The old man said, "Senior Fremont made an agreement with the merfolk emperor Ramos who ruled the entire merfolk population. That agreement would come into effect automatically the second a human being made it to the merfolk world." "An agreement? What kind of agreement?" "There are nine checkpoints. If we pass all of them, Ramos will give the eighth dragon cauldron back to us and we'll be able to return to the human realm safely." "Well, what if we don't pass?" The old man turned to look at Wilbur meaningfully. "If we don't pass, we'll have to stay here forever." Wilbur looked around him and realized the view of the underwater city was quite beautiful. "The place looks great. How dangerous could it be?" "Wilbur, you must remember that unknown dangers lie beyond a beautiful surface. It's important to never be tempted, even if you see something beautiful." Just then, the two merfolk in front of them stopped in their tracks. They bowed to a slightly larger merfolk, who chatt

Despite not having known Tracy for a very long time, Wilbur had been immensely touched by the brotherhood between Tracy and his brother Truman. Wilbur turned to look at the gigantic hammer on the ground. He reached out, trying to summon it to fly into his grasp, but nothing happened. It seemed like the ant-man had not used spiritual energy to summon the hammer, but something else. Besides, the hammer seemed extraordinary. Its special aura drew Wilbur's attention. Since the Dragon's Altar was capable of cultivating all that energy and power, Wilbur was going to take the hammer back and see just how many grace points he could get out of it. Wilbur picked up the hammer, tossing it into his demiplane before heading into the camp. He found many wooden houses in the camp, which was probably where the ant-men had lived. There were wooden fences that stretched all the way to the entrance of a cave. There was nothing but fog to be seen beyond the cave as if it was somehow enchanted to b

Was that the Shadow Men? Wilbur was in the middle of debating who the figure was when his shadow on the way suddenly reached out to grab him by the neck. At the same time, his shadow on the ground stood up and grabbed both of Wilbur's feet to yank him to the ground. Just as Wilbur fell to the ground, the shadow on the ground reached out and wrapped its arms around Wilbur, trying to yank his body downward. Wilbur struggled with all his might and every move he made only produced more shadows. The new shadows would grab at his body once more, and there were a dozen pairs of jet-black hands within a matter of seconds. They grabbed Wilbur firmly with what seemed like unparalleled strength, trying to drag him into the darkness. Wilbur chanted and cast the Illuminos spell, sending a ball of light above his head. It lit up the dark path at once, and the shadows seemed to shrink back into the wall and ground, trying to stay away from the light. Wilbur's chest heaved as he sat up from

It was only then that Wilbur realized he had completely forgotten that the power of light and the power of destruction had different roots to begin with. Despite both of them being dimensional laws of the middle dimensions, they were completely different forms of energy. There was darkness with light, and there was evil with good. Upon realizing this, Wilbur began to radiate warmth. He borrowed the power of light from the dragon's head on his back, and its warmth quickly made Wilbur's body glow with a white light. As the white light grew, the Shadow Men who rushed forward were killed by its glow. The white light seemed to be immensely powerful, reducing the incoming twenty or so Shadow Men coming in from either side to dust. At the same time, Wilbur felt his body picking up speed in its recovery with the help of the white light. He heaved a sigh of relief as the Shadow Men finally disappeared, sitting down once more to channel his dragon aura to rest. The Shadow Men did not d

As the pearl glowed brighter and brighter, a silver vortex formed in the middle of the Shadow Men. It waved the massive scepter in its grasp, and a silver pillar of light swung over in Wilbur's direction. "Roar!" Just then, the dragon charged over and collided with the silver pillar of light. Both forces were diminished from the collision, and the dragon eventually crashed into the band of green light near the top of the room, cracking the band to pieces The entire cave fell dark, save for the countless fluorescent pieces of the broken band on the ground. Wilbur did not see any gray Shadow Men where the pieces were, and even the shadow swamps on the ground had disappeared. Wilbur found the whole thing hard to believe. Those Shadow Men seemed to be connected to this fluorescent band of light as if it was a special dimension barrier of its own. Now that the band was destroyed, the dimensional barrier had vanished as well. Just then, Wilbur remembered what had just happened as r