Ark was relieved when he felt the presence of Adam approaching. Adam had promised that he would fight the seventh boss monster along with Ark and it seemed that he was keen on keeping his promise. He must have rushed here as soon as he got the notification. Ark was actually glad that Adam had such a useful ability. It made him and everyone present in his aura invulnerable to physical attacks.

Ark was not sure what effect the Wendigo would have on him but when Ark saw Adam’s back, protecting him from the Magama Wyrm, he knew that Adam had grown much during a single day. Ark had thought that he would die a lonely death trying to kill the wyvern. He had thought that he was alone. It was simply not true at all. Chronos had told him time and time again that no matter your personal power, if you didn’t have allies, then you were just a dead man walking.

How many catastrophes could you walk away from alone? It was going to stop at a certain point in time, but if you had someone who shared the same burden as you, then the catastrophes were nothing more than obstacles ready to be overcome. Ark knew that Adam would not be able to hold off the Magama Wyrm for too long. He did not have that much combat potential after all. Ark made a correction…he did not have much combat potential yet…when the time came, he would become truly formidable.

As far as Ark knew, Adam’s ultimate ability lasted for 15 minutes at most. His Constitution would not be able to completely heal him within that small time frame but that amount of time should be enough for Ark to move and think of a plan. As Ark continued to think about the ways he could defeat the Magma Wyrm, Adam spoke up…

“Ark, you don’t have to worry about me too much,” Adam said as if he already knew what Ark was thinking. Ark was pretty worried though. Adam would be vulnerable as soon as the timer ended. By the time Adam’s timer deactivated, Ark would have lost his only trump card. The activation period for his ability was only five minutes. Ark would have to protect the vulnerable Adam as well as defeat the monster. How could he not be worried?

“I think…as much as you have grown…you would not be able to defeat the Magama Wyrm by yourself,” Ark said cautiously

“Who said I have to defeat it?” Adam asked Ark in a questioning tone, “You will be the one who will defeat it anyway”

“Fifteen minutes is not enough for me to heal completely and protect you…Adam, please run back after three minutes…at least that way you will be protected”

“Who is worrying about who hah! Please, Ark, I told you didn’t I, I could be weak but I will become strong enough someday to fight alongside you”, Adam said as he conjured a thin spear out of nowhere. Ark realized that this spear was found in the shop.

“As I said, you don’t have to worry too much. You have twenty minutes though…use it well to plan your act out” And Adam shot off towards the Magma Wyrm, the sleek spear in his hand. Ark could see clearly that the technique was crude. But Ark couldn’t say anything right now. He needed to think and time to heal. Ark continued to make plans in his head as Adam fought for both of their lives. Ark closed his eyes to focus. He had twenty minutes and he meant to use every second of that precious time.

Adam was afraid. He had rushed in blindly believing that he would be able to deal with whatever monster Ark was facing. He would never have believed that Ark was fighting a huge dragon all by himself. Ark must have also fought the previous boss monster all alone. What kind of madman did something like that? A suicidal one, Adam realized.

As soon as he had seen the notification about the seventh horde approaching, Adam’s instincts screamed at him, Ark was in danger. Adam had rushed then and there without any regard for anyone. The people would understand why Adam had behaved like that. During the fight with the Wendigo, Adam had rushed in blindly too, believing he could handle anything. He was just afraid for Ark’s sake but it was Ark himself who had to protect him.

Adam’s emotions were at an all-time high then and the Tower seemed to have heard his voice. Adam had gained a new story card. It was a fitting story for him too. He wanted to be the rival of a person who was like a mountain. He wanted to reach its peak but even the Tower had acknowledged that the feat was difficult. Difficult didn’t mean impossible though. Adam would have to try harder to make it possible.

Adam’s story card did something very simple and yet so profound that it could turn the table in their own favor. It was a legendary story card. A cheat skill of its own. This story card allowed Adam to borrow the power of Ark for five minutes once a month. If Ark were an ordinary person, then perhaps, the skill would just have stayed as a rare story card. But it was Ark which meant, Adam could use one of Ark’s own cards as his own.

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This alongside Adam’s own story card was what allowed him the confidence to face the Magma Wyrm alone. Adam had estimated that it would take Ark almost twenty minutes to somewhat recover from his injuries. For the first fifteen minutes, Adam could blindly attack the Magma Wyrm. It would not be able to harm Adam at all. This was the power of his epic card.

“Go for the head!” Ark’s shout from the back was the only encouragement Adam needed to fight the Wyrm. Adam’s spear gave him a longer reach than Ark’s sword. This meant that from a distance Adam could poke and prod at the Wyvern constantly annoying him. Adam had no doubts that his attacks wouldn’t even take a fraction of the monster’s hp. But this was not Adam’s job at all. The main damage dealer was Ark after all. Adam would just have to act as a nuisance.

And for the next fifteen minutes, Adam did just that. Whatever the Magma Wyrm did, it would not be able to attack Adam at all and so its health was constantly being drained away. The monster could not even attack Ark as the aggro was constantly taken by Adam. Soon after the fifteen minutes ended. Adam would just need to hang on for five more minutes. He had complete faith in Ark. Now it came down to the last five minutes,

As soon as Adam’s ultimate ability ended, Adam dodged to the side and activated his second story card, ‘Rival of an unreachable mountain’. Time slowed down completely and in front of Adam revolved a single card. Adam was sure that as time went on, he would be able to borrow even more of Ark’s cards. Some might have wondered what would happen if Adam betrayed Ark himself. Adam shuddered at the very thought. Every card had a story after all, and the story associated with Adam’s card was particularly gruesome.

Adam selected the only card in front of him and Adam could almost feel the strength of thousand men seep into his very veins. Adam had the choice of increasing one of his stats by fifty. Adam decided on Agility in a heartbeat. He couldn’t get hit by the monster no matter what. And suddenly Adam was faster than ever. He started dodging the monster at superhuman speeds. His body seemed to have adjusted to the increased speed almost instantaneously.

Adam continued to run around. Adam had the brilliant idea of poking the Magma Wyrm’s fire sac too. It looked particularly vulnerable. This had made the Wyrm particularly mad and Adam would have lost his head if he had not dodged in time. The five minutes were going to be over soon and the Monster had not used a single of its special move. It was finally time for the monster to use it though.

Like a volcano, it spewed out Magma from all directions. Adam’s special ability had ended only a second ago but Adam smiled despite that. Twenty minutes were over which meant that Ark was back in action. Adam had never trusted anyone more in his entire life.

Ark had indeed arrived to save Adam. During the twenty minutes, Ark had thought of a plan while he continued to heal. With this plan, defeating the Boss would be easy. Ark had only thought of this plan because he had seen Adam handling his spear. It was then that an idea struck his mind

“Could I borrow your spear?”

“It’s all yours” And Ark was back in action

Ark had been dreading fighting the monster. It had thankfully entered its second phase which was either good or bad. The good thing was that its health was mostly depleted. The bad thing was that it would attack now with more ferocity than ever. Ark did have a plan. This involved the formation of a new Arkana Manipulation technique. Ark had not even tried to use it simply because it was not written anywhere in the book. But Ark could make a new technique of his own.

It would take some time but if Ark was successful, the monster would die in an instant. This required the use of a spear. Ark was mainly a swordsman but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t use any other weapons. In the Towerm, where you needed to adapt to any situation, if someone was just a one-trick pony, their demise was guaranteed. So Ark knew how to use a spear, albeit crudely. But that was going to be enough.

Ark’s technique was a combination of the second technique and the fourth technique. Sword Aura or in his case now Spear Aura would burst out of Ark’s pear in a crescent shape and try to slice the Magma Wyrm’s mouth open. If this did not happen, then it was fine too. The application of the net technique was enormous. Ark felt that it was worthwhile for him to completely master the fourth technique. If it were not for that, Ark would have to fight the monster in a battle of attrition.

The Spear Aura was not just that though. It had the implementation of the fourth technique too. Ark was constantly condensing his Arkana as he sent the bursts of Arkana toward the Magma Wyrm. This meant that every single Spear Aura burst Ark had sent the Wyrm’s way was connected to his spear. This also meant that the pure Arkana was attacked to a specific part of the Wyrm’s head. More specifically its head.

All the technique boiled down to was this. Ark would use the first step of the net technique to condense a part of his Arkana. Then he would send a burst of Spear Aura towards the Magma Wyrm’s head. The Arkana which was sent would get connected to his spear. Pure Arkana was the sharpest weapon of them all. After about ten minutes of constant dodging and sending Spear Aura toward the Magma Wyrm, Ark’s master plan was finally ready.

Hundreds of strands of Pure Arkana were connected to the Wyrm’s body alongside Ark’s spear. Pure Arkana was the sharpest tool to cut which meant that when Ark jumped unnaturally high and did a backflip, it did not just make him look ridiculous. It also allowed his spear and the strands the momentum required to completely sever the Wyrm’s head from its body. Ark was only able to do this because of Adam.

The hellscape that was the Second Scenario was finally over. Ark hobbled down to where Adam was sitting. Adam seemed to be watching the head of the Wyrm in a completely transfixed manner. It was a miracle after all. Ark felt the same.

“You did it you beautiful son of a bitch”

Ark was too exhausted to properly hear what Adam told him. Ark closed his eyes and this time did not open them for another four hours