"Have you decided yet?" Einar asked the moment everyone arrived.

Damian had invited all sanctum heads, along with Vidalia and Ilvanya, for lunch.

"No, it's not about that," Damian replied.

Einar and Evrin had decided to accept the quiet dungeon life to remain safe. Einar returned every night to meet her inside. Vidalia also shared the dungeon plane and often went to meet her niece. It would have been a perfect getaway for the couple if not for the fact that Drona could not go with Einar. Evrin will have to endure staying away from her adopted son. Worst part? No one was sure for how long.

Ilvanya had noticed her grandchild missing from the sanctum. When she kept pestering Vidalia, the Spellmaster brought the issue to the sanctum heads. They had to give her permission to reveal some of what had happened. Especially after the news of Astraea making contact with the Eldoris queen reached the mother and daughter.

Astraea reaching out was a top secret in Eldoris, and only the royal family of Eldoris was aware of it. Vidalia had shared that info with him prior to her asking permission.

Still, Vidalia only revealed to her mother that the gods had given Damian an ultimatum to choose one of them or become an enemy of them all. The reason for that, she gave Damian's abnormal runic inventions and the duel result, of which the Sea Snake had challenged him.

The narrative was for Ilvanya and the queen of Eldoris from Vidalia that because Damian killed the Sea Snake in a duel to the death, the sea god wanted him to swear loyalty to him or be destroyed along with the whole of Sanctuary. But the other two gods had made contact with him as well and asked Damian to choose them so they could protect him.

And they had hidden Evrin because she could become the target of another assassination attempt due to these events.

"Just a lunch then?" Sam asked.

"No," Damian said while chewing a piece of steak. Then added,

"Tonight I am going for the Highsword dungeon. I will try to reach the end. If any of you wish to come, you are welcome to join me."

Damian paused for a second, then looked beside him where Lucian was seated, silently eating her food.

"I plan to do it in a night, but it may take more time than that. If you aren't too busy, more transcendents will make it a faster run."

Lucian met his eyes.

"I will join," She whispered.

Damian nodded.

Others followed his lead and joined him as their schedules allowed. Without Evrin, all Sanctum management responsibilities were on Souldealer's shoulders. She was busy, as one might expect. Einar was going to meet Evrin, so she couldn't make it either. It was going to be him, Lucian, Sam, Grace, Vidalia, and Ilvanya.

Damian looked at the two elves and said,

"Our dungeon plane is set, but Landbreaker's party will have many slots empty. I will provide him with temperature-resistant runic suits. If you two are coming, you will have to go with Landbreaker."

"He is also going to aim for the end?" Ilvanya asked, and Damian nodded.

"Why now? What is the goal here?" Einar asked.

Damian glanced across the table. Ilvanya and Lucian had the gold and red mana threads attached to their heads, respectively. He was never truly free from their eyes, no matter where in the sanctuary he went.

"I want to see what a god looks like before submitting to one," Damian replied.

The Highsword dungeon was infamous for never having been conquered by anyone. Not even Landbreaker or anyone from Faerunia when it was in their hands. The lore of the dungeon was public knowledge, and after the story of Pigmen world spread by Alex, Grace, and others, more or less anyone could figure out what was at the end of the dungeon. Especially with many dungeon relics and their descriptions public for the dungeon, too fiery for even a fourth ranker.

**

After a whole afternoon spent creating the best heat-resistant suits Damian could make, they were all gathered in his office, ready to leave.

Damian used a mix of Sacrium and Blazur for the armor pieces, inscribed with a thick air shield spell, heat resistance, a cold ice layer that would cover most of the flesh yet make it okay enough to move around, and an oxygen tank. He also added multiple slots on the armor to fit in a cylindrical liquid mana capsule.

This capsule would power all spells in the suit without the user needing to channel it themselves. The liquid mana will be theirs, so they can control the spell if they need to; all spells were kept mana-dependent and had constant regeneration. The shield and the ice layer both will melt in the intense heat, but hopefully it will be a constant cycle of regeneration>melting>regeneration. The result of this should protect a person from the heat well enough.

If it all failed, Damian had other tools ready as well, which he was not going to share with anyone else other than Landbreaker. Only they needed to reach the very end.

Damian opened the waygate, and they arrived in Edgeheaven.

The rebuilt Obsidian Bastion was still under construction, but most of it was finished. Hearing about Landbreaker's return, nobles from all around the mainland had sent help and manpower to help them. Over the years, Highswords had saved a lot of lives, and lots of people owed them; some were honorable enough to be grateful.

Mindseer joined Damian's team since they shared a dungeon plane, and Landbreaker accepted Vidalia and Ilvanya in his team for additional support. Most of them could fly, so crossing the dungeon floors shouldn't be much of an issue. Landbreaker had even cleared 60-plus floors, so Vidalia and Ilvanya were getting an almost free run till they reached there.

They would have to fight their way through from Level 25. But with four transcendents, it should be a breeze.

"Ready?" Damian asked his group after handing runic suits to Landbreaker for his team.

He also let them fill their liquid mana tanks using his sacrium mana cubes. And gave two Blazur mana cubes to them for using in the dungeon. They were to return that afterwards. Both Vidalia and Landbreaker were people he could trust, so he wasn't worried much about the misuse of the tool.

The Gods watching must feel that he was genuinely wishing for both parties to reach the end. Half measures will only give birth to suspicions.

"Yes," All present replied.

Damian and his party entered the dungeon. From the very first level, they flew straight towards the key point, entering the next floor. Till floor 25, they did not face any monster at all. Four transcendents releasing aura and mana was a terrifying sight for any low-rank monster. All the emperor rank ones were already dealt with by them in their first run.

Entering level 26, they continued zooming past the desert terrain and reaching for the key points. Only Emperor rank monsters of different abilities and levels came to face them or stood in their way. But none needed more than one or two attacks to be dealt with.

One enormous bolt of lightning, a soul-freezing ice aura slash that created an ice mountain of any emperor rank monster, and lastly Damian's own hellfire or occasional giant beams of laser were all that they needed.

The desert terrain remained till level 35. In which they faced many weird monsters, but the boss ones were a giant chimera, a titanic desert wolf, and a half-snake, half-man monster. All emperors varied in strength and abilities.

Then started red barren land terrain with rivers of lava and a dark sky with lightning bolts constantly lighting at regular intervals. Here, many of the same monsters Damian had seen while searching for the pigmen sun god were present. The land, too, looked kind of familiar.

Giant dark rock golems, mid-emperor rank, and hordes of flying drakes led by lesser dragon low-emperor rank monsters were common on these levels. It lasted till level 50, where the first main boss of this insane dungeon was guarding the path. From here on, every ten levels should have a legendary and above rank monster.

Landbreaker had told them about level 50 and 60 bosses; he had yet to reach level 70 himself.

"What's the plan?" Lucian asked as the five of them watched from a distance.

The legendary rank monster was standing menacingly. It was a towering golem of solid, craggy stone, its surface fractured with glowing veins of magma that pulsed like fiery veins. It looked as though it was torn straight from the heart of a volcano, radiating dull red heat, with flames flickering around its limbs and plumes of acrid smoke spiraling from its shoulders.

"It's easy enough if we gang up," Damian said, then smiled and added, "But are you guys satisfied with being a third ranker? Do you not have ambition?"

Lucian rolled her eyes, and Sam squinted at him. Mindseer on the side scoffed a little at clear provocation. Grace looked already done with the dungeon experience. She had recived a lot of experience by simply tagging along.

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