Before opening the waygate, Damian sensed the area around Landbreker and found nothing of note. He activated the waygate and arrived at some rocky island far from the shores of Edgeheaven and the mainland.

Damian scanned the surroundings for any mana signatures and found nothing but fish and distant monsters. The clouds covered the moon, but still gave a white glow. Landbreaker had made a stone bench at the top where he was seated, overlooking the dark waves below.

"A mana beast shouldn't be controlled.. But leaving anything to chance is not very cautious of us." Landbreaker said.

"Toph is different," Damian replied.

"If you say so,"

"Can that bastard with giant ears hear us? It shouldn't be possible, right?" Damian wondered aloud.

"If he can, we are already done for," Landbreaker replied. Then added,

"So what did you decide? Which one will it be?"

"There is no choice," Damian exhaled, then sat down on the stone bench with Toph in his lap.

"I would have advised for the Astraea as well."

"She seems less involved.. hopefully that's a good thing. With Sanctuary's history, it should appear natural." He said.

"Afterwards, how will you know you have not.. changed?" Landbreaker's doubt was valid.

"The status should reveal it. I don't think they can add stuff, as they hide things."

The leader of Highswords turned sharply towards him.

"They hide things in our status?"

Damian nodded. "Yes, since I am Godless, I know for sure what the differences are. Runefather, Worldscribe, all of them spent decades in the dungeons to ascend. Even after killing a Legendary rank monster, they were not given the chance to ascend further."

"I had my doubts, but they were never confirmed," Landbreaker said.

"I always wondered.. How did you ascend?" Damian asked.

A darkness clouded Landbrealer's face. "I was young and foolish. I did something I shouldn't have for a false promise of strength. Turns out the deal was honored."

"What was the deal?"

"A dungeon relic stored in the Highsword vault. I underestimated its value and paid the price for it."

"Was it Sun God?" Damian asked.

Landbreaker gritted his teeth and looked far into the distant black sea and nodded.

"That bastard has done so many weird things and is still scheming something that no one can piece together." He said.

"It has to be the same thing as always. Schemes to gain more power than others." Landbreaker guessed.

"If that was the case, Sea God should be ruling this world. The pigmen Sun God mentioned that God beings simply did not get along. This strange alliance of theirs has to be for some reason." Damian said.

"They even included the Chaos God in it despite his tendencies. Maybe something that threatens all of them?"

"What would threaten immortal beings?" Damian did not wish to find out.

"You think there are more of them? In that black emptiness above?" Landbreaker asked, looking at the sky.

"Perhaps,"

"We are nothing to them," Landbreaker said.

"Which is why we need one of us among them." He said.

"How? Just the thought of doing that carries too much weight. Not to mention the block of status details you mentioned. Even the already alive gods are getting murdered by them."

"The weak ones die. If all of them are hesitant to lose their physical forms, we simply need to become strong enough that eliminating us would cost them too much. If you ascend, your strength, combined with my runic tools as a fourth ranker, we stand a chance. They will be forced to cooperate, leaving them no other choice." Damian revealed his thoughts.

Landbreaker's determined face did not lack in promise. "I will do whatever is required of me to protect the mainland, but I do not have the same belief in my chances as you do."

Damian smiled.

"You just focus on becoming stronger. The issue of status tempering is something for me to solve."

"We need to buy time and study as many dungeons as needed to find answers," Landbreaker said, tightening his fist. His face held now more hope than before.

"Yes," Damian agreed. "You need to clear all of them, and I need to study them. All dungeons on the mainland are already within my reach; the ones remaining can be accessed. The most important part, however, is to find more. Hundreds and thousands more."

"That exploration project of yours!" Landbreaker understood what he meant.

Damian nodded.

"Buying time is essential." Landbreaker added, "Astraea will try to block your growth if you become her follower, but if you are confident in finding the solution to that, then it matters not. You will just have to tolerate her voice in your head."

"I have experience in that," Damian smiled.

Then added, "There is a way we can be certain what a god's limits are before I undergo this follower-making thing."

"How?" Landbreaker asked.

"There is another god on the mainland. The Highsword dungeon's final boss." Damian answered.

Realization dawned on Landbreaker's face. The god that threw them out of the dungeon. An alien god, but things should be the same between them. The lower floors had too much heat, even for Landbreaker's body that could survive in space for a while. They will need those oxygen suits and a way to block all that temperature. But it was doable.

"We will have to take others along, or the gods will get suspicious," Landbreaker said.

That was true. Inside the dungeons, the gods could not reach, but they would notice the odd behaviour of people they could reach and figure out that something was suspicious. The less people knew better it was for them. But they could not enter the dungeon with just two people either, that would be suspicious as well.

'I will bring them, but won't take them till the end.'

"I will come find you tomorrow night or whenever we can spare the time." Damian stood up to leave.

"My dungeon plane might not be the same as yours. You will have to do it alone when that happens." Landbreaker stood up as well.

Fighting a fifth ranker boss monster alone? Well, Sulthar and others should be with him, and the god was just a fragment of dungeon memories, so he shouldn't be like the real fifth-rank monsters.

Even in the worst-case scenario, where he would become a follower of Astraea and would lose all privacy, there was a way he could continue this plan. Even if he had to keep his eyes closed constantly to conceal his unique eye skills.

He met eyes with Landbreaker and said,

"If I truly become a follower, I might not say a word to you for years inside or outside the dungeon. But that will not change this aim of ours."

Landbreaker smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Your sacrifices are not lost on me, Runebreaker. Others may not realize how big a deal it is for you to give up your unique aspect to save your people. But you will forever have my respect for it. Any weak leader would have left by now. I might become a fifth ranker, but you, unrestrained by the gods, with some time, would have definitely become a god one day. Not many can give up such power for the ones they love."

Damian felt a strange feeling in his chest, but he was too used to bottling his emotions to let it show outside. Damn this guy for saying weird shit with a straight face.

Damian simply lowered his head, acknowledging his words, and activated the waygate back to Jacob.

After some light drinking and thinking Damian got back to his runic designs. He needed the flying jets and bigger ships ready as soon as possible now. The more dungeons they had better the chances of gaining more spells, learning more about the universe, and finding powerful creatures, the materials of which he could use.

Damian kept working throughout the night. Lucian never returned as well. Maybe she had work to do with the academy starting again after break, or was just avoiding him.

He had finished most of the designs and had finally moved on to make the first real runic jet. Some smaller aspects of the design Damian decided to make up as he built it, and felt like it. The design of the jet needed to be the most efficient despite being full of power and having a full set of defensive capabilities.

Damian had planned to build a suit inside the pilot's detachable seat as well, so pilots could do an emergency exit and still have a protective suit around that would be able to fly, survive a crash, allow breathing underwater, be heat-cold resistant, etc.

The giant flying ships he was going to build did not require such a refined design since speed was not the priority for them. And with a big size, he could install multiple power sources, so speed can be increased if needed.

Damian also wished to do a giant side project when they start exploring the world. Leaving floating network relays all around this world to have lightning-fast communication.

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