"Watch out!" Yuuki shouted and quickly rushed up to Alchimie, executing a speedy upward slash as soon as he summoned his Katana.

"That's fast…!" Yuuki exclaimed. Despite the two of them spotting the beast, it was able to almost speed blitz Alchimie.

"Hey! Be careful, you know?" He scolded.

"Tsk, my bad. That shit's too fast."

"That's right, so take out your golems now."

Alchimie quickly waved his hand and a line of seven golems came out of his Inventory, fully completed with a Golem Core in each of them.

"All right! Let's bag this bitch! Attack!" Alchimie shouted.

With that, the golems and Yuuki charged forward, activating a skill.

[Fifth Form: Lightning Chariot]!

Lightning quickly manifested all around him and he propelled forward rapidly, arriving next to the hulking beast, slashing it towards its jugular. However, despite its size, it is quick on its feet and managed to dodge by hopping away.

"One more!"

Yuuki used the same skill to chase the beast, quickly closing the distance once again, this time, the beast quickly hopped away once again. But this time, the two had already anticipated it, and the golems, modelled for speed with a tall humanoid appearance, are waiting there with their weapons.

The Lion realized this too late and was bombarded with attacks from both sides.

[Sixth Form: Raging Demon]!

Yuuki's katana burst into violent purple flames, these flames' combustion help propel the weapon forward, adding speed and momentum to each attack in addition to the strength and speed of Yuuki's swings, which is what allowed him to launch more than a dozen hits in just split second against Gale during the previous trial. These flames doesn't result in a burning effect and are solely there to propel the weapon forward.

The golems too bombarded the beast with their combined might, some possessing slashing weapons, and some using blunt ones.

For approximately ten seconds, the Lion was stuck in the middle, getting beaten up and wounded as the barrage of attacks goes on.

"RRROAAARRR!!!" Its roar echoes through the forest, it is so loud that it even damaged Yuuki and the golems slightly due to proximity, briefly stunning Yuuki for a fraction of a second. However, this is more than enough time for the Lion to find an opportunity to escape.

Using its large paws, it swiped Yuuki with enough force to send him crashing away while he's stunned.

"Gah!"

"Samurai!" Alchimie exclaimed but quickly turned his attention to the Lion. The beast is quite smart, it most likely deduced that he was the one controlling the golems and hence went after him.

"Come!" With the Lion losing blood from the slashes it endured, it dashed forward at great speeds still.

It began relentlessly attacking Alchimie with its humongous claws but Alchimie was able to use his earth magic to form defences around him. While he was encased in an earthen sphere, he felt some pressure building up.

"Shit...! Did he bite—" After quickly realizing it, he opened the wall behind him and leapt away, a second early before the sphere completely crumbled from the bite.

The Lion caught up to him as he was mid-air and as he erected a wall once again, it swiped at him with so much force that it disconnected the raised wall from the ground and was sent together with him as he was blown away.

Boom—

The golems are quite a distance away from Alchimie, but they are quick enough to arrive by his side after that assault. Completely surrounding him to protect their master.

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He coughed up blood while getting up. "Damn it!"

"The difference in stats is just so damn high! Even when the two of us are good players, we are still getting bodied by this beast…! Samurai is somewhat able to contend with its stats, but I can't! I have to make an opportunity for him!"

"Protect me." He commanded with a stern voice. The golems entered a formation as they had a stand off with the growling Lion.

"Grrr…"

"Why isn't he attacking?" Alchimie wondered as he grabbed a potion from his inventory. "That attack took out lots of my health, god dammit…"

But as he was about to drink it, it was if his grip over it loosened and it then dropped onto the ground.

"What...?" He was baffled by what happened, it's not like he's nervous or anything, even when the game also simulates one's shakiness in distress, what happened right now is just bizarre.

"What the hell? It's like my strength left my hand for a second there… Am I… scared…? No, that's not it…"

"Was that this guy's doing…?"

He quickly took out multiple potions and elixirs that he made from before and managed to drink them just fine.

"What's the difference, then? Did I really lost grip on that previous bottle?!"

The Lion then quickly pounced at him, ready to bite his upper body as it did so.

With the elixirs that he made, he was given a temporary buff by giving him temporary stats in Magic, Vitality, and Strength.

With his increased Mana Capacity, he quickly reinforced his golems and began fighting the Lion head-on.

The soil was kicked as the Lion landed but Alchimie jumped up. Left with no other choice, the Lion began fighting the seven golems simultaneously. Quickly biting one's head off and crushing it despite its stone armor, and quickly dicing the other two with its claws with a massive swipe.

Alchimie quickly raised the earth around the body of the Lion, encasing it to impede its movement while leaving the head and its hind exposed.

"Samurai!"

"Got it!" Yuuki, who has been hiding for a while, finally entered back into action! Arriving behind the Lion with the intention of taking one of its legs as a fail safe while the golems try to take out it by the jugular.

"Golems are unaffected by that roar, but I do, we can't risk this chance."

[Second Form: Slash]

Yuuki's blade ignited into azure flames, aiming the strike towards the right hind leg. Alchimie too launched an attack, he quickly raised the earth up to form a spike directly towards the Lion's neck to impale it as he was falling down.

The beast also began flailing around, quickly cracking the earth that encased it.

However, as their respective attacks were about to hit, they stopped in their tracks.

"What the…?" The both of them exclaimed simultaneously, unable to control their body.

It was just for a second, but it was enough for the Lion to break out of its restrains and quickly dispatched the remaining golems with a horizontal swipe.

As the two was still unable to regain control, the Lion quickly faced Yuuki with the intention to bite him.

"Fuck!"

And as he was about to be bitten, they finally regained control of their body.

[Third Form: Parry]!!!

A large circular wall of blue aura suddenly appeared in front of him as he assumed a defensive stance, which made the Lion's mouth bounce off.

After that, four new golems—which are clearly made for brute strength—all managed to get hold of the Lion, restraining it once again.

With Yuuki viewing the world half its speed, he quickly saw the signs of the Lion initiating its roar attack and quickly retreated.

[Tenth Form: Shadow Step]

"RROOAARR!!!"

Since the that attack doesn't affect the golems, it was no use. He quickly jumped right back in with the form still active for increased speed and initiated a new one.

[Fourth Form: Kill]

This is their safest bet, since fourth form damages based on lost health, and with the Lion clearly having lost a lot of blood already, he is confident this will decapitate the beast, even partially, if it connects.

"RROOA—" It was about to do its roaring attack once again but at the last moment, Alchimie arrived from above with his right arm clad in earth. He punched the Lion directly on the top of its head which pushed its neck further down to allow Yuuki to completely decapitate it in one go.

"Aaahhh!" Yuuki swung down forcefully.

Swish—!

The ignited blade slid through the neck cleanly with Yuuki not even feeling any hint of resistance or friction like a hot knife through butter.

He took a deep breath as the blue flames of his sword subsided.

[Title Unlocked!] [King of the Jungle: +10% Damage dealt to Beasts and Monsters]

"Oh, a title…"

"You good?" Alchimie asked when he approached.

"Yeah, I… am okay." He replied as he caught his breath.

"Sigh… How would we track down the boy now?"

"Not like that the Lion can answer our questions anyway. Now I gotta cut this corpse up, step back."

Yuuki's sword ignited once again as he methodically diced up the body parts of the Lion, all so that the game will label the body parts as materials, allowing the two of them to store it in their Inventories.

Alchimie looked at Yuuki as soon as he finished storing away his portion of the kill. "Let's go find the kid now."

"Yeah, I hope we can find him, even though we already killed the one that took him..."

"Should be nearby here, I don't think that the devs will make an unsolvable quest."

"Yeah, I hope so. But even if we found him, I don't think he's alive, really."

"Why is that?"

"Pretty sure that the Lion already killed him, I wouldn't hope so much."

"But the quest said 'rescue', though"

"I don't know, just a feeling."