The vampire was very agile. Scarlett’s Pyrokinesis came at them, a walloping fire in the shape of a snake, but Count Lucius used wind to push his allies out of harm’s way while flying away himself.
"Count Lucius! This is a Mythic beast!" the woman yelled as she landed on a floating piece of the temple, using Echo to have a bear’s grip.
She and the young man started jumping from one floating chunk to another. As Gold-rank hunters, they could do something like this with ease.
"How do I explain that we’ve been chasing our own death?!" Count Lucius yelled as Scarlett’s Phoenix launched another Pyrokinesis.
The flaming serpent exploded beside him!
Quickly, Count Lucius turned into a bat to escape the debris before returning to his normal form. His red eyes were filled with anger after that narrow escape.
Scarlett had forced him to stop moving around like he owned the place.
"Livid Wind!" Scarlett shouted, keeping her distance as the Empyrean Phoenix spun around and then opened its wings with force. The hurricane that followed knocked the two jumping hunters away as they tried to attack from the side.
Count Lucius summoned a hundred bats that caught his allies so they wouldn’t fall into the abyss. But that put him on a cooldown, and Scarlett took advantage of it.
"Nymeria, scorch him!"
However, something wrong happened.
Nymeria didn’t attack the vampire as ordered. What was the beast doing?
It left Scarlett’s side and focused on the other two saved by Count Lucius’s bats. Maybe the Empyrean Phoenix was frustrated that they didn’t die from Livid Wind and wanted to finish them first!
"No, leave them! Don’t separate! Stay with me!" Scarlett screamed at her summon.
For some reason, the Mythic beast was selective with her commands. It was willing to fight for Scarlett, but when it came to following orders, it could only listen so much.
Count Lucius took the chance and used a vanishing skill to appear in front of Scarlett. Since she was distracted by her summon, he easily trapped her inside a cocoon.
"Nymeria!" she yelled.
Maybe the beast was ashamed of what it had done, or maybe it was too proud to admit its mistake, because the Empyrean Phoenix flew away!
Meanwhile, Scarlett tried to break out of the cocoon, but it was too strong. Also, her morale had fallen because her own beast ignored her when she needed it most.
Count Lucius noticed that, which was why he didn’t hurt her.
But he removed her mask, touched her face, and ran his fingers through her red hair, gazing at her beauty.
But he wasn’t doing it because he was interested in her. He was trying to recall, like he just noticed a clue that confirmed his suspicions.
"You’re Scarlett Trump, daughter of the President, Arnold Trump."
Scarlett was focused on breaking free from the cocoon.
"What are you waiting for, Count Lucius? Slit her throat!" the woman called as she landed nearby.
"Yeah, no mercy here," the young man added, holding four swords. "She didn’t show us any."
"Be quiet," Count Lucius interrupted. "It’s not every day you see a Mythic beast. This young lady is the President’s daughter."
Then he whispered under his breath, "Damnit..." because he knew they had messed up.
They had thought the Golden Dawn Guild had given the Pentegate to a student party that meant little to the guild. They didn’t know it had been given to Scarlett’s party, Scarlett, the granddaughter of the founder of the Golden Dawn Guild.
Just by laying hands on her, they were bringing a war to the doorstep of their own guild, the Stygian Guild.
Meanwhile, Luke had finished the Upside-down Temple. After gliding as far as he could, he discovered the exit.
Raven and Vivian followed his directions for the door while he returned for Scarlett, because he could never step through that exit without her by his side.
Count Lucius and his party didn’t see what was coming next as Luke’s spear whistled through the air like a nuclear warhead even before he arrived. Count Lucius summoned a swarm of bats that countered all three twists from the spear, stopping it from piercing anyone.
Scarlett used the distraction to blow out of the cocoon.
Boom! Then she launched a close-range pyrokinesis blast into Count Lucius!
The explosion was so severe, it trembled the fragile temple.
Whether the Stygian party survived that attack was left unknown as Scarlett joined Luk and they fled to the exit as fast as they could.
〖Congratulations! You have survived the Beta-Rank Dungeon: Upside-down Temple!〗
〖XP + 250〗
The corridor before the next portal was a camp.
It let hunters take a break and get their stamina back before trying the final floor.
The lanterns on the ceiling gave the place a sense of respite, but you couldn’t rest for too long because the walls were made of roots that would drag you in and make you part of the wall if you overstayed your welcome.
Luke and Scarlett entered the camp. Scarlett was panting after everything that had happened, but Luke looked fine. With the Seven-Tusk Elephant Sabatons, he had excellent stamina.
Raven and Vivian were already waiting inside, recovering too.
"Did we lose them?" Vivian asked as soon as she saw Luke and Scar.
Luke stared at the door for a few seconds to be sure. When nothing came through, he turned back to the girls, happy to see everyone was fine.
"Yeah, we did," he replied.
After a while, he inspected his token to check how much time they had left.
「Hunter Trial Day 1| Remaining Time: 49:59」
They had made it to the final floor with less than an hour left before the timer ended.
But no need to panic because now it didn’t matter how long they spent inside the fifth floor. The only thing that mattered was entering it _before_ the countdown reached zero.
"What about your summon?" Raven asked Scarlett, remembering that the phoenix had flown off earlier.
"The tether broke, so Nymeria has returned to my soul for now," Scarlett replied solemnly.
Luke understood how disappointing that was. A broken tether wasn’t the same as losing a beast forever, but it still hurt. He tried to boost everyone’s mood before the last fight.
"We should be proud of ourselves for making it this far," he said as he walked to the portal, wondering if the fifth floor might have something ugly waiting for them.
After all, he had some questions still unanswered.
Why were Gold-rank hunters in a Beta manifestation? And why had the third floor given him an item like Second Chance?
He didn’t like these thoughts. Luke hoped the Second Chance was just a very lucky drop and that those hunters were nothing more than greedy jerks after easy loot.
Luke put his hand into the portal first, and then his whole body followed into the dungeon. Raven and the rest of the party entered after him.
While entering, Vivian looked at Scarlett, feeling sympathetic to her.
Vivian never knew that the lady she looked up to so much hadn’t mastered her beast yet.
But when Vivian thought about it, that wasn’t the reason she looked up to Scarlett in the first place. There was her character. Her presence. Her intelligence.
They entered the dungeon. The first scene was an empty hall. Suddenly, their systems appeared in front of them.
〖Warning: You are entering a Beta-Rank Dungeon: Fallen Chapel!〗
〖Objective: Defeat the Boss and earn rewards!〗
〖Level 5: Death〗
"Lady Scarlett, What’s that on your arm?" Vivian said, pointing at Scarlett’s skin.
On Scarlett’s arm was a black mark shaped like a hand, and she was clueless about how it appeared there.
Before anyone could figure out what it was, the mark peeled away from her skin, entered the air, and began spinning around.
Faster and faster. Bigger and bigger. Until it became a spinning cloak.
Alas, whoosh!
Count Lucius appeared out of thin air, still the same and unhurt, while the woman and the young man pounced out from his cape, both of them still alive and grinning.
Luke and his team jumped back in surprise.
Somehow, the three intruders had appeared before them inside the same dungeon.
Raven and Vivian summoned their beasts, ready to fight again, while Luke gripped his spear tighter, his gaze on the vampire.
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