"Ah, that's right. There's something I forgot to mention. Did you remember that incident with Chiaki?" David asked.
"What of it?" Hope replied.
"Hope, I was asking Shyvana." David said.
"Ah, yes. I remember it. That was when we saw that scientist. Maddiman, he called himself, correct?" Shyvana asked.
"Yes. That was him." Cheetah said. "He was asking you because he wanted you to know that Chiaki had reached a full recovery some time ago."
"Ah, I see. I'm happy to hear that." Shyvana said. "And what of Maddiman?"
"Kaito took care of him recently. We won't be hearing anymore outta that guy ever again." Hope assured.
"That we know of anyway. We know that he left but that's pretty much it." Theo said.
"Think the Universal Police will catch him?" Ace asked.
"Doubt it. Yokai are known for possession and mischief so they aren't on the arrest list." Lan said. "Besides us, most people can't really SEE them to start with."
"That's true." Ace replied. "Most people don't have a sense or awareness of them."
"Okay...looks like we've...arrived." Lux said as they soon arrived at the large crystal structure.
"So there's a whole nightmare sleeping in there? Wow." Starlight said.
"Doesn't seem to be the case forever." Shyvana said, seeing a crack near the base.
"Is that...a crack?" Yangus asked.
"I have a bad feeling about this… Usually a crack on a crystal like this is the sign of a bad omen." Sectonia said.
"You may be right. I think this whole structure acts like a cocoon. When it's cracked apart and broken open...we'll be dealing with a much bigger nightmare." Ainz said.
"Well...what do we do then?" Ethox asked.
"Hmm...one option would be to crack it open ourselves, making the creature's transformation incomplete." Erza said.
"Or, we could try slipping through the crack, find the nightmare, and kill it before it has a chance to retaliate." DJ offered.
"Either way sounds doable." Spade said.
"Slip through the crack? This isn't a building, the whole thing is just a nightmare encased in crystal." Sunset said.
"If a crystal like this is so important, then there have to be pillars supporting it, right?" David asked.
"Pillars? How does that…" Meowth said before the crack grew larger and larger.
"The crack is growing larger. We don't have time to ponder on this." Cheetah said.
"She's right. Whatever idea we come up with, it has to work now." David said.
"But Dave, what about your initial theory?" Jesse asked.
"I was thinking that… If we take down the pillars that are supplying it with power, we might be able to halt its process. Then we might go with Erza's plan where we strike it in its incomplete state." David said.
"Okay...then it's settled." Shyvana said, flying up at the crystal and striking it, chipping off pieces of it.
"The attacks are chipping it away. It might take a lot of force, but this is the best chance we've got." Cheetah said.
"Yeah, don't hold back guys." Stahn said.
The group continued to attack at the crystal before managing to break it in half as a pure black substance leaked from both ends of it.
"Be careful, everyone. I sense a very malicious presence emanating from them." David said.
The substance from the top half formed a humanoid upper body while the lower half of the crystal formed a pair of legs.
"Looks like we managed to split our nightmare in half." Lux said.
"Quite literally, in fact." David said.
"Meaning...it shouldn't be too hard to finish it off." Theo said.
"Let's finish this quickly then." Leon said.
The group divided up and took on both halves of the nightmare at the same time.
"Get ready, Laser Beams!" Ace called using Urias in staff form, causing myriad rays of light Symbology to rain down on the upper body.
"Hmm… I can't help but feel this is all too easy." David said. "It kind of feels like there's something we're missing."
"You think way too much about this stuff. Hey...I see something." Lycan said seeing something shining inside the creature's body. He thrust himself into it before yanking it out as the nightmare shrieked as it fell apart into nothingness. "What is this?" he said looking at the jewel.
"It must be the jewel that girl gave the nightmare." Lux said.
"Hmm…" Mirror Match hummed, staring at the crystal from a distance. "That jewel. It seems like something I've seen before."
"Yeah… oh wait!" Ultra remembered. "We saw them when we tried to enter this universe before! It's called a BT-Jewel, short for 'Battle Therapy'. Whenever someone holds it, the stone scans their mind to find their greatest fears or repressed issues and… make a physical representation of them…" the trainer trailed off, his eyes widening.
"Lycan, drop that jewel, now!" Ethox called out.
"Please. The only thing I'm afraid of are…" Lycan said as a few balls appeared. "Round...round...round!" he cried in fear.
"He tried to tell you." Simon said before shooting the jewel.
"What was that you were saying about thinking too much, Lycan?" David asked.
"Round...so...round." Lycan shook in fear.
"Oh come on, this isn't even that bad." Sachiko said.
"He's afraid of round things cause they remind him of the full moon." Cobalt said.
"Ouch…" some of them said.
"Well done, all of you." a voice said as a young girl was sitting on a cloud flying high above. "You all really are doing wonders."
"A girl? Hold on… Who are you?" David asked.
"My name is Canaan. A pleasure to meet our daring protagonists." she said.
"Canaan, huh? So, you're the cause of all of this." David said.
"No...well I did summon those nightmares and I did give one of them that jewel...so yeah...guess I did go and make this place seem like a dungeon." Canaan said.
"But why? This place clearly didn't need one." Luke said. "I mean, look around. This whole place is a mix as it is."
"Yeah but there weren't any challenges. A dungeon with no challenges would be way too boring." Canaan said. "So I decided to spice things up a bit."
"Answer me this. All the other dungeons we've been to, did you improve those as well?" Hope asked.
"Oh yeah. I made a number of dungeons and made a few places into dungeons." Canaan said. "Almost every place you've visited was made or improved by me. Except for the Sky, Magic and Beast Universes. The first two were made by Eden and Mag Mell. The last already existed before I even started this."
"I will ask Luke's question again. Why are you doing this?" Sectonia asked.
"Ah ah...that's not how this goes." Canaan said. "You go through all the challenges first, only to ask the main person their whole deal."
"What?" Hope said.
"You still have seven dungeons to clear. Things aren't at their end yet." Canaan said.
"Seriously? You can't honestly expect that we'll…" Hope said as something rang.
"Hold on." Canaan said, taking out her phone. "Hello? Ah. Hello sir. Really? You wanna meet me again? Sure, we can go to the usual place. I'll even bring what I've got so far. Thank you again." she said before ending the call.
"Uh...who were you just talking to?" Ethox asked.
"Oh that? Just this editor I know." Canaan said.
"Editor? Wait...are you…" Lan said.
"Uh...sorry but spoiler time is over." Canaan said as she vanished.
"Okay...that was a little weird towards the end." Pikachu said.
"I don't think we should worry about her for now. It's true she's the one behind the dungeon craze, but we shouldn't go too into what she's planning." Hope said. "We're having so much fun adventuring through everything she's laid out for us. We should see what else she laid out in store for us. I'd hate to disappoint her."
"Hmm… You do have a point. We shouldn't look too deep into this information just yet." David said.
"Right? So let's keep on our adventure." Hope said. "Where to next, you guys think?"
"Sorry we have to cut our time short, Shyvana. I hope we can meet again." David said. "Hopefully, not somewhere with multiple worlds mixed together."
"Don't worry about it. May we meet again under more...favorable circumstances." Shyvana said.
"So, for our next dungeon, you guys wanna hit up the Elemental Universe next?" Hope asked.
"Thankfully, the analysis from the book we got is complete. I think the data we got will work well there." Leopardmon said.
"Our first time in a universe full of different elements. Could be fun." Zephyr said.
"It'll be interesting, to say the least." Lance said.
"Yeah..it'll be incredibly fun. Let's do it." Jexi said.