The fight against the wyverns continued. After getting used to aerial combat the friends didn’t face many difficulties. They had time to glance at the side.

There, Liam was in a deadly dance with one of the wyverns. It was incredibly frustrating for the flying monster. While the wyvern used its wings to fly, which came with natural limitations, player mounts, even if they had wings, were aided by magic. Thus, they were able to do things like standing still in the air or moving backwards at the same speed as forwards.

And Liam made full use of this advantage. He always stuck to the wyvern’s back, making it incredibly difficult for the monster to hit him. With its limited intelligence it constantly tried to adjust its flight so it could use its most potent weapons, its teeth and claws. Only rarely would it strike with its strong tail or try to slam its body into Liam. When this happened, Liam would prefer to dodge as it didn’t make a difference for the damage calculation whether the wyvern touched him with the tip of its tail or sunk its teeth into his shoulders.

“So that’s how you fight with flying mounts…”

Quickstep had just killed another wyvern when she sighed to herself. She realised that with flying mounts there could be a large gap in skills, even more so than when fighting on the ground. Someone skilled with flying mounts could dance around their enemy without giving them any chance to attack.

Quickstep imagined herself in the wyvern’s position and estimated that she wouldn’t be this helpless. As a player she could swing her sword in all directions. It didn’t matter if Mirage was flying above her head, she would still be able to reach him. However, one still had to stick close to one’s target in order to hit them, which required a certain amount of skill. Quickstep’s hands itched. If they weren’t in a dungeon, she would rush to the arena right now and challenge some players to duels.

The fight against the wyverns continued. Under an onslaught of blades and magic the monsters plummeted to the ground one by one. After a while there were none left. Cyclone did a quick dive, gathered the loot, and rose again, coming to a stop next to Silver Blade.

“Huh. Was this really hell difficulty? That was kinda easy.”

“Don’t get carried away.”, warned Silver Blade. “I’m sure these wyverns are only the appetizer. Perhaps they are only here to get players used to combat in the air. If we would have struggled against such common monsters, we might as well stop the dungeon run right then and there.”

“Hmm, we’ll see…”

Cyclone didn’t entirely agree. She was highly confident. The party’s skills were improving by the day, and their equipment was among the best in the entire federation. It might look like rare and unique equipment was easy to get, but one shouldn’t forget that the friends were always fighting above their level, which had a positive effect on the drop rate of items. Additionally, they came across the generous Meyhran a few times, had Liam’s knowledge about items, bosses, and dungeons, and were always at the top during guild wars, events, etc.

No other players could beat their achievements. Even Dream Avenue’s second strongest team around Final Fend took quite some time to gather ten full sets of equipment.

All of these gave Cyclone a lot of confidence. If they couldn’t beat hell difficulty, no one else could. It might as well be impossible to do so at level 65.

Silver Blade noticed Cyclone’s expression but didn’t say more. It was not wrong to be confident. As long as one didn’t underestimate their enemies and gave it their best in every fight.

“Not bad, guys. I could see that you all adjusted quite nicely. Let’s continue, there should be a few more easy fights ahead.”

Liam waved at his friends and took the lead. He flew straight ahead from the dungeon entrance towards one of the lower mountains. It didn’t take long for a few screeches to ring out as another group of wyverns came from the ground. Liam narrowed his eyes slightly as he spotted a large wyvern with a green head and tail. It was surprising that an elite would appear this early into the dungeon.

Cautioning his friends Liam signalled Silver Blade and Radiant Shield to start the fight. The two tanks didn’t show fear as they collided with the group of wyverns. Silver Blade made sure to attract the elite as it would be her job to defend against the monster’s ability to spew fire.

Liam was satisfied to notice that there was already a lot of improvement from the last fight. The tanks knew how to stabilize themselves in the air, avoiding being pushed away. Although it had to be said that the elite wyvern with its larger body almost caught Silver Blade off guard. Luckily nothing bad happened.

Working together, the friends killed the monsters one by one. Radiant Shield was still the most leisurely, taking little damage from the wyverns. The ranged attackers focused closely to avoid the embarrassment of missing their shots. However, they were not entirely successful as those level 64 enemies had a chance to dodge, which was rather easy as they freely glided through the air.

At this moment Silver Blade positioned her shield in front of her and activated a skill. Everyone was hit with the misconception as if they looked at a towering mountain with a strong gravitational force when looking at Silver Blade. A murky, grey domain spread from her covering a large area. All the enemies caught in the domain felt their movement speed reduced by 30%. This was a terrible disadvantage when fighting in the air. The wyverns became easy targets. Watching as her friends instantly dominated the enemies Silver Blade was greatly satisfied with the effect of her [Bulwark’s Aura of the Sloth].

This battle was not that much more difficult than the first. After knowing that these wyverns didn’t cause much damage to him, Radiant Shield attracted most of the aggro, rendering the monsters helpless. This allowed Silver Blade to focus on the elite.

The elite wyvern was somewhat trickier to handle. It had a skill to spew fire and didn’t hesitate to make use of it often. The area was so big that Silver Blade couldn’t block it all. The rest of the group had to remain vigilant as well and dodge in time.

Even for Silver Blade the flames were not easy to endure. They dealt more than 5500 points of damage, which was about one twelfth of her entire HP bar. Fortunately, Silver Blade had means to deal with that. She received healing from both her own armour and Balm, and there were skills like [Luring Barrier] and Radiant Shield’s [Sacred Barrier], which was the updated version of [Holy Barrier], now also offering a weak healing effect. All in all, even the elite wyvern didn’t really pose a danger to the party. Gradually everyone felt that this dungeon might not be as difficult as expected.

After dealing with this group of enemies the friends continued swiftly. The monsters swarmed at them relentlessly, constantly starting from the mountain, determined to keep these intruders behind. Each group had at least five common and one elite wyvern. If a group of players tried themselves at the dungeon and struggled against a single elite, they really didn’t have much hope of making it through.

For a while this continued without much change until the friends circled around the mountain and saw what laid behind it.

“Woah!”

“How can a building be so huge?!”

“Look at those towers! It’s like there are dragons coiled around them.”

“Everything is so beautiful. The white stone with colourful decorations. Awesome!”

“Yeah. And do you feel the magic in the air? It’s so dense!”

“Is this the living place of a dragon?”

“It has to be...”

The friends exclaimed in amazement as they stared at a massive temple sprawling amidst a plain. It was bigger than some mountains, with towers reaching into the sky, and colourful windows depicting majestic dragons. There was a forest growing around it which compared to the temple looked more like a garden. And this wasn’t too far off as all the trees seemed to be well trimmed and the flowers were growing in an orderly manner.

Liam allowed his friends to admire the temple for a few seconds before slowly flying forward. The others followed and soon arrived in front of the gate, which was wide open. A gigantic hall could be seen beyond. At the back there was a statue depicting a coiling dragon, its gaze portraying kindness and wisdom. The white walls of the temple were decorated with huge paintings showing various scenes of dragons in all kinds of situations. There were massive pillars propping up the ceiling, which had a large hole leading to another room.

“This looks so much like a boss room…”

“Should we go in?”

“What’s there to hesitate now?”