“Let’s get this over with,” Alessio said, stepping before either of us and clanking his sword on his shield to have the monsters focus their attention on him, rather than Sara or me. As soon as they looked his way, I utilized Mana Step to speed away and hide behind the closest tree.

My absence didn’t go unnoticed. The monsters tensed, standing lower on their legs to make themselves less conspicuous targets. Not that it would help; even as they stood in a crouch, either behemoth reached well over two meters in height.

Alessio dashed forward, with Sara once again trailing in his shadow. As soon as the monsters were in range, he swung his sword from the side—the blade already aflame with qi. The receiving behemoth was ready, however. Even as it angled its head to better weather the strike, its scales took on a darker hue—the refined anathema forming a membrane capable of enhancing the resilience of its natural armor.

The sword skittered off and to the side, leaving but a white, shallow mark on the pristine plates. Sara quickly followed Alessio’s attack with one of her own. Much in the same way of the first behemoth, she found her way to the monster’s side, to assault it where it was less guarded. Although her knives made contact with the monster’s scales, they didn’t manage to penetrate them. Still aglow with corruption as they were, the chitinous plates were almost impenetrable.

The behemoth roared, and as an enraged bull might with its horns, it used the spikes on his head to ram Alessio’s shield, and then to try and skewer Sara. As the two did all they could to get away from the frenzied monster, I focused on stalling the second one from joining in on the action.

“Smouldering ashes, twisting metal, leave the beaten path and breathe your essence upon the world. Song of Destruction; 3rd Poem; 1st Stanza—Crimson Blast.”

Unlike most other times I used the spell, instead of letting the fire spread to affect an area, I got hold of all the summoned flames and compressed them into a sphere, aiming them at a single target. The purple fireball impacted the second behemoth on the shoulder with the strength of a cannonball, exploding upon impact and showering it in magical flames.

Besides stumbling it, the spell didn’t have much of an effect, however. Their hard scales allowed behemoths to shrug off blows that would have normally incapacitated any other rank C monster. Had an orc been hit by something of similar strength, there wouldn’t be much, if anything at all, of it left.

Killing the behemoth with a Crimson Blast wasn’t the objective, though. What I wanted to accomplish by using the Stanza was getting fire near the beast.

“Grow without control. Scorch and render to ash. Lick. Consume. Bring life to that which follows your beliefs and lay punishment onto those that defy them. Song of Destruction; 4th Poem; 6th Stanza—Conflagration,” I finished casting the spell, aiming it at the few flames that managed to catch on the grass near the monster.

With a tremendous roar, they blazed back to life, scorching the behemoth’s legs and belly. The beast crashed to the ground even as the fires were beginning to die out, wailing and thrashing in pain. Although the spell hadn’t been enough to kill it, the damage it had done to its limbs, despite the brief duration of the blaze, was enough to render it immobile.

Alessio and Sara kited the last one away from its wounded companion, utilizing a hit and run tactic where Alessio attracted the attention of the monster, and Sara inflicted wounds wherever she could.

Seeing as how they had the situation well in hand, I opted to keep an eye on the immobilized beast and other unseen threats. Fortunately, everything went smoothly thereafter and soon all the monsters were dealt with.

Alessandro materialized out of thin air as soon as we had killed the last one.

“Good job,” he said, startling the three of us. He didn’t look the worse for wear, sporting no sign of the battle he just fought against the peak B and A-ranked behemoths. “Take some rest. You earned it. I will scout the area to make sure there aren’t any monsters left.”

Alessandro didn’t wait for us to ask what he had done with the other two monsters, he just looked at the corpses of the monsters we had dealt with one last time and vanished from our sight.

“Well, wasn’t that spooky?” Alessio mused, crashing with his but on the ground before sprawling on the grass.

“I hope not every fight will be as hard as this one,” he added after a while.

“I wouldn’t get any illusion. We are only in the outer area of the dungeon. I bet the closer to the center we get, the more rank B and A monsters we will meet,” Sara told him with a grimace.

I just sighed. I wasn’t looking forward to that.

—|—|—

Franco's POV:

“Light. Rend. Banish. Eye of the storm. Giant of the sky. Lord that inhabits the azure vault. You who we call God. Turn your sight upon their land and choose their destiny. Because yours is the mandate and yours is the prerogative. We told them. You are divinity. You are not to be crossed. But they refuse to acknowledge it. They are deifiers and so shall be treated. Scorch their ground and waste their castles. Destroy their idols and show them your might. Guide them to the only Truth worth believing. Yours. Song of Destruction; 8th Poem; 3st Stanza; Rage of the Cumulonimbus!” Laura cried from where she laid on the ground, finishing her spell just as the jaws of the gigantic basilisk were about to swallow Andrea whole.

The air became chock full of humidity and static electricity. Every hair I had on my body stood straight. The wind picked up and clouds began appearing with startling speed accompanied by the echoes of thunder. They twisted and roiled, taking the shape of an enormous, dark face, and then that of torso and arms.

The magical construct—a giant formed of clouds—roared, but instead of a voice, what came out was the deafening sound of thunder. The earth quaked at its might, and the air trembled.

The Cumulonimbus extended its hands, catching the serpent, which was still in the midst of lunging towards Andrea, with its jaws unhinged and mouth wide open, ready to swallow the man whole, and grabbed it.

Where the titan’s stout fingers touched, the monster’s scales, which had been previously impervious to either blade or spell, crumbled to dust, uncovering the muscled flesh beneath. The Furia twisted under the iron hold, struggling against the grip of the construct’s hands and coiling around its torso in a bid to destroy it.

The giant’s muscles strained, bulging against the body of the monstrous snake, which was as wide as the trunks of the trees of this cursed dungeon. It slammed the beast on the ground once, twice, thrice, but the blows did nothing to stop it, and slowly but surely the humanoid spell lost ground. In a desperate bid, with a second thunderous roar, the titan, despite not having any teeth, bit into the snake’s neck with all it could, unleashing all the lightning animating it onto it.

The basilisk hissed and seized, crashing to the ground once more, grievously wounded yet alive. I didn’t rejoice, however, as the giant followed shortly after, dissolving into a sea of clouds, which blanketed the area the monster laid in.

Laura too slumped to the ground from her crouch. The sapphire she held in her outstretched hand—the one on which the spell had been inscribed and which had once been shining like a star—dimmed, slipping from her fingers. It cracked and crumbled to dust.

Andrea appeared to her side, taking her in his arms with all haste. He stood and looked around, taking in the crushed bodies of Chiara and Luigi—two veteran B-rankers of our team. They had died shortly after into the fight. There was nothing we could do for them. He looked at me, and then at the unconscious form of Alessandra laying just meters away.

“Franco! Quick!” he said, nodding in the woman’s direction. “It won’t be long before it starts moving again. We have to get out of here, or we are dead!”

With as much speed I could muster given my wounds, I sheathed my sword and ran to Alessandra. The woman was losing copious amounts of blood, but she was a warrior—she would make it if we reached the other members of the guild. We had enough mages on hand to heal her short of her dying.