Drake finally saw an opportunity.

“Finger thrust!” he yelled. A large amount of mana gathered at the tips of his index and middle fingers, making them burn searing hot.

Drake jabbed at the arachne. It brought its claw to block the attack as usual but this time, a slight crack appeared on one of its claws.

‘Finally!’ thought Drake, before activating metal leg repeatedly.

Drake’s legs moved in a blur, kicking its claw dozens of times per second. With its speed, the arachne was barely able to keep up, however, the crack in its shell kept widening with each impact.

Crack!

The small crack had expanded rapidly due to Drake’s kicks and within a few moments, its shell cracked and the claw fell off.

The arachne roared in pain.

But Drake wasn’t going to let this opportunity go. He poured all his mana into his boots, activated shadow steps, and pushed his speed to the maximum, before charging with his sword. He also poured mana into the sword to make it shine brilliantly.

The arachne’s sensitive vision attuned to darkness was caught by surprise and roared even more loudly as its eyes started burning. It retreated and trashed its claws about wildly. But its movements were random as the arachne was temporarily blind, allowing Drake to easily dodge them and reach its body.

Drake thrusted his sword, ready to stab into its shoulder.

The arachne must have sensed Drake being so close. It quickly turned its head and spat out a large spider web.

The web flew very quickly and at this range, Drake couldn’t dodge.

At the last second, the spider web forced him back, making him drop his sword and crash against the wall. The sticky spider web glued Drake to the wall, making him unable to move.

Drake carefully pulled out a dagger he had hidden and started cutting through the web, but it would take some time for him to free himself.

But this gave Blaze the perfect opportunity. He repeatedly activated dragon step and moved extremely close.

“Fire blade!”

He shot out a blade of fire, aimed directly at its neck.

The arachne had slightly recovered its vision and moved its remaining claw to block the attack. But the claw was already weak from all the damage it had previously taken and cracked widely upon impact, before falling down as well.

‘RRROOOAAARRR!’

A huge roar echoed across the floor again as the arachne felt incredible pain from losing its second claw. It started moving randomly in a panic.

“Rain!”

Sylvia used this opportunity to shoot a flurry of arrows at the arachne’s vulnerable upper body.

Blinded by pain and rage, the arachne couldn’t react properly. It tried to raise its front legs which were made of the same material as the claw and use them to deflect the arrows. However, it couldn’t move them in such an unnatural manner very quickly, hence allowing many of the arrows to hit its body.

The arachne roared even further as dozens of holes appeared in its body.

At this point, Drake had finally freed himself and retrieved his sword. He poured mana into his boots and activated shadow steps to raise his speed to the maximum once again.

Blaze also acted at the same time and activated dragon step.

The duo lunged at the defenceless arachne, their swords pointed straight at its chest.

One second they were jumping in the air, and the next second, they appeared behind the arachne, and calmly sheathed their swords.

Behind them, the arachne’s roars stopped. A large cut appeared across its neck, and another across its stomach. Its body split into three, and the head and torso rolled onto the floor.

Blaze and Drake slowly straightened their backs and turned to face the fallen arachne, panting slightly out of breath.

“It’s… finally dead!” Helen gasped.

Everyone looked at each other to confirm they weren’t dreaming.

They did it!

The fight had turned out to be much more difficult than they expected and several times, they were in a life-or-death situation – but it was finally over!

The elderly man who ran the mines had watched the whole battle in both terror and awe. When the arachne had finally died, he got up and ran towards them in excitement.

“I don’t believe it; the beast is finally dead!” he exclaimed.

They all rejoiced.

Helen hugged Sylvia and Blaze picked Drake up, laughing in joy – although Drake didn’t seem very happy about that.

After a few minutes, they settled down and the mine owner thanked them gratefully.

“I have no words to express my gratitude,” the mine owner said, bowing deeply to everyone. “Thank you very much for everything you’ve done. We never could have done it without you.”

Drake wanted to reply but he was interrupted.

“Yeah, thanks for taking care of that!” a voice chuckled, startling everyone.

The group jumped back warily to spot a figure appearing from the darkness, soon followed by three more. The first was a young man, a couple years older than Drake, with short red hair, and a wicked smile on his face. The second and third were two men dressed in black that Drake didn’t recognise.

But the fourth - he was a man dressed in dark purple, the dark mage that he had fought in town along with Blaze that day.

These were dark mages again!

A look of terror dawned on the elderly man upon spotting the dark mages. He immediately retreated and hid in a corner somewhere, leaving Drake’s party to face the dark mages.

“Is that the wimp you lot are fighting for?” the red-haired young man laughed as he watched the elderly man hide.

“What do you bastards want?” Drake hissed.

“Hey!” he replied, pointing his long sword forward. “The name’s Theo. Theo Vancouver. Use it.”

Drake observed that his other hand was wrapped in chains.

‘Is that an artifact?’ Drake wondered.

Theo was dressed in a light red overcoat, covering thick, dark-red leather armour underneath. With his long sword and chains, he stood out the most.

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‘He must be the leader…’ Drake thought to himself.

“We don’t need to use anything, you bastard,” Blaze replied, pointing his huge sword back at them in response.

“Seek!” Sylvia used the moment of distraction to shoot.

A mana arrow shot forth at an incredible speed, aimed directly at Theo’s throat. Just before it could reach him, Theo moved swiftly and blocked with his sword, making the arrow fall helplessly to the ground and dissipate.

Theo glared at Sylvia who stared back at him expressionlessly, and then chuckled.

“I like you! I’ll kill you last!” he said, laughing.

In response, Sylvia readied another arrow and aimed straight at him.

Theo looked towards the two dark mages in black and spoke, “You two go ahead, we’ll deal with these guys.”

They both nodded and then ran, moving in a circle around the group. They were heading for the entrance to the last floor.

Blaze reacted first.

“Not so fast, dragon step!”

Blaze became a fiery mist and rapidly approached them, but Theo was even faster.

He poured mana into the chains on his left hand and they rapidly extended while glowing dark red. It attacked Blaze mid-way, forcing him to stop moving and block.

The clash sent echoes throughout the floor, but Theo moved again. He pulled the chains back and immediately swung them sideways. Blaze rotated just in time to block the chains with his huge sword.

The two clashed heavily.

Meanwhile, Drake and Helen moved to intercept the other two dark mages.

Shadow step!

Drake moved like a shadow and approached one of the dark mages, arcing his sword towards the dark mage’s neck.

“Iron shield!”

The mage summoned an iron shield to block Drake’s attack at the last moment. The fierce clash of metals echoed across the floor.

Drake bounced back and readied his sword to strike again.

“Dark crows!”

The mage yelled another spell just as Drake lunged, summoning three crows which appeared with blood-curdling screams.

Each crow was two feet in size, with massive wings, and blood-red eyes, and were armed with ginormous beaks and claws.

The dark mage blocked Drake’s lunge with the iron shield, while the crows fiercely attacked him from the top. Drake retreated a few steps but the crows swiftly followed.

One of the crows cawed and shot out a black bullet from its mouth. Drake tilted his head to dodge the bullet, causing it to crash behind him. Upon impact, the ground slightly started sizzling.

‘Poison bullets,’ Drake noted.

As the crows came close, Drake sheathed his sword and activated the rank one deflection palms martial technique. The crows attacked from all sides with their claws and beaks but were deflected away by Drake’s palms. Some of them shot out poison bullets, but Drake used shadow steps to dodge them.

Drake retaliated by shooting fireballs at the crows. Two of the crows dodged, but the third one was blasted away before it could react.

Just when Drake thought he could catch a break, however, the dark mage summoned three more dark crows, increasing the pressure on him.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the dark mage in purple, who was another warrior mage, had also summoned an iron shield and crows to attack Sylvia.

In response, Sylvia summoned three wind and two earth elemental imps for attack and defence, each emanating a rank two aura. They were small, winged creatures with pointy ears and a sharp tail, wielding a small pitchfork. Despite being rank two spirits however, they would still struggle to hold the dark mage off for long on their own, so Sylvia supported them from the background with her arrows.

It might have been an even fight between them, however, Sylvia was also keeping an eye on Helen.

On the final battlefield, Helen was struggling. While the dark mages attacking Drake and Sylvia were warrior mages, the one attacking Helen was a steel body martial artist, putting her at an immense disadvantage, despite her rank two artifacts. The only reason she could hold on was due to Sylvia's support.

Not only did Sylvia send wind and earth elemental imp spirits to help her, but whenever Helen was in a critical situation about to receive a fatal strike, Sylvia would shoot an arrow, forcing the dark mage to block, and give up on the attack.

The two were not in a good situation.

“Dark crow flock!”

Suddenly, the dark mage in purple summoned ten more dark crows and sent them to attack Sylvia at once, increasing the pressure on her tremendously.

Sylvia summoned several more wind elemental imps in response, but the dark mage took this opportunity to do something unexpected.

He dissipated his iron shield and ran!

The dark mage was heading straight towards the lower floor.

“Stop him!” Sylvia cried to Drake while being held up by the newly summoned dark crows.

Drake, who was keeping an eye on all the battlefields, reacted instantly. He poured mana into his boots and activated shadow steps, pushing his speed to the maximum. He was about to intercept the dark mage, but several iron shields suddenly appeared and blocked his path. Drake immediately moved around them to chase after him but was attacked by ten new dark crows as well.

Drake cursed and stopped to deal with the crows.

The party watched helplessly as the dark mage entered the last floor.

Blaze wanted to help but unfortunately, despite being the strongest in their group, he was completely matched by Theo who attacked relentlessly with his sword and chains, which moved in unpredictable ways. Theo’s artifacts, combined with his high cultivation, made him a force to be reckoned with.

“Haha! It seems like the infamous party of a dragon and dryad is only this much,” Theo laughed as he thrust his sword towards Blaze’s chest.

Blaze used his sword to deflect Theo’s strike before shooting out a fire blade.

“Shut up!” he retorted.

Theo jumped, spinning backwards into the air and the fire blade passed just under his head. Theo rotated back and landed cleanly on his feet.

“Let’s make things interesting!” Theo exclaimed, his excitement shining through his eyes. Theo raised his palm into the air and dark mana gathered.

“Black python!”

The mana condensed into the spirit of a pitch-black python. The spirit was only thumb-sized upon appearance but instantly expanded to a ten-foot-long python, coiling around Theo. It hissed at Blaze and released an aura, indicating itself as a rank two spirit.

Blaze’s expression became dark.

The spirit lunged at Blaze.

“Firewall!” Blaze yelled and slashed his sword across the air, using the third ability of his sword.

A wall of fire appeared and blocked the spirit’s path. However, it only took the spirit a second to run around the wall and attack Blaze from the side.

Blaze blocked with his sword but was pushed back by the momentum. The black python hissed and its eyes began glowing before shooting out two beams of dark light.

Blaze used dragon step to dodge just in time as the beams left two large, gaping holes on the ground.

The spirit appeared behind him and spat out a black substance.

Blaze didn’t want to touch it and dodged, causing the substance to hit the ground which made it sizzle corrosively, much more than when the poison bullets from the dark crows hit the ground.

During the brief few seconds that Blaze was occupied by the spirit, Theo turned his attention to Helen and Sylvia. With a cruel smile, Theo licked his lips menacingly.

The next second, he disappeared.

Sylvia felt an immense threat approach and reacted instinctively.

“Wind walk!”

Sylvia moved like the wind and retreated, just as Theo came crashing down with his sword, making a small crater on the ground.

“NOOO!” Blaze yelled and tried to help but was blocked by the black python.

‘Damn you!’ he cursed. He just needed a few more seconds to deal with it, but he had no idea what Theo would do in that time.

Syliva saw the situation and stopped holding back. She equipped a mana, fire, and wind arrow into her bow at the same time.

“Rain!”

A huge rain of over fifty arrows shot forth rapidly.

Theo laughed. He poured mana to extend his chain and rotated it extremely fast in a wide circle. The chain became a blur and easily deflected all of the arrows.

But this gave time for Sylvia to equip another mana arrow.

“Decimate!”

She shot her strongest arrow at Theo, no longer worrying about collateral damage.

Theo furrowed his brows. He could sense the power in that arrow and knew he couldn’t block it so easily.

But there wasn’t a trace of worry on his face.

Snake walk!

Theo disappeared and reappeared a little distance away, in the place where Helen was fighting the final dark mage.

Helen was shocked to see a smirking Theo suddenly appear but before she could process what was happening, Theo grabbed her by the neck, and threw her directly at the oncoming arrow!

“NOOOOO!”

Sylvia, Drake, and Blaze all yelled simultaneously.

Blaze had finished dealing with the black python now and was rushing back but it was too late.

Helen was flying directly towards the powerful arrow, her face filled with terror. But she couldn’t stop her momentum, and there was no way for her to defend herself against the arrow.

She closed her eyes and let the worst happen.

BOOM!

The sound of an immense explosion rang across the floor.

Time seemed to slow down as Drake, Sylvia, and Blaze watched the arrow pierce through the defenceless Helen.

Helen crashed heavily into the ground, spitting out blood and raising a small dust cloud.

Everyone froze and watched as the dust cloud slowly settled.

Helen was unconscious, lying in a pool of her own blood, with a large, gaping hole in her stomach.

“Bastaaaard!” Blaze yelled, rushing towards Theo, but an even louder voice drowned him out.

“AaaaAAAhhhhHHHHH!”

Sylvia, who was normally the quietest and most cool-headed member of the group, now had an expression of absolute horror. Her hair was a dishevelled mess and she stared at Helen’s body, unblinking.

Everyone became quiet.

“You… How… dare you?” Sylvia’s voice was hoarse.

Theo just smirked.

“What are you going to do about it?” he chuckled.

Sylvia’s head creaked towards Theo. Her green pupils seemed to expand till her eyes became completely green and started glowing. She uttered two words.

“Dryad’s… avatar.”

An immense amount of mana gathered in her body. A brilliant light flashed across the floor, forcing everyone to close their eyes.

Drake squinted and could see the incredible amount of mana condense into a large, tree-like figure behind Sylvia.

The light disappeared and was replaced by a huge aura that radiated outwards, pushing everyone back.

Theo looked up to see the figure of Syliva. With glowing green eyes, and the image of a huge, glowing dryad floating behind her, while radiating an immense aura, she looked like a furious goddess about to unleash her wrath.

Sylvia pointed her hand at Theo and the projection of the dryad copied her exactly. She opened her mouth and a powerful, booming voice came out.

“I… am going… to kill you.”

Theo gulped.