Our group of ragtag heroes climbed down a flight of stairs. The stairs were large enough that all of us could stand side by side if we wanted, but they descended far down below. I held Sine’s uneasy and shaky hand as a cool breeze ascended. The dark was a pit below, threatening to swallow the light of torches on the wall.

Sine pulled on my black robes. “Witch, isn’t something really wrong?”

I looked towards the other members, and I noted their expressions. Almost everyone appeared dizzy, but they kept walking onward, descending the stairs like a group of zombies.

Mary nodded. “It seems we are under an illusion. Eerie, can you do something about this?”

I thought about it, wondering if I had any useful illusion breaking spells in my arsenal. I tapped my staff against the staircase, and a vibration coursed through the walls. It rumbled our feet. The stairs collapsed into an open room, disorientating many of the others.

“This is not good!” The girl of the nameless party yelled, and pressed her hands to the ground.

She separated us from the gigantic beast. On the other side of the growing wall, a ginormous candle-wax chameleon stood there with hypnotic eyes and an agape mouth. As the wall rose up in slow motion from the ground, I watched the tongue move faster than I’d seen anything move.

The boss monster’s tongue latched onto the wall and pulled. Its tongue pulled the wall from the ground towards its gaping maw, and the chameleon crunched it, sending bits of rock scattering.

“No way!”

“Wall coliseum!” A member of the same party shouted and slammed his hand on the ground. A ginormous wall rose, but it only mounted to about two times the size of the beast.

“That’s not gonna work!” The Lion Prince yelled and began running to the side of the dropping wall.

A pair of wings ripped from the back of the chameleon, and it pushed backwards into the air.

“Oi! Isn’t this way too strong for a second floor boss?” The axe-hero asked me for whatever reason, like I knew everything about bosses.

The wind from its flap of wings, pushed the wall back towards us, and the leader of Lion’s Heart flew back before he could get close.

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I remembered my promise to Mary and looked at her. I was about to ask if I could act my way out of this predicament, but she shook her head.

Mary smiled. “This is just an overgrown lizard who doesn’t understand its place in the food chain.”

Her eyes turned to slits, and her irises reddened. Mary’s right arm grew black scales, and her hand became a large black claw that ripped through the wall, shattering it to pieces of dirt.

A red aura of magic surrounded Mary, like a cone of mana. Tiny red sparks danced around her like arcs of crimson lightning, and the ground beneath her looked as though it would give in at any second. Black and crimson horns sprouted from her head.

“The Demon Lord of Crimson Lightning!?” I heard someone yell.

“Demon lord?” I asked. “There’s no way!”

I tried to rationalize it in my brain. Mary—the greatest actress—was a demon lord? Wasn’t the heroes’ goal to defeat a demon lord? There couldn’t be two of them, and Mary didn’t fit the bill for a demon lord at all. Why would a demon lord abandon her people and become a receptionist? The more I thought about it, the more it wouldn’t make sense.

But, it didn’t need to. I was glad this actress, demon lord, receptionist, and friend was on our side. The multi-talented individual chose me as her baggage carrier!

The waxameleon launched its tongue towards the biggest threat in the room—Mary. Its tongue got caught midair to its apparent surprise. The beast’s eyes widened at the claw gripping its tongue. A spark of red lightning ran down the mouth appendage, attacking each and every taste bud. Blood shot out of it every time an arc touched down.

Mary’s eyes narrowed as the beast leapt away to safety. She watched the Monster’s tongue loll out of its mouth. “You won’t be able to use that again. Now, if you come over here quickly, I will make your end painless and fast.”

She spoke with a venom that shocked me. I looked at the others, and they seemed as awed as I was. What would our traveling circus do now?

The monster didn’t share the same worries about theatrics. It reacted quickly. It sunk into the ground like a giant waxy puddle, disappearing into thin air.

Mary’s eyes darted back and forth throughout the room, looking for her prey like a hawk, but not even she could predict who it would go for.

The low sound of footsteps alerted me towards King Tallow. The monster appeared next to him, frothing out the mouth. A white mist sprayed towards the king’s face.

He froze in place like a statue, and the maw of the creature clamped down around his body.

I watched the boss monster swallow him down, and my stomach sank.

Mary didn’t hesitate. A pair of black wings with crimson streaks sprouted from her back, and she launched herself off the ground towards the face of the boss. Ripples spread out, sending stone blocks flying into the air, and a red sword manifested from the depths of her clawed hand.

Her sword met the beast’s head, and it sliced clean through both of the giant hypnotic eyes. Ripples of red covered the wax on its body, and massive arcs of red lightning spread from the sword strike. A red haze covered its body, and the death of the monster came from a final lightning strike from above.

A large mass of electric energy struck from the ceiling through its heart and out the other side to the boss floor. Its blood sprayed out in all directions, hitting the floor with a hissing sound.

An alive King Tallow rolled from out of its mouth on the brink of death.