The next nine rounds were absolutely brutal. Jax had lost count of how many monsters they’d faced, but it felt like an endless parade of teeth, claws, and magic. It felt as though the trial holder had let go of all modesty now and was sending in four monsters each round, forcing everyone to fight tooth and nail to progress.
The battle had surely gotten more difficult for everyone else as well.
Jax had completely given up on his sword, now relying solely on threads to whip through the monsters that ca out of the gate.
There was no ti to rest, no ti to think. Just react, kill, move to the next target. Lucille’s octopus was working overti, grabbing monsters and tossing them around while she blasted anything that got too close.
Roman was sweating constantly now, his healing spells flying out as fast as he could cast them.
Soone was always hurt, always needed patching up before the next wave hit.
There was no ti for the healing wine anymore, so they brought out potions, drinking it. Roman drank his second potion for regaining Navi. Ning and layne were forced to drink once as well.
Lucille held out for as long as she could, but in the end, she too had to drink one.
"Just keep going!" Lucille shouted, keeping the party fighting. "We’re almost there!"
When round 59 finally ended, they all collapsed for a mont, breathing hard. They were tired beyond all belief. Looking up at the sky, Jax felt a chill.
Maybe thirty nas still remained up there. Thirty, out of tens of thousands.
"Dear god," layne whispered. "We’re actually in the final thirty."
There was just a bit more left.
They rested as much as they could in the little ti they had and watched as the tir ca to an end. Then, Round 60 began.
They scanned each gate for a boss monster to walk through, but what happened next wasn’t sothing they had accounted for at all.
The sky suddenly went dark. Storm clouds rolled in from nowhere, thick and black, with the occasional lightning within it.
"What the hell?" Ning said, looking around nervously.
Then it started raining. A light drizzle at first, that turned to a proper downpour that soaked them all within seconds. The water pooled on the arena floor, creating puddles where it could.
"Where’s the boss?" Jax asked, threads already forming at his fingertips. His and everyone’s eyes were at the gates, searching for the boss that wasn’t coming. They began to fear it was invisible.
The rain kept falling for what felt like forever but was probably only fifteen seconds. Then it stopped as suddenly as it had started, leaving them standing in puddles and dripping wet.
That’s when they felt it.
The water around them started moving. It was like liquid tal, pulled by a magnet far away. Every drop, every puddle, every bit of moisture in the air began lifting off and flowing toward a spot far in front of them.
"What... is this?" Lucille muttered.
The water gathered into a massive blob floating in the air, shapeless and threatening. Then it started forming into sothing that might have been humanoid if you squinted. The top half looked vaguely like a person, but the bottom was just a spinning cyclone of water that never seed to settle.
"Water elental," Roman said. "That’s our boss?"
Lucille looked at it, confused. It didn’t look like a boss. "Let use my–"
Before she could finish, a massive bolt of lightning crashed down right next to the water creature.
The electrical energy didn’t dissipate. Instead, it started taking the sa shape as the water elental. Blue lightning arced and jumped across its form, and the sound it made was like standing next to a power line.
"You’ve got to be kidding ," Jax said, staring at the two massive elentals. "Two bosses? At the sa ti?"
"This is insane," Ning breathed. "Are we supposed to fight both of them?"
Before anyone could answer, both elentals moved at once. The battle had started whether they were ready or not.
Ning tried to find critical spots on their bodies, but it was hopeless. The spots in the elental were easily visible, but they traveled around the body, moving far too quickly for him to hit it.
"I can’t get a read on them!" he called out. "Lucille, try to freeze them."
Jax swung his threads at the water elental, expecting the usual satisfying impact. Instead, his threads just passed right through it with a splash. The water elental barely seed to notice.
"My threads aren’t doing anything!" he yelled in frustration. "It’s just water!"
layne decided to try a direct approach, rushing the lightning elental with her sword raised.
The blade connected with the creature’s torso, and imdiately electricity coursed through the tal and into her body.
She scread as the shock threw her backward, her body convulsing from the electrical current. Jax barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground.
"layne!" Roman was already rushing over, his hands glowing with healing magic. "Are you okay?Are you paralyzed?"
"N-no," she spoke weakly, her muscles still twitching.
Lucille’s target of analysis had been the second elental that had appeared from the sky. It activated after a few seconds, but before she could share what she’d learned, the water elental attacked. A massive jet of water shot out from its center, spraying across the arena floor.
They all tried to dodge it, but it wasn’t sothing that could be dodged. They were splashed with a heavy wave of water, albeit a bit too weak to be an attack. Jax was confused.
"Lucille!" Jax called out. "What did you find out?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but the lightning elental moved faster. It raised one arm and shot a bolt of electricity down at the ground in front of them.
The lightning hit the ground and spread through the water that had soaked everyone.
"Oh shit," Ning realized what was happening.
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