Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The hubbub around Arven became loud enough for the other guilds to notice them. Seeing that something was wrong with the crimson demolition guild, the other six guild leaders approached Arven.

"What's wrong?"...

Arven looked at them, deliberated something inside his head for a while before coming out clean.

"What? You lost the spirit orb?" the other six guild leaders had a disbelieving face. Nobody could blame them after all, it sounded too much of a lie coming out of Arven now of all times when the grey haired man wanted to see it.

"You don't have to look at me like that, I'm seriously telling you all the truth" Arven tried to justify.

"Guild leader of the crimson demolition guild, I just want to look at the spirit orb with my own eyes and confirm the fact that the treasure chests on this floor do indeed hold the spirit orbs. You can rest assured that I do not have intention towards that spirit orb that your guild got" the grey haired man approached Arven and spoke.

He thought that the latter was hesitant to show him and that was why he said all that. But who would have expected that Arven wasn't lying and instead was speaking the truth? It was just that the faux spirit orb he had in his space ring lost all of its energy and turned into that shiny rock in his hand.

"Please believe me I'm not lying. The spirit orb has really gone missing" Arven had a bitter face, the missing of the spirit orb was already painful enough but now he even had to prove to them that he really did not have the spirit orb.

"Really…" Brutus, Florence, Cassius and the other guild leaders had sceptical faces.

"Please trust my guild leader, he is not lying. The spirit orb has really gone missing" the members of his guild convinced.

"Believing that you really lost it, do you know where and how it happened?" the guild leader of the wind sky dome, Elrod Dome asked. He was the oldest amongst the people present here and seemed to be around sixty years old.

He had a long well groomed white beard, wore a worn down robe and had a plain looking staff beside him. Elrod Dome, there was no mage in the kingdom of Ellesmere who had not heard his name. After all, he was one of the few mages who could be compared with Karina Lowell in terms of attainment in magic.

Other than that, the old man was also respected by all the other guild leaders and maintained a cordial relationship with everyone here.

Arven scratched his head and explained the situation with as much detail as he could.

"What you are saying is that you do not know where and how you lost it and it simply disappeared from your space ring?" Elrod had a dark face as he reiterated Arven's story. He didn't think that the latter would lie to his face.

"I'm telling the truth. I definitely kept the spirit orb in my space ring at the time when I got it. So it wasn't possible for somebody to steal it or for it to get dropped somewhere. The spirit orb simply disappeared and this shiny stone was left instead of it" Arven defended.

Everybody was fed up with his lie and didn't know what to say to him anymore, they could only turn towards the grey haired man and hope that he does not get angry. But contrary to their expectation, the grey haired man instead of getting angry, was frowning his brows and thinking about something very deeply.

"Did you just say that the spirit orb vanished and this stone appeared inside your space ring in its stead?" he asked, a peculiar glint in his eyes.

Arven nodded his head.

"I see… believing that you did indeed have the spirit orb, I can see why the other guilds are fighting over it. If somebody steals something as valuable as the spirit orbs, a bloody battle like that cannot be avoided" the grey haired man willingly believed Arven's story shocking the other guild leaders.

"There is no reason for the guild leader of the crimson demolition guild to lie to us especially when he had already told us that his guild got a spirit orb while exploring the floor. In any case, our focus shouldn't be the spirit orbs but how to stop the guilds from fighting anymore" he added.

The seven guild leaders gathered here, nodded their heads. What the grey haired man said was right, they still had a lot of floors to go before they can conquer the dungeon, and fighting among themselves would only weaken them.

They were just about to move and suppress the guilds that were fighting in the distance when the transponder conch on Cassius suddenly started emitting transmission. Cassius picked up the transmission conch and some static noises amidst some screams started coming from the other side.

"What's going on?"...

Everybody had the same question. The transmission conch on his hand was just the start, one by one the transmission conch on the other members and other guilds started ringing too. The same static and scream noises could be heard coming from all the transponder conchs making everyone in the scene puzzled.

"H-H… Help… attac..k… we are… father help" Finally, the conch on Brutus' hand emitted some coherent words. But the words that were uttered didn't make any of the guild leaders happy on the contrary, a sudden sense of foreboding feeling engulfed them.

"Is that Marcus? What is going on over there, your voice is not clear. Did something happen while you guys were going back up?" Brutus asked but the transmission ended abruptly and everybody was left hanging.

Immediately, they all started redialling to the transmission conch on the other side; however, it failed to connect every time. The mood that was heavy to begin with, became even more gloomier with this unknown sense of ominous feeling assaulting them.

The transmission of all the guild leaders acting up together, the screams and the static noises and the last message they heard. Even a fool would be able to understand that something had happened to the tertiary team.

The tertiary team that was left back on the 34th floor, should be making their way back up after they healed their injuries. Something bad must have happened for them to send so many sound transmissions like that.

Brutus who was unable to calm down after hearing the last message, immediately took out their guild's treasure, the blood saint tiger's claw. The moment he laid eyes on that claw and saw its colour slowly turning pale red, his body immediately froze.

The blood saint tiger claw had the life imprint of his son, Marcus on it. Under no circumstances it would turn pale red unless the life of his son was being threatened.

"This… the tertiary is being attacked".

This was the only explanation. The countenance of all the guild leaders turned pale at that realisation. The tertiary team had the geniuses of their guilds, if anything untoward happened to them again, it would deal more damage than just paralysing the guild.

Not to mention after that incident on the mysterious ruins, the tertiary team was left severely weakened. This was the reason why the tertiary team was left on the 34th floor with the orders to go back to the surface after their injuries were healed.

By now they should have climbed back to the middle floors already, and there shouldn't be any monster to threaten them there. That is unless…

The guild leaders tried to contact the members they left there to ensure the safety of the tertiary team. However, no matter how many times they sent a sound transmission, nobody from that end picked up.

"We need to go back up immediately" Elrod Dome, leading the sky earth dome guild, spoke. If the situation was what they thought, then they cannot leave it be.

Everyone was of the same thought, they nodded at old man Elrod's words and were prepared to leave this floor and climb up.

"Everyone, please wait. I know that you are anxious about the younger members of your guild. However, if you leave the 45th floor and climb up, you would be forsaking all the efforts and the casualties you suffered to reach this place".

"Even if you go and back up your tertiary teams, the monsters would already be spawned on the floors above by the time you come back down. Do you want to abandon all the sacrifices you made up until now when we are so close to reaching the end?"

Seeing the guild leader ready to leave, the grey haired man chose this moment to speak.

"What is Sir implying?" Brutus asked, his brows locked into a frown. The geniuses of their guild were much more important than conquering a [D] tier dungeon. Although it would be regrettable to abandon all their efforts up until now, backing up their tertiary teams was their first priority.

"The guild leaders misunderstood me. I'm not suggesting that we sacrifice the tertiary team. if they are facing a problem they need to be backed up. However, why don't we leave that to the secondary team? Wouldn't it be much more practical that way?"

"The secondary team is powerful enough to solve whatever problem the tertiary team is facing right now. Not to mention it is led by miss Karina and the various vice guild leaders of your guild. And even if worse comes to worst, they always have the option of using the return scroll".

All the guild leaders fell silent and after a few seconds, they all turned their heads towards Florence, who was leading the mage guild in Karina's stead.

"Alright, I'll contact my guild leader"…