***

  The hum of magic continued to intensify. On one side, you had an ancient dragon, and while his combat power could not be compared to the very strongest dragons back in the day, none of them had lived as long as this diamond-ranked dragon had. Because of this, Ismael is the largest dragon to have ever lived, his head easily the size of a castle. The world around him seemed to darken as the moments continued to pass, as he readied for a proper fight.

  Rafe was a lot smaller, yet he had purposely cultivated mass for this fight, so his final size was still almost 150 meters from the tip of his tail to the tip of his horns. He was a monster through and through when you looked at him. If anyone could see inside, they would think that he mirrored his outside appearance. There was no wasted space inside or out; everything was purposely chosen so he could fight and defend himself in the most efficient ways possible.

  A lot of his physiology was from dragons, but even they had weaknesses. Rafe, however, had managed to get body parts from creatures that had specialized in the way they survived, eventually leading to even better muscle groups and defensive scales than even the dragons. He combined all of those things and added more natural weapons so he would be ready for this exact fight in the manner they wanted to fight it.

  The last on this side was Ace, a person who started out as nobody, as most do. He was able to get the last gift from his father, and on this land, he discovered the dungeon that changed his world forever.

  Everything changed about a year ago; even then, everything had already changed. He still remembered the day when Rafe and ETG proposed trying to circumvent the Pixies’ change to the dungeon core’s physiology so they couldn’t make proper bonds with anyone who wasn’t from their dungeon.

  Turns out the dungeon that had to grant the Pixies their wish was a rebellious kind. A way still existed; it was just harder to reach and achieve than it should have been. Yet, when they were properly bonded, Ace finally understood the dungeon completely. Thanks to that, his talent started to give him even more power—so much power that on some days it was hard for him to function properly

  Fortunately, the bond gave many benefits, and with a little bit of work, he was able to help Rafe improve as well. Rafe didn’t have the same problems, as his body was meant to accept power, and if it wasn’t enough, he just needed to change it. ETG helped in his ways as well, and because of that, most likely Ace and Rafe will be the first-ever diamond ranks to reach the peak as fast as they did.

  A lot of problems came with such rapid power growth, but with an endless supply of monsters to fight against and practice, they were the best that they could be, although they still were only able to fight mostly platinum ranks. Still, Ace had what he needed for this fight, and his main goal would be to distract only one of the enemies.

  On the other side, there was a group of five people, all human. They had been together for thousands of years, and while they had split apart to do their own thing periodically, they always came back together as they simply enjoyed each other’s company. Their name had been forgotten by history, but they still called themselves in private the name they first wrote down when they weren’t even bronze ranked.

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  They were a group of five friends from a small village long ago disappeared. They were excited—they always liked fighting and getting stronger—and all of them knew that they were damn good at it. So when it was time to sign up for the Adventurer Guild, which was still only a small thing and had different management and rules in every region—not the global-spanning super organization it is now—the name they came up with was silly and simple, as they were still so young back then.

  The Rowdy Bunch. That was the name their group started out with, but they changed it when they started to reach closer to gold rank. Their rise was fast, and many of the stronger people back then recommended they change it before too many people recognized them by that name.

  They took the advice and changed it, but they never truly liked the different names over the past millennia. At the heart of it, they were still the five eager friends looking toward the future while messing about constantly.

  They were rusty now, and they seemed glad that their opponents were willing to take things slowly at the start. Then there was the third, Merrick, who was constantly trying to back off without drawing attention. He didn’t get far before he heard loud bangs of the sound barrier being broken.

  In front of him, he saw Ace and one of the five, both of them wielding spears. The explosion from their simple collision should have sent him flying, with blood leaking from his mouth and ears, but instead, he stood there unaffected. There was a momentary pause between the two as they looked at Merrick and then at each other.

  Even during their clash, it seemed that both of them spent enough time and mana to make sure that Merrick didn’t get hurt, which surprised both of them. They were interrupted by the clashes and explosions of the fight between the other four party members and Ismael and Rafe.

  The fifth party member got ready to go back and be part of the party of five so they could take on this challenge together, yet she couldn’t even take a singular step before Ace interjected himself between them.

  “I’m afraid you and I will be fighting on the sidelines,” Ace said in a relaxed tone, something that irked the fifth party member.

  “I’m afraid you won’t last long, but so be it.”

  In a simple clash that lasted only seven seconds, it was clear that Ace was on the losing side—and quite heavily. There were already multiple cuts on him, and he had spent much more mana than his opponent. Yet those cuts were healing at a visible rate, his mana was also returning faster than should be possible.

  The other fight was faring similarly. While the older four party members were clearly superior even while rusty, they could not end the fight immediately. Yet every wound their opponents started to heal, and the mana spent was slowly being recharged for Rafe. It didn’t take long for the Rowdy Bunch to realize what was happening.

  Their ambush had been turned into a trap. Their opponents had the home-field advantage, as it seemed like the dungeon core was able to feed its own mana into its bonded. The only weakness the party saw was Ismael. He didn’t seem to be able to recharge his mana so easily. Yet he was a gigantic dragon with enough mana and stamina to keep going for a long time.

  The dungeon knew, and so did his advisor, that the party of five was way too strong to be taken on directly. While they could spend all their diamond ranks now to take them down, it would be a horrendous loss. Even now, their strongest could only defend, so a plan to simply outlast the party of five was devised.

  Now Ace, Ismael, and Rafe had the job of fighting for days, possibly weeks, so they could eventually win by tiring out their opponents. The fifth member constantly tried to return to the other four, but Ace was constantly blocking her.

  While she was stronger than Ace, it wasn’t to a degree that she could overwhelm him alone. One of the other four also couldn’t come to help because only three of them were too weak to stand against Ismael and Rafe. Yet, with only four of them, they weren’t strong enough to soundly defeat those two.

  It was a careful balance that was constantly challenged by new tricks being used, the rustiness being shaken off by everyone, and, of course, the occasional mistakes that led to more devastating wounds on both sides.

  As the minutes turned into hours, the landscape of the area transformed from a beautiful grassland into a scarred mess. All of this was witnessed by Merrick, who was still only alive because Ace and the fifth party member were being careful when they got near him.

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5