“Relax, guys, we can do this. We just need a plan. If Sam and I went all out with fire magic, we could kill two trolls right at the start," Alex said.

  He saw everyone looking at the boss with skepticism; they weren’t sure they could pull this off. But Alex knew they could. He honestly hadn’t been challenged much in this dungeon yet. If he pushed himself, he could kill two of the trolls in the beginning by himself.

  “Sam, could you solo one of those trolls without burning all your mana? Be honest. It's fine if you can't," Alex gazed at him sternly.

  Sam was silent for a minute, thinking and taking his answer seriously. Hesitantly, he came to a conclusion.

  “Y-yes. I can do it.”

  “You sure? We’re relying on you.”

  “I can do it.” He said again, determination in his eyes. Alex nodded to him, trusting he could.

  “Alright then, that makes this easier. The rest of you will hold the boss off, focusing on defense and buying time. Sam will take one of the extras, and I’ll take the other two,” he looked at each of them and waited for a nod that they understood. He had to make sure. Their lives depended on it.

  “Go hard on your troll, Sam, and don’t hold back. The others will need your help with the boss. I’ll do the same.” He whispered to the cinder mage, offering his knuckles for a little fist bump.

  “Got it. I’ll roast the ugly ass thing.” He replied with confidence, meeting his knuckles to Alex’s.

  “Let’s do this. We'll attack first. Derek, you go straight to the boss. Everyone else, focus on defense and survival. There's no rush. Buy time until Sam and I finish ours.”

  Everyone nodded their agreement, determination mixed with fear on their faces. Aside from the excitement clear on Rykos's.

  Sam and Alex moved forward, Derek following closely behind. They both had a rough idea of how far their fire attacks would reach and needed to get a bit closer before launching them.

  The boss and his followers were staring at them, waiting for something to happen or for them to come closer.

  Once within casting range, they started channeling mana. As soon as they did, the trolls moved. They knew they were being targeted, whether that was through feeling the mana or monster intuition. Alex didn’t know.

  He channeled fire mana through his sword and wind mana through his body; he also added the wind enhancement to Sam. His friend would need the speed. Swiping out with his sword, he launched two fire rifts toward the group, making sure he got the attention of a few.

  Sam was launching fireballs towards the troll at the end, pulling it toward him.

  Once the trolls split up a bit, Derek used his [Charge] skill. He went straight to the boss to keep his focus on him, not on the others. When in range, he used his [Power Strike] skill, ensuring he got its attention. The attack didn’t cut too deep, but it still caused some damage.

  When the two trolls came toward Alex, he grew excited. He loved the fights and knew this one would be more challenging for him, not just these two, but the boss, too. He wanted to hurry and fight it.

  Am I becoming a junkie, needing my next battle? He thought as he sent two more fire rifts at the trolls approaching him.

  The rifts didn’t do massive damage, but they definitely made the trolls nice and toasty. They had burns covering half their bodies and looked pissed. The fact that they were snarling and screaming at him was a dead giveaway.

  A smile split his face as they closed within melee range. Boosted by his wind enhancement, their clumsy swings had trouble hitting him. The creatures also had to stay out of each other's way, to avoid hitting each other with their large clubs. This slowed them even more. Switching to wind imbue on his blade, he jumped forward and began attacking. His weapon bit deep into their rock-like flesh.

  While slicing them open and weaving around their metal clubs, Alex pummeled them with fireballs and fire nova. He burned their open wounds to stall their regeneration. More wind mana was channeled into his sword, increasing the cutting edge. The blade hacked off portions of flesh.

  The trolls towered over him, though, his strikes were unable to reach their chests. So he aimed lower. He carved their legs, sides, backs, and stomachs like a Thanksgiving turkey. While he roasted their innards every chance he got.

  But these large creatures weren't just strong, they were durable, and he was fighting two of them at once. After one close call where he dodged a side swipe from one of the clubs, the other creature kicked out, clipping Alex in the side. The kick pushed him off balance, almost tumbling to the ground. When he did, the other troll followed up with a strike from its weapon. The large metal weapon struck him right in the back, throwing him forward, and causing him to skid across the rocky ground.

  "Alex!" he heard Sarah shout.

  "No!" he called back to her before she tried to come to him. He slowly stood up before the trolls came. "I'm fine, focus on the boss!"

  He wasn't fine, but she didn't need to know that.

  The hit had hurt a lot and he was lucky that the attack hadn't broken his back or something terrible. Alex spat blood to the ground as he saw the two creatures moving towards him.

  Wiping the blood from his mouth, he grinned again. "Round two, lets go!"

  When the creatures were close enough, they immediately brought their clubs down in overhead strikes. He quickly dove forward, under them. Weaving around and through their legs, he attacked with quick one-handed strikes or sometimes heavy two-handed ones if time allowed before he had to dodge again. The monsters grew angrier and angrier the more they couldn't hit him.

  One of the massive clubs came down, slamming into the ground, stone and dust flew into the air. The stone plateau was littered with small pieces of rock or debris, making his footing difficult. One slip and he could be killed. He was fine with that.

  Alex was finding a rhythm. It was a slow process fighting them while trying to conserve his resources. It was a challenge he enjoyed.

  Through his [Eyes of the Cosmos], he also tracked how his team was doing. Even though he couldn’t see every detail, he could see them through the shifting of the mana in the air. His brain was fed a constant stream of play-by-play updates.

  He saw Derek take the first few hits, Sam dodging the troll he was fighting, and noticed when the boss shifted toward another party member. Which Derek quickly rectified.

  ***

  “I got this, I got this, I got this,” Sam chanted while he hurled fireballs toward his assigned troll.

  He was nervous about fighting it alone, but he had confidence that he could do it, barely.

  The troll took the fireball's head on. They weren’t his enhanced ones, so the damage was minor, but damage was damage.

  When the troll got in range, he sent out a [Fire Nova], hoping to blind it and cause more damage. The troll just kept lumbering through it, but it gave him time to dodge.

  Enhanced by Alex’s wind mana, he was much more nimble and quick on his feet. He rolled away from the incoming metal club while unleashing another [Fire Nova]. This one burned brighter and hotter than the others, blistering the creature's hide.

  Sam was trying to craft a plan, but the troll wasn’t going to let him stand there and think or try to make a big fireball again. He needed a new idea.

  An image flashed in his mind. A memory of a giant wind lance he saw Alex create to kill a troll.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  After dodging another wide swing from the troll, the club whooshing by him, he mumbled, “Can I even do that much manipulation?”

  He didn’t know, but he was definitely going to try. He didn’t see any other way to bring the big monster down.

  The monster wasn't easy for him to dodge, Sam didn't have high physical stats like some of the rest of his team. While he was successfully dodging the main hits, a few had come close, and he'd been hit with a lot of the flying stone launched into the air from the creatures attacks.

  Using his new Cinder Mage class, Sam cast one of its latest skills, [Ember Veil]. This ability had a weird name, he thought, but it had been handy. The skill allowed him to summon and control a smoke-like substance, created solely from his mana, giving him complete control of it. He hadn’t tried to do this with it, but he had a feeling it would work well.

  He created more and more to obscure everything, blanketing his area. He turned the area black and hazy, blinding the troll to anything beyond a foot or two. He made a veil of the smoke-like substance. A smokescreen. But since it was his skill and mana, he could see through it, as if it were not there. It was the biggest perk of the skill, the fact it didn't hinder his vision.

  The other skill he usually used with [Ember Veil] was [Ignite]. That skill allowed him to detonate his mana, not only his veil, but any of his mana. Though it was most effective when combined with the smoky skill. It gave him greater accuracy and control.

  But Sam wasn’t going to ignite the blackness; he was using it to buy time. Expanding the area as wide as he felt comfortable doing, he continued to stay inside, along with the troll. It was struggling to find him while he rained down fireballs on it.

  They were being used as a distraction. He was working on making something much bigger. Creating the massive fireball in the air again, he poured mana into it, getting it as large as he could. It grew and grew, becoming the largest he had ever created.

  But it wasn’t enough for him.

  So Sam made a second one. It wasn't easy. He could feel himself stretched thin from manipulating too many things at once. He had his [Ember Veil], the small fireballs distracting the troll, and now two large ones were floating in the air.

  He didn’t care.

  He pushed harder.

  I won’t let Alex show me up! I’ll keep up with him and show the team that they can count on me!

  Sam hadn’t talked to the others about his life before the integration. He didn’t like to. His life hadn’t been bad; he had parents, technically. But they weren’t ever around and didn’t care what he did.

  Friends, sure. He had some. But they were always doing things with their family, and it made Sam uncomfortable. Spending so much time alone, he turned to drugs. Just the weaker, natural kind, but they made him feel better about his life and loneliness.

  Since the integration, Sam had been happy; the happiest he had been in years. While it broke his heart to see people around him dying or struggling, he felt useful. He helped protect the lower-level people, killed monsters, and, most of all, his team relied on him. He felt like he was a part of something for once. His party felt like something he had always been searching for. A place he belonged. It didn’t matter if he hadn’t known them for two weeks, yet. He was closer to them than anyone else in his life, even his parents. In the two week he'd known Derek, he had acted more like a father than his own had, in his whole life. Sam didn't really need that, specifically, from Derek or the others, but he did want to keep the closeness he felt with them all. He imagined this was how real friends or a family would feel. Willing to fight and protect each other.

  I refuse to be weak and get left behind.

  Throwing away caution, Sam channeled more and more mana into the two fireballs. He expanded their sizes beyond anything he had done before. When he felt the sizes were enough, he began shaping them—molding, changing, and manipulating them into what he demanded.

  Both changed, elongating and turning into large spears made of fire. While they were changing, Sam walked out, leaving the veil of smoke. He didn’t want to be inside for what was about to happen.

  When he was comfortable with the distance and the first fire spear hit the desired shape, he unleashed it. The air shimmered from the heat as it hurtled toward the troll inside the smoke. Sam could clearly see where he was, and the spear hit the body dead center.

  Immediately after the impact of the first spear, Sam manipulated the smoke to rush toward the troll, surrounding it in a thicker layer. Then he used [Ignite] and detonated it all.

  ***

  Derek and the rest of the team, minus Alex and Sam, were struggling against the boss. His attacks weren’t as slow as the other trolls', and he had two weapons.

  Constant attacks rained down on Derek. He was barely staying on his feet, and his shield was taking a beating.

  During one particularly nasty onslaught, the boss's weapons started to glow.

  Shit, he's using a skill! Derek realized.

  In response, he activated his defensive skill, [Shield Wall]. This skill wasn’t one he used often because it was his most powerful, giving it a longer cooldown. The skill extended the edges of his shield, making it broader and taller. While enhancing the front of it, it thickened with mana to cushion against attacks. It also made Derek immovable while active, unless the ground shifted.

  It was a powerful ability, one he was glad he had right now. When the boss's blows came, he felt the power from the assault. The attacks sent vibrations through his shield and body, threatening to tear him apart.

  The skill the boss used wasn’t like a [Power Strike]. It was more like a chain of attacks. His weapons glowed, and his speed surged; then he hurled strikes at Derek in rapid succession.

  Without his Shield Wall active, he would have died.

  While Derek was being brutalized, the others weren’t sitting idly by.

  Korgrith, encased in his stone armor, tried to interrupt the boss's barrage. He came up on the monster’s side and used his Improved [Shattering Stomp]. This broke the ground apart, making the boss stumble. He made sure the shattered ground wasn’t too close to Derek.

  Immediately following up, he used his [Stone Cascade] skill. When he slammed the ground with his axe, earth mana cascaded out. It seeped into all the loose stones and rocks that his [Shattering Stomp] had created.

  This lifted and launched all the rubble at the troll patriarch. Whether big or small, his cascade skill sent them. The troll got bombarded with rocks of all sizes. It knocked him back and away from Derek, giving him a moment to recover.

  He used his [Charge] skill before the troll could regain its balance. Closing the distance, he chained his charge with his [Power Strike] skill and sank his axe deep into the boss’s side.

  Rykos, ever the opportunistic hunter, came in right behind the axe. When removed, he immediately unleashed his own attack into the same spot. An attack enhanced by his Improved [Speed Burst] skill and [Beastial Fury].

  The attack was both a [Rending Strike] and a [Power Strike] combined.

  His skills were a lot more beast-like than those of his friends. Being a wolf beastkin, he was much more primal and animalistic than Korgrith. Rykos leaned into those urges, and his skills showed it.

  [Speed burst] did as it sounded: it gave him bursts of speed when needed. But he couldn’t always keep it active as Alex could.

  [Bestial Fury] enhanced his senses, attack speed, and strength.

  [Power Strike] was the same as the original warrior ability. Increasing the next attack by 100%.

  Rykos’ specialty, [Rending Strike], was a fantastic weapon when fighting the trolls. They learned this after the fight with the first troll. This skill sharpened his claws, allowing them to pierce deeper. It also left behind an affliction that made wounds remain open and hemorrhage, slowing regeneration.

  While it didn’t slow the regeneration as much as fire magic did, it made a big difference. Using the skill, trolls continued to bleed since it didn't cauterize wounds as fire would.

  ***

  The two trolls Alex was fighting were fading fast. He had sliced off significant portions of their lower bodies, their regeneration unable to keep up because of his fire magic. He'd taken a few more glancing blows during his dance routine, but none had hit him head-on. He bled from several areas from the strikes, rocks being embedded in him, and probably had some internal injuries from the first attack he had taken in the back.

  Giving it one final push, he summoned a large amount of fire and unleashed it in a constant stream, bathing their bodies in flames. It took quite a few seconds for them to die, using a chunk of his mana. But it was worth it.

  His team needed him.

  He had been watching the fight with the boss; they were doing well enough. But the boss's regeneration was on another level compared to the other trolls. Not to mention his power and strength. Derek was getting bounced around like a pi?ata.

  He had watched Sam, too. But judging by what he saw, he trusted that he could hold his own.

  When his two trolls crashed to the ground, dead, Alex ran toward the boss.

  When he saw the boss about to attack Kogrith, Alex summoned his mana. Trying something completely new, he pushed off the ground. Then he used [Earth Magic] to raise a pillar under his feet, launching him farther. While in the air, he used [Wind Magic] to push himself faster towards the boss.

  He shot toward the troll patriarch like a speeding comet.

  Directly before impact, he activated [Power Strike] and enhanced his sword with more wind. He focused the wind toward the tip of the blade, speeding up its rotation and penetrative power.

  Plummeting at high speed, the wind whistled, stung his eyes, and whipped through his hair. Alex grinned wider, closing in on the boss.

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