Battleform!

Without hesitation, Harriet immediately triggered the connection she had with Five's dungeon core. She felt a powerful force flow into her, enveloping her body as her appearance started to change. It was not Harriet's first time using a battleform; having already served other dungeon masters, she was very familiar with the procedure.

As she absorbed the energy, she immediately noticed that the amount she received was much lower than that offered by the other dungeons. It was to be expected as Five's dungeon was relatively new, and his dungeon core did not grow much. However, what surprised her, was that the energy flowing from Five's core was far more sinister than any energy she had ever encountered!

When she felt the cold energy, Harriet was reluctant to absorb more but given the situation, if she did not take her battleform, she would only be able to buy a few seconds at most.

She steeled her heart and closed her eyes.

In front of her, the Seraphim naturally felt the changes in Harriet; he briefly glanced at her but in the end, he chose to continue his descent. He was a proud Seraphim of the realm of angels; even if he had been banished for commiting a mistake, what could a small mortal from a small world do to him?

He continued to fly downward but just a few moments later, the Seraphim suddenly turned around, raising his shield just in time to block the attack of a frenzied Harriet.

To the Seraphim's surprise, the previously innocent looking harpy had completely changed her appearance!

Her hair was now completely dyed in red and her black wings at her back actually disappeared! Instead, a pair of red wings appeared behind her hips and another pair came out of her forearms, acting as extensions of her body.

Aside from her wings, Harriet's hands and feet had also changed, taking a more bestial form with shining elongated claws. The only part of her body that remained unchanged was her beautiful face but from her hair emerged a tiny pair of black horns, contrasting with her long hair.

Seeing that her attack had been blocked, Harriet immediately reacted and shifted to the right, using her newly-formed pair of wings on her arms as a pair of blades to attack.

The Seraphim promptly blocked the strike again but when he looked at where Harriet had been floating, he only saw an empty space. The next moment, the Seraphim suddenly felt a huge amount of pain coming from his back. He coughed some blood as he violently swung his spear in an attempt to push Harriet away.

The latter swiftly dodged the spear and retreated. She looked at her hands in surprise. "This form is really powerful! I never expected my agility to increase that much!"

The moment she triggered her link with the dungeon core, Harriet had been offered 4 forms to choose from. She was originally a spellcaster who specialised heavily on her Intelligence and Wisdom and one of the battleforms she could take would naturally boost up her magic powers.

However, Harriet was not facing any opponent; she was facing a Seraphim. Her foe came from a world of magic; since their birth, they had been exposed to all sorts of spells and as a result, the inherent trait of their race was their abnormally high magic resistance! Spellcasters were completely powerless against angels but fortunately, she also had access to other battleforms.

Without hesitation, Harriet picked the one centered around physical damage and the results surpassed her expectations. Although she only dealt a small amount of damage, it had to be noted that the Seraphim was wearing a complete set of equipment; being able to actually damage him under these conditions was already a miracle!

The Seraphim furiously stared at Harriet for a moment. His mouth moved as if he was speaking but Harriet was unable to hear a thing. The Seraphim was not mute; it was just that the frequency he spoke at was way too high for Harriet's ears to be able to capture it. However, just from his facial expression, Harriet already knew that they were not very nice words.

"We can waste more time after my battleform runs out but for now, take that!" exclaimed Harriet as she opened her arms.

At the same time, she activated one of her skills, [Feather Storm]

Immediately, feathers flew out of her wings and started circling around her. Some of the feathers were real physical ones while others were made of magic but very quickly, Harriet created a small storm around her with her feathers randomly around acting as sharp knives.

She perfectly calculated the distance between her and the Seraphim to make sure he fell into the range of the storm and very quickly, the Seraphim was forced to activate his own skill to protect himself.

A white halo quickly surrounded his body, absorbing the damage done by the feathers.

Harriet gritted her teeth, even with the buff of her battleform, the Seraphim was easily able to protect himself. It fell within her expectations, but she was nevertheless disappointed by the results.

She knew she was a few levels below her foes but as she was considered a boss monster, she could usually deal with enemies at a higher level than her. When facing normal mobs, she could easily stand against 10 enemies at the same level as her. Yet, in front of a single Seraphim, she was utterly powerless.

She knew the Seraphim was just saving his strength for when her battleform would expire. After all, those battleforms were not permanent ones. They would usually last for a few seconds but when mastered properly, experienced monsters would easily be able to extend their forms for at least 5 minutes.

The battleforms were equivalent to the change occuring in boss monsters when they would reach a critical amount of HP in other games. It would not last for very long but during that period of time, the monsters were at least twice as strong as they would normally be.

The Seraphim was naturally aware of that fact and as a result, he chose the safest option; to wait safely until the harpy would return to her normal weak form! Protected by his halo, he simply looked at Harriet condescendingly, challenging her to try to break his halo.

"Hmmp! Since you asked for it!" Harriet immediately charged at the Seraphim with all her might. She doubted she would be able to do much damage but as long as she completely diverted the Seraphim's attention to herself, she would have achieved her goal!

[Aerial charge!]

[Wing Attack!]

[Piercing Scream!]

Without hesitation, Harriet quickly activated a series of skills, one stronger than the other. She acted swiftly, making it appear as a combo but when she looked at the Seraphim's state, she could not help but feel some despair creep inside her heart.

Even after exhausting more than half of her mana pool, the Seraphim's halo had yet to even break. As for his HP, they still remained at a solid 90%.

...

On the ground, Five was not in a much better position either. He could see a large group of players rushing at him. There was still a large distance for them to cover but he knew more threats were hiding nearby!

He was naturally thinking about the assassins. Since one of them had already attacked, there was a high possibility that other assassins were nearby too, hiding in their stealth and waiting for the right time to strike.

His stock of Explosive potions was almost completely depleted but seeing that the fallen knights would not die under the protection of the healers, he decided to switch his items.

Instead of the small vial, a small blue grenade appeared in his palm and without hesitation, Five decisively tossed the grenade at the knights and the incoming players.

Internally, his heart was bleeding as he thought of all the DP that was being wasted! The grenades he just tossed were Grade 1 Flash Frost Grenades. Although they only dealt 20 damage in a 5m radius, the frost grenade had the property to completely cover its area of explosion with a layer of ice! Those small grenades were only Grade 1 and cost 2000 DP each. Five prepared himself for a variety of situation and as a result, he brought about 20 of these grenades with him; more than enough to cover an area around him with ice!

The running players were momentarily stunned when they saw the blue item flying at them, but they did not bother to dodge it. After all, there was an entire army of healers right behind them and as they expected, "-20" appeared above their head but was quickly replaced with a "+20".

However, what they did not expect was that as soon as the grenades would explode, the vast majority of them would instantly slip and fall on the ground.

With the ground being suddenly covered with ice, the unprepared players were taken by surprise and immediately slipped before sliding down the hill. Five did not randomly choose to use the Flash Frost Grenades. Instead, he purposedly picked this item due to his geographical advantage! He was standing on a hill and the players were trying to climb that hill to attack him, it was virtually impossible for the players to glide onto the ice upward! As a result, the ice was acting as an invisible wall preventing the players from making any more progress.

While the bulk of the players were facing the problem of overcoming the layer of ice, the few assassins that managed to get within the reach of Five thanks to their high movement speed, were facing another problem: Ariel.

The assassins first thought she was a silly NPC that could be lured away from Five but they learned at their own expenses that that was not the case. Ariel mainly attacked the players with physical attacks to conserve her mana but when Five was truly about to be hit by someone, she would not hesitate to send wind blades at the assassins.

However, despite their failures, the assassins did not stop and eventually:

"Come here my cash cow! Soon, I'll get enough merits to purchase an entire set of techniques!" exclaimed one of the players as he dashed toward Five with his dagger drawn.

Ariel looked toward the source of the voice, but she already had her hands full with dealing with 4 other players. Fortunately, Five didn't. After using all his 20 Flash Frost Grenades, he had finally accomplished his first goal which was to delay the bulk of the players.

Now that he no longer needed to constantly use his expensive items, he swiftly turned his attention to the nearby players.

The charging assassin was a level 20 player with the IGN Solblade. Five smiled as he looked at the approaching player. "Since you are so close, you shall be my guinea pig to test all the skills I purchased at the dungeon shop!"

With these words, Five suddenly charged at Solblade but right as he was about to be hit by the blade, he quickly twisted his body, dodging the blade while placing his right hand on Solblade's back.

The latter had no idea what just happened. He was clearly two levels ahead of the player in front of him and as an assassin, his dexterity was very high. Yet, he was unable to understand how Five was able to not only evade his attack but so swiftly escape from his field of vision. However, it was too late for him to react as while his brain was still processing what just happened, his ears rang with the following words:

"Incinerate my enemies and burn everything on your path! Fireball!"

"Boom!"

Solblade naturally recognised these words; it was the incantation required to cast the mage's spell: [Fireball]. Different from all the other classes, mages were required to recite a few words to cast their spells. They were not required to say them aloud and could simply think of those words, but this technique required some practice.

Five had only recently started using skills from the dungeon shop but the players were different. Most of them had been playing for almost two months and by now, most of the mages knew silent casting which allowed them to simply think of the incantations, allowing them to hide which skill they were casting.

The poor player was blasted forward as the point-blank fireball exploded on his back. He had underestimated his opponent and now, he could only watch as his HP dropped by 20. "Ah! Thanks to the new equipment, my magic resistance is quite high now, it can absorb most of the damage of that guy's spell!"

However, his joy was short lived as just one second later, Solblade stared in disbelief as his HP suddenly dropped to zero.

"I am sorry for my incompetence, master! I was busy dealing with the players other there!" said Ariel with a guilty expression. She had never expected so many assassins to appear. With her strength, she could easily deal with the assassins, but the problem was their numbers. It did not matter how vigilant she was, eventually, one player would succeed in reaching Five and the first one to do so happened to be the poor Solblade.

Five smiled to the harpy. He knew it was not her fault. "Don't worry about this! Just don't chase them too far and protect me for a few moments. Once I cast this spell, I won't be able to move and will become an easy target!"

"Alright, I will stay with 5m of you master!" quickly answered Ariel.

"Good!" Five nodded as he quickly scanned his surroundings. 10 player corpses were lying around him, but he still felt that there might be a few assassins left.

He naturally had a skill to deal with invisible assassins but there was one major problem he would have to deal with: his mana pool! Mages could cast several spells in a short period of time but Five was different.

He did not benefit from the bonuses of the mage class as his own class was Dungeon Master. That was the major drawback of being a dungeon master; he had access to all the skills he wanted but at the same time, he would not benefit from any class bonus. It was a small drawback but in the long run when the players would stack several class bonuses, he would be the one with a disadvantage.

With his limited mana pool, Five was reluctant to cast too many spells. He could only cast about 9 spells before completely exhausting his mana pool but fortunately, there was a specific mage skill that could allow him to save a large amount of mana, but the skill naturally had drawbacks.

Mages were normally safe at the backline, protected by the tanks but his situation was different. Only now that Ariel had returned did he feel safe and consequently, he immediately activated the skill.

"Oh essence of magic, flow into me as I become one with the earth! Roots of Magic"