After a minute of Damian desperately maintaining the barriers while keeping the water rune active, he finally let it go.

It wasn't mercy.

The atmosphere of the 40 km square dungeon floor was completely transformed. Nothing was visible. The steam now turned grey and dark ash filled held pieces of obsidian in it. The temperature was beyond absurd now; even Sulthar, T'korran were receiving constant damage. The ground-shaking impact of water into lava did not stop and continuously released shockwaves after shockwaves.

The lake of lava was like a half-filled bucket. Titanic wave going this way and that, throwing itself on the invisible dungeon walls.

The worst thing, however, after ignoring the suffocating steam, mind-numbing shockwaves, and ungodly temperature, was the constant building pressure. The dungeon floor was in a fixed physical shape; it did not give. The pressure built up and up, raising the temperature with it and crushing everything within.

It was about to shatter two dozen ten-centimeter-thick golden barriers that Damian constantly repaired as they broke. Even with an insane level of mana control, he was not fast enough to create and mend these barriers before this kind of monstrous pressure destroyed them. He had to stop his water rune and stop this madness.

They had the runic suits that generated oxygen; otherwise, they would have been suffocated to death by now. He had inscribed this spell in the very innermost barrier as well for Sulthar and T'korran. Good thing both could change their body size at will; if they were like that titan gorilla, fixed in their form, he would have to leave them behind.

Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos that was released after the water hit the lava, the legendary gigantic whale monster upon which the obsidian knight's throne was had been killed by the constant steam-releasing explosions.

The obsidian knight was still alive; Damian could sense the guy somewhere below them. Moving in no particular direction, who knew doing what.

But it was slowly inching closer to the place Damian and his party were moving towards.

The key point.

Maintaining so many barriers, Damian and his party could not move fast without risking shattering them. He was only maintaining the barriers while Sulthar, Lucian, and Sam were carefully pushing the barriers in the guided direction. So all of them inside the barriers could move forward without being exposed to temperature, pressure, and suffocating steam.

The pressure did not make it easy for them to move. Damian assumed that was also the case for the obsidian knight; it was moving too slowly and unnaturally from before. If the creature still required to breathe, hopefully, that would make its life even harder right now.

The wormholes did not work without clear visibility. It was a mistake not to create one that led directly to the key point while there was still slight visibility left.

Who knew what guided the obsidian knight? Maybe it could also sense the very tiny fluctuation of mana coming from the key point, like Damian. But from the way the guy was going left, and right before moving forward, it couldn't pinpoint it like him.

Eventually, their destination arrived.

But the obsidian knight had reached there just a few seconds earlier. A creature this powerful could easily sense them, and it had made that clear since minutes ago when it threw giant arcs after arcs of its sword.

The thing was guarding the key point with its life.

Damian was in no position to send attacks. Even with a monstrous level of focus, he was barely keeping the barriers stable. Lucian and Sam did their best to use wormholes from their swords to both attack and defend the barriers.

All four of them, including Sulthar and T'korran, sent attack after attack towards the obsidian knight using the wormhole, but without knowing exactly what was going on, they had no idea if they even reached near the knight. Damian was the only one who could sense the nuance changes in the mana around them; from it, he could guess that the obsidian knight was still strong enough to fight back.

Every attack was deflected or absorbed.

The knight was not moving from its position near the key point. Only launching long-range attacks that Damian sensed on time, and warned Lucian and Sam to put up wormholes for defence.

With limited visibility, the wormholes could only be placed meters outside the golden barriers, both for attack and defence. Needless to say, they were playing with literal fire here. One mistake and they will all become charred remains.

It was a stalemate.

How long will the obsidian knight last? How long can Damian himself hold on?

Sulthar let the three attack and moved back to stand beside Damian. Now that they were not moving, pushing the barriers wasn't required.

"One of us has to stay behind," The ancient dragon said.

"I have better chances against it," Damian stated the fact.

He noticed Lucian and Sam turning back, eying him, but they continued their attacks without pause.

"No," Sulthar declared, "You have to move forward. Only you can get us through, even if we return to others using that woman's sword spell."

"You won't survive without the barriers."

"If that bastard can, so can I," Sulthar replied resolutely.

He had no other plans; this was just as good as any. Damian looked at their other three companions, and all three nodded in agreement. It was settled.

Exhaling while closing his eyes for a second, Damian calculated all the options he had to raise their chances of survival.

Opening his eyes, Damian activated his arcane synthesis skill and used the registered slots for a cooling potion, a healing potion, and a mana boost with stamina and strength enhancement potions. And one more special potion that, in theory, sounded good, but the testing will have to be live. One by one, the spheres of separate potions floated in the barrier. All were extremely potent.

The cooling potion was not as effective this high up in the dungeon levels. Used with the runic suits, it was nearly useless, but without the barriers, it would give them whatever tiny advantage it could. Sulthar, in his dragon form, with a large mana pool, can make the most use of it.

Healing potion, once drunk, should remain effective for some minutes; hopefully, whatever damage they incur will be healed by this at least enough to keep them alive.

Stamina and strength potions would help as well, especially for Sulthar; he could take a large amount of them, and his peak legendary body should endure the mana expenditure without dying.

They all drank the potions as much as they could handle. Sam and Lucian filled their manapools to the limit using the liquid mana available in the capsules of their runic suit. Under the intense heat and pressure, the runic suit made of sacrium and blazur alloy will give up. Hopefully, their sacrium helmets will provide them just enough relief and oxygen to live for a few minutes.

That's all they needed. A few minutes.

With one last confirmation from all present, the plan began.

Damian let a few outer barriers go and immediately used a waygate spell inside the inner barrier that connected directly to Mindseer, Lucian dropped one side of her earring in it. The signal for don't enter, we will come soon.

The obsidian knight should have sensed it, probably hoping they would leave. Lucian and Sam activated their barrier helmets. Sam's box had the waygate opening; Lucian could create her own. Damian's sacrium helmet was also just inscribed with the same spell.

Damian activated his helmet as well and finally let go of all the barriers, then used the liquid mana to open a wormhole in which Sulthar, T'korran, and Damian himself jumped in. Lucian and Sam were hit by the intense temperature and pressure just like all of them. The two human transcendents used every bit of mana thread they could make to reinforce the barrier through the helmets.

Sam and Lucian activated the new spell that the mysterious potion had given them the ability to use, and instantly, their whole bodies started covering in obsidian layers of skin. Damian noticed that, but asking if that helped to face the heat and pressure will have to wait. He could not use it without restraining his movement speed.

Damian and Sulthar grabbed T'korran from each side and threw the guy high in the air. The pressure reduced the power of the throw by many times, but still, the lava guy reached a decent enough height to launch down at the obsidian knight.

Damian moved to the left, Sulthar, transforming into his dragon form, circled from the right. Sulthar's dragon body started transforming again as it was covered in thick, dark obsidian skin atop his tough dragon skin.

All three closed in towards the obsidian knight's mana signature, even if slow and restricted by the pressure and attacks of the knight's long sword and cyan flame pillars. But it could not target all three of them.

Sulthar received the damage, so did T'korran. Damian could chain multiple active wormholes, so he had better luck than the two legendary beasts. But still, all five of them were slowly catching fire, and their internal organs were not making any pleasant sound, being crushed under the pressure.

At last, when Damian closed in near the obsidian knight, the boss monster moved. It swung the long sword without any restraints; neither of them could move fast enough, but Damian did his best to dodge, use wormholes, or release hellfire and laser spells to face the monstrous being.

Slowly, he baited the guy to come forward, and after receiving a couple of hits from he long dark sword or it, Damian succeeded in his aim.

The obsidian knight was meters away from the key point. Damain matched his timing perfectly with Sulthar and used a wormhole to get through the damned knight. The monster was beyond clever and launched its cyan pillar of flames into the wormhole to seal the shortcut. Damian had deliberately not entered inside.

A moment later, Enourmors jaw of the obsidian-armed Sulthar revealed itself from the grey mist clouds and munched hard on the obsidian knight. The cyan pillar damaged Sulthar, but he did not let go of the damned boss monster and dived down, away from the key point.

This was his chance!

Damian did not wait even for a second before rushing to the key point and moving to the next level. Of course, taking his lesson, he first covered his entire body with the coat of seven.

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