Like a pond that had been disturbed by a thrown rock, the stone floor cracked open and sent pebbles flying everywhere. The impact of the chitin spear caused an echo to ripple through the Valley of Stone and Thunder. The group looked up from the impact site towards the shadow of the creature that had thrown it. A massive, humanoid shape with four arms and a neckless head.

It stood on the edge of the southernmost of the three plateaus and soon vanished behind one of the many boulders that covered the craggy exterior. Looking around, John just barely caught the movement of a second monster on the plateau to the northeast. From his last visit here, he knew that there was a third on the plateau to the northwest. The second they moved out of the spawn point towards any of the valleys that would, presumably, lead to the bosses, they would be in range of one of the spear-throwers.

Beatrice landed back in the safe zone. “So, Sylph, Siena and Beatrice are quick enough to dodge the spears at maximum range, at least,” the Gamer summarized their findings. “Metra, if you can dodge, do so. If you can’t, I want to see whether your armour can block the impact.”

“Roger that, my king,” Metra answered and, for once, put her armour on without any complaining. Having seen the impact of the previous three spears, she was respecting enough of their power to give it her all from the get-go. The moment the lead-grey plates had completely covered her muscular body, she charged forwards. About two seconds later, she jumped to the side. Too slow to dodge, but quick enough to transform it from a hit to her chest to one to her shoulder.

There was a crunching sound, like a fly getting squished under a boot, and Metra’s shoulder was pushed backwards. Shards of the spear flew everywhere. The First of Wrath remained standing. Quickly she retreated to the spawn point. A second spear flew in her direction, but just barely missed her.

“Would have been better if I hadn’t tried to dodge,” she reported, her voice echoing metallically underneath the malicious looking helmet. “If it hit my centre, it wouldn’t have thrown me off balance as much.”

John nodded and looked at where Metra had been hit. If there had been any damage to her armour, her status as an Artificial Spirit had already fixed it. When it came to her HP, there was a chunk of it missing. Although she didn’t get skewered, the force of the impact still dealt damage. Not enough to cause any worry, however.

Even without her wrath-fuelled buff, Metra still had her nearly unrivalled defences to justify her presence in the group. That and her dimension tearing magic. “Think you can just teleport up to it?” John asked, looking at the Sickleman in the distance, once more hiding when nobody was watching anymore.

“Would be easier if I still had Qiada,” the First of Wrath answered, resting the crimson replacement axe onto her shoulder in a nonchalant fashion. “Not having a weapon that can store spells limits my range quite a bit.”

“Hmmm, well, if we’re lucky, something might drop for you,” the Gamer hummed. “Not that that solves the immediate problem. What distance do you think you can cross in an instance with a portal?”

“Fifteen to twenty metres,” Metra responded. That wasn’t a lot, especially when it came to their current superhuman standards. Using her magic to make her charge wasn’t an option, it seemed.

“What about the cliff, can your magic help climb up there?”

“That should be pretty easy, yeah.”

John rubbed his chin and ignored the chattering in the background. While he was busy scheming, the girls talked about this and that. There was no need to be dead serious before the battle began and only a few of the girls were as interested in analysing the conditions of the battle as he was. Once he had come to a conclusion, there was immediate silence.

“Alright, here is the battle plan.” John turned towards the gathered harem. “Metra will charge in on her own. We’ll follow once she is up the cliff,” he emphasized his words by pointing up to where the Sickleman had last been seen. “She won’t take too much damage from the spears and should be able to hold her own until we arrive. Once I give you the signal, Metra, you immediately fall back to where I am. You will lose your extra power when we start attacking and I don’t want that to happen while you’re locked in a grapple or something.” He looked at Undine. “You will leave item form at that point and concentrate on healing people who get out of the direct engagement. Everyone, remember that Undine can reach you at range as long as your shadow is intense enough. This is true for all of you, except Lydia, Nia and Jane. You will also need to be in range of her sight for this to work, because you lack the mental connection.”

“Sounds fun,” Metra grinned, while Undine just nodded.

“Once we’re in battle, we go through three battle phases,” he continued. “In stage one we fight cautiously. Only Aclysia, Beatrice, Metra and Gnome should go into melee range. Everyone else focuses on ranged support. Study the attack patterns, find weaknesses, get used to the terrain, all that. Once we get confident, we go into phase two where we exploit what we find. Cripple the most important limbs, take advantage of unnecessary movements or just crush it with numbers. If we can win right there, we do, if we can’t, we go into phase three. Those of us who have extremely strong and reliable burst attacks will get ourselves in the best position to deliver a decisive blow. That should at least cripple the monster enough that we can finish it off using phase two tactics. Anyone disagree with that plan?”

He looked around and only saw shaking heads or other forms of denial.

“Alright, Nia, I want you to focus on opportunistic attacks during phase two,” the Gamer gave his final instructions. “Lydia, you should offer support in all three phases. Use your Innate Ability to obstruct the enemy’s movements, shield us and all that. Jane, I want you to prepare Copernicus’ Unleash from the start. Best to have something available for phase three immediately.” He didn’t need to give the rest specific orders since their mental connection would allow him to relay things even in the heat of battle.

“Ya mean ya want me to go Super Saya-Jane,” his girlfriend stated.

“Please do not remind me of that terrible pun,” John groaned.

“Ya don’t have the right to complain about terrible puns, Mister ‘I-named-my-yacht-Boating-Seaequence’.”

“My puns are tasteful, yours are terrible,” the Gamer asserted and looked to Metra. “I suppose we’re ready when you are.”

“Just give me a moment,” Metra responded, stepping up to the very border of the safe area. “I should amp myself up for this.”

“You want some help?”

“As if I would need help getting angry,” the First of Wrath laughed. The sound ended abruptly. Searing heat rose at the edge of John’s mind. He had learned to ignore the basic levels of it. Now, the ever-present anger of Metra rose to above average levels. Conjuring multiple scenes and images from her memories, she caused some of them to flood past the boundaries of her ego and reach John.

He saw a black ziggurat and a great procession of powerful, sorrowful and traitorous vassals. He saw a dragon with wings like the night, covered in stars. He saw a tower that grew and grew. He saw a hall with twenty-one open chambers and a rotting, living dragon bleeding salt water lying in the middle of it. ‘That’s Tiamat?’ he asked himself.

The image didn’t stay for long and John concentrated more on the present Metra. Ramming her plated heel into rock over and over again, the First of Wrath created an ever-deeper crack in the floor. The beat grew louder, angrier, was accompanied by the tiny rattling of her armour segments against each other. Trembles grew to violent shakes and then, with a scream of raw anger, she started running.

She was almost as quick as Sylph at that moment. She was a streak of grey in the grey landscape. Only the glow of her green eyes added anything else to the monotony. Charging with anything but grace, she leapt in a serpentine pattern, dodging the repeated impacts of the spears. She slammed into the cliff as if she could make the entire plateau topple over. There was a quake John could feel even where he stood. Metra dug her hand and axe into the stone and pulled with such power that she half flew up the vertical obstacle. There was a flare in the air towards the end, then she was gone.

“Let’s go!” John announced and everyone followed after the berserker babe. Beatrice, Nia and Rave all had to take the ground route. John, Aclysia, and Lydia got carried through the air by Salamander, Jack and Sylph, respectively. Gnome, Undine and Siena were all following incorporeally. With this distribution, they minimized time between arrivals due to Agility differences. Regardless, Sylph was the first to arrive.

The Gamer got to see the Sickleman and Metra fight. It was absolutely brutal. Neither of the two parties were hurt yet, but the flurry of movements and how they ravaged the landscape was worthy of a chapter in a mythology book. Every strike of Metra’s axe cleaved apart rock. The monster dodged each time. It didn’t look easy on the creature, but it could still fight Metra in her current stage on even footing, if not surpass her.

The insectoid giant dodged three swipes of the axe and then suddenly stopped moving. There was a moment it seemed bored, it even turned as if it wanted to walk away. Metra roared and charged to take advantage of it – or she was just incredibly mad about being ignored like that. The Sickleman whirled its thick, upper arm around. It slammed into Metra’s side and catapulted her into a boulder, which shattered on impact.

‘This is as good a time as any,’ John thought. ‘Metra, stay where you are!’ Undine separated from Purgatory and flowed in Metra’s general direction. The First of Wrath’s health pool was barely depleted, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Bursting out of the pile of rocks, it took the berserker quite an effort to not charge her enemy again. The green glow in her eyes was extinguished, and with it any chance for her to duel this creature, when a lightning bolt by Sylph hit it in the side. Last time they had fought this enemy, her attacks had barely fazed it. Sixty levels later, the Sickleman at least looked inconvenienced by that single attack.

A spike grew out of the left shoulder of the hunched over creature, in the blink of an eye. Grabbing it, the spider-faced Sickleman pulled out what became a fully formed spear. It had a metallic shine, just as the monster’s exoskeleton overall. Every last centimetre of it was flattened and sharp. Only the specially formed hands of the monster could even hold the spear without cutting itself.

Drawing its arm back, the monster took aim at Sylph. Then its entire body relaxed and it sat down against a boulder, avoiding a fireball coming straight at it. Without any care, it dropped the spear. Then it tried to grab Beatrice in a motion so quick it became blurry to John’s eyes. The sickles on its lower arms snapped out like those of a praying mantis. Luckily, the passive maid had much better Agility than it, as well as reflex boosting Perks. With Unsteady Limb, she managed to take a step backwards quickly enough to avoid getting grabbed. A thick, saliva like liquid dropped off the spider fangs.

A disappointed, groaning sound echoed out from the creature as it set after Beatrice in a flurry of motions. Only when Aclysia threatened to hack away at its legs with Tiemarath did the monstrosity back off. After it was out of immediate fighting range, it hissed and took a stance. Metra and Gnome joined the frontline; the harem took formation in a semi-circle around the monster. John kept to the very back, using Jack to keep aerial vision of the battlefield.

The Sickleman dropped its guard and began to just stroll. Nobody immediately engaged again. They just watched, just as John had suggested they should. “It fights like a cat,” Nia remarked, as the Sickleman continued to walk as if it had lost interest in the battle.

While John shared that impression, it felt wrong to link the predatory style of a cat to something that seemed more like the unholy union of a spider, a gorilla and a praying mantis. Even less than that he liked the idea that he was being treated like a mouse.

Without any tell, the Sickleman grabbed one of the boulders and hurled it at the group. Everyone dodged successfully, and the battle began anew. Several minutes of cautious exchanges passed. Although the fact that the monster would feign a loss of interest was unchanging, there were no clear intervals or tells when it switched between its moods. Even when pressed by all four melee fighters and harassed by back line attacks at the same time, the Sickleman had no problem just suddenly going from trying to kill them all to sitting down in a relaxed way.

They dealt damage to it the entire time, but nothing that seemed to properly hurt.

The exoskeleton was durable against physical attacks and warded off all elemental attacks with equal reliability. On the few occasions that they did corner the Sickleman, the creature dropped into the shadows to dodge. The first time this happened, they managed to score a good hit courtesy of Rave conjuring an intense flash of light that forced the Sickleman back out. This caught the creature off-guard, allowing Beatrice to capitalize. Her spear slammed into the joint area at the right side of the creature’s hips, but only penetrated the outer layers of skin. That did draw blood, but the monster wasn’t crippled.

They would have been fighting it all day this way, so John eventually made the call. “Phase two!” he shouted and looked over to Rave. His girlfriend caught his gaze and nodded. Fragments of mana were already hanging in the air around her. Usually, she would create them as a side effect of martial art usage. Going into melee was too dangerous, so she instead exuded them as part of her breathing technique. What was normally a sign of inefficient usage was a deliberate decision for her.

‘I would go for an Arcana Strike, but I’m certain that thing is smart enough to relocate,’ John thought, looking at the Sickleman bending backwards to dodge a strike by Beatrice. Doing a backflip, the giant creature dragged its clawed foot through Beatrice’s chest. Over half of the Artificial Spirit’s health was eradicated in one move and a feeling of searing pain. The attack had connected with her crystal core.

Rapidly, Beatrice fell back. The Sickleman set after her. With a sudden and strong focus, it chased. Depleted of resources, the passive maid couldn’t get away. Arm stretched out, the creature was about to grab her.

“Nobody likes stalkers!” Salamander screamed as she descended on the monster with a drop kick. That knocked the arm aside before Beatrice could be grabbed. It also left the endflame elemental in a vulnerable position. The lower arms of the Sickleman lashed out. One of Salamander’s shoulders got grabbed by an extending sickle.

The other sickle refused to extend, something that left the monster confused for just a moment. Just barely, John could make out the wires that had been wrapped around the arm. They connected to bits of metal floating around Lydia. It took the queen visible effort to keep the strings pulled. Controlling such thin strands of metal must have been quite difficult. John had seen her do it before during the tournament, but back then she had lots of trees around to anchor the wires to and ultimately just controlled them as one constricting unit at close range.

“Thanks for the save!” Salamander shouted and raised her free hand up to the Sickleman’s face. An explosion of grey and gold fire consumed the view for a moment. Then the monster bowed down unhindered, its spider fangs descending on Salamander’s head. The endflame elemental stretched out of the way. Instead of her head, they burrowed into the soft meat of her shoulders. Most of her health vanished immediately. “Fucking… ass…” Salamander growled, conjuring fire ball after fire ball that blinded the monster while it kept its teeth burrowed with sadistic glee.

Aclysia and Metra swiped in an attempt to save her. The Sickleman blocked their strikes with arms and legs. Gnome tried to disrupt the monster’s balance by tackling it. The Sickleman twisted out of the way with its extreme nimbleness. Lydia tried to hinder it, but the steady pull of the wires was only strong enough to keep the opening mechanism of the sickle from working. Like the jaw of a crocodile, it seemed that particular muscle was weak. The arm and creature it was attached to, wasn’t at all.

“Shit…” Salamander hissed, her body starting to disintegrate into sparks and then suddenly vanishing. Using her fellow haremette’s dying embers as cover, Siena jumped at the enemy. She managed to gouge a single eye out, then was hit by a hammer-like fist from above. Almost immediately, her health bar depleted as well.

Three attacks hit the Sickleman in quick succession. Perfect, Beatrice’s spear, flew across the battlefield. The Sickleman kicked it aside with the very foot he would have used to stomp Siena. Then a lightning bolt caused it to stare up to Sylph with its remaining seven eyes. A distraction that lasted long enough for a sudden tidal wave of dark blue water to rush all over it.

Undine screamed her anger into the battlefield through a song in another language. Her golden eyes were consumed by red, as she channelled her Unleash into this single offensive action. Although it barely did anything to hurt the Sickleman, being completely submerged in moving water was clearly outside of its natural habitat and served to incapacitate it. Perhaps it just thought it was fun and let itself be swept along. Regardless of what was true, the water flowed towards the edge of the plateau.

John saw this as the perfect opportunity. “Jane?!” his urgent cry echoed over to his girlfriend, who stared back for a moment, then nodded. Mana started drifting in the air, quickly accelerating towards Copernicus’ open mouth. The Lightbearer’s pink hair turned golden from the root downwards, cat ears included. At the same time, Copernicus grew from a cat into a tiger. “I’m counting on you!”

Copernicus jumped off the stone his smaller form had been comfortably sitting on. “In this form, you can,” the sun tiger declared and then started running.

“I’ll give it something that hurts,” Rave responded with a serious face and followed right after her elemental. Her Aura ignited as a golden radiance.

John checked what of his mana remained and made his final plans.

The tidal wave had finally reached the end of the plateau and turned into a waterfall. Managing to free itself from the water’s grip by jumping off the cliff, the Sickleman was high up in the air. Sylph stormed up to it, a series of thunderbolts, stronger than anything else the air spirit had used up to that point, torrenting through the monster. Even Unleashed, Sylph’s attacks had barely any impact. The exoskeleton of the creature absorbed most of the shock, it seemed.

Two spikes shot out of the creature’s shoulders, both were gripped by its main hands and pulled out as fully formed spears. One after the other, it launched the spears. Both hit their targets cleanly. Sylph was torn apart like a dry leaf hit by a bullet, dying instantly. The second spear hit Undine amongst her tidal wave. A large hole was ripped through her slime body, but she survived with half her health still remaining.

Two more spikes grew out of the shoulders. It seemed the monster was happy to use the entirety of its fall to launch spears at them. At this range, its accuracy was ridiculous and up in the air, with all fliers but Jack now eliminated, they had barely any recourse.

Copernicus didn’t care. Copernicus leapt up the edge of the cliff. Copernicus used every bit the grace of a cat he had to jump the Sickleman. The two turned into a tumbling mess of limbs. Although the Sickleman would win out, the sun tiger could put up a fight for several seconds. That was all they would need.

A second streak of gold right behind the first, Rave flew over the edge of the cliff. Fist raised, she started chanting. “A solemn reign, to those few that rise up high…”

The golden glow that encapsulated her hair and body grew in intensity until it was strong enough to rival the sun. Now, for the first time, the Sickleman seemed desperate. Separating from Copernicus with one swipe of its right main arm, it moved the other three to immediately meet Rave at its maximum length. Even though it didn’t know what exactly the Lightbearer was doing, it must have understood that it had to leverage its superior range.

“…and we all fight…” Rave continued to chant through her Babel-Phrase. The words were understood beyond language, less sounds than raw power accompanying the bundling magical energies at an almost impossible rate. The Sickleman punched and clawed at her.

The arms connected, but not with Rave. They clashed with something a lot harder. Hard enough to withstand the attack. “You were a fun fight,” Metra shouted so loud John could hear it. He was standing on an extension of the cliff, just created by Gnome with all of his mana. It had allowed the First of Wrath to run close enough to teleport up there and serve as Rave’s shield. “Now, allow her to guide you to the afterlife.”

The Sickleman screeched and drew its arms back as quickly as it could.

“…let our worlds collide.”

Not quickly enough for what followed. Rave’s attack was instantaneous. Nobody could perceive its speed. No matter whose eyes he checked through, all John could see was Rave’s fist being raised at one moment and having penetrated the Sickleman’s face the next. A massive blast of energy exploded in the aftermath of the punch. Multi-coloured light burst out on the other side of the monster’s body, creating a cone that went all the way down to the floor. John felt heat on his face as if he was standing next to a festival fire for a moment.

Then it was all over. The body of the Sickleman disintegrated as Instant Dungeon enemies always did. The gold drained from Rave’s hair as she fell. Metra landed gracefully, as did Copernicus. The tiger then caught his summoner on his soft back, moments before he shrunk back to a cat.