Ank

Slowly, the “hatchling” dragon opened its horizontal eyelids, revealing bright pink eyes and black vertical pupils, and not much later, it revealed all of its majesty in its fullest, uncoiling its 20 meters long body, and raising its arrow-tip-shaped head three meters from the ground: the upper part of the boss’ body was covered in jet black feathers, while its belly was protected by hundreds of scales the same color of the monster’s eyes. On the sides of its head, a pair of short black wings.

“[Summon: Thunder Idolater; make boss]”, I spent the remaining of my energy to bring the magic-user mummy fourth, and that started the battle.

Hissing, the boss shot forward, but Hunah answered equally fast, and she brandished her whip against the monster. The hatchling dragon skillfully avoided the skeletal weapon, somehow floating in the air even if the wings in its head were just too small to help.

“[Not-Decorative]”, Hunah used her secret skill for the first time, and to my surprise as much as to the dragon’s, the snake skull at the tip of the weapon made of the skeleton of a snake seemed to gain life, and contorted its body, the rest of the whip, and bit into the greater serpent, bringing it back to the ground.

While my sister’s attack didn’t cause much damage, it allowed me to reach the fallen creature, and punch it with the horizontal blade covering my fists, which were empowered by electricity.

…And, not differently from Hunah’s attack, the ulu, the horizontal blades close to my fists, failed in dealing impressive damage to the huge [Health] and shield points of the boss; the shield reflecting the frightfully high [Resistance] of the monster.

Before I could retreat, the boss's slithering body quickly encircled me, and it raised its large serpentine face over me, infuriated. It opened its large mouth, fumes coming off its nostrils and throat, a breath attack ready, but just as it was about to cover me in the pink breath spotted with shinning white dots that quickly became visible at the back of the dark creature’s throat, a lighting hit the monster right in the open mouth, and not only diminished its shield greatly, it also held back the breath attack for an instant and allowed me to jump over the hatchling’s body and escape.

“If we could make the creature properly gulp its own attack, it may cause quite a lot of damage”, Hunah said.

“Easier said than done”, I replied. Turning to my mummy summon, which had sparks still flying away from its hands, I thanked: “Good one.”

The boss quickly dashed to the undead under my control, but Hunah hadn’t become useless just yet, and she got a perfect hit straight against the monster’s head, dealing critical damage, and sending the hatchling thumbing away.

Our opponent shot upwards a second time, but instead of blindly come for us, then it retreated, and repeated the breath-attack pose. This time, however, I couldn’t use the same strategy as before, and ordered my summon instead:

“Keep the breath away from us”, the rest of [Sunight Party] was just behind us, after all, even if my sister and I could time to run away, those three wouldn’t be fast enough.

The mummy didn’t reply, but immediately brought its arms closer to itself, and in a familiar move, it became covered in an electrical cage. This time, however, the electricity didn’t involve its body completely, but just the front part of it, and when the dragon’s breath came, so similar to the clouds of the night skies beyond the giant snake corpse’s mouth, the summon magical power shocked itself against the gas, and burned it away; the two attacks competed with similar strength, but my summon had been turned 25% stronger, and it managed to old back the breath attack.

It didn’t matter, however, for the hatching won anyway: out of nowhere, the [Feathered Serpent] showed up, having outskirt its own breath attack which blocked our vision, and it bit Hunah, and quickly flew away one more time, carrying my sister in its mouth, Hunah having lost her whip in the surprise attack.

“Hunah!”, I screamed, grabbed Hunah’s whip, and went after the monster, the dragon too agile for me to simply throw my twin sister her weapon back. I jumped onto my own summon’s shoulder, and again into the air. I had some strength, but not enough to reach the hatchling, and so I took off my copper helmet, threw it behind me and ordered my summon: “Explode it.”

The mummy did as I asked for, and the explosion pushed me close enough so I could pass Hunah her weapon back:

“My whip!”, Hunah asked, opening the hatchling dragon’s mouth with brute force; the copper armor I summoned for her had already been destroyed by the boss bite. She grabbed the skeletal weapon, and quickly made the [Feathered Snake] regret its move, slashing and using her new skill to guide the weapon down the throat of the monster, the ribs, and teeth of her skeletal moving whip acting as grinding spikes.

A crashing sound echoed, and the boss’ shield was broken when Hunah fell back onto the ground.

The hatchling dragon retreated, flying away, and I noticed its eyes darting from me, to my sister, to the trio that had been hiding behind us the entire fight.

“Hunah, push it back.”

“Leave it to me.”

My sister dashed forward, and without concerns with her [SP], she brandished her whip into a wall of slashes: the monster’s feathers and scales presented amazing resistance, and while Hunah wasn’t hurting the enemy, its protections were being cut of with every attack, and the [Feathered Snake] was forced backwards, further and further away, until it was completely off the intended arena, and flying in the dark space splattered with bright and beautiful colors of the night clouds outside. The last boss had its skin exposed in multiple parts, red blood dripping from a dozen wounds and floating away from the arena, and to the depths of the pocket dimension, and its [Health Points] had decreased by a full 10%. However:

“I’m burned out”, Hunah said, as she fell to one knee, sweat dripping from her face.

“This is good enough”, I replied, as the dragon displayed a mockery of a smile, bearing fangs, and breathing small clouds of death. As it dashed back into the mouth of the giant snake corpse, and for the trio behind me, I ordered my summon: “Again”, and I threw the knives I held to the left and right with, with all my 100+ strength points.

Just as the copper blades dug themselves into the insides of the snake’s cheeks, the mummy heated them up thousands of times in a single second with a double electrical arc through the air, exploding the summoned weapons, and the anatomy that kept the giant snake mouth open. Right when the hatchling dragon was passing in between its teeth.

“CHUUUUMK!”, the enormous teeth and fangs closed in the middle of the last boss. The entire arena was sent into darkness, depraved from the light of the artificial sun and stars.

Our opponent hissed and shivered, and we all could just wait and hope that ending the shield and peeling off the feathers and scales was enough so the bite could get the thing to die, or we would be really fucked.

A green light, from a 10 meters long chopped body disappearing guaranteed that we were safe once again, and that the portal to the outside should open at any moment.

Of course, I dashed for the quickly vanishing boss’ body as if my life depended on it, and used [Dissection].

Which failed.

“Oh, come on!”, I kicked the fleshy ground beneath, irate.

“Relax, Ank, because of this dungeon, you can already unlock the summoning of, like, 50 snake monsters or something”, Hunah commented, but I could hear her greedy hands tapping the spot where the boss vanished, searching for loot. “Aha”, she seemed to have found something. “Let me see, let me see… what? Enhance support magic effect?”

“We should give this item to Tapa, then”, I commented.

And not long after, a torch was lit up, and the rest of the [Party] showed up again.

“What, what? Do you have a present for me?”, the fox girl tilted her head, curious.

“This cloak”, Hunah raised the garment of dark feathers with a hood that, when pulled over, would cover only half the user’s face with the upper half of the dragon’s head, with hole for the eyes.

“Oh~ It looks cool. But, sorry, Hunah, I can’t accept this…”

“Oh, no~ I think I should keep it th-”

“Come on, we are a [Party] now, right? Don’t hold yourself back, just take it”, I took the cloak from my twin sister, interrupting her, and pushing the item to the fox girl.

“Kuhuhu! That ’s not it, Ank. Remember when we told you that use magical items can damage someone’s [Health] if they are not strong enough to use it? Well, the creature who dropped this clock was [Level: 100], so...”

“W- We should sell it!”, Nif said, his eyes fixed on the cloak, the eight-eyed man almost drooling.

“I think…”, Jao started, and everyone looked at him. “I think you should keep it, Ank.”

“Hu?”

“I think summoning counts as support magic, as Hunah said it helped with, and… Well, consider it a welcome gift”, the blue-haired man gave me a wide smile, and scratching the back of his head, blushing just slightly, he completed: “I mean, I never wanted you to feel obligated to join because of the Guild Master, but I never found a proper moment to ask you directly… So, would you two like to become members of the [Sunight Party]?”

I exchanged look with Hunah, before the two of us replied in unison, with an equally big smile:

“Yes!”

Then, a portal tore the space open, but instead of an exit, two abominable monsters came off it:

[Species: Treppaned Experiment, Level: 114]

[Species: Treppaned Experiment, Level: 113]