The cavern was illuminated in a dazzling purple light by the torrent of magic plasma beams the heathian slime hydra shot out. Sophia and the kunoichi, all of who were in their respective Surging Mana States(Heather having a lime one, Elizabeth having a bright beige and Alex having an orange one), frantically evaded the beams and magic bombs(mana spheres with fire mana core and a lightning mana exterior) that annihilated the stone pillars as the slime hydra heads targeted the girls. Zallino flew behind the girls as he carried Zalmaru on his back and weaved between the slime heathian's attacks.

Sophia vaulted over an energy beam before creating a medium-sized light mana arrow and firing it at the hydra-head as it was charging up a plasma beam. The light arrow pierced the plasma sphere and melded with it before making it explode in the hydra head's face. The hydra heads all wildly flailed about as Sophia and the kunoichis landed on the ground.

"Nice shot, Fifi," Ruby said pridefully as the dust cleared from the blown-up hydra-head and revealed it was completely destroyed; however, the damage was short-lived as the hydra-head quickly regenerated, much to the girls' dismay.

"Oh come on, that attack even had light mana in it!" Alex blurted out angrily, with Charlotte telling Alex not to lose her composure. Heather stared at the recently regenerated hydra head before looking over at Charlotte.

"I believe Sophia's sensei mentioned slime heathians were one of the few infected creatures that were super tricky to deal with since slime can naturally regenerate and can split their body apart," Heather mentioned. Charlotte considered what their game plan was supposed to be now since their attacks didn't appear to be working and that Chronia said that either Zuno or Zalroth were going to be the ones to take the heathian down.

Charlotte glanced around at the others and, excluding Sophia, Ruby and Xinia, were showing light signs of fatigue. Charlotte considered using her Azure Ability but remembered that her ability doesn't restore other people's stamina.

"Elizabeth, Heather, Alex you three fall back and try to spot any weak points on the slime," Charlotte ordered, the trio nodded their heads before parkouring up some stone pillars and hiding in the shadows. Charlotte closed her eyes and began to focus as a silvery golden wavey-flame aura and glowing dark gold marks began to appear over her body, with parts of the silvery golden aura flowing over to Sophia, Ruby and Xinia before mixing with their auras and Ruby's mana armour.

The trio was about to charge towards the slime heathian before a stone golem went flying past them and crumbled when it crashed into a pillar. Ruby peeked her head in the direction the golem came from and looked at the sea of various, material-type, golems while commenting on how Zalina sure likes to throw those golems around, right as another one was sent flying into the cavern ceiling. Zallino and Zalmaru agreed with Ruby's statement before they rushed over to the slime heathian.

Zalina tail-slammed a group of golems into the ground, followed by Kai popping out from one of Zalina's tails and piercing the golems' mana cores with Disruptive Pulse-covered jabs. Kai quickly hurriedly climbed onto Zalina's back before Zalina jumped into the air to evade a barrage of mana-coloured energy beams. Kai tapped Zalina on the shoulder and asked Zalina if she could use her fire golems against the enemy golems.

"But isn't your Disruptive Pulse doing just fine, besides the last thing we need is more explosions," Zalina stated as she landed on the head of a wood golem. Zalina glanced down at the golem she was standing on and sighed as she felt Kai tap on her shoulder. Zalina murmured fine before she grabbed the wood golem with her tails and hurled it into the air. Kai happily conjured a barrage of tiny fairy fire golems and fired them all at the wood golem.

A giant explosion erupted at the centre of the sea of golems and bits of the many golems landed around Vivo and Kukou as they hopped out of the way of the golem debris. Kukou amusedly chuckled as he picked up the largest and brightest mana core before intently examining it.

"This one seems to be just below an A rank, but it will do," Kukou stated as he encased the mana core in a lightning-like red energy. The energy crept over the remains of the golems and dragged them towards the mana core before slamming into it. The energy faded from around the mana core and reveal a glimmering golden ruby crystal sword in Kukou's hand.

"So, you're an alchemist and a magic-circleless one to boot, that would make you the third person I've met who can do that... in this time period," Vivo mentioned as he created a long feather that he transformed into darksteel.

"I take it the other two are the prince of Zelkio and the daughter of the demon lord? Well, I'm honoured to see my efforts were acknowledged," Kukou said as the closed-eye marks on the plates of his cloak opened and glowed a bright red with white dots scattered in them. Vivo commented he'll need to keep a distance from Kukou's alchemy energy.

Vivo encased his darksteel longsword in lightning mana before unleashing a concentrated energy slash. Kukou ducked under the energy slash, that sliced through the golems behind Kukou; Kukou stood up and looked at the sliced-up golems behind him. He shot some alchemy energy at the defeated golems before merging them all into a single heavily armoured golem. Kukou ducked under some more fly debris before gesturing towards Zalina, followed by the heavily armoured golem leaping in her direction.

"For being an ego of such a powerful being... she sure is sloppy," Kukou remarked before he deflected one of Vivo's dawnite feathers with his sword. Vivo commented that at least Zalina can focus on fighting her opponent before he snapped his fingers. A myriad of lightning-covered dawnite feathers bursted out from Vivo's wing cloak and raced for Kukou.

Kukou jumped back to evade the first wave of feathers; slashed the second wave away with a Celestial Horizons slash and destroyed the third wave with a barrage of alchemy energy bolts that disintegrated the feathers. Kukou looked around and realised Vivo was gone.

Kukou took a step backwards and the darksteel feather longsword struck the ground directly in front of him. Kukou went to grab the feather but abruptly lept into the air right before a cluster of large darksteel spikes bursted out from the ground. Vivo, covered in Lightning Amp lightning, dashed above Kukou and axe-kicked at him.

Kukou managed to block the kick but was sent plummeting straight into the darksteel spikes, making a scratchy metal clanging sound. Kukou backflipped out from the undamaged spikes while having a few scratches on his cloak. Vivo landed on the ground and pulled the darksteel feather longsword out of the ground as the spikes turned into floating darksteel feathers.

Kukou raised his sword and began to encase it in alchemy energy which made Vivo get into sprint ready stance. Vivo spread out his wings and they transformed into duskanite, which caused Kukou to cancel his alchemy energy. Kukou commented since Vivo can create duskanite then his chances of winning in a one-on-one are even worse than before.

"I think it's about time you have a change of scenery," Kukou remarked. Kukou raised his sword into the air before hurling his sword into the air. The sword flew over Zalina and Kai as they were beating up the heavily armoured golem; the sword continued to fly through the air before one of the slime heathian hydra heads caught the sword in its mouth. The sword dissolved in the slime hydra's mouth as it pointed its mouth towards the ceiling of the cavern.

Sophia, Charlotte and Ruby quickly backed off from the slime heathian right as Heather, Elizabeth and Alex landed next to them. The slime hydra channelled the energy from the ruby sword in a giant mana-infused plasma sphere before unleashing a super-condensed plasma beam into the cavern ceiling.

"That's probably bad... right?" Ruby rhetorically asked as the others unamusedly glanced over at her, with Ruby apologising for stating the obvious. The beam continued to pierce through the ground before the sound of the beam hitting the ceiling changed, and caught Kukou's attention. Kukou commented that given the sound he concluded that the ground must have been reinforced with darksteel and mentioned it might take kyubi's beam slightly longer to reach the surface. As he placed his hands together, Kukou bidded Vivo farewell as alchemy energy wrapped around his body and disappeared before Vivo had the chance to stop him from teleporting.

"Wow, you let him get away," Zalina, with Kai still on her back, snarked as she jumped on Vivo's back and told him to hurry over to Sophia. Vivo rolled his eyes as he took off and flew over to Sophia while slicing the golems with his wings as he flew over them.