Jacob kept regularly interfering with the invaders, but not hampering the progress too much, to lure them deeper into the tunnel. The tunnel connected to the other side of the dungeon and went underneath everything, making it near impossible for the monsters to create a new exit.
They all slowly pushed through the hazards and cramped spaces, each time the claustrophobia and jagged stones took their toll. The boss was a massive creature, and it was costing it mana to shrink its body through a spell Jacob couldn’t quite understand. They all kept pushing through, but the boss was becoming more hesitant as it went in.
Jacob forced himself to be patient and eventually they reached just over the half-way point. He marked the sealed-off tunnel, the actual best path to the dungeon core, to be opened enough to avoid cutting off the dungeon core. The dungeon fairy had been waiting there and sculpted an opening in the stone with its pearlescent glow.
The boss seemed to sense something and kept turning its head. Jacob felt his anxiety spike as he marked the entrance to the tunnel the invaders were in to be closed off. The wall was going to be created deeper within to give the dungeon fairy room to thicken it and truly seal the tunnel off.
The dungeon fairy’s slow progress passing through the dungeon made minutes feel like hours. Every moment was another opportunity for the boss to get too skittish, too paranoid, and retreat. While it wouldn’t be the worst, this was a golden opportunity for him to deal serious and hopefully fatal damage. He wasn’t worried about losing his dungeon anymore—the remaining magic beasts were tired and draining—however, he was worried about sacrificing too much.
Finally, the dungeon fairy appeared and started to bend and warp the stone into a thin wall. Once the wall was made, it was then extended back to the entrance to the tunnel. To Jacob’s surprise, the boss didn’t seem to notice immediately. Rather, the other magic beasts were the ones that noticed it first.
By then it was too late. While the dungeon fairy hadn’t reached the entrance yet and completely sealed this side, it was enough to stall if the earth beast decided to dig them out this direction.
The dungeon fairy then went to the other side and began to cover that side up. The stone wall here wasn’t going to be thick, it didn’t need to be when there were several hazards and obstacles protecting it.
Once both sides were buried, it took some time for the invaders to panic. Enough time for the dungeon fairy to begin the journey back to the beginning of the tunnel. Magic beasts were sensitive creatures, and it wasn’t hard for them to realize that there was less oxygen in the air than there should.
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They started to run back to the front to realize that they were buried into the tunnel. The earth beast began digging, but the dungeon fairy quickly appeared and started interfering. Unlike the other times where his fairy fought in a battle of earth manipulation, he had no interest in relenting. They were not going to dig their way out here.
The boss seemed to realize this and commanded them to rush to the other side. Except that was a faint, it was trying to draw the dungeon fairy away from the tunnel entrance. It kept looking back, as if it expected the dungeon fairy would try to complicate their progress in the other direction.
Instead, the dungeon fairy picked up where it left off and added more stone to the buried entrance. The boss realized that the dungeon fairy wouldn’t be so easily deceived and roared, pushing its minions into a frenzy.
Once he was sure that they wouldn’t be able to break out of the tunnel entrance, he went to the tunnel exit and began reinforcing the barrier on that end. He couldn’t do much as the invaders kept returning to the tunnel entrance to break out, forcing him to keep pulling back the dungeon fairy to force them forward.
The effects of oxygen deprivation were becoming apparent. The boss, due to its magic having the plant element, was able to produce oxygen much like the deer had, but there were too many lungs that needed fresh air. Combined with the boss's famished mana reserves, it was a desperate situation.
Their distress caused them to push through the hazards without any care, many of them getting bad cuts or bruises as they trampled their way through. Their desperation made them waste their valuable mana as they ferociously forced their way past everything. They combined their spells in a vain attempt to help the earth magic beast dig through horribly small sections of the tunnel and other obstacles.
They were slowly losing health too. The only one that wasn’t losing health was the boss due to its regeneration, both from its innate characteristic and as a side effect of its magic. It was able to endure the slow suffocation better than the others. However, the hysteria from the others was infecting it as it tried its best to hold its party together.
They kept pushing forward, but their overexertion caused remaining oxygen to be devoured quickly. The fire beast was the first one to collapse, quickly followed by the lightning beast. The ice beast was the next one to fall after that. The water beast, maybe because of the few amphibian features it had, was able to keep going though it was clear that its mind was struggling.
The boss kept feeding the earth beast with its power, pushing it forward. They were getting close to being free.
While they were doing that, the dungeon fairy appeared and started to kill the magic beasts left behind. It only took a few shots each for the fire and ice beast to be killed, though there was the concern that the boss might resurrect them. The lightning magic beast, however, must be killed. That one was transported by the dungeon fairy to the bear, where it was killed quickly.
The boss and the earth beast managed to reach the end of the tunnel, broken and bruised, and created enough of a hole to allow fresh air back into the tunnel.
