After Malek was done leveling up, the group stood in a semi-circle by the entrance of the Boss Arena.

“What’s the plan?” Allis asked nervously.

“Kill it.” Henry replied flatly.

Malek and Haressy nodded.

Karsten shrugged. “Yeah. Basically.”

“...”

“You should probably stay here,” Karsten continued. “You didn’t level up during the descent, so I don’t think we should risk having you in there with us. By the way, can you put more Magica into the light spell?”

Allis nodded, “Yeah, a tiny bit.”

“Splendid. Your role is to keep the light spell going as close to the Boss as possible. No matter what you do, though, do not move it. It might mess up our strategies when we’re in there, and that wouldn’t turn out pretty.”

Allis nodded gravely, feeling the seriousness of the situation.

“How long can you keep the spell going for?” Haressy asked.

“If keep re-casting it when it’s out, then a little over two hours, I think. I’d likely faint from Magica exhaustion, though.”

“Good to know. Heavenly Beauty Divine Eye of Benevolence will take over if the need arises.” Karsten as sured her seriously.

“...Okay.”

“Are we ready to go?” Henry asked the group.

The group shared a look, then all nodded.

“I believe we are ready.” Malek stated.

Not wasting any time, the party carefully entered the Boss area of the Ant Queen, mindful of any sound they heard.

As they entered, they heard no sounds from within whatsoever. It reminded the Kerdans of the first Boss, the bat. When they had entered the area where the bat resided, the air had been entirely still until it was stirred into action by the gigantic bat monster dropping from the ceiling.

Both Karsten and Henry subconsciously turned their eyes to the roof of the chamber, rounded like everything else. The light from Allis’ spell barely illuminated that far, but they had both put a point into Perception, so they could just barely see that it was empty.

They turned their attention to the walls and floor of the vast chamber, scanning for movements or shapes that didn’t belong.

As the spell reached the farthest point into the chamber Allis could send it, they saw some of the light reflecting on the ground at the far-side of the chamber. As everyone knew dirt didn’t have such an optical effect, they immediately zeroed in on it.

On the opposite side of the arena lay what looked to be a large boulder. It had a red tint to it, looking so shiny as to be metallic.

“Does anyone have a projectile spell?” Karsten asked in a whisper.

Understanding his intentions, the rest of the party mentally went through their Skills, Spells and Cantrips to find an appropriate one.

“I can throw my spear really hard, but because of the distance it would lose too much momentum before it reached the Boss. Also, I would lose my spear.” Henry whispered.

“I don’t have anything good enough that has enough range, sorry.” Haressy explained.

“I can’t punch that far.” Malek stated simply.

Looking ahead, Karsten decided to take a risk.

Gesturing for the others to remain where they were, Karsten started to sneak to the right, sticking as close to the wall as he could. He circled around the chamber until he was a quarter of the way to the Ant Queen’s location, much like how he’d done it in the Bat Boss’ cavern.

He snuck slowly towards the centre of the chamber, trying to find some place elevated that could give him some advantage when casting the spell, as well as provide him with cover in the aftermath.

To Karsten’s frustration, the whole arena turned out to be as flat as the grasslands.

Resolving himself to having to sprint behind cover - that was, his much-beloved meatshield companions, he took a few breaths to steady himself.

As his only long-ranged damage type spell was an audible one, he would have to make this as loud as humanly possible. Vicious Mockery had gained an extra point of damage after leveling up, now doing 6 damage instead of 5. Sadly, the damage was set, and could not be increased by infusing the spell with more Magica - which, frankly, made no sense to Karsten. If there was one Cantrip or Spell he had that should, by any logic, be subject to infusion, it would be that one.

Putting his lampooning to the side, the Bard took a deep, deep breath in, filling his lungs with more air than they had ever housed before. At the same time, he felt a vicious energy fill his lungs completely, waiting and wanting to be unleashed upon someone.

Then, he bellowed at the top of his lungs - directly in the direction of the Ant Boss.

“DEATH TO THE RED QUEEN!!”

His voice reverberated through the vast open space, shocking it out of the silence that had permeated it for so long. The Red Ant Queen shot out towards her new enemy, but Karsten was already running for the exit.

The only thing that saved Karsten’s life was the fact that Malek and Henry had already started running towards the Boss monster themselves, quickly passing Karsten and drawing the ants attention to themselves instead of him.

“Focus on the joints!” Karsten directed.

“I fucking… know that!” Henry yelled back angrily.

As Henry and Malek quickly closed the distance between themselves and the giant ant. The moment before impact, they both raised their respective weapons - Henry pulled his spear over his head, aiming at the deadly creature’s left front leg, and Malek pulled his fist back, ready to smash it directly into the joint of the left.

The two forces crashed into each other, both losing all momentum as a sickening crunch echoed through the tunnel - The red ants front right leg had been destroyed.

At the moment of impact, the point of Henry’s spear had hit the joint at a slightly odd angle, so it had been deflected by the sturdy carapace of the Ant Queen. Because of the sudden stop of his sprint, he had no choice but to roll to the side of the ant, rushing to his feet as soon as he could, immediately taking a stance.

With his spear swung back low, he tensed his core muscles, pushing all his strength into his arm as he swung at the Boss’ middle left leg just before it was about to swing around to face Malek.

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Cutting through the air, the sharp blade of the spear embedded itself deep into the joint of the leg, making the Ant Queen immediately shift its attention to him.

Taking a defensive stance as the gargantuan ant turned quicker than any ant of its size should be able to, Henry braced himself to either deflect or dodge. Before the ant had the chance to close its serrated mandibles around the man, however, another blow landed from Malek, landing on its body’s midsection.

The blow had been a heavy one, and it was evident it was from a new Skill with the way Malek looked at his own fist.

The entire body of the Ant Queen shook from the impact, and for a short moment, the ant was unmoving.

Henry capitalized on the ants' sluggishness and performed a clean arc in the air with his silver spear, slicing the monster’s left mandible clean off.

The mandible fell to the dirt floor with a dull thud, and if the Ant Queen could screech, she would have.

Bending her legs, intending on creating distance between herself and the two fighters, the monster abruptly dashed forward - straight past Haressy and toward Karsten and Allis.

Tensing from the suddenly approaching mountain, Karsten turned to run further out of the exit.

Unfortunately for him, however, the ant reached him before he was able to pick up enough speed. The only thing he was able to do was cast Thunderwave as a last resort to forcibly push Allis out of the way so she wouldn’t be one-shotted by the Boss.

A familiar sense of electricity shot out of his body, flinging Allis further down the tunnel with a scream.

The force from the Spell didn’t affect the giant ant monster at all, only the electric shock seemed to effect it slightly.

With a final dash, the and monster smashed its head into Karstens body, hitting him directly in the middle of his back, knocking all the wind out of him and sending him flying down the tunnel after Allis.

“Karsten!” Crouching down, Henry used Action Surge to kick off hard from the ground, shooting towards the cave exit whilst simultaneously slicing off the other mandible of the Ant Queen. Before the mandible had reached the ground, Henry was at Karstens side.

Karsten heaved on the ground, rolled up in the fetal position. Pain roiled through his body. The hit had fractured his spine and shaken his brain, and his entire body rocked as he tried to raise himself up. When he got up to a certain point, however, his stomach twisted and he heaved a raspy breath again, coughing up a mouthful of blood.

He would have made a joke about the situation, if it weren’t for the fact that his head was one great smog.

“Are you alright?” Henry asked, coming to a stop beside the fallen Bard.

Wheazily, Karsten answered, blood still dripping from his mouth. “Haha, yeah… I’m- cough! I’m good.”

Henry scoffed. “Good, my ass. My sister is gonna kill me if you die, aright? How much Health do you have left?”

Karsten tried to fee it out, but it was difficult to tell.

“I don’t know. A third? Yeah, I think a third.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Ha, cough! Yup.”

“I don’t have any potions on me, so cast a Healing spell on yourself or something.” Saying so, Henry turned his back and ran out of the tunnel, re-entering the fight outside.

“Thanks, cuz!” Karsten tried to yell after him, but his voice came out only as a low rasp.

“Damn. I feel like I’ve broken my windpipe. Love that.”

Swiping the blood off his chin, Karsten lay himself gently back on the ground, careful not to move his spine too much, lest it completely break.

“Shit, that hurts.”

Taking a few shallow breaths, he eventually spoke, casting the Healing Word whilst infusing as much Magica as he could into his voice. It wasn’t much.

“Go me.”

His voice, dripping with the power of Magica and sarcasm, healed the worst of his injuries and closed some of the smaller scratches he had gotten from rolling when he hit the ground.

‘I should really fucking invest in some armour. If we don’t make enough money off this raid, I swear I’ll rob someone.’

Closing his eyes, using the sound of fighting and yelling as meditation music, he turned his focus within, opening his Status scroll to check how much Health he’d lost.

‘Right now I have 29 Health Points, so if I take away the… let’s say twelve points of healing, I was at 17 Health Points… That monster actually took away three fourths of my Health in a single hit. How does that make any sense? … Actually, I guess it does. I’m not wearing any armour, and I’m a Bard, so I don’t have natural defence for shit. The fuck was I thinking…”

Chiding himself as well as resolving himself to spending all his money on shiny armour when they got out of here, Karsten slowly, and extremely reluctantly, stood up. He looked around, trying to find Allis, and quickly found her leaning against the tunnel wall a little further away from the Boss area.

‘Must’ve been her first time being hit by a spell. I would feel bad, but it was either that or the sweet release of death… Either way, I guess I should apologize.'

“Hey. Are you alright?” He asked, walking hunched over with a hand on his back.

Allis looked up from the ground where she was playing with a small light Spell absentmindedly and at Karsten and nodded slightly. “Yeah, I’m okay. Thank you for saving me.”

Karsten laughed, then gaped.

“You’re still running the light Spell out there, right?”

“Huh? Oh… I forgot.”

“…”

Ignoring the pain, Karsten jogged to the Boss Arena, a terrifyingly cute devil eye already shooting past him toward the yelling.

~~~

“What the fuck is taking her so long?” Henry spat, dancing around with his spear wildly, trying not to let any insectile limbs get close to him.

“I do not know,” Malek panted. One could clearly tell from his voice that he was exhausted after fighting blindly in the dark against an opponent that could see in the dark - which, by the way, was a literal Boss monster, missing limbs or not.

Even with his robust natural defence as was natural to a mountain Goliath, Malek had been the one who had taken the most direct hits from the Ant Queen.

Remarkably, he was still on his feet. Even more miraculously, he had managed to grab onto and rip off one more of the massive monster’s limbs. He didn’t know which limb he had removed, but he could tell from the sounds of shuffling in the dirt that it had been a vital one. It was only because of such luck and his defences that he was in relatively good condition.

The key word here was relative - He knew that he would drop to the ground the second the fight stopped.

He supposed the greatest miracle of them all, however, was the presence of his sister.

She could naturally not see in the darkness either, yet she had told the two men to keep yelling, using their voices, as well as the sound of the monster limping across the tunnel floor to cast spells with surprising accuracy.

Still, there was no way they would actually be capable of defeating the beast in utter darkness, as was made evident by the slowing of Malek's movements, and the drowsiness in Henry's voice.

Malek started seriously doubting the group's chance of even running away successfully, when a brightly shining, extremely creepy flying eyeball shot out of the cave. Tailing close behind it, Karten jogged out of the small tunnel exit.

Clutching a dark silver shortsword in his right hand, and pressing his left onto his back, Karsten re-joined the fight.

“Hey!” He yelled, his voice dripping with that same churning dissonance as the start of the fight. He pointed his sword at the limping Ant Queen’s head. “You better have a real high quality Magica stone in you, or I swear I’m gonna be using your carapace as my armour from now on!”

~~~

The Queen shuddered as the words tore at her very nerves and she felt all her internal organs itch. She could also clearly feel her strength receiving a critical blow, it becoming more difficult to keep herself aloft.

None of that stopped her from charging at her mortal enemy, though. Fervorously, she dragged herself towards the small monster, all of her small mind focused on killing her children’s murderers with her own power.

The enemy also began to move, slowly, like her.

He was also hurt. She had a chance.

She redoubled her efforts, ignoring the pain of her internal fluids and viscera flowing freely from her body.

The Ant Queen knew she was going to die. She was not scared. She had died thousands of times before.

Finally having reached her adversary, she laboriously pushed herself up. Raising herself in the air, she was intent on cushing the little bug beneath her into a puddle of blood and brain fluids.

In the moment she was convinced of her victory, however, the man raised his left arm, pointing his open palm at her core.

From the centre of his palm, black and red Tarot cards sprayed forth in a wide cone, covering her in a shower of pure, excruciating pain.

‘Tarot cards…’

Her vision faded along with the pain, and she saw no more.