After another part of the monster's head disintegrated, the ice phoenix launched a barrage of ice arrows and made them rain down on the interior of the monster’s mouth. I could see from outside that the arrows were freezing the skin outside, but even that wasn’t enough. Soon enough, the most expelled those from its mouth.

‘It can do even that…’

The monster charged at me again… my plan was to destroy the body of the thing until I could reach those guys outside, but that wasn’t feasible anymore. If the boss could leave the chamber, that would be another matter, but it couldn’t.

It had been five days since the monster was summoned… I would guess that those guys were still outside waiting for the news that I was killed or eaten by the monster. Now that I could think clearly, this creature probably was being used to capture me, at least based on what that guy killed said. Still, that also wasn’t an option for me.

The monster soon reached me and tried to devour me, but I recovered the hook of my crossbow and then jumped away in the distance.

“Mew, mew, mew!”

“Sorry, Glacien. We don’t have time for talking…”

Still, soon I came to learn that Glacien wasn’t talking with me… she was looking at the ice phoenix. I wondered how that was possible, how animals could talk with monsters. Still, it looked like the ice phoenix understood the message since it was looking at Glacien.

In the next moment, when I landed on the ground and then monster moved toward me, the ice phoenix began to clap its wings and then a blast of frozen wind stopped the abyssal worm… the body of the monster began to freeze and while the creature trembled to free itself, the air also entered its mouth, so it froze the monster on both sides.

Little by little, the creature stopped moving and then it began to freeze all over. It looked like Glacien told the boss to send a bunch of cold air inside the monster… since the environment was covered in ice, freezing the interior would make the creature unable to free itself, but it was very unlikely that the boss could keep using that magic until the whole body of the beast freezes.

‘Is this my cue? What can I do here?’

I didn’t know what I could do… the best option would be to prevent the monster from growing further by absorbing the mana of the monsters in the labyrinth, but that was something beyond me.

I could drain its mana and its health with my bow and vampiric powers, but for how long could I keep that up? I decided to test if that could work and unleashed a barrage of silver arrows at the monster’s body. Since they were non-elemental attacks, I didn’t use extra mana, and I recovered a lot more, in fact. When my mana was full, I used the skill blood siphon… I could do that from any distance, apparently. I had yet to discover its limits, but that was hard given the location.

The area that I targeted began to disintegrate and soon was frozen by the boss… it looked like we could seal that part of the monster’s body, but it wasn’t enough to cause more damage than the beast could recover energy.

‘Damn… is nothing good? What about poison?’

Even if I could take my time to fill the entire body of the monster with poison, I wouldn’t be able to recover fully without using my bow, and if I used it, the body would fall apart. We reached a very annoying stalemate. Still, the ice phoenix kept using its cold wind to freeze the entire body of the monster.

“Unless you have infinite mana, you will never freeze the monster to death…”

Perhaps I could use Mystic Link and make the boss use my mana and then I enter the mouth of the beast as it freezes, but then I would freeze as well. I felt like I was walking in circles. This thing was clearly on the level of that kraken, so perhaps I wasn’t strong enough to solo a boss of that level… No, I certainly wasn’t.

I didn’t know what I could do to kill the beast, but I at least could use Demon’s Snare and make it level up. That should make sure that the beast won’t try anything for a while and I will make the skill drain a lot more mana.

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That came right in the right time because the ice phoenix soon stopped flapping its wings and then moved to the ground to rest. The ice phoenix had its head lowered and tucked close to its body. Its wings dropped slightly instead of being held tightly against its sides. The bird’s eyes were half-closed and lacked their usual alert sparkle.

‘That should have been a powerful skill that drained a lot of mana… now what?’

Soon enough, the abyssal worm would be free again, and who knows if the same trick would work again.

“Mew, mew, mew!”

Glacien tried to talk with the bird once more, but she was completely ignored. It looked like she was asking for a harder job coming from the boss, but even a boss of a labyrinth like this had limits.

Before long, the giant monster began to shake again, and the frozen parts began to fall apart with pieces of the monster and everything. A few hundred meters of frozen worm came to the boss chamber, but soon the beast was back and the boss was still completely without mana. I considered for a moment killing the beast in hopes of making it return with full mana, but would that plan work more than once even if it was feasible?

While I was questioning myself, I saw the ice phoenix turning around and running away… I was baffled. Even bosses had some survival instincts, but I didn’t think that it would be that cowardly.

I lowered my stance and then fired explosive bolts at the enemy and when I had some extra mana, I used Demon’s Snare to keep the beast in its place. I could do that much at least… Even if I didn’t have a solution, I could struggle until the very end. I wouldn’t become a monster’s snack without giving it a hard time.

‘I guess I will just destroy this entire place and hope that the collapse will bury the worm alive… I had enough mana cores to destroy the whole chamber. If I am lucky enough, it will cause a chain reaction and make the whole area fall on us. In the worst-case scenario, I will be buried alive. In the best-case scenario, I will have to keep digging for a while.’

While I was stealing myself to do what had to be done. I noticed that the ice phoenix was still doing something. When I looked over my shoulder for a moment, I saw the monster eating the crystals in the walls… I figured that they were indeed made of mana, but would that make the boss recover that much energy so fast?

“Squeak! Squeak!”

“What now?”

“Squeak! Squeak!”

“... Do you want me to cover for that guy? What for?”

“Chi-chi-chi!”

“Yep, still don’t get it… we will have to level up our communication, Glacien.”

I had no idea what the boss was doing, but the creature bought some time before for me, so I could buy some time for them. Labyrinth monsters, they all could tell that this worm was a far worse threat than me here, so perhaps I could count on them.

I kept exploding the head of the monster nonstop, but eventually, the beast got tired of that and soon began to change its tactics. It began to suck all the air in the chamber… pieces of the crystals began to fall to its mouth too.

‘Will it recover its mana even more?’

I kept firing explosive arrows to counter the sucking power of the monster, but the creature ate my arrows and kept doing that even when they exploded inside its mouth… I had no idea what had changed, but my explosive arrows lost a lot of power. As if that wasn’t enough, Glacien and I began to be pulled by the suction of the beast as well.

I used the Great Fireball in front of the mouth of the beast and the explosion stopped the suction for a moment. Half of the mouth was burned, but soon it was restored and the monster did the same thing. At least I was able to put some distance between us…

“If you want to eat something, then eat this!”

I put Glacien behind my head and then used the grappling crossbow to connect my belt to the ground… in the next moment, I stabbed an arrow on my wrist and then droplets of blood began to flow toward the beast.

Soon enough, the monster began to convulse, but it kept sucking all the surrounding air. I let the blood flow until it reached the halfway point of my health and then I started to get dizzy. Losing blood after several days without sleeping wasn’t a good experience.

‘Well, I tried my hardest… it is time for an explosion.’

I hoped that at least Glacien would be able to escape this. She was unlucky to be found by me when I needed to test my beastmaster skills. In any case, I grabbed my magic bags filled with mana cores and got ready to throw them inside the mouth of the monster, but before I could do that, I heard a screeching scream coming from behind.

It looked like the ice phoenix was done eating the walls of the labyrinth. I sure hoped that he had a secret technique, but I doubted that it would be strong enough to decimate the annoying worm. When I looked at the boss, I frowned since the beast was even bigger than before… like three times bigger. If it had gotten three times stronger, then it should have become strong enough to even cause trouble to the final boss of a one hundred floor labyrinth.

The monster began to fly low but soon changed directions and then began to fly upward and began to spin as well… the beak of the boss reached the ceiling of the chamber and began to pierce it… the monster soon covered itself in ice magic to gain more power and soon reached the other side… before long, a lot of water began to fall on the chamber and the ceiling began to give in.