Chapter 332: A Burrowing Mountain

Name：The Dragon of Dreams Author：
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Chapter 332: A Burrowing Mountain

Late Evening - Late Summer : The Dungeon of Colossus | Western Sirathan Mountains

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"Hooh..." Readying my mana with a short breath, I pulled my gaze from Father and locked it onto the creature I sensed through almost a hundred kilometers of forest. -Let's make it quick...-

*crackle-FWO-* Everything instantly went quiet as I blew through the sound barrier several times over, accelerating into the sky until I was practically splitting it apart.

To most normal beings, a hundred kilometers was quite a distance, to humans, it was even a few hours of travel, but to me, it was essentially nothing.

*FWOOOOSH* Zipping over the forest at close to Mach 40, I closed the distance in a matter of seconds; however, when the area I felt the aura finally peeked over the horizon, rather than seeing the continuous forest canopy, I saw an endless stretch of canyon-like cracks covered with toppled trees, and huge pillars of rock jutting out of the ground.

-Huh?- It wasn't a place I was familiar with, and considering its extremely unique and unnatural look, I thought it was a place I should have been aware of.

But, unlike what I was thinking, the reason I had never heard of it had nothing to do with irrelevance or happenstance.

Just as I got a good view of the area and started looking for my target, I found a weaker aura under the canopy at the edge of the canyons, but the moment I went to read my aura to see what it was, the entire forest shook. *RRRRUUUMMBBLLEE*

In an instant, the ground beneath the creature bulged and split apart before countless beams of stone formed to try and pierce or crush the creature.

And even though the creature darted off instantly, the crack and continuously forming spikes followed it, winding through the forest and destroying everything in its wake before eventually catching up.

*SCREEECH* Finally falling into the ever-growing crack, the creature let out a horrific screech. By the looks of it, it was a forty-meter-tall.. thing.. akin to a spider, scorpion, and larvae all morphed in one.

-How disgusting...- It truly looked like something that crawled out of hell, and as it was finally impaled by a stone spike, splattering its green blood across the forest, I felt nothing but disgust...

However, the creature hunting it didn't share that sentiment.

*CRRRRACKLE* With a violent shake, the bulge in the ground disappeared before a colossal creature, about three hundred and fifty meters tall, burst out of the ground, swallowing the insect-like creature with a huge clump of stone like it was nothing.

It was the owner of the aura I was looking for, an incredibly bulky drake-like creature with a massive row of spines along its back, stubby, muscular limbs carrying spaded paws, and battle-scarred scales that looked like a mix of iron and mythril ores. In a way, it looked as if it was sculpted out of a mountain.

However, it was very much a living being.

Finally detecting my aura, it turned its heavy, stubby neck and spotted me over the horizon, the vertical slits in its eyes oozing bloodlust like it wanted to make me its next meal.

But unfortunately for it, the disgusting monstrosity it had just eaten would be its final meal. -My momentum should be enough...-

Slowly attaching countless strings of mana to the creature like the arms of an octopus wrapping around its prey, I quickly closed in until I was about four kilometers away, when I spontaneously crystallized the mana.

*CRACKLE-WHAAAAAMMM* A mountain of debris was instantly hurled into the air as the creature was slammed to the ground with its scales being crushed, bones being shattered, and flesh being shredded.

In an instant, I had turned countless tendrils of mana into nearly indestructible nails.

The creature died before it could even react.

"Oh..." -I do feel a little woozy though...- After coming to a complete stop from over Mach 40 in a matter of seconds, I felt like the world was spinning.

But thankfully only lasted a moment.

"More than likely. They could've run into anything in that forest, even that dreadful 'boss'." He spoke with an annoyed tone. "But regardless, let's just bring him along for now. Maybe we can rile up the dungeon core to deter the rest of his group and give us time to interrogate him..."

-If he's part of a Sirathan Envoy, he will definitely have some good info on him...-

But at that moment, we needed to move our focus to something else.

Finally coming up to the boss room, we found it vacant as expected, but as we walked in and illuminated everything with light magic, we found more than we bargained for.

"W..woah..." Even the nearly two-millennia-old dragons behind me let out a breath of awe as we found that the nearly kilometer-high ceilings were decorated with unbelievably intricate carvings depicting Valkyries being the harbingers of war, victory, fortune, and wealth, standing tall and valiantly holding their ground against monsters and dragons alike, protecting the humans behind them with a carving of the sun at the very center.

The entire carving was a part of the dungeon, not being carved by hand but by the dungeon itself, making it look unbelievably pristine but at the same time, made it feel like an illusion. -What in the world...-

Finally lowering our gazes, we found that the walls were just as adorned as the ceiling, displaying 13 colossal gates wrapping around the room, with seven looking pristine and untouched while the others looked destroyed and scarred.

It was almost as if it was depicting fallen Valkyries, but the further we walked into the room, the more we saw and the more questions we had. -But to think it would really be here...-

Although I had heard of this place from one of Frigg's apostles personally, I found it hard to believe until that moment. -To think I would live to see the grave of the Valkyries...-

But the moment I let my guard down, the dungeon started to shake. *rrrrumbblee*

Thinking it was from the Sirathan Envoy, we all turned to look toward the entrance, but before we could react, it felt as if the sky had collapsed on us. *VWOOOOM* Breathing became impossible, and even the knees of the mighty dragons with me buckled.

It felt like it only lasted a moment, but by the time that horrific sensation lifted and we all looked up in a panic, we found our eyes laid on a wall of stone where the entrance used to be.

Before we could react, we were trapped in the dungeon's boss room.

For a moment, it felt like the dungeon was the one trapping us, as if it was waiting for us...

But oh how little we knew...

The dungeon wasn't trapping us.. it was simply holing up as if it were a turtle; hiding in its shell, praying the predator outside wouldn't be able to break through.

-W..what happened... Was it a trap? Is this some kind of puzzle?-

And all the while, we knew nothing of what was coming.

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