"Hello there, how are you guys?" Max waved at them, leaned back, and jumped.
He flew straight above the pack of lava wolves and rained down fifty magic bullets at them.
Beams of blue light fell upon them like a merciless killer, taking down the level 6 and level 7 wolves in one hit.
"Roar!"
The lava wolves growled. They ran, they dodged, but their efforts were all in vain. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't escape the blue beams of light. They were killed in one swift hit from the magic bullets, saving Max a lot of time.
Max landed in the middle of the chaos just in time to witness their bodies disappear in red light, leaving behind tons of items.
"Good." Max smiled in excitement, seeing that just one bullet was enough to kill a level 7 monster like it was nothing.
"ROAR!"
The level 8 lava wolf roared at Max after seeing that he killed all its pack. It swiftly dashed forward and appeared right before Max, its mouth holding a fireball ready to launch at him.
However, just before it could launch the fireball, Max used the Swift Dash skill and sidestepped, appearing at the wolf's right side.
"You are going down, buddy." He chuckled and took out his sword, which began to shine with a light blue color before he swung it down with both hands.
SLASH!
Max's sword severed the wolf's head like cutting butter with a knife in one swift motion. However, just when he thought the level 8 lava wolf would be easy to kill, a shocking scene unfolded before him.
To his shock, a new head sprouted from the neck of the headless lava wolf.
'I see, so these lava wolves are literally made of lava,' Max noted, though he was unsure why only the level 8 wolf was able to regenerate and not the others. 'Maybe their levels are just too low for that.'
Seeing that the wolf regenerated its head, Max swung his sword again. But this time, after cutting its head, he didn't stop. He swung his sword many more times, completely cutting the entire level 8 lava wolf into pieces.
"Now it should stay put, right?" Max muttered, unsure, as he observed the pieces of the lava wolf when he saw, with his Three Dimensional Body skill, that the level 9 lava serpent had attacked.
Its tail swept toward him with unrelenting ferocity.
Max used the Swift Dash skill and quickly retreated, dodging the attack.
It was then that he saw the pieces of the lava wolf begin to come closer, as if they were attracted to each other, before merging like magma and reforming the body of the wolf once again.
"Holy shit." The scene left Max completely stunned. He couldn't believe that a level 8 lava wolf had such healing abilities that it could regenerate through various methods.
"If a level 8 lava wolf can't be killed, then what about the level 9 lava serpent?" Max wondered, but then he shook his head. "No, if they couldn't be killed, then this dungeon would be very difficult to clear. There must be something I'm missing." He pondered, looking at the level 8 wolf, which growled in caution, and the level 9 lava serpent, which glared at him with deadly intent.
"I see." Max finally understood what he had been doing wrong this whole time.
He slowly walked toward the level 8 lava wolf, which trembled and began to retreat in fear when it saw Max heading toward it. But before it could fully commit to running, Max appeared beside the wolf again and swung his blue-glowing sword down at its neck, severing its head.
However, Max wasn't done. He swiftly fired a magic bullet at the wolf's head, completely destroying it.
'Let's see,' Max thought as he looked at the headless body of the lava wolf, which began to glow in shimmering red light before disappearing, leaving behind many items.
"It was tricky." Max muttered before turning his attention to the level 9 lava serpent, which seemed to be staring at him with lethal intent but refused to attack.
"What? Too afraid to attack?" He sneered and walked toward the lava serpent slowly.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
However, no sooner had Max begun walking than the serpent began to tremble, hissing at him.
"Sorry, buddy. I can't seem to understand you." Max shook his head in pity and was about to attack the lava serpent when it took off into the distance.
"Ah, yes. You can still run." Max smiled and began chasing the level 9 serpent using his Swift Dash skill.
But after just a few seconds, he caught up with the lava serpent and aimed at it with his finger.
With his Three Dimensional Body, it became very easy for him to aim, even if the target was in motion. As long as they were within his range of omniscience, they were his target, regardless of their position.
"Whoosh!"
A small blue light began to form atop his index finger. "Let's see if I can kill a level 9 monster with a normal single magic bullet," Max muttered, about to fire when he stopped midway.
"What happened here?" Max paused because the lava serpent had led him to a very strange place. It was still the charred forest, but instead of the flickering red flames and rivers of lava that he had seen before, this place was overflowing with black lava like a river.
Black flames flickered across the barren trees, on the cracked ground, and on the rocks and boulders and everywhere. Black flames could be seen everywhere around this place.
"Black flames and black lava..." Max found this very odd. He had never seen or heard of black flames before. Moreover, even as he stood so far from the flames, he could feel a very dangerous aura emanating from them.
"Hiss!"
The lava serpent hissed at Max from a distance and turned its head toward the direction where the black lava river was flowing, frequently glancing back at him.
"Does it want me to follow?" Max wondered, frowning. "Wait a minute... This lava serpent wasn't running. It was leading me to this place." He smiled wryly, understanding, feeling better that he didn't fire the magic bullet after all.
"But why does it want me to follow?" He contemplated and decided to follow the serpent to see what it wanted from him by leading him to such a ghastly place.
Max slowly moved toward the serpent cautiously, carefully avoiding the black flames. Seeing Max moving forward, the lava serpent also moved, leading him through the stretch of black flames and along the black lava river.
After following the lava serpent for some minutes, Max came to a stop because the serpent had stopped, and what he saw next made him question if he was dreaming.