CHAPTER 166: THE STORM

The next nine rounds were absolutely brutal. Jax had lost count of how many monsters they’d faced, but it felt like an endless parade of teeth, claws, and magic. It felt as though the trial holder had let go of all modesty now and was sending in four monsters each round, forcing everyone to fight tooth and nail to progress.

The battle had surely gotten more difficult for everyone else as well.

Jax had completely given up on his sword, now relying solely on threads to whip through the monsters that came out of the gate.

There was no time to rest, no time to think. Just react, kill, move to the next target. Lucille’s octopus was working overtime, grabbing monsters and tossing them around while she blasted anything that got too close.

Roman was sweating constantly now, his healing spells flying out as fast as he could cast them.

Someone was always hurt, always needed patching up before the next wave hit.

There was no time for the healing wine anymore, so they brought out potions, drinking it. Roman drank his second potion for regaining Navi. Ning and Melayne were forced to drink once as well.

Lucille held out for as long as she could, but in the end, she too had to drink one.

"Just keep going!" Lucille shouted, keeping the party fighting. "We’re almost there!"

When round 59 finally ended, they all collapsed for a moment, breathing hard. They were tired beyond all belief. Looking up at the sky, Jax felt a chill.

Maybe thirty names still remained up there. Thirty, out of tens of thousands.

"Dear god," Melayne whispered. "We’re actually in the final thirty."

There was just a bit more left.

They rested as much as they could in the little time they had and watched as the timer came to an end. Then, Round 60 began.

They scanned each gate for a boss monster to walk through, but what happened next wasn’t something they had accounted for at all.

The sky suddenly went dark. Storm clouds rolled in from nowhere, thick and black, with the occasional lightning within it.

"What the hell?" Ning said, looking around nervously.

Then it started raining. A light drizzle at first, that turned to a proper downpour that soaked them all within seconds. The water pooled on the arena floor, creating puddles where it could.

"Where’s the boss?" Jax asked, threads already forming at his fingertips. His and everyone’s eyes were at the gates, searching for the boss that wasn’t coming. They began to fear it was invisible.

The rain kept falling for what felt like forever but was probably only fifteen seconds. Then it stopped as suddenly as it had started, leaving them standing in puddles and dripping wet.

That’s when they felt it.

The water around them started moving. It was like liquid metal, pulled by a magnet far away. Every drop, every puddle, every bit of moisture in the air began lifting off and flowing toward a spot far in front of them.

"What... is this?" Lucille muttered.

The water gathered into a massive blob floating in the air, shapeless and threatening. Then it started forming into something that might have been humanoid if you squinted. The top half looked vaguely like a person, but the bottom was just a spinning cyclone of water that never seemed to settle.

"Water elemental," Roman said. "That’s our boss?"

Lucille looked at it, confused. It didn’t look like a boss. "Let me use my–"

Before she could finish, a massive bolt of lightning crashed down right next to the water creature.

The electrical energy didn’t dissipate. Instead, it started taking the same shape as the water elemental. Blue lightning arced and jumped across its form, and the sound it made was like standing next to a power line.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," Jax said, staring at the two massive elementals. "Two bosses? At the same time?"

"This is insane," Ning breathed. "Are we supposed to fight both of them?"

Before anyone could answer, both elementals moved at once. The battle had started whether they were ready or not.

Ning tried to find critical spots on their bodies, but it was hopeless. The spots in the elemental were easily visible, but they traveled around the body, moving far too quickly for him to hit it.

"I can’t get a read on them!" he called out. "Lucille, try to freeze them."

Jax swung his threads at the water elemental, expecting the usual satisfying impact. Instead, his threads just passed right through it with a splash. The water elemental barely seemed to notice.

"My threads aren’t doing anything!" he yelled in frustration. "It’s just water!"

Melayne decided to try a direct approach, rushing the lightning elemental with her sword raised.

The blade connected with the creature’s torso, and immediately electricity coursed through the metal and into her body.

She screamed as the shock threw her backward, her body convulsing from the electrical current. Jax barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

"Melayne!" Roman was already rushing over, his hands glowing with healing magic. "Are you okay?Are you paralyzed?"

"N-no," she spoke weakly, her muscles still twitching.

Lucille’s target of analysis had been the second elemental that had appeared from the sky. It activated after a few seconds, but before she could share what she’d learned, the water elemental attacked. A massive jet of water shot out from its center, spraying across the arena floor.

They all tried to dodge it, but it wasn’t something that could be dodged. They were splashed with a heavy wave of water, albeit a bit too weak to be an attack. Jax was confused.

"Lucille!" Jax called out. "What did you find out?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but the lightning elemental moved faster. It raised one arm and shot a bolt of electricity down at the ground in front of them.

The lightning hit the ground and spread through the water that had soaked everyone.

"Oh shit," Ning realized what was happening.