Jason, Lilly, Antonio, Emmanuel, and former prisoner Tamiel, found themselves in a rather serious predicament. A giant and rather intimidating looking cobra-monster unexpectedly appeared in front of them, eager to shed blood and have their corpses for lunch. Not willing to go out without a fight, everybody drew their weapons, preparing themselves for the biggest fight of their lives thus far.

The first thing the Emperor Cobra did was this: it opened its mouth wide and from it, emitted a large, fast-moving cloud of poison at the J-Crew.

“Everybody, get behind me!” Tammy demanded, with urgency.

The four wasted no time getting behind the witch. Tammy pointed her staff at a cloud of poison and casted a Super-Technique; it was a large cyclone of wind with a wide radius. The spell successfully countered the emperor cobra’s attack, blowing it away and dispersing it. Tamiel, using her high intelligence stat and Arcane skill, transmuted the tornado into several spinning discs of air that looked razor-sharp. She then commanded the transformed spell to hit the monster; all of them had landed. The slithering reptile beast was inflicted with numerous bloodied wounds, indicating that it suffered rather serious damage.

Angered, the Emperor Cobra unleashed a powerful roar that rang throughout the room. An army of smaller versions of the creature were summoned; they burrowed out of the ground to fight for it. They seem to be controlled by its brood-mother. Even though they appear to be weaker compared to its overlord and the monsters that Jason and his crew fought while raiding the dungeon, truth be told, they’re actually tough as nails. They had the ability to spit poisonous acid at medium-range and just like their brood-mother, possessed a bony face plate, giving them an added layer of protection from any head strikes. The minions were also quite speedy as well, capable of dodging slow attacks and then counter-attacking with their spiked tails.

There’s this one thing however, that had the potential to hold them back in a rather significant way: they had this relatively large circle-shaped mark on the upper part of their backs; Lilly was the one to find this very fact about them. She had this thought in her head that when the mark gets stabbed or at the very least, hit with considerable force, will cause so much damage that it would outright kill them. Wanting to test this theory, Lilly sneaked up to an unsuspecting minion cobra and stabbed the mark with her chokuto; it hissed in agony, before collapsing and hitting the ground dead. It seemed the ninja cat-girl’s theory was correct: this was undeniably a weak-point.

“Everyone!” Lilly shouted, getting everyone's attention, “They have this mark on their upper backs that when you hit it, they’ll instantly die; try it!” she quickly announced, before going back to fight once more.

Antonio, slightly injured, was relieved that there was a way to defeat these creatures without having to exert himself, which he was doing up until the announcement. He tried this strategy of hitting their weak-points to kill them; it exactly worked as Lilly described and soon, everybody adopted the same method. In a rather short amount of time, all of the minions present were dead. However, with that out the way, it turned out that the whole mini-battle was just a huge distraction to allow the Emperor Cobra to regenerate its wounds. Now fully healed, it was ready to fight once more and this time, it would amp-up the aggression.

The cobra monster charged at the J-Crew with breakneck speed. Utilizing her ability to see thirty seconds into the future, Tamiel saw the danger approaching; in a moment of swift action, the witch casted a flash of bright light at the monster, temporarily blinding it. Jason, Emmanuel, and Antonio dive rolled out of the way, Lilly jumped up high up into the air and gracefully landed on a safe area, and Tammy made an emergency teleportation to a safe distance.

In general, all of them managed to dodge the blinded monster’s charge. The Emperor Cobra ended up colliding with the wall; it was stunned and blinded for a short amount of time.

“Alright everybody, we only have a very small window for any strategies, so listen up because I can only say this once,” Jason stated, “Lilly and Manny, use your speed and at the same time attacking to distract and wear down the monster; Tony, you’re with me on causing most of the damage; finally, Tammy, you’re the long-range whether it be offense, defense, or support.” he stated in a concise and easy to understand manner.

“You got it Jace; we’re with you!” agreed the ninja cat-girl, along with everybody else.

Soon after, the cobra monster recovered from its shock; it roared at the J-Crew before quickly burrowing itself into the ground. Jace and Lilly were sensing the creature’s every move and learned that it was tunneling through the earth at an expeditious pace, seemingly planning for a sneak attack. The Emperor Cobra then decided to surface; the knight and ninja cat-girl saw this and jumped out of the way, successfully dodging its sneak attack and then counter-attacking for good measure.

With the creature present, Jason and his team began their plan of attack. Emmanuel and Lilly utilized their speed to distract the boss, along with causing side damage with their weapons. Jason and Antonio swung as hard as they could at the cobra monster, inflicting mega damage and in general, kicking its ass at close-range. Finally, Tamiel was the one providing everything that is magical, whether it be casting fireballs, shooting bolts of lightning, and/or raising defensive barriers, she was there to provide them all to her team.

By the mid-way point, the Emperor Cobra was effectively near death. It tried many things, like spitting venom, poison cloud emission, slamming its tail to create falling debris, and even creating false copies of itself. Unfortunately to the creature, they were all either dodged, blocked, foiled, and with the case of Tamiel, outright negated. Lilly and Manny decided to crank-up the damage and inflicted numerous x-shaped gashes all over its body, causing immense pain to the boss; it was so bad that it crashed onto the floor.

The monster rose up once more, albeit in a rather faltering manner only to fall back to the ground. It attempted to regenerate its injuries again, however, this was stopped when Tammy casted a Super-Technique that physically weakened it. The witch then focused all of her attention on a specific point of the monster’s body: its head. A magic circle with a lightning bolt symbol in the middle appeared on top of the Emperor Cobra’s protective bone mask.

“Hit it! Hit it now!” the witch demanded with utmost urgency, before returning focus.

“You heard her, let’s finish it off!” Jason declared.

“Right behind you boss!” Antonio agreed.

The two men rushed up to the fallen creature, jumped up into the air, and plunged their weapons deep into its head. Thanks to her Super-Technique, the reptile monster’s protective appendage became fragile as talc; as a result, it shattered into numerous fragments, leaving behind a large patch of exposed muscle tissue. If that wasn’t bad, a giant surge of electricity surged throughout its body.

In the aftermath, all that remained were the smoldering corpse of an Emperor Cobra and the dead bodies of its minions. Silence had returned once again to the room; the J-Crew could take a momentary breath of relief before raiding the rest of the temple.

“Woo!” howled Tony in amazement and victory, “That was fucking tough... yet awesome at the same time!” he commented with astonishment, while trying to catch his breath.

“It sure was.” Jason responded.

Out of nowhere, red-colored particles of light appeared and surrounded Antonio, along with Emmanuel.

“Hey, hey, what the hell are these things?” Antonio bluntly questioned.

“Calm down and stay still,” Jason asked, “They’re not harmful; in fact, they’re an indication that you’re getting stronger.” he informed.

The particles continued revolving around the duo; then their whole bodies glowed a faint red color for a split-second and then the particles disappeared all together. The same thing happened to Tammy, but the particles are blue instead. Despite the difference of colors, they all came down to this similar fact: Antonio, Emmanuel, and Tamiel have leveled-up; they felt more stronger, faster, and durable than before. They’re on the way to becoming elite adventurers.

Soon, Anya along with a group of armored soldiers and mages arrived at the scene. They were all shocked by the corpse of cobra monsters littering the place.

“Hey,” one of the men called Jace, “Did you just kill that thing over there?” he asked, pointing to the corpse of the Emperor Cobra.

“You bet,” Jason confirmed, “Well, with a great deal of help from my team over here; I couldn’t have done it without them.” he admitted, giving credit where it was due.

His crew was quite moved by his statement. It told them that he was a strong and reliable leader, capable of being intelligent, honest, and mature when the need called for it. Specifically in the viewpoints of Antonio and Emmanuel, he was a drastic improvement compared to their previous boss.

“Mr. McGuire!” a voice of a young girl called.

Jason turned around and saw Anya jogging up to him. He was relieved that she managed to stay alive this far.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” the knight said, “So what happened?” he asked.

“I found almost all of my townsfolk with the help with Jovius and his men,” the wolf-girl revealed, “But the thing is… my mom, dad, and big bro, they’re nowhere to be found.” she said, with fear and worry in her voice.

“Damn it,” Jason cursed, “Alright, it looks like we have to dive deeper then; we won’t stop until we find your family.” he declared.

Anya nodded, “Thank you, mister.”

“Anyways, what’s the name of your brother?”

“Greg; I love him more than anything.”

Even though Jason was in a completely different world, that name reminded him of someone. Someone whose presence, actions, and support helped Jace become the person he was. However, there was no time going down memory lane; raiding the dungeon and rescuing innocents was the most important affair at hand. The J-Crew and others continued further down into the Temple of Geoise, hoping to find those who are held captive before it was too late.

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The Covenant of the Dragon was raiding deeper within the dungeon; along with them, a few guilds were assisting them on every step of the way. There are some guilds, like the Fist of Rankira (which Jek’na was a part of) specialize in things like long and close range combat, healing, and stat enhancement. With all of these groups and organizations so far into the raid, they were kicking all sorts of ass, especially on the part of David and his team.

There were special variants of monsters that not only had high strength, speed, and endurance, but were also capable of inflicting de-buffs without mana, destroying weapons/armor, and many other things. Yet, despite all efforts coming from their part, they couldn’t hold a candle to Hamilton and his underlings. If they weren’t being cut down by Leslie and blown to pieces by Jeffrey, they were being mowed down indiscriminately by Mr. Hamilton. Dave was exceptional, even for the standards of a master-level knight. He had a large arsenal of incredibly powerful Super-Techniques, each more devastating than the last.

For the first example, The Covenant of the Dragon encountered a small army of demonic-looking ghouls, commanded by a lesser lich that could heal and even enhance them; they served as an obstacle to David and his pupils. Yet, despite all efforts on their part, they were destroyed by this particular Super-Technique of his.

Dave pointed his sword up and the blade glowed red. Then numerous small balls of flame materialized around him; they then swell up into larger sizes until they’re big enough to match a mage’s fireball. He then pointed to the minor horde; the fireballs zipped through the air and violently collided with the ghouls and its lord. They were all ruthlessly eviscerated and incinerated, until there was nothing left but smokey corpses and even ashes. This Super-Technique was called Comet Storm; it could be used by both Knights and Mages, given that they’re high-level first.

“All in a day’s work.” David remarked.

After the fact, more tough and savage creatures appeared; in particular, a Troll Shaman and an Orc berserker. They appeared to be high-tier mini-bosses, provided with all the mystical runes and high-grade equipment that had on them; they looked like they’re capable of wiping out a group of well-trained and seasoned knights. However, just like the army of ghouls, it won’t end well for them.

The troll shaman attempted to cast a curse that would both deafen and blind David. Sadly, it was swiftly negated by Jeffrey; to add insult to injury, the negation spell had an extra effect that prevents one from casting anymore Super-Techniques for a specific duration of time, depending on its level. This spell’s name was called Render Silent and Jeffrey had it at Level 3, so the de-buff had a duration of about fifteen minutes. Effectively and to put it bluntly, the troll shaman was screwed.

To spare it from any more humiliation, it was cut down by the efforts of Leslie dual-wielding both a cutlass and rapier, provided by a guild during the pre-raid training session. The creature had mediocre durability, so it went down pretty quickly.

All guilds intentionally went their separate ways to cover more ground, so all that stood was The Covenant of the Dragon, versus an ogre berserker with a few underlings...