Underground in the tunnel, Ray could sense the power in the Dragon gauntlet rising once again, as Gary continued to fire off blast after blast. But Ray was simply too fast, moving out of the way of each of the explosions.

  "Gary, I'm going to rip that darn thing right off your arm!" Ray shouted.

  Now instead of avoiding the blows, he came right towards Gary. One of the attacks had hit Ray, but lifting his arms in a cross shape, when it hit ,smoke arose. It quickly disappeared and Ray's face could be seen directly in front of Gary.

  He grabbed onto the Gauntlet, and truly tried to pull it from him.

  "Wait Ray, you crazy idiot!" Gary shouted. "This thing is fused to my hand!"

  "Then I'll just take your hand off as well!" Ray shouted. "As long as you go back to normal!"

  As Ray pulled harder, the pain on Gary's face was seen, and a strange pain was starting to be felt within his heart. Ray could see him holding his other hand directly above his chest.

  "Ray, you're killing me……" He groaned.

  'Has it really already fused and bonded with him, is there no way to get rid of this thing?"

  At that moment, the gauntlet gave out a large pulse, knocking Ray off and banging him into the tunnel walls, he wasn't hurt and managed to get up, but the gauntlet was reacting more than ever.

  At that moment, a few men could be seen coming into the tunnel, and when Gary turned to look, the gauntlet seemed to calm down in power.

  'Fighting him like this might just be irritating him more, letting the power consume him.'

  When the two of them had stopped their little scuffle, that's when Ray noticed that from above, he could no longer hear the sound of fighting as much as before.

  'Did something happen?'

  When the men eventually exited from the tunnel there were five of them in total, each of them were large in size and covered in thick heavy black armour from head to toe, and shadows could be seen swirling around their whole body. On their armour the sign of the Dark guild, the single eye.

  These men were large in size and their heads nearly touched the ceiling of the tunnel. It was hard to even call them human as they were nearly as large as the minotaurs.

  However, they seemed to pause when they looked at Gary and then turned to Ray.

  "Never mind him, just ignore him, what are you guys here for?" Gary said, almost annoyed that they had disturbed the two's little scuffle. It was hard to call it an actual fight, as it didn't really feel like one to Gary or Ray.

  "I'm afraid I have terrible news." The one in front said, in a deep low voice. "The dragon, it has been killed."

  "What, but how? Dragon's are one of the strongest beings in existence; no human should have been able to kill that."

  "Unfortunately what you saw came true. The man that you brought in here earlier, stopped the crystal from being destroyed. They were still able to use it, the one with the power of a god inside him was able to use the crystal to destroy the dragon. Although if there is one saving grace in all of this, he appears to be badly injured and could die at any second."

  Listening in, Ray was paying attention, he was surprised that they had actually managed to kill a dragon on their own. Of course he had used his dragon's roar to give them all a boost. He felt like while he was stuck down here it was the only thing he could do, but that couldn't have been the deciding factor.

  'Van, you have grown, you have to live to see the victory you caused today.' Ray thought.

  However, if what Gary had summoned was a real dragon, perhaps this whole thing would have been a different story, he couldn't imagine the crystal's power as small as it was to be strong enough to defeat such a beast.

  "What do we do now sir?" Another man asked. "The soldiers have retreated through the tunnels, heading further into the shadow continent, hoping to join one of the other fortresses and the other shadow guard.

  "I'm afraid to say that they seem to no longer be loyal to you."

  Gary just laughed like a mad man and lent his back against the wall.

  "I'm assuming that includes Monk, I knew he would betray me, And you?"

  "We are prepared to fight till the very end, if you wish for us to go out and fight till this fortress is taken over, then so be it."

  "Then that is what we shall do." Gary said, walking down the tunnel. "Coming Ray, to see my final stand?"

  In Ray's eyes, the war was over, it was clear who had won. Five men and Gary, couldn't really be called an army honestly, Ray even felt he could defeat all of them himself, including Gary, but he was struggling to come up with a way to get that gauntlet off.

  For now, he would come along.

  Above, once the dragon was defeated, nearly all of the Dark guild members had already ran into the castle, to escape underneath into the tunnels. There were many paths that would lead them to different places above in the shadow continent, but the Redwings wouldn't chase.

  Their goal was this fortress and only this fortress. Van, was being healed by the healers and Jack, seemed to be recovering well from the stinger due to his unique body, if anyone else had been hit by that, then they probably would have died on the spot.

  When Gary came out, with five large men around him, they were surprised to see one person by his side, completely unharmed.

  "Ray!" Martha shouted.

  "No, don't tell me." Kyle said. "That now Ray is on their side."

  The others feared the worst when they heard Kyle say this. It made sense, he was unharmed and walking with them, and the last time they had seen him he was meant to be fighting with the shadow ant.

  If this was the case, then maybe this last battle would be far harder than they thought, but when Gary stopped, Ray continued walking over to the other side and gave his old colleagues a wave.

  "Ray, you're not with the enemy?" Martha asked.

  "Of course not, I made the Redwings because I hate the shadow In the first place." Ray replied. "You are all contracted under me anyway."

  "How, how did you survive the confrontation with the shadow ant?" She asked.

  "That tale can be saved for another time, this war isn't over yet." Ray said, and they all looked towards Gary standing there, his gauntlet growing with immense power.

  When it was known as the dragon hammer, there were rumours it was powerful enough to destroy a whole city, so perhaps Gary was still confident in defeating the whole army himself, but Ray would never allow that to happen.

  "Gary, have you come out to surrender?" Sir K said. "If you do we can help get that gauntlet of your hand."

  "You would like that, wouldn't you?" Gary replied. "Make me powerless. No, I am here with my fellow army to fight until my last breath."

  "That's insane!" Kyle shouted. "That's no army you have, we have clearly won, but for some reason you want to carry on fighting, risking more lives? Not just ours but those beside you who are loyal?"

  "Well, please feel free to try to defeat this army of mine." Gary replied.

  The look on their faces were nervous and they all then turned to Ray for an answer. What did they want him to do, but Ray didn't have an answer. He was hoping Gary meeting everyone might have sparked some type of change but it hadn't.

  "Very well, what you say makes a bit of sense. Rather than risking the lives of these men, I shall risk only my own. If one can beat me in a duel then I will safely surrender." Gary said.

  "This is nonsense Gary, we have nothing to gain from-" But Ray then stepped forward.

  "Fine then let's duel." Ray said.

  "Well, wait until you hear my conditions first. I wish to duel someone in a battle of swords." Gary explained. "If you don't want to accept these conditions, then feel free to go back to the war solution."

  This was one of Ray's weaknesses, if he couldn't use magic and it was just swordsmanship, then he wasn't confident, and Gary was the best swordsman that Avrion had ever seen.

  "I am willing to fight." Roki said stepping forward.

  "Huh, who are you?" Gary asked, but before Roki could reach the front, Kyle stopped him.

  "No, this is personal. You did not know him in the past.?I need to fight this one." Kyle said. "But one rule, you can't use the power of that gauntlet, you have to get rid of it somehow."

  "That's impossible, it is fused with me, but I can make it go to sleep." At that moment, the crystals around the knuckles started too dim, and a strange energy could be felt no more.

  Then, Gary pulled out his sword, the special sword which on the hilt had the dark guilds logo on it.

  'That sword, everything seemed to change the day Gary got that sword.' Ray thought.

  ******

  For MDS updates and artwork you can follow on instagram and Facebook:jksmanga

  If you would like to support the idea of a manga being created you can on P.A.T.R.E.O.N: jksmanga