"Keep running! I can see the path getting really narrow up ahead," Helena yelled. She was using one of her spells to have a lesser version of night visions googles. Unfortunately, the visor the group had didn't have that function, so they had to depend on spells. Despite being a shadow mage, Helena's spells weren't that great at seeing in the darkness. She could see, at most, a couple of hundred meters ahead.

Everyone was getting tired, they were running for about 15 minutes already, and the monsters weren't letting off with their chase. A regular human would have covered over 2 kilometers in that time, but, as a group of explorers, they had run for over 3 kilometers already. The valley was steadily getting narrower, but it wasn't enough to stop the silver giant just yet. Looking to the sides, Hera could see that the walls were making a funnel. If it would keep going like that, it shouldn't take long for the path to be too narrow for that giant monster.

"When we are sure that that thing can't follow us, we should turn and face the monsters. The big guy will work like a cork," Bonnie said.

"Why don't we just keep running?" Blue asked.

"Not everyone has the same energy as you do. If we keep running, some of us will lag behind," Bonnie replied in a huff. By the sound of her voice, it was clear that she was among the groups that would end up lagging behind.

Hera understood that well. She wasn't that confident that she could keep running for much more time, unlike Silah, who seemed to be still doing well enough. All the muscle she built up while working on the forge was pushing her forward during this marathon. Looking back, Hera saw the Golden Scarab scurrying along the ground at a staggering speed. It quickly got close to Mylo, who was still on the back of the group.

"Mylo! Watch out," Hera cried and tossed a paralyze spell at the monster. The creature jumped to the side and avoided the attack, but that allowed Mylo to create another illusory barrier right in front of it. The beast slammed against the flowers and was attacked by a barrage of glass shards. The Golden Scarab was tossed around, but there wasn't even a scratch in its carapace. The monster pulled its smaller arms from under its body and started shooting its stinger at the party. Hera created a stone wall to cut off its line of sight, but the creature didn't even care. It kept shooting and body-slammed the barrier, breaking it apart, before continuing forward.

Mylo tried to get closer to it to attack properly instead of using his shards, but the Golden Scarab kept moving away. It was hard to tell if that creature focused on ranged attacks or on melee combat. Hera started tossing poison needles and using her flaming poison rain to cover the monsters on the back. Since they would have to fight, either way, she might as well start dealing some damage. The scarab seemed more careful when dealing with poison and backed away, hiding amongst the rest of the monsters. On the back, Hera also saw the green eye of the Jeweled Hunter glowing with an ominous light, but after a few moments of waiting for an attack, nothing happened. Paying more attention, Hera noticed that the green light became brighter as she threw her poison needles, and some of the monsters tried to avoid the projectiles. They weren't always successful, but it wasn't hard to tell that there was some connection between the Jeweled Hunter and that ability to evade her attacks.

"I can see the narrow path!" Shane yelled on the front. She had stopped shooting her gun when it became clear that all her attacks were missing. There was no point in wasting mana or materials.

"How narrow is it?" Mylo asked.

"More than enough. Don't hold your staff sideways," Shane's voice was filled with glee. The path ahead should be less than three meters wide. The Silver Giant wouldn't be able to pass by that area, and even the Jeweled Hunter should have some trouble crossing over.

One by one, the group passed through that area. Even if the passage was wide enough for two people to stay side by side, they avoided doing so since some jagged bits of rock were coming out of the walls, which could easily hurt someone. The passage itself was considerably long, and after around 50 meters, the monsters also had to make a line to cross over. Being such a perfect opportunity, Hera created a spore field behind Mylo and followed it up with a flaming poison rain that would cover the entire passage. Adding to that, Hera also made sure to keep the source of her spell moving so there would be a constant stream of fire and poison on top of the monsters.

"Blue, do you have any actual storms? Put one behind Mylo!" Hera yelled from the back.

"Got it," Blue tossed a cloud up, making it vanish in the darkness. Tiny sparks of lightning could be seen in the shadows, "Let me know when you are clear of the storm!"

"Wait for it… Wait for it...NOW," Mylo yelled when he passed by the light.

Following that, lightning began to strike at the monsters. Unlike Hera's spell, the cloud was stationary, but the electricity was more than enough to damage the creatures and even give them the shocked affliction. This made Hera's [Ailment Master] trigger several times. She could already feel her poison spreading to a large number of creatures, but since that didn't spend any mana, Hera didn't activate her poison master just yet. The more the poison naturally hurt the monsters, the better.

The passage stopped being so narrow after around 400 meters, opening to a considerably wider area. Unlike the funnel it did on the other side, here, there was an abrupt change. In one moment, the valley was just three meters wide, and in the next, the valley was so wide that they had to spread out their lights to see both sides of the walls.

Silah and Shane were the first to leave the narrow path. They ran a few meters forward and started preparing the area for the party to make their stand. Silah created several walls on the side to work as cover and blocked off the top of the corridor to avoid having to deal with monsters dropping from above. She couldn't do anything to block all the way up the narrow path, but now there was only a three-meter tall hole before ten meters of rock blocked the passage on the narrow path. This created an amazing kill box for the group to deal with the monsters.

Blue and Bonnie were the next ones to exit. Noticing the barrier that Silah made, Blue also added some clouds to hide the stone from the monsters, while Bonnie jumped over one of the blockades and prepared to attack as soon as the creatures came out.

"I'm hiding walls with my clouds. Don't try to run over them. Go around!" Blue yelled to the group.

"Got it!" Alex was just coming out of the valley with Helena right behind her. The assassin ducked to the left and hid among the rocks, vanishing even from some of the party member's sight. Helena moved to Bonnie's side, they were used to fighting by each other, and the multiple elemental attacks worked well as cover for Helena's sense deprivation spells.

Hera and Mylo were the only two still inside the narrow path. They were about a hundred meters behind the rest of the party since they focused on attacking the incoming horde. Still, when entering that area, the monsters started to clog up the entrance. That gave them a considerable lead. Mylo had created a massive minefield with his illusory flowers, while Hera let the flaming poison rain stop moving a few meters after Blue's cloud. Focusing on the front enemies helped to give her and Mylo some breathing room, but they were far enough away from any creatures for it not to be a problem anymore. Now, Hera just wanted to spread as much poison as she could. Thanks to Risli's bracelet, she would even get more monsters poisoned.

"Hera, make that poison again. Right above the exit," Mylo said.

"Will do. I'll drop the other. I can't tell if it's hitting anything anymore," Hera nodded.

"Good, and… watch out!" Mylo jumped to the side when a small streak of gold crossed them in a flash. Instead of stopping, the Golden Scarab kept running nonstop towards the rest of the party.

"Incoming! The Golden Scarab went past us!" Hera yelled.

Before she even got to the exit, an explosion of light and magic blinded her. The moment the scarab came out of the narrow passage, everyone threw spells at it. Thankfully, they were careful enough not to aim directly at the corridor, or Hera and Mylo could end up getting hit by the splash damage. Even with all those attacks, the scarab didn't seem to mind. It kept dashing around, trying to reach one of the humans. Helena used her grabbers to stop it, and that seemed to finally hold the creature back, but that took all the mage's concentration. She tried to start removing the monster's senses, but there wasn't any leeway on the struggle for her to do something aside from holding the creature back.

"I'm gonna need some help here!" Helena called.

Blue ran over the monster and started punching it with her electric buffs already charged. The current coursed through the golden body, but the monster didn't seem to mind it one bit. It was still wrestling with Helena's spell, trying to break free, "That thing has too much armor. Nothing we are doing seems to be hurting it."

"Stay clear. I'll cook it from inside out!" Bonnie yelled and started slamming fire fists at the creature.

"Can you make a constant fire?" Shane asked.

"I can just rapid-fire this spell," Bonnie replied.

"I can do that," Hera yelled just as she exited the passage. Behind her, Mylo slammed his staff on the ground and pulled it to the sides, creating a flower-patterned barrier.

"Then do it!" Shane yelled.

Hera rushed over the Golden Scarab and used her grease fire spell to cover it completely. When the flames were covering the entire creature, she took a step back and turned to the passage. Silah was creating something on the ground behind him, and Hera quickly went to help her.

"What do you need?"

"Make a hole. As large and deep as you can. I'm making a trap," Silah replied.

"They can climb walls. I don't think a pitfall will help that much."

"Not a pitfall, something else. I got the idea from those horror movies Alex likes."

Hera frowned, unsure what kind of horror movie Silah was thinking about, but she helped create the trap. The monsters were already slamming against Mylo's barrier, and the ones that sneaked by the sides were being picked off by Alex o Shane. In a few moments, the hole was ready. Sila pulled the ingots from her waist and created two cylinders filled with blades. She placed both in the spot and made a makeshift meat grinder.

"Blue! Can you hide the hole The darkest you can make the cloud the better," Silah called.

Understanding the plan, Blue quickly created the cloud, and they stepped back. Hera made a final touch, raising two walls by the entrance of the narrow path that would guide the creatures to the trap.

"Mylo, can you jump that?" Hera asked.

"I can don't worry."

Hera moved away from the trap while Shane shot the now glowing red Golden Scarab. The bullet hit the monster and exploded with cold, and the sound of metal breaking echoed through the valley. Looking over, one could see that the armor of the creature had shattered. Its protection wasn't completely gone, but much of its yellow body could be seen now.

Shane and Alex started attacking the Golden Scarab, and Mylo jumped off the entrance. Letting the horde of monsters fall in the meat grinder. Not all of them were immediately killed by the meat grinder, but the ones that survived were picked off by the rest of the group. When the Golden Scarab was finally killed, Shane, Alex, and Helena joined in the defense, and in just a few minutes, all the monsters were gone.

"Is it over?" Bonnie asked. She was sweating buckets from all the running.

"It looks like it, let me check," Shane placed her hand on the ground and used her radar spells to see what was around the area, "Yeah, there doesn't seem to be any more monsters around."

"Do you think we broke that golden thing armor completely? I kind of wanted to see how that material works," Silah looked over the remains of the Golden Scarab.

"It wasn't that small. I'm sure there still is some of its carapace lying around," Helena replied.

"Hum… guys. You are you seeing this?" when Hera spoke, everyone looked towards her. They followed her hand and saw what she meant.

Carved into the walls, a 10-meter tall naga statue adorned with silver and bronze accessories standing with a regal expression looking down upon them.