Few minutes earlier:

Zephyr called out to the GUIDE in his mind to teleport him next to Eli. The next moment, he appeared in the desert, surrounded by golden sand all around. Eli was standing just beside him, but there was something else here as well.

In front of them was a big, hairy spider. It was almost as big as a car, the kind you would find traveling around in Australia. But something told Zephyr that this beast was not from around there. It had six pairs of legs, two more than normal and too many eyes that Zephyr had trouble counting.

The worst thing about it was that the monster had a pair of stingers waving around. It was a monstrosity, a weird combination of a spider and a scorpion, something that was definitely not a product of biological evolution.

The moment he teleported beside Eli, his friend almost chopped his head off with the dagger in her hand, but stopped at the last moment, recognizing who had appeared.

"What are you doing here? Go back in and I'll take care of this monster." Her tone was pressed as she continued her stare-off with the monster with countless eyes.

The stingers waving around behind it had almost charged at her when Zephyr suddenly appeared beside her, but something seemed to have held them off. She was pressuring it.

"Kane told me to look for you during the chaos while they engaged another something down below. It might be something similar to this creature." He pulled back from where he had appeared, drawing some distance from the monster.

When Eli heard that Kane and the others were also fighting a monster below, she seemed to have decided that it was time to finish her stare off. Another dagger appeared in her left hand, which then burst into a bright flame. Her hair also started burning brighter, rising behind her as a fiery aura covered her. Without looking back, she commanded Zephyr, "Stay back and stay clear. I'll take care of this beast. Do not interfere." Not like he had any thought of interfering before.

The arachnid also seemed to have had enough, as in the next moment, the scene erupted in sands.

Eli threw one of her dagger fiercely towards the monster, dodging one of the incoming stingers. Before the second stinger could follow up to skewer her, she disappeared from her position, appearing beside the dagger she had thrown.

[Sort of like how flying raijin works, she can instant flicker to the position of her daggers.]

Grasping both of her daggers, she cut through on of the beast's legs, slicing cleanly with her heated blades. No monster blood erupted, as her flames cauterized the wound, but she wasn't done. Immediately after that, she again threw her dagger towards the beast's head, flickering next to it instantly, above the beast's head.

Her reaction was too quick for the monster to keep up as the stingers had just turned around to aim at where she was bfore, but she was already at the monster's head. But unexpectedly, she failed to land the strike. The beast spewed web from its stingers instead of going for a piercing attack. The ranged attack had been out of expectation, as she failed to dodge it and the web caught her mid air.

Zephyr panicked seeing the situation worsen, quickly bringing out the only weapon he had on himself. The tube at his waist transformed into a hammer, before it transformed again into a double tipped spear. He pressed a button on the two meter long spear, charging up an attack, but the situation again changed in the small instance he was preparing to attack.

Golden flames burst out of from her body instantly the moment Eli was caught, as she freed herself and parried the incoming stingers before retreating. Her red eyes scanned the enemy, looking for an opening. But the monster had already turned defensive. It was not attacking her recklessly, waiting for her to initiate the attack before looking to counter strike. It was intelligent. Much more than an arachnid should be.

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Aware that time was slipping, Eli decided to end everything quickly. She called out to Zephyr behind her, "Attack with your charged shot in three seconds. I'll finish it off with that distraction."

Her idea was simple, to take advantage of the split moment when the monster got distracted by Zephyr's long range attack.

Zephyr nodded in understanding, taking aim at the monster from afar. He was lucky that the monster seemed to not pay him any attention, as all its focus was gathered on his friend, who was spinning her flaming daggers. He counted to three before a charged electric beam erupted from his spear, aiming for the carapace of the monster.

The arachnid had truly failed to notice the incoming attack, as Zephyr had been almost twenty feet away. But the attack was very fast, hitting it square in its face. Eli had thrown her dagger just a split second earlier, catching it in a pincer attack. More afraid of the daggers, it decided to parry the dagger instead of dodging the electric beam. But that was its folly.

The electric beam dispersed an insane amount of charge into the monster's body, instantly paralyzing it for a moment. Eli had known about her friend's attack and its properties. She had expected the attack to catch it off guard, but the paralytic effect surprised her. But it was a good surprise, as she rushed up to pick up her dagger. Bringing both her daggers in front of her, she channeled her magic through her weapon.

The flames grew higher, solidifying around her daggers, increasing their length by a meter. Wasting no time, she brought her flame swords down cleanly cutting through the monster and decapitating it in half. The flames around her calmed, as the burning carcass of the monster fell.

"Huh, that was a quick one. Did you up the numbers in your charged shot? I did not expect it to get paralyzed." She wiped the sweat off her forehead, attaching both her daggers to her waist.

She marveled at the monster she had just slain, having only met similar encounters in dream stages so far.

She had encountered a lot of monsters and mages and warriors through her scenarios so far. In the dream stages especially, her competition would often be extra hard.

"Damn, you were so cool. I can't wait for when you finish your inheritance, so I can also swing around knives with fire. But that was crazy, you know, the way you flickered around the monster, not giving it a chance to even attack you. Can't imagine what kind of stuff you have been going through in your stages." Zephyr arrived beside her, the spear from before gone now, back into a tube form.

Eli just grinned at him, swirling her dagger in her hand as she made her way to the opening in the ground from which she had appeared in the desert after noticing the monster.

"Oh, about the paralysis, I actually used all the stored charges in my hammer to do that. Felt that it would be helpful to go all out. I'll have to charge this thing again now." Zephyr answered her question, hurrying behind her to keep up. She was fast, dammit.

Eli nodded and then gestured at him to keep silent. She slid down the sand that had flooded the floor below and turned towards the area where Kane and others should be. And behold, before her stood a ginormous scorpion, its stinger weaving in and out to pierce her friend Kane, who was doing a good job avoiding it so far.

And he was punching it in return? Well, he defintitely needed a better weapon if he wanted to do any damage, cause all his punches were achieving was to annoy the beast. Further behind him, she spotted Asche, who was doing a good job at restraining the monster with his ice arrows, taking out its scythe like pincers. But then the situation changed as Kane did not choose to dodge the stinger.

Instead, he used his bare hands hold onto the incoming stinger, while Jay appeared out of nowhere to attack the arachnid with a javelin in hand. Eli winced when he used he bare hands to forcefully hold the monster's stinger.

But then Jay's attempt failed, as the monster managed to avoid a fatal blow. Her friends retreated from the monster in haste, probably discussing what to do next, but Eli had seen enough.

She readied one of her daggers and threw it towards the monster's head. It would be over in an instant this time.

.......

Kane saw something bright approach the monster from behind. As soon as he saw what it was clearly, a dagger wreathed in flames, someone else appeared in his vision. She grabbed the flaming dagger, and plunged it through the monster's brains.

And the monster was dead. Just like that. The flames from the dagger turned its brains into fried brain matter. It fell down, quaking the building a little.

Eli jumped down from the dead monster, smirking at her friends as Zephyr also made his way from around the carcass of the monster.

"That was so freaking cool," Jay muttered and Kane had to agree with that.

"Any more monsters for me to dispatch, gentlemen?" Her flaming dagger returned to its inert state, as the fire around her also finally died. But that did nothing to reduce her aura. The guys couldn't even deny her posing, as she legit looked so much cooler than them.

"Let's make sure there aren't any more of these critters around. We have so much cleaning to do now, I swear," Asche interrupted, not bothered by Eli's aura or her posing.

The others nodded, as they ventured back to the training section where most of the ceiling had collapsed to check if anything else had slithered into their 'secret laboratory.'