That latest challenge was a lot easier than he thought it would be, in no small part to the literal personification of death currently sulking as he floated somewhere vaguely behind the two Gamers. Even if there were no lasting effects, he'd wanted to take out his rage on something that deserved it, and Alagut hadn't even survived Caelem's first major attack.

It was an anticlimax if he'd ever seen one, and the lack of further things to kill as they trecked through the forest was clearly getting to him. Fortunately, while he had initially looked to them as possible avenues of relief, he'd instead given a putupon sigh and resigned himself to dealing with them a little longer.

Oh, woe is me.

Speaking of the trek, however, he still didn't really have an idea where they were going. The forest didn't seem to have an end and Caelem was being as unhelpful as ever. Xander was equally useless in that regard, though not for lack of trying. His exact words had been 'you'll see the path when we find it.' Probably true, but the memory of the conversation only grew more annoying as the walk continued.

That was another thing- his memory. After raising his intelligence, it seemed to have gotten a lot better. It wasn't quite photographic, since he couldn't remember the exact layout of the trees or anything, but there was some kind of unspoken clarity about it. That earlier conversation had been minutes ago, and while he would have remembered the words before, he could literally hear his exact tone of voice.

Hopefully such a thing wouldn't become a problem. He already had memories he would prefer to forget, and keeping them around forever in vivid detail wasn't exactly a part of his plan.

Thankfully, before he could grow impatient, they did stumple upon a secondary path. It was a tunnel dug into the ground leading beneath a tree, which was probably why it didn't show up on the map. Where it led, he couldn't exactly tell, but Caelem's wings and Xander's hammer produced enough light for the party to walk even further into the unknown.

Some time was spent just moving down a cramped tunnel, and while he remembered each step in excruciating detail, he didn't get annoyed with it all. Perhaps it was the success he'd already had, with the leaps and bounds his levels had made, but he just couldn't muster any frustration for their situation. The fact that Caelem could, and repeatedly voiced how he could just teleport out of there and be done with it, but he never did.

Why he didn't, when he didn't seem to give a shit about either of them was beyond Draga, but he never claimed to understand the death god casually partying with wall level characters.

His map updated to a new room, instantly taking his attention as he studied it. The path they were on would continue for a little bit before coming to an abrupt end, whereupon they would be surrounded by thin walls. They, in turn, would open up to a much larger cavern. Mathematicians answer let him calculate its size exactly, which was nice, which also told him how impossible it was.

Caves didn't just grow to nearly two hundred feet wide, nor so close to being circular as it was. He couldn't see height with his map, but a good guess was it was going to be pretty tall as well- an obvious boss room. They had said it was an enchanted cave, so... Magic?

Relaying the information to the group was easy enough, and the viscious smile that appeared on Caelem's face was all the more hilarious for the lack of entities showing on his map. Even that bird thing which he literally couldn't see had shown up, meaning there shouldn't be anything in the rooms. An odd choice, but hey, what did he know.

They found the end of the tunnel pretty quickly.

"Oh no," Xander exclaimed from ahead of him. "No, no, no, no no no- NO!"

Draga raised an eyebrow. He couldn't see anything, though that didn't mean much. The light the pair gave off was mostly for his benefit, since they both clearly hadn't needed it the whole trip down. He tried to peer into the darkness ahead of him, but nothing revealed itself. "What?"

Not helping in the slightest was the shit eating grin that formed on Caelems face as he brushed past the two of them and to the very end. If nothing else, his movement lit up what Xander was seeing: a red button atop a stone pedastal.

Okay, that was obviously a trap, and only a moments watch revealed Caelem's plan to activate it, but why was Xander so worried? Granted, he'd joined in late into their adventure, but it seemed odd that he'd have such an adverse reaction- he was more likely to survive it than Draga was.

Now, this was just speculation, but that just might be the reason why Draga had already stealthily and precisely sprinted up the tunnel and away from the group the moment he noted the button.

Again, stealthily- it was merely a tactical retreat.

BOOM!

The sound was all the warning he got, and even tensing his muscles and throwing himself to the ground did little to protect against the force of the explosion behind him. The distance he'd gained, on the other hand, helped quite a lot and resulted in the experience being little more than momentary deafness, a wave of heat, and a temporary feeling of weighing about a hundred extra pounds.

Gamer's Mind and Body took care of those pretty quickly, and let him turn back around to the now obliterated tunnel entrance. As his map had shown, the now blasted out wall left an opening into a far larger cavern, but it lied about something a lot more important- occupants.

There were quite a few, each of them unique and obviously ridiculous in design.

[LVL56]
The Will of the Wisps

A giant creature, it's silhouette impossible to properly describe past the wall of fire that surrounded it. The flames weren't entirely orange or yellow either, since streams of purple and blue came up through it on occassion. It stood around thirty feet tall, with the flames reaching beyond that, and it wasn't even alone.

All around it, smaller flaming creatures watched them. Thanks to their smaller size, their gangly black personage was more obvious, but that only added to how generally creepy they were.

[LVL48]
Kilin, The Ifrit

It was an equally large creature to its fellow, and equally flame oriented. Unlike the wisps, however, it resembled a titanic deformed wolf with orange and black fur accented by the flames burning away at its back. There was no pain in its expression- only the bloodlust visible in its gnashed teeth and deep gutteral growl.

It was alone, at least for its species. That was hardly the end of the room.

[LVL51]
Shelly, The Cremator

While the Ifrit and Wisps were in the same area, either grouped together or engaged in a fight they'd just interrupted, the same was not true for the impossibly large turtle. It was actually bigger than both the Ifrit and the main wisp, reaching about the same height of thirty feet but being a lot longer for it. Its back was filled with holes and crators, though the reason behind it was impossible to tell as the entire shell looked to have had a dip in lava recently.

Not recently enough to still be hot, but the clearly volcanic stone just wasn't able to appear any other way.

Annoyingly, it was only the nameplate that let him notice the next enemy on the list. It was some inhuman mass of purple flesh which literally glowed with energy, yet it was as if someone took its ocapacity setting and dropped it to one. Damn thing was near impossible to see, and he only recognized its presence thanks to the still very obvious words above its head.

[LVL?]
Nfiankanf, The Outrider

It definitely didn't look like it belonged among the other creatures, which all seemed themed to fire. It didn't look biologically possible either, given that it's rotund head seemed to exist in the same feature as its torso, having no discernable difference as eyes were spread out across it, and its thin arms and legs shouldn't have been able to hold it upright.

While it did watch them, like the rest of them, it only did so with a few of its many eyes. Perhaps it was an observer? There was only really one way to find out, and that wasn't by staring at it.

[LVL?]
The Colossus

Draga felt no embarassment at not having seen it beforehand. Even with its frankly ridiculous size- being a humanoid rock golem nearly quadruple the height of the other things in the room- it had blended into the walls of the room too well. He wouldn't have noticed it at all if it hadn't moved.

Like everything else he'd seen, it had stopped to peer at them, though it was far more extreme for the literally colossal statue. The cavern was barely tall enough for it, which made sense given that caves didn't even reach that height naturally, and had to bend over for it's one eye to observe the petty mortals down below.

Observe, a skill he hadn't really used since he'd unlocked it, actually triggered on accident from the thought, and much like the song from his last fight, it was... Very reassuring.

The Colossus
A walking mountain. Like it's smaller fellows, it is composed of the ground around it and can actually conjure lesser golems from nearby rock or dirt. It is a being beyond conventional weaponry- an absolute power to even the strongest adventurers.

Right... Caelem calls dibs.

He hadn't, but really, what were either he or Xander going to do against it? He'd be lucky to take on the Tet damned turtle, and that thing couldn't obliterate the entire cavern floor if it so much as fell over.

That left exactly one enemy unexamined- an armored humanoid two stood by a tunnel entrance leading further into what was no doubt more deathtraps. Lucky them.

[LVL?]
He Who Watches

Fortunately, it was actually human sized, and while the trible designs for its garb were interesting, it only carried a mundane sword which it rested on the ground in a non-threatening manner.

Thank Tet at least one thing in the room wasn't likely to go out of its way to kill him.

Glancing about the room had taken all of four seconds, which seemed enough for all the enemies to prepare themselves as well. It came as no surprise when they attacked.

Fortunately, Gamer's Mind had kicked in by then, banishing any fear he felt and replacing it instead with his well honed instinct not to be disembowled. Ifrit was by far the fastest on the approach, lunging forward with its jaw wide open as if to consume all three of them in a single bite.

It didn't make it the entire way. Xander met its charge, and while he was definitely slower than the beast, he was able to smash its lower jaw to the side with his hammer and send it skidding into the way of the Cremator- and no, he wasn't calling the damn thing Shelly.

The moments distraction would have cost Xander, if not for Caelem's intervention. The Wisps didn't charge into battle, instead relying on some kind of fire manipulation to shoot beams towards the group of them. While Draga would probably of died, and Xander would have at least been damaged through his suit, Caelem strode forward and basked in the heat- his wings spreading to allow the full brunt of the blast to impact him.

His clothing didn't so much as singe in the seconds that followed, but Draga wasn't able to watch exactly what happened as he instead turned towards the giant turtle. With Ifrit in its way, it had been forced to stop its own engage, leaving it as open as it was realistically going to get.

Mana pooled in Draga's hands, and he could feel his lightning affinity rising just from the preparation of the attack. His MP pool was equal to fifty times his Intelligence base, which was already equal to 292.5 after his bonuses. Adding the stacking skill, which tripled it, and, well...

43,875 mana- which was a ridiculous number for someone as new as him to have in the first place, but made even better with the complete flexibility of cost the affinity system gave him- and, uh...

Well, to put it simply, the white stream of light which shot out from his palm was more than enough.

Your level has increased by one!
Your level has increased by one!
Your level has increased by one!
Your level has increased by one!

Draga wasn't in a position to see the glorious obliteration of the turtles head or read the notifications, even if he heard them popping up vaguely in the back of his mind. The why in this situation was the unfortunate consequence of physics and his energy output.

On the bright side, he had a great position to view the rest of the battle from where he was indented into the stone wall more than sixty feet from where he had been standing a moment earlier- once The Game corrected for the naseua and pain from flipping backwards into solid stone, anyway.

It... It went a lot worse than he expected.