The regular adventures in my past life didn’t know much about these creatures, so I decided to take it easy and gather as much information as I could. Not many people bought access to this area, as the passive temperature here was around seven hundred Kelvin, which was enough to melt some metals like Zinc.

All I knew about Hellhounds was that the cracks in their skin stopped glowing when they died or when they ran out of mana, as this was the only information that the three heroes released to the public for free. I concentrated on the enemies in front of me, as I was unprepared, unlike the first two areas.

Two hounds started sprinting at me with great speed, their jaws were wide-opened and some burning saliva escaped whenever they moved. I set my body on fire and started avoiding their attacks thanks to [Light steps] and my increased agility.

I tried to use [Burn that invader!] on one of them, and the creature caught fire. However, there was no visible physical damage to its body, and it seemed to enjoy the flames as it howled and growled as if it was delighted.

It seems like one thousand Kelvin flames do not cause direct damage to their bodies, but they are still draining their mana.

I let the other hound get closer to me on purpose, avoiding its attack before it landed. I touched its skin with my hand and ignited it. As soon as the second dog caught fire, the flames that burned the first creature got extinguished.

The first hound looked pissed off as the cracks on its skin no longer glowed as they used to, and it let out a ferocious growl.

The remaining hounds observed the battle between me and two of their comrades as if they were unwilling to participate for now.

Suddenly, the two monsters that I’d been fighting calmed down. They stopped growling and tried to approach me from different directions. I increased the temperature of the flames that burned my body to one thousand Kelvin, as I needed some extra stats to perform the feat that I had in mind.

I closed my eyes and relied on [Flawed State of Being] to sense my surroundings. Its range was still too small for my liking, but I had great confidence in my reaction time and speed.

Soon after I closed my eyes, the two creatures started running toward me. Both of them were no longer on fire, and they had no mana left.

So, their goal must be to engage me in physical combat.

I waited for them to be within the range of my sensory skill, and it didn’t take too long for that to happen because of their great speed. I jumped as hard as I could when I sensed their presence, and I heard a loud smack below me.

I looked at the source of the sound and saw that the two hounds had slammed into one another. Their heads were greatly damaged, and some black pieces that looked like coal dropped from them. One of the two hellhounds lost half of its skull after the impact, and its remaining eye seemed to have lost all fighting spirit.

The other creature was in better shape, as it only lost about a quarter of its head’s mass. However, both of them looked confused and startled by the event that happened.

Suddenly, their whole bodies started glowing with an orange hue. It was reminiscent of the way that charcoal started burning when a person set it on fire, and I didn’t feel good about this.

This might be their last resort.

I increased the temperature of my flames to one thousand five hundred Kelvin, as it was the highest temperature that my items could withstand without disappearing instantly. I held my bag of holding and wrapped the palms of my hands around it.

I tried to exclusively decrease the temperature of the flames in the palms of my hands to preserve the bag of holding, but I was only able to set it to a thousand Kelvin before my headache became too much.

It might be too early for me to willingly control the temperatures of flames of different parts of my body simultaneously, I guess this will become more possible once [Flame-N-Go] levels up sufficiently.

As a safety measure, I propelled myself away from the two hounds by shaping some of my flames to function like mini-jets. I was barely able to move two meters away from the monsters before they exploded with a loud boom.

The flames didn’t cause any physical damage, but they were as painful as two thousand Kelvin flames. Some of the shrapnel managed to reach my body, and they caused a total of three hundred HP damage.

So, these creatures can explode! I better finish them off sooner from now on.

As soon as the two monsters disappeared, two new ones started sprinting in my direction before I even reached the ground.

I managed to outmaneuver them with a couple of somersaults as soon as the tips of my toes touched the ground, but one of them still managed to hit my right thigh for thirty HP damage.

They tried to use some fire spells that they unleashed from their mouths, but they stopped using them when they saw me shrugging them off. I played around with the dogs for a little while, before I defeated each of them with heavy kicks to their heads.

Some system screens appeared, but I ignored them as I saw many hounds rushing to attack me. There weren’t two of them this time, but all the ten remaining monsters were coming at once.

I got serious when I saw the number of creatures trying to kill me, and I rushed at them on my own accord before they got the upper hand.

I attacked the first monster’s skull with a jab, followed by a straight punch. He fell to the ground, and the cracks in his skin stopped glowing. Another hound appeared from behind him trying to surprise me.

I grinned and attacked him with a front kick to the neck. He flew at least ten meters away and fell to the ground, no longer moving. He still wasn’t dead, as the cracks in his skin still glowed faintly.

He was no longer able to participate in the battle, so I ignored him and focused on the two hounds that were two meters away from me.

I moved swiftly toward one of them, and attack one of his limbs with a low kick. He fell to the ground, and I stomped his head as hard as I could. He died, and his skin’s crack stopped glowing.

The other monster was a meter away from me, and its maw was wide-opened as if it was looking at a meal instead of a foe. It jumped at me; it was trying to bite my neck.

I shoved both of my hands inside its maw and moved them apart as hard as I could. The joints of its jaw snapped loudly, and its head was split into two portions. It died on the spot.

The remaining six creatures looked genuinely startled when they saw how their comrades died, and they started whimpering and running in the opposite direction.

Every one of them started howling, and my intuition told me that this was a skill that they used to call for their leader. I wasn’t sure about my conjecture, but I confirmed it as soon as I heard loud growls from afar.

The growls were deeper and stronger than the ones that the regular hellhounds made, and the creature that made them was getting closer to my current location judging by the increasing volume of its battle cries.

I was disappointed in the weak fighting spirits of these hellhounds, but it seemed like they weren’t as suicidal as the other monsters that I faced before.

This is it! Let’s see what the Cerberus can do.

*

Suddenly, Phaella appeared out of nowhere alongside a female human. It was Petra, and she was thrashing around telling the little fairy to take her back to where she brought her from.

“This is the last one, right?” said Phillian, “The other eight are already inside the safe room, and we’ll secure it after taking this female inside.”

“That’s true,” said Phaella, “The Primordial will escape soon, and I hope it finishes its duty quickly.”

The Primordial was the tutorial’s source of energy, and it doubled up as a guardian in case something went wrong. In the past, it was relatively common for intruders to invade the tutorial grounds for various reasons, but such an occurrence became rare nowadays because the security of the tutorial became much better.

“Wh..What is this all about?” said Petra, “Let me go! I need to grind some tutorial points.”

The others looked dumbfounded, and their eyes were wide-opened as they stared at the fairies. Many of them had been busy exploring and fighting monsters, and they didn’t understand the reason behind the sudden kidnapping.

Phillian sighed and he started speaking with a loud voice.

“Everyone! Please calm down, there was an emergency and we had to do this,” he inhaled a deep breath and added, “You’ll be allowed to resume your adventure once everything is back to normal!”

“Yes! We assure your safety as long as you stay inside the safe room, so don’t wander outside!” said Phaella.

“Where is Jason?” asked Finn. The sudden question startled everyone and they looked at him.

Zhou Mingrui, Xi Jiang, and the other teenagers looked at the fairies with great interest, waiting for their answer. Chris, Marla, and Rodrigo didn’t share their enthusiasm, and they kept to themselves.

“About that…” said Phillian, “We weren’t able to convince him to come with us, and it’s too late to go back for him at this point,”

“Of course! We tried our best but he insisted on staying,” added Phaella, “He’s strong, so I am sure he’ll survive no matter what happens. The threat isn’t that big anyway, so don’t worry about things getting out of control.”

The fairies spoke with confident tones of voice, and they soothed the people who were worried about the danger that they might face.

Everyone calmed down a bit, but most of them still had puzzled facial expressions.