after agreeing on their roles for the upcoming fight, seventhshield and zack went ahead and took the lead as the group moved closer to the room where the mini-boss resided.

    whoosh!

    arriving there, the group was immediately greeted by the sight of a large space, promptly reminding everyone of the boss rooms they''d cleared thus far in the lower difficulties of the cave of beginnings.

    grr...

    however, unlike the bosses they fought in the lower difficulties, the ogre that sat at the center of the room gave off a near-tyrannical aura, causing almost all of them think that their chances of winning were next to nothing from the very start.

    adding on the fact that the ogre eventually revealed its true stature to the group as it stood up, it was impossible for any outsider to muster up the courage to fight something as ferocious as the mini-boss in front of them.

    "stay calm!" fortunately, even though most of them felt like their hopes had been quashed from the very start, seventhshield kept his composure, gazing at the ogre with a look of defiance.

    "we''ve already expected the bosses to pose a greater challenge to us the moment we decided to try out insane!"

    "are you guys really telling me that you''re backing out now? even though we''ve already gotten this far?"

    "it''s not that, seventh..." zack replied, his voice somewhat shaky.

    pointing at the ogre staring at them, he continued, "take... a look at its stats."

    "with how high its stats are... do we really have a chance of winning here?"

    "..." frowning in response to his friend''s words, seventhshield gazed at the ogre for a bit.

    noticing that the ogre seemed to have no intentions of attacking them before they were prepared to fight it, the man inwardly let out a faint sigh of relief as he decided to confirm zack''s words for himself.

    "[analysis]."

    ding!

    ————

    [junior ogre spellblade (uncommon elite)] (level 20 | mini-boss)

    hp: 1,750/1,750

    mp: 1,130/1,130

    stats: 91 vit, 99 str, 102 agi, 78 dex, 62 int, 60 wis, 79 per, 52 luk

    ————

    "...i already expected insane to be our greatest challenge yet... but to think it would be this much?"

    at first, when zack informed him to look at the mini-boss'' stats, seventhshield thought that its stats would only be higher than theirs by a few points, possibly around 10 points at most.

    after all, they were tackling the cave of beginnings at its insane difficulty. the dungeon was intentionally made to be difficult to clear with its difficulty bearing such a name.

    however, when he found out that the gap between their stats exceeded 20 points, it was only then did he understand why his friends reacted that way.

    then again, how would one even surmount a gap that large at their level?

    their equipment? the armor and the weapons they had could only be considered slightly above average. though some of them offered a few extra stat points here and there, that wasn''t enough to surmount the gap.

    their skills? none of them had any powerful passive skills that boosted their stats to that extent. plus, there really wasn''t any way for them to evolve their skills to the next rarity at their current class rank.

    "as the conductor of mana, protect me from harm."

    "[mana barrier]!"

    unfortunately, with seventhshield attracting the ogre''s aggro, valyr was free to move about once more, allowing him to cast a spell that protected everyone from the blades of energy aiming to kill them.

    "[charged shot]!" using the opportunity valyr had given to them, darklight went ahead and let out an attack he''d been saving all this time.

    whoosh!

    bang!

    firing an arrow filled to the brim with copious amounts of mana, his attack soon struck the ogre directly at its head, causing it to tumble in the air a couple of times as it took a massive amount of damage.

    "haah!"

    with the ogre now more vulnerable than ever before, seventhshield decided to double down on the offensive, faintly nodding at zack as the two charged at the ogre together.

    "[judgment strike]!"

    "[dual cross]!"

    bang! bang!

    "grraaahhh!!!" just as the ogre had recovered from its untimely fall, it was forced to stumble back onto the ground once more after receiving powerful strikes on both arms at the same time.

    however, rather than distance themselves from it the moment their attacks landed on its body, the ogre instead watched as seventhshield and zack mustered up all the strength in their bodies as they aimed to cut both of its arms off.

    "raaaggghhhh!!!" knowing that it''d become a lamb to the slaughter if that were to happen, the ogre immediately began to flail around as it released a great chunk of its mana into the surroundings, sending the two flying back in response.

    thud! thud!

    with it now regaining the freedom to move about, the ogre hastily got up and looked at the group with even further fury than before.

    tightening its grip on the longsword it wielded, it promised to itself that it would not show mercy to the group after going through all of the attacks it suffered.

    but before it could even land another attack on the group...

    "gotcha."

    "may the power of flames hear my p—!"

    "[fireball]!"

    bang!

    ''-1,293!!''

    seeing that the ogre had unintentionally left itself wide open, valyr took the opportunity to land the final blow while it was distracted, aiming a fireball directly at its head.

    to no surprise, the fireball acted as the catalyst for the remaining vestiges of vitality within its body to fade away. because of that, the battered corpse of the ogre eventually fell to the ground with a thud, its longsword following suit not long after.

    with everyone still focused on trying to whittle the ogre''s health down as much as possible, such a massive shift in the situation caused seventhshield and the others to be left at a loss for words as they wondered what happened at the end.

    fortunately, that silence was immediately broken not even a few seconds later by a familiar sound.

    ding!