After hurriedly informing the others that the corrupted monsters had invisible soul affinity attacks, and should all be immediately killed on sight, we continued onwards. On floor forty-eight, the monsters grew denser, but when we arrived at the boss room, it lay empty, the door to the next floor wide open.

"This dungeon has been distorted," commented the dragon, employing his usual heavy wording. "I cannot comprehend what might have caused this, but neither have I heard of a dungeon core before. This whole situation is strange to me."

"It's no less strange for me," I muttered under my breath as we rushed through floor forty-nine, our miniature dragon melting whole corridors as we passed. Whether this dungeon had no traps or if they were being eradicated as we went, I couldn't say. Equally surprising was that Dru'hazzak hadn't lifted a finger the whole trip, and was reduced to navigation duty. It was a foregone conclusion that I'd be no help fighting our way through, but seeing a rank four demon being carried effortlessly through the dungeon was a bit of a shock. Just how powerful was this dragon? Given my boosted mana regeneration rate, I could spare an [Analysis]...

Kranakellicium, Dragon, Sovereign of Stone and Flame, (126/276)

Right. Rank five. Because of course he is. Guess rank fives aren't so mythical after all. Is the reason he knows Erryn because he reached the bottom of the great dungeon? And that name remains stupidly long, so from now on his nickname is Krana.

The floor forty-nine boss room was just as empty as forty-eight, which left us on the bottom floor. It was... eerie. Despite the gradual increase in monsters until now, the floor seemed to be empty, but the walls pulsated with veins of black light, and [Mana Perception] showed heavy concentrations of darkness affinity, along with one I'd never seen before, but which was almost certainly death. The air tasted bitter and strange, and as I stumbled after my two higher-level teammates, I realised my health was dropping just from being here.

I hurriedly shoved the darkness and death mana as far away from us as I could, thankful to find that at least stopped my health drain. It did nothing to improve the taste of the air, though.

When we arrived at the boss chamber, this one was not empty. Just like the final boss of Dawnhold, the cavern contained an army. I could see towering ogres, far larger than the ones I'd fought earlier. One eyed brutes that looked similar to the ogres, that I assumed would be cyclopes of some sort. Golems of various colours and sizes. Humanoid shaped living pillars of flame, either some sort of fire golem or fire elemental. Giant, bug-like things covered in shining crystals. All were corrupted with the same pitch black veins. Even the living flames had strings of black fire threaded through their bodies.

Krana breathed out. Krana breathed in.

Normally, I was the one doing incredibly stupid things and accidentally injuring myself. Watching a rank five dragon do it stunned me almost into inaction, but thankfully I tore myself back to reality in time. His flame breath hadn't harmed the monsters of fire, and when he did his sucking in heat trick, they were pulled in with it, along with their parasitic souls. I knew that they must not be allowed to infect the dragon.

With only moments to act, I did the only thing I knew how to do that could affect souls. I reached out with [Greater Mana Control], grasped the mana around the flaming monsters, and twisted it to soul affinity.

Krana and Dru'hazzak screamed. I probably did too, but was in far too much pain to pay attention. I'd contained it better this time, and shielded our group as best as I could, so hadn't been knocked out or had the weird experience of looking at the back of my own head. It still hurt like hell, though. And if it had done that to Krana... I looked over, and sure enough the fire monsters were dead, their corruption blasted away.

"Danger... Corruption... Don't..."

Erryn seemed to agree that the corruption was dangerous, but fortunately I'd been able to act in time.

"What the heck was that?" exclaimed Dru'hazzak.

"Krana was about to inhale the corrupted fire monster things," I panted. "That was the only way I could stop it."

"My name is Kranakellicium. I would appreciate you not butchering it," squeaked the dragon, which made him sound more comedic than annoyed. Although, as a few remaining globs of lava dripped from the ceiling, I thought that perhaps it might be best if I didn't use that nickname to his face from now on, regardless of how he sounded.

"Nevertheless, someone of your level possessing a skill that can harm me is impressive. I saw nothing with that capability within your status."

"It was an attack that used [Greater Mana Control] to wield soul affinity."

As expected, Dru'hazzak and Krana both gave me blank, expressionless looks for a few seconds before dropping the whole topic.

"So, where is this core?" asked Dru'hazzak, which got me looking around. Unlike Dawnhold, each boss chamber hadn't been completely identical, but they still followed the pattern of the exit being opposite the entrance. This time, there was nothing. I looked all around, but didn't see any other doors. That was... unhelpful. Equally unhelpful was that there didn't seem to be a teleporter out, and the entrance door was still closed. I didn't doubt that Krana could melt his way through a wall if needed, but it was yet another sign that this dungeon was broken in some way, as if any uncertainty remained by now.

"What's the hold-up?" asked Dru'hazzak. "People are dying up there!"

"In Dawnhold it was just another door at the back of the room. There's nothing like that here!"

Dammit, what if Erryn had hidden it from me? That was within her capabilities now. Maybe I should just get Krana to melt everything. Surely we'd hit the core eventually.

"Changed... Look... Mana... Flows..."

Look for mana flows? I looked around with [Mana Perception], and sure enough, there were flows of mana that seemed to lead straight into a wall. "There!" I shouted, pointing and running over.

"How do we pass though?" asked Krana. "It appears as solid rock to me."

From close up, I could see small holes in the wall, which was maybe two metres thick before it opened up into a room. "The room is behind the wall. About two metres thick. Can you break through?"

Krana snorted, not even dignifying my question with an answer. I got out of the way, and he lanced the wall with white flames. It held up remarkably well, taking him almost half a minute to cut through, but the end result was never in any doubt. Once the pyrotechnics show had died down, we saw into the core room. It may have been like Dawnhold's, once, but now was a spoilt ruin. The statues had crumbled, the golden plaque was tarnished and unreadable, and the core itself was pulsating dark red, black veins running from it down the pedestal and across the floor. Darkness affinity mana was pouring off the core, spreading across the floor in concentrations sufficient to be visible to the naked eye, pooling around the crumbled statues and dripping upwards, the balls of rising mana seemingly passing straight through the ceiling.

Krana peered at the core for a few seconds before once again lancing it with flame.

ding

It turned out to be rather less sturdy than the wall.

"I... I... LIGHT!"

I had just enough warning from [Mana Perception] and Erryn's incoherent exclamation to slam my eyes shut, but they offered insufficient protection when everything lit up with pure light affinity mana. I buried my face in my hands, spots flashing across my vision as through [Mana Perception] I watched the corruption burn. Whatever Erryn was doing held up for over a minute before it was released, and mana density started to plunge. Far below where it should be, given the floor. Then again, we had just destroyed the dungeon core. I guess we were now just in an oddly shaped cave rather than a dungeon.

It took a few more minutes for my vision to recover. Even Dru'hazzak had been blinded, having not had the advance warning that I had. Krana seemed completely unphased.

"The task is complete," he stated flatly.

"What the heck was that light?" asked Dru'hazzak. "I'm going to be seeing stars for weeks!"

"That was the earth mother," I answered. "It looked like she was purging the corruption."

"We should return," said Krana. "We know not how those above are faring. Fortunately..."

He looked upwards, expanding to his full size, the stone moving aside to accommodate him. "Our route this time shall be direct."

Grasping me and Dru'hazzak alike, again without so much as asking first, he launched himself directly upwards, flying through the rock as if it offered no more resistance than air, now that it was no longer 'ruled' by the dungeon. It took only a couple of minutes before we emerged back into the room that housed the dungeon entrance, where a large number of stumbling delvers surrounding the hole we emerged from suggested that they had been forcibly moved out of our way. The hole closed behind us before Krana deposited us both on the floor.

"Thanks for the lift," I said, because being polite to the fifteen metres of rank five dragon that had just effortlessly flown through fifty floors of rock seemed like a wise life choice.

He nodded, then looked around. "I sense no further fighting. It seems we have achieved victory."

"So much destruction. So much death. This is no victory."

Oh, thank goodness; Erryn sounded more coherent, too. But as she said, we paid a high price for this. What happened? Do dungeon cores go out of control like that on a regular basis? They can't do, or the walls would be far higher. Unless Erryn memory wipes the survivors whenever it happens, to spare them the trauma. Would she do that? She wanted to wipe my memories of my old murderous brother, after all, and didn't understand why I declined. Will she do that now? Is she doing that now? I looked around, but no-one was wearing a memory-editing-in-progress expression. Most were wearing an appropriate expression of melancholy.

At least I could be fairly sure this wasn't my fault in any way. That was... something, at least.

In the absence of anything better to do, I checked my messages.

Skill [Danger Sense] advanced to level 6

Skill [Soul Perception] advanced to level 7

Class [Apprentice Fighter] advanced to level 5

Class [Apprentice Fighter] advanced to level 6

Class [Apprentice Fighter] advanced to level 7

Title [Victorious Underdog] evolved to [Victorious Underdog 3]

New title acquired: [Durable]

Quest completed: [Destroy the Emerald Caverns' Dungeon Core]

Well, that's a bit of a waste of my [Novice Delver] perk. And what the hell is that evolved title? Was that for the fire monster things? I suppose that if Krana's flame breath hadn't hurt them at all, then my subsequent soul attack may well have counted as soloing them, and they would have been around level fifty. That would also explain all the class levels.

[Victorious Underdog 3] - Through arrogance or circumstance, you ended up fighting alone against a foe far beyond you. Through skill or luck, you stand victorious. Size and regeneration of all pools boosted by 100%. (Rank 4)

The description hadn't changed, but the twenty percent boost had increased to a hundred. I'd have to look up the acquisition requirements in the library some other time. It did at least explain my new title.

[Durable] - You possess a significant amount of health, able to function despite extensive wounds. Healing boosted by 10%. (Rank 1)

My health had now passed a hundred, giving me a small healing boost. The completed quest was just erroring whenever I tried to look at it, so would need to wait for Erryn to fix up whatever hack job she did there to create it. I'd need to pick a new class again, but that could wait until later too. For now, we had the aftermath of this disaster to deal with. Also, with the destruction of the portals, I was kinda stranded. Maybe my next class should be [Spatial High Mage]?