Eight armed [Arcane Bolt]s matched eight [Arcanum]s above Rainer. The moment the fight started, he Void-walked up in the air before unleashing his fastest attacks towards the other side, not even getting a chance to truly target anyone.

They rushed to defend, utterly stunned by the strength of the instant attacks. The violet beams of Arcane tore through their hastily put up defenses, but there were always more to meet them. The lack of focus meant that the wide swath of destruction lacked any victims.

Rainer recognized almost none of them, perhaps a good reason why they managed to get so far. He generally didn’t pair with people from his same planet either; the Flameborne mixed party was an exception.

While impressed with his attacks, neither of these two attacks were easy for him to use [Soul Presence] with. As of now, his only success was in bolstering his related manipulation skill rather than the skill or spell directly, [Absolute Frost] being a unique exception. [Arcane Energy Manipulation] didn’t function too well with the preset Arcane-weaved rituals and generally only helped in charging up the armed version of [Arcane Bolt].

While his recent gains in Intelligence and the bonus of [Dungeon Pioneer] meant his attacks were quite a bit stronger, he still had a distant disappointment that he hadn’t managed to kill a single person with this assault. His lack of a second 2nd Tier Class that dealt with Arcane became apparent in his strength, and only pushed him further down the route of figuring out how to use Void and Arcane even more synergistically along with focusing on improving spells rather than their raw power through other means.

Magic was his path.

He pretended to charge up another attack, having changed their strategy after last round. It became increasingly obvious when put into practice how unfair and powerful him and a Talvara-possessed Aurora working together was. If they could avoid being focused or mislead the enemy with their abilities, all the better.

Rainer realized his earlier fear of that Aura user was silly. While it hurt his pride, he wasn’t here to boost his ego. He was here to conquer the Dungeon and then use whatever strength gains to explore and visit the Soul Marks he created and search out new magic. That, and defend against the coming invasion. Assuming the Farseer’s Guild’s vision proved true.

With Talvara’s help, they might even be able to ignore the Aura user and pick off his party. Even if worse, his own [Void Hold] wasn’t anything to scoff at. And no matter how strong, they simply had too many means when fighting as a group for a single Tier 2 expert to be an issue. He switched his thoughts to the current battle, knowing he shouldn’t take a group that got this far lightly.

Once the fighting settled down into a mostly-stable series of smaller battles after a second or two, Rainer quickly picked his target. While untrue for their own party, it was an easy assumption that the largest pool of resources belonged to the strongest member. In this case, Rainer temporarily went a different direction, seeing a unique flavor of energy in the form of Will with [Arcane Revelation].

He Void-walked behind the multi-armed Ape-looking race, one that looked quite different from the more Human-like members of his party.

As the [Arcane Blade] chopped down the man made a smart decision to try and dodge. Unfortunately for him, it was only smart when facing the old Rainer. Given the current one could not only use [Void Hold] in tandem with his Arcane spells, but also relied on a powerful Lord of the Void possessed by someone who was half-way between a goddess and a force of nature, it was a poor decision.

While perhaps not the most dangerous, what Rainer learned about ‘ordinary’ Will from Talvara meant that he was the most hindering to their tactics. It would be more accurate to call it Reality Will, but the system seemed to disagree with Rainer.

It could function somewhat similarly to magic and Aura, alongside more direct strengthening and attack uses, but its most dangerous part wasn’t changing reality, but stopping others from doing so. In fact, its reality-bending properties were lackluster in comparison to its anti-reality bending uses, according to Talvara. Teleporting around a Will user, or in general doing anything that might in any way have an effect on space and time - essentially any strong magic or attacks - was very difficult.

That said, Talvara’s powerful [Void Hold] prevented any such issues so long as the kill was quick enough. She couldn’t suppress pools of energy entirely when it came to the more powerful in the 2nd Tier. But her ability to slow them down was enough.

The [Arcane Blade] swung true and the current chaotic battlefield meant Rainer quickly got away. His next target had been already pinned with [Void Hold] during the attack. He wouldn’t forget to use his Arcane and Void changed Soul-related advantage after all. It functioned more as a preparation and a mark for Talvara to take over.

With the equivalent strength of a Divine Follower being possessed, she was a truly unfair addition, Rainer thought as they quickly killed their next target. A powerful mage, who unfortunately also made the ‘smart’ decision of trying to dodge his [Arcane Blade].

It was six quick kills later that the battle almost died down completely. The other side barely noticed the deaths until it was too late, and Rainer’s team had only lost his aunt. A somewhat sad but expected conclusion. Tiamat tended to hide with Amer’s Avatar which left the technically weakest member of the group more safe.

Without even a chance to truly show off their strength or skill, the other party was unceremoniously defeated. They could only hope that whoever this enemy party faced next somehow managed to stop their ‘tricks’ and that either a tie or a tie-breaker would be involved. Of course such an assumption relied on the unlikely outcome of them never losing another.

Rainer glanced at a still-possessed Aurora as they were teleported back. Adrenaline still coursed through his, and likely everyone else's, body as the battle had ended a bit abruptly.

“What’s wrong?”

Talvara glared at the ground and then at him before disappearing. It did tax her to posses Aurora in reality, let alone in the Dungeon, but the abrupt exit obviously was for another reason.

“Aurora?” he asked, wondering if she knew the issue.

Several expressions crossed the Abyssal Elf’s face as she thought things over. Given her and Talvara’s intimate relationship as of late, she had changed from an ardent believer following a goddess, to more a servant following a mistress. Perhaps that was the reason the grey-skinned woman decided to give an honest answer.

“I believe she is a bit upset, nor can I blame her, of how effective this combination truly is. We have always known teaming up in such a manner would work well, but mostly we put it off, never truly thinking it would be that strong, nor having a partner race we could really trust with such power. But… that… and then…”

Kara walked over to their discussion, a pensive look on her face as well. She tied up her long-black hair as Luna let out a complaint as she was slightly moved from her current spot on her head.

“This was too much,” Kara said, somewhat ending Aurora’s sentence, “I almost feel… Guilt? Pity?”

Sarah chuckled from the side, “I imagine if the arena had an actual audience we may have been booed.”

Rainer didn’t bother saying that the reason this worked so well was because of Lives - especially since he left himself quite vulnerable in a rush to kill his target as quickly as possible - and well-chosen targets. And if he took too long, Aurora’s Void Will would be all but depleted in several seconds keeping such a level of hold. But everyone was mostly aware, changing their own fighting style to suit this Dungeon’s rules.

He glanced over at his aunt as most of the party laughed at that. Seeing the tension go out of her shoulders as she smiled made him happy. He wondered if Sarah’s joke had that intention. His aunt had been shown to unfortunately be quite useless in duels. She simply lacked any true ability to defend herself, with many of the better spells in Theodore’s and Gunthar’s arsenal being beyond her for now, not to mention her weak physical strength and lack of any real movement skills.

Earth logic, especially ‘knowing’ how useless standalone light magic was, continued to be a barrier. And dying was never pleasant.

In that regard, the recovering nature of these duels made Theodore stronger than he should be. His Soul-burning skill, the one that ‘illogically’, according to any Earth mage, strengthened him with wings of light at his back, had made him a force to be reckoned with. Combined with a recent advancement in using not only [Spear of Holy Judgement] as a weapon but also combining it with parts of [Aura Blade], and he was quite powerful.

Rainer himself was interested in studying that after they left the Dungeon. It was no surprise that they had quite a bit of time to kill before the next duel. He took the moment to use his Mana-Well Guarding Avatar to check on Fai’Etah and her group.

None of the previously covered Phantous were bothering with their robes. Only Fai’Etah was an exception currently on duty to check for any magical tracking of any sort on the captive. Everyone else relaxed and lounged in the sun, spreading out over the beach. For all her fake dying in the face of it, they seemed to quite enjoy it.

With all their limbs, eyes, and varying states of solidity, Rainer still couldn’t solidly pin down what animal, insect, or creature they resembled. He did at least get used to their forms, somewhat. That was good, as he felt a bit bad reacting poorly to their appearance.

“How is it?” Rainer asked.

“After a second attempt, I hadn’t seen anymore,” she replied, a bit petulantly, if Rainer didn’t hear wrong. He doubted she minded helping him given that he had saved her, but was likely annoyed that she was the best at sensing magic. It was an innate part of their race, their unique —to him, at least—magicalness being part of what also makes them weak to Arcane.

Which of course meant she had to be on constant guard while her ‘lazy’ family relaxed and enjoyed this new world. It was a different sort of Magical Anatomy compared to Fae, Rainer thought. But he had yet to gain an Anatomy skill with just [Arcane Revelation] alone.

“Thank you.”

Fai’Etah just grumbled in response, sending a possibly resentful glance to a rolling and playful Phantous next to her. Definitely resentful, Rainer thought as she kicked some sand at the uncovered shadow when he came too close.

Seeing the Neutral City party, the strategy remained unchanged from last round. While they had been far more prepared for Rainer’s teleporting nature, it had only slowed him down as he used the shield version of his Arcane-weaved rituals to block attacks while he killed. He kept eight of each, after all. Only the chance of a headless Ymir recovering had forced him to use [Arcanum]s to attack the reminder of his body instead.

The battle was harder fought and lasted far longer than the previous, but in the end, reeling from the loss of their heavy hitters right at the start of the fight meant that it still ended one-sidedly. Aurora had become dead weight pretty quickly this time, staying alive due to the small amount of Void Will she saved and simply staying away with Void-travels. But the damage was done and they seemingly still treated her as a threat.

Teleporting back to the Arena, Rainer could almost feel the oppressive air. While they had only knowingly faced one member of the group, knowing that powerful Aura user had Will as well made him all the more fearsome. Especially if he had the standard kind given their strategy. It might end up invalidating it, breaking momentum.

But nonetheless, Rainer was confident of cutting down everyone around him, even if they needed to leave the resilient man for last. They huddled together as they planned for every possibility. A loss was not to be accepted.