They got sealed in the tunnels.

  They debated sealing everyone in their own tunnel, but they had eight teams and there were only six entrances to the boss square. In the end, they chose to put two teams in 19E.2, 19E.3, 20D.3, and 20F.1 and to seal the entrances in 20D.4 and 20F.2 completely off.

  Penelope tried not to think about what potential bosses they were going to face off against. The Terror Bug had been difficult enough the last time and they’d lost a lot of good people, but they’d also basically only had two teams since Derek’s teams hadn’t contributed a lot. With four times the strength they had last time, as well as everyone geared out much better, things should go smoother.

  She opened her menu to look at her stats.

  She’d wanted to try to learn at level eighteen, but her Aura wasn’t high enough for that. Instead, she’d learned the Tier One . She’d used all thirty points she could raise her stats with elixirs, which had allowed her to cap out her Magic with any Magic stats on her gear. She’d split the rest of the points from elixirs between Speed and Recovery. With gear, she’d been able to get both to forty, which had given her three extra points that she could put into Aura.

  Being able to be an off-Healer had helped their group out a lot; while there were two other Healers with the light affinity, having a third person around who could heal anything gave them extra security, which came in handy fighting the Last Breath in column 18.

  Penelope hadn’t taken any of the gear, even though there were pieces that had dropped with four stat points on them as well as spells and skills. It let the others shine and allowed her to stay more in the background, which allowed her to work on ways to bolster the team as a whole.

  The group began to count down the moment the timer hit ten seconds, just like they’d done on the last floor.

  10

  9

  8

  7

  6

  5

  4

  3

  2

  1!!!

  The black barrier fell, letting them see what was in store for them. The boss area was open, which allowed the four pairs of groups to meet up near the column 19 side. Penelope sighed as she registered which bosses they were up against.

  “12, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19!” Patrick barked. “We know 17 is going to be dangerous, so don’t let it pin you down! Stay with your team! Floaters, you’re on little duty instead of helping to burn the dangerous bosses! Take care of the little ones, then help whoever is struggling like we planned! Mains, focus down on your boss. If you kill it before reinforcements arrive, help the person closest to you!”

  “12 and 15 are new to you.” Jeru chuckled. “The Terror Bug isn’t here, so you won’t have to worry about that one and the Whispering Death is gone too.” He pointed at the two new Demons. “12 is the Hagle. Lots of air spells and it can fly, but you’ve got , so you can lock it down, and then it’ll be helpless. 15 is the Dugoyle. High Defense and Power and it can fly but it has really low Recovery, so spells will tear it up.” He winked at her. “This one is going to be a lot easier than last time.”

  Let’s hope so.

  “PEN!” Patrick’s yell snapped her out of her internal conversion. “We’re on the Vairfly!”

  “He’s assuming the one from 19 is the hardest, so he’s giving that one to himself.” Jeru nodded. “Noble.”

  Penelope used to create a

  and four with . Thanks to , a smaller ball of light orbited each of the larger ones. Unfortunately, there weren’t two prisms, but she only needed the one. The crystal turned from translucent to red as she switched the element she wanted to use to fire.

  “I’m ready.” Penelope looked over at the armored Tank.

  “You can shoot at the little ones if you want to, but our main focus is the boss.” Patrick pounded his sword against his shield, then charged towards the yellow-furred Demon.

  Ula followed right behind him, with Riva staying close to Raelyn. The two older women followed behind Penelope and Circe, who fired at the little monsters as they closed the distance on their target.

  Notification windows dinged as the little monsters fell, but Penelope didn’t have time to look at them. She allowed the windows to stack up and kept her menu closed.

  The Vairfly took to the air. Circe shot arrows into its left, leathery wing, while Penelope loosed at the main body. Riva used to wrap around its legs and slam it down to the stone floor.

  The canine-faced Demon howled as it tore off the shadow tendrils grasping at its legs. It towered over Patrick as the Tank slammed into it’s chest with his shield. Ula moved around Patrick on his left and sliced halfway through the Demon’s right wing.

  Penelope moved her prism and balls above the Demon and rained down on the Vairfly’s back.

  The Demon shoved Patrick back, then swung with its left arm, only for the punch to get interrupted as Riva grappled it with her . Ula moved behind it and scored a deep cut on the back of its right leg, bringing it down to one knee.

  Now that it was the same height as Patrick, he focused on bashing it in the face with his shield. Circe didn’t let up, shredding the Demon’s wings with her arrows. Ula stabbed it in the back since the heavy mane around its neck provided an extra layer of protection.

  Recovery was the Vairfly’s third highest stat, allowing it to heal itself as they poured more damage on it. The high Speed and Power were doing nothing, as it was forced to focus on healing rather than offense. With the Demon locked in place, it was just a matter of whittling it down faster than it could heal.

  It didn’t take long for their attacks to start doing significant damage. The cuts on the Demon’s back weren’t closing before Penelope was cauterizing them, allowing Ula to carve a little deeper with each swing. Thanks to Riva and Circe, the Demon couldn’t move and Patrick was keeping it stunned by repeatedly bashing it in the face with his shield.

  “It’s dead.” Jeru announced as another notification dinged.

  “We got it.” Penelope stopped channeling her spells and looked around. They weren’t the first team to finish their boss, but there were still three boss fights going on. The Dugoyle was the closest one to them. “I’m going to help Archer!”

  It was the only group without reinforcements and it was the closest one to them, so it made sense for that to be where they went to help.

  “Dugoyle is earth element, so you need to switch.” Jeru warned her as she into range.

  With a thought, the prism turned blue. Penelope lined up her , then fired her spells through the prism.

   gouged chunks out of the boss’s wings, sending the stone duck-faced monster crashing to the ground.

  The Demon stood up on two legs and flexed its clawed hands. The wings on its back were destroyed, forcing it to fight on the ground instead of dive-bombing the group like it had been.

  Riva and Circe appeared on either side of Penelope and let their dark abilities loose. Black tendrils wrapped around the boss’s clawed hands, pulling it down to its knees. Instead of using arrows to do damage, Circe added shadow tendrils of her own, replacing the ones that snapped as fast as the Dugoyle was breaking them.

  Archer’s team was at a disadvantage against a flyer since the only ranged person they had was Allis and fire wasn’t effective against an earth affinity boss. Their Speed person was an Assassin and their Aura person was a Buffer, which made this a very bad matchup for them.

  “Take it down!” Penelope yelled at Felix Galloway, the Power person on the other team. She groaned when she watched his warhammer smash into the Demon’s back and not leave so much as a scratch. The mid-fifties man took a step back and readied his hammer to swing again.

  “He’s poison affinity.” Jeru clicked his tongue. “This is a really bad matchup for them.” He pointed at the nineteen-year-old Assassin who sliced at the Dugoyle’s legs. “Melvin is poison affinity too. They aren’t going to take any damage, but they can’t beat this thing either.”

  We can change that. Penelope poured more mana through her , raining more and more jets of water spells at the boss’s head. By the time Patrick got close enough to hit it, the boss fell face-first to the ground with a ding announcing that it wasn’t going to get back up.

  “Portals are up!” Circe cheered and jumped into the air. “We did it!”

  “We’ve got injured!” Patrick took off his helmet and raised the ground underneath him two feet so he could see everyone. “Healers, make sure you look everyone over! I don’t want anyone to have so much as a bruise by the end of the day!” He surveyed the battlefield. “We need to get these monsters to processing and prepare the supplies to take down to the next floor!”

  Penelope took a deep breath and suppressed a shiver as she noticed Derek watching from the tunnel where she’d waited for the boss barrier to go down. Those tunnels should have been sealed.

  “Which means he unsealed them.” Jeru sighed. “You know he’s going to be a problem.”

  I know. Penelope shook her head. Patrick has already told me that he plans on letting them be one of the teams we raise up on the third floor.

  She shook her head as Derek winked at her. I’ve got a bad feeling the smooth ride is about to end.

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