Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The building was owned by their guild and hence he knew that it didn't look like that from the start, his anger was warranted.

"G-guild… leader" one of the adventurer who was barely conscious, reached out unable to get out from the debris.

The guild leader walked towards the other guy and stretched his hands to get the person out of the debris.

"Oi, you alright? What happened here? Who did this to you all?" he repeated.

The adventurer opened and closed his mouth and finally squeezed out a few words before losing consciousness.

"Intruders?" the guild leader had a face as if he couldn't believe what he heard. They were currently inside the headquarters of their guild, the security around here was so tight with many barriers deployed that leave alone intruding, nobody would be able to even step foot around their area without them noticing.

Him being unable to notice could only mean that… the secret teleportation formation laid out in the basement and known only to a handful few had been used.

Naturally, his first suspicions went towards the grey-robed man who was similarly astounded by this series of events.

"Who did this? Who has the gall to come to my guild and injure my members?" the guild leader barked unable to take this incident lying down.

Eight sighed before taking out a healing potion from his space ring and scattered it on Eleven.

"It's not an attack. The coordinator was activated, this was the result of the spatial portal closing".

"What?!" Before he could go recover from this blow, another shocking news hit him out of nowhere.

Eight didn't pay attention at the man who was going insane with fury and was instead intently looking at the coordinator, more precisely the shattered dungeon core placed in the centre of it.

He could sense that the vast energy within the fragments, had gone down by a lot and that is why he could tell that the coordinator had been used. In any other case, this could be seen as a success since the prototype was working just like the original without any accident happening or loss of life. 

However, this time, the coordinator was used by an intruder and the number of times they could dive through it had also gone down by one. With only a limited number of uses left, if they still couldn't achieve their objective, they would have to look for a new dungeon core.

Anyways they couldn't do anything now that the intruders were gone and could only wait for Eleven and others to wake up to know what had actually transpired here.

                                                                      -----

WHOOOSH… snow, as far as the eye could see, thick arctic snow covered the area. A snowstorm was currently raging on at this place and made it difficult to even see a few meters of area around you.

Where was this place? Simon did not know, he found himself here after being teleported by that peculiar machine.

But currently, that didn't matter. He was fuming, he was not fuming at this world of snow but rather at a woman who had followed them inside.

Yes, currently besides Simon and Denzel, there was one other additional person along with them. Lustrous white hair that complemented with the world of snow itself, tangerine pupils and a voluminous body overflowing with temptation.

This was not their first time meeting so how can Simon forget her? In fact, he was only in this situation because of this woman. The alluring beauty in front of him was none other than the Disciple of Adalinda and also the one who taught him the [Ancient Draconic Compel] technique.

How was she here? Well when Simon was tinkering and investigating the pot-shaped construct all over, he felt a sudden resonance from the shattered dungeon core and unwittingly inserted some of his mana onto it. Causing a reaction which even he didn't expect.

At that moment, the machine started becoming alive and trembled intensely causing vibrations to travel through the ground and spread over the whole building.

Simon had a face that said he had fucked up, the commotion was so obvious that it would be surprising if nobody came down. Soon, the people in the building who had heard the commotion rushed inside only to find two people that they have never seen before.

The boy was also surprised by the chain of events that he did not know what to say, his plan of intruding inside the base of the two shady people and know more about their work, had gone up in smokes now that they were discovered.

Just when he was about to shout that this was all Simon's fault for touching something he shouldn't, the machine started acting weird once again.

All the mana around the basement was sucked dry and more and more was flowing in from the surrounding outside. The rotors around the two sides of the machine, started spinning and a fluctuation of energy so wild and berserk that it even caused him to be scared witless, started emanating from it.

"What are you two doing? This is the territory of the…"

BOOM.. the people who rushed in were about to say something when their voices were drowned out by a deafening noise. A shockwave spread through the pot like machine and pushed everybody back.

Every eye was now focused on the machine whose energy had reached such a level where if anything goes wrong, it could erase a few kilometres area with them as the centre.

Finally, when everyone thought that the only eventual ending would be the machine blowing up, all that energy flowed into the radar on top of the machine. Next the radar lit up with a brilliant light and condensed all that energy into a beam that broke through the space and travelled to some unknown destination.

SHATTER…

After that, it was just one event after another, the space above the machine was shattered where the beam had dug a hole in space and what came forth was a dark portal that led to who knows where.

The portal that appeared, had the attention of everybody present as they cautiously stared at it. They who were just ordinary members of the guild, did not know what it was since they were not privy to such information. If they knew, they would have immediately apprehended Simon and the little boy before they committed more shenanigans.

At this moment when nobody moved an inch due to the incomprehensibility of the situation, a powerful presence could be sensed approaching closer. The aura was so powerful that even these members who usually acted so high and mighty had to drop their noses.

The presence couldn't be any familiar to them after all, this was the headquarters of their guild and other than those few members who are currently outside, there was only one other person present who could release such a powerful aura, their guild leader.

"This is bad" Denzel mumbled, this was the first time he had a grave expression on his face. The presence approaching closer, represented that serious of a problem.

The teleportation formation through which they came from, was currently being surrounded by the members of the guild. Just when the boy was panicking internally, Simon's calm voice rang beside his ears.

"On my mark, get ready to dive inside the portal".

"Wha…"

The boy did not have the time to retort back when from the corner of his eyes he saw a faint figure dash towards the portal.

It was also at this moment when Simon saw another person dive inside that he gave his signal "Now".

Without saying anything further, he dived inside the portal whose energy had started to become volatile. Although the boy appeared apprehensive, he still followed behind him.

Why were some kingdoms and empires collecting shattered dungeon core? What uses did the machine have? Where did the portal lead to? Who were these people who were working with a Demon Noble?

Simon had many questions running through his mind; instinctively, he knew that some of them will be answered once he dived inside the portal.

ZIIING… right after they disappeared, the machine started trembling and making noise once again. The powerful energy supporting the portal started to become more and more volatile before the shocked eyes of the members of the guild and before they knew it, the portal burst apart causing a powerful shockwave to hit each and every one of them.

When Simon came to himself, the next thing he found was this vast snowy world all around him. He examined his body to see if he had suffered any damage by forcefully diving inside the portal but to his surprise, there was not even a scratch on his body.

Just as he propped himself up to see where he was, out from the corner of his eyes he spotted the boy who had dived inside the portal with him and was yet to become awake and a woman who couldn't be any familiar to him.

Well, that was what led to the current situation.

As Simon continuously eyed her, Lucine couldn't help but glare back at him only to get momentarily surprised the next second.

"It's you?! What a surprise, I didn't expect to see you here".

Those nonchalant words of hers served even more to fume Simon; however, when he thought about how she would be soon captured by her master and forced to cut her trip short and return back home crying, his heart was finally consoled a little.

"I'm the one who is surprised, what are you doing here?" he asked trying to probe about her motive behind coming here instead of roaming the capital which was currently teeming with festivity.