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  As the monsters of the 21 dungeons continued to blindly rush to their deaths, something happened that no one expected. A humanoid rushed forward with every other monster, relishing the chance to finally have a proper fight. He easily passed the line that had stopped everyone else. He crashed into the defensive line, ripping apart anyone he could get his hands on.

  All of that took only a moment, but then he realized something was wrong. He was the only one here. The monsters he had joined in rushing forward were dying behind him. With that, he figured out he was no longer in a dungeon. There was a bit of respect he couldn’t help but show his enemy.

  All of this he realized and thought through faster than a normal person would even register a change of scenery. Already, his body was moving to retreat, but it was too late.

  A fire spell exploded behind him, pushing him forward directly into the path of multiple arrows—each the thickness of an arm and three times as long. He was pierced in multiple places, and his death came quickly. Immediately after the body died, it started to shrink. With the arrows still in it, the body tore itself apart even more, and what was left was a Pixie whose body was completely destroyed.

  "That one was at the peak of diamond, was it not?" The one who had cast the fire spell behind the Pixie asked the person who had shot the arrows. He got a distracted nod as the arrow shooter looked at the carnage. Just one diamond rank got past the line for a moment and almost 30 dead—all platinum.

  "Everyone capable of distinguishing between monsters and real people, focus not on attacking but on sensing if there’s anyone else out there that can fight us here."

  Those who could started using their skills, but they didn’t sense anyone else like that out there. During this time, the four great powers were panicking. They had not expected something like this, nor such a clever trap to eliminate so many of their most powerful monsters. Each one who was the direct master of a dungeon was yelling at those dungeons to stop their monsters from rushing in.

  The dungeons did just that, but it took some time for the momentum of those monsters to stop, so during this brief exchange, nearly 400 diamond ranks died, including a couple of thousand platinum ranks, and of course, one really peak diamond rank. All of this for almost 30 dead platinum ranks on the other side. As battles went, it was an incredible victory for one side. But the battle wasn’t over, even if the other side’s monsters stopped rushing in.

  "Switch to damaging attacks!" was the command given over the communication crystal. The time for deception was over. So every platinum rank and even some diamonds, who had not been attacking to kill but to distract, started attacking with their best attacks. Normally, platinum ranks would do little damage to diamonds, but there were still ways of killing diamonds even if you were just platinum—you just needed the proper combination of skills.

  The monster army that stood still could do nothing more than just take the damage, as they were ordered to stay still. Once again, the dungeons started to relay what was happening to their masters while ETG forces continued to fight. But perhaps that was the wrong word because at this time, it more felt like they were practicing their attacks against an enemy that didn’t even defend. And with every kill, they were growing stronger.

  Platinum ranks who were doing area-of-effect damage, combining their spells with others for truly devastating results, had already gotten enough for a minor breakthrough, and if things continued, they could jump multiple minor breakthroughs, getting ever closer to diamond.

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  The four powers managed to get things figured out. They realized that these empty areas without territory could only be pockets and that there should still be a way to reach the dungeon proper. So they ordered their dungeons to continue to advance while staying clear of dungeon-free areas. Once the monster horde got their orders, they could finally move and defend against the attacks.

  Monsters, when they concentrated, could easily tell where there wasn’t dungeon territory. So that was their guide. They headed sideways, reaching walls of regular rock. They could tear through it easily enough, but every delay meant that ETG forces had more time to attack and grind down the defenses of even the strongest monsters. It was going to be tough to advance in such conditions, but they had no other options.

  Like this, the horde of monsters continued to advance, always heading upwards while taking constant fire. It didn't take them too long to reach another pocket, and they immediately started taking fire from that one.

  Their momentum ground to a near standstill, so other monsters started to branch off in different directions. The short reprieves from attacks, while they were digging from one section to another, lasted only a short while before they found another pocket that started attacking them.

  Some of the monsters started to fight back when they figured out that they could throw rocks at their enemies. Unfortunately for them, those rocks didn’t do any real damage, as ETG forces were prepared for that. It did reduce the number of attacks against them, but not enough to truly matter.

  While platinum-ranked monsters died in droves, killing a diamond rank was not that easy, although with every passing minute, they were slowly being whittled down, and eventually, they would start dying.

  All of this was relayed back to the dungeon masters, who, over the course of a few hours, realized that attacking while the entire focus of that dungeon could be directed in one location was disastrous.

  They would need a large force of diamond ranks that weren’t monsters to stop those pockets of dungeon-free territory from being so effective against monsters. None of them had even dreamed of a strategy like this, so their response to it was slow.

  Finally, they did something they didn’t expect they would need to do—they sounded the retreat of the monsters. There was nothing else they could do. If things continued like this, all of their monsters would be slowly killed, as they couldn’t do anything to their enemies. They would only be feeding them power, which would allow them to grow stronger.

  One way they could have solved this problem was if their dungeons could push ETG territory back. That way, they could eliminate those dungeon-free areas, yet those dungeons could no longer even push ETG back one inch.

  The monsters started to retreat, but that didn’t mean the killing stopped. This time, spell, traps and any other means possible were used to stop those monsters from retreating. When the last of them managed to escape, six hours had passed since the connection of the dungeons. Less than 30 defenders were dead, while the attackers lost nearly 450 diamond ranks and tens of thousands of platinum-ranked monsters.

  This result was excellent but not what ETG would have wanted to see. Unfortunately, this was the most likely outcome, even though everyone had hoped they would continue to rush forward.

  Not everyone was distraught by this outcome. ETG had gathered quite the menagerie of diamond-ranked creatures who were eager and incredibly hard to kill. These creatures weren’t really that good at long-range fighting, or they would have already been inside the pockets, or they simply couldn’t work together with others because of their peculiarities.

  So, from one of the pockets—where there were many gateways meant to resupply and, if needed, retreat—a really small flying creature emerged. It was glowing bright yellow, and unlike many other creatures that continued to rank up, it did not increase in size from its original body that much. It should have never reached diamond rank, but when it did reach platinum, it got a talent that helped it survive its main skill combination.

  Now, it could use that skill combination forever, thanks to its diamond talent—not to mention that it made it even stronger. It was now as intelligent as any other diamond-ranked creature, fully capable of conversing with adventurers if it used communication stones.

  It did find it funny that almost every adventurer seemed to flinch when they saw it. It understood that it had something to do with their past and its own predecessors doing what they did best—flying through anything in their path, leaving destruction before they died.

  So, this creature—this diamond-ranked being that should not be possible, that had originally been just a fruit fly—slowly started to fly towards the retreating enemy. It was going to relish the opportunity to just continue flying through anything it wanted.

  With some tests, they knew that it could fly through diamond ranks like it could fly through anything. If this creature had a human face, it would be smiling ear to ear and thanking its Father for this opportunity.

  In other places, in pockets completely devoid of any other life, from large and small gateways, other creatures started to emerge. If anyone had been with them, they would have died almost instantly.

  All of them knew where their enemies were and relished the idea of being completely let loose and allowed to do anything they wanted to do. The 21 dungeons and the four powers were going to learn why they should have also focused on making proper defenses and not just haphazard tunnels leading from their dungeons to ETG territory.