The hole I jumped in was so dark that I couldn’t see even my forces. But I could hear their flapping wings, and that was enough.

“Open fire!” Once we entered, I gave the order. The dragon breaths coming from them lightened up the place.

And at this moment I saw what was inside that deep hole, a small hill that kept trembling in regular rhythm.

A beating heart!

So the system only removed the necks, and didn’t kill the hearts.

“Keep firing!” the distance from the edge of the hole and that beating heart was around twenty to thirty metres in length. But for some reason, I felt it was like a mile!

The dragon breaths kept firing until they turned the entire place inside into a scorching hot, brightly lit orange coloured world.

But even with that, the heart didn’t seem to get any damage.

“Stop,” I said before patting on the bigger dragon I was riding, “get down.”

The place was really hot and tight the more I descended. Once we reached that heart, I noticed some sort of semi-transparent membrane that covered it up and shielded it from any damage.

“A shield?” I frowned, “try to break it using your claws.”

*Clang!* a sound like two sharp swords clashed against each other appeared from the membrane.

“Tough against physical attacks and dragon breaths… will it also be this strong against the grenades?” I thought before discarding such thoughts.

After all, I had to kill at least five of these hearts, and I only had three of such grenades left.

“If it’s a sturdy ground… then let’s see how it will do against my shield warriors… Come!”

I called back twenty shield warriors and summoned them for now. “Smash this place by your technique,” I said, and they roared in response.

*Bang!*

The twenty unleashed their combined technique as a giant form of shield appeared and flew towards the ground.

The sound that came from the clash was loud and noisy. Sparks of fire appeared across the long trail of the technique.

“A small break… at least they scratched that damn shield… Come out!”

I recalled and summoned all the shield warriors. As the technique faded, a shallow bridge appeared in the shield. Yet it wasn’t deep enough to reach the heart.

“Be ready to attack,” I said to my dragons, “the shield is closing up and healing itself. So be prepared to not miss this.”

*Roar!*

My dragons roared and I was just speaking to my two big ones. They were the only ones here able to kill that heart. As for the others, they were just a bonus.

*Bang!* *Bang!*

My shield warriors arranged themselves into two big groups, one after another. They worked together for so long already under my command and it seemed they developed some form of understanding.

Their attacks came as one widened that gap and the other deepened it. At the same moment the dragons were hovering on top of that thirty metres long ridge and showering it with their breaths.

*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Rumble!*

The first sound I heard aside from the clash between the shield warriors’ technique and the shield was a loud drum regular beating sound.

It was the sound of the heart, and that strong voice didn’t last for long as it was stopped abruptly with a terrifying rumble.

The attack of my dragons finally reached and penetrated it. Without the need for me to check, that heart was already gone!

“The shield vanished,” I noticed that as the heart was killed, the protective shield ceased to exist. The gap widened all of sudden and it even extended beyond the size of this hole.

“Come back,” I recalled all the warriors here and pointed to the new tunnel, “take me down, the rest stay on alert.”

The dragon was about to descend with his fast speed when I patted on his back, “slowly,” I said, and he followed my instructions.

The new tunnel was at least double the size of the one above. It also extended almost double the distance before I finally reached a wider floor where something was smashed into pieces.

It was the heart. It was the size of a large rock, like a boulder that just fell from a giant mountain and smashed on the ground.

Black thick fluid was oozing out from it. I landed on the ground which was all turning black at a slow pace.

“This fluid might be useful one day,” I took out a liquor and sucked all the black fluid from my heart. The walls of the smashed heart seemed like a thick layer of armour. “I’ll take you as well.”

I didn’t want to leave a single thing behind. Who knew if these heart pieces were valuable or not. In the span of five minutes, I cleared everything and was about to go back until I noticed something else.

“That… it’s the source of all this blackness here,” I stood over the central part of the place that heart took before. And there I found a small hole, with a black lustre coming from the surface of something looking like a gem.

“Ouch…” as I tried to touch it, I felt stingy pain and rapidly withdrew my hand. “Won’t let me take you? Humph!” As this happened, I was pretty sure this thing was a treasure.

So what? Even if it caused me such pain, I wouldn’t flinch and return without taking it.

“Come in!” I withstood the pain and placed my hand over it before moving it inside my inventory. It was only ten seconds, but half of my hand turned all black during this time.

“It’s like frostbite,” I muttered as I examined my hand. I was now flying outside the entire hole with my dragons. I felt that black thing did something to my hand with its energy, but it wasn’t that serious to worry about.

I felt the blackness was slowly fading. It was at snail speed but it meant I didn’t need to worry about it for now.

*Fwoosh!*

As the dragon took me out, I got a look over the brutal fight going on all over the body of this monster.

Everywhere one could spot minions piling up around a few elites fighting bravely. Of course against numbers, strength would face a decent challenge. I even saw a few races killed under such a flood of minions.

But the general situation didn’t look that bad. At the same time I noticed something else.

“This dude… he is all quiet for some time now,” I frowned. Was it thanks to the curse or what? That monster kept roaring and sending empty threats before I went to kill its heart.

Was killing the heart enough to shut its mouth? Or it caused enough damage for it to be greatly weakened? I didn’t know and didn’t care. For now my top priority was to go to the next hearts and smash them.

“Come back,” yet I first called off all my warriors scattered here. I did that deal with the races to save up my warriors and decrease the losses as much as possible.

As the races came here, they had to exert their full power in dealing with these minions and kill the hearts.

“Let’s go,” I only left my dragons out, “kill freely until we arrive,” and I didn’t hold them back while we were flying towards our next target.

As we did before, the next three hearts were found and killed in the same way. I stored everything up, and now my two hands were all black till midway up to the elbows.

Yet I wasn’t happy. After all, the last heart belonged to the one intact head. Something told me that an acting calm monster was preparing something for me in my head.

“Stop!” As I reached that intact neck, I had to admit it was a terrifying scene. The neck extended high in the air like it was a true world tree of legends.

It was all still, not moving or swaying at all. I didn’t risk advancing to it before knowing if it was safe or not.

I looked up again and that head looked like a tiny sesame bead from my spot. But that small thing up there was the most dangerous weapon in the monster arsenal.

I had to be careful, so I summoned one of my dragolves and sent him to test that neck.

I stood on top of my dragon, almost thirty metres away from that neck.

*Rumble!*

As expected! The moment my warrior came closer to the neck, almost ten metres away, the entire neck shook and some sort of a wave appeared in a pulse wave that swept across my warrior, sending him flying backward in a flash.

It was a pitch black wave, yet luckily it didn’t get to me. Once it crossed twenty metres, it vanished in thin air. Yet my guess was right; that damn bastard wasn’t going to let me have its heart this easily.

“Take me down,” my dragolve warrior was sent one hundred metres behind me. He fell and didn’t stand up or show any signs of life.

I selected him as he was one of the most powerful offensive warriors I had. Plus I could easily summon another one if he was dead.

“This…” as I landed by his side, and the dragons flew all around, killing any minions daring to come here, I noticed something familiar.

“It’s the same black thing that I got…” I raised my two hands and compared the black colour in it with the one that covered the entire body of my poor warrior.

Luckily he wasn’t dead… Yet. his heart was weakly beating, and he didn’t respond to my attempts to wake him up.

“Come inside,” as he wasn’t dead yet, I took him back and hoped he would wake up after a period of rest.

But now… How could I take down that damn heart?

Even if everyone did their part and killed all the hearts, this wouldn’t kill the monster and the Curasee inside. All the hearts must be killed, and I had to kill this monster before the life force of the Curasee would vanish.

I didn’t come here just to kill the monster, I needed to kill the Curasee by my hands. I had to, or else I’d miss a really precious and extremely rare opportunity like this.

“What should I do?” I stood in my place on top of the dragon, crossing my arms and deeply pondering about this issue.

*Buzz!*

It was a soft voice, yet amidst my deep state of thinking I instantly noticed it. As I looked at its source and instantly froze!

“This…” I followed that thin trail of pitch black colour that appeared out of nowhere. The buzz sound came from the neck, as it shone slightly in black light while that previous energy pulse which shoved away my warrior appeared as a pale layer of fog.

But it was all related to that pitch black line. I followed it with my eyes before it vanished under the crowd of the minions.

“Let’s go,” I had a vague feeling that this black long line held the door key to that last heart. Without any hesitation I gave my dragons the order and pointed with my hand towards one direction, the direction where that black line vanished.

“Clear the ground,” I said when I couldn’t follow that line in the middle of all these minions. The dragons opened gates of hell over the minions, sweeping a large area clear and letting me see that line clearly.

“Keep flying there,” I started my chase after that line. I had to reach its origin, I had a strong gut feeling about this.

The chase continued for ten minutes until I reached the source. And once I reached there, a flash of realisation hit me.

“That’s interesting!”