“Keep the pressure up,” Esofy calls as she jumps backward to dodge a swipe from the Felin Boss. Tana rushes forward with a blazing sword and cuts along the beast’s arm. It roars and tries to bite down on Tana, but she jams the shield in the large monster’s mouth; the sharp point on the bottom of the shield pierces the Boss’s tongue, making it reel back and expose itself to Jowaru and Irela’s combination attack that slices off its hind leg, dropping it to the ground.

“Now!” Kadona shouts.

Both Uloru and Kadona run forward just as Esofy impales the Boss’s paw to the ground so it can’t counterattack. Chyzu’s ice spears slam into the creature’s head to expose its neck, and, with the two warriors’ oversized weapons, they cut off the monster’s head in a combo attack.

“Good work, everybody,” Esofy says, wiping the blood off the flat of her void scythe. “That is our fastest kill yet. No one made any mistakes either; I think we are ready for another Heroic kill, the Diamond Felin.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, now.” Kadona jumps in. “That one has two Classes.”

“So do we,” Jowaru says with a shrug.

“We are close to its levels now, plus it will really help our upcoming evolutions and prepare us for the Treant kill,” Chyzu says.

“Yeah! I can’t wait to test myself against the strongest Heroic monster in this dungeon!” Uloru boastfully says.

“Do you really think we are ready for that fight?” Tana asks, looking at Esofy, to which she nods.

“It’s a Diamond Felin, that pelt will be capable of making incredible armor; we need it, and with a monster that size, we can all have armor made from its pelt.” Irela twirls her brown hair, looking at the recent kill; her green eyes dart to the horn on the Boss’s head. “I bet we can make something useful from that, too.”

“What are you thinking?” Jowaru asks, tilting her helmeted head.

“Just wondering how we can use the lightning attacks it had,” Irela casually replies.

“Let’s get what materials we can and take a moment to rest; then we test our strength against the Diamond Felin.”

The group makes their way to the Diamond Felin, [Analyzing] it.

Diamond Felin Patriarch (Heroic), Level 435 Diamond Resonator (Heroic), Level 376 Diamond Regenerator (Heroic).

“All other Heroic monsters had Grand-tier Classes, and only one of them,” Kadona warns. “I don’t think we can defeat this one.”

“Maybe we should get Alysara’s help for this one?” Tana suggests.

Irela lightly scoffs.

“Just like with the Ruby-Backed Arachnid, her spells won’t be able to do much...” Irela hesitates a little. “Although, she can help with preparations.”

“Alysara is not used to fighting with us,” Esofy says. “In such a high-risk battle, we need as few chaotic factors as possible. This is not a fight to kill it as fast as we can; it’s an endurance battle.”

“It’s a regenerator?” Jowaru points out the flaw in Esofy’s statement. “We kinda have to do a lot of damage.”

“What I meant is that we only need to out-damage its healing,” Esofy corrects. “We get in a rhythm like we always do, and we’ll be able to take it down.”

“I’m on board with having Alysara help us,” Kadona says. “She just needs to follow orders and not act out.”

“Haa,” Uloru breathes out. “We can take it down! It’s just like Esofy says; we set up our strong attacks, just like always!” Uloru punches the air a few times.

“Hmm.” Chyzu hums, her blue-furred tails swishing around in thought. “On one hand, I want us to be able to defeat this by ourselves, but on the other, we should focus on safety first; every Heroic monster has really powerful attacks; this one will be even stronger, and may have more of those attacks in its arsenal.”

“But what does she really bring?” Irela says, “She’s weak against gem, regenerator, and tank-type monsters, of which this one is all three; how will she help us, other than to make custom armor for us, which will take days.”

“Irela is right,” Esofy says after some thought. “We don’t need her help for this; we’ll play it defensively, and retreat if there’s trouble.”

“Yes!” Uloru pumps her fist, eager to try to test her mettle.

“This is a bad idea,” Kadona mutters.

Tana doesn’t say anything, but judging from her expression she is steeling her determination.

Esofy looks to Chyzu.

“I know” Chyzu conjures a water clone; it looks exactly like her except that it appears to be made of water. Not as good as Alysara’s clones, but it does the job. The clone charges into the boss room to test its abilities.

“Every time I hit it, the diamonds on its back produce a sound that is affecting my clone,” Chyzu reports.

The sounds of battle can be heard clearly.

“It’s conjuring diamond spears... which explode upon contact with the ground.” Chyzu further reports. “It’s staying at range and using its spears, but doesn’t move farther away when I get closer.”

“Engage in melee and see what it does,” Esofy orders.

An ear-piercing ‘scheen’ sound echoes around the Glade; everyone covers their ears as they start bleeding. Tana quickly heals everyone from the wide-range attack.

“The diamonds on its back are producing the sounds. It’s using short-ranged cone-type attacks with sound at the same time it’s attacking in melee... And it can launch out its diamond fur, which regrows quickly.”

“Likely an attack from its regenerator Class,” Tana suggests.

“It’s causing diamond to grow from the ground and envelope my Clone.”

Suddenly, a loud bang comes from the Boss room, and then a laser sweeps through the side of the room, narrowly missing the group waiting a room away. The laser cuts cleanly through the entire Glade and many trees outside.

“That was close!” Jowaru exclaims, looking through the smoking Glade.

“That is its super attack, right? Any thoughts on how to beat it?” Irela says, looking askance at the devastation.

“Same as always!” Uloru says confidently, walking forward and planting a foot on the smoking wall of the room they are in.” Just use the waystone key to teleport out, then run back in!”

Esofy nods. “Chyzu’s clone will keep the attack away from us.”

“What are we going to do against the sound-based attacks?” Kadona asks.

Esofy withdraws several amber-colored hoods made of earth silk from her storage ring.

“Enchanted to resist sound. It’s the first time we are up against a monster with sound spells that warrant their use, but I have come prepared. They nullify all sounds. To help our coordination, I brought these.”

Esofy takes out several pairs of long, needle-like headwear made of metallic sound essence. She pokes the end through the ear sleeves of the hoods; a ball at the other end sits on the head of the wearer. From the ball, a long flexible piece wraps around the head to sit near the mouth.

“This will allow us to communicate while wearing these hoods.”

“You had Alysara make these; I recognize her handiwork.” Chyzu states.

“I did; she made them pretty quickly.”

With that, they are ready. The group marches into the boss room after one last prep meeting to make sure everybody has what they need and are fully prepared for anything the Boss might throw at them.

Esofy is more concerned about doing enough damage than taking damage; the group has proven themselves to be good enough to not take a single hit from the last few boss fights.

The group spreads out in their primary formation, surrounding the Diamond Felin in such a way that each person can create openings for another. Tana and Esofy make the first pair, Jowaru and Irela the second, Kadona and Uloru for the third, while Chyzu stands at the back with Irela, making a weird group between the mages and Jowaru.

Jowaru takes the Boss’s attention first, taking the hits on her shield. Irela commands her metal to help defend her teammate. With the Boss’s flank open, Kadona takes the initiative, aiming for the achilles tendon while Uloru enlarges her hammer to sweep the legs.

Kadona’s sword bites into fur, skin, and flesh, but not nearly enough to cut through the tendon. Meanwhile, Uloru’s hammer slams into the leg, but not hard enough to trip the colossal Felin. Its tail falls on them, but Ulro deflects it with a shrinking hammer.

Chyzu stands far behind Jowaru, gathering mana into a powerful attack while Esofy and Tana dash forward, side by side. Tana suddenly sprints ahead then stops, turning around and raising her shield to provide a footstep for Esofy, who jumps with her boost onto the back of Felin. Esofy raises her void scythe and runs up the spine to the neck, swinging her scythe and cutting off the resonating diamond growths to hinder its sound-based attacks. Once at the neck, she swings down to decapitate the beast, but is thrown off by violent shaking.

The Felin screeches and kicks Kadona as she comes in for another attack, launching her backward against the wall. The Felin then slams its paw onto the prone Esofy, who is recovering after being thrown off.

The white light is slowly consuming the Felin as Tana’s flame spreads, the odd-looking girl running and zigzagging as diamond spears manifest in the air.

“Dodge!” Esofy manages to wheeze out as she finishes skidding across the ground from being batted away. Everyone moves into action as spears fly through the air, exploding where they stood a moment before. Jowaru jumps in front of Esofy to block the spear heading toward her.

“Let’s get into our rhythm!” Esofy orders, standing back up and returning to the fray. “Don’t try to do damage; try to create openings for someone else to land a crippling blow!”

With that, the group aims for the vulnerable legs. Irela and Jowaru lands a good combo move, dazing the beast and allowing Kadona and Uloru to cut deeply into a hind leg.

“Don’t let it recover!” Esofy says as she charges in.” Try to get the leg cut off!”

Everyone springs into action, tackling different limbs to distract and hinder the monster’s movement. The diamonds on its back have finally regrown, however, and a burst of sound rattles everyone’s insides, the sound like a scream in their ears despite the enchanted hoods.

Esofy feels pain erupt in her side, almost like something has ruptured inside her, but resists the urge to double over as she grits her teeth and jumps onto the right front leg. Fighting the pain, she climbs up, grabbing handfuls of diamond fur and hoisting herself up onto the Felin’s back, then swings her scythe and cuts off the diamond growths again. The Boss stumbles as Uloru finally hammers Kadona’s sword through the leg.

The Felin opens its mouth wide and lets out a bone-rattling screech, but its pained noise is cut short by Chyzu’s spell ramming a huge ice spear down its throat. Esofy runs down the spine again, cutting a long trail into its back with her scythe before successfully swinging her scythe across the neck; however, before she can make another cut to finish cutting off the head, she finds herself flying through the air, her entire body feeling like mush, like her bones have been turned into powder.

Pain erupts throughout her body, agony as though her blood has turned to fire. Twirling limply in the air, Esofy sees the others being thrown across the room as well. Esofy hits the floor and absolute, blinding pain consumes every other sensation for a few moments. Screaming, Esofy just barely sees Tana rushing toward her, her healing flames already blazing in her hand.

Tana slaps Esofy with the flames that spread, providing a soothing sensation, before she runs off to heal someone else. Esofy’s flesh knits itself back together, bones twisting back to form and returning structure to her body, while she helplessly watches Jowaru struggling to fend off the injured Boss.

Esofy spends an eternity simply watching the slow fight between their juggernaut and the diamond-clad beast. She watches the Boss regenerate, and all their hard work is undone. Esofy watches as diamond essence mana builds and builds, charging some powerful attack; she tries to warn everyone, but pain assaults her, and she is unable to make sounds even as her mouth moves. Finally, Esofy can feel strength enter her limbs, and she stands back up, wobbling as she reorients herself.

“TO ME!” Esofy shouts, finally finding her voice. As if acting on pure reflex, everyone instantly sprints to her; Esofy pulls out the waystone key, and, once everyone is touching her, she activates it, just in time to avoid the powerful laser sweeping toward them. The group reappears at the dungeon entrance.

Esofy slumps to the ground, breathing heavily. It had not gone well; mistakes were made, something they can’t afford against such a monster.

They simply sit there for a while, recovering from the ordeal.

“What are you guys doing standing around here?” Someone breaks the silence.

Looking over, Esofy sees a girl standing elegantly near the entrance. Her royal blue hair stands still even against the wind blowing through the clearing. Three very long tails dance gracefully behind her. It is Alysara’s illusory clone.

“Stewing in our defeat,” Esofy replies.

Alysara walks over to them and sits down next to Esofy.

“I wasn’t watching.” Alysara says, “But I found something that might interest you. I notice you guys are getting too used to the monsters in this forest and its dens, and I thought a change of scenery might help you; after all, fighting the same monsters all this time, you won’t be able to properly adapt; to unknown monsters.”

“Are you sure you weren’t watching?” Esofy accuses Alysara with a hint of a smile. They had just learned that lesson, after all.

“I was scouting around a desert far to the west; my perception is not that big yet,” Alysars retorts, somehow imbuing her voice with elegant beauty.

“How far away is the desert?” Esofy asks.

“About a two- or three-day walk, can easily be done in one or less with my wings,” Alysara replies.

“Let’s get the waystone to the Pyramid, then take a rest from the dungeon; after the Diamond Felin, I just want to take a good long rest.., Plus I feel so gross; all of this grime from a few weeks is bad.” Chyzu complains.

“I’m so glad I can’t smell through my clones right now. Why don’t you just give me the waystone key? I can attune it to the desert waystone, and probably more, while you guys take a break.” Alysara suggests.

“That’s a good idea,” Uloru says, nodding her head in enthusiastic approval, her black hair swaying from the motion.

The rest of the group agrees to end their expedition here for now, and they step through the dungeon entrance, back into the comfortable Nexus air, the heat and humidity soothing their bodies from the stress of the dungeon expedition.