Chapter 85

Ouranos

Seated on his stone throne, Ouranos let out a slow breath as Rudra’s essence tore free of the lower world and returned to Tenkai.

Even through the stone and the Guild above him, he felt the god go screaming, cursing Loki and Freya until the golden light swallowed him whole. Ouranos took no satisfaction in it. He only shook his head as a familiar disappointment settled over him. He had long since lost count of the gods who squandered their descent this way. The lower world offered them an opportunity Tenkai never could, a chance to turn a new leaf and try everything their natures forbade in the heavens. Yet most of them fell prey to their temptations and clung to those natures as rigidly as ever, and Rudra was simply the latest.

A god who refuses to change gains nothing from descending.

Letting the thought fade, he closed his eyes and returned to his prayer, sending his vision down past the middle and lower floors until it settled on the 61st floor.

Ever since Ais was found in the Abyssal Floors, he felt a presence stir on that floor, one uncomfortably similar to hers. For a long time, the Dungeon left it alone. Lately, however, that changed. As far as Ouranos could read, the Dungeon began to nudge the spirit toward something, and the spirit, in turn, seemed to be preparing for it. What that something was, he still could not say. His only certainty came from the gems Maximus sold to the Guild, which were confirmed to be tied to that very spirit, and that alone was reason enough to keep his vision fixed on it.

So he kept watch while the gods filed into the Pantheon above him for the Denatus. In the silence of the chamber, an hour slipped by, then more.

Then, without warning, the nudging stopped.

Ouranos’s brow creased. The Dungeon rarely abandoned what it started, and the sudden stillness on the 61st floor suggested something pulled its attention elsewhere. Before he could search for the cause, the answer reached him on its own. A floor far above shook under a spell, then another, then another, each one striking the same stretch of wall. With every volley, the damage climbed higher, and as Ouranos recognized the pattern, unease gripped his chest. The floor was nearing the threshold for a Juggernaut’s spawning.

He wrenched his vision up to the 38th floor, but the threshold was already reached. Before he could even process it, one more volley slammed into the ruined stone, as though the culprit wanted to rub salt to injury.

For a single heartbeat, the Dungeon went still.

Then it wailed.

The sound tore up through the floors and into his prayer, a cry of anguish heavy enough to crush the air from his chest. For the first time in many years, the Dungeon unleashed its hellspawn.

Ouranos’s eyes snapped open, and he shot to his feet.

Who would do this? And how did they know?

The method was burned from the historical records long ago. Apart from Zeus, Hera, and what remained of their children, no one should possess that knowledge. Closing his eyes again, he swept his vision across the 38th floor and read the auras standing before the monster. A familiar crest greeted him, and it shook the Elder God more than the wail did.

They were Freya’s.

Four auras burned beneath her crest, and Ouranos recognized every one of them: the boy’s familiar, the Warlord, the Black Knight, and at the center of them all, Maximus himself. And the spells that woke the Dungeon came from him.

Had the culprit been some Evilus commander who stumbled onto the method by accident, Ouranos could have accepted it. But Maximus clearly did this on purpose, which made it far harder to understand. Setting aside how the boy even learned to spawn a Juggernaut, he should have known to march down with every First-Class adventurer he could muster. Instead, the foolish boy brought only three companions, and one of them was his familiar. However abnormally strong Maximus grew, the four of them were no match for a High Level 6 Juggernaut.

To confirm his fears, Ouranos read the monster’s strength, and his jaw clenched. It was no Level 6. It was a Mid Level 7.

Hurried footsteps echoed across the chamber, and Fels emerged from the shadows to stop at the foot of the altar, their raspy voice tight with rare urgency.

“Ouranos. Maximus has spawned a Juggernaut on the 38th floor. At least Level 7.”

“I am well aware.” His voice reverberated through the chamber, shaking the dust from the pillars. “The boy woke the Dungeon’s immune system with nothing but three companions at his side. Does he have the faintest notion of what he has—”

The reprimand died on his lips.

The Dungeon’s essence was moving. From the middle floors down through the lower, it drained out of the walls and surged toward the 38th floor faster than Ouranos thought possible. At first, he assumed it was meant to strengthen the Juggernaut, yet it never settled into the monster. Instead, it kept building around the floor itself, and a colder suspicion seized him.

Surely it does not intend to—

All of that gathered power left the floors in a single blow and struck Maximus.

The boy’s aura froze. Around him, the Warlord and the Black Knight kept moving, but Maximus stood locked in place beneath the crushing weight, and in that instant, Ouranos’s anger gave way to worry.

He dropped back onto his throne and poured himself into his prayer, speaking without opening his eyes. “Fels. Go to the 38th floor. Assist them however you can.”

Fels bowed and melted into the shadows without another word.

Ouranos could not reach the boy himself, but he could still deny the Dungeon. Seizing the channels that fed energy toward the 38th floor, he began to sever them one floor at a time, refusing the labyrinth anything more to gather. The Dungeon strained against him, and the pressure climbed up his spine to settle behind his eyes, but the Elder God held firm.

Yet even as he held on, another fear struck him. Anything could happen on that floor now. If the Juggernaut broke past them, or if the Dungeon’s fury spilled beyond the 38th floor, any party caught nearby would be dead before they understood anything. Without loosening his hold on the channels, Ouranos swept his vision upward floor by floor, ready to send an emergency Guild evacuation order the moment he found anyone in danger.

He found almost no one.

Below Rivira, the Dungeon stood nearly empty. He swept the floors a second time to be certain, and the result held. Twenty floors lay between that hellspawn and the nearest adventurers, and with the Denatus in session, the city’s gods and their strongest children were all gathered in Babel.

Ouranos went still as the realization sank in. Did he plan for this?

If he did, it was no accident that the boy chose tonight of all nights. He picked the hour when the Dungeon below Rivira stood empty and every god in the city sat in a single room. The longer Ouranos turned it over, the more he found himself appreciating the mind behind it, however reckless it was. Once the boy returned safely, the Elder God fully intended to reprimand him for it.

And it was reckless, the kind of recklessness Ouranos had not seen in a long time. With each passing day, Maximus reminded him more and more of the children of Zeus.

That was exactly why the boy had to come back in one piece. An adventurer with his potential might one day become the trump card this world needed against the One-Eyed Black Dragon.

Ouranos tightened his hold on the channels and fixed his vision on the 38th floor as the battle continued.

Emerge victorious, boy.

-◈ -

General Pov

“Ottar, Hogni, I’m fin—”

The words cut off mid-breath.

Ottar was already watching Maximus when it happened. Pushing himself back to his feet after the Juggernaut’s last blow threw him, he saw the boy standing with his hand half-raised and his mouth still shaped around the unfinished word, staring at nothing. Frowning, he tried to read what made him stop, only for his own body to feel wrong as he rose. He came up far too easily, as if most of his weight was shed away.

Before he could make sense of either, the slime on Maximus’s shoulder moved.

Kairu poured off the boy in a rush of blue gel, far more of him than Ottar ever saw at once, and spread around Maximus in a wide circle. Frost crackled out from the gel as it rose, and layer by layer, a dome of ice climbed up and closed over the boy’s head. It was no ordinary ice. Ottar could see Kairu fusing his own mass into every layer, packing gel and ice so tightly together that the dome came out dense and cloudy blue, thick enough that Maximus became only a dim shape frozen inside it. Then a small, compact Kairu settled on top of the dome, and the slime went still, watching.

Ottar understood enough. Maximus going silent in the middle of a sentence during a fight meant something went badly wrong, and whatever the slime was guarding against, the Juggernaut would not wait for it to finish.

He kicked off toward the dome, intending to cover the distance in a single bound, but his lightened body carried him much farther than that. It shot across the cavern at a speed he never expected, and instead of landing beside the ice, he overshot it entirely and slammed shoulder-first into the Juggernaut charging at it from the other side.

The collision rocked them both, but Ottar recovered first, and seeing the monster within arm’s reach, he refused to waste the chance. He brought his greatsword around in a brutal horizontal arc.

CLANG—!

The Juggernaut caught the blade on its forearm plating, and for a moment, neither of them gave an inch. Ottar leaned his whole weight into the lock as the monster leaned back against him, the cracked ground splitting further beneath them both, until crimson light flashed at his flank.

Hogni came down from above with Victim Abyss raised high, the cursed aura blazing along its edge as he poured everything into an overhead strike aimed at the monster’s skull. The Juggernaut’s tail whipped up to meet the blade in midair, and the impact rang through the cavern as Hogni’s strike stopped short.

Ottar gritted his teeth. Neither of them was getting through, and as long as it stayed that way, they were only feeding the monster time while Maximus stood frozen behind them, every second it spent this close to him a second too many. There was only one way to change that, and shame pricked at Ottar even as he decided on it, because it meant asking a Level 5 to hold this monster alone while he prepared. But Maximus came first. He promised as much the moment he agreed to come down here, and he would not break that promise for the sake of his own pride.

“Hogni.” His voice came out low and steady. “Hold it for me. I will beastify fully.”

Hogni’s eyes flicked to him, and understanding at once, he gave a single determined nod.

Breaking the lock, Ottar leapt back a few strides, and the moment his boots touched the ground, he let the fire beneath his skin surge up and drove it past its limit, triggering the overflow. Heat tore through his limbs as his body began to swell beneath his armor.

The moment Ottar pulled away, the Juggernaut turned all of its attention on the dark elf, coming at Hogni in a storm of claws and tail, one strike after another without pause. Hogni slipped away from the first, twisted clear of the second, and ducked beneath the sweep of the third, his lightened body answering him instantly. Nimbleness was his greatest strength, and Maximus's spell only sharpened it.

As he tried to strike, he lost track of Max’s spells after those Iron Pillars against the Goliath, but it hardly mattered. As his increased agility was the only reason he was still alive.

Even so, Level 7 speed was not to be underestimated. No matter how cleanly he dodged, the monster was always a fraction faster than he could fully escape. The first claw grazed his shoulder, the tail clipped his thigh on the way past, and every dodge after that left another shallow cut behind, the grazes piling up faster than he could count them.

Every few exchanges, the Juggernaut’s head snapped toward the ice. Once, it broke away from Hogni entirely and raked its claws across the dome, tearing through layer after layer of fused gel and frost before Hogni threw himself back into its path and dragged its attention back to him.

By rights, he should have been cut down the moment he dared to stand in front of this thing. Instead, he clung to that thin margin with everything he had, knowing it was shrinking with every exchange. He already saw his spell vanish into its plating once, but desperation made him try again anyway, in case something, anything, could reach it.

“Burn Dain!”

The condensed aura detonated against the monster’s chest, and the plating drank it down without a mark. Raising his hand, Hogni let one of the rings Maximus gave him flare to life.

“Maiden’s Lament!”

Lightning cracked across the cavern and struck the Juggernaut dead center, only to split apart and scatter harmlessly off to both sides.

He tried again and again, one spell after another, and none of them touched it, while the claws came for him faster than he could follow. Throwing himself aside a hair too late, he felt them clip his ribs and send him spinning, and as he caught himself on Geppo mid-fall and saw the monster lunging after him, a desperate idea took hold.

If my magic cannot hurt it, I can still use it to move.

Aiming behind himself, he triggered Burn Dain, and the explosion hurled him clear of the claws. He kicked off Geppo the instant he caught the air, then set off another blast at his back to launch himself around the monster’s flank, weaving between the dead trunks and tangled roots in violent bursts, blast after blast and step after step, each explosion flinging his lightened body faster than his legs alone could carry.

Even that was barely enough to keep up. The Juggernaut soon stopped chasing where he was and began striking where he would land, and the gashes piled up across his body as his arms shook with strain and his lungs burned. Every blast of Burn Dain drained more of his Mind, while the monster showed no sign of slowing down.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Hogni felt his hope begin to slip away.

It drained out of him one failed strike at a time, with every spell the plating swallowed and every gash that opened faster than he could avoid it. This was the strongest monster he ever faced, one his blade could not break and his magic could not touch, and every exchange only proved how far beneath it he stood. His breathing grew ragged, and his vision began to blur at the edges. The voice he spent years trying to silence crept back into his mind, small and trembling, the same voice that stuttered through every meeting in Folkvangr and hid in his room whenever it could.

I can’t do this. I was never strong enough for this.

The thought of defeat pressed down on him, and with it came the quiet temptation to simply give up. His grip on Victim Abyss loosened for a single heartbeat. He hated himself for it, and he was still hating himself when he caught sight of the ice dome over the monster’s shoulder, and the distant, frozen shape of Maximus inside it.

Seeing him, Hogni’s mind went strangely clear.

He remembered the day Maximus caught him tailing him through the Dungeon. Hogni braced himself for anger, or worse, for the cold contempt he knew so well. Instead, Maximus simply accepted him, as if a shadow following him through the floors was the most natural thing in the world.

From that day on, Maximus never once judged him. He answered Hogni’s grand words in the same spirit instead of laughing at them. On Floor 18, he sat and listened to Hogni’s entire story and even asked some embarrassing questions. He always paid attention, noticing the things no one else bothered to. Even this dive was his doing. Maximus came to him for a favor, and yet he made sure the favor gave Hogni a chance to level up as well.

And then there were the others.

Ever since Hedin’s removal, more and more of the Familia’s juniors began to notice him. They sought him out for advice and support, looking at him in a way no one ever did before. Those gazes were nothing like the expectant looks he faced back on the island, where every eye that turned toward him demanded a king. These were different. They were warm and hopeful, and for the first time in his life, Hogni found that he enjoyed being talked to.

All of it was possible because of his friend.

As that realization settled in him, the trembling voice fell silent, and something far older and colder rose to take its place. The bloodlust of Dainsleif surged through his veins, sharpening his senses and steadying his trembling arms, and the King within him awoke.

Then let this beast know whom it stands before.

His resolve set, hard and unshakable.

Maximus is my friend, and I, Hogni Ragnar, will slay this hellspawn if that is what it takes to keep him safe!

That thought pushed Hogni further than he ever thought possible. Meeting the next strike head-on, he deflected it wide, then parried the one after that and the one after that, refusing to give up another inch. There was no hesitation left in his movements now and no trembling in his arms, only the cold fury of a king defending his best friend.

The sudden ferocity caught the Juggernaut off guard, and in the single heartbeat it hesitated, another blast of Burn Dain at his back launched him straight at the monster. He brought Victim Abyss down on its neck with all of his momentum behind the blade.

CRACK—!

The impact threw the Juggernaut back many feet, its claws gouging trenches through the cracked ground as it skidded to a halt against a mossy trunk. Gasping for breath, Hogni gathered himself to leap after it, but a familiar blue gel covered him before he could.

“KI!”

It flooded across his armor and slid into every gap, the way it always settled over Maximus, sealing him inside a second layer of gel.

Kairu?

Hogni stared down at the slime in disbelief, and a cold spike of panic shot through him. Kairu never left Maximus’s side, not for anything. Was my struggle that obvious? Did my helplessness draw Kairu away from his master, leaving Maximus unguarded when he needs protection most?

“Kairu! I-I’m fine!” he blurted, the stutter slipping back into his voice as he turned frantically toward the slime on his shoulder. “I can handle things here! Go back to Maximus!”

“Kiki!”

The chirp was firm, and Hogni knew what it meant. Trust me.

It threw him completely. Before he could argue, the Juggernaut recovered and came back at him, its claws driving straight for his throat, and the slime moved first. A pseudopod shot up from his shoulder and turned the strike aside, the claws skidding harmlessly past his throat.

Taking advantage of the angle, Hogni stole a glance toward the dome. The ice still stood around Maximus, and perched on top of it sat Kairu, still guarding his master. As if he noticed Hogni looking, the slime raised a small pseudopod and gave him a salute.

Hogni understood immediately. The one on his shoulder was a clone.

The panic drained out of him all at once. Settling back into his stance, he fell in with the clone as if they fought side by side a hundred times, and when it began chirping in sharp bursts, he understood every word.

“Kikikikikkikikikikkikiki.”

Left. Right. Jump. Duck. Air. Thrust. Parry. Block. Back flip.

He followed each call without hesitation, and the clone moved with him, its pseudopods covering every angle he could not. Together, they began to match everything the Juggernaut threw at them, strike for strike, and the dance went on.

A few strides away, Ottar spent that time adjusting.

The overflow surged through him as his body swelled beneath his armor, and with it came the control his lightened body lacked. Where every step carried him too far a moment ago, the beast within settled his balance and brought each movement back under command. He did not waste the time. He ran rapidly through his sword forms, testing every cut and every step against his new weight until his body answered exactly as he intended, and even as he moved, he began charging Afterglow along the edge of his greatsword. Until the charge was ready, he could do nothing else, and every instinct he had hated it.

Behind him, Hogni’s breathing grew more ragged with every exchange, and the shame in Ottar’s chest sank deeper, because every one of those breaths was one Ottar should have been drawing in his place.

“Hold a little longer!” he called, without turning.

When the charge settled and he finally turned to unleash it, a string of chirps reached him first.

“Ki! Kik! Ikik! Ikiki!”

Ottar stopped.

Across the clearing, Hogni was dancing with the Juggernaut. There was no other word for it. The dark elf was bleeding and gasping, but he slipped past every claw and ducked every sweep of the tail, flowing from one movement into the next with a grace Ottar never saw from him before, while a slime on his shoulder chirped out the rhythm and parried whatever he could not reach. For a moment, the Warlord simply watched, transfixed.

Then a light weight settled on his own shoulder.

“Ki!”

A second slime sat there, one pseudopod raised in a small salute. Ottar looked at it for a heartbeat, then nodded, and the slime spread across his armor in a layer of gel.

He raised his wrist, and the Familia bracelet hummed as he opened a link to Hogni.

“Hogni.” Ottar kept his voice even. “I am charging Afterglow. When I tell you, clear the way.”

“U-understood!” Hogni’s voice came back tight with strain, but steady.

Ottar waited, feeling the attack gather along his blade until the golden light grew dense and heavy in his grip. When it could hold no more, he gave the word.

“Now.”

Hogni kicked off Geppo and shot straight up, launching himself many feet into the air in a single bound, and in the same instant, Ottar charged.

His greatsword blazed golden as he crossed the clearing, closing the distance in a heartbeat. The Juggernaut turned toward him, but he did not give it time to dodge. Driving right up to it, he released the attack at point-blank range.

BOOM!

The blast rang out across the floor. The golden light struck the Juggernaut full in the chest and tore it off its feet, carrying it hundreds of feet through the tangled forest until it slammed into a stand of dead trees and flattened every one of them, throwing up a massive cloud of dust and splintered bark.

Hogni dropped down beside him as the dust began to settle, his breathing ragged. “How long can you hold this?”

“Not long, in this enhanced state,” Ottar answered. “But the normal one, I can manage.” He kept his eyes on the settling dust. “Reach the original slime. Have him prepare a teleportation circle for our escape. We leave the moment it's ready."

Hogni’s mouth opened, the objection already rising in his throat. Maximus came down here for a level-up, and leaving now meant abandoning everything he planned for. But the words died before he could speak them. However much Maximus wanted this, facing a Level 7 was not the way to earn it, and certainly not with Maximus frozen and unable to fight. And if he stayed like that, Hogni did not even want to imagine how their Mistress would react.

He swallowed the objection and nodded. “I’ll reach him and let you know over the bracelet.”

Ottar nodded.

Out in the settling dust, a grinding sound rolled across the floor as the Juggernaut dragged itself free of the flattened trees, shaking off splintered wood and stone. For a moment, it simply stood there, its crimson-gold eyes fixed on the two of them through the thinning haze. Then it came charging back.

Ottar raised his greatsword and let Afterglow gather once more, releasing it the instant the monster came within reach. But this time, the Juggernaut saw it coming. It dropped low and braced itself against the ground, and the blast that sent it flying across the floor only moments ago now drove it back a mere few steps, its claws carving grooves in the stone as it slid.

Ottar’s jaw tightened. The monster was learning.

It did not take them long to notice the other change. Of the 25 layers of ice around Maximus, the Juggernaut already tore through 15, and yet now, it no longer spared the dome a glance. Every time before, its head drifted back toward the ice. Now it stayed locked on the two of them, as if it finally decided that they were the problem. It came at them in a relentless rhythm, alternating between claws and tail so that one strike flowed into the next, and within a handful of exchanges, it pushed them both to their limits.

As Ottar held the enhanced beastification, he kept pace. His body answered him with a speed and strength he rarely allowed himself to use, and he met the monster strike for strike, catching its claws on his greatsword and turning aside many of its blows with his own elongated claws. Every deflection jarred his arms to the shoulder, but he held, while beside him, Hogni wove through the gaps he opened, the clone on his shoulder chirping out every step.

But the enhanced state was never meant to last.

As the minutes wore on, the strain began to build, starting as a burn in his muscles and deepening into an ache that settled in his bones. He pushed through it for as long as he could, gritting his teeth against the pain, until his body refused him, and he dropped back into his normal beastification.

The difference showed immediately. The Juggernaut’s strikes, which he could meet a moment ago, now came a fraction faster than he could answer, and more and more of them began landing on both of them. A claw raked across Ottar’s side. The tail caught Hogni across the back and sent him skidding. They threw themselves back in, only to take another hit, and another, the gashes piling up faster than either of them could count.

Hogni tried to reach the original Kairu over the bracelet more than once, but the pressure never let up long enough for him to form a single clear thought, let alone coordinate an escape. Every time he began, a claw or the tail dragged his attention back to the fight.

Only the slimes on their shoulders kept them standing. Whenever a strike came for their throats or their hearts, a pseudopod was already there to meet it, and whatever slipped past, the blue gel absorbed as best it could. Ottar lost count of how many killing blows the clone turned aside.

But even the slimes could not stop them from getting tired. Ottar’s greatsword grew heavier with every swing, and his breath came harder in his chest. Hogni’s movements, so fluid only minutes ago, grew a fraction slower, his feet landing a hair later than they should. They could both feel their strength draining away one exchange at a time, while the monster in front of them showed no sign of fatigue.

Then the two Kairus on their shoulders began to glow.

It started as a faint light flickering beneath the blue gel, then deepened into a clear, vivid blue. An unknown energy flooded through both of them at once, chasing the exhaustion from their limbs in a single rush. Ottar felt the weight lift from his arms, and Hogni’s breath came easy again as strength surged through them, stronger than anything either of them ever felt.

The Juggernaut’s claws came down, and this time, they withstood.

Blades locked against claws, the three of them strained against each other without either side giving an inch, the ground cracking beneath their feet under the pressure.

Beside Ottar, Hogni could hardly believe it. Only a moment ago, he felt his strength slipping away, and now it surged through him again.

They did not need words. Magic was useless against this monster, and they both knew it. Breaking away from the lock, they drew back together and began charging their strongest attacks without a single spell, channeling the blue glow into their blades until both burned with it.

For the first time since the fight began, the two of them felt something close to hope.

Hogni struck the monster’s tail, and Ottar brought his greatsword down on its head.

The glow cut through. For the first time all night, their blades sliced past the anti-magic barrier and carved into the plating beneath, one inch, then two, then deeper still, and they felt the monster flinch beneath the blows.

Then the glow vanished.

It was gone in an instant, and with it went all the strength it lent them. On their shoulders, both slimes went strangely still, as if their attention suddenly went somewhere far away. Their blades stopped dead, lodged halfway into the plating, as the vigor drained from their limbs and the full weight of their exhaustion came crashing back, heavier than before. For a terrible heartbeat, neither of them could move. They stood there with their weapons buried in the monster’s hide, close enough to feel its breath against their faces, helpless.

The Juggernaut seized the moment.

Its claws came down on Ottar and slammed him into the ground, pinning him beneath its weight, while in the same motion its tail whipped around Hogni’s waist and closed in a death grip, lifting him off his feet. Hogni felt his ribs begin to strain.

Ottar strained against the claws with everything he had left, and they did not move. Hogni clawed at the tail, twisting against it, and it only tightened. Behind them, Maximus stood defenseless within what remained of the ice, and there was nothing left either of them could do.

Then Destruction erupted from the dome of ice.

It burst outward in a wave of crimson-black and swept toward them both. Seeing it come, Ottar braced himself to be unmade, because every one of them knew what Maximus’s Destruction did to anything it touched, and Hogni squeezed his eyes shut.

But it did not erase them.

The crimson-black wrapped around them gently, encasing both executives without harming a single hair, as if Maximus himself had reached out from inside the ice to shield them. Where it brushed the Juggernaut, though, it did not stay gentle. It began eating at the monster’s plating at once, and the anti-magic layer hissed and thinned beneath it. The Juggernaut shrieked and released its hold, leaping back across the floor as if the power burned it, and Hogni dropped to the ground beside Ottar, gasping.

Inside the protective Destruction, Ottar drew his first full breath in what felt like hours, and a bone-deep relief washed through him, sharp enough to make his hands tremble. Maximus was still in there, and somehow, even now, he was protecting them.

The Destruction held around them, and for a few long breaths, nothing moved.

Across the floor, the Juggernaut watched them from where it landed, low and wary, its crimson-gold eyes fixed on the shroud of Destruction. Then it crept forward, testing, and the moment it drew close, the erasure surged thicker around the two executives. The monster leapt back at once.

It tried again. The Destruction flared again, and again it retreated.

Back and forth they went, the Juggernaut edging closer only to leap away each time the Destruction swelled to meet it, as if the two of them were locked in a game of chicken. With every retreat, some of the dread eased from Ottar’s chest. He forced himself up onto one knee, his greatsword scraping against the stone, and beside him, Hogni pressed a hand to his ribs and finally drew a steady breath. For the first time since the fight began, they had room to breathe, and neither of them wasted it.

The Juggernaut, however, did not share their relief. Each failed approach wound it tighter, its claws raking the ground and its tail lashing behind it, until at last, its fury boiled over. With a guttural shriek, it abandoned all caution and charged straight at Hogni.

Behind them, the ice shattered.

A blur streaked past Ottar and planted itself in front of Hogni, and the air around the adamantite knuckleduster bent as Gravity gathered into a single fist.

BANG—!

The sound reverberated through the cavern, rattling the ground beneath their feet as the Juggernaut was hurled away across the floor. Dust billowed up around the point of impact, thick enough to hide everything, and when it finally began to settle, Maximus stood in the middle of it, shaking out his hand as he looked back at them with a grin.

“YO! Missed me?”

--> Devil in a Dungeon <--

AN:

Such a long chapter with so much to process. I honestly couldn't decided where to stop this one, first I thought of ending the Juggernaut mini-arc here, but had to postpone it as I felt the chapter already had too much to cover and if I cram everything Max does in this as well, that will spoil the scene and ruin the chapter. This chapter has lots of nuggets and gems hidden in it and the deeper you dig, the bigger ones you find and I eagerly await to reply to all your comment. ;)

The next chapter will be the end of the Juggernaut mini-arc and what do you think if the surviving trio end up getting caught? Wouldn't that be very fun ;)

Didn't hear much about Max's mother, who might she be? :)

Do share how you felt the chapter was. Was it good or did you feel it was a bit forced? Please share your feedback/suggestions on how to improve the story in a comment/review.

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Ben, Out.

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