After the break, they walked following the small stream at the bottom of the gorge, fighting yet another horde of demonic crocodiles. Unlike the lush upper part of the cave, this lower part seemed sickly. The deeper they explore it, the environment steadily grows more ‘dead’. Lichens started to wither, the water seemed polluted, and the mutations on the crocodile-like creatures got more and more twisted.

Then, they finally met an unsightly creature that looked like a combination of several mutated crocodiles. The creature was a huge problem for Renma, not because it attacked him, but due to its sharp scales causing some damage to Manna and Flick who attacked it at melee range.

This time, it was Manna who warned Flick to keep his distance and asked Tier and Nubram to focus on dealing more damage. Though effective in reducing burden on Renma, it made the fight significantly longer because Tier’s damage was not enough to cover for Flick’s.

After the fight, they took another break while checking for item drops. This time, it was Flick who got a brand new leather armour which has some sharp scales that can cause damage to anyone who attacks him.

“Can we apply some poison to that kind of armour,” Tier asked Manna as they walked deeper into the cave. This time they branched off the stream and climbed up towards a drier but creepier part of the cave.

“That is sharp of you, deskmate. Yes, but you would need the help of a rogue or a hunter, an alchemist, and someone with a profession related to the armour type,” Manna answered calmly. “Do you have anything in mind?”

Tier nodded, “I heard that the Royal Striker Spiked Carapace set would be available if we manage to finish the challenge.”

“From what I heard, deskmate, that is not a typical set that hunters would take.”

“I know,” Tier shrugged. “Because it would be too heavy for some and give the lowest dexterity and attack power bonus, but it does give quite a number on intelligence. That would be helpful for my build. Not to mention, now I can put poison on the spikes to help me get away from sticky situations. Maybe I would need to go on a raid to get some weapons like Phantom’s Pillar or Wingtalon Longbow.”

“My….” Manna smiled gently. “It is nice of you to think that far ahead.”

It was not just Manna’s smile that struck Tier’s core, but also her words. He was so washed by the fact that he subconsciously had thought that far about his character. Wasn’t his goal just to make sure his friends got accepted to Clashing Realms? He shouldn’t need to really put that much thought into how his character was going to be played after getting to the maximum level.

Tier couldn’t delve much into his astonishment as the next set of opponents had already appeared not long after. This time, they started battling orcish and rakhs cultists who fought using demons and dark magic. There were no more lichen nor any other living being apparent that deep inside the cave. Perhaps the dark powers being used had such a bad impact on the environment.

The next boss was some sort of stronger cultist summoner accompanied by some sort of incubus. Manna gave a fair warning before the fight that it would be rather tricky to keep the attention of both bosses to her. Therefore, Flick voluntarily took the honour of holding back the demon while Manna took care of the summoner.

Both Tier and Renma were busy in this fight as Tier needed to use [Misdirection] alternately between Manna and Flick, while Renma needed to keep both alive. The problem was the demon had some sort of magical attacks on top of physical ones. Flick clearly had no problem with the physical ones, but he suffered a lot of damage due to the magical attacks.

Despite his ever-knowing disgusting smile, Tier got a hint of annoyance on Flick’s expression whenever the rogue got damaged by magical assault.

After the twin boss, they walked deeper into the cavern, which they had to tread carefully due to the existence of deep gorges around them. They met some sort of dark blob demon at the deepest part of the cavern. Thankfully, this boss was much simpler due to its tank and spank mechanic.

It does, however, cause some continuous damage to all of its adversaries when it's down to 30% HP, Renma’s decision on his path showed its true strength under such conditions. He spread damage mitigation buff, typical of Discipline path, and periodically healed everyone while keeping his own MP up for the whole fight. If Tier was not mistaken, there was some sort of talent in the Discipline path that caused Renma to spend less MP as long as he keeps healing different targets consecutively.

On the other hand, Manna also skillfully dragged the boss' attention and positioned it so that its AoE attack didn’t touch any of her teammates.

Both Flick and Renma cheered at the top of their lungs when they finally beat the demon. So far, the items that dropped from the bosses seemed to be part of item sets related to each class. For Tier, the set was named ‘Brave Tracker’ that gave him additional intelligence stat if he had two sets of the item and additional crit rate if he had four of it, on top of the better than usual base stats that each part gave. The blob demon dropped the second part for Tier, a brigandine armour, the first part was the bracer by the slime boss.

Despite the seemingly cleared dungeon, Manna told them to get healed because there is one more boss to deal with. They agreed without much protest although Flick seemed to not really use restorative items.

Under Manna’s lead, they continued their journey out of the cavern towards a more familiar part of the cavern. They started to see more light and plants along the way. It was not long until they finally saw the location where Flick first had accidentally crossed after the fight against the slime boss.

It was also there when a rakhs cultist suddenly appeared and unleashed a flurry of shadow bolts towards them. Manna and Flick were the first to get hit and they got pushed back severely.

“[Guarding Radiance]!”

Renma was quick to protect Nubram with his light shield. However, he did not foresee that the final cultist would also shoot one shadow bolt towards him. And he was standing too close to the edge of a gorge.

“Look around you, idiot, [Mimic switch: Cheetah], [Burst]!”

Tier ran as fast as he could towards Renma. He hastily pushed the priest aside and took the full blow from the shadow bolt. As the hunter had expected, the attack pushed him off the cliff. But at least he could rest assured that it was not Renma that would fall. Other than the priest’s death count, Renma was also vital in keeping the team alive in fights against bosses.

“Do not worry, I got you, dauntless deskmate!”

Manna suddenly leaped with valour and caught Tier’s knee ivory bone.

“You gotta be kidding me, right?” Tier sighed.

“Ara~”

A split second later, their weight difference had caused severe imbalance and dragged Manna down the gorge.

“Can’t let some Romeo-Juliet suicide thing happen!” Flick exclaimed suddenly as he jumped off and caught Manna’s feet. However he was already off from the edge and now hanging on his axe that he slammed to the gorge’s wall. “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you lovebirds behind,” he said with a questionably assuring smile.

“Are you freaking serious right now?” Tier protested. The ‘valorous’ act of his two friends had put all three of them in a dangerous situation.

“I’m coming, guys. [Shield of Faith]. ”

Now, it was Renma that frantically tried to pull Flick up while shielding himself from the shadow bolts.

“Never try to save those who don't want to be saved,” Tier mumbled to himself. Based on their weight and size difference, Tier would have guessed that Renma’s action was futile. The priest got nowhere the size, weight, and strength to pull the weight of the other three.

Tier was trying to help Renma, but now everyone is risking their life to keep him alive. It was truly an ironic condition for the hunter.

Worse, he saw in his minimap that the boss suddenly charged at them instead of just throwing shadow bolts.

“Mana, your lance thing, give it to me.”

“Eh, now?”

“Trust me!”

“Of course, [Stardust Lancer].”

Manna nodded and passed her lance to Tier. The hunter quickly grabbed it and took a deep breath.

“[Eagle Aim].”

Tier twisted and broke free of himself from Manna. He got a quick horizontal standing position by stomping on the cliff’s edge and pulled a throwing stance all his might. Just as the final cultist showed near Renma, he threw the spear and squarely hit the cultist on the chest. The power was enough to slam both the cultist and the spear to the ceilings of the cave.

“I got you again, deskmate.”

As Tier's body twisted upwards to the throwing motion, Manna quickly grabbed Tier’s wrist and refused to let the hunter fall to his death.

“Goddamnit,” Tier cursed under his breath. “O, Vishnu, why did I try to preserve their lives again?”

“Ega, do your job right, man!” Flick exclaimed, he frantically tightened his grip on Renma’s hand.

“I’m trying,” Renma screamed at the top of his lungs. “But I can't pull all of you. You’re all too heavy.”

“Just let me go already,” Tier insisted, he tried to wrigger his wrist free from Manna’s grip.

“Not yet, Pras.” Flick shook his head. “Ega, ask Pitoy.”

“If I can’t pull you guys, how do you expect a freaking rotting undead to do that?”

“Owh,” Manna suddenly spoke. “Actually Pitoy is the only one that can help us if he already took some bonus from the Enlightenment path.”

“Huh?”

“Need help?” Nubram suddenly appeared just as both Renma and Flick expressed their bewilderment due to Manna’s comment. The wizard lazily held Renma’s shoulder and groaned, “[Warp].”

Tier felt a sudden nauseating pull right when Nubram cast his spell. In a blink of an eye, they all suddenly stood on a firm platform, away from the edge of the deep gorges.

“Now that is what I call a true lifesaver,” Manna cackled lightly. She quickly stood up and struck a vertical [Justice Wrath] at the final cultist.

“You guys are all maniacs!” Tier roared angrily. He quickly positioned himself on a straight line behind Manna and utilised [Misdirection] before the cultist could start attacking other members of the party.

“Never leave a bro behind,” Flick grinned ever knowingly. He took a bit of relief before starting to attack.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, you guys are dead without me,” Nubram cursed lazily. He soon started to unleash his magic on the final boss.

Other than the drama that happened at the start of the fight, the final boss was just another spank and tank mechanic. There was a bit of a twist where he could teleport behind a random party member when he reached around 25% HP, but that was still within both Manna’s and Renma’s coverage with their healing and damage mitigation spell.

They finally beat him without much of an issue. Nubram and Flick got some nice drops from the final cultist. Manna herself got a brand new weapon type dropped from him. From Tier’s observation, it was some kind of an old pollaxe.

The hunter was not sure why, but he caught a glimpse of a subtle but excited smile from the paladin. Tier knew pollaxe was an effective weapon in real life during a long bygone age, but he couldn’t tell if the weapon is that much different from a spear in this game. Though, if he recalled correctly, the weapon does fall into a different category than spear.

However, all the relief Tier had in his heart was completely washed away when they just finished their short break.

With a confident yet bored tone, Manna proposed, “Well then, it was certainly a delightful run, let us go 7 more times.”

“Just kill me already.”