We barely managed to dodge the attack, but we were thrown right inside a swarm of sea creatures.

“Damn, there’s no end to them.” I cursed. “I still have a lot of stored mana, but it will all be lost if I kept fighting them. We surely need to kill the big sea serpent there to clear this floor. There’s no doubt. Well, let’s try this.”

I charged the mana stored inside my sword. “Air slash.” I threw a huge mana attack at the sea serpent and cut the sea monsters around me in the process.

The slash kept traveling at high speed and without losing power until it slashed a part of the body of the big monster.

A scream that echoed throughout the whole area came from the damaged monster. “Finally an apparent damage.” I cheered.

When the other participants saw the damage, they all directed their attacks at the monster while forgetting the swarm of the sea creatures around them.

Plenty of ranged attacks hit the monster right in the head and fell into the lake.

The leaders quickly gathered amidst all the chaos and devised a plan, then they told their respective teams.

“Guys, we decided to combine the three teams and split them up into two groups. One group will take care of the green sea creatures and the other will kill the sea serpent. Shiryuu, Zinouseus, Mika, Yuta, and I will take care of the sea serpent; the others cover us by defeating the other monsters.” Said Lucas.

“Why should I cover for trash like you all? You should deal with scrubs and I will kill the boss for you.” Complained John.

“There’s no time to argue. This is an order from your leader. Let’s not waste time and go right away.” Ordered Lucas.

A soar feeling was left inside the gunner, but he had no choice but to listen and do what he was ordered to do.

Meanwhile, we went through the swarm of monsters and rendezvoused with the other chosen warriors that will help us fight the sea serpent.

We were 15 in total. Three mages, two archers, one guardian, one tank, one fighter, one spear user, three swordsmen, and three healers.

The boss showed up again from inside the lake. The water washed up the blood, but the scars were clear to the naked eye. Anger was apparent on its blackhead, and it was no longer in its static mode that we saw at the beginning. The monster was ready to kill or be killed.

The guardian Jessica, who was a solo warrior like me, used her taunting skill to direct the attacks of the sea serpent on her. Meanwhile, the mages cast their spells on the big sea monster.

Mika used a flash skill to blind temporarily the monster, while the mage twins, Josephus and Davidsky launched a combination attack. They fused their fire and earth spells to create Lava magic, a rare type of magic hard to use and master by warriors who did not reach A-rank yet. They created a lava sphere and launched it at the blinded monster.

The sea serpent started screaming from the extreme burn and dove again inside the water.

The isles inside the lake started shaking, and a tail came out from within and struck the guardian.

Zinouseus jumped and held the tail so the sea serpent could not run away. The archers shot several mana cladded arrows at the apparent tail. A scream came out from the depth of the lake; it felt the damage.

Ishihara – the fighter - and Jessica helped Zinouseus holding the monster and pulled it out from the lake.

The upper body of the sea serpent re-appeared and it suddenly shot a water bomb attack at the three warriors.

Lancelot shot an air slash that cut the bomb in half, and then Mika used a light barrier to protect us from the impact.

The spear user –who was a teammate of Lancelot – alongside Lucas and I attacked the sea serpent from a closer range.

Josephus – one of the mage twins who can use earth magic – created rock platforms for us to use as a foothold and jumped from one to another until we reached the head of the monster. In addition, Mika blinded the monster again so we managed to reach it without any interruptions.

We all slashed its forehead at the same time and blood splashed out from the cuts.

The platforms that we used as a foothold all smashed the sea serpent at its head while the others were pulling its tail.

Before it fell to the lake, Davidsky coated the arrows of the archers in fire magic and they shot the falling monster directly at its already established injuries, dealing more damage.

Suddenly, the monster opened its eyes and let out a sharp scream that we could not bear hearing, thus we were stopped from taking advantage of the situation.

Afterward, the sea serpent dove back into the lake and a shadow that kept going in a circle appeared.

We could not attack it because it was underwater, so we gathered and took our positions to get ready for whatever was coming.

The shadow stopped moving and disappeared deep down the water, and from the whirlpool created by its constant movements, a big tornado came out from within and turned down to strike us.

The guardian used her big shield technique; Mika used her light barrier, and Josephus created several walls from the ground, making it multi-layered protection to stop the water tornado.

We thought we were safe from the huge attack, but it tore through all the shields and stroke us all, throwing us in all directions and dealing massive damage.

Lancelot was the first one to stand upright after the attack, and he dashed towards the sea serpent that re-emerged. He stopped a few yards away from the borders of the lake, he held his samurai sword with both hands in front of him, a leg to the front, and absorbed as much mana as possible.

“Muso Jikiden Eishin-Ryu, Eagle strike”. He swung his sword with all his might, and a mana slash went flying towards the neck of the monster at a tremendous speed and slashing it at the side.

A big cut appeared and blood started overflowing from it.

At the same time, the spear user jumped from the side, with mana embedded in his spear, he slashed the same place that Lancelot cut with his attack, thus making the injury deeper.

“All of you, attack the same spot before it dives back.” Screamed Lancelot.

We all stood up and attacked the sea serpent with our attacks, and finally, we were able to defeat it.

The lifeless body of the monster disintegrated and all the monsters disappeared after we took down the boss of this area.

A door appeared from within the lake, and on top of it was marked the numbers: ‘1/2’.

We took an hour's break to fully heal and restore our stamina and mana, and then we proceeded to go through the door to the next area.

***

After exiting a long hallway that connected the first floor to the second, we found ourselves inside a tank floating inside the water. The tank was connected with seven spherical rooms via glass tunnels.

Inside the tank, there was only one board fixed to a wall where the rules of this floor were written.

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“Floor 2/2

Use the glass chambers to travel inside the sea.

Predefined routes were already programmed.

Pour mana into the handle at the center of the chamber to move.

Clear all the stops to find the right way.

All seven chambers must reach the final goal.

Good luck “

At this point, the first plan to divide into three teams to efficiently gather information and quickly finish the dungeon was no longer effective.

This time though, we split into seven teams. I was in the same team as Mika, Zinouseus, Ken – a scout – and Sabrine – a healer -.

We entered our respective chambers and poured mana into the device so we could start the trial.

The chamber started moving slowly through the water until it reached a certain point and stopped.

A screen appeared from the device with the following text: “What disappears as soon as you say its name?”

“This is a riddle.” Stated Mika.

“Is anyone good with mind games?” Asked Zinouseus.

“Something that disappears as soon as its name is said? Is it some kind of spell?” Muttered Ken.

“I don’t think so; there should be a hint somewhere,” I said.

“I think the main points are in the word ‘disappears’ and ‘name’.” Sabrine pointed out the text.

“Yeah, the only thing that comes to mind is the invincibility spells since mages must say the name of the spells to use them.” Explained Ken.

“Then do you know any invincibility spell?” Asked Zinouseus.

“I’m not a mage, and on top of that, only the strongest mages can use invincibility, there’s no way a B-ranker can use it.” Said Mika with a frustrated sigh.

“Then it’s not a spell, since it needs a niche way to solve it if it was the case.” I affirmed0

“Yeah, you could be right…” Said Zinouseus0

Silence hit the room for a minute.

“I found it! It’s silence.” I said with excitement.

A buzz was heard from the device and a message popped up “Congratulations.”

“How did you know that?” Ken was surprised.

“Whenever we talk, there’s silence right after what we say. Therefore, there is a potential disappearance there. Literal disappearance of the words. So I thought maybe it’s ‘word’, and the word ‘silence’ makes the most sense since you say silence and the word disappears, meaning it fades into itself.” I explained.

“That’s genius!” Exclaimed Mika.

“Well, I was never the clever of the group, but I’m proud of my intuition.” I laughed.

The chamber started moving again and stopped after a few minutes. This time a room enveloped the chamber and two monsters appeared. A door opened at the front of the chamber and a text appeared from the device: “Defeat the two monsters in two minutes.”

The monsters that appeared were bluefish-like monsters with legs and arms. Each had a broad chest and was holding a trident in his right hand. Their red eyes shone through the room and their loud groans filled it with noises.

Let’s take care of them quickly and keep moving.

We all attacked them at the same time and managed to defeat them before the time run out.

The several stops were practically the same as the last two, either riddles or fights. With each stop, the difficulty increased, especially the riddles, we spent too much time solving them, but we managed to find the solution even if it took a while.

The fights on the other hand were much easier than the sea serpent boss was, and on each fight, a condition was given to us, either a time limit, a limited number of attacks, or a pattern to respect.

After arriving at the end goal, we found three other chambers already in their respective positions.

After a few hours, the other participants successfully finished their trials and we met in front of a big door. The final boss must be there.

Lucas brought out the reset device and asked the scouts to find information about the boss.

The final boss was a Kraken. There were no records of it in the past, so it must mean that this particular setup was new. There was nothing more to do about it, so Lucas activated the machine, and a rumbling began.

A blinding light hit us and engulfed us.

The next thing we saw was that we were in a different place. This time it was a complete wasteland.

The earth started shaking, and suddenly a hoard of earth giant worms came out from the ground.

“We’re under attack, prepare for battle.” Shouted Lucas.

We took out our weapons and charged at the attacking worms.

I tried launching an air slash, but it was deflected by the hard skin of the worm. “Damn, I need stronger attacks.”

Next to me, Zinouseus took out his big claymore and decapitated several worms around him with one swing. “That’s one hell of a swing there,” I exclaimed.

“It’s my specialty. I am a tank after all. Only melee attacks or strong spells work against this type of monster. I’ve already fought them in another dungeon.” He explained.

“Thanks for the tip.” I thanked him and went to fight other monsters.

Since my dragon sword had no sheath, I put it to my side and went for a step slash. This time I managed to injure one worm, but it was not enough. I was immediately struck by its big hairy tail and thrown away.

Before I could stand up, several monsters attacked me with their sharp teeth mouth, but they were immediately killed by Lancelot.

“Don’t hold us down. You’re not fit for that sword.” He dashed to slay more monsters.

‘I should get serious or I’ll be trashed here.’ I muttered.

I poured more mana into my sword and slashed a few worms that were getting closer to me. This time I could severely damage them and followed with a finishing slash.

The whole battlefield was in mayhem. More monsters kept coming from the ground, and it appeared that there was no end to them. It was the same as the last fight against the sea monsters.

‘There must be something to this floor.’ I looked around me.

I tried moving a bit away from my position, and then a message was sent by one of the scouts to all the participants.

“Akavic found something worth checking. I’ll send you a coordinate to your respective maps in your inventories. Try to rendezvous there as soon as possible.” Said the scout.

I saw Mika struggling against a lot of monsters, so I went to help her.

“Ono-ha-Itto-Ryu Ougi, FLASH SLASH.” I instantly killed all the worms surrounding her.

“Are you alright?” I extended my hand to pull her.

“Yeah, thanks. I wanted to see the map, but I was overwhelmed.” She stood up on her own and brushed the sand from her skirt.

“I’ll protect your back, pull the map and let’s move,” I said.

***

After arriving at the rendezvous point, we saw a big tablet marked with the text:

‘Floor 1/1 Death wasteland.

Find the desert hyena and kill it amidst the rampaging worms. ‘

I saw Lucas near the tablet and went to ask him. “Was this setup registered before?”

“No, this is also new to us. This is just the beginning of our resets, so at some point, we should be able to find a clue.” He explained.

“It seems we’re not all gathered here. The White Knights guild members are not here.” Said Bruno.

“No need to worry about us, we saved you some trouble and already found the hyena.” Stated Lancelot while showing the paralyzed body of the hyena wrapped in an iron chain.

“We stumbled upon this monster while fighting some deformed worms, and since it was different from everything we saw here, we didn’t want to kill it, so we beat it to a pulp and imprisoned it.” He added.

“Well then good job guys. It is stated here that we should kill it, so you can take care of it.” Said Bruno.

Before he finished talking, Lancelot beheaded the beast.

Afterward, the worms returned to the ground and a big hole appeared in front of us.

The scouts used their abilities to see what was inside and found out the boss of this area was a huge drill-armored worm.

“Well then, it’s time for the next reset.” Said Lucas.

***

Somewhere in the world:

“It seems someone is using the reset machine.” Said an unknown figure wearing a blue cloak.

“Wasn’t it safely hidden in X-212-BD?” Asked an unknown figure wearing a red cloak.

“Well, I just received information stating that it was cleared by the awakeners.” Replied another figure wearing a brown cloak.

“Damn, that useless Lion King couldn’t even protect a single machine. What should we do now?” The blue-cloaked figure hit the table in front of him.

“It’s obvious. Take it back and kill anyone you find in your way.” Said the brown-cloaked figure.

“Roger.” A voice was heard from outside the room where the three unknown figures were talking.