Liam and his friends advanced into the temple and held their breaths.

“Any moment now… I’m sure!”, whispered Cyclone. However, as the seconds passed the expected boss didn’t appear. The friends felt like they had been tense for no reason.

“Whatever. Perhaps the boss is waiting in the next room.”

“I think the boss left out of boredom.”

“Yeah, sure.”

The friends joked for a bit as they studied the spacious hall. They admired the lifelike dragon statue and looked at the paintings. However, surprisingly there didn’t seem to be anything else for them to do here. Thus, the friends soon decided to move on. Riding their flying mounts, they approached the hole in the ceiling.

Suddenly a roar reverberated through the entire temple, sounding as if a dragon was announcing its appearance. The players felt their bodies frozen, their hearts skipping a beat. They could barely move their eyes, focusing their gazes on the dragon statue at the back of the hall. The stone statues eyes lit up with a green flame. Yet it didn’t appear eerie as an aura of vitality spread from the statue.

The flaming eyes blinked, and a ghostly shadow flew out of the statue. It took the form of a green dragon with an illusionary body. It was barely five meters in length with strong leathery wings and sharp claws. Although it was rather small for a dragon it didn’t lack the dignity of its race.

After the first dragon others quickly followed. Ghostly green dragons with varying appearances rose from the statue. They flapped their wings, stirring up the wind, and ascended towards the ceiling, circling below it. There were more than twenty dragons. They emitted a majestic pressure which bore down on the party’s flying mounts. Although the players regained their movements, the mounts refused to fly past a certain height.

“Great, what do we do now?”

“They are blocking our path…”

“Do we need to go around or is there a way to solve this?”

The friends were somewhat annoyed as they slowly returned to the ground. But after descending for a while they suddenly noticed something else.

“Guys, look at that pillar!”, exclaimed Cyclone.

“When did this golden light appear?”

“And what does it signify? Is this supposed to be text?”

“Are we directly starting with a puzzle? Ah, I’m out…”, sighed Silent Acacia.

As always Balm was the happiest to encounter a puzzle. She approached the pillar closest to her and tried to make sense to the lines of text which had appeared. The friends split up to investigate the rest of the hall and realized that similar text had appeared on each of the pillars. There were also big rectangles shining in golden light.

“Hmm, so what’s up with that?”, asked Cyclone while scratching her skin.

“My friends, don’t these golden rectangles seem to be the same size as those paintings?”

“Nice catch, shield! Hey, someone help me over here!”

Balm immediately became eager. She realized that the golden text written on these pillars was incomprehensible. Thus, she thought that if they were to place one of the paintings within a rectangle it might give them a clue.

Cyclone saw that her friend was flying towards the wall and quickly followed. The paintings were quite big. The two women each grabbed one side and carefully pulled on the painting. It easily came off the wall. Cyclone and Balm carried the painting towards the closest pillar. As soon as they came close to the golden rectangle the light shone brightly. The two friends felt it was a good sign and placed the painting against the pillar. Even before the pillar was touched, a strong suction force erupted, and the painting was firmly held in place.

Everyone looked towards the pillar, waiting for any kind of change.

“Roaaarrr!”

A thundering dragon roar rolled through the hall. The friends shook and slowly turned their heads upwards. They saw how one of the dragon ghosts separated from the others. Its green body slowly turned red, and its kind expression was swapped with one of rage. With another roar it suddenly dived down. Its maw opened and a terrifying flame erupted, targeting Balm and Cyclone. The earlier wyvern’s flame was but a spark in comparison.

“Careful!”

“Dodge!”

The two women were shocked, but their combat instincts drove them to move. They hastily guided the mana through their bodies. A few sparks could be seen just before the searing flame engulfed the area. Cyclone and Balm appeared some distance away out of breath, staring at the dragon flame in horror. With increasing strength players were basically immune to heat or cold. But the heat radiating from a dragon’s flame was far from ordinary. Even as the dragon stopped, the air was still blurry as the surroundings had heated up like a metal surface under the hot sun. It was a miracle that nothing got destroyed by the flame.

“Big lizard! Dare to face me!”

Radiant Shield let out a shout as he used [Shield of Faith] to draw the dragon’s aggro. He checked the enemy’s information and learned that it was a level 66 fragment of a dragon soul, a lord-tier enemy. Everyone was shocked considering that there were still more than twenty dragon souls circling above their heads. Could all of those be lord-tier enemies?

The friends were worried but fortunately the other dragons didn’t show any signs of attacking. The party could concentrate on the enemy in front of them.

“Davrx!”

A hoarse, strange word came from the dragon as it punced on Radiant Shield. Its claw descended and collided with the tank. Radiant Shield’s eyes opened wide as he felt an enormous force travelling through his body. Despite trying his hardest he was still pushed backwards.

[Stance -26!]

The tank drew a sharp breath. His eyes hardened and his expression turned serious.

“Dare to ambush us, stupid dragon? Take this!”

Cyclone shouted loudly as she waved her wand, throwing a sphere of condensed magic at the dragon. The surface of its ethereal body rippled but the dragon appeared barely bothered.

[-1920!]

Almost two thousand points of damage were not too bad. The lord-tier dragon had almost ninety thousand HP. It wouldn’t last that long under the party’s attacks. The others also realised this as they swiftly swarmed the dragon. In no time at all it had lost more than 10.000 HP.

The dragon soul’s eyes shone in a bright red, its anger almost palpable. A roar abruptly thundered from its mouth. Liam was the only one who recognized the signs and escaped with a flash step. Everyone else who got too close to the dragon was frozen on the spot, suffering from an intense fear. Bloody Edge, Radiant Shield, Quickstep and Watchful Eye all stared at the dragon with quivering legs.

Silver Blade had been frozen as well but she swiftly broke out of it with [Unbreakable Will]. Yet she couldn’t help but sigh. Her [Unbreakable Will] had the ability to free others from immobilizing effects but only at the cost of Bulwark Energy. Unfortunately, Silver Blade could only accumulate Bulwark Energy when blocking damage. The dragon soul had not presented her with an opportunity yet.

Thus, Silver Blade was forced to watch as the dragon gathered violent flames in its maw. A moment later it turned the world into hell. The area in a half-circle around the dragon shadow was engulfed in flames, causing frightening damage number to pop up above the players.

The person with the weakest defence was undoubtedly Bloody Edge. The thief received more than 13.000 points of damage, setting a new record. His heart skipped a beat. Alarm bells were ringing in his head.

“Finally!”

While everyone was shocked, Balm’s joyful shout destroyed the atmosphere. She spread her arms wide, her skin seemingly glowing with sacred light. A wave of sacred light spread from her in all directions, washing over her friends. Those with full HP didn’t notice anything but those who had been hit by the flame were hit with a pleasant sensation as their HP recovered quickly.

[+7300!]x4

Bloody Edge sighed in relief. However, Balm was not done yet. Her skill had a chance of 10% for every healed person to repeat itself. Balm was lucky and another wave of healing light spread from her although its effectiveness was reduced by 20%.

[+5840!]x4

After that, the skill ended. Balm pouted slightly as the skill had the possibility of repeating up to two times. It seemed her luck was somewhat lacking. After all, she wasn’t Cyclone. However, the young woman’s expression improved as the flames died down, and she noticed a faint star floating above Bloody Edge. This was one of the possible effects of her passive, increasing the main attribute of the healed ally by 10% for 10 seconds. In Bloody Edge’s case this was obviously his AGI.

The thief was still shocked after surviving the dragon’s breath when he felt a surge of power flow through his body. He knew that he couldn’t miss his chance. It was time to get revenge against the dragon which almost killed him in a single hit just now. Bloody Edge’s daggers were shining in a red gleam as he punced at the enemy.