By now we had appeared outside briefly twice so Grandpa could integrate and then fuse. Neither occasion provided enough time for us to get a proper outlook of what we were about to face, but we had caught enough glimpses to know we were about to be in some shit.

  Some really deep shit.

  Once again, I made sure to have no delusions about my power, nor did I allow myself to get overconfident. My first interaction with that one lava woman, I caught her completely off guard after she basically wrote me off before any sort of battle began.

  Then there was that second group, it was quite a few of them, but Crushing Descent gave me a leg up that couldn’t be easily overcome. The difference between each interaction is that I left survivors.

  That second group took me a bit more seriously, but they were not prepared for my entire skill set.

  Well now that element of surprise is gone, and to make matters worse, they also got to see some abilities from Rakeon.

  Thankfully, Grandpa should be strong enough to help tilt the balance in our favor, and the plan we came up with would hopefully highlight that. Of course I would be opening with Crushing Descent once more, but I won’t be keeping it active for a long time.

  All it would do is give us time to clear the area and find cover.

  No matter how much stronger we got as a group, fighting a prolonged battle in the middle of the street likely wouldn’t end in our favor.

  So, we would quickly reposition and began fighting with the what’s left of the neighborhood as our shield. Of course, there’s a good chance the rest of it will get destroyed as a result of the battle, but if hiding behind some rubble buys us even one second extra of safety, then it was worth it.

  But that was at far as the planning even went.

  Even if we didn’t want to do it, as long as we stayed out there, something almost akin to a battle royale is going to begin whether we like it or not. We weren’t fighting idiots and doing hit and run tactics when they knew our location wouldn’t really take us where we needed to go.

  And that was to remove the enemy from Lagia.

  Anyway, Grandpa himself made the announcement to the rest of people wasting away down here that we’ll be going back out, this time to fight for our home. If anyone wanted to join this was their chance.

  He made no delusions about the uphill battle we were about to face and sought to fool no one. They could all come up there and die, shit we could all go up there and die. This wasn’t going to be some triumphant return to the top like with nothing to worry about.

  Grandpa made that clear.

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  Perhaps too clear since not a single soul left the spot of the ground to join us.

  We weren’t counting on their help in the first place, but this will be remembered. Even if I wasn’t going to, I know damn well Grandpa would.

  Regardless…it was time.

  I activated Crushing Descent, and we left the dungeon this time instead of reentering quickly. We stayed outside and immediately began running to the right before our eyes even cleared.

  By the time they did, the sight I believed I saw on our last two appearances here was not only confirmed but made to be worse.

  There was about 100 of them here. Even considering the few that we killed when we went to pick up our cousin, there’s still a little over 100 of them. I don’t know how or if we were going to defeat all of them, but I know damn well we were going to try.

  The problem was my skill wasn’t covering far enough to reach the ones that weren’t so close to the entrance of the dungeon, so although the ones close by were essentially frozen, and the strain alone that they were putting on me was intense, there were still goddamn spears of lava flying towards us like bullets out of the sky.

  “GO WITH PLAN B!”

  No one had time to yell back at Grandpa with any sort of confirmation, but we all moved as directed anyway. While we really didn’t have any complicated plans, there were a few tweaks we could make depending on the situation and how it unfolded.

  Plan B was quite simple.

  My dad and uncles would stay together, while Rakeon, Grandpa, and myself would roam and wreak as much havoc as possible.

  Especially Grandpa.

  He was the crux of the plan. It was he who now had the physical strength capable of really destroying any sort of formation or blockade they could’ve prepared for us.

  The man was truly strong now.

  We had all gained some measure of strength on the journey to level 50, but Grandpa was on a different level now. It almost didn’t look real to watch him destroy things with his bare hands.

  Anyway, Dad and the others went to the right. Grandpa took off in a similar direction, and my cousin took off to the left, but right now I didn’t have time to worry about them. The strain was getting too heavy, and it was a bad time.

  I deactivated the skill, and unfortunately there wasn’t any water nearby so I could re up on my energy a little bit, but that was all right because I wasn’t running away. I was going to run straight into the middle of these fuckers and give them something to really remember.

  Just before I deactivated the skill, I took off in a beeline towards the group of essentially frozen lava people, deactivated Crushing Descent, and as I did so, they immediately began moving to eliminate me, but I too was moving to eliminate them. My spear was already above my head, and then

  “OCEANS MAW!”

  Unfortunately, the big impact that I wanted didn’t happen, as a barely formed wall of lava rose up to meet the skill before it made contact with anyone. Immediately a loud boom was heard as steam filled the area, but there was no time to linger or worry about the result.

  Using the steam as cover, I pivoted quickly and brought my spear to the left to block a sword coated in lava from decapitating me.

  Knowing I couldn’t stay still, I pushed off and moved backwards slightly just as something else tinged with the color of red and orange slammed into the ground in front of me.

  There was a good chance every single one of these people was a better fighter than me. So staying still or letting this get drawn out for too long wasn’t to my benefit. I would have to get creative.

  I activated Crushing Descent for the briefest of seconds, which barely caused the ones around me to freeze for a moment, but that was all I needed.

  I took a strong step forward and drove my spear into the neck of the one in front of me before dislodging it and swinging it hard to the left, as the tip of the blade just barely pierced into another as she managed to lean back just in the nick of time.

  Unfortunately for her, she stopped herself from being decapitated, but it appeared I hit an artery or something, and blood began spraying everywhere.

  But I was already moving again.

  The battle had only just begun.