As soon as we all crossed the veil, the previously invisible curtain turned dark. I didn’t need to try to know it was impossible to cross back.

  We had only one option—kill the boss or be killed by it.

  There was still a small step for us to descend before reaching the rectangular-shaped room. As we walked toward it, we finally got a good look at the creature before us.

  The monster, which had been dashing through the crater behind the fog until that moment, was now still, sitting like a dog at the far end of the crater.

  As if waiting for its owner to arrive—or, more specifically, for the warriors to fight us.

  Less calm was the viewership that kept appearing in waves at the edge of my vision. I caught sight of a few gods watching the fight as well—my patrons for sure. Maybe others had their eyes on my companions? I hoped so.

  It was hard to discern the boss’s features. The crater’s shadow was darker here, but the sun, nearing noon, helped clear the middle of the arena and part of its edge.

  I was expecting a four-legged dragon, like I’d seen in a few video games, and in a way, I was right. Four limbs covered in dark scales, the monster was as big and muscular as a bull, but instead of a draconic face that could spit fire, it had a hundred different faces.

  Protruding from its thick neck, snakes of different sizes and colors hissed with their forked tongues.

  They were still at first, almost resembling the draconic face I was expecting, but with every step, they grew more agitated, moving in all directions.

  That was what gave the monster the strange flow we’d noticed before. I’d thought the creature had antennas that swayed with its movements, but they were actually snakes—and they all seemed pretty annoyed that we were entering its lair.

  “Is this from your planets?” I asked my companions as we stepped carefully toward the place.

  Dragons were a major part of Elk’s culture, so I wasn’t surprised when he was the one to speak, his voice laced with fear.

  “It’s a demon. A human creation, a blasphemy against the gods of Trass.”

  I looked back, and he was shaking, his eyes darting from side to side as if searching for an edge—or maybe an exit.

  “How do we kill it?” Tress offered, one hand on his arm, trying to calm the Arahaktar.

  “I spent the last few years running and hiding from those monsters. I killed some inferior ones, but not a Drake. Fire is useless against their bodies, this I know, but it can hurt the heads.”

  It was all he could offer. It looked as if the demon was ready to turn and run, to try crossing the curtain even knowing it would kill him.

  “Hey!” I took his arm with a firm grip, and the demon jolted, reality striking him as we locked eyes. He was a few inches taller than me, but at that moment, he looked so small.

  “I need you. Can you have my back?”

  “I can,” he said after a second.

  “As soon as we step in, make as many illusions as you can and fight the creature alongside Mary and Tress. I’ll try to sneak up on it. Would you know where its heart is?”

  “All dragons have their heart on their back, close to the neck. The few demons I killed followed a similar anatomy,” he offered, his breathing a little steadier.

  “Right. Now make an illusion of me, and I’ll go invisible. Fool the monster, and I’ll deal with it.”

  I pressed my hand a little harder against his arm to make sure he understood. When he nodded, more determination in his eyes, I looked at Mary.

  “They’ll keep you alive. Keep that shield up, and don’t let the monster kill the others.”

  Mary swallowed hard, but I could see courage in her eyes. Tress remained stoic—if she had any worries, she kept them to herself.

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  “We can do this,” was all she said.

  I popped my invisibility skill and jumped down the crater.

  The monster didn’t react at first, but as soon as Elk and several illusions of our party made the same movement, the creature dashed across the arena.

  Running like a bull in a Spanish arena, the monstrosity charged straight toward the real Elk. I was off to the right, my eyes locked on the boss.

  Mary was quick to step in front of Elk, her strength nearly not enough to hold the monster back, but as we’d learned in the fight with the golems, with more than one person behind the shield, it was much easier to push.

  Elk helped her as Tress released a volley of arrows at the monster’s snake-like heads.

  Some of the creatures made an awful sound but stopped moving after her attacks struck. It took a moment for me to realize they were most likely dead.

  The monster looked truly unnatural, as if the snakes had been sewn into its neck, but when one of them was hit by an arrow, it fell limp—each head acting as a separate creature rather than a single, unified being.

  Even with the intensity of the situation, that detail stuck in my mind. Maybe I’d need to use it soon.

  As the arrows struck the monster, it staggered back a few steps.

  Elk followed up with fireballs. The creature dodged some of them, shifting to the side as if its hundred eyes gave it an uncanny awareness of every attack.

  But after a few shots, one finally landed. A few of the snake heads hissed before going limp. The monster crouched in a swift motion, rubbing its heads violently against the rocky, sandy ground to extinguish the flames.

  My companions repositioned themselves, and I figured this was my best opportunity.

  I only hoped Lightning Momentum wouldn’t break my invisibility. No way to know without testing it first.

  “Here goes nothing,” I muttered as lightning infused my feet, and I leapt straight at the creature. The monster was as tall as a horse, so landing on it shouldn’t have been too hard.

  The problem was, it kept moving—and I kept missing.

  Each time I lost momentum, one of the illusions was destroyed.

  On the third leap, I finally landed on the beast. It was sleek, but I held on.

  The impact sent the monster crashing to the ground. I wasn’t expecting my weight to be enough to do that, but a pleasant surprise isn’t something to scoff at.

  Now, the next step of the plan.

  I plunged my dagger as fast and forcefully as possible toward the base of the monster’s neck.

  A few snakes turned toward me, but the delay between me entering combat and my invisibility breaking was generous enough that they never saw my blade coming.

  Half a second later, I felt the tip of my dagger cutting through the hard scales, slicing into the meat and muscle of the creature.

  The monster thrashed in a violent spasm, and I expected it—just like someone suffering from a heart attack—to convulse, grunt, and fall dead.

  But instead, it kept thrashing.

  My invisibility had been broken, and my hardest strike hadn’t been enough to kill it. Or had I missed the heart?

  It was like riding a mechanical bull—except this one was faster, more violent, alive, and had hundreds of snakes trying to bite me. I managed to hold on only because my dagger was still buried deep in the monster’s flesh.

  I had one more chance. If I hit it with lightning, maybe that would be enough. There was a critical chance, and the path to its insides was already open thanks to my dagger.

  I summoned my wand mid-motion, thrusting it toward the open wound. The crackling sound of lightning burst through the air and into the creature.

  The thrashing intensified for a moment—then the monster collapsed.

  It hit the ground, seemingly dead.

  All the snake faces lay motionless, no longer eager to kill us, no more strange flowing movements.

  “That was it?” Mary asked. I had to scan the battlefield to find her among so many illusions. Elk must’ve been exhausted keeping them up, but he hadn’t dropped them.

  We received no message about killing the boss. And the devil knew it.

  I jumped off the corpse, watching it carefully.

  What did I need to do?

  I looked around—up into the crater, back to the dead body. Was there another one somewhere?

  But no new monster appeared—not from the skies, not from the rest of the crater.

  Then, right where the creature had fallen, the snake heads began sinking into its body, as if something inside was pulling them in like strands of wool.

  We stood on guard, mesmerized by the eerie sight.

  When the last head disappeared, something burst from the creature’s neck.

  A giant snake, fitting perfectly inside the now-empty space, erupted from the drake’s body. It stood at least six feet tall, thick and menacing. A strange black veil seemed to wrap around it, fading as it opened its mouth and hissed toward the sky.

  All right, that’s enough, I thought, preparing to dash and strike again, but the monster moved with unnatural speed. The draconic part of its body seemed half-dead, only partially responding to the snake’s commands.

  Two of its limbs helped it move, but the others hung limp.

  The monster dashed—but it didn’t aim at us.

  It crawled with eerie speed and dove straight into a wall, vanishing into the shadows.

  “Oh, that’s what ‘shadow’ means,” Mary said as we stared at the dark, silent walls.

  Waiting.