Cerulean glared at her new opponent, and upon sensing her hostility, the knight roared its challenge and pounced at her. Just as strangely, it even spoke with its ethereal voice without the use of a mouth.

Cheaters… must… be… punished!

"Oh? You think I cheated?" Cerulean smiled with amusement. "But I always consider using all of your abilities fair and square. Guess that's not apparent to a dullard like you."

Cerulean sidestepped, missing the entire knight's body as it crashed on the ground. The earth quivered from its weight before the knight swung its metal arm at her.

She caught it with one hand. The force exuding from the blow caused a short wave of force behind her, leaving a long road of destroyed earth and shattered wood behind her flowing red mane.

She studied the knight for a bit. To her surprise, this knight was using a different kind of energy she had never seen before.

As far as she knew, those who had a deeper connection to their attunement are able to pull out more than just their expected power, all stemming from the path they forged for themselves. There are also multiple ways one can attain a similar power by going down a different path, but this one…

This one was strange. It felt artificial, yet it wasn't. A new form of power that, for all Cerulean had seen throughout her long life, she wasn't capable of at least mimicking. This only proved that this creature was a construct made entirely by the system itself, or was it perhaps those of higher power than her own?

There was also something strange about this knight. Its body continuously drained the resources not from the natural surroundings, but from the dungeon itself. Was it keeping it in place? Or was it trying to absorb even more than before to face her?

The knight had enough of being manhandled by her, and kept swinging at her with its other hand. Letting go, she dodged its massive strikes with poise and grace, her skills aiding her movements and thought process.

The creature was smart. It used feints and its massive form to get a reach around. It even used an interesting take of its barrier skill by trying to stop her feet's movements. Not even an experienced combat fighter would be able to handle fighting it without some powerful synergy between multiple of their highly leveled skills.

Thankfully, Cerulean had them in spades.

She kicked the leg that the knight was using to pivot, causing it to stumble towards her. Reaching around its neck, she spun the massive knight around and around before chucking the massive pile of stained steel all the way to the nearby standing tree. The poor tree couldn't withstand the sudden force of the object thrown, knocked straight off its base and falling over with the creature in tow.

She flew right towards it, ready to kick the thing further to the ground. The knight reacted with a powerful barrier to stop her foot, but she gritted her teeth with a manic grin across her face.

"That's not enough!"

She roared as her foot slowly dug into the barrier before snapping into pieces. Her attunement was basically designed to ignore defenses which even included barriers such as this, and she knew this sort of barrier more than anyone else.

It was her father's own original skill, which was already strange to see. Barrier Craft is a rather unique skill that takes a lot out of the mage, but in return comes with great benefits. A powerful barrier that doesn't use any aspects or elements, just pure magical force.

She would've learned it as well if it didn't have such an overwhelming stat cost. Of course her father had to make the skill so unbelievably customized to be barely used by anyone else. That jackass.

While steeped in her memories, her foot crushed the barrier into pieces and kicked the knight down to the ground, causing a massive earthy explosion that covered miles in diameter.

The knight, despite its helmeted face unable to show anything, looked to be in pain from the way its magic eyes flared with flames. Cerulean just smiled wickedly at it.

"If you're gonna pretend to be like Dad, you're gonna have to put some more oomph in that!"

She roared again as she dug through the remains of the forest and pulled the knight out with one hand. Pulling by its arm, she swung it over to the air and kicked it again to the side, the destructive force launching the knight several miles away.

The fight continued on like this. Cerulean would charge after the knight as it tried to defend itself with its magic or its fighting prowess. Each blow she made deflected its own, causing a ripple of air to explode between them.

Something tickled at the back of her mind as her bout with the knight continued. It looked like it learned how to counter her at least. She felt that she was doing something wrong, something that her pops would probably not be a big fan of.

But it's been so long. It's been so long since she fought something on almost equal level to her. The knight was nothing like she had ever seen before. It was a creature that was of Master-Rank, but it actually carried itself as though it had all the experience of a veteran fighter. All the other Master-Rank monsters, at least the beasteal kind, always relied on their brute force and magical abilities to get the upper hand.

However, this knight wanted to live, to survive. It kept fighting back despite knowing that its opponent was head over heels above it. It knew that it had the chance to survive if it could just get the chance it needed.

But Cerulean never gave it that chance. She swung her fists with every morsel of her attunement weaved into her hands. The power charged her with enough force to counter its barriers and break its metal surface. Cracks begin to form on every part of its obsidian gleam.

Suddenly, the knight roared at her. She figured it was a roar of pain, but instead the knight just retreated several miles back. Just when she thought the fighting was getting good before it got away, her eyes widened at what it was about to do.

Energy formed around it. Mana, kinetic, and even life energy hewn around it. Before she could recognize it, the energies formed into a cacophony of power and destruction as three large wriggling entities formed from non-existence. The three writhing entities were heads, scaled and muscled to almost perfection, reminding Cerulean of snake heads.

But when she spotted the heads, she found that they weren't snakes, but dragon heads. Each one opened their sharp maws and flames began bursting out from their throats. It was a flame more powerful than even the most powerful fire magic that a mage could conjure up.

These were true Dragon Breaths, an attack that signified the dragon's long rule over the dominion at the northern hemisphere of Tarial. Cerulean just grinned as she pulled out the one thing she kept back for this very situation.

Bringing out her beauty would always end the fight too soon, so she ended up just using her fists. But at this rate, she might actually get in trouble–not in the sense of her life, but in the sense of her poor armor having to get an expensive repair in the future.

She trudged through her storage bag and pulled out her beauty–a longsword delicately crafted with runes etched into the blade, shaped like a saber with the tip curved at the front and the edges completely flat.

Golden energy swirled from the etching of the runes on the blade, which were fueled by the golden pummel and handle decorated with jewels crafted to withstand her powerful mana. Gripping the long hilt tight with both hands, she angled her blade at the side and swung diagonally down.

Just once. Just once did she swing–and all of the dragon breaths coming at her ceased to exist.

That said, it didn't help as the dungeon around them began to shake from the intensity of the swing. The dragons coming alive and the breaths they exuded were bad enough, but her sword swing managed to slash not just through the breaths, but through the entire dungeon itself.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

The fake sky was slashed, revealing a dark void that she herself had made when she entered. The power exuding from her swing was too much for the dungeon's making, causing the entire area around her to start to quiver in response.

But all she could see was the knight looking at her in pure shock. Cerulean smiled deviously as she swung the tip of her beauty at it.

"Come on now–you can't run out of tricks yet!"

…..

"That crazy bitch is gonna kill us all!"

Mikella shouted at the top of her lungs, having no other choice as the entire dungeon around them was shaking to no end. The unfortunate otherworlders had to kneel down and some were toppled down by the shakes. Elly was doing her best to help protect the only child, Tigger, with her body despite the danger. Mark was at the front, doing his best not to lose his cool.

Throughout all this, Zeke was able to get some semblance of consciousness after what occurred. He hoped that due to his past experience of letting go of his attunement, he would have more control of his body in the same way he had before. Unfortunately it was a lot more demanding than he had expected.

Thankfully, his mind was still stable despite the horrid beating, but now there was another problem.

That woman, known as the legendary Cerulean in Arcelot's history, was now about to get them into deep trouble if they didn't do something. The thing was, they have no way of stopping her.

The way she fought was beyond comparison, especially when she managed to put that knight into a corner without a shred of worry. Even more incredible was that her class was Mage, and all she ever did was use her overwhelming physical power. Just how incredible she would be if she actually used her magic?

Unfortunately, she was not doing her reputation any good as Saang answered Mikella's plight.

"I really hoped that it was just an exaggeration on the stories, but it looks like she really does leave nothing but destruction in her wake," She answered, though there was still that excited gleam in her eyes.

"Damn it, what do we do?!" Kote shouted, just as much frustrated to see Saang lost in her adoration for the woman. "We can't leave, and by the time she's done with that thing, the entire dungeon's gonna collapse!"

Zeke heard it all, and he forced his thoughts into his soul link with Mikella. That soul link was also connected to the tower, but no matter how much he or Mikella tried, the tower felt distant. It was as though the connection to the exit of the tower and them were snapped in between.

He was certain it was due to House Corran's intervention. Whatever it was that they did messed up the tower bad enough that once Cerulean came in, it somehow broke the connection. Now the only way out is to survive the downfall as soon as the knight is vanquished.

But how can they survive the downfall of an entire dungeon? Rather than just being a simple physical dungeon where they could be buried, they were trapped in an entirely different plane of existence. It's not so easy to get out of a broken plane compared to a broken building.

Even while his body burned and his wounds ached despite receiving necessary life energy from Lyle's potions, he churned in his mind for answers. If only he had his barrier back, then he would be able to protect them all from the backlash of the dungeon breaking.

As the tower shook again, he recalled exactly how Cronus managed to do it. He knew that Cronus was in his own state, thus allowing him to have the power to intrude on Zeke's skill. That, and perhaps he had some sort of connection with Zeke's Barrier Craft skill.

After learning about Mikella's fused skill working, he had this rough idea on how to work on it. As the situation became worse and worse, that crazy idea suddenly became plausible the more he thought about it. He just needed–

Suddenly, an idea flashed into his brain. His Parallel Though instantly made him recall the fragments, causing him to bring them out of his storage pack.

Skill Unison Fragment

Mikella said that she used these fragments to aid in her skill fusion back at the repository. Just using two of them was able to give enough power to massively reduce the energy required to help her fuse her multiple skills.

As his brain kept churning, there was only one answer in his mind that he refused to let go.

If you had enough mana, you can do anything. And Zeke had boatloads of mana.

Granted, he was burning from overusing his attunement at the time, but this new idea gave enough of a boost for him to ignore the intense burning pain spread all over his body as he gathered himself to kneel. Everyone else noticed him with odd looks as he gathered the fragments onto the ground, then began drawing with floating pens to create a new kind of rune-array.

"Zeke? What are you doing?" Mikella asked.

"Something pretty stupid," Zeke said honestly as he continued. "I'm going to fuse my skills to create my own barrier."

"What?!" Kote asked in shock. "What are you saying? I know things are bad, but that's extremely dangerous! We're talking about a process that requires heavy loads of mana and resources just for a chance of a successful fusion!"

"Kote's right," Mikella answered. "It really needs a lot of power. I don't think only three fragments are enough."

Considering it was Mikella that said it, she was probably right. Zeke grimaced as he probably overestimated how much he actually had. Then Janet suddenly spoke up.

"Hold on, fragments?" Janet mentioned, her eyes widening. "Can I give mine to you?"

Just as she said it, she pulled out the fragment, her eyes gleaming at the new sight of a rare item for otherworlders. Yet, she turned to Zeke, willingly giving it to him. He looked up to her, unable to comprehend it. It was still valuable, yet she was willing to give it up for him.

"I-I mean, you can, but this is–"

"Wait, if he had enough fragments, can it work?" Lyle asked, suddenly bringing out his own fragment. When Kote looked at the fragments, his eyes turned solemn for a moment.

"Kote, it really reduced the amount of energy when I fused my skills with just two fragments. If we had more, wouldn't it work?"

"That's…" Kote stood still for a moment, but Saang interrupted him with a jostle to his shoulder.

"Let's give it a shot! If he can make a barrier to protect us, then let's give it a go! Still, we don't have fragments ourselves, but what about you?"

Mikella quickly pulled out her own fragment, giving it to Zeke along with Lyle's. Now he had four fragments.

But would it be enough?"

"Hey," Elly's voice came up, surprising Zeke. "You need those fragment thingies, right? Can I give mine to you if it helps?"

He forgot that it wasn't just his party surrounding him. An entire group of otherworlders listened in to his crazy plan, and all of a sudden they shifted themselves.

Of course, not everyone gave up a fragment, but some of them closed in, their shimmering crystal in hand. Mark came up to them as well, his own fragment in between his fingers.

"I don't know how this works, but I'm guessing it's pointless for us, right?" Mark asked, turning to Mikella. She grimaced as she nodded.

"Yeah, right now, you guys are nowhere near ready to fuse your skills yet. But hopefully we can help with that later."

"Right, then here you go."

Mark willingly handed the crystal to Zeke, then everyone else poured in to give the fragments to him as well. Before he realized it, Zeke had around 13 Fragments available.

All while this was happening, his pens were drawing the rune array he needed to fuse his skills with the help of Iron Parallel Thought. It was a sight to see, especially since the otherworlders were just slackjawed when they saw that the pens were still drawing on their own. Meanwhile, Zeke didn't know how to feel about everyone just giving up a valuable resource to him.

But Mikella pulled him back into reality, her sharp yellow eyes hardened.

"Zeke, I don't know how dangerous this might be. Just… survive, alright?"

Compared to everything else going on, this was the easiest thing to go through.

"I will," Zeke nodded. "I want to go home and see Clara with you."

Mikella smiled, a warm thing that have given Zeke so much strength these past few years. "Good. That's what I like to hear."

"Zeke, can we help you out with any mana?" Janet said. "Like my attunement?"

"I'll also give you some mana potions too," Lyle said. "It's not gonna be pleasant though, just so you know."

"Yes, that's a good idea," Zeke nodded to Janet. "Just don't take it too far. And Lyle, I don't care how painful it gets, keep feeding me mana."

"I'll help you out too, even if it's not much," Kote said, a grim expression still plastered on his face. "Saang, can you make sure everyone else is safe?"

"You got it," Saang nodded, then she turned to Zeke. "We're counting on you. Don't muck up!"

Saang shouted as she took her axe in hand, ensuring that no falling trees or other debris could harm the otherworlders.

With everything in place, the ruckus from the outside was getting worse as Cerulean was pushing back against the panicking knight with his literal three-headed dragon at its back. While Zeke didn't learn much about dimensional magic yet, he knew that the dungeon doesn't have enough time to handle the intense fighting.

He wasn't sure whether Cerulean was actually an enemy or not, considering that she is helping them survive. Perhaps she knew this would happen and intended on helping them…

But Zeke had enough of letting others do what they wish with their fate.

The rune array was completed, and all the fragments began to shine with a bright green and blue colored light, the color of his mana. With his party supporting him via transferring magical energy to him and the otherworlders watching in awe, Zeke closed his eyes as he activated his rune array.

With all of this support, he can't mess up. Not once.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.