The men were chanting.

  “THIRTY-ONE!”

  “THIRTY!”

  Penelope gripped her wand and tried to regulate her breathing.

  She wasn't ready for this fight.

  With how many times others had ended the fight with casualties, she wasn’t mentally prepared to lose one of her party members, let alone one of the helpless people on the surface.

  “Don’t worry sweetie, it’s probably just some oversized kitten.” Ula laughed as bumped shoulders with Penelope. “NINETEEN!”

  Even Frederica joined in the chant, but Penelope couldn’t bring herself to be swept up in the intoxicating positivity. For her, it felt like everyone was chanting for their deaths.

  “SEVEN! SIX! FIVE!”

  Patrick started moving toward the front as they counted down the last few seconds.

  Penelope used the time to say something else.

  “LIGHT TORRENT! LIGHT TORRENT!”

  “ONE!!!”

  The void barrier came down and there was a bunny on the other side.

  “HAIL STORM!!!” Penelope aimed in between the group and the monsters.

  The first Demon to move had the face and feet of a rabbit, black, leathery wings, the claws, teeth, and tail of a cat, and stood upright like the Shadow Demons. It was nude, save for a shining purple pendant in the shape of a sword on its neck. The Cabbit Demon led the charge against the Adventurers with an opening roar that would have made any lion jealous.

  The rest of the group was in shock as they took in the amalgamation of the Demons, so much that Oakley forgot to taunt as the monsters charged.

  Penelope spread wider, which chomped away her mana in chunks, but she had to keep the Demons away until everyone was able to regroup.

  Each of the bosses were a mashup of the pair of monsters that were in each column. There was one for the first, fourth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth columns.

  From the first column was the Creeper Soldier with the face of an ant and six legs on its upper half, with a slug portion for a lower half that was almost like a fat tail. It was crawling on the ceiling, which allowed it to avoid the raining ice.

  The monster from the fourth column was the Carriopede Demon. It had the upper half of a crow and a hundred tiny legs. A pair of spindly arms topped the insect legs, with a pair of bird legs in the middle of the long, feathered lower half. Its powerful wings took it to the east as it flew to get around the ice.

  The Dragon Turtle representing the sixth column was the first one to be wearing clothes. Even though her menu displayed the name, the Demon looked like it was more of a giant turtle-man than a dragon. The spiked shell on its back and loincloth that was more ripped hide than clothes took away from the dragon type almost as much as the lack of wings. There was a shining white stone on its chest that covered it in a white aura as it slid on its belly through the ice like a penguin.

  From the eighth column, the Lupent Demon was the simplest combination. The head of a wolf, hairy arms with claws, and the lower body of a snake. It followed the Cabbit Demon to the west, focusing on staying out of the cold spot between the two groups.

  Last was the Scorb Demon, the combination from the ninth column. The boar head and hooves of the upright monster were the only things that it borrowed from the porcine monster. Instead of claws or hands, there were pincers at the ends of its thick arms. Its entire body was covered in chitin, and the pointed barb at the end of its very long tail left no doubt that it had taken all of the most dangerous parts of both monsters. It charged through the ice and shook the whole area when it belly flopped after its hooves slipped on the slick surface.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “OAKLEY! ULA!” Penelope swallowed the lump in her throat as she split her in half and directed each one at the sides. The monsters were getting closer, and no one had moved yet.

  “THEY’VE GOT ALL THE SKILLS OF THEIR COLUMN!” Penelope started backing up.

  The Dragon Turtle barreled into Oakley, tossing him out of the way like it had swatted a bug. The Lupent Demon locked its eyes on Frederica and let out a hiss as it picked up speed while slithering towards her.

  Dawson recovered first and...

  He ran.

  Penelope thought about stopping him, but she was busy splitting her focus in three directions, and she had no doubt that the Cabbit Demon was going to be impossible to hit with double evasion.

  The party leader was the next one to recover. “GET BEHIND ME!!!” The grandmother swung her warhammer, slapping the giant reptile across the face and halting its charge.

  The Demon’s red eyes focused on her as it rubbed its strong jaw.

  WEAK

  There was a scream from behind them, alerting them that the rest of the people from the surface had come to check out what was going on.

  “FALL BACK!” Marlow grabbed Judah’s arm and pulled the younger man with him as he fired his crossbow. The Healer didn’t have a lot of combat utility, but the hand crossbows provided stat boosts and a little extra damage when they needed it.

  Like now.

  “HELP!” Frederica shrieked as she ran from the Lupent Demon. The blonde was in her late forties, but her speed was already high enough to make her faster than any athlete back on Earth.

  “LOOK AT ME!!!” Oakley roared as he got to his feet.

  None of the Demons changed course. The Tank gripped his shield with both hands as the Scorb Demon slashed across the metal barrier with both pincers, then stabbed at the man’s neck with its tail.

  “TAUNTING DOESN’T WORK!” Penelope kept backing up. The Cabbit had gotten past all of them, but she had to worry about the Carriopede Demon that was swooping down at her.

  The lower half of the monster lashed out, with all of the tiny insect legs reaching out for her. She rolled backwards, using the technique she’d mastered to kill Shadow Assassins, except this time, she didn’t use .

  “TORNADO ALLEY!” Penelope directed both columns of air under the avian monstrosity, slamming it into the ceiling.

  “FIRE TWISTER!!!” Judah appeared by her side, threading his own spell inside hers. The swirling air caught fire, adding bulk to the spell and giving her full control of their pillar of burning death.

  The Demon shrieked as it clawed at the stone ceiling, trying to drag its body out of the fire that was melting its feathers.

  "No, you don’t!” Penelope pulled a mana potion out of her right pocket and downed the minty contents. With her mana topped off, she pointed her left hand at the monster.

  “TORNADO ALLEY!!!”

  Two more columns of air rose out of the ground and caught fire. Sweat was absorbed by the mask she wore as she focused on combining all four columns into one giant one. She grit her teeth as she focused on merging them and not canceling them out.

  “IT’S WORKING!!!” Judah cheered and slapped her on the back.

  Penelope blinked as she almost lost focus but managed to hold the spells. “Keep shooting at it!”

  “Oh, right.” The young man coughed, then pointed his staff at the pinned Demon. “FIRE GEYSER!!!”

  A torrent of lava shot out of the stone. It was one of the spells that Judah was forbidden from using because the cast off would have burned anyone else. They’d been fortunate when he’d first tried it that Ula had been the unfortunate victim, but her metal armor had resisted it enough that Marlow had been able to quickly heal the burn.

  Within the confines of the swirling column of fire, there wasn’t as much of a need to worry about castoff. It was Judah’s most powerful spell, and they needed to kill the monster as fast as they could, so Penelope didn’t admonish the young man.

  “KEEP IT UP!!!” She gritted her teeth as she moved the column closer to where they were standing to keep the monster pinned.

  DING!

  Experience +1

  Penelope blinked. It felt like weeks since she’d seen the pop-up.

  “The monsters are from the next Tier. You’re getting experience again.”

  “It’s dead!” Penelope looked over at her companion. “Stop your spell!”

  Judah obeyed, but confusion covered his face. “Why did we only get one experience?”

  The roar of the flames had been covering the chaos behind them. Now they both could hear the screams of the people that had come into the Dungeon.

  Patrick was doing his best to hold off the Cabbit, but there were dozens of people, but there were too many on the ground, and very few of them had a green glow that let them know that Marlow was attempting to reverse the damage.

  “We need to--!”

  Penelope hit the stone floor head first.

  Judah was lying on top of her, but there was more weight than just his.

  Hot blood started falling on her face as the young man struggled to speak. He let out a cough. A scraping noise alerted her to what had them. The Creeper Soldier had its mandibles in the back of the other human’s neck.

  “So..r…”

  It was all he could squeeze out before the light left his eyes.

  Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .

  Immersive Ink

  RR Writer's Guild