“You never said anything about a giant snake living inside that thing!” I called out to Elk, who only shrugged as if he had forgotten to tell me his favorite color was red.

  “I never went this far,” he offered, and I couldn’t argue.

  “Any tips?” Mary asked from behind her shield as we walked to the arena’s center, where the sunlight shone brighter.

  “Stay tight together, let’s form a position beneath the light,” I said, just to make sure everyone was on the same page.

  Tress had her bow drawn, and her quiver seemed to still be near full. Elk’s illusions surrounded us as well, some closer, others farther away, but nothing happened.

  “It will try to kill us with hunger? Wait for us to get so tired that we’ll stray from the sunlight?” Mary asked, and I realized she was trying to calm herself down, but it wasn’t working. Her shield hand trembled with every second.

  Tress scanned the surroundings, searching for any anomalies on the walls, and I did the same.

  Elk seemed more afraid than Mary, but he was trying too hard to hide it. His forehead was soaked in sweat, and he kept waving his staff from one side to the other.

  “It’s just a fucking snake,” I muttered to him. I wished I could be gentler at the moment, but I needed them ready to fight, not trembling with fear.

  “It’s a devil!” Elk protested, a little louder than I expected.

  As if the sound caused the reaction, the monster jumped from a nearby wall. The thing exited the shadows as if it were one with them, but each inch it moved through the air, it became less and less ethereal and more and more like a freakshow beast.

  “Right!” I bellowed, turning Mary to the side and releasing a lightning strike. The magic hit the creature in the bulk of its body, the part that still had four limbs. Still, it didn’t stop its dash.

  The next moment, the beast crashed against the shield.

  Its upper jaw bit the top of Mary’s shield, threatening to yank it from her. Tress stepped forward, her bow now on her back, and her sword slashing toward the snake’s face.

  The monster was smart, smarter than when it had several heads instead of one. It released its grip on the shield before it could be hit and dove back onto the ground, disappearing into the shadows.

  A part of me expected it to try another type of attack, but as soon as Tress finished the movement she had already started, the monster jumped from the shadows again, hitting Tress right on the back with the full weight of its head.

  The elf fell, her gace hitting the ground, her sword tumbling away. The monster prepared to attack, its snake head high in the sky and its drake body now standing on all fours. It appeared the boss was learning how to better control its entire body with each passing second.

  Before it could attack Tress, I had already activated my [Lightning Momentum]. The heat of the moment ended up throwing me a few inches away from where I intended, but with my dagger ready in my extended right hand, I was able to carve it into the side of the snake's body.

  This time, the monster hissed in pain, a frenetic sound followed by a violent response. It thrashed with a boost of speed and strength that threw me away.

  The world blurred as I crashed against the closest wall. I blinked as my head rang with the impact. The first thing I noticed was the creature’s blood pouring from its head. Then, Elk released a fireball at it, and the monster hissed in pain As flames washed over it, slithering back and disappearing into the dim shadows.

  It was almost like watching someone descending an elevator from the outside of a building, but Boss vanished into the shadow, almost as if melding with solid ground.

  It appeared that Elk believed it was coming for me and after freeing himself from the state he had been in, conjured a wall of fire around me. This skill hadn’t been very useful until now, but I felt secure within it.

  Before the wall closed, Mary helped Tress get up.

  A few moments passed, but nothing happened. The monster seemed afraid of fire and knew it couldn’t attack me or Elk without exposing itself to the flames.

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  However, we also couldn’t find the monster and kill it.

  We were caught between a rock and a hard place.

  “Remove the wall, Elk. And be prepared to—” Before I could finish, the snake’s head erupted from between my legs, its giant maw already open.

  The next second, my ankle was between its fangs. The pain disappeared amidst the shock, almost paralyzing. I released a ‘huh,’ and then the searing sensation hit like a truck.

  My eyes were on the beast, and I knew it would start to thrash me, and my leg would be gone. Thankfully, my weapons responded very quickly due to my patronage.

  As soon as I felt the pinch on my leg, my wand was already being summoned and pointed at the creature.

  A lightning bolt struck the monster right between its eyes. My hair stood on end, but as I already knew, I wasn’t hit by the magic.

  “Remove the wall!” I shouted as the monster loosened its grip on my leg, and I was able to stumble away.

  I tried to move as fast as I could, but my steps were too close or too far from each other. A haze struck my head, and it was as if I had drunk a whole bottle of wine.

  “Poison… Healing…” I muttered midway, hoping they could hear my cry.

  The next thing I heard was banging against the shield. I blinked, feeling my speed returning. Another bang against the shield, and I realized I was pushing through across the crater, my poisoned leg making me limp and slughshly move..

  A fireball hit the shield, and I was finally running.

  I reached the circle with them and gave a final punch on the shield to heal me.

  “Ouch!” I exclaimed as the pain radiated through my fist. It had probably cleared the poison, but not the pain in my knuckles.

  “What are we going to do?” Elk asked, his voice less fearful now.

  “We’re taking it down. Slowly, but I feel we’re winning.”

  “I don’t know about that. Besides, we don’t have the time to keep fighting it. We need to get away from here as soon as possible,” Mary added, reminding me of the urgency of reaching the city stone before Max and his party.

  “I have a plan, it’s kinda crazy, but I’ll need cover in case it bites any of us again or comes at an angle I’m not expecting,” I offered, and they all nodded quickly. “That easy? All right.”

  I explained the plan to them as fast as I could and started moving a few feet away from them.

  “Throw the rope now,” I asked, and Mary tossed it to me. I grabbed it quickly, waiting for the second part of the plan to start.

  Elk made his wall of fire around me, and I started counting. If I reached sixty and nothing happened, we would open the wall.

  However, it didn’t take long for the monster to choose its target.

  Tress moved strategically a few steps away from Mary’s cover, and the monster noticed it.

  The rope in my hand was already on fire. I tried to be strategic about it, burning only the middle parts and leaving the ends for me to grab. Sooner rather than later, the whole thing would be on fire, but I’d much prefer a few burning on my hands than death.

  When the sound of feet sliding on the ground echoed through the crater, I knew the monster was trying to kill Tress.

  As soon as Elk’s wall disappeared, I knew it for sure. The [Llightning Momentum] was already activated when I jumped toward the creature.

  My first experience taught me a little, and I took advantage of it. This time, I landed on the monster’s back on the first try.

  It didn’t fall, though. It was in the middle of a strike against Tress, its monstrous feet sunk deep into the ground.

  It was the perfect moment, so I held the rope as tight as possible and wrapped it around the creature’s neck. The beast tried to dodge, but after I fid the first wrap rather easily, the others weren’t that hard, even with its thick neck.

  I wished I had some crazy kratos chain skills in that moment because I’d behead the creature, but all my fire-wrapped cord did was make room for the others.

  The monster thrashed as I gave another round of rope around its neck. I smelled its scales burning, and it was strangely pleasant. I was again a cowboy, but there was no croud cheering for me.

  I started to sink with the creature; it was trying to retreat into the shadows. Its drake body entered first, but when the snake neck tried to descend, my wrapped rope slowed it immensely.

  It was still going down, but it wouldn’t go down easy.

  Holding the rope as firmly as possible, my skin started to burn like hell. It felt as if a giant kitchen grater rubbed against my skin over and over.

  I was about to scream, “What the hell are you waiting for?” when the arrows flew.

  Then another, then another, and at the last, a single fireball.

  The creature’s face fell limp to the side, but its body remained inside the shadows. My hands were a mess of blood and burns. They were pink, like a piglet's newborn skin.

  I wasn’t feeling pain anymore. It was so strange looking at my deformed hands like that.

  Then, Mary started to heal me, and the pain came.

  I rolled on the ground, feeling my body reconstruct my hands—nerve by nerve, muscle by muscle, follicle by follicle.

  When it was finished, the message finally appeared.

  Task 1 - Complete

  Complete task 2 to earn your rewards.

  Escape the dungeon.

  Still on the ground, I watched as the crater growled violently— as if a giant had just woken up inside it. In the next moment, the whole thing started to crumble. A giant rock fell right beside me. Before I could thank my luck, I was yanked from the ground by Tress and Elk.

  “Time to run,” Mary shouted, dismissing her shield and running for her life.