Several minutes later, after the last person woke up, Rune packed their equipment and started to walk towards the door while making a small trail of acid on fire. It was to help Hika, Elisa, and Riika as thy could either not see in the dark or had low light vision.

The green fires crackled as the group followed Rune towards the door. Rune carefully reached for the key and pulled it out. They looked in wonder at the Dvergur Key as they hadn’t seen it yet.

Rune places half into the hole and nothing happened. Rune tilted his head to the side as he gazed at the key when Elisa spoke up.

“Are you sure you're doing that correctly?”

Right as she finished her sentence, the door broke into two halves and opened outwards as the Dvergur key broke apart and lay on the floor.

With zero hesitation, Rune stored it and walked through the door. Beyond it was a set of stairs leading upwards that seemed to stop after a flight of about five stories.

Unfortunately, the group had fallen for twenty stories and each person sighed as soon as they saw that they weren’t reaching the surface that easily. The only good thing they noticed was that there was no longer sand anywhere and the floors, walls, and ceiling was made of stone like a cavern with stalagmites and stalactites.

They walked up the stairs and reached the floor of the caverns above them. There were some torches within it that were lit with a blue flame. The torches were made of a dark wood that was almost a dark grey color. Rouna pointed out that this type of wood was likely ebony and, when burned, it produced a blue flame, but the wood would have to be dipped into lava for it to burn or something hotter.

The group walked through the caves for an hour at a brisk pace. There was only one way to go and no other branching tunnels to get lost in. After that hour, they found that the caves opened up a bit more and there were pillars of red wood that looked like the red was painted on.

The bases of the pillars were a golden color and there were chains running through to connected each one to the next to for two independent lines of pillars. The chains were translucent and had a whitish tinge to them. Atop the pillars, there were blue fires burning brightly held by metal cages that were shaped like bird cages.

The fires ran around on the inside of the cages as if they were small horses running wild. The fire occasionally leapt through the bars, but dispersed and disappeared a moment after they left the cages. The cages were atop the pillars, but neither were burning from the fire that illuminated the caves.

The group walked in between the multiple pillars while looking and watching the flames. The flames seemed to burn brighter as soon as they group got near, but became dimmer when they left the small vicinity.

Rune, in the distance, could see a pair of cages built into the sides of the walls, one cage in one wall. There were the translucent chains surrounding the cages’ fronts and there were several key locks connecting them together.

The group got closer, there was a rattling from the cage on the left and Rune could see a small figure in the cage. The cage on the right held no one and the only thing in it was a skeleton with some pieces of rotting flesh dangling from it. Even while rotting, there was no smell and Rune became curious.

He readied his shield arm and advanced towards the figure in the cage. It turned and Rune could see red eyes with a small, glinting horn on the left side of their head. The other side’s horn seemed to be broken off and the cut was not very clean.

Suddenly, the figure rushed at the cage door where Rune was behind and tried to attack him. It spoke in a weak voice.

“Die, traitors…”

Rune looked at the figure. They were small, but agile and seemed to be extremely perceptive. The eyes were like slits and there was some sort of black outline under their eyes where there was a line going down an inch right under the center of her eyes starting from the eyelids. It was a girl who bared her fangs at Rune.

Rune pulled out his rifle with zero hesitation when he found Rouna right beside him. She quickly stood in front of the cage and held out her hands, like she was protecting the person. Rune looked at her for a moment before looking back at the girl. Then he pointed his rifle towards the ground and asked her a question.

“Why am I a traitor?”

“You…. you people have sent me to this cage because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I was on your side!!!”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know you…”

“Wait a sec! I don’t know you either?! Who are you?!”

As she started to raise her voice, blood trickled from the back of her throat and she coughed it all up on Rune. He was quite disgusted by the gesture. He wiped the blood from his face and cleared his throat to get the blood off of the speakers.

“Ahem. We are just passing through.”

“Please! Set me free! I’ll be your loyal servant, or slave, anything, but please let me have revenge!!”

“Sure.”

Once again, Rune had no hesitation. He was in the mood for some killing as he had been walking for too long and he was becoming bored. Rouna stepped aside and turned towards the girl.

“I know you are a dragon, but who are you?”

“I am a Guardian Dragon for the Black Dragons, Gaira! Please, let me out!! Just go down a bit that way and fetch the key. They are Dragonborn who are working with some Hierarchs.”

Rune hopped up and started to move. The rest of the group wanted to follow, but they had been walking as long as Rune had and as fast, but they didn’t have the infinite stamina Rune had. They all decided to keep Gaira company as they sat down.

Rune cast [Quiet] all around him as he moved with a speed that was just barely under mach 1. His footfalls would have been heard by all if he hadn’t cast it and the wind wasn’t helping him at all. Just his movement at that speed alone caused the air to ripple as it was on the verge of exploding.

A head turned towards Rune as he threw a punch.

Ah, whoops. Um, I guess I should probably not throw a punch at that speed. I was gonna question him… Oh, well.

The head, body, and arms exploded and mushed themselves into the cavern walls as the legs crumpled to the ground. Rune wasn’t sure what gender it was, but he was pretty positive that it was a female with a dragon or reptilian head. He looked at the pile of red goop as he plucked the keys from out of the wall they stuck into.

Rune tried to clean it up as best he could by absorbing the contents, but there was still a layer of red etched into the walls. He disregarded it and moved back towards the group. He looked down at the key he was holding and saw that it was shaped like a spiraling triangle that had some grooves covering it.

Quickly, when he was at the cage, he shoved the strange key into the padlocks and turned it. The lock clicked open and the door creaked as Rune pulled it open. The girl inside seemed to be more energetic than before.

When Rune was quickly going to get the key, some people in the group gave Gaira half of a bag of beef jerky that she ate in one large gulp. Then the group handed her a canteen of water to drink. The bars of the cage weren’t too spread apart, but you could definitely push something into the cage if you wanted to.

“I give you my thanks. I have been starving for several weeks now and, thanks to you, I have been set free and fed! Let me have my revenge, then I shall forever be your servant!”

“Okay. You just gonna go there and kill them or what?

Erin spoke to her as she was hopping out of the cage. She turned back and pondered the thought for a moment before turning to Rune.

“How did you get the key so quickly? The guards should have been elites.”

“Well… If you can throw a punch that has enough power to completely pulverize a dragonborn’s upper body by accident, then you might have a lot of accidents…”

“Then you must be really strong!! I am glad to have a master stronger than I!”

“Yeah, ok. I’m dying to kill things now, so let’s murder them.”

Gaira skipped with joy towards the soon to be center of the slaughter. Rune sighed and thought about what kind of things she was capable of doing for him.

As soon as the group reached the area where Rune killed the Dragonborn. The legs were gone and so were the little chunks of meat, but the blood stains were still embedded in the wall. The group warily looked at the stain and moved around it with caution.

There were still some holes in the wall as there used to be bones and the key stuck in the wall and the floor. Riika actually managed to drip on one of the holes, but caught herself just in time as she fell.

“Ah, careful. These are the remains of the guard I killed.”

I was clearly evident that it was, but it became more disgusting to those around him who were also trying not to think about the mess. They didn’t want to imagine that they were stepping on what remained of another humanoid.

Suddenly, Gaira stopped and stood up straight. She seemed to strain her eyes as she looked ahead of them and sighed.

“I can see the main room. There are ten innocent people standing there with sacrifices to the Hierarch Dragon. Only kill the Hierarch Dragon as it is the one I need revenge on.”

She stressed the words “innocent” and “only kill the Hierarch Dragon” as she saw what remained of Rune’s punch. If she didn’t tell them to be careful, Rune would have definitely murdered the ten innocents.

“Got it. Murder the Hierarch Dragon and don’t kill he innocent people.”

“Yes.”

Rune couldn’t see the dragon, but he could see the ten innocent people from where he was standing. As they got closer, everyone could see a large room where there were statues and altars all around in a symmetrical pattern.

There was actually a metal door with bars and a keyhole, but, luckily, it didn’t have the same chains that were on Gaira’s cage. It seemed like one could break through it with physical force. The chains around Gaira’s cage were ethereal and not tangible until one unlocked the cage.

There was no sign of the dragon as the Dragonborn put their sacrifices on the altars, one sacrifice per altar, and they all kneeled in front of the statue in the middle.

The middle statue was that of a grand Black Dragon who seemed to be more muscular and powerful than the others that Rune had faced. Rouna just paled as she looked at the statue and muttered a single word, “Irregular”.

Quickly, Rune took out his gauntlets and an empty canteen that used to be filled with water. He filled it with chloroform and some pure alcohol and returned his gauntlets. Then he used [Ethereal] to silently move through the door.

This single action startled Gaira to the point where she almost jumped out of her skin and seemed like she was about to yelp. Rouna and Rena held her mouth as a muffled whisper escaped through the hands.

Quickly, Rune cast two simultaneous spells, [Quiet] and [Blind], on the surrounding ten people. Hen he ran up to each one as hey looked around in confusion while unable to see anything. They soon felt fear as Rune couldn’t suppress his deadly presence and they stumbled on the ground.

Rune held up the chloroform mixture to their, what seemed like, nostrils and forced them to breath in the concoction. They quickly found themselves unconscious and, as soon as hey did so, Rune moved on to the next.

Chloroform mixed with alcohol makes someone pass out more quickly and too much intake of chloroform is unhealthy. It is unhealthy to the point where, if too much is administered, the heart will stop. Also, cloth is less reliable than the actual bottle as you would need to hold the victim down for several minutes with just chloroform on cloth.

Even if the cloth was unreliable, he poured some of the chloroform mixture on the collars of their clothes and put it right next to their noses. This way, they would continuously inhale the safest amount of chloroform while staying unconscious.

It was actually quite a hard thing to do, but he was absolutely glad that he learned about anesthetics from his American History class in middle school. He did an entire project just about chloroform and other anesthetics and how to administer them.

Even if he knew how to do those things, he wasn’t planning on becoming a doctor, but was planning on becoming an engineer. That was one of the reasons why he was able to create the things he did as well as his interest in weaponry.

The ten innocent Dragonborn were knocked unconscious, but, to the rest of the group’s point of view, it looked like he suffocated them by smelling something and poured a strange liquid on their clothes. In fact, Gaira even thought that he had killed them as her muffled screeched barely echoed in the cavern.

Then Rune grabbed hold of the bars on the metal door and ripped it off, effectively freeing the rest of the group and allowing them to enter the room. Gaira rushes to the innocents and looked at them to see if they were alive.

She started to curl up into a ball as she truly thought they were dead. Rune walked up to her and spoke.

“Are you an idiot? You didn’t even check their pulse! They’re alive, but unconscious.”

“Huh?”

Gaira looked up at Rune with the stupidest expression he had ever seen. Then she realized what Rune had said and cried a sigh of relief. Then she slowly got up and found herself woozy as she did so.

“Where are we supposed to go to now? I want to kill that dragon.”

The rest of the group, except Gaira, sighed as they heard Rune speak. They had gotten used to the things Rune had been saying, but Gaira was still unsure about Rune’s morality. She was clearly unsure about whether or not he was good or evil.

“Are you good or bad? Seems like you like to kill a lot of things, but why?”

Everybody stopped moving and slowly turned towards her. It looked like she was stepping into unknown territory as she wandered in with no fear. She looked at the others, one by one, and realized that her question might have some terrible unintended consequences.

“I suppose I would be good. I also like to kill things because it’s fun and I get more powerful, but mainly because it is fun.”

Everybody showed a confused look on their faces as they finally learned that Rune wasn’t keeping it a secret that he killed for fun, but they were still a bit iffy when they found out that he did it for fun. Then the rest of the group turned back to what they were doing at the moment.

They headed for the top of the largest temple things in the room. There were sets of stairs leading up to the top of the temple and they couldn’t see the top of the building. Gaira led the group up to the top of the temple with an angry look on her face.

When they reached the top of the temple structure, they found that there was a strange, black, what seemed like a, tear in space. It rippled about and wind seemed to gust about it. It shimmered as they watched in awe and surprise as they did so.

“I think that the dragon is this way. I last saw him go up to the top of the temple and disappeared.”

“Nnnnn. I’m not sure that this is safe, but, uh, sure. Let’s do it. Wanna throw a rock in with some

rope or something?”

Something in the dark yawned in such a loud magnitude that dust scattered around the being. It sighed as it felt boredom all around it. As it produced the sigh, it looked around at all of the things around it.

“Nn. I want to do something fun… Why can’t I find anything? Hahhhh…”

It moved its arm so that the elbow rested on the armrest and the hand was holding up their chin. It looked down at its other hand and opened and closed it. The talons on its hands touched its palm, but no blood was drawn as its hide was too thick.

As it heaved a sigh, its wings shuddered from the creature’s chest shaking. It had four wings on its back, but they were torn and the being was now unable to fly for the remainder of its existence. The color of its black scales used to be a shining obsidian black, but now were a worn out dark grey color with many wounds and scars.

It lazily moved its eyes towards the shimmering portal just as it noticed movement. Suddenly, a small object with something attached to it flew through it. He watched in interest as he looked at what it was.

It was a rock on a rope.

“I dunno… It should be safe? Who's to say?”

Rune had thrown a rock into the portal and tied it to a rope. There was no tugging and no feel of it moving about. He concentrated on the vibrations, but felt nothing except his own fingers readjusting their grip.

Hesitantly, he pulled back the rock back through the portal to find that there was quite a large amount of dust from rocks sitting on it. The dust wasn’t there before and it looked to be dark colored.

Then he stuck his head in and looked around. He approached the portal with caution and carefully moved his head through.

Oh, the rock disappeared… Might someone be coming here?

The being snorted at the thought when a helmet appeared from the portal. The being tilted its head as it looked at the new helm in surprise and curiosity. It edged closer on its throne as it wanted to get a closer look at the new attendee.

The helm looked both left and right, then found itself staring at the beast. It was the Hierarch Dragon. A rank 1 Black Dragon. Rune, the helm, found that he couldn’t turn away from the dragon as it looked strong. Stronger than the rest.

It was quite strange how Rune kept finding dragons who were each stronger than the last. He had come across rank 5s, then a rank 4, then a rank 3 before skipping to a rank 1. It was as if some greater being was slowly leveling him up.