"Everyone ready?" I asked, and they nodded in agreement. "This seems to be a more direct dungeon. Blazing Minotaur—ring any bells for you two?" I looked toward Elk and Tress, but they shook their heads.

  "It's a humanoid creature. The body's human but has a bull's head. It's probably quite strong since it's F0. Be careful."

  I could tell by Elk's face he didn't know what a bull was, but I had no way to explain it to him. Better if he saw it for himself.

  Everyone had their weapons in hand, and we moved ahead. I was mostly eager to test my new skills and see how they worked.

  Still, I decided to enter the dome invisible and try to take advantage of my newly improved stealth and the upgraded ceremonial dagger.

  "Let's do this," I told them and stepped through the veil.

  It was like we'd been transported to a completely different place.

  Definitely the place wasn't ninety feet from one end to the other, and it didn't look like a forest at all.

  We were in some kind of arena, resembling the Colosseum, but on a much smaller scale.

  There were unoccupied seats going up into several rows, but no one was there.

  The ground was rocky and orange, with a small layer of dust on it that seemed to stick to our shoes.

  The sun in the sky was brighter, but the atmosphere was different.

  "I know this place. It's one of the arenas from my city." Elk kept turning and taking in the place. "But there are definitely no minotaurs there. We watched Arahaktar warriors fight each other in the pits—for glory, fame, and money—but the fights against animals or monsters were suspended after the humans fled."

  "They used to make you fight them?”

  "They used to make us fight dragons, the bastards," Elk added, disgust on his face. "They knew they were our gods, and that probably made it even more fun for them."

  "That's sickening," Mary added, though she wasn't looking at the Arahaktar. She stared toward the rolls, expecting the enemy to come.

  "So?" I asked out loud. "Where is the enemy? Where do they come from?"

  "Those are doors, look." Elk pointed to one side of the arena, where a big wooden door—just as orange as the arena—blended in, hard to spot at first glance. On the opposite side, there was another similar door, but nothing came out of either.

  My patience was starting to wear thin, along with the growing worry that the monster could appear from anywhere.

  I kept darting my eyes toward the seats and the sky, but nothing came.

  I searched through the messages, but there was nothing new.

  That was when the ground trembled.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I’d never experienced an earthquake, but I bet this was one. Tress had to hold onto me to keep from falling, and in the process, we almost stumbled together to the side.

  After the initial tremor, another one hit—stronger this time.

  We couldn’t stay on our feet and fell to the ground. In that moment, cracks began to spread across the arena floor. At first, they were subtle, like hairline fractures on a ceramic sink that slowly but surely expand.

  However, the subtlety quickly gave way to the roar of the ground shaking and reshaping itself.

  We managed to get up as the floor began to shift.

  The seats started to crumble, and the first rows pushed into the second, making the stone structure collapse bit by bit.

  What wasn’t slow was the change in our surroundings. Platforms had formed across the entire arena.

  Three triangles now marked the arena floor. In one corner, I managed to steady myself with Tress. In another, Mary and Elk stood their ground.

  The largest triangle, at the far edge of the dungeon, remained unoccupied—but what worried me most was what lay between the platforms.

  Ten feet separated mine from Elk’s, and both stood a good twenty feet away from the third. Between all the rocky terrain, lava had pooled beneath us, oozing and bubbling.

  Heat began to permeate the air as we stared at it, waiting for the enemy to appear.

  "As soon as it’s in the open, strike with all you've got. I’m afraid you won’t be much use with your fire magic, Elk," I shouted the last part to the Arahaktar. He’d probably already come to the same conclusion.

  The next second, bubbles rose in the center of the arena. From them, an immense creature burst forth.

  The monster erupted from the lava, coated in the molten orange liquid, and landed squarely on the empty platform.

  It roared into the skies, its body slowly revealing itself as the lava dripped down.

  Its head resembled that of a bull—massive, muscular, pitch black, with enormous eyes and two sharp horns curving like waves.

  The beast turned toward us, revealing a carved physique: long arms, giant biceps, broad shoulders, a puffed chest, and a swollen belly that was more muscle than fat. Its legs were thick, muscles defined, but its knees bent like Elk’s, and instead of feet, it had hooves.

  In its hand, the monster wielded a giant axe, the blade glowing with runes etched in black metal. The edges of the blade blazed hot, though the heat slowly faded.

  As I’d ordered, we didn’t wait for it to strike first. Our projectiles flew with speed. Elk hurled fireballs, but when they hit the monster’s face, it didn’t flinch. It didn’t even try to dodge.

  When Tress’s arrows were about to hit the creature, it swung its massive axe with unnatural speed, moving it from side to side and deflecting every projectile—both those aimed high and low.

  When I fired my lightning bolts, I expected them to either burn the creature’s sweaty body or, if blocked by the weapon, let the shock travel through and cause damage anyway.

  But something else intercepted them.

  From the depths of the lava, a wall rose and solidified in front of the monster. Like a protective shield, the lava wall absorbed all my spells and made them vanish into thin air.

  All right, our options are limited, I thought, waiting for the lava wall to drop so we could strike again.

  That was when I remembered my new skill.

  I summoned a lightning strike at the farthest point I could reach, angled precisely to hit the monster. I did the same from another position—and was rewarded with a notification:

  Stunning Effect – Effective.

  That was our best window to attack. I grabbed Tress’s hand and launched us toward the creature with [Lightning Momentum], trying to reach it before the stunning effect wore off. I knew it wouldn’t last long.

  Just as I feared, the moment we touched down, the message disappeared, and the creature roared.

  That wasn’t the problem. I still couldn’t see it behind the lava wall, but I summoned two lightning bolts behind it and fired them simultaneously, signaling Tress to flank to the side.

  However, her eyes widened as the monster roared and leapt higher than I’d anticipated. It shattered the wall in front of it as it soared—landing right in front of Elk and Mary, cornering them with its massive weapon.