LAIR

"This is…" After hours of wandering around and destroying constructs of mana, the group was met by a new sight.

"You gotta be kidding. No way we're expected to take this thing, right…?" Claire muttered aloud in disbelief, if not for her mask on would notice the dazed look in her eyes.

A river of lava, its flow not nearly as fast as a normal river but quick nonetheless. A few meters from the river was a boat made of rock, though it'd be more suitable to call it a raft. Claire turned her eyes all over the scene looking for another way forward. Unfortunately for her, this was the only way.

"The problem is how we're all going to fit." Ivan placed a hand on the raft before rubbing it intensely, his eyes glowed as an idea entered his mind. This raft of rock was not made of any old boulder but instead imbued with properties to prevent it from melting.

In fact, it was likely most of the dungeon's traps and formations were created with the assistance of Oscar's creation magic. Ivan placed his hand on a nearby boulder before imbuing it with his properties, all the while molding its formation to make a larger raft fit for all of them to ride on.

They could've taken both rafts to save up space but Ivan placed great importance on sticking together. The last thing he wanted was for Freid or any other attackers to take advantage of their separation to eliminate them.

There was always the chance that taking two rafts would end up in them getting lost from each other anyways.

So without further ado, they all climbed onto Ivan's raft. Yue stood still with one arm up, casting a gravity spell to lessen the load they impacted. With a push of Ivan's leg, they drifted into the river of lava and down a tunnel.

"Hoh~? This is like an amusement park ride!" Ivan marveled at the spectacles of waterfalls made of lava, the tall cliffs and monuments, and the occasional sights of animal life. Which consisted of weird-looking frogs, goats that looked like stone, and the familiar magma ox that encompass the area.

No doubt he and his group looked like a group of tourists. All they were missing were annoyingly flashy cameras and Hawaiian floral shirts.

"SCREE! SCREE! SCREE!"

Their wonder came to an end when faint screeching noises hit their ears. It wasn't that they weren't expecting to be attacked on what they thought would be a peaceful boat ride, it's just that they were hoping nothing would disturb them on what they thought would be a peaceful boat ride.

"B-Bats!" That's right, a swarm of bats was heading their way. But of course, this was one of the labyrinths made by the liberators who sought to kill gods, there wasn't going to be any normal o' bats.

Ivan stood up straight with his fists in front of him. "Ari, I need to see what happens when they die so I'd like you to kill one for me!"

"Aye aye, Captain~!" Ari took her place in front of Ivan, she held one wrist out in front of her before a chain with a sharpened end shot out and into the swarm of bats. The more mana she expended the longer the chain went, eventually it hit a single bat that had been flying a little faster than the others.

BANG!

The pointed end pierced it violently and the following chain wrapped its corpse, with a strong tug the chains enclosed the subject and crushed it. And as Ivan had expected, the bat exploded into flames the moment it died.

"Alright, thanks a bunch!" Without another moment of hesitation, Ivan decided it was best not to allow the swarm of hundreds of exploding monsters to get anywhere near the raft.

BANG BANG BANG!

As intended the explosive needles shot out of his gauntlets and whizzed around in the air like heat-seeking missiles. Any attempts to dodge the attacks were met with a recalculated strike as the needles followed without mercy.

It only took ten needles before the explosion of a few magma bats led to a chain reaction of explosions and death. The debris of rock and lava was blocked by Tio who amassed a barrier to protect the group.

"T-Totally as intended…" The explosion created a force strong enough to bring a total collapse of the tunnel they used to enter this area. While Ivan was a little apologetic he wasn't all too worried. If need be, all he had to do was manually shift the obstacles out of the way or destroy them using his alchemy.

Peace descended on the rafters once again. They continued down the river without any troubles whatsoever. It would seem the designer of the dungeon had intended the biggest hassle to be those magma bats that exploded upon death and occasionally shot fireballs.

"Hm? It doesn't look like there's an ed—!" The raft started declining rapidly as the hill they crescented over led them down into the depths of the dungeon. But seeing as how there was nowhere else to evacuate to, everyone just braced for impact in hopes they'd still be alive by the time they made it to where they needed to be.

SPLASH!

After two minutes straight of just sliding down, the raft came to an abrupt stop. Ivan and his crew all held each other just to make sure they wouldn't be sent flying at that exact moment.

"A-Are we there yet?" Felis voiced out her concern as the place they found themselves in was completely dark and devoid of light. Ivan being the one that could see no difference in the dark than in the light took a gaze around.

"Yup, we should be fine~ At least as far as I could see we're in the sa–!" His words were cut off as the raft abruptly fell once again, this time with no buildup.

"A waterfall!?"

"Hm… It'd be more accurate to call it a magma fall I suppose."

Rather than another slope, they were met with an immediate fall. Yue straightened herself out as she held her palms to the fastly approaching sea of lava.

WHOOSH!

With a flick of her palm, an updraft was created to slow their descent. The raft leveled out before Ivan and the rest of them each landed on it harshly. Though Ivan and Tio were the first ones to hit the ground because of their weight, the others used them as cushions.

"T-Thank god for my armor… Um, well for Tio…" Ivan looked over at his flattened dragon companion. Usually, she would be ecstatic at having been the brute of physical entanglement however now her face was pressed up against the stone texture of the raft, twitching ever so slightly to indicate her consciousness.

"Whoa, where are we?" Claire voiced out her amazement as the others took their attention from helping up Ivan and Tio to observing their surroundings. Up until now, the only sights they've seen were stones and magma rivers.

However now what they stood inside was a magma lake. Its dome-like shape with the rock ceiling enclosing to reach a point in the middle made this area look all too much like an arena for fighting. In the center of this dome lake was an island whose shores were guarded with seemingly impenetrable walls. The crimson crystals lining the bottom of the walls seemed to keep the bubble covering the top of the island activated.

"I'd say it's a safe bet to say this is the lair we've been looking for?" Everyone nodded to Ivan's words as this place seemed more and more like a boss fight arena the more they inspected it. Or at least the stone spikes sticking out of the lake of lava littered all of the places and made it seem so.

The raft drifted closer and closer toward the island. Ivan and the rest each got into a defensive position as they awaited the last boss to show itself. Currently, the only three capable of long-range combat were Yue, Tio, and Ivan. Felis was capable of copying any of the former two's magic so long as it wasn't too complex but Ivan preferred that she kept her mana reserves full in case of emergency. Claire and Ari were both more suited to mid-close range battle so they were delegated to reaching the island. The same went for Canis who had just been staring around with a poised look.

BANG!

A needle sent from Ivan scouted the area before setting its sight on the island, without much hassle it dove into one of the crystals embedded into the walls. Unfortunately, nothing happened–

"So I guess we can't really cheat it huh…"

"RAAAAGGHHHH!!!"

It seemed the dungeon was rather unfond at Ivan's attempts to run with the prize, bubbles formed in the sea of lava before ten serpent-like monsters came shooting. Each over ten meters long and oozing lava. Their body seemed to be made of molten lava, as the cracks in their 'skin' revealed the lava coursing through their body.

Rather than monsters, they seemed more like golems, and as the normal procedure went Ivan's first goal in killing them was to locate and destroy their mana crystals.

Except—

"Huh?" Shattering and shattering, the death of a fire serpent only meant the birth of another. No matter how hard the team tried they just kept coming back. Only Ivan spotted something upon the death of the fifteenth creature.

"The crystals on the island are disappearing upon each death." So the answer from this point on was simple. Just destroy every serpent over and over until each crystal on the island is destroyed. And that would likely lead to the barrier being destroyed.

Felis was on the prowl, she leaped from rock to rock, sometimes perching herself with her hands and feet like a cat. And when she saw the perfect opportunity, she pounced—

Claws extended from her fingers and sliced through the molten rock like butter, a few more swipes, and the slices turned to even more slices.

As for Canis, she carried out her attacks with her physical strength. It took a while to warm up but with the protection of Felis and Claire, it was possible. Ari on the other hand shot each chain with precision, even going as far as to settle on top of a .lava serpent and guide it using her chains. Which resulted in the collision between two other serpents. Claire took that opportunity to swipe with her vacuum blades, shattering the serpents in a single move.

Yue went for a more scorched earth approach.

"Lightning Wyrm." The dragon formed of lightning traveled across the sky leaving behind destruction in its wake.

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