Summer Break

Chapter 15

"Claire at your left!" Lilia called out as she fired a ball of condensed wind at a ten foot long armor plated cobra.

The attack wasn't strong enough to kill it, but that wasn't what Lilia was aiming to do. Lilia needed a fast moving spell more than a lethal one if she was to prevent Claire from being attacked by the mana beast. The spell collided with the snake and stunned it as it was knocked to the ground. Then as the snake started to get up Claire severed its head with her flaming sword. Claire looked to Lilia and nodded her thanks before continuing to battle. Lilia then cast several small tornado spells from atop Grawder, who just crunched down on another armored snake with his mighty jaws.

Upon Lilia's recovery Curtis offered to allow Lilia to ride on Grawder while he walked. Initially his excuse was so that she could be safer while they pressed forward and she continued to regain her strength. However they were now on day four inside the dungeon and were on the ninth level, and Lilia was still riding on Grawder's back. It had been an intense four days as they, with the exception of the first day, plowed through three levels a day, so no one seemed to put much thought into Curtis's actions towards Lilia. Although not much thought was really needed, as it was pretty obvious he at least had a crush on her.

There hadn't been any other serious injuries since Lilia's. Lilia's near death experience was a wake up call for them all to the reality of their situation. Whether it be they were now scared, or determined to ensure no one else got hurt like that again was a matter of the individual, but the results from everyone was the same. They were not the same teens that walked into the dungeon for there summer vacation, they were now at the mindset that they were adventurers, and each of them took individual responsibility to ensure they were all going to walk out of there together.

The battle raged on between the young adventures and the cobra knights, with the augmenters bearing the brunt of the assault. The metal exoskeleton of the snakes gave then a high resistance to most spells, more powerful spells could be used, however conjurers below a light orange core would run out of mana too quickly with these numbers. Being able to use metal magic, Elijah was the only conjurer whose spells were capable of killing them without excessive mana consumption. This left Claire, Curtis, and Art pushing themselves to their limits to protect the conjurers, with Grawder and Tess being the last line of defense. Tess was only able to combat these mana beast at close range due to her staff being bladed and her grandfather's training, although despite her staff being as sharp as any sword, it was still wood, and could wear down quickly in a prolonged battle. They had moved themselves against the wall of the cave to limit the area they had to cover, and thankfully they learned fire magic was exceptionally effective on these snakes, so with the three augmenters capable of using fire magic they were able to hold the line fairly well, with only a few getting by them.

Elijah had created a modified version of his metal snake to include a series of spikes along its tail, with the tip being more so bladed like a sword. With a whip of the tail several of the spikes shot out and pierced through several of the snakes, while another swing cut down several more snakes.

"Cover me, I have a spell I think that will be able thin them out," Arthur called out as the waves of snakes appeared to be endless.

They all agreed and the conjurors' spells began to more so cover Arthur's position. Arthur sheathed his sword and began focusing fire mana into his sword. He had tried a similar version of the spell with wind magic in Widows Crypt several months ago, resulting in him dislocating his shoulder. Since then Arthur had modified the spell a bit to make it more controlled, so he was hoping for better results this time. Once Arthur felt that sufficient mana had built up he took a step forward and drew his sword, releasing a wave of yellow fire that grew wider as it moved away from the party. The first snakes to be hit by the fiery wave were on the ground dead while still burning. As the wave continued it lost strength, leaving some flailing on the ground as they were on fire, and the further ones just being burned but still alive. The remaining snakes clearly lost their will to continue and burrowed back underground to hide.