Suddenly the flame monster floated in front of Sera and its sword descended.

Dodging? It was too late.

She could only shift the shaft of her scythe to bear the brunt of the attack. Or so she hoped. Yet for once the element of her enemies weapon behaved as would logic dictate and simply ignored the physical presence of her weapon. The same was also true for the metal parts of her equipment which the flames hit barely a moment later.

Unfortunately her normal clothing was still affected by it, which wasn't quite as logical, as a quickly passing flame wouldn't normally affect material because physics or something. Though at that point, the girl had other worries, like the extreme burning pain she experienced across her body where the sword had struck her and that she had to increase her distance to the avatar, before the second apparently unblockable blade could hit her.

A quick jump to the side and to another pillar somehow allowed her to evade the attack. However, just as the girl had halfway regained her posture and was looking for her enemy, it had already closed the distance and was attacking again. With the avatar cutting the actions of dodging and blocking from her options, she could only go for the offense.

She disliked simply tanking the attack just to get a hit in herself, not because of honor or some other useless concept, but because it destroyed her equipment and hurt against this opponent! Yet, if it was the only way to end the fight, she would have to go through with it. At least it only took a chunk of her health and didn't cleave her in two, now that the blades were made from fire.

Clenching her teeth in expectation of what would follow, she still tried to at least get her head and heart out of the attack of her opponent, while she herself swung her scythe.

They struck.

Again burning pain flooded her system. Though, if she had to think of something positive, it was also somewhat muted thanks to the dizziness which enveloped her mind due to the heat. Not a good condition for a fight to the death, but she couldn't do anything against it, aside from finishing the fight fast.

Focusing back on her enemy, which also got hit by her attack, she obviously hoped that her strike had finished it off or at least cut off a good chunk of its body.

Too bad reality was often disappointing, even in the Realms.

Her weapon had simply passed through the enemy like its swords before through her defense.

"Seriously?! Hey, aren't you overdoing it a bit?!"

So while she could still attack it, the girl wouldn't be able to deal damage. Sure, she still hadn't tried her fire, but after the experience with the second stage of the boss, she would have to pass on the chance of experiencing a strike of the super-charged avatar.

Jumping to another pillar to evade the second swing, which unfortunately still hit her on her side, the girl had a moment to think about the current situation.

Maybe this was punishment for her hubris of wanting to fight the boss alone without any preparations and information? Though who was she kidding, Sera would do it again and again as long as she could! Exploring the unknown was fun! This part of the fight wasn't, but that was just how things were. If you don't know what will come, sometimes it will turn out boring or unfun. She had learned that lesson long ago and still risks her life for new experiences.

Also she doubted that there was truly nothing she could do. If that was the case, Nia would have stopped her.

Or would she? Sera couldn't think of a reason, but she was used to people wanting to get rid of her even without her figuring out why. She would have to ask her sister later, if it was covered in their contract.

Anyway, Eas likely didn't impose unclearable challenges. What if a group of adequate or overlevel warriors with fire affinity entered this dungeon? They would also die to this boss in that case! The problem wasn't that she wasn't causing enough damage, she was dealing no damage at all, a fact which wouldn't change regardless of strength.

So... Maybe it had a core? No, she would have found that already in the semi-transparent flames of her enemy.

Was there anything lying around, which she could use against the boss? The pillars were rooted in the lava pit and destroying them would only cause her problems. The rubble wouldn't be any more effective than a strike with her scythe. And lastly the lava was still flowing strongly into the pit and slowly swallowing the pillars...

So the fight also had a time limit, if she somehow survived the relentless onslaught of her unblockable opponent until that part became relevant.

Was there anything else she could have missed?

Though before she or her intuition could come up with any solutions to her problem, the flame-being demanded her attention. Again Sera tried to evade the attacks as any other action was pointless, yet like the times before, damage reduction was the only thing she achieved.

Reaching another platform and emptying a potion to somehow keep her in the fight, it looked grim. Though to make things even worse another earthquake hit the battlefield and cracks appeared on the pillar the girl had stood moments ago, before it crumpled. She would have liked to watch the spectacle, however a certain fire angel wanted to attack her again.

Jumping to yet another nearby platform, it seemed like this time she had managed to completely evade the attack, until the all too familiar burning pain ran through her leg. Had it intentionally attacked her there or was it just a coincidence? Sera didn't know, but it was bad.

As she landed even more pain shot through her body. An all too familiar feeling with all the burned flesh, though as it now affected her leg, could she continue her current tactic?

Unfortunately the avatar didn't wait for her to make up her mind.

Still seeing no reason to confront the unbeatable opponent directly, she could only jump under pain. Yet already in the air, she noticed that she hadn't enough speed to reach the top of the other platform.

In an attempt to somehow salvage the situation, she used her scythe and wedged its blade into the side of the pillar.

With her declining mental state and stamina she still nearly lost her grip, though for the moment she was saved from an untimely fiery death. Well, until the boss attacked again, then she could face a slightly different fiery death, especially so now with her being stuck at the side of the pillar.

However, to her dismay, misery loves company. Not only did the living flame appear only moments later, but the earth shook once more and this time cracks formed on the pillar she was hanging on!

And then Sera was falling.

If she thought positively about it, she just evaded another attack of the avatar. Though that didn't save her from the molten rock below. Could she jump from the slowly sinking debris to another pillar? Maybe. Not that she had any other op-

[Obsidian Heart of Fire Lv 35]

A roughly one to two meter big glowing red sphere, which she had at first mistaken for another bigger bubble in the lava, was in the midst of the collapsing structure. Even now, without her intuition and the status message next to it, she would have likely just ignored it. But with "heart" in its name, she kind of wanted to stab it...

Suppressing the first impulse to throw a dagger at it, fiddling around with her weapons mid fall wasn't optimal, if there were alternatives, she used the orientation locking function of her scythe to lock onto her target. She hadn't expected to use it in such a way, however she also wouldn't complain.

Maybe it would have been safer to get on top of a nearby rock and simply wait for it to hit the lava or jump to a location with a bigger lump of the pillar, her attributes should allow that, but where would be the fun in that?

...Actually, jumping across falling rocks did sound quite awesome, though so did striking down an opponent in a fall.

Besides, with her intuition and experience in games, she was reasonably sure that, if she destroyed the heart, she could end the fight. If not... Well, she would think about that when it became relevant.

Rushing to her opponent, assisted by gravity and her scythe, it didn't seem to notice her with whatever sense the sphere had or was simply too shocked. Not that Sera cared all that much about it. If the fight had been at least a bit interesting, she wouldn't have minded extending it, even though she had ways to win it, but this one had gotten quite boring. Indestructible opponents weren't fun.

Finally hitting the sphere a cracking resounded. For a moment Sera feared that it was her scythe, though those concerns quickly dispersed with the appearance of the next messages...

[You killed the Obsidian Heart of Fire Lv 35 and the Avatar of Fire Lv 35, boss of the Obsidian Labyrinth.]

[You have cleared the Obsidian Labyrinth.]

... and the cracks she could make out on the now rapidly cooling and apparently actually black sphere. As if to symbolize the death of the heart even the lavafalls stopped and with a cracking sound the molten rock in the pit hardened before the remaining platforms crumbled.

Lastly the boss-sphere quickly dissipated and the usual pillar of light appeared in the center of the pit. A portion of the outer wall also fell apart to reveal stairs leading back up to the rest of the labyrinth.

Or more likely down, for the rest of her party.

Anyway, the fight was now truly over and she could relax as well as heal all her wounds.