The earth balls slammed into the curved pillar and it crumbled with a crack. The pillar fell inward and crushed the first set of monsters that ran to them.

Other monsters passed the back and over the broken pillar to get to them. The fight began.

Catena used his chain, attached to the earth ball like a whip, as he brought it down on the monsters. He crushed three like that, snapping their bones and hurling their bodies back.

Then Catena staggered back. His earth ball shuddered and the whole thing collapsed. He shook his head. His essence had drained massively, and if he didn’t release the skill, he would have used it all.

He brought his metal ball to his hands, planning to use it as a blunt tool. Then the monsters finally reached them, and the fighting began.

Azaroth hit the mass of monsters with his sword swinging. The first monster to reach him was doing so with great momentum and could not stop in time, so he used it against it and drove his sword up the monster’s skull while he dodged down.

Then he used the monster as a shield and took the next one’s head. His left hand snaked out together with the movement of his sword, and his Fire Force sent monsters back before he finished them off with his sword. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

The thing was, Catena and Azaroth didn’t hold back their essence as they fought. They couldn’t, if they wished to survive. They covered their bodies in essence so thickly it would at least first turn away a claw or two before it could harm them, and then they would use their swords.

Catena dropped his weapons and started using his fists. It was a thing to marvel at; his fists were as hard as the earth, and no flesh was standing in their way.

The other thing they did was put more and more essence into their skills while using them. So when Azaroth used Fire Spray for the first time during the fight, the fire was intense and instant as it covered the space in front of him.

Two monsters caught fire and burned to ashes. The others got wounded.

Azaroth blinked. The monsters had drawn back into their lair again, probably called by the boss. Azaroth checked his core and winced mentally. His fire core was low; maybe he could do one more skill, and then he would only be able to cloak himself with essence.

"How many monsters remain?" Catena asked. He was covered in sweat and black blood, his face had bits of torn flesh and gore. He looked at Azaroth with black-gold eyes that shone.

Azaroth flicked his sword to get the blood off. He frowned as he noticed a claw wound on his side; he didn’t even know he got that until now. "With the boss, we have seven monsters remaining."

Catena’s eyes widened. "That small?"

Azaroth nodded. "The pillar you broke killed a lot of them, and whatever strategy the boss wanted to plan was foiled by it. Now, they can only run at us. But the boss has now called the rest to its side."

Azaroth didn’t like that. Why did the boss call them to its side? The boss looked at them from the top of the stone it stood on, its eyes black and filled with coldness.

Something nagged at Azaroth as he looked at the monster, but he couldn’t place it. He shook his head and turned away from it. "We should rest and let the others fight too."

Catena nodded, and the two of them started going back, without turning their backs on the boss and its henchmen. Then suddenly, lightning cracked from above and crystals rained down.

Why were Stallus and Alex fighting now when they hadn’t before? Azaroth looked, and he didn’t see the boss. Shit. He twisted, trying to get a feel of where the lightning was going, but he shouldn’t have bothered.

The boss was already here. The boss landed beside Catena with a crunch. It held the oversized wooden club drawn back and slammed it into Catena as if he was swatting a fly. He might as well have, as the tall boy was jetted away.

Azaroth didn’t know where Catena landed or if he was crushed, as he turned his whole attention on the monster now in front of him. It was scary, the amount of strength that was in front of him.

Was it because of the Acolyte rank? Or just the monster’s natural strength? If he had to guess, Azaroth would say it was the rank.

The small monster crouched, ready to jump and slam Azaroth with the club, and he gritted his teeth. There was no way he could dodge this, and his strength could not protect him from the force.

Quickly, he started to pull out his chaos core and the rest of the ones in his fire core. The monster jumped at him, a blur, too fast for the eyes to follow.

The club slammed into Azaroth from the side, and he was pushed left and away. At first, he felt nothing as he slammed into the pillar, and then pain exploded throughout his body.

His eyes watered as he opened them. He groaned. Even using his two cores to cloak himself didn’t work as he intended. The monster’s strength was unbelievable.

He started to pick himself up, but he was clumsy. The blow was making his head heavy and light at the same time. It made him feel like he was underwater. Thankfully, nothing broke on his body; at least the two cores protected him from that.

He pushed himself as something occurred to him. The boss still had henchmen, and the boss itself would be coming after him while he was down to finish him off, so he narrowed his eyes and stood, ignoring the pain and forcing himself to open his eyes.

And he saw Alex and Stallus doing battle.