***

  Merrick was sitting on a distant hill while eating some foraged berries. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could still see the shockwaves and area attacks that should have killed him but didn't, thanks to the combatants actually trying to keep him alive. He had been watching this fight for almost two weeks now, and Merrick honestly couldn't believe that they were still so destructive.

  From the dungeon side, Ismael was the most beat up. One of his wings was completely cut off, while the other one stopped functioning after the last combined attack of the four party members. Ismael was so tired, as he was the main focus of the four. While Rafe was doing an admirable job at protecting the largest dragon ever to be known, he was still trying to protect the largest dragon alive, which meant there was a lot that he needed to cover, and the four party members were extremely mobile.

  The six of them had been locked in furious combat almost from the very beginning, with skills being used liberally at the start, but now they were being used more conservatively. Over the course of this fight, a pattern had emerged. Rafe was incredibly defensive, but he was also smaller and could attack more rapidly, so the four never got a chance to combine their attacks for a more devastating outcome against him.

  They could, however, slow Rafe down for short periods of time. Most of the time, this gave them the opportunity to attack Ismael in force. Their window for a more devastating attack was always short, as they could never truly tie Rafe down.

  Over the course of the fight, when the party of five shook off the rust of not being in such a high-level battle for such a long time, they took the upper hand. But as time has gone on, the dungeon's fighters have gotten better and better. Of course, Ace and Rafe have never dipped in their mana, so they could still throw out a nearly endless amount of skills. Although they were mentally incredibly tired, so was everyone else.

  The four party members were completely exhausted, most of them only functioning on instinct, but they were so well-honed in their fighting skills and their cooperation that they could still function on such a high level that they remained a credible threat. The fifth party member, who had been fighting against Ace, was faring the worst.

  Ace was relentless, and not only that, he was pouring all his anger—of being treated like a dog, of his nation being forced to move from the surface, from his home—he was letting it all out in this fight.

  He should have lost 1000 times over, purposely taking cuts and wounds to deliver his own, as he simply didn’t match the experience and skill of his opponent. Yet he knew he would never run out of mana, and if he never ran out of it, it meant that he could continue to heal himself without any problems while continuing to let out all his pent-up fury.

  The fifth party member was so incredibly tired. She had at first been on the offensive, but now her attacks landed less and less. Her focus was completely gone. She defended only at the last moment, not because she was trying to conserve what strength she had left, but because it was hard for her to follow the fight now. Only her instincts were keeping her in the fight.

  Every once in a while, she got off a lucky hit that gave her just a moment to breathe. She glanced at her party members, seeing that while they weren’t winning, they also weren’t losing—at least not yet. That dragon, with its dead wing, was getting slower and slower. It took an hour before she finally got the opportunity she had been waiting for.

  The fifth party member had purposely waited and had not tried to join the other party members for so long, to purposely make Ace think that she had given up. She was almost in position to land the devastating attack on the dragon, but before she could, the fighting paused for a moment. Ismael did the unexpected and bit his own wing off so he could once again move more freely.

  The momentary distraction cost a lot, as Ace was able to land his best attack yet, leaving a proper wound on the abdomen of the fifth party member. It made her movement more sluggish, and while she continued to defend almost feverishly, she knew that if she fell, so would the other four. Yet no matter how much she tried, she simply couldn’t keep up as her vision blurred even more.

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  It had been almost a day of this struggle after Ismael bit off his own wing, and the four party members fighting Ismael and Rafe were getting more and more desperate. Occasionally, one of them tried to join the fight between the fifth party member and Ace, but Rafe always stopped whoever tried to go, even while taking more wounds. His defensive capabilities were simply too much, so he could easily take more devastating attacks.

  It was a simple rock that disintegrated while the fifth party member was dodging. The resistance wasn’t much, but it was enough that it made her stumble. Ace capitalized immediately, driving the head of his spear into the thigh of the fifth party member, and he didn’t stop, burying the spear deep into the earth, activating multiple skills to anchor the spear and make it impossible to be pulled out for just a little while.

  It would be enough. Quickly, Ace produced another weapon, this time a large knife. The fifth party member was still trying to fight, but she was badly out of position. While she was more skilled, Ace was actually stronger of the two. The four party members basically gave up the fight and tried to reach their fifth party member, but Ismael and Rafe were ready, blocking their every attempt.

  “We surrender!!!” was heard loud and clear just before Ace’s knife was about to reach the fifth party member’s throat. Ace, however, couldn’t stop the attack he was delivering, so the four party members saw him driving the knife deep. Two of them dropped to their knees, already tears in their eyes; one of them stood listlessly, her weapons forgotten at her side; and the last one, their leader, barely held back his tears.

  Ace stood up and looked back at the four party members. When he stood up, everyone could see that he had managed to redirect the knife just enough to miss. When they saw their party member still breathing, all the fight went out of them.

  ETG had been anxiously observing the fight the entire time and quickly conveyed his desires to Ace. At the distance he could still manipulate his dungeon with the invaders being present, creating five different gateways that grew up from the ground.

  “ETG will accept your surrender. You will be imprisoned here until, well, even he isn’t sure. Drop all your equipment, and each one of you will enter one of the gateways. You and you will go to the ones that are red in colour; the rest to the blue. You will not be tortured. You will be treated as prisoners of war. Is that understood?” Ace spoke in a clear voice, brooking no argument, as he was speaking the words of the dungeon.

  Ace, Rafe, and Ismael were all ready to get back into action as they watched the five party members remove all their gear and then start to move towards their different gateways. They said only a few words to each other as there was no need for more, as they knew each other so well.

  They never expected this outcome. They were bitter about their loss, but all of them still had small smiles on their faces, as they were still alive and had finally gotten an incredible fight they had missed for so long.

  As soon as they stepped through the gateways, the gateways themselves disappeared from the world of the dragons. All five party members found themselves in quite small rooms. The gateway they came through quickly turned into rubble, leaving them absolutely no way out. They were surrounded by multiple metres of dungeon stone from all sides, with two of the rooms being incredibly hot even for diamond ranks, while the other three were incredibly cold.

  All of them immediately knew that they couldn’t survive here for long. They thought that the dungeon had lied to them to get rid of them easily, but then they felt the draw of the room they were in.

  It was sapping their mana incredibly fast. All of them managed to stop the room from taking their mana, but during the few moments it took, they noticed how the room returned to a more reasonable temperature, but only for a moment.

  They began to understand that they were in a proper prison meant for diamond ranks. They let go of their mana control and watched as the room transformed from a barren rock with temperatures that would kill them into a more hospitable one.

  As time went by and their mana was basically empty, they found themselves in a pleasant room with a fake but pleasant environment. There seemed to be a constant flow of clean drinking water, and there was even food available that simply appeared.

  Their choice was easier: let their mana be completely drained but have no way to fight their imprisonment, or try to keep the mana they were generating but have no food or water, be in a barren rock room with no light, and with a temperature that could actually hurt and kill a diamond ranks.

  They were still connected on a level that even dungeon stone couldn't completely separate, and just the knowledge that the other party members were safe was enough for them to accept their imprisonment, at least for now.

  Back in the world of the dragons, Ismael immediately collapsed when the gateways disappeared. “That took way too long,” he barely managed to get out before he slipped into unconsciousness. A few other gateways popped up, and the rush of people entered the battlefield.

  They all stopped for just a tiny moment as the shock of what they saw registered in their minds, but they quickly rushed to the three fighters who were all on the ground, all of them passed out from complete exhaustion.

  It didn’t take long for the healers of the Academy to patch most of their wounds, and while it would take a while, they were certain that they could restore the wings of Ismael. The one that he bit off himself was already reattached and was slowly gaining function, but the other one was basically destroyed completely, so they would need to grow a new one, something ancient dragon physiology didn’t really like.

  For the past two weeks, there has been panic on the surface. The disappearance of five peak diamond ranks sent shockwaves throughout the world. It didn’t take them long to figure out that they were inside the dungeon but when the party entered the prison; even that signal was cut off from the outside world, so now the outside world thought that the dungeon managed to kill the party of five—something thought to be impossible.

  Their reaction was immediate. There was no longer time to wait for the dungeon to enter a breakthrough as they were now properly scared. In just an hour, their forces were ready, with dungeon melters being brought out as everyone readied for a proper assault of the dungeon. Almost everyone believed that they would succeed and finally end this threat to their existence. ETG's only thought was, bring it on.