Bubbles appeared on the surface of the massive lake in the middle of the cave. The kraken shot up, roaring and failing its limbs.

Razor glanced around and barked orders. “Tanks, defensive positions!”

The tanks went ahead of Razor, spread out, and lifted their shields.

“Kaz, provoke on my signal!”

“Got it,” Kaz replied.

Razor turned to Rika and the other support. “Supports, you’re backline! You know your job!”

“Yep!” Rika backed up with her partner until they reached the cave wall far away from the action.

“DPSers!” Razor called to Felix and the rest.

“Yeah, yeah, we know. Quit yelling.” Felix walked over to Razor with the halberd guy.

The archers stood back, nearer to the supports, bows taut with magical arrows.

Razor was confident. Kiyomi couldn’t wait until he failed—until they all failed. “You guys good over there?”

“Shut up! You’re useless!” Felix snapped then looked back at the kraken.

“Yeah, you’re right. I am useless.” Soooo useless.

“Easy, man,” Kaz said to Felix behind him.

“Don’t take her side on this!” Felix yelled at him next.

“Come on, guys, no fighting.” Rika frowned. “Just do your best!”

Kaz didn’t reply and focused on his job.

“First, we’ll deal with the tentacles!” Razor, coated in an electric aura, raced towards a giant, flailing tentacle.

The archers fired at the airborne tentacles, leaving little marks on them.

The halberd-wielder and Felix hacked and slashed at the tentacles closest to the ground where they could reach on one side of the cave away from everyone else.

Rika and the other support constantly scanned the room and quietly cast their spells on the tanks and DPSers to try and make things a little easier for them. They gave out buffs and heals to keep things smooth.

Razor by far was doing the most damage. And his speed was nothing to sneeze at. He jumped from tentacle to tentacle, dodging attacks and jumping out of the way when the tentacles came at him. With only a few quick stabs on each tentacle, his DoTs took effect: poison, bleeding, and occasional passive electric damage from being grazed by his dagger. “Kaz!” he called to Kaz on the ground below while he himself landed on the kraken’s head.

“PROVOKE!” Kaz shouted.

The kraken turned to Kaz. All the tentacles came at him.

Rika cast a spell to cover him in a dark aura just in time before they hit.

The second and third tanks rushed over to help block the violent swinging of the tentacles.

And this would be a tricky part.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The tentacles were too many and came from every direction. They couldn’t block them all. They put up forcefields, but not even those lasted long. Ultimately, they couldn’t find an opening to fend off the tentacles effectively.

And once the shields broke, Kaz took a solid hit to the head. He stumbled forward and fell on his face.

“What the FUCK WAS THAT?!” Rika yelled at Kaz who was still down on the ground.

The other two tanks glanced behind them at Rika to comment, and that was their biggest mistake. Tentacles wrapped around them, lifted them into the air, and swung them around a few times then bashed them into the cave wall over and over…

“Seriously?!” Rika went on.

Meanwhile, Razor stayed focused and plunged his dagger down into the kraken’s head and sent a surge of electricity into it.

The kraken flung the tanks into the wall, screamed, and shook its head, trying to shake Razor off.

Razor pulled out his dagger and jumped off.

The archers continued shooting arrows at any openings. They knew better than to fuel Rika’s frustration.

All three of the tanks had 0 HP.

“You guys are USELESS! You can’t tank a few hits for the team?!”

“Not now, Rika!” One of the archers turned around and snapped at her at last.

“What?! You’re gonna defend their useless asses?!”

And the bickering between her, the other support, and the two archers began…

Felix and the halberd guy were too busy way up front by the kraken to care about anything else.

Razor continued his flawless, graceful movements. Not a single Glancing Hit.

Kiyomi envied him.

Between Razor, the halberd guy, and Felix, they held their ground and whittled down the kraken’s health, though they still had a lot of damage to do before getting it down to 70% HP for the next phase. And now that the other tentacles were free without a target, they attacked them. Not even Razor could dodge all of them, plus his stamina bar was low. In an instant, all three of them got hit by at least 8 tentacles. The tentacles knocked them flat on their backs.

Their HP bars dropped to 0.

Kiyomi wouldn’t bother calling to Rika and the rest. Those four were too caught up in their quarrel to notice the tentacles coming at them.

The tentacles rammed them into the wall. Other tentacles hammered them repeatedly into the ground, even though the initial hit had already killed them.

They didn’t get up. No one got up.

Kiyomi rose from her chair and sighed. She would do what she could with her lousy Accuracy.

~~~

The falling airship was approaching the seashore, just outside the warzone.

Sako wiped away the running blood from the side of her head with the back of her hand as she clung to the cabin door handle. More blood ran down. Her HP bar dwindled at around 70%. She pulled a Recovery Potion from her pocket. An item wasn't physically in her pocket unless she wanted to retrieve something in particular. She drank it. The empty bottle vanished. The bleeding cut on her temple along with the blood on the side of her face disappeared, and her headache stopped.

While still holding onto her sword fastened into the tilted deck to prevent her from sliding across it, Le Francia reached into her inner pocket, pulled out a blue bottle, pulled the cork off with her teeth, and gulped it down. Her empty MP bar filled back up to max. After tossing the bottle on the deck where it then rolled across, she mumbled something Sako didn’t catch. A spell. Her eyes glowed blue.

The gravity around the ship shifted. The air pressure calmed, and the ship gradually straightened itself. Everything began to float up from the deck.

SPLASH!

Everything fell on the deck. Sako landed on her feet. The ship landed in the water and rocked for a minute then steadied.

Le Francia pulled her sword from the deck, which was brimming with magical energy again. A portal opened next to her. She went towards it.

“Wait!” Chelsea called after her. She was just getting to her feet.

Le Francia paused but didn’t turn to face her. “We will converse another time, captain. I have a particularly annoying matter to address.” She stepped into the portal. The portal shut. Chances were, she was going to find who had been responsible for the magic outage.

The unconscious girl by Sako’s feet hadn’t woken up yet.

After a moment of silence, Sako spoke. “What now?”

“Help me find the princess. King Lancester wants her back inside.” Chelsea replied.

“Right.” Sako nodded.

They flew off the ship and headed to the shore.