I was broken.

  After meeting up with my mother and noticing the fact a few faces were missing from the group behind her, the ensuing minutes passed by with a muted grey blur.

  I made my way over to the group, and after greeting what remained of my family, I sat down and listened to their obviously painful retelling of the events that took place shortly after Rakeon and I left for the Gauntlet Dungeon.

  Not even a day.

  We obviously didn’t know how long or how quickly the attack from the lava people would come, but to think it wasn’t even a day later that an entire contingent of them descended on Lagia.

  The fact that people survived at all told me that they weren’t E Grade existences, and likely not even Demi-E as well, but the fact remains that they possessed advantages their lesser counterparts didn’t have and were definitely stronger.

  And it was displayed in full when the attack took place.

  No one in my family knew their exact numbers, only that the people of Lagia were far outnumbered and outclassed. The amount of lava that descended on Lagia didn’t make any kind of sense.

  Both the heat and the quantity of it were enough to overwhelm any that came across it, especially since it was controlled lava. It wasn’t like they just flooded the area with lava and did nothing else, apparently there were far more skills and such related to lava that were thrown upon the people of Lagia as well.

  Of course, the people of Lagia, and all the credit to them, fought back valiantly. There was a good number of Peak F Grades among the people of Lagia, and all the cowards had long since left the area so all that was left were people who would rather fight for their place.

  And they did.

  Especially the people of my family.

  They fought hard.

  …Maybe too hard.

  My gaze drifted towards my grandfather, who was asleep. There was a painful expression on his face and the reason for that was probably two-fold. Firstly…where his left arm should’ve been was nothing but a burnt stump of flesh starting just above his elbow.

  The old man who has guided and protected this family for decades was sitting here almost crippled from doing just that. He would no longer have the use of his left arm for likely the rest of his life unless we could find some type of elixir in this new reality of ours.

  But…

  But…but…he would trade even his other arm…even his fucking legs to get his family back.

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  Uncle Grant…Uncle Terrance…both of them...both of them were dead…

  Tears flowed down my face as their faces were painted in my mind and all the interactions, I ever had with them replayed constantly. Birthdays, going to the range, sporting events, scoldings when I was little, all the talks, all the stupid little jokes, the births of my younger cousins, Grandma’s funeral…so many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of time together.

  And I will never experience any of it again.

  My initial reaction to the news was one of rejection. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I didn’t want to accept when my parents were telling me.

  Then it was one of disgust.

  Aimed at myself for feeling relief that at least my parents survived.

  It was an unconscious reaction and one that I felt terrible for, but I couldn’t deny the thought was there. I had no idea how I would even function if I came back to learn one of them had died instead of my uncles.

  But now…all I felt was rage.

  Nothing but rage.

  Perhaps if it wasn’t for the presence of my family I would’ve already left and sought to cause a bloodbath of red people outside the Dungeon. But instead, I managed to bring all that emotion under a fa?ade of calm, as I took in the rest of the information my family had to share.

  During all the mess, someone had the idea of escaping into the Dungeon in the midst of all the fighting when Lagia was on the verge of being overrun. Everyone rushed in roughly at the same time and as a result a couple pieces of information were learned.

  There was hard cap at 50, for the number of people who could enter into one instance of the Dungeon at the same time. That was how the family even managed to make it all the way to the Fifth Floor and then successfully get passed it.

  People still died during that battle but it mostly because most of them were already injured and thus couldn’t fight to their best.

  Regardless, a number of people were able to make it here. Likely due to the number of people in each instance. It was simply too much for the opponents in the Dungeon to account for.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing here to help their situation or give them confidence to return outside. Instead, there was only a singular path that apparently led to a staircase to the Sixth Floor.

  A few brave or rather stupid people decided to go down that path, but no one has returned. And why would they? If the Fifth was the peak of the F Grade, then wouldn’t the Sixth be the early E Grade?

  Even if it was Demi-E for some reason, it would still be a very bad idea to go and investigate. There would be no coming back from that.

  Which meant one thing and one thing only.

  We needed to go back outside, and free our home from the oppressors who held it. And in my moment of ‘fake’ calmness, I remembered something.

  Something vital.

  I had enough gold to purchase the book on Integrating Traits.

  Immediately I felt foolish for not doing it before leaving the faction node, but there was no use thinking about that too much. I needed to move forward and the answer to that was simple.

  Go back out, fight my way back to the node, purchase the book and then come back.

  If I’m successful, the members of my family and I would then have a path to not just integrating our Traits, but to also fuse them. The more the thought danced about in my mind, the more I realized there was no other option than to do this.

  Plus, there was also the matter of Rakeon.

  Not only was I worrying about how he would match up with a beast like a Leviathan even as a baby, in the ocean with no land to take advantage of but how would he find us once he made it out.

  Then there is also the fact that I killed a few of them on my way in here. If they were even a little bit competent then they are likely far more ready for any attackers now than ever. So not only would he not know how to find us, but he might have a much harder time getting around now that alarms would’ve been raised after what I did.

  Even if I couldn’t get the book, going back out to ensure he was okay would be worth than I could fathom.

  Especially since…since it was his father…his father who died.