“What the—” Taylor Lynn said, cutting herself off as the boss materialized for the third round’s second part.

The vicious warlord was an eight-foot-tall skeleton with blackened bones, looking like they were burned in a fire, covering them in soot. Its eyes were a smoky red, with actual smoke emanating from the sockets, leaving smoke trails in the air. Armor pieces dotted the strange character model, not worn but attached to the skeletal figure.

In one hand, the figure carried a shining sword forged of green metal, longer than Jay was tall, with intricately carved runes etched into the blade. In the other hand, the boss held a shield large enough to cover half its body. The item was made of purple metal with the same intricately carved runes etched on the finish.

Strogian Warlord [Elite] [Boss], Level: 35 . Health: 12,000/12,000.

After taking in the figure and its basic information, Jay was distracted by an inexplicable message.

System Message: Relationship with Cuddles, the Strogian Death squirrel, has reached its limit. Ability “Bonded Familiar” has been added to the ability list. Bonded Familiars will fight to defend their companions in all circumstances. Familiar menu is available.

Jay skimmed the message, unable to fully process the content while facing down the boss in front of him.

The skeletal boss moved with impossible speed, bridging the gap to Carlos in a moment. It struck out with its runed sword, slamming the blade into his shoulder. He began to mutter the words to a spell but never got close to completing the thought. The very first blow killed him.

When Carlos died, only three seconds had passed into the new combat—and Jay barely saw it happen. Jay almost didn’t see the warlord move despite his focus on Speed and Perception. Watching the movements of the tall skeleton was like watching a prizefighter box. He saw it happen but was all too aware matching the speed was an impossibility.

He raised his repeater crossbow, knowing the necrotic bolt would be nearly useless—but fired anyway. The bolt sailed through the air on target to blast the undead menace in the skull. He instantly wondered how effective a headshot would even be against the undead.

All of a sudden, the bolt missed. The warlord stepped forward again, this time appearing next to Maria. This movement wasn’t even perceptible; instead, it was created by some kind of teleportation ability. Taylor Lynn was somewhat prepared to assist the remaining healer; she summoned a shield wall constructed from the earth. It didn’t matter.

The warlord crashed through the two-foot thick rock wall with a single stroke. With blinding speed, it struck again, killing Maria in a single attack. The creature’s bones seemed to creak as it turned its gaze on Lester.

At that moment, Jay realized the boss was highly intelligent. Its targets weren’t random, focusing on the most essential core of a party. Even though the party stood almost no chance against it, the creature still moved to dismantle the integral party members.

The warlord blurred forward, slashing viciously at Lester. Their blades met once. Jay and Taylor Lynn spurred to action. Jay blasted another bolt from his crossbow while Taylor Lynn’s chain gun of spells began rapidly firing an alternating current of fire bolts and icicles.

Cuddles leaped from Jay’s shoulder, using his extended crossbow arms as a launching point.

As the projectiles soared, the warlord and Lester clashed again—and the warlord crashed through his guard, dealing heavy damage. He responded by slashing into the forearm bone of the skeleton, which was met with a blow to his rib cage. The tank was dead.

Several of the projectiles struck. Jay’s bolt slammed into the creature’s left shoulder blade. Taylor Lynn’s river of spells impacted at various points. The Strogian Death squirrel contributed, launching a set of eye beams that blasted the creature’s ribcage.

All told, the creature lost three hundred health. And then it blurred toward Taylor Lynn.

Jay heard her begin to cast her earthen shield spell, even though the ability hadn’t done a thing to save Maria. The warlord lifted its sword, rotating its whole body, prepared to slam the blade through her defense.

Jay ran.

As his feet pounded the arena ground, he slipped the current clip out of his crossbow. That clip was replaced with the one containing muck bolts. Those bolts had been most effective in the previous fight against the Strogian soldiers. He spun to fire the traps.

Jay slammed the trigger fast enough to risk locking up the repeater. He fired several muck traps into the ground between him and the warlord. Cuddles still remained near the warlord, which moved to attack him. As the runed blade soared through the air, Jay loaded the clip of ice traps and idly wondered if Cuddles would even respawn.

The blade slammed down.

Instead of being instantly destroyed, Cuddles employed some ability. His body became momentarily ghost-like, causing the blade to phase through him completely. Without sticking around for the follow-up attack, Cuddles leaped through the air toward Jay, jumping over swampy traps.

Landing next to Jay, Cuddles started firing eye beams. They weren’t accurate, but the squirrel sent them sailing over fifty feet, which was impressive in its own right.

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Unsure of what it would do, Jay started firing ice traps wildly into the space between himself and the warlord boss. On the second ice trap, his repeater did lock up, giving him a debuff called “Locked Up.” The effects of the debuff were apparent: the weapon wouldn’t fire.

The icy spirals mingled with the swamp, not creating a combined effect but coexisting.

Jay drew his sword since firing bolts was no longer a possibility. He backed up slowly as Cuddles continued to fire beams at every opportunity.

The elite warlord stepped to the side of the traps and strode slowly around them.

Jay wasn’t sure if the monster knew he had no ranged weapons available. It seemed to, but no other enemies had displayed that much programming intelligence. On the other hand, the enemy could simply be savoring its victory over Jay—which came with a whole different set of implications.

Dismissing the absurd theories he didn’t have time for, Jay ran around the other side of the traps as fast as he could. He thought he was safe with the wall of traps protecting him from the boss. The warlord blurred forward.

Jay wasn’t his target.

The warlord found Cuddles, cleaving its blade in a vast, low arc. This time Cuddles did not employ any ability to dodge, and the elite boss didn’t miss. Cuddles disappeared from Jay’s interface for the first time, leaving the Monster Hunter alone with the monster.

A barrier of traps stood between them, and the warlord paused, turning its smoky red eyes to meet Jay’s. The situation was bizarre, leaving Jay feeling like the monster’s programming routine was calculating something. He stood there blankly, watching the timer on the debuff preventing him from firing his repeater and staring right back.

When his debuff timer was down to three seconds, the warlord teleported again, appearing right next to him. There was just enough time to watch the warlord’s blade descending on his head.

System Message: You were prepared for Turmoil! You have earned 70,000 experience. No loot is available for the third round.

Jay appeared in the challenge room, surrounded by his party. Cuddles, restored to life, was nestled gently on his shoulder. After shooting Jay a look that seemed to say “never get me ruthlessly murdered again,” the squirrel went to sleep.

“Well, did you kill it?” Carlos asked skeptically.

Jay shot him a look of absolute confusion. “I was in there about five seconds after the rest of the party died. Do you think I burned through over eleven thousand health in five seconds?”

Carlos shrugged, now seeming bored. “I doubt it, but it was worth asking. A little optimism never killed anybody.”

“No super crazy plant cocoon spell this time?” Lester asked, looking a bit dejected at the total dismantling of the party during the third boss.

Jay shook his head. “It was still on cooldown. For whatever reason, that skill never reset.”

“Crazy bummer,” Lester acknowledged. “Alright. I guess we should see if we can meet up with the others?”

Everyone echoed their agreement and began firing off messages to the other group. The messages didn’t go through since Sarah’s party still fought inside Turmoil Arena. As the party left, Jay glanced mournfully at the collection of crystals still available on the roots of the strangely placed Burlen tree creating the room.

Jay’s party made their way to the original meeting area, assuming they could just tell Sarah and the others to meet there whenever the messages started going through again.

“That boss was pretty insane, wasn’t it?” Taylor Lynn asked. Her menus were open, and she was clearly going through all of the gains from her recent level-ups. Thanks to the huge experience bonus from the arena, Jay was already level 31.

He needed to distribute a whole armful of statistic points, look through the new menu provided for his Familiar, and check out his level 25 and level 30 abilities.

“That was the worst balance I’ve ever seen,” Jay agreed, summoning his own menus. “I don’t think I’ve seen a boss fight go that poorly with us in… ever, actually. A boss that’s also elite. Practically a fifteen-level gap. That thing was a nightmare and probably still would be at level thirty. Does anyone know how many rounds there are?”

Maria spoke up, smoothing out the folds in her robes. “A rich group from the guild was paid handsomely for a rare item drop. They had the liquid money to purchase tickets and decided to try for the huge experience opportunities. They started at level twenty-five and reached the forties by finishing five rounds.”

The rest of the party muttered angrily about the disparity after realizing they missed out on at least doubling their possible experience rewards.

Before Jay could finish sorting through his own menus, they were interrupted by messages finally going through to the other party. The stream of messages caught up at once, causing a flurry of text-based complaints from the other players. Excitement about getting to hang out with Sarah built, rendering him unable to think through the character choices he needed to make. Maybe she would even have some advice regarding his Claire situation.

“Hey, hello, hi, friends!” Jenny exclaimed, bouncing to the meeting point with Ken, Lurian, Sarah, and Casey in tow. “That was very, very exciting. I wish we could do it again, but all together. Sad news about it being a one-time thing.”

Lurian glowered, inspecting the hammers on his pistols. “They need to let us resupply between rounds. I nearly ran out of bullets by the time we were killed. If we had made it any further, I’d have been a Gunslinger without guns.”

“How far did you make it?” Lester asked curiously.

Looking over the other party’s levels, Jay saw everyone was at least level thirty. Sarah was even level thirty-two.

“We ended up making it to the third round, but we died to the boss,” Casey explained. Next to her, Zenya, the dire wolf, was now level twenty-seven. Even though, by all standards, she was only a few days older, the dire wolf now came up to Casey’s shoulders.

Jay wanted to ask if Zenya would continue growing as she leveled but didn’t get the chance to cut into the conversation. He could just ask her later.

Without missing a beat, Taylor Lynn said, “Yeah, that warlord boss was totally busted. A giant burned skeleton that can move with the speed of a cheetah or something.”

“You fought skeletons in your third round?” Ken asked. He leaned forward, and his eyes widened; everything about his body language said he was very curious. “Your third round was different?”

“That’s weird. I thought all rounds were supposed to be the same after the elementals,” Lester said. After he spoke, he zoned out to try and work out the reason for the difference.

“What?” Sarah asked, shooting Jay the same look she gave him years ago after the Easter Bunny incident. “We didn’t find any weird skeleton monsters. Our third round was fighting these adorable anthropomorphic seals. They waddled around carrying swords and shields. Really nasty ice-breath attack. The final boss was just a giant one with a bunch of extra health. We would have killed it too if Jenny hadn’t run out of mp.”

Lester’s eyes landed on Jay, realizing there was only one real possibility for what made the difference in the rounds.

“Sorry,” Jenny said. “I really thought twenty potions would be enough for the expedition.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sarah said. “But I think it might be time to reconsider the scale of the operation. Also, I need to talk to my brother.”