Crack— The fracture at the edge, where Mikhail had struck with his sword, widened. With a plunk, plunk, broken fragments dislodged and fell into the black lake below.
Screee—AAARGH! A monstrous shriek echoed from beyond the wall, reverberating off the cavernous space. It seemed like the beast was becoming more agitated, likely due to Mikhail tearing at the edge with his sword. Had he awakened a sleeping giant?
“…If you were going to break it, you should’ve done it properly.”
When Adrian muttered this, Mikhail—who’d been staring blankly past the dark passage—turned and asked,
“What?”
“You’re the one who woke up whatever was keeping this lake dead silent.”
“…No way.”
Me? I did that?
Mikhail stared down at his hand in disbelief. But there was no time for regret.
BOOM! A loud thud rang out, the sound of a massive body slamming against a narrow passageway it clearly couldn’t fit through.
KRAAAHH—!
The monster bashed itself against the corridor multiple times, then let out a frustrated, guttural howl. Despite the tremendous impact, the golden staircase Adrian had conjured didn’t even quiver.
As another deep roar resounded from the far side of the tunnel, Mikhail glanced down at the black lake below. A small rowboat was being tossed about helplessly in the churning waves.
“…The people below are in danger. We need to get down there.”
Guess he’s right.
Adrian nodded in agreement with Mikhail’s suggestion.
***
When the situation was relayed to the advance team, their expressions stiffened even more. The black mana lake, which had started to thrash wildly after the monster’s awakening, had already drained the fight out of them.
“Should we just turn back now?”
The Legion Commander murmured, visibly tense.
“…”
Mikhail looked up at the black sphere hovering above them. The cracks were visibly longer than when he’d come down. The situation was undeniably dangerous. But there was still a chance.
They couldn’t go back without discovering something.
That power inside me…
Mikhail bit down hard on his lower lip. Only Adrian noticed the subtle expression that flickered across his face.
“No. We need to observe a bit longer. But first, there’s something we have to take care of.”
With that, Adrian raised one hand and swept his gaze around the advance team. All eyes shifted to the blond man’s slender fingers.
“What is—”
Just as someone began to ask a question—
Snap.
The sharp sound of two fingers snapping echoed, and in an instant, several silhouettes vanished into thin air. In the boat that had previously held ten people, only six remained.
Everyone still aboard turned their eyes toward the man.
It was teleportation magic.
And not just any kind. To cast such a complicated, delicate spell with nothing but a snap of the fingers—there likely wasn’t another person on the continent capable of it.
Adrian shrugged, as if it were nothing, and spoke to the Legion Commander, who was now silently pleading for an explanation.
“I sent back the ones who won’t be of much use to our efforts. What we’re about to do might be a little too dangerous for them.”
“…Thank you.”
Only then did the Commander visibly relax and offer his thanks.
The ones Adrian had dismissed were capable enough to pull their weight, but nothing more. They were fine for a basic recon mission, but in a sudden crisis like this, they likely wouldn’t even be able to hold their own. His judgment had been spot-on.
Though the blond man had been speaking casually to the Commander from the start, this demeanor somehow felt more natural. His appearance alone was far from ordinary, so the Commander simply concluded, This guy must be hiding something.
Beneath the boat, the black lake continued to boil.
Catherine, who had been silently watching the churning depths, finally opened her mouth.
“It’s going to be really dangerous, isn’t it?” Her expression was resolute. Since black mana was a source of sustenance for monsters, she could already predict what was about to unfold.
Adrian glanced at her with a detached look and gave a single nod. “Don’t worry. If it gets too dangerous, I’ll just move everyone to safety again—like I did earlier.”
“…We can’t do that.”
At the Legion Commander’s firm voice, Adrian turned his head.
“If the black mana keeps flowing like this, monsters will begin to spawn uncontrollably across the entire continent.”
“So what? We’re just supposed to stay here and die? Sometimes you have to retreat and plan for the future.”
Tsk. The dragon furrowed his brow in irritation. He wasn’t the type to waste time convincing people in the middle of a crisis. He might’ve looked stoic, but he hadn’t expected to be explaining something this basic.
Then—
“I agree with him.”
It was Mikhail.
Adrian’s lips, which had been pressed into a hard line as he warned the Commander to retreat in times of danger, twitched into a subtle smile. His slightly furrowed brows relaxed. It seemed he was willing to at least listen—because it was Mikhail.
“I don’t know if that black sphere is a gateway to the Demon Realm, but… if I use the power I have, I think I can destroy it. And if we don’t do it now, there might never be another chance.”
“…”
Adrian’s golden eyes turned to Mikhail. Even without words, he could see Mikhail’s unwavering resolve in the way his lips were tightly shut.
He remembered—back when they’d gone to survey the Hildeke Cliffs, they’d had a conversation like this too.
“Tell me how we can defeat that monster.”
Mikhail’s red eyes were glowing crimson in the dark.
“I can coat my sword with energy for a bit… That much, I can do. I train every day. But if we run away now, that monster will just end up in the village.”
“We can just escape before it gets there.”
“Adrian.”
Under the moonlight, Mikhail’s determined expression was fully visible as he looked Adrian square in the eye. His gaze was unwavering.
“If I say I don’t want to run… will you help me?”
It was exactly the same as back then. No—this time, it might be even worse.
SHHHHRAAA—!
The surface of the black lake, which had been bubbling violently, suddenly exploded upward like a massive column of water. Multiple thick, jagged jets shot into the sky with a deafening roar, and black mana slammed against the thin shield cast over the rowboat before being swept away.
The black mana surged like a monstrous wave, tossing the boat wildly in all directions.
“You want me to just let you die?”
You? Me?
Adrian brushed a hand across his mouth, looking troubled.
Just moments ago, when the Legion Commander had said something similar, the dragon had dismissed it as nonsense without a second thought. But because it was Mikhail saying it… the dragon actually paused to reconsider.
Still, no matter how you looked at it, the idea was absurd. There was no way to solve everything in one swift move.
BOOM!
The massive monster slammed its body into the wall again, as if trying to break through.
If he had his way, Adrian would’ve purged every last drop of black mana from the continent. But he wasn’t one of the Dragon Lord’s chosen, so he couldn’t. That alone felt frustrating.
No—frustrating?
A dragon wasn’t supposed to feel anything, no matter how chaotic the situation. A true dragon would’ve stood back and watched the continent burn without a flicker of emotion. But Adrian…
A frown tugged at his brow as the storm of emotions inside his mind began to overflow.
“That’s not something I can just—”
Mikhail’s steady gaze locked onto Adrian’s conflicted expression. It was the same stubbornness as always—yet even that was enough to hold the dragon’s full attention.
Mikhail’s voice rang out, clear and resolute, halting Adrian in place.
“I won’t die. Not with you by my side.”
“…”
Yeah. There was no winning against that kind of stubbornness.
“You know it, Adrian. You’ve brought me this far safely.”
There wasn’t a shred of selfishness in his words—just pure, determined resolve to save the world. And Mikhail’s will was the will of Ordinas. The defiant resistance of a living being.
“If you die on me here, I swear—”
Adrian shot back a half-hearted threat that Mikhail wouldn’t take seriously anyway.
As the two stared at each other in silence, Catherine cautiously murmured,
“Then… shall we discuss what we’re going to do next?”
Her gaze remained fixed on the surface of the lake.
Something had begun to peek out from the other side of the boiling black waters. Catherine pursed her lips and moved her hand, reinforcing the shield once more.
