a mountain.

However, it was very much a living being.

Finally detecting my aura, it turned its heavy, stubby neck and spotted me over the horizon, the vertical slits in its eyes oozing bloodlust like it wanted to make me its next meal.

But unfortunately for it, the disgusting monstrosity it had just eaten would be its final meal. -My momentum should be enough...-

Slowly attaching countless strings of mana to the creature like the arms of an octopus wrapping around its prey, I quickly closed in until I was about four kilometers away, when I spontaneously crystallized the mana.

*CRACKLE-WHAAAAAMMM* A mountain of debris was instantly hurled into the air as the creature was slammed to the ground with its scales being crushed, bones being shattered, and flesh being shredded.

In an instant, I had turned countless tendrils of mana into nearly indestructible nails.

The creature died before it could even react.

"Oh..." -I do feel a little woozy though...- After coming to a complete stop from over Mach 40 in a matter of seconds, I felt like the world was spinning.

But thankfully only lasted a moment.

With a quick head shake like a dog shaking off water, the dizziness started to fade before eventually easing enough for me to mostly think straight.

"Hooh... What a mess..." Finally regaining my senses, my eyes settled over the seemingly endless field of cracks, covered in towering stone spikes and pillars, surrounding the massive, mountain-like body of the creature I just slaughtered.

But while it was truly a sight worthy of awe, I didn't have time to gawk.

*woosh* Quickly gliding down to the creature's body, I used some mana, runes, and divinity to hastily carve its mana core out of its chest, freeing it from the grasp of its own skeleton of divinity before giving it a little rinse.

It was about the size of my head and, surprisingly, wasn't too dark, looking like the surface of the ocean rather than its depths.

-But I'm certain that's just because of how much mana he used...- Giving the creature's surroundings one last glance, I made sure nothing else I needed to kill was in the area before finally gripping the core more and taking to the air.

Although I hadn't been gone for long, I didn't want to take any chances. Leaving Father alone in such a dangerous area just left a bad taste in my mouth, no matter how safe my aura said it was.

And as if to worsen my fear, as I got close enough for my aura to encompass the entire area around the dungeon, I couldn't sense his aura anywhere.

-Did he.. go into the dungeon?- It was the only logical explanation I could think of and was definitely something he'd do, but considering he said he would be scouting the surrounding area, it made me worried. -It hasn't been long.. he wouldn't have even had time for much...-

Hastily increasing my pace, the dungeon started coming into view again, and I found that the entrance itself had grown by about twenty meters, now being about a hundred and eighty meters tall and wide.

-To have grown that much in not even two minutes.

. what on earth happened?- Questions instantly started ringing off in my mind.

If the dungeon's growth was steady, I would have seen it rapidly expanding even with my eyes, which meant it was spontaneous growth.

-Did Father go in to investigate, or did the dungeon try to eat him? -

Not wanting to take any chances, the moment I landed, I directed the entirety of my aura into the dungeon to check if he had really gone inside.

But, as my aura flooded the dungeon, easily overpowering the insane aura of the dungeon core, I found a group of five people, four ancient-stage dragons and another whose aura I didn't immediately recognize.

However, amidst them was Father, and as if that weren't enough to set me off, his aura was totally uncontrolled, as if he was unconscious.

*vwwWWWOOOOMMM* Preventing my aura from escaping the dungeon anymore, the density of it increased several fold, to the point that it disintegrated the ground like a flowing river. -I'd like to see which arrogant fuck touched my Father.-

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- Deacon Arca ~

*tap* *tap* *tap* *tap* My light footsteps, independently disturbing the endless silence, echoed down the dungeon effortlessly while we walked toward the empty boss room.

It was the only sound that could meet my ears, but contrarily, I was far from alone.

Behind me, three towering dragons loomed, their presences completely hushed by magic.

Had I not known better, I wouldn't have even known they were there.

But while the explosion we heard made me uneasy, I was certain they were dependable figures. -They're no less loyal to the Holy Kingdom than me.-

However, the moment I felt a massive aura hastily approaching, my unease lingering from the explosion we heard spiked, even though I knew who it was. "That was fast."

It was Kapnós, but to my surprise, he wasn't returning alone. "Of course. It was just this guy," moving his tail to the side, he showed a comparably tiny white-scaled dragon that was totally unconscious. "It wasn't the big bastard we pushed out earlier like we though."

"Hm.. is that so?" -Then I wonder who he is...- The dragon was only about 31 meters tall, with memorable metallic, pure white scales and a large aura for his size. -But...- "He's far too weak to create the explosion we heard..."

Kapnós immediately nodded in agreement. "But he was the only one around, and when I asked what he was doing there, he said he was from the northern fleet to check on what happened here..."

"Sounds to me like he's part of a group..." Quickly understanding there was no such white-scaled dragon in the fleet, the teal-scaled dragon in the middle of the group spoke up with a mature feminine voice. "Do you think the people he was with were the ones to cause the explosion?"

"More than likely. They could've run into anything in that forest, even that dreadful 'boss'." He spoke with an annoyed tone. "But regardless, let's just bring him along for now. Maybe we can rile up the dungeon core to deter the rest of his group and give us time to interrogate him..."

-If he's part of a Sirathan Envoy, he will definitely have some good info on him...-

But at that moment, we needed to move our focus to something else.

Finally coming up to the boss room, we found it vacant as expected, but as we walked in and illuminated everything with light magic, we found more than we bargained for.

"W..woah..." Even the nearly two-millennia-old dragons behind me let out a breath of awe as we found that the nearly kilometer-high ceilings were decorated with unbelievably intricate carvings depicting Valkyries being the harbingers of war, victory, fortune, and wealth, standing tall and valiantly holding their ground against monsters and dragons alike, protecting the humans behind them with a carving of the sun at the very center.

The entire carving was a part of the dungeon, not being carved by hand but by the dungeon itself, making it look unbelievably pristine but at the same time, made it feel like an illusion. -What in the world...-

Finally lowering our gazes, we found that the walls were just as adorned as the ceiling, displaying 13 colossal gates wrapping around the room, with seven looking pristine and untouched while the others looked destroyed and scarred.

It was almost as if it was depicting fallen Valkyries, but the further we walked into the room, the more we saw and the more questions we had. -But to think it would really be here...-

Although I had heard of this place from one of Frigg's apostles personally, I found it hard to believe until that moment. -To think I would live to see the grave of the Valkyries...-

But the moment I let my guard down, the dungeon started to shake. *rrrrumbblee*

Thinking it was from the Sirathan Envoy, we all turned to look toward the entrance, but before we could react, it felt as if the sky had collapsed on us. *VWOOOOM* Breathing became impossible, and even the knees of the mighty dragons with me buckled.

It felt like it only lasted a moment, but by the time that horrific sensation lifted and we all looked up in a panic, we found our eyes laid on a wall of stone where the entrance used to be.

Before we could react, we were trapped in the dungeon's boss room.

For a moment, it felt like the dungeon was the one trapping us, as if it was waiting for us...

But oh how little we knew...

The dungeon wasn't trapping us.. it was simply holing up as if it were a turtle; hiding in its shell, praying the predator outside wouldn't be able to break through.

-W..what happened... Was it a trap? Is this some kind of puzzle?-

And all the while, we knew nothing of what was coming.

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