The gigantic palace was even more glorious than Damian had imagined it to be from afar. The gold and red metal, he realized, were the same. They were just painted red and gold.

It was sprawled for kilometers. Each room was enormous with top-notch carvings and beautiful murals. It told the story of an empire, with amusing little snippets of the once great characters that called the city home. All things inside the palace were too big and shiny; the use of those colorful crystals from earlier levels was done very skillfully. The metal furniture, wall-paintings, the decorations, tables, and everything else were of massive proportions.

It was made for a pigman transcendent and beyond, Damian figured.

The backside of the gigantic kilometers-tall palace was carved out with an angled and smooth seat. It was a throne for a monstrously big individual. It fitted the height and size of the pigman Sun God.

'Of course, the palace is for transcendents, but the god wouldn't be living with them. It would take too much resources to build a home for a kilometer-tall guy.'

It was beautiful and grand. The city was leagues above what the mainland had.

A god that ruled a prosperous city.

Why would this place, of all things, the dungeon would choose for a final battle? To see it destroyed again and again by the hands of the one who swore to protect it?

'So.. It's a punishment?'

The system, or whatever it was, named some events on its own once in a while, and it was scarily accurate. The scholars of the mainland concluded it's a divine judgment. Damian doubted that divine part, but the system had indeed shown itself capable of delivering judgement. That was if the dungeons and status things were related.

Not a single presence was present anywhere in the massive city or the metal palace.

The glowing white orb took Sulthar deep within the palace. Damian stayed behind with the wormhole powering the waygate and the coat of seven active. The structure had the same length below as it had above the lava-covered red wasteland. It was a spiral straircase though, not same sized massive structure. The walls were left uncovered and were of red dirt and stone.

Sulthar was inside the lava lake, Damian guessed. From the mana sense distance.

It took some time, but finally the dragon returned. The white orb was nowhere to be seen though.

"What happened?" Damian asked, standing atop the highest peak of the palace.

"He is there, but I can't hear him. He is not breathing.." Sulthar said his voice almost breaking.

"Wait a second,"

Damian replied and broke a big chunk of the metal top. While waiting, Damian let his mana threads spread all over the metal to check its quality. It wasn't exactly Sacrium, but it was a grade above Blazur alloy. If he mixed Sacrium in this, it could probably perform at 30% of what pure Sacrium would perform under mana strain.

Damian shaped the chunk of metal into a cube and placed the invisible box spell in it, but also reinforced the walls of the box with a coat of seven from outside and added dark vines in the few centimeters gap between the box and the coat of seven walls to make it pitch black in color.

In case the fake demon lord used sight for teleportation.

Damian also made a giant container filled with his golden liquid mana, as much as he could generate while waiting. He placed the cube near the fake demon lord and connected the container's mana to it. Then, activated the thing connecting the mana threads and gave a push start.

With the pitch-black, thick, invisible box in place, Damian let go of the waygate and coat of seven wall inside it.

For a minute, they observed. It successfully contained the clingy guy.

Then, ignoring him, they flew straight toward the basement of the grand palace. At the very end of the spiral stairs was a massive hall. The walls of which were covered in familiar pitch-black metal. Other than the titanic figure of the unmoving Sun God lying on his back, the hall was empty. Just a few lonely torches here and there.

The orb of white zoomed towards Damian the moment he entered the black hall. The Sun God was chained in the massive black chains, the same as the original one.

He was indeed not breathing.

No mana signature either. The man was dead.

The white orb still urged him to do something, continuously circling hurriedly. Damian looked at the thing with pitiful eyes. He was prepared to fight a berserk Sun God who wouldn't recognize them, or the dungeon won't let him out of its duty, but the dead Sun God was not in any of his scenarios.

But then his mind started thinking. How did this pesky thing know where the dead body was?

Damian observed the tiny thing as it urged them to move closer to the chest of the dead pigman god. The chest.. heart..

What was the description of this dungeon again?

'...At the peak awaits the Sovereign's prison & vault, a chamber said to contain a fiery relic of unimaginable power—the heart of the fire god himself, capable of reshaping the world or reducing it to ash.'

Damian flew up and landed on the giant red pigman body. Sulthar followed behind without a miss. Sending his mana threads inside the chest, he confirmed it. There was something powerful inside. It was above his mana sense, meaning..

'Divine Rank,'

Damian concluded.

He looked at the frustrated and pitiful face of Sulthar and spoke his thoughts aloud,

"This flesh is just a corpse now. But there is something inside the chest, if I have your permission.."

Sulthar gritted his teeth and grabbed Damian's arm with a bit too much force, "You may be stronger than me, but the second I see you trying to hog the price of this divine body — I will kill you."

"Just say no, and we will leave. I may not care for your father, but I know how to respect my companions. It's just odd.. that's why I proposed it."

"What's odd?" Sulthar asked.

Damian arranged his thoughts for a second, then replied,

"First of all, this weird ball of light is not a normal thing. I thought it was just a weird companion thing from the dungeon relic, but maybe it's more. It knew where to find Sun God when neither of us could sense it."

He paused for a second then added,

"The second is the information about his dungeon. The rumors said it was supposed to have a divine vault full of the Sun God's treasure inside. I don't believe the treasure part, but the promise of a divine rank dungeon relic is not impossible, given how ridiculously difficult this dungeon is for an average Pathfinder. Even if it is a party containing a hundred transcendents."

Leaving the monstrously powerful Unfathomable monsters, copyright Sulthar, Copyright Heiryul, the black golem version of him, the black pigmen army, and, in the end, this impossible-to-kill fake demon lord. Even if the Highsword organization was at its peak, they would not be able to clear this dungeon without waygate spells, giant dungeon floor destroying spells, and a ridiculous level of temperature protection, runic items, or dungeon relics.

If someone managed to clear all that.. Divine treasure is indeed what they deserve.

Damian did not come here for that though, nor did Sulthar. Their aim had always been to find Pigman Sun God.

Sulthar's eyes were filled with moisture as he glanced at his father one last time, then, releasing his arm, nodded slightly, permitting Damian to act.

Damian used a big aura sword to make a surgical cut on the massive chest of the dead god. Bright lava seeped out of the cut. Instead of a giant heart, what they found inside was fire.

Surrounded by mana-rich lava-blood were the bright, unrelenting green flames. It was burning without any mana or any other sustaining source. The flesh of the dead god was not burning at all when it touched. It was an odd fire.

The moment Damian used an air shield box to catch it and pull out, multiple sounds of the system resounded in his head.

[Congratulations to Damian Sunblade and his party for successfully clearing the dungeon, The Radiant Sovereign Thicket.]

[Dungeon Relic: Starcore Divinity Heart acquired.]

[Dungeon, The Radiant Sovereign Thicket Core Acquired.]

Damian opened his status and touched the dungeon core notification. A bright, smooth, 2-meter-diameter crystal sphere materialized out of thin air and landed in his hand.

This was the first-ever dungeon Damian had ever cleared. For some reason, despite having access to hundreds of dungeons, he never finished one. The dungeon core was the biggest he had ever seen. Even the most difficult fifty-level dungeon only had a handball-sized dungeon core; this was indeed bigger.

The bright burning fire had disappeared from the air shield box, becoming a dungeon relic. Damian needed to take it out before using the analysis spell. However, the second Damian touched the relic notification, the singular line of the notification changed into three different choices.

Three possible uses of the divine flame.

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