Akira and the others with him rushed up the large steps to see who was fighting.

As they reached the last few steps before stepping onto the checkered platform, several colorful skills flew high over their heads and exploded out in the dark abyss lighting up the area for a few seconds.

“Why are you, the [Cunning shadow] guild, attacking us? Our guilds are not at war!” shouted a skinny twig-like knight who wore thin metal armor.

The knight's shield began glowing as he activated a skill and charged toward a fat demigod that was wearing leather armor and holding long daggers with blades that were over a foot long.

The fat demigod disappeared and reappeared behind the skinny knight and pierced his body with both the glowing red daggers that tore through the metal armor like butter.

“You know why! Don't act like this is a surprise,” said the Fat demigod as he pulled out the bloody daggers.

Akira focused on the fat demigod to see who he was [Erek Shun lvl 100].

Several other 1v1 battles were taking place all over the large checkered platform as the two demigod guilds spammed waves of skills as fast as they could trying to mow down their opponents.

Erek Shun and his guild members now had the upper hand as more and more of their opponents disappeared into light fragments.

“Damn you! We'll be coming back to kick your butt!” shouted the last demigod from the opposing guild as he disappeared into light particles seconds later.

“Haha! Come and try it! We will be the guild to take the reward and be long gone before this time tomorrow!” said the ragged Erek Shun.

The small group of surviving [Cunning Shadow] demigods sat down and began drinking different potions and bandaging up their wounds.

Before they could get back to their full fighting power, they noticed a new group staring at them from the steps leading to the platform.

Seeing that they had been discovered, Akira and the Minor lycans rushed up onto the platform.

“Tch, another guild has come?” asked Erek Shun.

“I thought this was supposed to be a secret?” asked Ran Chee as she held her staff to her chest and rocked back and forth. She was the younger sister of Ranche from the [Forbidden] guild but had decided to join the [Cunning shadow] guild to be with one of her friends.

“Those idiot guild leaders, they wasted all of the money we made in the last month buying this information that everyone seems to know about!” said an angry Erek Shun.

“Kill them,” was all Akira said.

“Yap!” said Fluffball.

“What? Wait! Our guilds can work together and split the reward!” shouted Ron chee as she tried to stand up along with the other guild members.

“There are other guild members ahead of us! You'll need our help!”

Akira did not listen to their pleas and watched as the minor lycans engaged and easily cut down the wounded demigods.

They did not bother transforming or using skills for this fight to save their strength for any harder battles that lay ahead of them.

When they had picked up all the loot that had been dropped by both of the demigod guilds they continued climbing the spiral staircase tower.

As they reached the next checkered platform their expressions hardened.

Blood, guts, and scattered limbs and bodies of the Kamen warriors lay on the ground.

Several dozen footsteps could be seen in the dried blood on the ground. It seemed that several groups of demigods had passed the dead warriors not caring about them. The bloody tracks lead to the new set of spiraling stairs that continued to climb into the darkness high above them.

“Gather as much of their remains as you can...” said Akira.

As they gathered the bodies in one spot Akira noticed that there were several missing body parts including even the upper and lower halves of some of the warriors.

The most likely explanation was that they had been tossed or pushed over the edge...

When all they could gather was in front of Akira, he opened his bag and placed them all inside making sure to separate them from his other items. It was quite messy inside and he would have to figure out a way to clean it up later.

They continued marching up the stairs that now required them to actually pull themselves up each step.

The sounds of grunts, curses, screeching of metal, and chatter reached Akira's ears as they continued to climb towards a platform above them that was at least 10 times larger than the small platforms they had seen before.

“Hurry up you guys! We're out of potions from all the fighting with the other guilds. We can't keep going on like this. If another guild comes to take the reward...”

“We're trying but it's not as easy as you would think to herd all of them like this!”

“Whoever leaked the information for this secret mission... I'm going to repeatedly kill them until they have to start from scratch.”

“You think that this will really work?”

“How should I know? I have never heard of artificially creating... enemy!” shouted a demigod near the large steps.

The warning was too late. The five demigods standing near the stairs were pulled off the platform and onto the step below them by Akira and the minor lycans who quickly tore them apart with their weapons and skills.

“Crap! Another guild has arrived! What is Erek Shun doing letting people pass him?”

“Push harder! We need to complete this before they can come and take credit for it!”

“Idiots don't use your skills! You're killing them! That defeats all the work we put into this mission!”

Akira and Zundar got into sturdy stances and cupped their hands allowing the minor lycans to step onto their hands before being launched up onto the platform. This way they were able to quickly get everyone up onto the platform quickly and far safer than getting attacked as soon as they tried to climb up over the edge.

Zundar was the last one on the step as he tossed Akira and Fluffball up onto the platform.

What Akira saw as he steadied himself almost made his jaw drop.

Nearly a quarter of the large platform was swarming with several hundred if not thousands of small watermelon-sized black furry rock bodies that had bright yellow glowing eyes.

[Furry Abyss lvl 100]

'They actually looked kinda cute in a rock pet kinda way,' thought Akira as he looked at them.

The demigods had surrounded the monsters and were pushing them all into the swirling blue portal that led to the Dungeon guardian's room.

Only two demigods moved away from the defensive line that was slowly moving forward and rushed towards Akira and the minor lycans to try and stall them for time.

“What the hell are they doing?” asked Zundar as he saw the swarm of monsters disappearing into the swirling blue portal.

“Is this where all the monsters in the dungeon ended up?” asked Beater.

“I don't like this one bit,” said Sister Teresa as she watched the disappearing monsters.

Akira stepped forward to block several of the colorful skills shot by the demigods while the minor lycans returned fire with their skills cutting the two approaching demigods into pieces before they could reach them.

“Damn it, hurry! We're almost finished!” shouted a [Cunning shadow] demigod who was part of the front-line defense pushing forward.

The [Full moon] members launched several more skills towards the unprotected backs of the [Cunning shadow] guild members slicing, burning, and freezing the other demigods who were unable to do anything about it because if they were to turn around they would be swarmed by the massive wave of monsters in front of them.

One by one they started to disappear causing the defensive line to be overwhelmed.

As the last demigod disappeared into light particles, Akira and the others now realized something important...

The hundreds of [Furry Abyss] monsters that had been corralled and smacked around for several hours, were now free. Their full attention and rising anger was now targeting Akira and everyone else around him!

“Even if you guys are cute, this is too much!” The words accidentally slipped out of Akira's mouth, but luckily everyone else was paying attention to the rising anger of the [Furry Abyss] in front of him.

“Crap! No matter how strong I am, I know we can't defeat all those enraged monsters!” said Zundar.

Akira felt that he had a high chance of surviving the swarm of [Furry Abyss] but Fluffball, Zundar, and the royal guards might die and unlike the minor lycans, they only had one life to live!

Akira's mind was racing to try and figure out a way out of this situation.

Retreating was not an option. They would only be swarmed as they tried to climb down the tall stairs. There was also a high possibility of falling off into the dark abyss if they were too hasty.

Only one other option was left.

“Sister Teresa! Buff me!”

She did not ask any questions and did as he asked, quickly muttering several chants as she pointed at him, allowing him to feel the effects of the buffs as they washed over him.

Akira slammed his sword into the ground and activated the skill [Dark shockwave].

A rumbling wave of dark energy shot out from his sword into the ground and spread out slamming into the charging swarm of [Furry Abyss] monsters who tripped up halting their charge in its tracks for a short moment.

Akira did not stop his actions at that, he crouched into a runner’s pose with his shield held in front of him, his muscles straining as they gathered power.

He activated the skill [Shield Slam] and shot forward plowing through the hundreds of [Furry Abyss] that were in his way.

Akira's charge deep into the swarm of [Furry Abyss] monsters shocked everyone. They were going to follow after him to try and save him but Fluffball and Zundar stopped them.

“Yap!” said Fluffball.

“Just wait!” said Zundar.

Akira's dash forward was losing speed as he reached the core of the swarm that was least affected by his [Dark shockwave].

He launched several [Sword slash] attacks cutting down a group of [Furry Abyss] that were standing in his path before he was able to reach the target of his charge!

As dozens of the [Furry Abyss] started to surround him, with even more jumping through the air to try and dog pile him, Akira reached out a hand and touched the swirling blue portal.

Ding!

Do you want to enter the Abyss guardian's lair?

[Y/N]

Akira immediately accepted it.

A blue flash of light covered Akira.

When the light disappeared Akira was no longer standing in front of the portal.

The few [Furry Abyss] that had jumped through the air had no way of stopping their attacks now that their target had disappeared and they ended up flying over the edge and falling into the dark endless abyss.

Ding!

Your party has successfully been transferred to the Dungeon guardians lair.