Chapter Thirty-One
The creature was even larger than Vester had imagined. It definitely looked like some kind of dire T-rex, and it was coming at them like an out-of-control train. The beast hit Vester’s Labyrinth and he saw vague gray walls swirl into being around the beast’s head.
Then its horns glowed like the sun and the spell shattered.
Backlash hit Vester hard enough to make him grunt, and for a moment he tasted blood.
“It broke all my traps,” he warned. “Watch out for some kind of magic resistance.” He was frustrated that he couldn’t simply lock the creature down and give them time to get away from it.
It would all be so much easier if I could just lock this thing down for a few hours…
Kora stepped forward, lightning crackling around her body. The dome of electricity surged energy into her, and she moved faster than Vester had ever seen her. She briefly charged toward the beast, then came to a sudden halt that seemed to defy physics.
Her tower shield hit the ground and two different effects triggered: the first was that the lightning covering her body continued forward, condensing into a ball of plasma that slammed into the dinosaur’s muzzle.
The second was her shield seemingly growing a cliff face that spread and formed a fifty-foot-wide, twenty-five-foot-tall wall between herself and the T-rex.
Then the ball of energy exploded and shrouded the entire beast in smoke. The crackle of discharging lightning momentarily drowned out the thunderous steps of the oncoming monster, but when it faded they saw the beast’s horns glowing once again—it appeared almost entirely unfazed by the impact.
“I think you’re right,” Kora called back. “That lightning should have stunned it!” The Prismatic Paladin backed away from her newly created wall. The stone barrier wasn’t tall enough to prevent the T-rex from leaning over it and biting down at her, so she knew better than to hide behind it.
She did, however, slam her shield down and create two more of the walls while retreating to Krysta’s Sanctuary.
Li Ra took up a kneeling position next to Vester.
She had her rifle out, her gaze narrowed, and she tilted her head so her hat blocked the glare from the overhead sun crystals.
Vester saw a crimson glow form in the crystals of her rifle, and then Li fired.
The hiss-crack of the red bolt streaking away was sharp next to his ear, but not as deafening as the roaring T-rex.
The monster flinched back, shaking its head and futilely scraping at its jaw with a miniscule arm in an effort to rub one of its eyes.
The animal didn’t look badly hurt, but Li Ra had gotten the best reaction of all of them so far.
She timed her next shot to strike the other eye, and upon impact the beast let out a bellow so violent that the first of Kora’s walls came down without being touched.
By then Skylar had stored Ripper and Woody using Chaos Thief and moved to the center of the raft. Dent shoved at the heavy log construct, pushing it toward the water. Krysta had taken her red panda form to create less weight, and she was clinging to Skylar’s back while chittering anxiously.
Reve looked conflicted, flapping her wings steadily while glancing between the raft and the T-rex. Vester noted she was flexing her hands, so he called out: “Focus on the raft and making sure we’re all on board and in the water before you try to engage the dinosaur!”
With a look of relief, the Avatar of Life lifted her hands to grasp the vessel in her telekinesis. There was no telltale glow of energy, but everyone felt it when the wide log platform jerked and began sliding deeper into the water.
Skylar darted forward, slapped a hand on Dent to store it, then caught Kora’s forearm and yanked the kitsune on board. With Reve’s pull they were moving away from shore, but Vester didn’t think the water was particularly deep yet—he could hear the logs scraping off whatever was underneath them.
The T-rex shifted from side to side while moving forward to use its horned head to smash through the next stone wall. Its scaly eyelids blinked repeatedly, but aside from some charring on its eye, there didn’t seem to be any permanent damage done.
I have a feeling Li Ra only temporarily blinded it. This thing seems to be immune to a lot of magic, Vester thought with a grimace. “Li, if you can… try acid next time. Maybe that’ll work better.”
“Maybe,” the oni muttered, squinting down the barrel of her weapon at the creature.
“I feel like we’re facing a Raid Boss.” The crystals in her weapon slowly transitioned from red to green, and while Vester would have loved to the change go faster, he knew she had to pace it to avoid destroying the mana gems.
The newly minted Wilderness Sage fired a bolt, yet the green energy seemed to have less effect than the flames had. The beast just ducked its head and took the shot on the heavy horn above its eye. Then it shoulder checked Kora’s last wall and started charging toward them again.
The moment it slammed into the barrier of Krysta’s Sanctuary, the pandali passed out. She suddenly lost her grip on Skylar’s back and collapsed to the deck of the raft with a quiet thump that sent a chill through Vester’s veins.
Before he could move to get her, Skylar scooped Krysta up and cuddled the red panda close. “She’s still breathing!” Skylar yelled. She drew a potion from her inventory and carefully fed the healing tonic to Krysta.
“I do not like this thing,” Kora growled. She balanced on the surface of the rocking platform, her shield ready, but none of them were fooled into thinking she could stop that dinosaur from flipping them if it hit the raft in any way.
Fortunately, Reve’s telekinetic pull had finally dragged them far enough out that the current caught their raft.
The entire ship spun in a circle and shot sideways with incredible speed.
They’d made their log vessel as big as they could in the short time they’d had, but that didn’t mean it was huge.
The raft was only about twenty feet wide and forty feet long.
Each log was roughly six feet in diameter, and they’d stuffed mud into the gaps that Skylar hadn’t had time to shape closed.
The djinn focused on fixing those sections—the rapid currents were fast stripping the mud and bark from their logs.
Li Ra’s head jerked up so fast Vester flinched in surprise. “Does anyone smell that?” she asked, her eyes darting around the raft.
Vester inhaled through his nose, trying to spot whatever she’d caught wind of. His new wisdom came in handy, because over the overwhelming smell of churning water, he caught an acrid scent. It was like something had died, though not quite the same. It almost reminded him of mushrooms.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Rotting wood,” Li said grimly. The Wilderness Sage shifted and moved until she was at one of the gaps Skylar hadn’t closed, where she ducked her head until she could look into the space.
“I think our raft is decaying.” She stuck an arm into the hole, then hissed in pain.
When she yanked her hand back up, the sleeve of her coat had turned black and slimy, and the skin of her hand was bubbling.
“That… is not good,” Skylar said. “Kora, can you encase the bottom of the raft in ice?” the djinn asked, turning her eyes to the kitsune. Kora didn’t even hesitate—she just banged her shield down and frost exploded outward to wrap around the logs.
The temperature on their platform plummeted, and ice grew along the sides and vanished down into the water. Where the frost and lake met, however, steam billowed out. The vapors were faintly green and stank of sulfur.
Li Ra had already downed a healing potion, and Vester was glad to see that the skin of her hand was mending.
“I think the lake contains some kind of corrosive,” the oni muttered.
“I didn’t smell it until we got out onto the water, though, so it must be an environmental trap that only activates when people attempt to cross. ”
“So what do we do?” Skylar asked. She’d begun checking the logs and cables, all while cradling Krysta to her torso. “The cables are fine, so it isn’t affecting the metal. Vester… could you sheath the raft in a thin layer of iron?”
“I… can try,” Vester agreed. He shifted, clasping Trickster’s Cane in his grip, then leaned back until he was lying down.
Closing his eyes, Vester concentrated on the idea of a coating of steel spreading outward from his body, seeping down along the trunks, and growing along the wood to get between the trunks and the lake.
His mana began plummeting immediately, and it wasn’t long before his head was pounding in a brutal cadence. Without Krysta’s Sanctuary there was nothing helping his energy regenerate but his wisdom.
Centimeter by centimeter, the metal spread, though Vester had to block out everything else to keep it moving. He’d barely covered half the raft when he felt his mana reaching dangerous levels. Then the spell began gnawing into his life force.
This time he was so focused on the process he could feel his body dying: his heart stuttered, his lungs grew weak, breathing harder with every forced inhalation. The muscles along his arms and legs went limp and leaden, and he lost sensation in his fingers.
At the same time, Vester realized he had a strange sense of where the raft was, its borders and its shape, despite the fact his eyes were closed.
It was like he just knew the platform’s proportions when he focused on changing it through Trickster’s Domain—he immediately decided he’d have to study that phenomena later.
His ears were ringing and a deafening roar tore through the air—only to fade behind a high-pitched buzz that refused to quit.
I really hope that fucking dinosaur can’t chase us through acid water, Vester thought, keeping his eyes shut through sheer force of will.
Does this thing feel like its slowing down?
They weren’t bobbing or spinning with the same speed they’d been on launch, though Vester wasn’t sure if that marked a change in the current or the alterations he’d made to the raft.
His dim awareness of his own body told him he wasn’t rocking with the same violence, but it was getting hard to tell with how numb he felt.
When the last bit of wood vanished beneath the metal, Vester stopped, relieved.
His mana was completely gone, and he was just barely conscious.
He couldn’t feel his arms or legs, and each breath felt like he was wheezing with an elephant sitting atop his lungs.
The worst part was he could feel his heart erratically thumping—he was sure that twelve beats a minute was not a healthy pulse.
“I’m not sure I can move. Anyone want to let me know what’s going on?” he informed the others. Honestly, Vester was amazed that his illusions were so cheap he could create the sound while his energy reserves were completely drained.
“The beast retreated from the water,” Li Ra said. Vester felt hands lift him, then his head was cradled on a pair of soft thighs. The oni began stroking his forehead with calloused fingers. “It has burns on its legs, though they’re healing fast.”
“The water’s not melting your coating,” Skylar added. A third hand touched Vester and he assumed it belonged to his djinn lover—especially when a warm, furry bundle lowered onto his stomach. “But we’re going to need to repair all our clothes. Anything organic that gets wet is rotting.”
“Including me,” Li muttered. “The burns hurt, though a health potion mends them. I think the effect is stronger on inanimate material. My coat took a lot more damage than my hand.”
“The… T-rex… is also staring at us,” Kora reported. “Its horns are still glowing, and I fear it might be charging some form of attack. I saw a faint light glowing inside its jaws when it opened its mouth, so we’d best brace for that.”
The only hesitation in Kora’s observations came when she stumbled over the name of the dinosaur Vester had told them about. “Can Reve shield us from a ranged attack?” he asked via his illusions.
“Only if I abandon the raft to the current,” Reve explained. From the sound of it she’d landed on the raft, because her voice came from very close. “The water is pulling hard to keep us from reaching the island. I can navigate us there, but it’s a constant fight against the currents.”
“I might be able to use a wind shield,” Kora said, “though it depends on what form the attack takes. If it’s something simple, then my Elemental Walls could work.”
“Anyone else think this Boss is way too powerful for the eleventh floor?” Vester asked, though it was rhetorical.
He felt a tingle in his fingers and toes, which was promising.
He hoped that he’d recover faster than if he’d fully died.
Krysta was using her magic to heal him too—he felt it seeping into his torso from her paws.
“A Boss with high resistance to magic and extreme physical power isn’t uncommon,” Li said, her fingers still running through his hair.
“If its ranged attack is truly devastating as well, that would surprise me. But if it only has a single attack and its physical might, then it would be doable for a normal Party.”
“Anti-magic Bosses do exist,” Kora agreed.
Vester could practically feel the kitsune nodding in agreement.
“It’s also possible that this beast won’t return after it’s been destroyed.
If it’s a punishment placed just to get us off the floor, the Great Dungeon won’t respawn it.
However, it could be the new challenge required to reach the twelfth.
If that’s the case, we’ll see a lot of Adventurers stalling instead of delving deeper. ”
“Incoming!” Skylar yelled. There was a loud fwoosh noise and Vester felt the raft rock with his Party’s movements. He sensed a rising flare of heat, then a deep, abiding cold—then steam blasted across his face and left him feeling damp and uncomfortable.
He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but he suspected Kora had used a wall of some kind.
“Fire breath,” Li Ra pointed out. “Narrow beam, extreme heat, focused… didn’t last more than a few seconds. The glow of the Boss’ horns has faded too. I’m betting it has to absorb more magic before it can fire again. It might need to get hit with spells to gain the energy for the attack.”
“I think we have bigger concerns,” Reve said quietly. “There’s something moving in the water beneath us.”