Being toyed with felt uncomfortable, and everyone slowly began to understand that the exact thing was happening to them, right now.

Even Aisha felt uncomfortable with the current situation, and the only slightly advantageous point was that nobody was severely injured or had died during the brief span of ten minutes since the Golden centipede King had emerged.

However, knowing that it was not their own determination that had made this possible was depressing, and she could feel that the elemental and rainbow subterra centipedes were forcefully held back by the Golden centipede king.

Not knowing why this was the case, Aisha and the Valkyries could only try their best to fight against the huge masses of centipedes all over the third floor.

Everyone was exhausted and in only ten minutes, they had to use several high-grade potions in succession, only to barely stand a chance against the flood of centipedes.

The students in the back, who had now arrived in front of the tunnel leading to the second floor could only shiver in fright, while Shane could barely get a grip on himself.

Panic slowly enveloped everyone including the seasoned second and third-year students who had already solved difficult missions in order to obtain a higher mana purification manual.

The situation in front of them was several times more threatening than these missions and Shane was also aware of the same.

He was only glad that nobody had fainted or collapsed until now which he would have expected under normal circumstances, and the only thing that probably refrained them from doing so was their trust in Aisha and the Valkyries and their sheer will to survive.

Taking a deep breath, Shane saw that a few students charged inside the tunnel leading towards the second floor which the Valkyries around them cleared and protected with their utmost efforts.

Melanie and a few other students were the first to arrive in the tunnel that looked like it would collapse any moment, as they charged forward without looking back.

Suddenly, Shane's eyes widened when he noticed that they were still in the Golden centipede King's range of mana fluctuations, as he shouted.

"Watch out!!! It's still not over!" Hearing this, Melanie and the three students that were far ahead frowned, as their eyes widened in shock when they noticed that they had run straight into the spatial portal that had suddenly appeared in front of them, out of nowhere.

Shane, who was one of the last to enter the tunnel, noticed this and turned around in shock, only to see Melanie and the other three students appear below the ceiling as they fell straight inside the most crowded spot with centipedes.

'F*ck!!' He shouted inwardly as he imagined the four students being torn apart any moment, as Aisha and her Valkyries noticed this as well.

Their eyes widened and all of them began to utilize their full combat strength without holding a single skill back, as they charged towards the spot crowded with the centipedes in order to save the helpless students.

Slashing, thrusting and using their Holy affinity, Shane noticed that their small group consisting of Aisha and half of the Valkyries opened a path towards the center when the Golden centipede King released the already existing spatial portals in order to manifest a large one below the Valkyries, forcefully throwing them more than thirty meters away.

They were once again outside the horde of centipedes as Aisha stared straight towards the four students that were about to land on the ground.

Gnawing her teeth, she gathered all of her remaining mana, as she activated her Inherit Skill [Holy Saintess(Goddess Protection Charm)].

Aisha was immediately enveloped in divine light, as the holy being she was already acquainted with, manifested around her, rising behind her as a gigantic halo.

Nobody could see the holy being's face except Aisha, and instead of putting on a farce by showing her beauty, the holy being waved with her hand, as every human being in its range was enveloped in a thick membrane to protect them.

However, instead of sighing in relief, she took out and gulped down several potions at once. Aisha knew that she couldn't maintain the skill for long, as it required an enormous amount of mana..

"Valkyries, attack!!!" She shouted and overstrained her body and mana pool without caring about the possible damages, as she stormed towards the horde of centipedes.

The Valkyries followed suit, not caring about their life as they started with their slaughter without even trying to defend against the elemental attacks bombarded at them.

Every attack would be nullified by the holy being for a short period, which meant that not only would they survive elemental attacks, but that the four students in the center would be able to overcome the threat as long as the valkyries rescued them soon enough.

The tension on the third floor intensified to a whole new level because everyone, be it human or centipede, fought desperately to survive, except the Golden centipede King that looked at everything as if this incident had nothing to do with it at all.

Trying to use this moment in order to escape, two youths slowly retreated towards the tunnel leading to the second floor, as the Golden centipede King averted its attention from the battlefield towards the small group of students and Valkyries.

Suddenly the pressure around them increased, forcing everyone to fall down on their knees, as the Golden centipede King screeched out loud.

*SKREEECCHZZZ*

Without knowing what exactly it wanted to express, Shane and the others from the expedition team could only guess that it definitely wasn't a good sign, as a small spatial portal manifested next to the golden centipede.

Shane's eyes widened, as he suddenly saw the two students that seemed to have snuck away without anyone's knowledge emerge from the spatial portal.

They were enveloped in the thick holy shining membrane, but it was only a matter of time until Aisha's skill would end which the Golden centipede King awaited longingly, as it started to move for the first time.

Coiling around the two students with more than enough space left for them to move around, the Golden centipede King continued to play its game, as it released a sound on a high frequency.

When the other centipedes heard this sound, their whole body stiffened for a moment, before they seemed to go berserk, as their whole mana pool was released at once.

With several hundred elemental affinities activated at the same time, the whole hall suddenly shook violently.

The tunnel behind them started to collapse which caused the first students to faint, thinking that everything was over. when the thick holy membrane around them began to dissipate slowly.

Aisha and the Valkyries were already fighting their way through the centipede horde, and had almost annihilated half of their group within a short amount of time when all of them released their affinities by using all mana within them.

Shocked by the sudden change, Aisha noticed that the holy being above her would dissipate sooner than she had initially thought, which told her that her Inherit Skill was forcefully used up.

However, it was impossible for her to increase her hunting speed further, as she took out several high-grade grenades which she launched without hesitation, as long as her skill was still activated.

The other Valkyries did the same as they took out three high-explosive fragmentation grenades from their spatial rings and ignited them.

Throwing them a few meters away from themselves, the grenades exploded barely before the Holy Saintess skill lost its effect.

More than a hundred explosions occurred, and Shane witnessed how the last several dozen peak-Awakened stage elemental and rainbow subterra centipedes were ripped to pieces and blown apart.

Black smoke filled the cave, and the only thing one could see were faint outlines of a small set of a spatial portal manifesting where Melanie and the three other students were located as the three emerged within the Golden centipede King's encirclement.

Only Melanie was not seized by the spatial portal that was too small for the four of them to fall through at once, which saved her life.

When the black smoke started to dissipate, Shane could only see that the whole cave was littered with centipede corpses and remains as he looked out for Aisha and the other Valkyries that had fought valiantly in order to save the other students.

His eyes widened in shock, as he saw that all of them were unconscious, sapped of their energy without a single trace of mana left inside them as Aimy next to him shrieked in disbelief.

Averting his attention to Aimy, he saw her point towards the Golden centipede King with her trembling finger, and Shane's gaze fixated on it.

Suddenly, the Golden centipede King started to move, revealing the two students that wanted to run away, next to the three students that were captured and thrown into the centipede crowd with Melanie.

Not wasting any more time, the Golden centipede King began to notice that it had underestimated its opponents, as it withdrew the mana fluctuations enveloping almost the entire floor as it had used up too much mana.

However, instead of backing off, the Golden centipede King lashed out with its remaining mana pool for a quarter of a second before it withdrew its mana once again, as the five students' heads blew open.