"The Dragon is coming!"

Those were the first words Michael heard when he regained consciousness. His head still hurt, feeling like it was about to split apart at any moment, however, Michael didn't dare to stay on the ground.

He focused on the golden wisp of the Lord Entrance ticket just to find out that the Lord Rift would close in a few minutes.

They had come so far!!. Now they only had to survive a few more minutes!

"Tiara, come here," Michael said weakly before he consumed several energy potions and healing potions. His body might still be fine but his head was a mess, and Michael could only hope that the healing potion would ensure that his brain wouldn't suffer from any permanent injuries after what he was about to do.

Now that he had rested a bit, Michael's energy storage was filled to the brim. Adding the energy entering his body through the potions, Michael was overflowing with origin energy. It was just enough to use Extraction on the ground beneath him.

Tiara appeared in the smithy, with a trace of worry in her heart. During their time in the Lord Rift she had never felt that uncomfortable. A premonition permeated the air, and worry was gnawing at her. Even if the Red Dragon wouldn't find them, the dragon breath may still reach the smithy and burn down everything in their sight possibly even them.

However, seeing Michael's calm expression worked wonders on Tiara who relaxed almost instantly. She followed his hand gesture and stepped closer. Michael then pulled her even closer before he did the same to Masked Saber.

The next instant, the ground beneath them with a radius of half a meter around Michael disappeared suddenly.

Michael's eyes were closed, his entire focus pointed toward extracting the ground beneath them.

Even if the Red Dragon burned down the smithy with its dragon breath, Michael and the others were unlikely to die that easily. The dragon breath may still reach them but the flames would not directly scorch them alive. They would just have to withstand the searing heat which was comparatively a little easier to counter.

Michael never thought that it would be easy, but he was pretty sure that digging a hole downward was much better than leaving the smithy and running around wildly. At least, the Red Dragon wouldn't notice them until the very end.

Less than a minute after Michael regained his consciousness, Michael and the others noticed that a heatwave flooded their small pit. The smithy didn't seem to have been burned down yet, but the Dragon's roar sounded a little closer than before. It was obvious that the Red Dragon had begun to wreak havoc inside the abandoned town.

The heatwave crashing down on them caused great distress to Michael. He bit his lower lip hard and it began to bleed but he endured the pain just to ensure that he would stay conscious while increasing the intensity of Extraction. He unleashed Extraction's full power before adding a layer of Enhancement to accelerate everything.

They moved downward much faster than before, creating a huge gap between them and the surface. However, the downside was that Michael's origin energy was quickly drained.

He tried to extract the origin energy from the surroundings but the headache prevented him from using Extraction multiple times. Michael could barely focus on carefully extracting the ground beneath them without collapsing on the spot.

Meanwhile, Tiara kept retrieving potions every few seconds. She hastily removed the lids and fed the potions to Michael, who seemed to have entered a trance-like state to make sure that he would continue extracting the ground beneath them even if he would collapse.

But even after Michael gave his all, a Red Dragon's power shouldn't be underestimated. Tiara and Masked Saber were the first to notice it when it all began.

The Dragon issued a blood-curdling roar that was followed by a desperate outcry of fear and despair. In the next second, a sea of blazing flames burned down the smithy and everything in its surroundings, removing the source of the desperate outcry once and forever.

At first, Masked Saber and Tiara thought that they wouldn't be affected by the blazing flames. The heat of flames expanded the air, which resulted in a reduction of its density. Thus, the gravitational force would pull down the relatively colder and denser air, displacing the hot air, which would then result in the flames shooting upward.

However, the flames they were talking about weren't normal by any means. These flames were the source of power of a true dragon, a mythical creature that was feared the most for its terrifying fiery breath!

Nobody could really tell what, or who enraged the Red Dragon to this extent, but it was obvious that the dragon was truly enraged. Something big must have happened for the Red Dragon to destroy everything in its sight. It wouldn't burn down its own source of food and everything else around for no reason.

But even if there was a reason neither Michael nor Masked Saber, or Tiara could care about that. They just wanted to survive, and would do everything to achieve that goal.

Unfortunately, the Red Dragon's breath didn't make it easy for them. Instead of shooting upward, the dragon's flame spread everywhere it could. As long as a trace of origin energy was in its path, it devoured the same.

They were extremely fast and deadly, increasing the heat inside the pit by several degrees the moment they began to spread out from the surface.

Masked Saber reacted instantaneously. He spread his silver energy out above their heads like a shield, creating a perfectly sealed ceiling of silver energy. Given that the Red Dragon's flames weren't aimed at them, Masked Saber was certain that the silver energy ceiling was strong enough to protect all of them.

That was indeed a correct assumption of Masked Saber. But there was one thing he didn't take into consideration; Dragon flames burned through creations made with origin energy.

The moment the blazing dragon flames reached the silver energy ceiling Masked Saber realized that his origin energy wouldn't be enough to protect them until the Lord Rift closed throwing all of them outside. Masked Saber's only advantage was that Michael continued to pull them deeper underground. Their distance to the surface increased, which weakened the intensity of the dragon flames that reached them.

That way, Masked Saber could regulate his energy consumption a little bit.

He let out a big sigh of relief, telling himself that his silver energy ceiling was likely to be enough to protect them for one more minute. By the time the next 60 seconds elapsed, all of this would be over. They would return to the Untamed Jungle with all their loot, happily expand their territory, and become stronger than ever before.

But it was just as Masked Saber took another breath that his heart skipped a beat. His hair stood up on its end and he didn't dare to move a single muscle in his body.

The Red Dragon had noticed the pit in the ground, and it was staring straight at Masked Saber with its golden eyes that shone with a wicked glint.

"Fuck"

Masked Saber's voice barely reached the bottom of the pit when the Red Dragon lifted its head to direct its flames straight down the pit.

45 seconds remained.