Over the past two days, both James and Sarah had hit level 25 and upgraded their classes. James's upgrade was from Mage(Common) to Novice Rune Mage(Rare). That stats he got tripled and his old Fire magic(Common) evolved into Runic fire magic(Rare). It did 2 times his intelligence plus skill level in damage, it was amazing and now he was able to fight monsters up to level 25 with ease.

Sarah on the other hand upgraded Spearwoman(Common) to Novice Valkyrie(Rare) also tripling her per level stat gain and gaining a new skill Aura of the Valkyrie(Rare) which gave a flat 10% bonus to one stat of her and every ally she designated with skill level meters.

With them getting to 25 they could now hunt captains by themselves and did so. The squads would drag away the minions while James and Sarah took the captain down. So far they had taken down two more and they were about to fight their third.

Sarah watched as her and James's squads dragged the large saber-tooth tiger-looking monsters called Nether Tigers away. She waited in the bushes for them to get far enough away to start the fight with the captain. As usual, the captain didn't follow the lesser versions of itself into battle but instead just lied around.

She had gotten Aura of the Valkyrie(Rare) to level 35 over the past two days and with that range, she could easily keep James in range while fighting the captain. Seeing it was time she stepped out of the bushes in her full armor designed to look like a classic valkyrie. She then activated her aura and selecting reaction, the one stat both her and James needed.

The captain Nether Tiger raised their head up and watched Sarah as she approached. At 50 meters it rose to meet her. That was when James hit it with a full-powered fire blast to the back. Rather than just burning like they thought it would it instead seemed to get stronger from that attack and was now a burning vision of power with the flames switching from a normal orange to a sickly dark red.

They both realized that they might have to flee this fight. If James couldn't do damage to it then they lost over 60% of their damage potential. The heat coming off the tiger was staggering, making Sarah sweat from over 40 meters away. The tiger let out a roar and pounced at her. Sarah quickly rolled to the side and started to take actual, but minor, damage from the heat when the tiger landed where she was.

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Sarah quickly sprung her spear into the side of the beast and noticed that it slid in quite easily and the flames died down a bit. Seeing her chance at victory she swung her spear, still in the beast, to the side, cutting it like paper. The flames died down instantly and as the spear went through it, it got progressively harder to continue. As her spear left the beast she jumped back to see the beast crouched in a defensive way.

"James hit it again!" she screamed as loud as she could, "Its defenses get weaker when it's on fire!"

She then felt a gathering of mana that she wished she could pull off as James readied his attack. Right before his attack hit the beast it jumped at Sarah much faster than before. She hopped back and quickly blocked the following claws with her shield denting it. The beast seemed to get stronger the more damaged it was.

knowing that if this continued they would lose, she needs it to end this in one hit. James was charging up another attack but it would be at least 10 more seconds before it was ready. Sarah readied herself to survive that long. As soon as her shield was up the beast slammed into her with enough force to knock her off her feet. Rolling as she hit the ground ready for another attack.

The beast pounced on top of her pushing her to the ground. Sarah swapped her aura to strength and shoved the beast back then rolling to her feet. She then swapped the aura back to reaction, right then the fireball engulfed the beast weakening its defenses. Sarah took this opportunity to end this and used her only long-range attack, Spear toss(Common). The spear soared through the air like a homing missile locked onto its target. The spear easily tore through the enflamed beast killing it on the spot. Sarah sagged to the ground exhausted, that was easily the hardest fight after hitting 25. Fighting a lieutenant seemed even farther away not to mention that hulking general. They would need to join with Luke to fight a lieutenant if one ever came for one of their villages.

Sighing as James staggered over to her, clearly, he had overdrawn his mana for that last attack. He unceremoniously plopped down next to her and let out a breath. "We're going to need his help." And just like that, they both knew this was not going to end well for them if they didn't suck up their pride and ask for help.

Then they felt it, a deep thump. Then another and another, almost like footsteps but of course it couldn't be that unless it was the general. Sarah's heart started to beat faster and faster as the footsteps got closer and closer. Soon she could feel the vibrations better than she could her own heart.

Then it stepped into the clearing and her heart broke. This was it, it was over. Nothing could fight something like that. It was over 17 meters tall and completely covered in large purple scales the size of her head. Its hair was steel grey and she wouldn't be surprised to figure out that it was. Each finger was about 60 centimeters long with each one having another 15 centimeters of a sharp black claw. She knew that she would never be able to beat that in six months.

James was saying a prayer as it just walked out of the clearing, not even looking at them. Sarah knew it wasn't some kinda act of god. It knew that they wouldn't even be able to hurt it, so it left them alone. Not even worth killing. She knew in her heart that only one person could stand up to that monster. It was time to apologize.