~ Chapter 19: It’s sink or swim now ~

[Tuberculus’ point of view]

Our emotional explosion was unexpected, a miracle that made me realize the horrible truth that I was hiding in my heart.

Who knew that I would need to be reborn in a different body and allow myself to ponder such deep matters time and time again in order to finally see what my foolishness had been trying to hide? Now, free of it, I felt like there was no more burden on my heart and that I could finally look forward towards a different future.

My curiosity soared, this time in a better and a healthier direction.

Six weeks later

Everything around us was starting to change. The ornaks, ellyarians, Lion Emperors and the automatons now had the common goal of finding a way to survive the upcoming Ritual of Suppression. The actors who were on the stage gained complete awareness of what was in the background, of all the ropes and pulleys, of all the unseen workers and unknown decorations that were ready to pop out the moment they were needed to make the scene better. To the naked eye, there was no change, nothing out of the ordinary, however, we were already making preparations for what passageways to close, which ones to extend, what to modify and what to keep. We took notes, we observed, and then put all of our ideas to the test. Today, a passage was modified just a bit, then it was returned to normal, so if someone went back up to report the change, there would be no proof of what he witnessed.

This was not without a purpose. It all started two weeks ago when I was walking through the automaton maze and realized that my path to P.A.L’s office was getting shorter and shorter. Initially, I thought that I was just seeing things, however, when I asked, I learned that the automatons restructured their maze in order to make it easier for me to reach him. They simply pushed one wall to the side and filled another, a simple and easy move that closed off a passage temporarily and allowed me to skip 4-5 minutes of walking.

It was ingenious. A shortcut, which when switched around could become a deadly trap. If you were to close off a passage and trap the adventurers inside, unless they were able to figure out which wall to break, it could have meant death for them. It sent a shiver down my spine but at the same time, I was struck with a curious desire to learn how the reiss, forglore and the negvar elves would respond to the dungeon’s layout subtly shifting like this. If it was done at the entrance, then it was going to be easier to spot.

A veteran adventurer who constantly visits the dungeon would be able to recognize the main paths at a glance and would immediately know when something has changed. However, not all parts of Yandrea’s floors were being constantly explored. There were big sections in which an adventurer had never stepped in for decades and some for centuries. It was those areas we could easily cut off and then slowly nip away at the floors. Starting with the lower ones, we could try to both extend the paths and also reduce them. Then, the magic energy that was used to maintain those cut off parts could be used to maintain and build our secret training ground.

It was for this purpose that I would then ask Yandrea to tell me all the traps and strange things she could do in a dungeon. I was familiar with the end product and often than not how to stop it, however, I never actually stopped to ponder about how everything was connected and fit together, what a Dungeon’s true limitations were. Unfortunately, because she was doing everything instinctively, most of her explanations ended up as a combinations of weird sounds and strange magic shows.

“The magic crystal goes BAM! And then the wall goes WIRR! Oh, but that happens only if I zip zap the magic crystal to the wall’s connector, which only I can see. It’s like zip tap and then kachik it! Do it like that and it just runs! So, when I actually think about how I want to make it, I just take the part from here and there, smash it together, pull it there, cut it here, and then there it is!” this was her explanation for a wall that was triggered by a pressure plate.

When I first heard it, I thought that I was hearing things, however, Yandrea never received what I would call an extensive education that would allow her to turn her thoughts and ideas into practical words that anyone could use to construct a logical formulation of a concept or idea. Whatever she said made sense in her head, we could all see the result, and the automatons like P.A.L. definitely had an incredibly complex structure underneath all those metal armor plates of theirs.

It was clear that the bastards on the surface had no intention of helping out Yandrea learn more things, so I took the liberty to tutor her on the subject I excelled in: Magical Engineering, Mechanical Theory, and Trap Deconstruction! I planned on helping her learn some proper terms that would allow her to explain how everything worked in terms that I could understand as well. Then, when this was over, we could start over and try to understand how the traps worked.

Three months later

My lessons with Yandrea continued at a steady pace and when she found herself unable to understand some things, I gave her the time and space she needed to properly assimilate this information at her own pace. Our constant chatting on these matters wherever we went would soon catch the interest of ornaks, ellyarians, and Lion Emperors. Soon enough, I found myself opening a second Fellyore Magic Academy in the middle of a dungeon! Actually, how did I even get roped up into becoming a principal and a teacher again?!

Either way, our plans were progressing. The underground floor was nearly finished after only three months, and more than a quarter of the entire population of each village moved there. The pioneers who tested the floor had the purpose in the upcoming weeks to tell us what we would need to welcome here everyone who remained on the Core World floor. We planned that in the following three years only the warriors of each species to be present in the original villages just in case a Slave made his way there.

The elderly could not be counted on to defend the village when the war would begin, but they were a wonderful source of information. One of the tasks that I gave them was to write down all of their history and culture. I wanted to see if there were similarities between them individually and those traditions that Yandrea mentioned she forcefully implemented in their cultures in order to stop them from progressing too fast. An example of such a tradition was the mating seasons, which happened once every five years in order to maintain the population to a certain level. This was the reason why there were so few children among the two villages. Another example was the fact that in order to pick a job or a profession, they had to first be assigned one by Yandrea. Of course, she could always do so based on their innate skills and abilities, however, what it helped with was keeping the population from trying to develop and expand beyond what was given to them, an action which would otherwise have attracted the attention of those on the surface.

For now, I planned on studying these documents once they were gathered and then point out those that were redundant and would otherwise impede their development. Of course, if they wanted to keep them, it was their choice. Yandrea had no intention of stopping them anymore from developing and changing their ways.

In regard to this, the rebel leaders had been doing a great job of slowly changing the ways of the few who fell prey to the promises of rebellion. In no more than a couple of weeks, they had all turned their hate towards the reiss, forglore, and the negvar elves. Too much blood had been spilled to keep them entertained.

Thanks to our steady preparations, we could organize ourselves and move fast whenever the Slaves returned to this floor to check up on Yandrea. While the children and elderly hid underground, the others would put on a show of a rebellion that grew at a steady pace. They never suspected a thing and returned to the surface satisfied with the results, and at times slightly annoyed that they could not find a flaw to use as an excuse to abuse their powers.

Three years later

I found myself drinking a cup of tea on top of the pyramid, looking out towards the automaton’s labyrinth. The sight from this height was absolutely breathtaking no matter how many times I saw it. However, it paled in comparison to the twisted logic of the Endless Spire past the 300th floor. Yandrea took me there once, and it was a sight to behold. It was amazing that she thought of such a complex structure. Every step you took, you felt like you were being flipped upside down. When you walked on the spire, you could see above your head, the twisted ground, plains and hills that were defying gravity itself with their rebellious actions.

The floors Yandrea created were an architectural art of a high standing that not even she was aware of. How sad that there was no one who could understand her majestic constructions...

In the past three years, I often came up here to relax while drinking a cup of tea, looking at the scenery or reading one of my old books. This little habit was actually my wife’s idea. She was the one who suggested that I should try to do this as she often will just hang up there in the air and look down at what she created, thinking about the future and how to make everything better for everyone.

Here, I could contemplate everything that happened to me, to us, to everyone. The hidden floor was now a bustling city where an entire army was training daily. Where culture was flourishing anew in a form that took root from all of their past civilizations. When the chains that Yandrea was forced to tie them down with were taken off, they discovered they had plenty of unique aspects as well as common ones too. Every day thus was accompanied by a moment of discovery and the thrill of freedom, while the ghosts of the past were slowly vanishing. It was proof to show that nothing imposed by force was meant to last. Civilizations would just naturally move in the direction they felt a genuine pull from.

“Two souls who are still searching for who they are and what they want to become... Two souls who still dream of love... of a destiny that is more than just a fictive creation of one’s mind... Two souls that finally see each other...” I whispered as I took a sip from my herbal tea.

My words back then, although spoken in a moment of emotional overflow, represented a truth that changed both of us for the better.

They were spoken from the bottom of my heart, containing the truth that I was probably too afraid to see during my younger days. Learning to overcome it, to be able to free myself from it would naturally take time, but I had never expected that these changes would happen so fast and that they would impact us so much. If I were to be honest, I feared that when I woke up the next day, our deep talk would remain at nothing more than a bunch of words exchanged in an emotional moment, of which we would not speak again or rather remember with a slight embarrassment.

Yet, it was not like that at all. Initially, I found it hard to believe it, but as days and then weeks and months passed, I realized that there was a lot more to it.

Now, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I could smile and accept my appearance. My habit of stroking my invisible beard slowly faded away, and a smile that was usually forced upon my lips to please my surroundings had turned into a genuine one. Then, rather than focusing on how to waste my time so that I could flee from what troubled me the most, whether that was research or something else, I began to look more towards the unknown. To see if within it were the answers to my undying questions... those which I wanted to forget about or which I faked an answer to.

Life, as fleeting as it was, for an elderly such as me or a being with an endless age like Yandrea, was a puzzle and a mystery that was covered in thorns. The more you grasped on to it, the harder you bled, unfortunately, you could never let go once you held it in your hand because if you did, what awaited was the abyss of death.

So, for me, to let go of my past worries and slowly starting to accept my current life... my current opportunities... was a miracle to say the least.

As for my wife, Yandrea, inside her Inner Mind, rather than appearing before me in her negvar elf form, she took on the form of a floating ball of light. For both of us, this was her biggest change. It was a reflection of herself and also the fact that she wanted to stop forcing herself to be something she was not.

“I don’t know, Tuby, I just feel more comfortable in this form as a floating sphere of light... When I try to create a human shape for myself or anything similar for that matter, I feel like something is missing... like it would not entirely reflect my true self. I do not think it’s time for me to change myself like this...” she told me when we talked about it.

I had faith in her that she would change when the time came and not a single moment later. There was no rush, we had time.

During these three years, the dungeon itself also went through a lot of big changes, which, when discovered, Yandrea played them out as necessities for the Ritual of Suppression by having the soldiers led by the royalties hold a stronger belief that there was something wrong with her. In a way, we were disguising all of our changes as deliberate actions we took in the favor of making their theatrical play seem more real. Sometimes, the truth needed not to be hidden for it made for the best of tales.

Within these three years, the monsters gathered slowly on the lower floor, with the most powerful ones hiding in the shadows, deliberately avoiding adventurers in order to give them the impression that it was an easy floor to conquer. The most dangerous beasts were often the ones who lurked in the shadows. Queen Skara made it possible for these wild beasts to work alongside us, while the spawned ones were gathered strategically in certain locations that were not accessible by adventurers through regular means.

Alongside gathering monsters in preparation for our counterattack four years from now, we also changed the layout of the floors themselves as well as the locations and difficulty of the traps. Previously, if you had the time, you could explore the entirety of the floor. There was nothing stopping you. There were no fake walls or blocked sections of the floor. Right now, going through the traps, monsters, and even finding your way to the lower floors has become the easiest it had been in years. Adventurers were progressing faster than they ever did before. All this was thanks to two very important changes.

The first change involved a very basic and ever-present system in any dungeon: traps. Every time one was disarmed or broken, Yandrea would have to fly there and fix it. This was part of her daily routine of maintaining her dungeon. What we decided to do was to reduce the traps in difficulty and number, so that now, three years later, they were half as difficult to disarm and find as they were before. The purpose of this change was desensitizing the adventurers to the presence of traps. If we changed everything in a single day, it would be easy to notice, but over the span of several years, it would just seem as though the adventurers got more skilled or that the Dungeon’s skill at making them dropped. Either way, this way of thinking would immediately cause their egos to grow and they would slowly lower their guard. They would underestimate Yandrea and her creations. They would see the challenge of reaching deeper and deeper floors as something easy. They would fall for their own fantasies, and in four years from now, they would be at a point where they would make countless mistakes in the easiest of dungeons.

The second change involved restructuring the floors themselves. By using that simple yet very effective trick the automatons used in order to shorten my travel distance to PAL, we decided to slowly change the floors so that we could conceal certain parts of them while making it seem as though nothing had changed. The architectural illusions were made slowly so that no suspicion would arise even from the most experienced adventurer. Of course, we knew that maybe a Slave or an individual with outstanding perception and observational skills would be able to figure out that something was amiss, however, for everyone else it would have been difficult if not impossible. As for those who noticed, in the case of Slaves we would deny it or affirm it as part of the Ritual of Suppression, while for the adventurers, it would end up as them ‘seeing things’. Even if they spoke the truth, there was no way of finding out the truth. No one was crazy enough to measure and path a labyrinth filled with monsters to see if the dimensions were anywhere near as they were told to be decades if not centuries ago by their ancestors.

More than 25% of each floor was now inaccessible to the regular adventurer, while the hidden part were redesigned to become breeding grounds for monsters. Every day, Yandrea would then bring some of the naturally born monsters to the lower floors, where they would fight against the soldiers of our ever-growing army. Thanks to this process, their strength would constantly increase and at this moment in time, there were many of them getting close to the abilities of Emperor Rank Adventurers.

The soldiers were not the only ones to benefit from this, I also took my time to hunt down the natural born monsters. I made a steady process and was now well past the Peak of Emperor Rank and just in terms of strength and other abilities, I was on par with at least an average Godlike Rank Adventurer. The one thing that I was missing to be considered one was the Godlike Skills or Spells that they knew, which was not such a big challenge, to be honest, however, they were often the foundation towards jumping into the Supreme Rank. Your Power Number alone was not enough to make you eligible for this rank.

I was not yet certain if I wanted to focus more on abilities that helped those around me to gain more strength in combat, to focus on a particular powerful attack, or to develop an entirely new ability that could be unique to me alone. The later was favorable if I wanted to make an impression, but it was essentially a gimmick that could at times work and others fail spectacularly. For example, there was a Godlike Rank Adventurer who improved his spell to cast illusions to the point that he could materialize his own clothes into an armor. While it sounded incredible on paper, the effect was that... he could not advance it into Supreme Rank. It was indeed a Godlike ability, since he created it by himself, but was it powerful? Not by a long shot. Actually, it was quite easy to destroy his illusion armor if you focused your attacks on him. He was not that good at dodging or casting spell shields, which made him vulnerable to many forms of attacks. He was not a true adventurer; he was an artist.

This did not mean that his idea of casting some form of magical spells on you to either protect you or boost your abilities was a complete failure. If used properly, I could make for myself a good Godlike spell, such as a flame coat that could amplify my fire attacks and make me immune to the attacks of others. Of course, the idea of making it able to turn into a fire weapon did cross my mind, however, the problem with it was that I was not a swordsman. While I knew how to do a few moves, I was not trained in the art of swordsmanship or any type of physical combat. I had always been and will probably always be a mage at heart. Which led me to my other ideas for a Godlike skill... something that involved fire in some way... a flame that was meant for me.

All of us were improving in one way or another. The entire dungeon became more united towards the goal of repelling the Ritual of Suppression. In just three years, we managed to build a hidden underground floor that was now an actual city in its own right, where all of Yandrea’s creations united. Where we trained and spent most of our time. Where my new and most likely temporary Magic Academy was at, and where we planned our each and every move for the upcoming years.

I took another sip of tea right before my moment of peace was pleasantly interrupted by the joyous voice of my wife.

“Tuby! Tuby! I’m stronger now, I’m Level 1205!” she spoke with excitement.

“That’s... amazing, but how?” I asked as I furrowed my brow.

One second earlier, and I would have spat out my precious tea.

“It must have been all the building I did or all the monsters that were killed. Erm, but there’s a problem now.” she said with worry in the tone of her voice.

“You were not supposed to grow, were you?” I asked.

“Yes.” she nodded.

“Well, we talked about this before... If you happen to increase your Power Number or Level as you put it, we’ll just tell them that it was a result of multiple factors. There were overzealous adventurers who destroyed a lot of traps and killed a lot of monsters, resulting in you needing to repair it constantly. And then... we can just say that you sometimes have these ‘growth spurts’ when you are overworked. What do you think?” I asked.

“I will tell them this if they ever bring it up. I won’t willingly mention it and just play the fool as if I had not noticed it because I was so focused on making the Ritual of Suppression perfect as they asked me to... So, I will shift the blame on them...” she replied.

“Good!” I smiled but then something sparked my curiosity. “You know, I never saw you hunt monsters with me and never did from what you told me... So how exactly did you increase your Power Number? It can’t be just building and monsters randomly dying could it?”

“Hm...” she made a circle in the air and then replied “I built a lot and absorbed all the monsters that were killed by the adventurers on the upper floors as well as those we brought to the training grounds. I think it was a combination of just those two.”

“So, in other words... you don’t need to directly kill to become more powerful...” I said and looked at her while I fell into deep thought.

Humans in general found it necessary to destroy and kill others in order to become better than them. Wars in general were resolved by having one winner and one loser. There was never a middle ground because the rulers were always greedy for what the others had. Even in this war, we could only wait here and grow our strength for the moment when everything would spark up in flames. Our lives were fleeting like a fire that had run out of fuel, the years we had left until this moment of confrontation.

So, what could we do in order to win no matter what happened? Actually, what was the purpose of our act of winning? What guaranteed our victory in this case?

No matter how I thought about it, at this moment in time, going on this path, we would only end up at most with victory over a single battle rather than that of a war. The latter meant a confrontation between two powers of considerable impact, nations, countries, armies...

“Yandrea... who are we actually fighting against?” I asked her.

“Erm... the ones living a carefree life on the surface.” she replied.

“Yes, but what do they actually represent?”

“Species?”

“No... They represent countries. They united in the form of countries who are ready to fight against us. We actually lead a war against three nations, while we ourselves are not a nation. Then the question remains... do we really have to fight them like this to win?” I asked.

“I don’t understand, do you mean we should abandon what we did until now?” she furrowed her brow, although how I could tell the expression of a flying orb of light, I had no idea.

“No, definitely not!” I shook my head.

“Then?”

“I’m talking about what would be an actual winning condition for us.”

“Then it’s easy, to survive! For us, a winning condition would be to survive.” she nodded.

“We can survive both as slaves to the winners or as free people.”

“Then, it would be the later, to be free...”

“And to do that, we would need to survive, win, and get away from the grasp of the countries above, right?”

“That is correct, but if we defeat the army that will come with the Ritual of Suppression...”

“We would only win a battle not the war...” I shook my head.

“I don’t understand.”

“Are those who take part of the Ritual of Suppression all of the available soldiers of those three countries?” I asked as I pointed up.

Yandrea thought about it for a moment and then replied “No...”

“Exactly, this is probably no more than a fraction of their true might. You probably know that your territory can’t expand to encompass all their territories. It just so happens that they meet up here, which was probably done in order to strengthen their territorial claim as well as a means of protection against other nations.”

“Other nations?” she tilted her head to the left.

“This is a big continent, right? I doubt only three countries exist on its surface. What about the others? How big are they? Are they peaceful or warlike? Are they powerful or weak?” such questions remain unanswered even now since those above made sure that no document or book about the surface world would fall in her hands.

This was extremely strange for me, the fact that Yandrea had no idea how the map of the continent looked like or how big the three nations were. Even their names were still somewhat of a mystery to her. Most of the time, she knew them by The Country of Reiss, The Country of Forglore, and the Country of Negvar Elves. However, those could not be their true names. Rulers were more often than not greedy and suffered from a big ego and a strong case of vanity. They would never accept a name like that for the land they ruled. Which meant that they intentionally went through a lot of effort in order to suppress the information from ever reaching Yandrea.

“I don’t know...” she replied.

“Exactly!” I shouted and laughed.

“Huh?”

“Yandrea, they made you believe that there was no one up there besides them, that they were the only power. We went based on that idea, however, just like you said, our purpose is not to take down three countries but to survive and be free! That’s why, I’m asking, why should we bind ourselves to stay under their feet?” I smiled and took out a map of the dungeon that she prepared for me some time ago. “Look at this.” I opened the map and pointed at the second level. “What will happen if you pull back your Dungeon Territory from this place?” I asked.

“I can’t, I need to have it connected to the surface.” she shook her head.

“What if you had another path connecting you to the surface?” I then placed my finger on the lowest floor, where we were right now and pulled it across the map to the surface, around it. “What if you connect this place to some other place far away from here? Just like you did with the floor where you keep your memories?” I looked up at her.

“Then... if that happens... the upper floors will steadily lose power... and eventually, they will collapse. The second floor has no support structure of its own like the lower floors do. This one doesn’t either, which means that if I were to leave this place, once the crystals in the ceiling and floors lose their power, they will crumble down under the pull of the earth. Some of them will be able to hold on for a while but eventually...” she stopped here, and I understood what she meant.

As far as I have seen, there were a lot of Dungeons who preferred to make their dungeons similar to actual castle dungeons, which had plenty of support structures. The big difference, if I were to say it, was that this entire place had been built in a way that suited those on the upper surface and put the most pressure on her.

When Yandrea showed me the map of her dungeon, the first floor or rather Floor 0, acted as a connection to the surface, with countless pathways going up, cutting through the mountains and popping out in the plains, then came the official first floor, also called the Endless Plains. Just like this bottom layer, it had 100 square kilometers in surface but it was just plains as far as the eye could see. With the upper pathways leading to the very center of this floor, it was built with the idea of having an entire city built there, a common place where all the species from the surface could gather to trade. Afterwards, was the second floor, called the Endless Mountains. Everything there looked as though it was cut right out of the surface, mountain top after mountain top, but none of them were going past 1km in height.

Then came the challenge for the adventurers: 300 floors of countless labyrinths, classical constructions of any dungeon, filled with traps and monsters. If you got through this area also known as the Endless Labyrinth, you would reach the 100 floors of death, known as the Dead Floors. This area was a necromancer’s paradise where all manner of creatures that played around with death could be found. There were those that could sink their teeth in the living and extract their very life force and others who could pass through walls like ghosts, however, the most common ones were the undead zombies and skeletons. This place consumed the adventurer’s sanity and resources as there was nothing to hunt or harvest.

If you somehow managed to get past them, you would reach the 200 floors of the Golem Paradise, an area where only monsters made of rocks and other minerals appeared. It was a place made so that you could harvest as many natural resources from as you needed. The purpose of this place was quite clear, it was the treasure trove that allowed those on the upper surface to maintain their superiority.

Past this area came the ones that had the purpose of truly challenging anyone who dared to explore them: The Endless Spire, a spiral tower built parallel to the floor and ceiling, where the pull of the ground was different and where the monsters were flying beasts and tangling snakes; The Volcano Paradise, an area where monsters made of fire and magma crawled on the floor, on the walls, and flew through the sky; lastly, there was the Land of Giants, where gigantic monsters and powerful creatures across each floor, it was also the home of Queen Skara.

The Core World, where the golden pyramid was located, was by far the most complex of them all, the most beautiful in my opinion, but also the most hidden. It was difficult for any random adventurer to reach and even harder to leave. This was why the Slaves were needed. Just like me, they could be ignored by the monsters created by Yandrea’s magic and could safely traverse any corner of the dungeon.

While her dungeon was impressive, it was indeed a castle of cards that would collapse the moment any of those floors met their end. Without her magic sustaining the entire structure, everything would crumble to pieces.

“Yandrea, for the past three years, I’ve always thought about what the perfect solution for this war is. I know that I am a stranger to these lands, and considering a human’s average lifespan, I am an elder who should be enjoying his retirement now and not worry about the future of nations. However, my mind kept wondering towards what the best future for us would be... How could we succeed? How could we truly win this war? If our army clashes with theirs, there will be casualties on both sides. If we win, they will be wiped out, thousands or hundreds of thousands will never see their families again...” I lowered my gaze for a moment.

“They will come here to harm us... to kill us. We are just defending ourselves. Is that wrong?” she asked.

“Wrong? Definitely not.” I shook my head and looked up at her “However, is this the only path that we can take? If we give in to their demands, we give up our freedom. If we fight, there will be blood spilled on both sides, but unlike them... we don’t have the main advantage.”

“The main advantage?”

“We don’t have the same open sky as they do... and vast lands or seas to flee towards. We are trapped underground like rats in a cage... We cannot cut our connection to the surface because we need to breathe. We cannot dig further down because of the heat. In this war, we are the rats trapped underneath a tower of cards, while all they have to do is just pressure us until we give up...” I said.

“We will persevere.” she declared with strength in her voice.

“Yes, but then what? Is that really the only path?” I asked.

“I don’t understand, if you figured out something, then tell me.” she pushed, and I smiled.

“We fight and flee at the same time.”

“What do you mean? How can we fight and flee at the same time?”

I pointed back at the map. “Instead of making another hole for us to breathe the fresh air of the surface, why don’t you carve out a path that leads us far away from this place, outside the borders of the kingdoms above, towards the beach?” I tapped the edge of the map. “We go there, we build a boat and flee from this continent. You dig up the ground and push your Dungeon Territory along it, a single tunnel down, with reinforced walls but which will carry all the ellyarians, all the ornaks, all the automatons, all the Lion Emperor and whatever other monsters and creatures who will want to join us! We can travel on that path and then leave this entire place to its own fate. Like a tower of cards, eventually, it will crumble down. Your magic is what supports it. This place should have been like a gift for them but they behaved like usurpers searching to bind you to their will. We cannot let this be! We have to let them know that this is not their place!” I declared as I made a fist and slammed it on the table.

“...” she did not reply, but it was clear that she was thinking about my words seriously.

“We either fight for eternity or become their slaves for eternity, in which case you might end up seeing all of our friends die. Or... if they are so stubborn in their ways, we let them be and take our leave from this place. There’s bound to be a land out there who will accept us... and if not, we’ll make one! On the surface this time, where all the children can one day be basked in sunlight and feel the warmth of the sun!”

I then took a step back and added “Either way, I don’t think you need to hold back anymore... with how strong you got, with how powerful you can make your monsters or traps... You should try to be free more, to see what you can do...” I then shook my head “It’s sink or swim now... 4 years... it’s enough to either make us unstoppable or just a bigger ant in front of them.” 

I let out a sigh and looked down at my now empty cup of tea. I do not even remember when I drank it all. Was I overtaken by my emotions?

Looking up at her, a white orb of energy, she looked so fragile and sweet. I lifted my arm up towards her, a gentle smile on my lips.

“Yandrea, no matter what happens, I will protect you. No matter what you choose, what path or decision you’ll take, I’ll be there for you.”