Chapter: TeamWork!

The egg started to crack like glass until it broke down completely, revealing a homunculus. The homunculus had a black humanoid body with overly large arms that had magic crystals engraved into its palms, it also had a crystal in its faceless forehead. It stood with a slight hunchback, with its arms hanging past its knees. The Homunculus gave off a foul intensity, an intensity that sent shivers down spines.

"What the hell is that?" Catherine said looking at the Homunculus

"By the looks of it, it's a type of Homunculus," Krow said answering Catherine

The Homunculus raised its right hand up towards Alice and her team, the crystal in its right palm started to shine bright red before a highly concentrated beam of fire burst out of its arm at great speed, heading towards Alice and her team.

Before the beam of fire could make contact with them, Tai quickly put himself in the way of the incoming spell. In a rush, he raised both of his hands towards the concentrated beam of fire.

The spell struck Tai's hands directly and with enough force to push him back a few meters, although the spell was intense Tai did not waver, with some resistance Tai managed to make the beam of fire vanish, negating it completely.

"That spell was intended to kill us" Tai announced, as smoke flew off of his palms

"Kill? That can't be...this is a test" Cathrine said a little confused

The Homunculus raised both its hands towards Tai and the others, the crystal in its right hand shined red while its left-hand crystal shined blue.

"Get ready, it's prepared to attack again," Krow said as he raised his guard

"Finally something I can rip apart!" Alice smirked as a cleaver knife appeared in both her hands "let's see what you're made out of!"

"Something isn't right here," Rex thought to himself as he raised his guard

Meanwhile

In a different part of the labyrinth, Emilia's group had arrived at their second orb. Emilia's group consisted of Koko, Danny, Tatsuo, and a dark elf named Kogla.

"Is it me or is this task going a little too smoothly?" Kogla said looking around

"Jeez, do you overthink everything?" Koko asked

"Yes... it's better to overthink than being carefree" Kogla replied still looking around, just in case anything was going to pop out

"Well as your teammates, we are here to help you fight any danger that'll come our way," Danny said looking at Kogla

Emilia rewrote the magic circle on the stand that contained a magic orb "done, here come take the orb" Emilia called out to Kogla, who was carrying the backpack

"Great! Now we only have five left to go" Danny said with a smile

"I can feel it, something bad is bound to happen," Kogla said in a shaky voice, as he put the orb into the bag

Tatsuo looked around just in case there really was danger approaching them but he didn't see any danger, instead, he saw Claire and her group running towards them. "We have company," Tatsuo said looking at Claire's group approach them

"Claire! What's wrong? Why are you in a rush?" Emilia asked worrying about Claire "and what happened to those two?" Emilia asked looking at Nelly and Aemma in the bobbles

"Long story short we have intruders and those two were hurt by one of them, and if we don't hurry others will be hurt as well" Claire replied "now I need your team to do as I say and follow me to protect everyone else" Claire continued to say

"Hanako! I'm glad you're okay" Koko said with relief as she hugged Hanako "but where is Ken? Wasn't he on your team?" Koko asked

"H-he stayed behind….so we c-could have a chance….of e-escaping" Hanako replied looking down at the ground, still worried about Me

"Sounds like something he would do," Tatsuo said walking up to Hanako "I'm sure he's doing fine, but I'll go check upon him," Tatsuo said as he dashed off in the direction Claire's team came from

"I knew it, I knew it!" Kogla said in fear "I knew something bad was going to happen! But none of you wanted to listen to me" Kogla continued to rant with a shaky voice

"Calm down buddy," Danny said trying to comfort Kogla "If we all work together, everything should be fine"

"Ken told us to leave...but I s-should have ignored him, and stayed!... I should have fought with him...but instead, I ran away" Hanako said in regret

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Ken is strong he can handle anyone he faces and with Tatsuo going to help, they will be fine" Koko said trying to cheer up Hanako "Plus knowing Ken, he won't die until you accept his love" Koko said with a soft smile

Hanako looked up at Koko with a light blush across her face "yes your right" she nodded a little relieved

"Okay everyone, this is the plan…." Before Claire could continue with what she was saying, a beam of concentrated ice came soaring through the air at great speed towards Claire and the others but before the beam could hit, a giant hand made completely out of water submerged from the ground in front of Emilia and blocked the beam of ice. As soon as the beam of ice disappeared the giant water hand also vanished.

"Master Emilia, please be more vigilant," Maximus said, communicating telepathically in Emilia's mind

"Thank you Maximus" Emilia replied

"The hell was that!?" Kogla asked as he stood behind Danny

From the direction from which the beam of ice came from, a Homunculus appeared in front of the group with its left hand raised towards them

"That must be one of the Homunculus, that wolf beastfolk was talking about," Claire thought to herself "Everyone be on your guard this Homunculus is an intruder," Claire said to everyone

Back to Ken

Me and Five have been dishing it out for quite a while now, the area we fought in was filled with craters even the ceiling of the labyrinth above us was filled with craters. This number Five guy is a monster, I've never been in a fight this intense in a while now.

My body was covered in bruises and cuts, my shirt was ripped but I was still standing with a smile on my face, I was still excited. As for Five, he was in better shape than me with no bruises or injuries. We are currently standing a few feet away from each other, preparing ourselves for another bout.

"I see you're still standing strong, young mage!" Five said with a smirk "I hope you're able to endure more!"

"You're strong, I'll give you that!" I replied before taking a deep breath and exhaling "But I won't be losing to you!"

Just when Five and I were going to attack each other once again, a green dragon serpent made completely out of mana came racing towards Five with a destructive force. The dragon destroyed the very ground underneath it, leaving a trail behind it.

The wyrm had its mouth wide open prepared to take out Five. Five turned around and faced the incoming attack, just before the dragon struck him with force, Five used his hands to block the attack by grabbing both of the dragon's mouths. The dragon serpent pushed Five back a great distance but five was able to keep its jaw open using brute force.

"This is quite the impressive attack" Five chuckled

Five tensed up his muscles and claws protracted out of his finger, with little effort Five ripped the dragon in half which caused it to vanish. I looked in the direction the dragon came from and to my surprise, Tatsuo appeared walking up to me with his katana Shunsetsu drawn (Spring Snow)

"Looks like your having some trouble Ken," Tatsuo said as he stood next to me

I looked at Tatsuo standing next to me then smiled a little "no I was just getting warmed up" I replied looking back at Five

"Amazing! That was a strong attack!" Five shouted as he walked back to his original spot "You kids sure aren't any pushovers!"

"Ken you stand back, I'll take him!" Tatsuo said as he dashed towards Five

"Let's see if you can last as long as your friend!" Five shouted

More than twenty blue magic circles appeared, spread out in front of Five. Like a machine gun, large shards of ice fired out of the magic circles rapidly towards Tatsuo. The endless onslaught of ice did not stop Tatsuo, Tatsuo slashed and dodged his way through it all until he got in range of Five.

"Sōryū style: Roaring Skies!" Tatsuo said

Tatsuo swung his sword upwards cleaving through the multiple magic circles in front of him and slicing Five diagonally across his body, the cut itself didn't faze Five but the loud thunderous sound that blasted through Five, stunned him, making him cover his ears. In that split opening, Tatsuo grabbed a talisman from the back of his pocket and stuck it onto Five's chest.

"O kami of Law and Nature, I call upon thee, hear my call and split thy stats in half" Tatsuo quickly chanted this while he held up a hand sign using his right hand

The talisman shined bright as it activated. Once it activated all of Five's physical stats were cut in half, including his mana level.

"Sōryū style: Piercing Dragon!" Tatsuo said recoiling his katana back

Tatsuo thrust his blade towards Fives's chest but even with fives stats cut in half, he was just able to react quick enough to move his body out of the way of Tatsuo's blade, although his left arm was caught by Tatsuo's blade and got severed off completely. Five jumped back creating enough space between himself and Tatsuo

Five looked at his bloody severed arm, on the ground then looked at his left shoulder as blood poured out of it, Five then looked back up at Tatsuo before breaking out into laughter "Amazing! That was amazing!".

"Even with his status split in half, he was able to avoid a fatal blow from point-blank!? This guy is something else" Tatsuo said to himself.

"Woh Tatsuo that was amazing!" I shouted. Wow, Tatsuo has been able to do more damage than I could in just minutes, I need to do better!

Five looked at the talisman on his chest before trying to remove it, but he couldn't no matter how much he tried "Huh? This thing is on pretty good ay" Five said looking at Tatsuo

"It's a talisman, you won't be able to physically remove it" Tatsuo replied as he got ready to strike again

"I see, I've heard of talismans. They originate from you Shinrinyoku and they call upon the power of your Shinto gods" Five explained

"So they are like magic tags but just more powerful, Ay? I'll have to get Hanako to teach me how to use them," I said as I walked up to Tatsuo and stood beside him "let's start the next round"

"Ken stay out of this, this is my fight," Tatsuo said looking at me

"No actually it's my fight, I was here first" I replied

"I'll take both of you on, so no need to fight among each other!" Five said looking at the both of us

All of a sudden the temperature started to rise and it got hotter and hotter by the second, and from the distance a man cloaked in scorching fire came running towards Five, leaving a trail of flames in his every step.

As the man clad in fire came closer and closer I saw that it was none other than Eldrin. Eldrin let out a loud battle cry as he closed in on Five, Five raised his right hand up towards Eldrin, creating a barrier around himself.

"This is getting more interesting" Five mumbled to himself

"That's not gonna work!!" Eldrin shouted

Eldrin entered into a close enough range to attack Five and he wasted no time in doing so. Eldrin let out a relentless barrage of flaming punches at the barrier, the first few punches didn't do much but after more punches, the barrier started to slowly crack like glass until Eldrin finally broke through.

Five got ready to let out a relentless barrage of his own using only one hand but unfortunately for him, he wasn't quick enough due to his stats being cut in half. Eldrin's relentless barrage of fire punches each landed on Five. Each punch sent a small shock wave through the air and slowly destroyed the ground underneath them.

"Eldrin sure is really violent," I said looking at Eldrin continue his onslaught

"He really needs to calm down a little, I think he might have an anger management problem" Tatsuo added on

Eldrin stopped the barrage of punches and quickly recoiled his left hand back to his waist "Fist of the brilliant flames, exploding impact"

All the flames that surround Eldrin's body all gathered into his left hand, forming a giant ball of fire around it. Eldrin launched his left fist towards Five like a rocket, punching him straight in the stomach, sending him flying back a great distance.

Fives' entire body was covered in flames, which burned him by the second. Five smashed into a giant rock causing the fire covering his body to explode into wild flames.

"Finally! I feel much better" Eldrin said as he took a deep breath before exhaling

"That was amazing, Eldrin!" I shouted towards Eldrin with a smile

"Oh Ken and Horn Boy, your both here as well," Tatsuo said with a smile as he walked up to us "you two can stand back and watch as I finish this guy off," Eldrin said as he stood in front of us

"Wait your turn Golden Boy, I was here before you" Tatsuo replied

"Actually I was here before the both of you, so I'll handle him while the both of you stand back," I said chipping into the argument

"No way! I've been itching for a fight ever since this task started, you're going to have to get through me to get to him" Eldrin said holding his ground

"That doesn't sound like a problem, I'll gladly cut you down," Tatsuo said gripping his Katana

"Good, you two can fight each other while I take on Five," I said with a grin as stood in front of both of them

While the petty argument of who gets to fight Five was going on, a sudden intense pressure fell upon us, this pressure came from Five, he had just released a heavy wave of his mana and it reeked of killing intent. The pressure of Fives manna created earthquakes in the ground and made large bits of rocks fall from the labyrinth's ceiling smashing into the ground randomly.

Suddenly Five let out a loud beastly guffaw that echoed "This is great! The three of you will make for great prey!!" Five shouted, baring his beastly fangs

As Five got closer to us, the pressure of his mana became more and more intense. His mana release was much stronger than when he first released it. Five stood ten meters away from us with a smirk on his face. Tatsuo, Eldrin, and I stood our ground and didn't flinch even once.

At the same time the three of us released large amounts of our own manna making it clash with Fives, the clash of all our mana was destructive, it created craters randomly in the ground.

If there was anyone around that couldn't handle this much manna, they would instantly pass out or be put in a comma. After a few seconds, all our mana release vanished and the intense feeling was gone.

Five no longer had Tatsuo's talisman on his chest, it seems like he found a way to remove it. Five raised his right hand towards his severed left arm on the ground, Fives left arm floated off of the ground and flew into his right hand.

"Time to reconnect this piece of me," Five said as he placed his left arm onto his left shoulder "Zethra Magic: Reconnecting Needle"

Two sewing needles made out of magic appeared above Fives left shoulder and instantly started to stitch Fives once severed limb back together with magic threads. Once the needles were done they disappeared and so did the threads that were sewed into Five's shoulder. Five moved his left arm around and stretched it out, it was like his left arm was never severed, it was as good as new.

"Zethra Magic?...that's magic from an ancient tribe...this guy knows ancient magic as well? He's going to be a problem" Tatsuo said as he gripped his katana with both hands

"Good! Cause I've been itching for a good fight" Eldrin smirked as he cracked his knuckles

"Ancient magic sounds cool!" I added on as I raised my guard

Five looked at the three of us with a smirk and said "Let's rumble!"

Next Time: Homunculus!