The second floor was an underground maze area made of small tunnels.

“Hmm, so we have to find our way through this maze and reach the pointed destination.” Said, James. “I think it is doable considering our skills… Ah, I forgot to tell you about ourselves.”

“Don’t worry; I think we have enough time for that since this floor doesn’t have a time limit,” I replied.

“Yeah, you are right. I will start by myself. As you can see, I am a guardian. Apart from the basic defensive skills, I have some unique offensive skills that fully use the shield and the attack power of my enemies to my advantage. I am quite a tank too, so you don’t have to worry about taking damage, I can protect everyone here.” He sounded confident.

“I am Jennifer, a B-rank healer. I have the biggest mana pool of the party, so I can keep using my healing skills for a long time. I can also cast multiple healing spells at the same time, and can attach this pin on a teammate to heal him even if he is far away from me.” She made a small pin using her mana.

“I am Mary. I’m also a healer, and apart from the basic healing skills that any healer can learn, I can create a healing room of a 10-meter radius to heal all the party members near me. I have a unique skill that makes me reverse-heal an enemy, meaning that if an enemy can heal or regenerate himself, I can damage him instead by using this skill.”

“I am Andrew, the scout of this party. As you heard from James earlier, I can teleport up to four members outside of the dungeon, but I can only use this skill once per day. I can also scan a big and complex area for enemies and traps and map it out.”

“I am Brian, a B-rank gunner. My main weapon is this metal shotgun.” He brought out his weapon from the inventory. It was a black metallic shotgun with a long barrel. “I can fire up to ten consecutive shots before recharging. Each shot has tremendous power behind it, and I can manipulate the direction of the shots using mana”

“I guess it is my turn. I am Edward. I am a close-range fighter. I mainly use my legs for fighting. That’s all you should know.”

“And I am Larry. I am also a mage, like you Mika. I cannot use light spells, but I have a mastery over three elements, fire, water, and wind. Therefore, I have a diverse skills coverage.”

“I forgot to mention, we can all sense mana, so we can more or less help the scout if push comes to shove,” James added.

“Shiryuu and I can also sense mana.” Said Kamui.

“I learned how to do it too in the past months.” Added Mika.

“Then that’s perfect. We can depend on each other whatever happens and find a way through any situation.” Said the scout.

“Now, let’s discuss how we should tackle this floor. Andrew, can you try and find if there is anything fishy about the air and mana around us?” Said, James.

Andrew closed his eyes to sense the surrounding mana, but there was nothing strange about it.

“There’s nothing strange about the flow of mana. Maybe I can map out this area.” He suggested.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Replied James.

Andrew used his mapping skill to give us a rough overview of the area where we were.

We were in a long straight tunnel that branched into five more tunnels at the end of it. One of them extended to a room next to us. In addition, there were no traps and only some monsters hiding ahead.

When we reached the branch point, we decided to send three members to check on that room and defeat the monsters hidden in it. Meanwhile, while we were moving, Andrew mapped more parts of this area.

After a dozen minutes, the search team returned and told us that they have dealt with the monsters in that room and that they did not find anything else.

We moved through the tunnel to our extreme right and kept doing the same thing while dealing with traps and monsters.

The skills of the scout were essential in dealing with what this floor was hiding for us. Nothing surprised us and we were ready for any traps and monster attacks.

There was one tunnel left in front of us, and at the end of it, we found the gate that lead to the next floor.

We tried pushing the doors but they did not budge an inch.

“I think there is a boss here to kill.” Stated James.

Just when James said that, we heard footsteps behind us. We turned around and saw two snakemen holding spears and staring at us.

“They heard you and came to greet us.” Joked Kamui.

The two monsters took a battle stance and charged at us with their spears.

James put up his shield, used the ‘Expand’ skill to make his shield bigger, and blocked the initial attack of the two monsters.

Edward jumped at the snakemen with a ‘Rolling Kick’ that they dodged and thrust their spears at him at the same time.

I sent an ‘Air Slash’ at one of them and Kamui parried the second and countered his attack with a ‘Swallow Slash’ that cut him in the arm.

James took this chance to use ‘Taunt’ and brought the attention of the monsters toward him. Then, he used another skill to double his defenses.

The monsters quickly launched several thrusts at James, but he didn’t budge from his place.

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Larry used a wind thrust to push Brian forward and brought him in the shooting range of his shotgun. He shot two bullets that were blocked by one of the snakemen. He noticed Brian coming closer and shrugged off the taunt to intercept the upcoming attack.

The monster rolled his spear and tried to slash the defenseless gunner, but Mika used a light barrier to block the attack and blinded the monster with a ‘Flash’.

Afterward, Edward kicked the blinded monster with a strong kick to his side and smashed him with the wall. Meanwhile, Kamui and I pushed the second snakeman from James and cut both of his arms with a simultaneous ‘Step Slash’.

Both of the monsters stood up at the same time and in a surprising move, the first stabbed the heart of the second with his spear.

The spear started glowing and the body of the dead snakeman was absorbed inside of it. Then, he stabbed himself to the heart with that glowing spear and his body started undergoing some changes.

The monster grew in size, a second head came out and his color changed from green to black.

He took the second spear and opened his mouth.

“What is he doing?” Questioned Kamui.

“This is bad… Everyone hides behind James.” Screamed the scout.

Larry used more wind thrusts to bring us all behind James in the blink of an eye, and the guardian expanded his shield to protect us.

Mika reinforced our defenses by making a multi-layered light barrier, and Mary created a healing room around us.

The monster let out a purple breath that engulfed the whole tunnel.

“That’s a poisonous breath.” Stated Andrew.

“Then we just need to cut those heads off,” I said. “Kamui, you like cutting heads, let’s go.”

“You bet I do.” He smiled back at me.

We moved away from the shield and the healing room and were in direct contact with the poisonous breath.

“What are you doing? Come back to here quickly.” Said, James.

“Don’t worry; just keep your shield up.”

We both put our swords at our right sides. Concentrated our mana at the tip of our swords and swung them with tremendous power and speed.

“Ono-Ha-Itto-Ryu-Ougi, Disaster Typhoon.”

We threw thousands of blades that became one huge tornado that dispersed all the poisonous breath in the tunnel and killed the merged snakeman in one fell swoop.

***

When we went through the gate that led us to the third floor, we found ourselves inside a building. We had to climb down this ten stories building and reach the exit at the bottom.

There were few monsters on each floor, but to move from one to another, we had to clear a puzzle.

The puzzles of the top seven floors consisted of finding several keys in the rooms of this floor. There was no time limit at first, but as we moved down, there was a specific time to solve the puzzles, and became harder. Nonetheless, we managed to clear them with no major problems.

Starting from the third floor and downward, the puzzles were different though. We had to disassemble a bomb in a short amount of time. There were four colored circuits that we had to cut in order, and the hints to the order were hidden inside each floor.

The third floor had a four-colored circuits bomb, while the second and first had six and eight colored circuits bombs respectively.

There were hints hidden in the floors related to the order, so there was a lot of tension between us to quickly find the hints and disassemble the bombs before the end of the allocated time.

Some hints were related to monsters that were present on those floors, others were specific to room settings or hidden and we needed to find them.

We had a hard time clearing those puzzles, but we managed to do so and reach the final floor: F0.

We climbed down the stairs to F0 and found a giant monster blocking the road. He was a giant armored boarman holding a sword and a shield.

James started by using his ‘Taunt’ skill to draw the attention of the boss monster, then he boosted his defensive capabilities and charged at the monster with a ‘Shield Tackle’ skill.

The monster protected himself with his shield and swung his sword at James. He blocked the attack, charged again with his shield, and pushed the monster backward.

“We have to destroy the shield and the armor if we want to end this,” I suggested.

Mika and Larry prepared some long-distance spells, while Edward and Brian charged their mana to attack the boss with stronger attacks later.

Kamui and I attacked the monster from closer range. We used several mana-based skills to damage the shield and Edward dealt the final blow with a mana-clad kick that shattered the shield to smithereens.

I concentrated my mana in my sword and intended to launch a ‘Dragon Head’, but the boarman swung his sword at me and I changed my stance to block the attack instead of attacking.

Larry took this chance of inattention and shot a big ‘Fireball’ spell that engulfed the whole body of the monster, and Mika followed it by a large light beam.

Brian finished charging his mega shot and Larry pushed him with a wind gust towards the body of the boarman, and shot him directly into the stomach.

The armor shattered to pieces and Brian was pushed by the devastating impact, but Larry was there for the rescue by using his wind as a cushion.

The boss monster bled from all the parts of his body and kept standing up holding his sword in his hand. His eyes turned red and growled in anger.

“This is the right time.” Screamed James.

That was the signal for the finishing blow.

James’s ‘Taunt’ skill was no longer effective, so Mika used a ‘Flash’ spell to blind the monster. Nonetheless, the angry boarman charged at us with his sword and swung it with full power.

“Ono-Ha-Itto-Ryu Ougi, Flash Slash.” I parried his swing with my secret technique and used the momentum to swing my sword and launch a counter ‘Dragon Head’ by redirecting the mana I had concentrated on my sword previously. The attack hit the monster head-on.

The boarman kept holding to his legs and didn’t want to fall, so Larry created a water pool beneath the monster, and Edward smacked his leg with a devastating kick that made him slip and finally hit the ground.

The final blow came from Kamui who stabbed him with a ‘Bull Tackle’ and finished off the boss monster of this floor.

As we celebrated our win, the door to the next area appeared.

***

In front of a big mirror stood Adramelech. He removed the bandages from his head and tried to look at his reflection, but he couldn’t see anything. He became blind after all.

“He’s going to pay for that… That Mythological Weapon user… I’m going to make him suffer…” He muttered.

“Sorry for the intrusion, boss.” An armored skeleton opened the doors of Adramelech’s room. “We found the target.”

“Finally… Tell the Manticore and Skeleton squads to get ready… We will go exterminate the pests as soon as possible.” He smirked.