Isaiah saw the collapsing of the floor happening before him and hurried towards the edge, looking down to make sure Miri and Anne were safe.

  “Miri! Anne! Are you two alright?” Isaiah cried out from above.

  “Yeah, we’re fine! Still alive somehow!” Miri yelled back.

  “Don’t worry about us!” Anne added.

  The area around them was a bit too dark to make out much detail. However, they were still able to find something mixed in with the rubble—bones. Specifically, bones of various kinds of large animals scattered all around them.

  Miri had recalled from the map that this was a dumping room, as in where the royal mages dump the bodies of all their failed attempts at creating the chimeragon. Even with the best knowledge, innovation in magic was still a process of trial-and-error, with hundreds of failed attempts for every one successful attempt. And this was the graveyard of those failures. Seeing all these skeletons lying around just like that gave off an atmosphere of grimness to this whole place.

  Hugo was coughing and grunting as he got up, the healing he’d received from the runes greatly diminished now that his ample supply of mana was cut off from him. Seeing his two opposition in front of him, he felt a sense of apprehension mixed in with his anger. This was now a losing battle for him and he couldn’t possibly see a way out.

  “Alright, Daddy Victorstein, show’s over!” Miri said to the paranoid man. “Hand over the runes.”

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  “You can still surrender, Mr. Victorstein,” Anne replied. “It’s still not too late.”

  Surrender? There’s no way Hugo would ever surrender. He had lost too much to surrender now. The only way they’re taking his runes was if they pry them out of his goddamn hands. He may have lost, but he’d fight to his last breath if he had to.

  However, as the two sides stood there in a standstill squaring off against one another, they suddenly heard a low, rumbling growl that echoed throughout the area—one that’s approaching closer and closer by the second.

  It was the growl…of the chimeragon.

  Miri and Anne’s faces went pale as they turned to one of the darker corners of the area, a chill sent down their spines. Hugo was equally as frightened, his blood running cold and his legs trembling uncontrollably. As both sides stood their ground, they saw the creature slowly coming into view as it walked up to the brighter areas of the room, growling and snarling and making various other animal noises with its multiple mouths.

  Judging from the various wounds on its body, it seemed to have been badly injured from some sort of powerful explosion, likely due to the fully charged Void Vortex Miri had dished out earlier. Even so, it still seemed to be quite an imposing threat, one that could easily slaughter any one of them if it really wanted to.

  Like the calm before the storm, all went silent. The three people in the room didn’t speak, they didn’t move, they didn’t even dare to breathe. All they could do now was to wait for the chimeragon to make a move. The two sides were now standing a good distance apart from each other. If the beast were to go after one side, it’ll be just distracted enough to allow the other side to escape. Any sudden moves might provoke the beast into attacking them first, which was why neither of them had dared to move.

  Now, with both of them remaining as still as possible, who the chimeragon decided to go after first was now entirely left to chance.

  Then, once the calm had passed, the storm began as the chimeragon lunged forward towards one of them.