Johnny look at the city before him. Flying above it were countless flying lifeforms of all types. His face was contorted with rage. “AGAIN!” The dragons flew into the massive blob that made up the flying army.

Flame, lightning, ice, even gusts of intense wind slaughtered countless souls. Before they even hit the ground, they were attacked again. And again. And again. But every time they would die, they would return to life.

These damn birds keep protecting the Gryphon!

The Gryphon flew towards a dragon. Wherever it went, it was followed by a veritable horde. They would surround him, and protect him from the attacks of the dragons.

Nightmare-Wing created a large gust of wind as it flew. Some of the smaller flyers were even blown away by the sheer force of his passage. The Gryphon flew straight towards one particular dragon. Claws and beak met scales and talons for a brief moment as the two collided.

A hot gust of air caused Nightmare-Wing to instantly detach and rush away. The next moment a jet of flame bathed the dragon Nightmare-Wing had been latched on to. The flames did nothing to the scales, but some of the nearby lives were turned to ashes. Even as the ashes fell to the ground, they became what they had been like moments ago.

“FOCUS ON THE CAT!”

Johnny yelled at the dragons. He couldn’t help but feel they had something wrong with their minds if they couldn’t even understand to kill the healer first. The dragons, as if compelled by some intangible force, all joined forces to shoot magic solely at Nightmare-Wing.

Fire and ice collided, wind and lightning mingled together as they all shot towards the black Gryphon. Dozens of the Gryphon’s subordinates tried to stop the wave of magic, but to no avail. Although greatly weakened, they magic made it through.

The magic tore at Nightmare-Wing. The wind and ice cut deep into his skin. The fire and lightning burnt his body even blacker than it already was. The formidable currents of electricity even stunned Nightmare-Wing for a moment.

In that moment several dragons fell upon him. Each cast of their potent magic cost them dearly. Dragon’s got the most power out of their magic, but had mana regenerate very slowly. Though they could send out huge waves of destruction, they couldn’t do so forever.

Nightmare-Wing screamed out in pain as the currents of mana devastated his body. For a moment nothing happened as Nightmare-Wing’s ungodly regeneration battled it out with the combined damage of dozens of dragons.

Even Nightmare-Wing’s regeneration had limits though. After that first moment, his body exploded in blood and viscera. Showering anything near it in a thick coat of black blood. The largest part of his body that was left intact could fit on a finger nail.

Even before he hit the ground, his body began to pull itself together again.

Johnny angrily glared at one of dragons. “MANA SUCTION! NOW!” At the same time as he yelled, he crushed a yellow tablet. He pointed towards the dragon. A yellow beam shot out of his finger, and burrowed into the dragon.

The dragon’s eyes dimmed for a moment, and he dived towards the largest portion of Nightmare-Wing’s remains. In mere moments he arrived at the point. His body bulged for a moment, before suddenly exploding outwards. Scales and bones flew like shrapnel. His blood seemed to bunch up, and was sucked towards a single point.

The blood turned black, and instantly began forcing out a huge suction force. Although the birds didn’t sense anything wrong, the dragons in the area clearly knew what was happening. Mana from the surrounding area suddenly flew towards that single point. The mana reconstructing Nightmare-Wing’s body was sucked in as well.

The blood in the area began to fly towards the blood point, and seemingly expanded the range even further. Nearby winged creatures fell from the sky like rocks. The dragons didn’t stop there attacks, even after one of their own self detonated.

Soon the single point of blood expanded to the size of a small bird. The black blood pool began widely fluctuating. One dragon saw this, and called out. The call was like a call to retreat. When it sounded out, all of the nearby dragons turned tail and flew.

In the time it takes to blink the pool of black blood suddenly exploded out. Drops of the blood hit nearby enemies. Instantly their bodies exploded. When their blood hit nearby animals, they too would explode.

It was a chain reaction of death. Soon the flying creatures understood what was happening, and dispersed. With no one left to consume, the magic of the blood diminished and eventually fell to the ground, inert.

Johnny sneered at the city that was now far away. “Heh. At least that damn flying cat is gone. Now we can have some real fun!” The dragons quickly encircled the rest of the living creatures, and devoured them or destroyed them with overpowered magic.

At that moment, a cry came from afar.

A dark shadow flew towards the group of dragons, and collided head on with one of them. With a raging cry, it flew straight into the mouth of a dragon. The dragon was stunned for a moment, then laughed heartily.

A victory and a free meal? Great!

The next moment made it regret these words. It felt a light rumbling, and looked at its underbelly. Suddenly a cry escaped its lips as its stomach was ripped open from the inside, and a pitch black Gryphon tore itself out.

“DIE! FOR MY FRIENDS!”

Nightmare-Wing!

POV: Chao

Chao watched as the trainee hunted the otherworlders. She had pleased him over the past few weeks. She readily learned new magic, and seemed to be able to implement them after only a tiny amount of practice. She was akin to the Chaotic Lifeforms of old.

With the entire dungeon under Chao’s control, the players had no chance to actually get away. Chao didn’t want to coddle the girl though. Kretchof had told him to train the girl, the best method of training was fighting for one’s life, so that is what she was ordered to do.

It was a bit too easy for her in Chao’s opinion. She could easily cast any of the chaotic spells Chao taught, including how to siphon off mana from others. That was here specialty. She would suck a person dry before killing them. Chao taught her some simple magic such as shadow magic to move through the dungeon quickly be fusing to the shadows.

He taught her how to use hell-fire, and even how to use earth mana to strengthen her defenses. Normally he would have jealously guarded the secret on how to use these magic abilities, but she had proven to him enough times that she was worthy of learning them.

It’s a shame that the ability to cast True Spells has been lost. She might even be worthy of learning one.

The girl that used to be a necromancer Classed up to ‘Chaotic Apprentice’. It was similar to a mana mage, but focused almost exclusively on using spells from fused sources.

She had hunted down the people in the maze in an instant. Finding them was easy, mostly due to the fact that she could sense whenever one of them used any type of mana. Spells and Abilities both used mana, thus she could sense whenever they used either one.

Since the other players had to protect themselves the moment they got into the dungeon, she could tell where they were right away.

The moment they died they respawned in their chosen city, far away from the dungeon.

…

Or at least that should have happened. Chao used some unknown means to force each otherworlders to respawn back in a certain room in the dungeon. Of course the trainee then proceeded to hunt them down again.

The people were hunted for hours without respite. At first some of them thought it might be a glitch, but they kept appearing in the room after they were killed. All but one ran from the room to try to figure out what was happening.

The one that stayed realized they were in a dungeon, and that they were forced to respawn in the safe room. He was the first one the trainee found and killed. His body didn’t respawn until she had left 100 feet of the room.

By that time, the last person also had left the room and she had to search elsewhere for prey.

The dungeon mastered promised her a new spell should she kill enough of them. Her master had a way to communicate with anyone in the dungeon, and she knew she shouldn’t question when she was done. She would keep going until he said it was enough.

Suddenly she felt a huge fluctuation of mana. She looked toward the direction, obviously it happened outside of the dungeon. In that moment, Chao contacted her.

In a slightly excited voice, he said, “Ok. That’s enough. Come I’ll teach you Life Steal. Then I have another task. You will be going to collect a bit of Dragon’s blood!”

She ran straight back as fast as she could. Life Steal was one of the better magic spells she had been promised. Her face was flush with excitement as she returned.

Hi guys! Thanks for reading so much! 97 chapters! Wow! So excited! I’m also about to start on a mysterious new project! Super exciting! Don’t worry though, it won’t interfere with the chapter releases for DIVE.

There is still a scheduled chapter due for you guys on Friday. This the side chapter for the week.