The roar echoed in the space, somewhat amplified by the cave itself. Stalagmite broke away from the ceiling, the sound of their crashing barely audible over the cacophony of roars. The call lasted nearly for a full five seconds and as soon as it quieted down, more and more calls resounded from the large tunnel. Even the single surviving monitor next to him froze for a moment before it began thrashing with renewed fervor, hissing angrily and trying to get its still smoking jaw around his arm. The milky-white glow had already faded, replaced by deep blue slitted eyes. Well. Singular eye, if he were to be accurate. The fireball seemed to have caused enough damage that one of its eyes was cauterized shut. Aside from that, the spell hadn’t done as much damage as Ethan wanted, and the creature was still coming at him, clawing and spitting out shards of annoyingly painful crystal darts. Ethan tried to get it by the neck and finish it up, but the damn thing would not stay still, which was not being helped by the fact that his attention was elsewhere.

  That fucking rat, Ethan cursed as he dodge back from yet another bite and looked back up toward the running man. With a flick of his claw, he shot a [Crystal Dart] to intercept him while with his other hand he finally got the monitor right as it bit into his flank, tearing its neck before he kicked it away. Edwin ducked, skidding against the sand-like dirt and dodged the homing shard once more at the last second. Clearly, he was exploiting the weakness of the homing modifier, to Ethan’s annoyance, and as soon as he got back up, he sprinted toward the exit. Ethan lunged toward him, intent on giving pursuit only to see a tiny ball of yellow fire fly toward Edwin’s surprised face.

  The world went still for an instant, punctuated only by a heavy step that made everything shudder, and then the ball detonated into a storm of intensely bright flames, filling half the cave with noise and light, and out of the giant swirl of fire came out the flying form of Edwin. The man twisted in the air and landed on feet, hair and clothes smoldering. When the fire and smoke cleared, there was an orange cat with tufts of flaming fur sitting in front of the exit, ears tilted back, eyes narrowed.

  Ethan was happy to see she was doing well.

  Edwin was about to rush forward once more when a breathy growl filled the cave, and everyone stopped and looked toward the large opening, and as Ethan looked into the darkness and saw it staring back, a shiver went down his spine.

  A pair of glowing blue eyes hung in the air, as if the darkness itself was staring at them. A step later, the glistening, glassy fangs became visible, shining as they reflected the lights of the cave and next, out of the darkness came the rest of the jaw, followed by a powerful, squat body with a spine studded with blue-glowing crystals that stretched all the way down to a short, bleeding tail.

  Severed?

  The tail came to an abrupt end, and it was still trailing blood, which meant that might have been what Edwin had done to lure the monster out. Still, the creature was at least fifteen-feet high, and it looked pissed.

  [Lord of the Cave (II) - Level 70]

  This is a bit of a problem, Ethan thought, then his eyes swiveled to his main target. How did he manage to injure that creature? Why didn’t he try using that on me, and what else can he do?

  As Ethan considered it in the very little time he had, he was confident that doing that much damage with just a yank must have used up something important. Whether it’s a trait or a special prime ability, Ethan couldn’t think of anything else that would be so effective considering how much the lord outclassed the both of them. As for why he hadn’t used it on Ethan, maybe it needed a lot of time to set-up? Maybe he only managed this because the creature had been asleep or unaware of his presence?

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  Don’t get distracted, he chided himself. There were a handful of possibilities, but his gut told him that all of this could only mean that Edwin had intended for the lord to finish him up. Which was why he’d tried to run and probably would have then pulled something out of his bag of tricks to seal Ethan in here.

  He looked up at the lord looming over them, and tightened his fist. The claws dug into the scales of his palm. Now would be the best time to finish things up.

  Edwin’s eyes were swiveling between him and the pissed off lord, and Ember was slowly retreating back in the tunnel. When hers and Ethan’s eyes met, she froze, then continued backing away. “[I’ll keep this exit blocked, but I’m not dealing with that thing. I mean… I can help with a fireball or two, but I don’t have your Toughness. That thing need to hit me just once and I’m dead.]”

  Ethan almost smiled at that, but he was too on edge for that. “[Don’t worry about it. Just keep yourself safe,]” he said, glancing back toward the lord. The lord of the cave monitors growled, and the noise made Ethan’s innards vibrate, but he still looked away from the creature and broke into a sprint.

  If he finished-off dealing with Edwin, he could take his time against the monitor or even get the hell out if it became too much for him. But he wasn’t leaving empty handed.

  Edwin looked toward him, disbelieving for a second before he fully turned around to face him and with a flick of the wrist, a spray of glowing white threads came at Ethan. He was aware the nets could slow him and he felt he could trigger the Zenith State to punch through it, but again, he refrained. Instead, he came to a screeching halt and using both hands, he summoned the most powerful jet of fire he could create, and a pillar of flame shot at in Edwin’s direction, bright enough for even the lord to squint its eyes, which pissed it off even more than it already was.

  With a spit-like movement of its head, a gray, urchin-like ball of crystals shot toward Ethan, and it dangerously reminded him of those old-timey sea-mines, and if he was a betting man, he was sure it was about to behave in a pretty similar fashion.

  Ethan aborted on his spell and dove to the side, bringing his body to the ground while simultaneously surrounding himself with a layer of protective fire as he put his arms and knees in front of him. He hoped it would be enough, but he didn’t think Child of Flame had the potency to shrug-off an attack from the lord. Weaken it, sure. But fully stop it? No. Not yet. But that was the sort of scenario he thought of when he’d assigned his stats points, and he believed his Toughness would be enough to tank whatever shrapnel reached him.

  Ethan couldn’t see the glass-bomb reach the cave floor, but he could hear it. It sounded like someone had gotten a truck’s worth of antique dinnerware and just smashed all of them on the floor, all at once, and a second later three shards cracked painfully into his forearms and legs, but thankfully, only one managed to really cut through the scales and sink into his flesh.

  Ethan quickly jumped to his feet and ripped out a dagger-sized shard out of his arm, summoned more fire to cover the injury as he threw a look at the lord. It bared its teeth when it saw him move, but instead of shooting another shard, it stepped forward.

  Good. Must have a cooldown, he thought before his eyes swiveled to his real target and broke into a sprint once more.

  Edwin was gripping a white-pommeled dagger in his left hand, and his wand in the right as if he was holding up an opened roll of parchment, and through the white barrier-like surface connecting the two instruments, four shards were still being held, suspended, but two had managed to punch through, one catching him in the thigh, and the second through the shoulder.

  Edwin noticed him coming and wordlessly, he let go of the dagger and swung the wand, and the blade zipped toward Ethan like an arrow out of a bow.

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